1241 (return)
[ Roederer, III., 461
(Jan. 12, 1803)]
1242 (return)
[ 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."]
1243 (return)
[ "Mémorial," June 12,
1816.]
1244 (return)
[ 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."]
1245 (return)
[ 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.)]
1246 (return)
[ 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."]
1247 (return)
[ 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."]
1248 (return)
[ Roederer, III., 495.
(March 8, 1804.)]
1249 (return)
[ Ibid., III., 537
(February 11, 1809.)]
1250 (return)
[ Roederer, III., 514.
(November 4, 1804.)]
1251 (return)
[ Marmont, II., 242.]
1252 (return)
[ "Correspondance de
Napoléon," I. (Letter to Prince Eugéne, April 14, 1806.)]
1253 (return)
[ M. de Metternich, I.,
284.]
1254 (return)
[ Mollien, III., 427.]
1255 (return)
[ "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."]
1256 (return)
[ "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]
1257 (return)
[ Madame de Rémusat,
II., 278; II., 175.]
1258 (return)
[ Ibid., III., 275,
II., 45. (Apropos of Savary, his most intimate agent.): "He is a man who
must be constantly corrupted."]
1259 (return)
[ Ibid., I., 109; II.,
247; III., 366.]
1260 (return)
[ "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
it I would leave my wife and children there." (These are bravado
expressions, wordy exaggerations, but significant.)]
1261 (return)
[ Madame de Rémusat,
II., 379.]
1262 (return)
[ "Souvenirs du feu duc
de Broglie," I., 230. (Words of Maret, at Dresden, in 1813; he probably
repeats one of Napoleon's figures.)]
1263 (return)
[ Mollien, II., 9.]
1264 (return)
[ D'Haussonville,
"L'Église Romaine et le premier Empire,"VI., 190, and passim.]
1265 (return)
[ Ibid., III., 460-473.—Cf.
on the same scene, "Souvenirs", by Pasquier (Etienne-Dennis, duc),
Chancelier de France. (He was both witness and actor.)]
1266 (return)
[ An expression of
Cambacérès. M. de Lavalette, II., 154.]
1267 (return)
[ Madame de Rémusat,
III. 184]
1268 (return)
[ "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).]
1269 (return)
[ "Souvenirs", by
Pasquier, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.—Vol. II. p. 196.]
1270 (return)
[ Madame de Rémusat,
II., 335.]
1271 (return)
[ Madame de Rémusat,
I., 231.]
1272 (return)
[ Ibid., 335.]
1273 (return)
[ 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."]
1274 (return)
[ Beugnot, "Mémoires,"
II., 59.]
1275 (return)
[ "Mémorial." "If I had
returned victorious from Moscow, I would have brought the Pope not to
regret temporal power: I would have converted him into an idol... I would
have directed the religious world as well as the political world... My
councils would have represented Christianity, and the Pope would have only
been president of them."]
1276 (return)
[ De Ségur, III., 312.
(In Spain, 1809.)]
1277 (return)
[ "Mémoires du Prince
Eugène." (Letters of Napoleon, August, 1806.)]
1278 (return)
[ Letter of Napoleon to
Fouché, March 3, 1810. (Left out in the "Correspondance de Napoléon I.,"
and published by M. Thiers in "Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire," XII.,
p. 115.)]
1279 (return)
[ De Ségur, III., 459.]
1280 (return)
[ Words of Napoleon to
Marmont, who, after three months in the hospital, returns to him in Spain
with a broken arm and his hand in a black sling: "You hold on to that rag
then?" Sainte-Beuve, who loves the truth as it really is, quotes the words
as they came, which Marmont dared not reproduce. (Causeries du Lundi, VI.,
16.)—"Souvenirs", by Pasquier, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893: "M. de
Champagny having been dismissed and replaced, a courageous friend defended
him and insisted on his merit: "You are right," said the Emperor, "he had
some when I took him; but by cramming him too full, I have made him
stupid."]
1281 (return)
[ Beugnot, I., 456,
464]
1282 (return)
[ Mme. de Rémusat, II.,
272.]
