The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5

H >> Hippolyte A. Taine >> The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5

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[2] De Pradt, "Histoire de l'ambassade dans le grand-duché de
Varsovie," p.96. "with the Emperor, desire springs out of his
imagination; his idea becomes passion the moment it comes into his
head."

[3] Bourrienne, II., 298. - De Ségur, I., 426.

[4] Bodin, "Recherches sur l'Anjou," II., 325. - " Souvenirs d'un
nonagénaire," by Besnard. - Sainte-Beuve, "Causeries du Lundi,"
article on Volney. - Miot de Melito, I., 297. He wanted to adopt
Louis's son, and make him King of Italy. Louis refused, alleging that
this marked favor would give new life to the reports spread about at
one time in relation to this child." Thereupon, Napoleon, exasperated,
"seized Prince Louis by the waist and pushed him violently out of the
room." - " Mémorial," Oct.10, 1816. Napoleon relates that at the last
conference of Campo-Fermio, to put an end to the resistance of the
Austrian plenipotentiary, he suddenly arose, seized a set of porcelain
on a stand near him and dashed it to the floor, exclaiming, "Thus will
I shatter your monarchy before a month is over!" (Bourrienne questions
this story.)

[5] Varnhagen von Ense, "Ausgewahlte Schriften," III., 77 (Public
reception of July 22, 1810). Napoleon first speaks to the Austrian
Ambassador and next to the Russian Ambassador with a constrained air,
forcing himself to be polite, in which he cannot persist. "Treating
with I do not know what unknown personage, he interrogated him,
reprimanded him, threatened him, and kept him for a sufficiently long
time in a state of painful dismay. Those who stood near by and who
could not help feeling a dismayed, stated later that there had been
nothing to provoke such fury, that the Emperor had only sought an
opportunity to vent his ill-humor; that he did it purposely on some
poor devil so as to inspire fear in others and to put down in advance
any tendency to opposition. Cf. Beugnot, "Mémoires," I., 380, 386,
387. - This mixture of anger and calculation likewise explains his
conduct at Sainte Helena with Sir Hudson Lowe, his unbridled diatribes
and insults bestowed on the governor like so many slaps in the face.
(W. Forsyth, "History of the Captivity of Napoleon at Saint Helena,
from the letters and journals of Sir Hudson Lowe," III., 306.)

[6] Madame de Rémusat, II., 46.

[7] "Les Cahiers de Coignat." 191. "At Posen, already, I saw him
mount his horse in such a fury as to land on the other side and then
give his groom a cut of the whip."

[8] Madame de Rémusat, I., 222.

[9] Especially the letters addressed to Cardinal Consalvi and to the
Préfet of Montenotte (I am indebted to M. d'Haussonville for this
information). - Besides, he is lavish of the same expressions in
conversation. On a tour through Normandy, he sends for the bishop of
Séez and thus publicly addresses him: "Instead of merging the parties,
you distinguish between constitutionalists and non-constitutionalists.
Miserable fool! You are a poor subject, - hand in your resignation at
once!" - To the grand-vicars he says, "Which of you governs your
bishop - who is at best a fool? " - As M. Legallois is pointed out to
him, who had of late been absent. "Fuck, where were you then?" "With
my family." "With a bishop who is merely a damned fool, why are you so
often away, etc.?" (D'Haussonville,VI., 176, and Roederer, vol. III.)

[10] Madame de Rémusat - I., 101; II., 338.

[11] Ibid., I., 224. - M. de Meneval, I., 112, 347; III., 120: " On
account of the extraordinary event of his marriage, he sent a
handwritten letter to his future father-in-law (the Emperor of
Austria). It was a grand affair for him. Finally, after a great
effort, he succeeded in penning a letter that was readable." -
Meneval, nevertheless, was obliged "to correct the defective letters
without letting the corrections be too plainly seen."

