Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete
talent, his activity, and his attachment to the Government done all
that circumstances required of him. Placed in the bosom of the
Senate, if events should again call for a Minister of Police the
Government cannot find one more worthy of its confidence."
From this moment the departments of Justice and Police united were
confided to the hands of Regnier.' Bonaparte's aversion for Fouché
strangely blinded him with respect to the capabilities of his successor.
Besides, how could the administration of justice, which rests on
fixed, rigid, and unchangeable bases, proceed hand in hand with another
administration placed on the quicksand of instantaneous decisions,
and surrounded by stratagems and deceptions? Justice should never have
anything to do with secret police, unless it be to condemn it.
--[M. Abrial, Minister of Justice, was called to the Senate at the
same time as Fouché. Understanding that the assimilation of the two
men was more a disgrace to Abrial than the mere loss of the
Ministry, the First Consul said to M. Abrial: "In uniting the
Ministry of Police to that of Justice I could not retain you in the
Ministry, you are too upright a man to manage the police." Not a
flattering speech for Regnier.--Bourrienne.]--
What could be expected from Regnier, charged as he was with incompatible
functions? What, under such circumstances, could have been expected
even from a man gifted with great talents? Such was the exact history
of Fouché's disgrace. No person was more afflicted at it than Madame
Bonaparte, who only learned the news when it was announced to the
public. Josephine, on all occasions, defended Fouché against her
husband's sallies. She believed that he was the only one of his
Ministers who told him the truth. She had such a high opinion of the way
in which Fouché managed the police that the first time I was alone
with her after our return from Mortfontaine she said to me, "My dear
Bourrienne; speak openly to me; will Napoleon know all about the plots
from the police of Moncey, Duroc, Junot, and of Davoust? You know
better than I do that these are only wretched spies. Has not Savary also
eventually got his police? How all this alarms me. They take away all my
supports, and surround me only with enemies."--"To justify your regrets
we should be sure that Fouché has never been in agreement with Lucien in
favour of the divorce."--"Oh, I do not believe that. Bonaparte does not
like him, and he would have been certain to tell me of it when I spoke
favourably to him of Fouché. You will see that his brothers will end by
bringing him into their plan."
I have already spoken of Josephine's troubles, and of the bad conduct of
Joseph, but more particularly of Lucien, towards her; I will therefore
describe here, as connected with the disgrace of Fouché, whom Madame
Bonaparte regretted as a support, some scenes which occurred about this
period at Malmaison. Having been the confidant of both parties, and
an involuntary actor in those scenes, now that twenty-seven years have
passed since they occurred what motive can induce me to disguise the
truth in any respect?
Madame Louis Bonaparte was enceinte. Josephine, although she tenderly
loved her children, did not seem to behold the approaching event which
the situation of her daughter indicated with the interest natural to
the heart of a mother. She had long been aware of the calumnious reports
circulated respecting the supposed connection between Hortense and
the First Consul, and that base accusation cost her many tears. Poor
Josephine paid dearly for the splendour of her station! As I knew how
devoid of foundation these atrocious reports were, I endeavoured to
console her by telling her what was true, that I was exerting all my
efforts to demonstrate their infamy and falsehood. Bonaparte, however,
dazzled by the affection which was manifested towards him from all
quarters, aggravated the sorrow of his wife by a silly vanity. He
endeavoured to persuade her that these reports had their origin only
in the wish of the public that he should have a child, so that these
seeming consolations offered by self-love to Josephine's grief gave
force to existing conjugal alarms, and the fear of divorce returned
with all its horrors. Under the foolish illusion of his vanity Bonaparte
imagined that France was desirous of being governed even by a bastard if
supposed to be a child of his,--a singular mode truly of founding a new
legitimacy!
Josephine, whose susceptibility appears to me even now excusable, well
knew my sentiments on the subject of Bonaparte's founding a dynasty, and
she had not forgotten my conduct when two years before the question had
been agitated on the occasion of Louis XVIII.'s letters to the First
Consul. I remember that one day, after the publication of the parallel
of Caesar, Cromwell, and Bonaparte, Josephine having entered our cabinet
without being announced, which she sometimes did when from the good
humour exhibited at breakfast she reckoned upon its continuance,
approached Bonaparte softly, seated herself on his knee, passed her
hand gently through his hair and over his face, and thinking the moment
favourable, said to him in a burst of tenderness, "I entreat of you,
Bonaparte, do not make yourself a King! It is that wretch Lucien who
urges you to it. Do not listen to him!" Bonaparte replied, without
anger, and even smiling as he pronounced the last words, "You are mad,
my poor Josephine. It is your old dowagers of the Faubourg St. Germain,
your Rochefoucaulds, who tell you all these fables!... Come now, you
interrupt me--leave me alone."
What Bonaparte said that day good-naturedly to his wife I have often
heard him declare seriously. I have been present at five or six
altercations on the subject. That there existed, too, an enmity
connected with this question between the family of BEAUHARNAIS and the
family of Bonaparte cannot be denied.