1283 (return)
[ M. de Champagny,
"Souvenirs," 117.]
1284 (return)
[ Madame de Rémusat,
I., 125.]
1285 (return)
[ De Ségur, III., 456.]
1286 (return)
[ "The Ancient Regime,"
p. 125.—"æuvres de Louis XIV.," 191: "If there is any peculiar
characteristic of this monarchy, it is the free and easy access of the
subjects to the king; it an egalité de justice between both, and which, so
to say, maintains both in a genial and honest companionship, in spite of
the almost infinite distance in birth, rank, and power. This agreeable
society, which enables persons of the Court to associate familiarly with
us, impresses them and charms them more than one can tell."]
1287 (return)
[ Madame de Rémusat,
II., 32, 39.]
1288 (return)
[ Madame de Rémusat,
III., 169.]
1289 (return)
[ Ibid., II., 32, 223,
240, 259; III., 169.]
1290 (return)
[ Ibid., I., 112, II.,
77.]
1291 (return)
[ M. de Metternich, I.,
286.—"It would be difficult to imagine any greater awkwardness than
that of Napoleon in a drawing-room.—Varnhagen von Ense, "Ausgewählte
Schriften," III., 177. (Audience of July 10, 1810): "I never heard a
harsher voice, one so inflexible. When he smiled, it was only with the
mouth and a portion of the cheeks; the brow and eyes remained immovably
sombre,... This compound of a smile with seriousness had in it something
terrible and frightful."—On one occasion, at St. Cloud, Varnhagen
heard him exclaim over and over again, twenty times, before a group of
ladies, "How hot!"]
1292 (return)
[ Mme. de Rémusat, II.,
77, 169.—Thibaudeau, "Mémoires sur le Consulat," p. 18: "He
sometimes pays them left-handed compliments on their toilet or adventures,
which was his way of censuring morals."—"Mes souvenirs sur
Napoléon," 322 by le Comte Chaptal: "At a fête, in the Hôtel de Ville, he
exclaimed to Madame——, who had just given her name to him:
'Good God, they told me you were pretty!' To some old persons: 'You
haven't long to live! To another lady: 'It is a fine time for you, now
your husband is on his campaigns!' In general, the tone of Bonaparte was
that of an ill-bred lieutenant. He often invited a dozen or fifteen
persons to dinner and rose from the table before the soup was finished...
The court was a regular galley where each rowed according to command."]
1293 (return)
[ Madame de Rémusat,
I., 114, 122, 206; II., 110, 112.]
1294 (return)
[ Ibid., I., 277.]
1295 (return)
[ "Hansard's
Parliamentary History," vol. XXXVI.,.310. Lord Whitworth's dispatch to
Lord Hawkesbury, March 14, 1803, and account of the scene with Napoleon.
"All this took place loud enough for the two hundred persons present to
hear it."—Lord Whitworth (dispatch of March 17) complains of this to
Talleyrand and informs him that he shall discontinue his visits to the
Tuileries unless he is assured that similar scenes shall not occur again.—Lord
Hawkesbury approves of this (dispatch of March 27), and declares that the
proceeding is improper and offensive to the King of England.—Similar
scenes, the same conceit and intemperate language, with M. de Metternich,
at Paris, in 1809, also at Dresden, in 1813: again with Prince Korsakof,
at Paris, in 1812; with M. de Balachof, at Wilna, in 1812, and with Prince
Cardito, at Milan, in 1805.]
1296 (return)
[ Before the rupture of
the peace of Amiens ("Moniteur," Aug. 8, 1802): The French government is
now more firmly established than the English government."—("Moniteur"
Sept.10, 1802): "What a difference between a people which conquers for
love of glory and a people of traders who happen to become conquerors!"—("Moniteur,"
Feb. 20, 1803): "The government declares with a just pride that England
cannot now contend against France."—Campaign of 1805, 9th bulletin,
words of Napoleon in the presence of Mack's staff: "I recommend my brother
the Emperor of Germany to make peace as quick as he can! Now is the time
to remember that all empires come to an end; the idea that an end might
come to the house of Lorraine ought to alarm him."—Letter to the
Queen of Naples, January 2, 1805: "Let your Majesty listen to what I
predict. On the first war breaking out, of which she might be the cause,
she and her children will have ceased to reign; her children would go
wandering about among the different countries of Europe begging help from
their relations."]