[12] For example, at Bayonne and at Warsaw (De Pradt); the outrageous
and never-to-be forgotten scene which, on his return from Spain,
occurred with Talleyrand - ("Souvenirs", by PASQUIER Etienne-Dennis,
duc, Chancelier de France. Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. I., 357); -
The gratuitous insult of M. de Metternich, in 1813, the last word of
their interview ("Souvenirs du feu duc de Broglie," I., 230) . - Cf.
his not less gratuitous and hazardous confidential communications to
Miot de Melito, in 1797, and his five conversations with Sir Hudson
Lowe, immediately recorded by a witness, Major Gorrequer. (W. Forsyth,
I.,147, 161, 200.)

[13] De Pradt, preface X

[14] Pelet de la Lozére, p. 7. - Mollien, "Mémoires," II., 222. -
"Souvenirs du feu duc de Broglie," I., 66, 69.

[15] "Madame de Rémusat," I., 121: I have it from Corvisart that the
pulsations of his arteries are fewer than is usual with men. He never
experienced what is commonly called giddiness." With him, the nervous
apparatus is perfect in all its functions, incomparable for receiving,
recording, registering, combining, and reflecting, but other organs
suffer a reaction and are very sensitive." (De Ségur, VI., 15 and 16,
note of Drs. Yvan and Mestivier, his physicians.) "To preserve the
equilibrium it was necessary with him that the skin should always
fulfill its functions; as soon as the tissues were affected by any
moral or atmospheric cause . . . . irritation, cough, ischuria." Hence
his need of frequent prolonged and very hot baths. "The spasm was
generally shared by the stomach and the bladder. If in the stomach,
he had a nervous cough which exhausted his moral and physical
energies." Such was the case between the eve of the battle of Moscow
and the morning after his entry into Moscow: "a constant dry cough,
difficult and intermittent breathing; the pulse sluggish, weak, and
irregular; the urine thick and sedimentary, drop by drop and painful;
the lower part of the legs and the feet extremely oedematous."
Already, in 1806, at Warsaw, "after violent convulsions in the
stomach," he declared to the Count de Loban, "that he bore within him
the germs of a premature death, and that he would die of the same
disease as his father's." (De Ségur,VI., 82.) After the victory of
Dresden, having eaten a ragout containing garlic, he is seized with
such violent gripings as to make him think he was poisoned, and he
makes a retrograde movement, which causes the loss of Vandamme's
division, and, consequently, the ruin of 1813. "Souvenirs", by
Pasquier, Etienne-Dennis, duc, chancelier de France. Librarie Plon,
Paris 1893, (narrative of Daru, an eye-witness.) - This susceptibility
of the nerves and stomach is hereditary with him and shows itself in
early youth. "One day, at Brienne, obliged to drop on his knees, as a
punishment, on the sill of the refectory, he is seized with sudden
vomiting and a violent nervous attack." De Segur, I., 71. - It is
well known that he died of a cancer in the stomach, like his father
Charles Bonaparte. His grandfather Joseph Bonaparte, his uncle Fesch,
his brother Lucien, and his sister Caroline died of the same, or of an
analogous disease.

[16] Meneval, I., 269. Constant, "Mémoires," V., 62. De Ségur, VI.,
114, 117.

[17] Marshal Marmont, "Mémoires," I., 306. Bourrienne, II., 119:
"When off the political field he was sensitive, kind, open to pity."

[18] Pelet de la Lozére, p.7. De Champagny, " Souvenirs," p.103. At
first, the emotion was much stronger. "He had the fatal news for
nearly three hours; he had given vent to his despair alone by himself.
He summoned me . . . . plaintive cries involuntarily escaped him."

[19] Madame de Rémusat, I., 121, 342 ; II., 50 ; III., 61, 294, 312.

[20] De Ségur, V., 348.

[21] Yung, II., 329, 331. (Narrated by Lucien, and report to Louis
XVIII.)

