Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete
followers of the Court; and we had the greatest difficulty to avoid
buying them. At last they proposed that we should barter with them;
and when Her Majesty had given us dresses that were far too rich for
us to wear ourselves, we exchanged them with the Jews for
piecegoods. The robes we thus bartered did not long remain in the
hands of the Jews, and there must have been a great demand for them
among the belles of Mayence, for I remember a ball there at which
the Empress might have seen all the ladies of a quadrille party
dressed in her cast-off clothes.--I even saw German Princesses
wearing them" (Memoires de Mademoiselle Avrillion).]
--on his way Cologne and Coblentz, which the emigration had rendered so
famous, and arrived at Mayence, where his sojourn was distinguished by
the first attempt at negotiation with the Holy See, in order to induce
the Pope to come to France to crown the new Emperor, and consolidate his
power by supporting it with the sanction of the Church. This journey of
Napoleon occupied three months, and he did not return to St. Cloud till
October. Amongst the flattering addresses which the Emperor received in
the course of his journey I cannot pass over unnoticed the speech of M.
de la Chaise, Prefect of Arras, who said, "God made Bonaparte, and
then rested." This occasioned Comte Louis de Narbonne, who was not yet
attached to the Imperial system, to remark "That it would have been well
had God rested a little sooner."
During the Emperor's absence a partial change took place in the
Ministry. M. de Champagny succeeded M. Chaptal as Minister of the
Interior. At the camp of Boulogne the pacific Joseph found himself, by
his brother's wish, transformed into a warrior, and placed in command
of a regiment of dragoons, which was a subject of laughter with a great
number of generals. I recollect that one day Lannes, speaking to me of
the circumstance in his usual downright and energetic way, said, "He had
better not place him under my orders, for upon the first fault I will
put the scamp under arrest."
CHAPTER XXIX.
1804.
England deceived by Napoleon--Admirals Missiessy and Villeneuve--
Command given to Lauriston--Napoleon's opinion of Madame de Stael--
Her letters to Napoleon--Her enthusiasm converted into hatred--
Bonaparte's opinion of the power of the Church--The Pope's arrival
at Fontainebleau--Napoleon's first interview with Pius VII.--
The Pope and the Emperor on a footing of equality--Honours rendered
to the Pope--His apartments at the Tuileries--His visit to the
Imperial printing office--Paternal rebuke--Effect produced in
England by the Pope's presence in Paris--Preparations for Napoleon's
coronation--Votes in favour of hereditary succession--Convocation of
the Legislative Body--The presidents of cantons--Anecdote related by
Michot the actor--Comparisons--Influence of the Coronation on the
trade of Paris--The insignia of Napoleon and the insignia of
Charlemagne--The Pope's mule--Anecdote of the notary Raguideau--
Distribution of eagles in the Champ de Mars--Remarkable coincidence.
England was never so much deceived by Bonaparte as during the period of
the encampment at Boulogne. The English really believed that an invasion
was intended, and the Government exhausted itself in efforts for raising
men and money to guard against the danger of being taken by surprise.
Such, indeed, is the advantage always possessed by the assailant. He can
choose the point on which he thinks it most convenient to act, while the
party which stands on the defence, and is afraid of being attacked, is
compelled to be prepared in every point. However, Napoleon, who was then
in the full vigour of his genius and activity, had always his eyes fixed
on objects remote from those which surrounded him, and which seemed to
absorb his whole attention. Thus, during the journey of which I have
spoken, the ostensible object of which was the organisation of the
departments on the Rhine, he despatched two squadrons from Rochefort and
Boulogne, one commanded by Missiessy, the other by Villeneuve--I shall
not enter into any details about those squadrons; I shall merely mention
with respect to them that, while the Emperor was still in Belgium,
Lauriston paid me a sudden and unexpected visit. He was on his way
to Toulon to take command of the troops which were to be embarked on
Villeneuve's squadron, and he was not much pleased with the service to
which he had been appointed.
Lauriston's visit was a piece of good fortune for me. We were always on
friendly terms, and I received much information from him, particularly
with respect to the manner in which the Emperor spent his time. "You
can have no idea," said he, "how much the Emperor does, and the sort of
enthusiasm which his presence excites in the army. But his anger at the
contractors is greater than ever, and he has been very severe with some
of them." These words of Lauriaton did not at all surprise me, for
I well knew Napoleon's dislike to contractors, and all men who had
mercantile transactions with the army. I have often heard him say that
they were a curse and a leprosy to nations; that whatever power he might
attain, he never would grant honours to any of them, and that of all
aristocracies, theirs was to him the most insupportable. After his
accession to the Empire the contractors were no longer the important
persons they had been under the Directory, or even during the two first
years of the Consulate. Bonaparte sometimes acted with them as he
had before done with the Beya of Egypt, when he drew from them forced
contributions.
--[Lauriston, one of Napoleon's aides de camp, who was with him at
the Military School of Paris, and who had been commissioned in the
artillery at the same time as Napoleon, considered that he should
have had the post of Grand Ecuyer which Caulaincourt had obtained.