1297 (return)
[ 37th bulletin,
announcing the march of an army on Naples "to punish the Queen's treachery
and cast from the throne that criminal woman, who, with such
shamelessness, has violated all that men hold sacred."—Proclamation
of May 13, 1809: "Vienna, which the princes of the house of Lorraine have
abandoned, not as honorable soldiers yielding to circumstances and the
chances of war, but as perjurers pursued by remorse.... In flying from
Vienna their adieus to its inhabitants consisted of murder and fire. Like
Medea, they have sacrificed their children with their own hands."—13th
bulletin: "The rage of the house of Lorraine against the city of Vienna,"]
1298 (return)
[ Letter to the King of
Spain, Sept. 18, 1803, and a note to the Spanish minister of foreign
affairs, on the Prince de la Paix: "This favorite, who has succeeded by
the most criminal ways to a degree unheard of in the annals of history....
Let Your Majesty put away a man who, maintaining in his rank the low
passions of his character, has lived wholly on his vices."—After the
battle of Jéna, 9th, 17th, 18th, and 19th bulletins, comparison of the
Queen of Prussia with Lady Hamilton, open and repeated insinuations,
imputing to her an intrigue with the Emperor Alexander. "Everybody admits
that the Queen of Prussia is the author of the evils the Prussian nation
suffers. This is heard everywhere. How changed she is since that fatal
interview with the Emperor Alexander!... The portrait of the Emperor
Alexander, presented to her by the Prince, was found in the apartment of
the Queen at Potsdam."]
1299 (return)
[ "La Guerre
patriotique" (1812-1815), according to the letters of contemporaries, by
Doubravine (in Russian). The Report of the Russian envoy, M. de Balachof,
is in French,]
12100 (return)
[ An allusion to the
murder of Paul I.]
12101 (return)
[ Stanislas de
Girardin, "Mémoires," III., 249. (Reception of Nivôse 12, year X.) The
First consul addresses the Senate: "Citizens, I warn you that I regard the
nomination of Daunou to the senate as a personal insult, and you know that
I have never put up with one."—"Correspondance de Napoleon I."
(Letter of Sept.23, 1809, to M. de Champagny): "The Emperor Francis
insulted me in writing to me that I cede nothing to him, when, out of
consideration for him, I have reduced my demands nearly one-half."
(Instead of 2,750,000 Austrian subjects he demanded only 1,600,000.)—Roederer,
III., 377 (Jan.24, 1801): "The French people must put up with my defects
if they find I am of service to them; it is my fault that I cannot endure
insults."]
12102 (return)
[ M. de Metternich,
II., 378. (Letter to the Emperor of Austria, July 28, 1810.)]
12103 (return)
[ Note presented by
the French ambassador, Otto, Aug. 17, 1802.]
12104 (return)
[ Stanislas Girardin,
III., 296. (Words of the First consul, Floreal 24, year XI.): "I had
proposed to the British minister, for several months, to make an
arrangement by which a law should be passed in France and in England
prohibiting newspapers and the members of the government from expressing
either good or ill of foreign governments. He never would consent to it."—St.
Girardin: "He could not."—Bonaparte: "Why?"—St. Girardin:
"Because an agreement of that sort would have been opposed to the
fundamental law of the country." Bonaparte: "I have a poor opinion," etc.]
12105 (return)
[ Hansard, vol.
XXXVI., p.1298. (Dispatch of Lord Whitworth, Feb.21, 1803, conversation
with the First consul at the Tuileries.)—Seeley, 'A Short History of
Napoleon the First." "Trifles is a softened expression, Lord Whitworth
adds in a parenthesis which has never been printed; "the expression he
made use of is too insignificant and too low to have a place in a dispatch
or anywhere else, save in the mouth of a hack-driver."]
12106 (return)
[ Lanfrey, "Histoire
de Napoléon," II., 482. (Words of the First consul to the Swiss delegates,
conference of January 29, 1803.)]