[22] "Nouvelle relation de l'Itinéraire de Napoléon, de Fontainebleau
à l'Ile de l'Elbe," by Count Waldberg-Truchsees, Prussian commissioner
(1885), pp.22, 24, 25, 26, 30, 32, 34, 37. - The violent scenes,
probably, of the abdication and the attempt at Fontainebleau to poison
himself had already disturbed his balance. On reaching Elba, he says
to the Austrian commissioner, Koller, "As to you, my dear general, I
have let you see my bare rump." - Cf. in "Madame de Rémusat," I., 108,
one of his confessions to Talleyrand: he crudely points out in himself
the distance between natural instinct and studied courage. - Here and
elsewhere, we obtain a glimpse of the actor and even of the Italian
buffoon; M. de Pradt called him "Jupiter Scapin." Read his
reflections before M. de Pradt, on his return from Russia, in which he
appears in the light of a comedian who, having played badly and failed
in his part, retires behind the scenes, runs down the piece, and
criticize the imperfections of the audience. (De Pradt, p.219.)

[23] The reader may find his comprehension of the author's meaning
strengthened by the following translation of a passage from his essay
on Jouffroy (Philosophes classiques du XIXth Siécle," 3rd ed.):

"What is a man, master of himself? He is one who, dying with thirst,
refrains from swallowing a cooling draft, merely moistening his lips:
who insulted in public, remains calm in calculating his most
appropriate revenge; who in battle, his nerves excited by a charge,
plans a difficult maneuver, thinks it out, and writes it down with a
lead-pencil while balls are whistling around him, and sends it to his
colonels. In other words, it is a man in whom the deliberate and
abstract idea of the greatest good is stronger than all other ideas
and sensations. The conception of the greatest good once attained,
every dislike, every species of indolence, every fear, every
seduction, every agitation, are found weak. The tendency which arise
from the idea of the greatest good constantly dominates all others and
determines all actions." TR.

[24] Bourrienne, I. 21.

[25] Yung, 1., 125.

[26] Madame de Rémusat, I., 267. - Yung, II., 109. On his return to
Corsica he takes upon himself the government of the whole family.
"Nobody could discuss with him, says his brother Lucien; he took
offence at the slightest observation and got in a passion at the
slightest resistance. Joseph (the eldest) dared not even reply to his
brother."

[27] Mémorial, August 27-31, 1815.

[28] "Madame de Rémusat," I., 105. - Never was there an abler and more
persevering sophist, more persuasive, more eloquent, in order to make
it appear that he was right. Hence his dictations at St. Helena; his
proclamations, messages, and diplomatic correspondence; his ascendancy
in talking as great as through his arms, over his subject and over his
adversaries; also his posthumous ascendancy over posterity. He is as
great a lawyer as he is a captain and administrator. The peculiarity
of this disposition is never submitting to truth, but always to speak
or write with reference to an audience, to plead a cause. Through
this talent one creates phantoms which dupe the audience; on the other
hand, as the author himself forms part of the audience, he ends in not
along leading others into error but likewise himself, which is the
case with Napoleon.

[29] Yung, II., 111. (Report by Volney, Corsican commissioner, 1791.
- II., 287. (Mémorial, giving a true account of the political and
military state of Corsica in December, 1790.) - II., 270. (Dispatch of
the representative Lacombe Saint-Michel, Sept. 10, 1793.) - Miot de
Melito I.,131, and following pages. (He is peace commissioner in
Corsica in 1797 and 1801.)

[30] Miot de Melito, II., 2. "The partisans of the First consul's
family . . . regarded me simply as the instrument of their passions,
of use only to rid them of their enemies, so as to center all favors
on their protégés."

[31] Yung., I., 220. (Manifest of October -31, 1789.) - I., 265.
(Loan on the seminary funds obtained by force, June 23, 1790.) - I.,
267, 269. (Arrest of M. de la Jaille and other officers; plan for
taking the citadel of Ajaccio.) - II., 115. (letter to Paoli, February
17, 1792.) "Laws are like the statues of certain divinities - veiled
on certain occasions." - II., 125. (Election of Bonaparte as
lieutenant-colonel of a battalion of volunteers, April1, 1792.) The
evening before he had Murati, one of the three departmental
commissioners, carried off by an armed band from the house of the
Peraldi, his adversaries, where he lodged. Murati, seized unawares,
is brought back by force and locked up in Bonaparte's house, who
gravely says to him "I wanted you to be free, entirely at liberty;
you were not so with the Peraldi." - His Corsican biographer (Nasica,
"Mémoires sur la jeunesse et l'enfance de Napoléon,") considers this a
very praiseworthy action

[32] Cf. on this point, the Memoirs of Marshal Marmont, I., 180, 196;
the Memoirs of Stendhal, on Napoleon; the Report of d'Antraigues
(Yung, III., 170, 171); the "Mercure Britannique" of Mallet-Dupan, and
the first chapter of "La Chartreuse de Parme," by Stendhal.