He had complained angrily to the Emperor, and after a stormy
interview was ordered to join the fleet of Villeneuve--In
consequence he was at Trafalgar. On his return after Austerlitz
his temporary disgrace was forgotten, and he was sent as governor to
Venice. He became marshal under the Restoration.]--
I recollect another somewhat curious circumstance respecting the visit
of Lauriston, who had left the Emperor and Empress at Aix-la-Chapelle.
Lauriston was the best educated of the aides de camp, and Napoleon often
conversed with him on such literary works as he chose to notice. "He
sent for me one day," said Lauriston, "when I was on duty at the Palace
of Lacken, and spoke to me of the decennial prizes, and the tragedy of
'Carion de Nisas', and a novel by Madame de Stael, which he had just
read, but which I had not seen, and was therefore rather embarrassed in
replying to him. Respecting Madame de Stael and her Delphine, he said
some remarkable things. 'I do not like women,' he observed, 'who make
men of themselves, any more than I like effeminate men. There is a
proper part for every one to play in the world. What does all this
flight of imagination mean? What is the result of it? Nothing. It is all
sentimental metaphysics and disorder of the mind. I cannot endure that
woman; for one reason, that I cannot bear women who make a set at me,
and God knows how often she has tried to cajole me!'"
The words of Lauriston brought to my recollection the conversations
I had often had with Bonaparte respecting Madame de Stael, of whose
advances made to the First Consul, and even to the General of the Army
of Italy, I had frequently been witness. Bonaparte knew nothing at first
of Madame de Stael but that she was the daughter of M. Necker, a man
for whom, as I have already shown, he had very little esteem. Madame de
Stael had not been introduced to him, and knew nothing more of him than
what fame had published respecting the young conqueror of Italy, when
she addressed to him letters full of enthusiasm. Bonaparte read some
passages of them to me, and, laughing, said, "What do you think,
Bourrienne, of these extravagances. This woman is mad." I recollect that
in one of her letters Madame de Stael, among other things, told him that
they certainly were created for each other--that it was in consequence
of an error in human institutions that the quiet and gentle Josephine
was united to his fate--that nature seemed to have destined for the
adoration of a hero such as he, a soul of fire like her own. These
extravagances disgusted Bonaparte to a degree which I cannot describe.
When he had finished reading these fine epistles he used to throw them
into the fire, or tear them with marked ill-humour, and would say,
"Well, here is a woman who pretends to genius--a maker of sentiments,
and she presumes to compare herself to Josephine! Bourrienne, I shall
not reply to such letters."
I had, however, the opportunity of seeing what the perseverance of
a woman of talent can effect. Notwithstanding Bonaparte's prejudices
against Madame de Stael, which he never abandoned, she succeeded in
getting herself introduced to him; and if anything could have disgusted
him with flattery it would have been the admiration, or, to speak more
properly, the worship, which she paid him; for she used to compare him
to a god descended on earth,--a kind of comparison which the clergy, I
thought, had reserved for their own use. But, unfortunately, to please
Madame de Stael it would have been necessary that her god had been
Plutua; for behind her eulogies lay a claim for two millions, which M.
Necker considered still due to him on account of his good and worthy
services. However, Bonaparte said on this occasion that whatever value
he might set on the suffrage of Madame de Stael, he did not think fit to
pay so dear for it with the money of the State. The conversion of Madame
de Stael's enthusiasm into hatred is well known, as are also the petty
vexations, unworthy of himself, with which the Emperor harassed her in
her retreat at Coppet.
Lauriston had arrived at Paris, where he made but a short stay, some
days before Caffarelli, who was sent on a mission to Rome to sound
the Papal Court, and to induce the Holy Father to come to Paris to
consecrate Bonaparte at his coronation. I have already described the
nature of Bonaparte's ideas on religion. His notions on the subject
seemed to amount to a sort of vague feeling rather than to any belief
founded on reflection. Nevertheless, he had a high opinion of the
power of the Church; but not because he considered it dangerous
to Governments, particularly to his own. Napoleon never could have
conceived how it was possible that a sovereign wearing a crown and
a sword could have the meanness to kneel to a Pope, or to humble his
sceptre before the keys of St. Peter. His spirit was too great to admit
of such a thought. On the contrary, he regarded the alliance between the
Church and his power as a happy means of influencing the opinions of
the people, and as an additional tie which was to attach them to a
Government rendered legitimate by the solemn sanction of the Papal
authority. Bonaparte was not deceived. In this, as well as in many other
things, the perspicacity of his genius enabled him to comprehend all
the importance of a consecration bestowed on him by the Pope; more
especially as Louis XVIII., without subjects, without territory, and
wearing only an illusory crown, had not received that sacred unction
by which the descendants of Hugh Capet become the eldest sons of the
Church.
As soon as the Emperor was informed of the success of Caffarelli's
mission, and that the Pope, in compliance with his desire, was about
to repair to Paris to confirm in his hands the sceptre of Charlemagne,