12107 (return)
[ Sir Neil Campbell,
"Napoleon at Fontainebleau and Elba," p.201. (The words of Napoleon to Sir
Neil Campbell and to the other commissioners.)—The Mémorial de
Sainte Helene mentions the same plan in almost identical terms.—Pelet
de la Lozère, "Opinions de Napoléon au conseil d'état," p.238 (session of
March 4, 1806): "Within forty-eight hours after peace with England, I
shall interdict foreign commodities and promulgate a navigation act
forbidding any other than French vessels entering our ports, built of
French timber, and with the crews two-thirds French. Even coal and English
'milords' shall land only under the French flag."—Ibid., 32.]
12108 (return)
[ Moniteur, January
30, 1803 (Sebastiani).]
12109 (return)
[ Hansard, vol.
XXXVI., p.1298. (Lord Whitworth's dispatch, Feb.21, 1803, the First
Consul's words to Lord Whitworth.)]
12110 (return)
[ "Memorial."
(Napoleon's own words, March 24, 1806.)]
12111 (return)
[ Lanfrey, II., 476.
(Note to Otto, October 23, 1802.)—Thiers,VI., 249.]
12112 (return)
[ Letter to Clarke,
Minister of War, Jan. 18, 1814. "If, at Leipsic, I had had 30,000 cannon
balls to fire off on the evening of the 18th, I should to-day be master of
the world."]
12113 (return)
[ "Memorial," Nov.
30, 1815.]
12114 (return)
[ Lanfrey, III.,—399.
Letters of Talleyrand, October 11 and 27, 1805, and memorandum addressed
to Napoleon.]
12115 (return)
[ At the council held
in relation to the future marriage of Napoleon, Cambacérès vainly
supported an alliance with the Russians. The following week, he says to M.
Pasquier: "When one has only one good reason to give and it cannot
possibly be given, it is natural that one should be beaten..., You will
see that it is so good that one phrase suffices to make its force fully
understood. I am deeply convinced that in two years we shall have a war
with that of two powers whose daughter the Emperor does not marry. Now a
war with Austria does not cause me any uneasiness, and I tremble at a war
with Russia. The consequences are incalculable." "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER
(Etienne-Dennis, duc), Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. Vol I., p 293, p 378.).]
12116 (return)
[ M. de Metternich,
II., 305. (Letter to the Emperor of Austria, Aug.10, 1809.)—Ibid.
403.. (Letter of Jan.11, 1811.) "My appreciation of Napoleon's plans and
projects, at bottom, has never varied. The monstrous purpose of the
complete subjection of the continent under one head was, and is still, his
object."]
12117 (return)
[ "Correspondance de
Napoleon I." (Letter to the King of Wurtemberg, April 2, 1814): "The war
will take place in spite of him (the Emperor Alexander), in spite of me,
in spite of the interests of France and those of Russia. Having already
seen this so often, it is my past experience which enables me to unveil
the future,"]
12118 (return)
[ Mollien, III., 135,
190.—In 1810 "prices have increased 400% on sugar, and 100 % on
cotton and dye stuffs."—"More than 20,000 custom-house officers were
employed on the frontier against more than 100,000 smugglers, in constant
activity and favored by the population."—"Souvenirs", by PASQUIER
(Etienne-Dennis, duc), Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.-, I., 387.—There
were licenses for importing colonial products, but on condition of
exporting a proportionate quantity of French manufactures; now, England
refused to receive them. Consequently, "not being allowed to bring these
articles back to France, they were thrown overboard."—"They began at
first by devoting the refuse of manufactures to this trade, and then ended
by manufacturing articles without other destination; for example, at
Lyons, taffetas and satins."]
12119 (return)
[ Proclamation of
Dec.27, 1805: "The Naples dynasty has ceased to reign. Its existence is
incompatible with the repose of Europe and the honor of my crown."—Message
to the Senate, Dec. 10, 1810: "Fresh guarantees having become necessary,
the annexation to the Empire of the mouths of the Escaut, the Meuse, the
Rhine, the Ems, the Weser, and the Elbe, seemed to me to be the first and
most important.... The annexation of the Valais is an anticipated result
of the vast works I have undertaken for the past ten years in that section
of the Alps."]
