Books: The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, v12
C >>
Constant >> The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, v12
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 | 4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8
After this cold and laconic reply I immediately left the palace, and was
soon after in Rue du Coq-Gris, with M. Clement, a bailiff, who for a long
time had been charged with my small affairs, and had given the necessary
attention to my farm during the long absences which the journeys and
campaigns of the Emperor necessitated. Then I gave full vent to my
despair. I was choking with rage as I remembered that my honesty had
been suspected,--I, who for fourteen years had served the Emperor with a
disinterestedness which was so scrupulous, and even carried to such a
point that many persons called it silliness; I, who had never demanded
anything of the Emperor, either for myself or my people! My brain reeled
as I tried to explain to myself how the Emperor, who knew all this so
well, could have allowed me to appear to a third person as a dishonorable
man; the more I thought of it the more extreme became my irritation, and
yet it was not possible to find the shadow of a motive for the blow aimed
at me. My despair was at its height, when M. Hubert, ordinary valet de
chambre of the Emperor, came to tell me that his Majesty would give me
all I wished if I would follow him, and that three hundred thousand
francs would be immediately handed me. In these circumstances, I ask of
all honest men, what could I do, and what would they have done in my
place? I replied that when I had resolved to consecrate my whole life to
the service of the unfortunate Emperor, it was not from views of vile
interest; but I was in despair at the thought that he should have made me
appear before Count Bertrand as an impostor and a dishonest man. Ah!
how happy would it then have been for me had the Emperor never thought of
giving me those accursed one hundred thousand francs! These ideas
tortured me. Ah! if I could only have taken twenty-four hours for
reflection, however just might have been my resentment, how gladly would
I have sacrificed it! I would have thought of the Emperor alone, and
would have followed him; but a sad and inexplicable fatality had not
decreed this.
This took place on the 19th of April, the most miserable day of my life.
What an evening, what a night I passed! What was my grief on learning
the next day that the Emperor had departed at noon, after making his
adieux to his guard! When I awoke that morning, all my resentment had
been appeased in thinking of the Emperor. Twenty times I wished to
return to the palace; twenty times after his departure I wished to take
post horses and overtake him; but I was deterred by the offer he had made
me through M. Hubert. "Perhaps," I thought, "he will think it is the
money which influences me; this will, doubtless, be said by those around
him; and what an opinion he will have of me!" In this cruel perplexity I
did not dare to decide. I suffered all that it is possible for a man to
suffer; and, at times, that which was only too true seemed like a dream
to me, so impossible did it seem that I could be where the Emperor was
not. Everything in this terrible situation contributed to aggravate my
distress. I knew the Emperor well enough to be aware that even had I
returned to him then, he would never have forgotten that I had wished to
leave him; I felt that I had not the strength to bear this reproach from
his lips. On the other side, the physical suffering caused by my disease
had greatly increased, and I was compelled to remain in bed a long while.
I could, indeed, have triumphed over these physical sufferings however
cruel they might have been, but in the frightful complications of my
position I was reduced to a condition of idiocy; I saw nothing of what
was around me; I heard nothing of what was said; and after this statement
the reader will surely not expect that I shall have anything to say about
the farewell of the Emperor to his old and faithful guard, an account of
which, moreover, has been often enough published for the facts to be well
known concerning this event, which, besides, took place in public. Here
my Memoirs might well close; but the reader, I well believe, cannot
refuse me his attention a few moments longer, that I may recall some
facts which I have a right to explain, and to relate some incidents
concerning the return from the Island of Elba. I, therefore, now
continue my remarks on the first of these heads, and the second will be
the subject of the next chapter.
