Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete
longer received him after the 20th October 1802. When the Emperor,
in 1805, forgetting his faults, named him Minister Plenipotentiary at
Hamburg, he granted him the customary audience, but to this favour
he did not add the return of his former friendship. Both before
and afterwards he constantly refused to receive him, and he did not
correspond with him." (Meneval, ii. 378-79). And in another passage
Meneval says: "Besides, it would be wrong to regard these Memoirs as
the work of the man whose name they bear. The bitter resentment M.
de Bourrienne had nourished for his disgrace, the enfeeblement of his
faculties, and the poverty he was reduced to, rendered him accessible to
the pecuniary offers made to him. He consented to give the authority
of his name to Memoirs in whose composition he had only co-operated by
incomplete, confused, and often inexact notes, materials which an editor
was employed to put in order." And Meneval (iii. 29-30) goes on to quote
what he himself had written in the Spectateur Militaire, in which he
makes much the same assertions, and especially objects to the account
of conversations with the Emperor after 1802, except always the one
audience on taking leave for Hamburg. Meneval also says that Napoleon,
when he wished to obtain intelligence from Hamburg, did not correspond
with Bourrienne, but deputed him, Meneval, to ask Bourrienne for what
was wanted. But he corroborates Bourrienne on the subject of the efforts
made, among others by Josephine, for his reappointment.
Such are the statements of the Bonapartists pure; and the reader, as has
been said, can judge for himself how far the attack is good. Bourrienne,
or his editor, may well have confused the date of his interviews, but
he will not be found much astray on many points. His account of the
conversation of Josephine after the death of the Duc d'Enghien may be
compared with what we know from Madame de Rémusat, who, by the way,
would have been horrified if she had known that he considered her to
resemble the Empress Josephine in character.
We now come to the views of Savary, the Duc de Rovigo, who avowedly
remained on good terms with Bourrienne after his disgrace, though the
friendship of Savary was not exactly a thing that most men would have
much prided themselves on. "Bourrienne had a prodigious memory; he spoke
and wrote in several languages, and his pen ran as quickly as one could
speak. Nor were these the only advantages he possessed. He knew the
routine of public business and public law. His activity and devotion
made him indispensable to the First Consul. I knew the qualities which
won for him the unlimited confidence of his chief, but I cannot speak
with the same assurance of the faults which made him lose it. Bourrienne
had many enemies, both on account of his character and of his place"
(Savary, i. 418-19).
Marmont ought to be an impartial critic of the Memoirs. He says,
"Bourrienne . . . had a very great capacity, but he is a striking
example of the great truth that our passions are always bad counsellors.
By inspiring us with an immoderate ardour to reach a fixed end, they
often make us miss it. Bourrienne had an immoderate love of money.
With his talents and his position near Bonaparte at the first dawn of
greatness, with the confidence and real good-will which Bonaparte felt
for him, in a few years he would have gained everything in fortune and
in social position. But his eager impatience mined his career at the
moment when it might have developed and increased" (Marmont, i. 64). The
criticism appears just. As to the Memoirs, Marmont says (ii. 224), "In
general, these Memoirs are of great veracity and powerful interest so
long as they treat of what the author has seen and heard; but when
he speaks of others, his work is only an assemblage of gratuitous
suppositions and of false facts put forward for special purposes."
The Comte Alexandre de Puymaigre, who arrived at Hamburgh soon after
Bourrienne had left it in 1810, says (page 135) of the part of the
Memoirs which relates to Hamburg, "I must acknowledge that generally his
assertions are well founded. This former companion of Napoleon has only
forgotten to speak of the opinion that they had of him in this town.
"The truth is, that he was believed to have made much money there."
Thus we may take Bourrienne as a clever, able man, who would have
risen to the highest honours under the Empire had not his short-sighted
grasping after lucre driven him from office, and prevented him from ever
regaining it under Napoleon.
In the present edition the translation has been carefully compared with
the original French text. Where in the original text information is
given which has now become mere matter of history, and where Bourrienne
merely quotes the documents well enough known at this day, his
possession of which forms part of the charges of his opponents,
advantage has been taken to lighten the mass of the Memoirs. This
has been done especially where they deal with what the writer did not
himself see or hear, the part of the Memoirs which are of least valve
and of which Marmont's opinion has just been quoted. But in the
personal and more valuable part of the Memoirs, where we have the actual
knowledge of the secretary himself, the original text has been either
fully retained, or some few passages previously omitted restored.
Illustrative notes have been added from the Memoirs of the successor
of Bourrienne, Meneval, Madame de Rémusat, the works of Colonel Iung
on 'Bonaparte et Son Temps', and on 'Lucien Bonaparte', etc., and other
books. Attention has also been paid to the attacks of the 'Erreurs',
and wherever these criticisms are more than a mere expression of
disagreement, their purport has been recorded with, where possible,
some judgment of the evidence. Thus the reader will have before him the
materials for deciding himself how far, Bourrienne's statements are in
agreement with the facts and with the accounts of other writers.