12120 (return)
[ We are familiar
with the Spanish affair. His treatment of Portugal is anterior and of same
order.-" Correspondance." (Letter to Junot, Oct.31, 1807):—'I have
already informed you, that in authorizing you to enter as an auxiliary, it
was to enable you to possess yourself of the (Portuguese) fleet, but my
mind was made up to take Portugal."—(Letter to Junot, Dec. 23,
1807): "Disarm the country. Send all the Portuguese troops to France.... I
want them out of the country. Have all princes, ministers, and other men
who serve as rallying points, sent to France."—(Decree of Dec. 23,
1807): "An extra contribution of 100 million francs shall be imposed on
the kingdom of Portugal, to redeem all property, of whatever denomination,
belonging to private parties... All property belonging to the Queen of
Portugal, to the prince-regent, and to princes in appanage;.... all the
possessions of the nobles who have followed the king, on his abandoning
the country, and who had not returned to the kingdom before February 1,
shall be put under sequestration."—Cf. M. d'Haussonville, "L'Église
Romaine et le premier Empire," 5 vols. (especially the last volume). No
other work enables one to see into Napoleon's object and proceedings
better nor more closely.]
12121 (return)
[ "Souvenirs du feu
duc de Broglie," p.143. (As a specimen of steps taken in time of war, see
the register of Marshal Bessières' orders, commandant at Valladolid from
April 11 to July 15, 1811.)—"Correspondance du Roi Jérome," letter
of Jerome to Napoleon, Dec. 5, 1811. (Showing the situation of a
vanquished people in times of peace): "If war should break out, all
countries between the Rhine and the Oder will become the center of a vast
and active insurrection. The mighty cause of this dangerous movement is
not merely hatred of the French, and impatience of a foreign yoke, but
rather in the misfortunes of the day, in the total ruin of all classes, in
over-taxation, consisting of war levies, the maintenance of troops,
soldiers traversing the country, and every sort of constantly renewed
vexation.... At Hanover, Magdebourg, and in the principal towns of my
kingdom, owners of property are abandoning their dwellings and vainly
trying to dispose of them at the lowest prices.... Misery everywhere
presses on families; capital is exhausted; the noble, the peasant, the
bourgeois, are crushed with debt and want.... The despair of populations
no longer having anything to lose, because all has been taken away, is to
be feared."—De Pradt, p.73. (Specimen of military proceedings in
allied countries.) At Wolburch, in the Bishop of Cujavie's chateau, "I
found his secretary, canon of Cujavie, decorated with the ribbon and cross
of his order, who showed me his jaw, broken by the vigorous blows
administered to him the previous evening by General Count Vandamme,
because he had refused to serve Tokay wine, imperiously demanded by the
general; he was told that the King of Westphalia had lodged in the castle
the day before, and had carted away all this wine."]
12122 (return)
[ Fievée,
"Correspondance et relations avec Bonaparte, de 1802 à 1813," III., 82.
(Dec. 1811), (On the populations annexed or conquered): "There is no
hesitation in depriving them of their patrimony, their language, their
legislatures, in disturbing all their habits, and that without any warrant
but throwing a bulletin des lois at their heads (inapplicable).... How
could they be expected to recognize this, or even become resigned to
it?... Is it possible not to feel that one no longer has a country, that
one is under constraint, wounded in feeling and humiliated?... Prussia,
and a large part of Germany, has been so impoverished that there is more
to gain by taking a pitchfork to kill a man than to stir up a pile of
manure."]
12123 (return)
[ "Correspondance,"
letter to King Joseph, Feb. 18, 1814. "If I had signed the treaty reducing
France to its ancient limits, I should have gone to war two years after"—Marmont,
V., 133 (1813): "Napoleon, in the last years of his reign, always
preferred to lose all rather than to yield anything."]
12124 (return)
[ M. de Metternich,
II., 205.]