[33] "Correspondance de Napoléon," I. (Letter of Napoleon to the
Directory, April 26, 1796.) - Proclamation of the same date: "You have
made forced marches barefoot, bivouacked without brandy, and often
without bread."

[34] Stendhal, "Vie de Napoléon," p. 151. "The commonest officers were
crazy with delight at having white linen and fine new boots. All were
fond of music; many walked a league in the rain to secure a seat in
the La Scala Theatre. . . . In the sad plight in which the army found
itself before Castiglione and Arcole, everybody, except the knowing
officers, was disposed to attempt the impossible so as not to quit
Italy." - " Marmont," I., 296: "We were all of us very young, . . .
all aglow with strength and health, and enthusiastic for glory. . . .
This variety of our occupations and pleasures, this excessive
employment of body and mind gave value to existence, and made time
pass with extraordinary rapidity."

[35] "Correspondance de Napoléon," I. Proclamation of March 27, 1796:
' Soldiers, you are naked and poorly fed. The government is vastly
indebted to you; it has nothing to give you. . . . I am going to lead
you to the most fertile plains in the world; rich provinces, large
cities will be in your power; you will then obtain honor, glory, and
wealth." - Proclamation of April 26, 1796: - "Friends, I guarantee
that conquest to you!" - Cf. in Marmont's memoirs the way in which
Bonaparte plays the part of tempter in offering Marmont, who refuses,
an opportunity to rob a treasury chest.

[36] Miot de Melito, I., 154. (June, 1797, in the gardens of
Montebello.) "Such are substantially the most remarkable expressions
in this long discourse which I have recorded and preserved."

[37] Miot de Melito, I. 184. (Conversation with Bonaparte, November
18, 1797, at Turin.) "I remained an hour with the general tête-à-tête.
I shall relate the conversation exactly as it occurred, according to
my notes, made at the time."

[38] Mathieu Dumas, " Mémoires," III., 156. "It is certain that he
thought of it from this moment and seriously studied the obstacles,
means, and chances of success." (Mathieu Dumas cites the testimony of
Desaix, who was engaged in the enterprise): "It seems that all was
ready, when Bonaparte judged that things were not yet ripe, nor the
means sufficient." - Hence his departure. "He wanted to get out of
the way of the rule and caprices of these contemptible dictators,
while the latter wanted to get rid of him because his military fame
and influence in the army were obnoxious to them.

[39] Larevellière-Lepaux (one of the five directors on duty),
"Mémoires," II., 340. "All that is truly grand in this enterprise, as
well as all that is bold and extravagant, either in its conception or
execution, belongs wholly to Bonaparte. The idea of it never occurred
to the Directory nor to any of its members. . . . His ambition and his
pride could not endure the alternative of no longer being prominent or
of accepting a post which, however eminent, would have always
subjected him to the orders of the Directory."

[40] Madame de Rémusat, I., 142. "Josephine laid great stress on the
Egyptian expedition as the cause of his change of temper and of the
daily despotism which made her suffer so much."- "Mes souvenirs sur
Napoleon," 325 by the count Chaptal. (Bonaparte's own words to the
poet Lemercier who might have accompanied him to the Middle East and
there would have learned many things about human nature): "You would
have seen a country where the sovereign takes no account of the lives
of his subjects, and where the subject himself takes no account of his
own life. You would have got rid of your philanthropic 'notions."