The Emperor had then already started; and as for myself, shut up alone,
my country house became henceforth a sad residence to me. I held no
communication with any one whatever, read no news, and sought to learn
none. At the end of a short time I received a visit from one of my
friends from Paris, who said to me that the journals spoke of my conduct
without understanding it, and that they condemned it severely. He added
that it was M. de Turenne who had sent to the editors the note in which
I had been so heavily censured. I must say that I did not believe this;
I knew M. de Turenne too well to think him capable of a proceeding so
dishonorable, inasmuch as I had frankly explained everything to him, when
he made the answer I gave above. But however the evil came, it was
nevertheless done; and by the incredible complications of my position I
found myself compelled to keep silence. Nothing certainly would have
been easier than to repel the calumny by an exact rehearsal of the facts;
but should I justify myself in this manner by, so to speak, accusing the
Emperor at a moment especially when the Emperor's enemies manifested much
bitterness? When I saw such a great man made a mark for the shafts of
calumny, I, who was so contemptible and insignificant among the crowd,
could surely allow a few of these envenomed shafts to fall on me. To-day
the time has come to tell the truth, and I have done so without
restriction; not to excuse myself, for on the contrary I blame myself for
not having completely sacrificed myself, and for not having accompanied
the Emperor to the Island of Elba regardless of what might have been
said. Nevertheless, I may be allowed to say in my own defense, that in
this combination of physical and mental sufferings which overwhelmed me
all at once, a person must be very sure of infallibility himself to
condemn completely this sensitiveness so natural in a man of honor when
accused of a fraudulent transaction. This, then, I said to myself, is
the recompense for all my care, for the endurance of so much suffering,
for unbounded devotion, and a refinement of feeling for which the Emperor
had often praised me, and for which he rendered me justice later, as will
be seen when I shall have occasion to speak of certain circumstances
occurring about the 20th of March of the following year.
But gratuitously, and even malevolently, interested motives have been
attributed to me for the decision I made to leave the Emperor. The
simplest common-sense, on the contrary, would suffice to see that, had I
allowed myself to be guided by my interests, everything would have
influenced me to accompany his Majesty. In fact, the chagrin which the
incident I have mentioned caused me, and the manner in which I was
completely overwhelmed by it, have injured my fortune more than any
determination to follow the Emperor could possibly have done. What could
I hope for in France, where I had no right to anything? Is it not,
besides, very evident to whoever would recall my position, which was one
of confidence near the Emperor, that, if I had been actuated by a love of
money, this position would have given me an opportunity to reap an
abundant harvest without injuring my reputation; but my disinterestedness
was so well known that, whatever may be said to the contrary, I can
assert that during the whole time my favor with the Emperor continued, I
on no occasion used it to render any other but unselfish services, and
often I refused to support a demand for the sole reason that the petition
had been accompanied by offers of money, which were often of very
considerable amount. Allow me to cite one example among many others of
the same nature. I received one day an offer of the sum of four hundred
thousand francs, which was made me by a lady of a very noble family, if I
would influence the Emperor to consider favorably a petition in which she
claimed indemnity for a piece of property belonging to her, on which the
port of Bayonne had been constructed. I had succeeded in obtaining
favorable answers to applications more difficult than this, but I refused
to agree to support her petition solely on account of the offer which had
been made to me; I would have been glad to oblige this lady, but only for
the pleasure of being obliging, and it was for this reason alone I
allowed myself to solicit of the Emperor the pardons which he nearly
always granted. Neither can it be said that I ever demanded of the
Emperor licenses for lottery drawings, or anything else of this kind, in
which, as is well known, a scandalous commerce is often made, and which,
no doubt, if I had demanded them of the Emperor he would have readily
granted.
The confidence in me which the Emperor had always shown was such that
even at Fontainebleau, when it had been decided that none of the ordinary
valets de chambre were to accompany him to the Island of Elba, the
Emperor left to my choice the selection of a young man to assist me in my
duties. I selected a boy of the apartments, whose upright character was
well known to me, and who was, moreover, the son of Madame Marchand, the
head nurse of the King of Rome. I spoke of him to the Emperor, who
accepted him; and I went immediately to inform M. Marchand, who received
the position most gratefully, and proved to me, by his thanks, how
delighted he would be to accompany us. I say us, for at this moment I
was very far from foreseeing the succession of fatal events which I have
faithfully narrated; and it may be seen afterwards, from the manner in
which M. Marchand expressed himself concerning me at the Tuileries during
the Hundred Days, that I had not bestowed my confidence unworthily.
CHAPTER XXIX.