12125 (return)
[ Words of Richelieu
on his death-bed: "Behold my judge," said he, pointing to the Host, "the
judge who will soon pronounce his verdict. I pray that he will condemn me,
if, during my ministry, I have proposed to myself aught else than the good
of religion and of the State."]
12126 (return)
[ Miot de Melito,
"Mémoires,"II., 48, 152.]
12127 (return)
[ "Souvenirs," by
Gaudin, duc de Gaëte (3rd vol. of the "Mémoires," p.67).]
12128 (return)
[ M. de Metternich,
II., 120. (Letter to Stadion, July 26, 1807.)]
12129 (return)
[ Ibid., II., 291.
(Letter of April 11, 1809.)]
12130 (return)
[ Ibid., II., 400.
(Letter of Jan.17, 1811.) In lucid moments, Napoleon takes the same view.
Cf. Pelet de la Lozère, "Opinions de Napoleon au conseil d'etat," p. 15:
"That will last as long as I do. After me, however, my son will deem
himself fortunate if he has 40,000 francs a year."—(De Ségur,
"Histoire et Mémoires," III., 155.): "How often at this time (1811) was he
heard to foretell that the weight of his empire would crush his heir!"
"Poor child," said he, regarding the King of Rome, "what an entanglement I
shall leave to you!" From the beginning he frequently passed judgment on
himself and foresaw the effect of his action in history." On reaching the
isle of Poplars, the First Consul stopped at Rousseau's grave, and said:
'It would have, been better for the repose of France, if that man had
never existed.' 'And why, citizen Consul?' 'He is the man who made the
French revolution.' 'It seems to me that you need not complain of the
French revolution!' 'well, the future must decide whether it would not
have been better for the repose of the whole world if neither myself nor
Rousseau had ever lived.' He then resumed his promenade in a revery."—Stanislas
Girardin; "Journal et Mémoires," III., Visit of the French Consul to
Ermenonville.]
12131 (return)
[ Marmont,
"Mémoires," III., 337. (On returning from Wagram.)]
12132 (return)
[ On this initial
discord, cf. Armand Lefèvre, "Histoire des Cabinets de l'Europe," vol.VI.]
12133 (return)
[ "Correspondance de
Napoléon I." (Letter to the King of Wurtemberg, April 2, 1811.)]
12134 (return)
[ Testament of April
25, 1821 "It is my desire that my remains rest on the banks of the Seine,
amidst that French people I have so dearly loved."]
12135 (return)
[ "Correspondance de
Napoleon I.", XXII., 119. (Note by Napoleon, April, 1811.) "There will
always be at Hamburg, Bremen, and Lubeck from 8000 to 10,000 Frenchmen,
either as employees or as gendarmes, in the custom-houses and
warehouses."]
12136 (return)
[ "Souvenirs", by
PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.-, II., 88, and
following pages: "During the year 1813, from Jan. 1 to Oct. 7, 840,000 men
had already been drafted from imperial France and they had to be
furnished."—Other decrees in December, placing at the disposition of
the government 300,000 conscripts for the years 1806 to 1814 inclusive.—Another
decree in November organizing 140,000 men of the national guard in
cohorts, intended for the defense of strongholds.—In all, 1,300,000
men summoned in one year. "Never has any nation been thus asked to let
itself be voluntarily led in a mass to the slaughterhouse.—Ibid.,
II., 59. Senatus-consulte, and order of council for raising 10,000 young
men, exempt or redeemed from conscription, as the prefects might choose,
arbitrarily, from amongst the highest classes in society. The purpose was
plainly "to secure hostages in every family of doubtful loyalty. No
measure created for Napoleon more irreconcilable enemies."—Cf. De
Ségur, II., 34. (He was charged with organizing and commanding a division
of young men.) Many were sons of Vendéans or of Conventionalists, some
torn from their wives the day after their marriage, or from the bedside of
a wife in her confinement, of a dying father, or of a sick son; "some
looked so feeble that they seemed dying." One half perished in the
campaign of 1814.—"Correspondance," letter to Clarke, Minister of
War, Oct.23, 1813 (in relation to the new levies): "I rely on 100,000
refractory conscripts."]
