Napoleon's Letters to Josephine, 1796-1812
property of the possessor, and through him of the public; but not like
ancient documents, dependent upon legendary evidence for their
identity and truth.
"These have passed to me through two hands only, since they came into
possession of the Empress Josephine, to whom they are written by
their illustrious author. One of the individuals here alluded to, and
from whom I received these letters, is a Polish nobleman, who attached
himself and his fortunes to Bonaparte, whose confidence he enjoyed in
several important diplomatic negotiations."
This book and these letters were known to Sir Walter Scott, who made
use of some of them in his _History of Napoleon_. M. Aubenas, in his
_Histoire de l'Imperatrice Josephine_, published in 1857, which has
been lavishly made use of in a recent work on the same subject, seems
to have known, at any rate, four of these letters, which were
communicated to him by M. le Baron Feuillet de Conches. Monsieur
Aubenas seems never to have seen the Tennant Collection, of which
these undoubtedly form part, but as Baron Feuillet de Conches was an
expert in deciphering Bonaparte's extraordinary caligraphy, these
letters are very useful for reference in helping us to translate some
phrases which had been given up as illegible by Mr. Tennant and Sir
Walter Scott.
(2nd) The _Collection Didot_. This enormously valuable collection
forms by far the greater part of the Letters that we possess of
Napoleon to his wife. They are undoubtedly authentic, and have
been utilised largely by Aubenas, St. Amand, Masson, and the
_Correspondance de Napoleon I._ They were edited by Madame Salvage
de Faverolles. As is well known, Sir Walter Scott was very anxious to
obtain possession of these letters for his _Life of Napoleon_, and
his visit to Paris was partly on this account. In _Archibald
Constable and his Literary Correspondents_, edited in 1873 by his son,
we find the following:--
"_Letter from_ ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE _to_ SIR WALTER SCOTT.
"_August 30, 1825._
"I have had various conversations with Mr. Thomson on the subject of
Napoleon's correspondence with Josephine. Mr. Thomson communicated
with Count Flahault for me in the view of its being published, and
whether the letters could not, in the meantime, be rendered
accessible. The publication, it seems, under any circumstances, is by
no means determined on, but should they be given, the price expected
is five thousand guineas, which I should imagine greatly too much. I
have an enumeration of the letters, from whence written, &c. I shall
subjoin a copy of it."
When they were finally published in 1833, they seem to have been
stimulated into existence by publication of the _Memorial de
Saint-Helene_, better known in England as _Las Cases_. Doubtless
Hortense only allowed such letters to be published as would not injure
the reputation of her mother or her relations. In the Preface it is
stated: "We think that these letters will afford an interest as
important as delightful. Everything that comes from Napoleon, and
everything that appertains to him, will always excite the lively
attention of contemporaries and posterity. If the lofty meditation of
philosophy concerns itself only with the general influence of great
men upon their own generation and future ones, a curiosity of another
nature, and not less greedy, loves to penetrate into the inmost
recesses of their soul, in order to elicit their most secret
inclinations. It likes to learn what has been left of the _man_, amid
the preoccupations of their projects and the elevation of their
fortune. It requires to know in what manner their character has
modified their genius, or has been subservient to it.
"It is this curiosity that we hope to satisfy by the publication of
these letters. They reveal the inmost thought of Napoleon, they will
reflect his earliest impulses, they will show how the General, the
Consul, and the Emperor felt and spoke, not in his discourses or his
proclamations--the official garb of his thought--but in the free
outpourings of the most passionate or the most tender affections....
This correspondence will prove, we strongly believe, that the
conqueror was human, the master of the world a good husband, the great
man in fact an excellent man.... We shall see in them how, up to the
last moment, he lavished on his wife proofs of his tenderness. Without
doubt the letters of the Emperor Napoleon are rarer and shorter than
those of the First Consul, and the First Consul writes no longer like
General Bonaparte, but everywhere the sentiment is fundamentally the
same.
"We make no reflection on the style of these letters, written in haste
and in all the _abandon_ of intimacy. We can easily perceive they were
not destined to see the light. Nevertheless we publish them without
changing anything in them."
The _Collection Didot_ contains 228 letters from Napoleon to
Josephine, and 70 from Josephine to Hortense, and two from Josephine
to Napoleon, which seem to be the only two in existence of Josephine
to Napoleon whose authenticity is unquestioned.
(3rd) The fugitive letters are collected from various sources, and
their genuineness does not seem to be quite as well proved as those
of the Tennant or Didot Series. We have generally taken the
_Correspondence of Napoleon I._ as the touchstone of their merit to be
inserted here, although one of them--that republished from _Las
Cases_ (No. 85, Series G.)--is manifestly mainly the work of that
versatile author, who is utterly unreliable except when confirmed
by others. As Lord Rosebery has well said, the book is "an arsenal
of spurious documents."
We have relegated to an Appendix those published by Madame Ducrest, as
transparent forgeries, and have to acknowledge with thanks a letter
from M. Masson on this subject which thoroughly confirms these views.