Fouché, as I have stated, was in the interest of Josephine, and Lucien
was the most bitter of her enemies. One day Raederer inveighed with so
much violence against Fouché in the presence of Madame Bonaparte that
she replied with extreme warmth, "The real enemies of Bonaparte are
those who feed him with notions of hereditary descent, of a dynasty, of
divorce, and of marriage!" Josephine could not check this exclamation,
as she knew that Roederer encouraged those ideas, which he spread abroad
by Lucien's direction. I recollect one day when she had been to see us
at our little house at Ruel: as I walked with her along the high road
to her carriage, which she had sent forward, I acknowledged too
unreservedly my fears on account of the ambition of Bonaparte, and of
the perfidious advice of his brothers. "Madame," said I, "if we cannot
succeed in dissuading the General from making himself a King, I dread
the future for his sake. If ever he re-establishes royalty he will in
all probability labour for the Bourbons, and enable them one day to
re-ascend the throne which he shall erect. No one, doubtless, without
passing for a fool, can pretend to say with certainty what series of
chances and events such a proceeding will produce; but common sense
alone is sufficient to convince any one that unfavourable chances must
long be dreaded. The ancient system being re-established, the occupation
of the throne will then be only a family question, and not a question of
government between liberty and despotic power. Why should not France, if
it ceases to be free, prefer the race of her ancient kings? You surely
know it. You had not been married two years when, on returning from
Italy, your husband told me that he aspired to royalty. Now he is Consul
for life. Would he but resolve to stop there! He already possesses
everything but an empty title. No sovereign in Europe has so much power
as he has. I am sorry for it, Madame, but I really believe that, in
spite of yourself, you will be made Queen or Empress."
Madame Bonaparte had allowed me to speak without interruption, but
when I pronounced the words Queen and Empress she exclaimed, "My God!
Bourrienne, such ambition is far from my thoughts. That I may always
continue the wife of the First Consul is all I desire. Say to him
all that you have said to me. Try and prevent him from making himself
King."--"Madame," I replied, "times are greatly altered. The wisest
men, the strongest minds, have resolutely and courageously opposed his
tendency to the hereditary system. But advice is now useless. He
would not listen to me. In all discussions on the subject he adheres
inflexibly to the view he has taken. If he be seriously opposed his
anger knows no bounds; his language is harsh and abrupt, his tone
imperious, and his authority bears down all before him."--"Yet,
Bourrienne, he has so much confidence in you that of you should try once
more!"--"Madame, I assure you he will not listen to me. Besides, what
could I add to the remarks I made upon his receiving the letters of
Louis XVIII., when I fearlessly represented to him that being without
children he would have no one to whom to bequeath the throne--that,
doubtless, from the opinion which he entertained of his brothers, he
could not desire to erect it for them?" Here Josephine again interrupted
me by exclaiming, "My kind friend, when you spoke of children did he
say anything to you? Did he talk of a divorce?"--"Not a word, Madame, I
assure you."--"If they do not urge him to it, I do not believe he will
resolve to do such a thing. You know how he likes Eugène, and Eugène
behaves so well to him. How different is Lucien. It is that wretch
Lucien, to whom Bonaparte listens too much, and of whom, however, he
always speaks ill to me."--"I do not know, Madame, what Lucien says to
his brother except when he chooses to tell me, because Lucien always
avoids having a witness of his interviews with your husband, but I can
assure you that for two years I have not heard the word 'divorce' from
the General's mouth."--"I always reckon on you, my dear Bourrienne; to
turn him away from it; as you did at that time."--"I do not believe he
is thinking of it, but if it recurs to him, consider, Madame, that it
will be now from very different motives: He is now entirely given up to
the interests of his policy and his ambition, which dominate every other
feeling in him. There will not now be any question of scandal, or of a
trial before a court, but of an act of authority which complaisant laws
will justify and which the Church perhaps will sanction."--"That's true.
You are right. Good God! how unhappy I am."
--[When Bourrienne complains of not knowing what passed between
Lucien and Napoleon, we can turn to Lucien's account of Bourrienne,
apparently about this very time. "After a stormy interview with
Napoleon," says Lucien, "I at once went into the cabinet where
Bourrienne was working, and found that unbearable busybody of a
secretary, whose star had already paled more than once, which made
him more prying than ever, quite upset by the time the First Consul
had taken to come out of his bath. He must, or at least might, have
heard some noise, for enough had been made. Seeing that he wanted
to know the cause from me, I took up a newspaper to avoid being
bored by his conversation" (Iung's Lucien, tome ii. p.156)]--
Such was the nature of one of the conversations I had with Madame
Bonaparte on a subject to which she often recurred. It may not perhaps
be uninteresting to endeavour to compare with this what Napoleon said
at St. Helena, speaking of his first wife. According to the Memorial
Napoleon there stated that when Josephine was at last constrained to
renounce all hope of having a child, she often let fall allusions to a