12137 (return)
[ "Archives
nationales," A F.,VI., 1297. (Documents 206 to 210.) (Report to the
Emperor by Count Dumas, April 10, 1810.) Besides the 170 millions of
penalties 1,675,457 francs of penalty were inflicted on 2335 individuals,
"abettors or accomplices."—Ibid., A F.,VI., 1051. (Report of Gen.
Lacoste on the department of Haute-Loire, Oct. 13, 1808.) "He always
calculated in this department on the desertion of one-half of the
conscripts. In most of the cantons the gendarmes traffic with the
conscription shamefully; certain conscripts pension them to show them
favors."—Ibid., A F.,VI., 1052. (Report by Pelet, Jan. 12, 1812.)
"The operation of the conscription has improved (in the Herault); the
contingents of 1811 have been furnished. There remained 1800 refractory,
or deserters of the previous classes; 1600 have been arrested or made to
surrender by the flying column; 200 have still to be pursued." Faber,—"Notice
(1807) sur l'intérieur de la France," p. 141: "Desertion, especially on
the frontiers, is occasionally frightful; 80 deserters out of 160 have
sometimes been arrested."—Ibid., p.149: It has been stated in the
public journals that in 1801 the court in session at Lille had condemned
135 refractory out of the annual conscription, and that which holds its
sittings at Ghent had condemned 70. Now, 200 conscripts form the maximum
of what an arrondissement in a department could furnish."—Ibid,
p.145. "France resembles a vast house of detention where everybody is
suspicious of his neighbor, where each avoids the other... One often sees
a young man with a gendarme at his heels oftentimes, on looking closely,
this young man's hands are found tied, or he is handcuffed."—Mathieu
Dumas, III., 507 (After the battle of Dresden, in the Dresden hospitals):
"I observed, with sorrow, that many of these men were slightly wounded:
most of them, young conscripts just arrived in the army, had not been
wounded by the enemy's fire, but they had mutilated each other's feet and
hands. Antecedents of this kind, of equally bad augury, had already been
remarked in the campaign of 1809."]
12138 (return)
[ De Ségur, III.,
474.—Thiers, XIV., 159. (One month after crossing the Niemen one
hundred and fifty thousand men had dropped out of the ranks.)]
12139 (return)
[ Bulletin 29
(December 3, 1812).]
12140 (return)
[ "De Pradt, Histoire
de l'Ambassade de Varsovie," p.219.]
12141 (return)
[ M. de Metternich,
I., 147.—Fain, "Manuscript," of 1813, II., 26. (Napoleon's address
to his generals.) "What we want is a complete triumph. To abandon this or
that province is not the question; our political superiority and our
existence depend on it. "—II., 41, 42. (Words of Napoleon to
Metternich.) "And it is my father-in-law who favors such a project! And he
sends you! In what attitude does he wish to place me before the French
people? He is strangely deluded if he thinks that a mutilated throne can
offer an asylum to his daughter and grandson.... Ah, Metternich, how much
has England given you to make you play this part against me?" (This last
phrase, omitted in Metternich's narrative, is a characteristic trait;
Napoleon at this decisive moment, remains insulting and aggressive,
gratuitously and even to his own destruction.)]
12142 (return)
[ "Souvenirs du feu
duc de Broglie," I., 235.]
12143 (return)
[ Ibid., I., 230.
Some days before Napoleon had said to M. de Narbonne, who told me that
very evening: "After all, what has this (the Russian campaign) cost me?
300,000 men, among whom, again, were a good many Germans."—"Souvenirs",
by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. II. 110.
(Apropos of the Frankfurt basis, and accepted by Napoleon when too late.)
"What characterizes this mistake is that it was committed much more
against the interests of France than against his own.... He sacrificed her
to the perplexities of his personal situation, to the mauvaise honte of
his own ambition, to the difficulty he finds in standing alone to a
certain extent before a nation which had done everything for him and which
could justly reproach him with having sacrificed so much treasure and
spilled so much blood on enterprises proved to have been foolish and
impracticable."]
12144 (return)
[ Leonce de Lavergne,
"Economie rurale de la France," P.40. (According to the former director of
the conscription under the Empire.)]