Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete
public joy repressed by Fouché--Composition of the new Ministry--
Kind attention of Blücher--The English at St. Cloud--Blücher in
Napoleon's cabinet--My prisoner become my protector--Blücher and the
innkeeper's dog--My daughter's marriage contract--Rigid etiquette--
My appointment to the Presidentship of the Electoral College of the
Yonne--My interview with Fouché--My audience of the King--His
Majesty made acquainted with my conversation with Fouché--The Duke
of Otranto's disgrace--Carnot deceived by Bonaparte--My election as
deputy--My colleague, M. Raudot--My return to Paris--Regret caused
by the sacrifice of Ney--Noble conduct of Macdonald--A drive with
Rapp in the Bois de Boulogne--Rapp's interview with Bonaparte in
1815--The Duc de Berri and Rapp--My nomination to the office of
Minister of State--My name inscribed by the hand of Louis XVIII.--
Conclusion.
The fulfilment of my prediction was now at hand, for the result of the
Battle of Waterloo enabled Louis XVIII. to return to his dominions. As
soon as I heard of the King's departure from Ghent I quitted Hamburg,
and travelled with all possible haste in the hope of reaching Paris in
time to witness his Majesty's entrance. I arrived at St. Denis on the
7th of July, and, notwithstanding the intrigues that were set on foot,
I found an immense number of persons assembled to meet the King. Indeed,
the place was so crowded that it was with the greatest difficulty I
could procure even a little garret for my lodging.
Having resumed my uniform of a captain of the National Guard, I
proceeded immediately to the King's palace. The salon was filled with
ladies and gentlemen who had come to congratulate the King on his
return. At St. Denis I found my family, who, not being aware that I had
left Hamburg, were much surprised to see me.
They informed me that the Parisians were all impatient for the return of
the King--a fact of which I could judge by the opposition manifested to
the free expression of public feeling. Paris having been declared in a
state of blockade, the gates were closed, and no one was permitted to
leave the capital, particularly by the Barriere de la Chapelle. It is
true that special permission might be obtained, and with tolerable ease,
by those who wished to leave the city; but the forms to be observed for
obtaining the permission deterred the mass of the people from proceeding
to St. Denis, which, indeed, was the sole object of the regulation. As
it had been resolved to force Fouché and the tri-coloured cockade upon
the King, it was deemed necessary to keep away from his Majesty all who
might persuade him to resist the proposed measures. Madame de Bourrienne
told me that on her arrival at St. Denis she called upon M. Hue and M.
Lefebvre, the King's physician, who both acquainted her with those fatal
resolutions. Those gentlemen, however, assured her that the King would
resolutely hold out against the tri-coloured cockade, but the nomination
of the ill-omened man appeared inevitable.
Fouché Minister of the Police! If, like Don Juan, I had seen a statue
move, I could not have been more confounded than when I heard this news.
I could not credit it until it was repeated to me by different persons.
How; indeed, could I think that at the moment of a reaction the King
should have entrusted the most important ministerial department to a
man to whose arrest he had a hundred days before attached so much
consequence? to a man, moreover, whom Bonaparte had appointed, at Lyons,
to fill the same office! This was inconceivable! Thus, in less than
twenty-four hours, the same man had been entrusted to execute measures
the most opposite, and to serve interests the most contradictory. He
was one day the minister of usurpation, and the next the minister of
legitimacy! How can I express what I felt when Fouché took the oath
of fidelity to Louis XVIII. when I saw the King clasp in his hands the
hands of Fouché! I was standing near M. de Chateaubriand, whose feelings
must have been similar to mine, to judge from a passage in his admirable
work, 'La Monarchie selon la Charte'. "About nine in the evening," he
says, "I was in one of the royal antechambers. All at once the door
opened, and I saw the President of the Council enter leaning on the arm
of the new minister. Oh, Louis-le-Desire! Oh, my unfortunate master! you
have proved that there is no sacrifice which your people may not expect
from your paternal heart!"
Fouché was resolved to have his restoration as well as M. de Talleyrand,
who had had his the year before; he therefore contrived to retard
the King's entry into Paris for four days. The prudent members of the
Chamber of Peers, who had taken no part in the King's Government in
1814, were the first to declare that it was for the interest of France
to hasten his Majesty's entrance into Paris, in order to prevent
foreigners from exercising a sort of right of conquest in a city which
was a prey to civil dissension and party influence. Blücher informed
me that the way in which Fouché contrived to delay the King's return
greatly contributed to the pretensions of the foreigners who, he
confessed, were very well pleased to see the population of Paris divided
in opinion, and to hear the alarming cries raised by the confederates of
the Faubourgs when the King was already at St. Denis.
I know for a fact that Louis XVIII. wished to have nothing to do
with Fouché, and indignantly refused to appoint him when he was first
proposed. But he had so nobly served Bonaparte during the Hundred Days
that it was necessary he should be rewarded. Fouché, besides, had gained
the support of a powerful party among the emigrants of the Faubourg St.