At the present time too much attention has been paid to the Memoirs of
Madame de Rémusat. She, as also Madame Junot, was the wife of a man
on whom the full shower of imperial favours did not descend, and,
womanlike, she saw and thought only of the Court life of the great man
who was never less great than in his Court. She is equally astonished
and indignant that the Emperor, coming straight from long hours of work
with his ministers and with his secretary, could not find soft words
for the ladies of the Court, and that, a horrible thing in the eyes of
a Frenchwoman, when a mistress threw herself into his arms, he
first thought of what political knowledge he could obtain from her.
Bourrienne, on the other hand, shows us the other and the really
important side of Napoleon's character. He tells us of the long hours in
the Cabinet, of the never-resting activity of the Consul, of Napoleon's
dreams, no ignoble dreams and often realised, of great labours of peace
as well as of war. He is a witness, and the more valuable as a reluctant
one, to the marvellous powers of the man who, if not the greatest, was
at least the one most fully endowed with every great quality of mind and
body the world has ever seen.
R. W. P.
AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION.
The trading upon an illustrious name can alone have given birth to the
multitude of publications under the titles of historical memoirs, secret
memoirs, and other rhapsodies which have appeared respecting Napoleon.
On looking into them it is difficult to determine whether the impudence
of the writers or the simplicity of certain readers is most astonishing.
Yet these rude and ill digested compilations, filled with absurd
anecdotes, fabricated speeches, fictitious crimes or virtues, and
disfigured by numerous anachronisms, instead of being consigned to
just contempt and speedy oblivion, have been pushed into notice
by speculators, and have found zealous partisans and enthusiastic
apologists.
--[This Introduction has been reprinted as bearing upon the
character of the work, but refers very often to events of the
day at the time of its first appearance.]--
For a time I entertained the idea of noticing, one by one, the numerous
errors which have been written respecting Napoleon; but I have renounced
a task which would have been too laborious to myself, and very tedious
to the reader. I shall therefore only correct those which come within
the plan of my work, and which are connected with those facts, to a more
accurate knowledge of which than any other person can possess I may lay
claim. There are men who imagine that nothing done by Napoleon will ever
be forgotten; but must not the slow but inevitable influence of time be
expected to operate with respect to him? The effect of that influence
is, that the most important event of an epoch soon sinks, almost
imperceptibly and almost disregarded, into the immense mass of
historical facts. Time, in its progress, diminishes the probability as
well as the interest of such an event, as it gradually wears away the
most durable monuments.
I attach only a relative importance to what I am about to lay before
the public. I shall give authentic documents. If all persons who have
approached Napoleon, at any time and in any place, would candidly record
what they saw and heard, without passion, the future historian would be
rich in materials. It is my wish that he who may undertake the
difficult task of writing the history of Napoleon shall find in my notes
information useful to the perfection of his work. There he will at least
find truth. I have not the ambition to wish that what I state should
be taken as absolute authority; but I hope that it will always be
consulted.
I have never before published anything respecting Napoleon. That
malevolence which fastens itself upon men who have the misfortune to
be somewhat separated from the crowd has, because there is always
more profit in saying ill than good, attributed to me several works on
Bonaparte; among others, 'Les Memoires secrets d'un Homme qui ne l'a pas
quitte', par M. B-------, and 'Memoires secrets sur Napoleon Bonaparte,
par M. de B------, and 'Le Precis Historique sur Napoleon'. The initial
of my name has served to propagate this error. The incredible ignorance
which runs through those memoirs, the absurdities and inconceivable
silliness with which they abound, do not permit a man of honour and
common sense to allow such wretched rhapsodies to be imputed to him.
I declared in 1816, and at later periods in the French and foreign
journals, that I had no hand in those publications, and I here formally
repeat this declaration.
But it may be said to me, Why should we place more confidence in you
than in those who have written before you?
My reply shall be plain. I enter the lists one of the last I have read
all that my predecessors have published confident that all I state is
true. I have no interest in deceiving, no disgrace to fear, no reward to
expect. I neither wish to obscure nor embellish his glory. However great
Napoleon may have been, was he not also liable to pay his tribute to the
weakness of human nature? I speak of Napoleon such as I have seen him,
known him, frequently admired and sometimes blamed him. I state what I
saw, heard, wrote, and thought at the time, under each circumstance that
occurred. I have not allowed myself to be carried away by the illusions
of the imagination, nor to be influenced by friendship or hatred. I
shall not insert a single reflection which did not occur to me at the
very moment of the event which gave it birth. How many transactions and
documents were there over which I could but lament!--how many measures,
contrary to my views, to my principles, and to my character!--while the