I became a stranger to all the world after the departure of the Emperor
for the Island of Elba, and, filled with a deep sense of gratitude for
the kindness with which his Majesty had overwhelmed me during the
fourteen years I had passed in his service, thought incessantly of this
great man, and took pleasure in renewing in memory all the events, even
the most trivial, of my life with him. I thought it best suited my
former position to live in retirement, and passed my time most tranquilly
in the bosom of my family in the country-house belonging to me. At the
same time a fatal idea preoccupied my mind involuntarily; for I feared
that persons who were jealous of my former favor might succeed in
deceiving the Emperor as to my unalterable devotion to his person, and
strengthen in his mind the false opinion that they had for a time
succeeded in giving him of me. This opinion, although my conscience told
me that it was unjust, was not the less painful to me; but, as will soon
be seen, I was fortunate enough to obtain the certainty that my fears in
this respect were without foundation.
Although an entire stranger to politics, I had read with deep interest
the newspapers I received in my retreat, since the great political change
to which the name of the Restoration was given; and it seemed to me to
need only the simplest common-sense to see the marked difference which
existed between the government which had been overthrown and the new. In
all departments I saw a succession of titled men take the places of the
long list of distinguished men who had given under the Empire so many
proofs of merit and courage; but I was far from thinking, notwithstanding
the large number of discontented, that the fortunes of the Emperor and
the wishes of the army would ever restore him to that throne which he had
voluntarily abdicated in order that he might not be the cause of a civil
war in Dance. Therefore, it would be impossible to describe my
astonishment, and the multiplicity of varied feelings which agitated me,
when I received the first news of the landing of the Emperor on the coast
of Provence. I read with enthusiasm the admirable proclamation in which
he announced that his eagles would fly from steeple to steeple, and that
he himself would follow so closely in his triumphal march from the Bay of
Juan to Paris.
Here I must make a confession, which is, that only since I had left the
Emperor, had I fully comprehended the immensity of his greatness.
Attached to his service almost from the beginning of the Consulate, at a
time when I was still very young, he had grown, so to speak, without my
having perceived it, and I had above all seen in him, from the nature of
my duties, the excellent master rather than the great man; consequently,
in this instance the effects of distance were very different from what it
usually produces. It was with difficulty I could realize, and I am often
astonished to-day in recalling the frank candor with which I had dared to
defend to the Emperor what I knew to be the truth; his kindness, however,
seemed to encourage me in this, for often, instead of becoming irritated
by my vehemence, he said to me gently, with a benevolent smile, "Come,
come! M. Constant, don't excite yourself." Adorable kindness in a man
of such elevated rank! Ah, well I this was the only impression it made
on me in the privacy of his chamber, but since then I have learned to
estimate it at its true value.
On learning that the Emperor was to be restored to us, my first impulse
was to repair at once to the palace, that I might be there on his
arrival; but more mature reflection and the advice of my family made me
realize that it would be more suitable for me to await his orders, in
case he wished to recall me to my former service. I congratulated myself
on deciding to take the latter course, since I had the happiness to learn
that his Majesty had been kind enough to express his approval of my
former conduct. I learned from most reliable authority, that he had
hardly arrived at the Tuileries, when he condescended to inquire of M.
Eible, then concierge of the palace, "Well, what is Constant doing? How
is he succeeding? Where is he?"--"Sire, he is at his country-place,
which he has not left."--"Ah, very good. He is happy raising his
cabbages." I learned also that, during the first days of the Emperor's
return, his Majesty had been investigating the list of pensions, and had
been good enough to make a note that mine should be increased. Finally,
I experienced an intense satisfaction of another kind, no doubt, but none
the less sincere in the certainty of not being considered an ingrate.
I have stated that I had been fortunate enough to procure a position for
M. Marchand with the Emperor; and this is what was related to me by an
eye-witness. M. Marchand, in the beginning of the Hundred Days, happened
to be in one of the saloons of the palace of the Tuileries, where several
persons were assembled, and some of them were expressing themselves most
unkindly in regard to me. My successor with the Emperor interrupted them
brusquely, saying that there was not a word of truth in the calumnies
which were asserted of me; and added that, while I held the position, I
had uniformly been most obliging to all persons of the household who had
addressed themselves to me, and had done no injury to any one. In this
respect I can affirm that M. Marchand told only the truth; but I was none
the less deeply grateful to him for so honorably defending me, especially
in my absence.