Germain, and he possessed the art of rendering himself indispensable.
I have heard many honest men say very seriously that to him was due
the tranquillity of Paris. Moreover, Wellington was the person by whose
influence in particular Fouché was made one of the counsellors of the
King. After all the benefits which foreigners had conferred upon us
Fouché was indeed an acceptable present to France and to the King.
I was not ignorant of the Duke of Wellington's influence upon the
affairs of the second Restoration, but for a long time I refused to
believe that his influence should have outweighed all the serious
considerations opposed to such a perfect anomaly as appointing Fouché
the Minister of a Bourbon. But I was deceived. France and the King owed
to him Fouché's introduction into the Council, and I had to thank him
for the impossibility of resuming a situation which I had relinquished
for the purpose of following the King into Belgium. Could I be Prefect
of Police under a Minister whom a short time before I had received
orders to arrest, but who eluded my agents? That was impossible. The
King could not offer me the place of Prefect under Fouché, and if he had
I could not have accepted it. I was therefore right in not relying on
the assurances which had been given me; but I confess that if I had been
told to guess the cause why they could not be realised I never should
have thought that cause would have been the appointment of Fouché as
a Minister of the King of France. At first, therefore, I was of course
quite forgotten, as is the custom of courts when a faithful subject
refrains from taking part in the intrigues of the moment.
I have already frequently stated my opinion of the pretended talent of
Fouché; but admitting his talent to have been as great as was supposed,
that would have been an additional reason for not entrusting the general
police of the kingdom to him. His principles and conduct were already
sufficiently known. No one could be ignorant of the language he held
respecting the Bourbons, and in which he indulged as freely after he
became the Minister of Louis XVIII. as when he was the Minister of
Bonaparte. It was universally known that in his conversation the
Bourbons were the perpetual butt for his sarcasms, that he never
mentioned them but in terms of disparagement, and that he represented
them as unworthy of governing France. Everybody must have been aware
that Fouché, in his heart, favoured a Republic, where the part of
President might have been assigned to him. Could any one have forgotten
the famous postscript he subjoined to a letter he wrote from Lyons to
his worthy friend Robespierre: "To celebrate the fete of the Republic
suitably, I have ordered 250 persons to be shot?" And to this man, the
most furious enemy of the restoration of the monarchy, was consigned
the task of consolidating it for the second time! But it would require
another Claudian to describe this new Rufinus!
Fouché never regarded a benefit in any other light than as the means of
injuring his benefactor. The King, deceived, like many other persons,
by the reputation which Fouché's partisans had conjured up for him, was
certainly not aware that Fouché had always discharged the functions
of Minister in his own interest, and never for the interest of the
Government which had the weakness to entrust him with a power always
dangerous in his hands. Fouché had opinions, but he belonged to no
party, and his political success is explained by the readiness with
which he always served the party he knew must triumph, and which he
himself overthrew in its turn. He maintained himself in favour from the
days of blood and terror until the happy time of the second Restoration
only by abandoning and sacrificing those who were attached to him; and
it might be said that his ruling passion was the desire of continual
change. No man was ever characterised by greater levity or inconstancy
of mind. In all things he looked only to himself, and to this egotism he
sacrificed both subjects and Governments. Such were the secret causes of
the sway exercised by Fouché during the Convention, the Directory, the
Empire, the Usurpation, and after the second return of the Bourbons.
He helped to found and to destroy every one of those successive
Governments. Fouché's character is perfectly unique. I know no other
man who, loaded with honours, and almost escaping disgrace, has passed
through so many eventful periods, and taken part in so many convulsions
and revolutions.
On the 7th of July the King was told that Fouché alone could smooth the
way for his entrance into Paris, that he alone could unlock the gates of
the capital, and that he alone had power to control public opinion. The
reception given to the King on the following day afforded an opportunity
of judging of the truth of these assertions. The King's presence was the
signal for a feeling of concord, which was manifested in a very decided
way. I saw upon the boulevards, and often in company with each other,
persons, some of whom had resumed the white cockade, while others
still retained the national colours, and harmony was not in the least
disturbed by these different badges.
Having returned to private life solely on account of Fouché's presence
in the Ministry, I yielded to that consolation which is always left to
the discontented. I watched the extravagance and inconsistency that were
passing around me, and the new follies which were every day committed;
and it must be confessed that a rich and varied picture presented itself
to my observation. The King did not bring back M. de Blacas. His Majesty
had yielded to prudent advice, and on arriving at Mons sent the unlucky
Minister as his ambassador to Naples. Vengeance was talked of, and there
were some persons inconsiderate enough to wish that advantage should
be taken of the presence of the foreigners in order to make what they
termed "an end of the Revolution," as if there were any other means of
effecting that object than frankly adopting whatever good the Revolution