[41] Roederer, III., 461 (Jan. 12, 1803)

[42] Cf. "The Revolution," Vol. p. 773. (Note I., on the situation, in
1806, of the Conventionalists who had survived the revolution.) For
instance, Fouché is minister; Jeanbon-Saint-André, prefect; Drouet (de
Varennes), sub-prefect; Chépy (of Grenoble), commissary-general of the
police at Brest; 131 regicides are functionaries, among whom we find
twenty one prefects and forty-two magistrates. - Occasionally, a
chance document that has been preserved allows one to catch "the man
in the act." ("Bulletins hebdomadaires de la censure, 1810 and 1814,"
published by M. Thurot, in the Revue Critique, 1871): "Seizure of 240
copies of an indecent work printed for account of M. Palloy, the
author. This Palloy enjoyed some celebrity during the Revolution,
being one of the famous patriots of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. The
constituent Assembly had conceded to him the ownership of the site of
the Bastille, of which he distributed its stones among all the
communes. He is a bon vivant, who took it into his head to write out
in a very bad style the filthy story of his amours with a prostitute
of the Palais-Royal. He was quite willing that the book should be
seized on condition that he might retain a few copies of his jovial
production. He professes high admiration for, and strong attachment
to His Majesty's person, and expresses his sentiments piquantly, in
the style of 1789."

[43] Mémorial," June 12, 1816.

[44] Mathieu Dumas, III., 363 (July 4, 1809, a few days before
Wagram). - Madame de Rémusat," I., 105: "I have never heard him
express any admiration or comprehension of a noble action." - I., 179:
On Augustus's clemency and his saying, "Let us be friends, Cinna," the
following is his interpretation of it: "I understand this action
simply as the feint of a tyrant, and approve as calculation what I
find puerile as sentiment."- "Notes par le Comte Chaptal": "He
believed neither in virtue nor in probity, often calling these two
words nothing but abstractions; this is what rendered him so
distrustful and so immoral. . . . He never experienced a generous
sentiment; this is why he was so cold in company, and why he never had
a friend. He regarded men as so much counterfeit coin or as mere
instruments."

[45] M. de Metternich, "Mémoires," I., 241. - "Madame de Rémusat," I.,
93: "That man has been so harmful (si assommateur de toute vertu...)
to all virtue." - Madame de Staël, "Considerations sur la Revolution
Française, " 4th part, ch. 18. (Napoleon's conduct with M. de Melzi,
to destroy him in public opinion in Milan, in 1805.)

[46] Madame de Rémusat, I., 106; II., 247, 336: "His means for
governing man were all derived from those which tend to debase him. .
. . He tolerated virtue only when he could cover it with ridicule."

[47] Nearly all his false calculations are due to this defect,
combined with an excess of constructive imagination. - Cf. De Pradt,
p.94: "The Emperor is all system, all illusion, as one cannot fail to
be when one is all imagination. Whoever has watched his course has
noticed his creating for himself an imaginary Spain, an imaginary
Catholicism, an imaginary England, an imaginary financial state, an
imaginary noblesse, and still more an imaginary France, and, in late
times, an imaginary congress."

[48] Roederer, III., 495. (March 8, 1804.)

[49] Ibid., III., 537 (February 11, 1809.)

[50] Roederer, III., 514. (November 4, 1804.)

[51] Marmont, II., 242.

[52] Correspondance de Napoléon," I. (Letter to Prince Eugéne, April
14, 1806.)

[53] M. de Metternich, I., 284.

[54] Mollien, III., 427.

[55] "Notes par le Comte Chaptal": During the Consulate, "his opinion
not being yet formed on many points, he allowed discussion and it was
then possible to enlighten him and enforce an opinion once expressed
in his presence. But, from the moment that he possessed ideas of his
own, either true or false, on administrative subjects, he consulted no
one; . . . he treated everybody who differed from him in opinion
contemptuously, tried to make them appear ridiculous, and often
exclaimed, giving his forehead a slap, that here was an instrument far
more useful than the counsels of men who were commonly supposed to be
instructed and experienced. . . For four years, he sought to gather
around him the able men of both parties. After this, the choice of
his agents began to be indifferent to him. Regarding himself as strong
enough to rule and carry on the administration himself, the talents
and character of those who stood in his way were discarded. What he
wanted was valets and not councillors. . . The ministers were simply
head-clerks of the bureaus. The Council of State served only to give
form to the decrees emanating from him; he ruled even in petty
details. Everybody around him was timid and passive; his will was
regarded as that of an oracle and executed without reflection. . . .
Self-isolated from other men, having concentrated in his own hands all
powers and all action, thoroughly convinced that another's light and
experience could be of no use to him, he thought that arms and hands
were all that he required."