Not being in Paris on the 20th of March, 1815, as we have just seen, I
could have nothing to say of the circumstances of this memorable epoch,
had I not collected from some of my friends particulars of what occurred
on the night following the re-entrance of the Emperor into the palace,
once again become Imperial; and it may be imagined how eager I was to
know everything relating to the great man whom we regarded at this moment
as the savior of France.
I will begin by repeating exactly the account which was given me by one
of my friends, a brave and excellent man, at that time sergeant in the
National Guard of Paris, who happened to be on duty at the Tuileries
exactly on the 20th of March. "At noon," he said, "three companies of
National Guards entered the court of the Tuileries, to occupy all the
interior and exterior posts of the palace. I belonged to one of these
companies, which formed a part of the fourth legion. My comrades and I
were struck with the inexpressible sadness produced by the sight of an
abandoned palace. Everything, in fact, was deserted. Only a few men
were seen here and there in the livery of the king, occupied in taking
down and removing portraits of the various members of the Bourbon family.
Outside could be heard the clamorous shouts of a frantic mob, who climbed
on the gates, tried to scale them, and pressed against them with such
force that at last they bent in several places so far that it was feared
they would be thrown down. This multitude of people presented a
frightful spectacle, and seemed as if determined to pillage the palace.
"Hardly a quarter of an hour after we entered the interior court an
accident occurred which, though not serious in itself, threw
consternation into our ranks, as well as among those who were pressing
against the grating of the Carrousel. We saw flames issuing from the
chimney of the King's apartments, which had been accidentally set on fire
by a quantity of papers which had just been burned therein. This
accident gave rise to most sinister conjectures, and soon the rumor
spread that the Tuileries had been undermined ready for an explosion
before the departure of Louis XVIII. A patrol was immediately formed of
fifteen men of the National Guard, commanded by a sergeant; they explored
the chateau most thoroughly, visited each apartment, descended into the
cellars, and assured themselves that there was nowhere the slightest
indication of danger.
"Reassured on this point, we were nevertheless not without anxiety. In
returning to our posts we had heard numerous groups shouting, 'Vive le
Roi! Vivent les Bourbons!' and we soon had proofs of the exasperation
and fury of a part of the people against Napoleon; for we witnessed the
arrival in our midst, in a most pitiable condition, of a superior officer
who had imprudently donned too soon the tricolored cockade, and
consequently had been pursued by the mob from the Rue Saint-Denis. We
took him under our protection, and made him enter the interior of the
palace, as he was almost exhausted. At this moment we received orders to
force the people to withdraw, as they had become still more determined to
scale the gates; and in order to accomplish this we were compelled to
have recourse to arms.
"We had occupied the post at the Tuileries an hour at most when General
Excelmans, who had received the chief command of the guard at the
chateau, gave orders to raise the tricolored banner over the middle
pavilion.
"The reappearance of the national colors excited among us all emotions of
the most intense satisfaction; and immediately the populace substituted
the cry of 'Vive l'Empereur' for that of 'Vive le Roi,' and nothing else
was heard the whole day. As for us, when we were ordered to don the
tricolored cockade it was a very easy performance, as a large number of
the guard had preserved their old ones, which they had simply covered
with a piece of white cambric. We were ordered to stack arms in front of
the arch of triumph, and nothing extraordinary occurred until six
o'clock; then lights began to shine on the expected route of the Emperor,
and a large number of officers on half pay collected near the pavilion of
Flora; and I learned from one of them, M. Saunier, a decorated officer,
that it was on that side the Emperor would re-enter the palace of the
Tuileries. I repaired there in all haste; and as I was hurrying to place
myself on his route, I was so fortunate as to meet a commanding officer,
who assigned me to duty at the very door of Napoleon's apartment, and to
this circumstance I owe the fact that I witnessed what now remains to be
related.
"I had for some time remained in expectation, and in almost perfect
solitude, when, at fifteen minutes before nine, an extraordinary noise
that I heard outside announced to me the Emperor's arrival; and a few
moments after I saw him appear, amidst cries of enthusiasm, borne on the
arms of the officers who had escorted him from the island of Elba. The
Emperor begged them earnestly to let him walk; but his entreaties were
useless, and they bore him thus to the very door of his apartment, where
they deposited him near me. I had not seen the Emperor since the day of
his farewell to the National Guard in the great court of the palace; and
in spite of the great agitation into which I was thrown by all this
commotion, I could not help noticing how much stouter he had become.