There seems some reason to doubt No. I., Series E, but being in the
_Correspondence_, I have translated it.
The _Correspondence of Napoleon I._ is a splendid monument to the
memory of Napoleon. It is alluded to throughout the Notes as _The
Correspondence_, and it deserves special recognition here. Its
compilation was decreed by Napoleon III. from Boulogne, on 7th
September 1854, and the first volume appeared in 1858, and the last in
1870. With the first volume is inserted the Report of the Commission
to the Emperor, part of which we subjoin:--
"_Report of the Commission to the Emperor._
"SIRE,--Augustus numbered Caesar among the gods, and dedicated to him a
temple; the temple has disappeared, the Commentaries remain. Your
Majesty, wishing to raise to the chief of your dynasty an imperishable
monument, has ordered us to gather together and publish the political,
military, and administrative correspondence of Napoleon I. It has
realised that the most conspicuous (_eclatant_) homage to render to
this incomparable genius was to make him known in his entirety. No one
is ignorant of his victories, of the laws with which he has endowed
our country, the institutions that he has founded and which dwell
immovable after so many revolutions; his prosperity and his reverses
are in every mouth; history has recounted what he has done, but it has
not always known his designs: it has not had the secret of so many
admirable combinations that have been the spoil of fortune (_que la
fortune a dejouees_), and so many grand projects for the execution of
which time alone was wanting. The traces of Napoleon's thoughts were
scattered; it was necessary to reunite them and to give them to the
light.
"Such is the task which your Majesty confided to us, and of which we
were far from suspecting the extent. The thousands of letters which
were received from all parts have allowed us to follow, in spite of a
few regrettable _lacunae_, the thoughts of Napoleon day by day, and to
assist, so to say, at the birth of his projects, at the ceaseless
workings of his mind, which knew no other rest than change of
occupation. But what is perhaps most surprising in the reading of a
correspondence so varied, is the power of that universal intelligence
from which nothing escaped, which in turn raised itself without an
effort to the most sublime conceptions, and which descends with the
same facility to the smallest details.... Nothing seems to him
unworthy of his attention that has to do with the realisation of his
designs; and it is not sufficient for him to give the most precise
orders, but he superintends himself the execution of them with an
indefatigable perseverance.
"The letters of Napoleon can add nothing to his glory, but they better
enable us to comprehend his prodigious destiny, the prestige that he
exercised over his contemporaries--'le culte universel dont sa memoire
est l'objet, enfin, l'entrainement irresistible par lequel la France a
replace sa dynastie au sommet de l'edifice qu'il avait construit.'
"These letters also contain the most fruitful sources of information
... for peoples as for governments; for soldiers and for statesmen no
less than for historians. Perhaps some persons, greedy of knowing the
least details concerning the intimate life of great men, will regret
that we have not reproduced those letters which, published elsewhere
for the most part, have only dealt with family affairs and domestic
relations. Collected together by us as well as the others, they have
not found a place in the plan of which your Majesty has fixed for us
the limits.
"Let us haste to declare that, in conformity with the express
intentions of your Majesty, we have scrupulously avoided, in the
reproduction of the letters of the Emperor, any alteration,
curtailment, or modification of the text. Sometimes, thinking of the
legitimate sorrow which blame from so high a quarter may cause, we
have regretted not to be able to soften the vigorous judgment of
Napoleon on many of his contemporaries, but it was not our province to
discuss them, still less to explain them; but if, better informed or
calmer, the Emperor has rendered justice to those of his servants that
he had for a moment misunderstood, we have been glad to indicate that
these severe words have been followed by reparation.
"We have found it necessary to have the spelling of names of places
and of persons frequently altered, but we have allowed to remain
slight incorrectnesses of language which denote the impetuosity of
composition, and which often could not be rectified without weakening
the originality of an energetic style running right to its object,
brief and precise as the words of command. Some concise notes
necessary for clearing up obscure passages are the sole conditions
which we have allowed ourselves....
"The Commission has decided in favour of chronological order
throughout. It is, moreover, the only one which can reproduce
faithfully the sequence of the Emperor's thoughts. It is also the best
for putting in relief his universal aptitude and his marvellous
fecundity.
"Napoleon wrote little with his own hand; nearly all the items of his
correspondence were dictated to his secretaries, to his aides-de-camp
and his chief of staff, or to his ministers. Thus the Commission has
not hesitated to comprise in this collection a great number of items
which, although bearing another signature, evidently emanate from
Napoleon....
"By declaring that his public life dated from the siege of Toulon,
Napoleon has himself determined the point of departure which the
Commission should choose. It is from this immortal date that commences
the present publication.
"(Signed) THE MEMBERS OF THE COMMISSION.
"_Paris, January 20, 1858._"
CONTEMPORARY SOURCES.--It is a commonplace that the history of
Napoleon has yet to be written. His contemporaries were stunned or
overwhelmed by the whirlwind of his glory; the next generation was