[56] "Souvenirs", by Pasquier (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de
France. In VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. Vol I. chap. IX.
and X. pp. 225-268. (Admirable portraiture of his principal agents,
Cambacérès, Talleyrand, Maret, Cretet, Real, etc.) Lacuée, director of
the conscription, is a perfect type of the imperial functionary.
Having received the broad ribbon of the Legion d'Honneur, he
exclaimed, at the height of his enthusiasm: "what will not France
become under such a man? To what degree of happiness and glory will it
not ascend, always provided the conscription furnishes him with
200,000 men a year! And, indeed, that will not be difficult,
considering the extent of the empire." - And likewise with Merlin de
Douai: "I never knew a man less endowed with the sentiment of the just
and the unjust; everything seems to him right and good, as the
consequences of a legal text. He was even endowed with a kind of
satanic smile which involuntarily rose to his lips . . . every time
the opportunity occurred, when, in applying his odious science, he
reached the conclusion that severity is necessary or some
condemnation." The same with Defermon, in fiscal matters

[57] Madame de Rémusat, II., 278; II., 175.

[58] Ibid., III., 275, II., 45. (Apropos of Savary, his most intimate
agent.): "He is a man who must be constantly corrupted."

[59] Ibid., I., 109; II., 247; III., 366.

[60] "Madame de Rémusat," II., 142, 167, 245. (Napoleon's own words.)
"If I ordered Savary to rid himself of his wife and children, I am
sure he would not hesitate." - Marmont, II., 194: "We were at Vienna
in 1809. Davoust said, speaking of his own and Maret's devotion: "If
the Emperor should say to us both, 'My political interests require the
destruction of Paris without any one escaping,' Maret would keep the
secret, I am sure; but nevertheless he could not help letting it be
known by getting his own family out. I, rather than reveal it1 would
leave my wife and children there." (These are bravado expressions,
wordy exaggerations, but significant.)

[61] Madame de Rémusat, II., 379.

[62] Souvenirs du feu duc de Broglie," I., 230. (Words of Maret, at
Dresden, in 1813; he probably repeats one of Napoleon's figures.)

[63] Mollien, II., 9.

[64] D'Haussonville, "L'Église Romaine et le premier Empire,"VI., 190,
and passim.

[65] Ibid., III., 460-473. - Cf. on the same scene, "Souvenirs", by
Pasquier (Etienne-Dennis, duc), Chancelier de France. (He was both
witness and actor.)

[66] An expression of Cambacérès. M. de Lavalette, II., 154.

[67] Madame de Rémusat, III. 184

[68] "Souvenirs", by Pasquier, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.-, I., 521.
Details of the manufacture of counterfeit money, by order of Savary,
in an isolated building on the plain of Montrouge. - Metternich, II.,
358. (Words of Napoleon to M. de Metternich): "I had 300 millions of
banknotes of the Bank of Vienna all ready and was going to flood you
with them." Ibid., Correspondence of M. de Metternich with M. de
Champagny on this subject (June, 1810).

[69] "Souvenirs", by Pasquier, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. - Vol. II.
p. 196.

[70] Madame de Rémusat, II., 335.

[71] Madame de Rémusat, I., 231.

[72] Ibid., 335.

[73] M. de Metternich, I., 284. "One of those to whom he seemed the
most attached was Duroc. 'He loves me the same as a dog loves his
master,' is the phrase he made use of in speaking of him to me. He
compared Berthier's sentiment for his person to that of a child's
nurse. Far from being opposed to his theory of the motives
influencing men these sentiments were its natural consequence whenever
he came across sentiments to which he could not apply the theory of
calculation based on cold interest, he sought the cause of it in a
kind of instinct."

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