"The Emperor had hardly entered his apartments than I was assigned to
duty in the interior. Marshal Bertrand, who had just replaced General
Excelmans in the command of the Tuileries, gave me an order to allow no
one to enter without informing him, and to give him the names of all who
requested to see the Emperor. One of the first to present himself was
Cambaceres, who appeared to me even more pallid than usual. A short time
after came the father of General Bertrand; and as this venerable old man
attempted to pay his respects first to the Emperor, Napoleon said to him,
'No, monsieur! nature first;' and in saying this, with a movement as
quick as his words, the Emperor, so to speak, threw him into the arms of
his son. Next came Queen Hortense, accompanied by her two children;
then, Count Regnault de Saint-Jean d'Angely, and many other persons whose
names have escaped me. I did not see again those I announced to Marshal
Bertrand, as they all went out by another door. I continued this duty
till eleven o'clock in the evening, at which time I was relieved of my
duties, and was invited to supper at an immense table of about three
hundred covers. All the persons presented at the palace took their
places at this table, one after the other. I there saw the Duke of
Vicenza, and found myself placed opposite General Excelmans. The Emperor
supped alone in his room with Marshal Bertrand, and their supper was by
no means so splendid as ours, for it consisted only of a roast chicken
and a dish of lentils; and yet I learned from an officer who fad attended
him constantly since he left Fontainebleau, that his Majesty had eaten
nothing since morning. The Emperor was exceedingly fatigued; I had
opportunity to mark this each time his door was opened. He was seated on
a chair in front of the fire, with his feet on the mantelpiece.
"As we all remained at the Tuileries, word was sent us about one o'clock
that the Emperor had just retired, and that in case any soldiers should
arrive during the night who had accompanied him, he had given orders that
they should be on duty at the palace conjointly with the National Guard.
The poor creatures were hardly in a condition to obey such an order. At
two o'clock in the morning we saw two of them arrive in a most pitiable
condition; they were perfectly emaciated, and their feet blistered. All
that they could do was to throw themselves on their bags, on which they
fell sound asleep; and they did not even awake while the duty of
bandaging their feet was attended to in the room which they had reached
with so much difficulty. All were eager to lavish every attention on
them; and I admit that I have always regretted not having inquired the
names of these two brave grenadiers, who inspired in all of us an
interest I cannot describe.
"After retiring at one o'clock, the Emperor was on his feet at five
o'clock in the morning; and the order was immediately given to the
soldiers on half pay to hold themselves ready for a review, and at break
of day they were ranged in three ranks. At this moment I was deputed to
watch over an officer who was pointed out as suspicious, and who, it was
said, had come from Saint-Denis. This was M. de Saint-Chamans. At the
end of a quarter of an hour of arrest, which had nothing disagreeable in
it, he was simply asked to leave. Meanwhile, the Emperor had descended
from the palace, and passed through the ranks of the soldiers on half
pay, speaking to each one, taking many of them by the hand, and saying to
them, "My friends, I need your services; I rely on you as you may rely on
me." Magic words on the lips of Napoleon, and which drew tears of
emotion from all those brave soldiers whose services had been ignored for
a year.
"From the morning the crowd increased rapidly on all the approaches to
the Tuileries, and a mass of people asseriabled under the windows of the
chateau, demanding with loud shouts to see Napoleon. Marshal Bertrand
having informed him of this, the Emperor showed himself at the window,
where he was saluted by the shouts which his presence had so often
excited. After showing himself to the people, the Emperor himself
presented to them Marshal Bertrand, his arm resting on the marshal's
shoulder, whom he pressed to his heart with demonstrations of the
liveliest affection. During this scene, which deeply affected all the
witnesses, who cheered with all their might, officers, standing behind
the Emperor and his friend, held above their heads banners surmounted by
their eagles, of which they formed a kind of national canopy. At eleven
o'clock the Emperor mounted his horse, and reviewed the various regiments
which were arriving from every direction, and the heroes of the island of
Elba who had returned to the Tuileries during the night. All seemed
deeply impressed with the appearance of these brave men, whom the sun of
Italy had tanned, and who had traveled nearly two hundred leagues in
twenty days."
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 | 4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8