The Life, Exile and Conversations with Napoleon. Emmanuel-Auguste-Dieudonné Las Cases
papers were seized; yet what has there been found to publish to the world? All sovereigns, situated as I was, amidst factions, disorders, and conspiracies, are surrounded by murders and executions! Yet, during my reign, what sudden tranquillity pervaded France!—You are, no doubt, astonished at this chain of reflection,” continued he, smiling, “you, who frequently display the mildness and simplicity of a child.”
I could not but admit the force of his arguments, and now, in my turn, maintained that both systems might have their peculiar advantages. “Every individual,” said I, “should form a character for himself by means of education; but he should be careful, at the same time, to lay its foundation on the character he has received from Nature; otherwise he runs a risk of losing the advantages of the latter, without obtaining those of the character which he wishes to acquire; and his education may prove an instrument to mislead him. After all, the course of a man’s life is the true result of his character, and the proper test by which it should be judged. Of what, then, can I have to complain? From the lowest degree of misery, I raised myself, by my own efforts, to tolerable independence; and from the streets of London, I penetrated to the steps of your throne, and to the benches of your Council-chamber; all this, too, without having cause to blush in the presence of any individual for any thing that I have ever spoken, written, or done. Have I not then also performed my little wonders in my own little way? What could I have done better had another turn been given to my character?”
The conversation was here interrupted by some one entering, to announce that the Admiral and some ladies, who had arrived by the Doris, solicited the favour of being presented to the Emperor; but he answered drily, that he would see no one, and that he did not wish to be disturbed.
Under our present circumstances, the personal politeness of the Admiral was felt only as an additional insult: and with regard to those who accompanied him, as no one could approach us but with the Admiral’s permission, the Emperor did not choose that the honours of his person should be thus performed. If it were intended that he should remain in close confinement, he ought to be told so; but, if not, he should be allowed to see whom he pleased without the interference of any person. Above all, it was not fair that they should pretend in Europe to surround him with every sort of attention and respect, while, on the contrary, they were annoying him with every kind of indecorum and caprice.
The Emperor walked out in the garden at five o’clock. The Colonel of the 53rd regiment waited on him there, and begged permission to present to him, next day, the officers of his regiment. The Emperor granted his request, and appointed three o’clock as the hour to receive them. The Colonel took his leave, and we prolonged our walk. The Emperor stopped awhile to look at a flower in one of the beds, and asked me whether it was not a lily. It was indeed a magnificent one.
After dinner, while we were playing our usual game of reversis, of which, by the by, the Emperor began to grow weary, he suddenly turned to me and said, “Where do you suppose Madame Las Cases is at this moment?”—“Alas, Sire,” I replied, “Heaven knows!”—“She is in Paris,” continued he; “to-day is Tuesday; it is nine o’clock; she is now at the Opera.”—“No, Sire, she is too good a wife to go to the theatre while I am here.”—“Spoken like a true husband,” said the Emperor, laughing, “ever confident and credulous!” Then turning to General Gourgaud, he rallied him in the same style with respect to his mother and sister. Gourgaud seemed very much downcast, and his eyes were suffused with tears, which the Emperor perceiving, cast a side-glance towards him, and said, in the most interesting manner, “How wicked, barbarous and tyrannical I must be thus to trifle with feelings so tender!”29
The Emperor then asked me how many children I had, and when and how I had become acquainted with Madame Las Cases. I replied that my wife had been the first acquaintance of my life; that our marriage was a tie which we had ourselves formed in early youth, yet that it had required the occurrence of the greater part of the events of the Revolution to bring about its accomplishment.
THE EMPEROR FREQUENTLY WOUNDED IN HIS CAMPAIGNS.—COSSACKS.—JERUSALEM
DELIVERED.
25th.—The Emperor, who had not been well the preceding evening, was still indisposed this morning, and sent word that it would be impossible for him to receive the officers of the 53rd, as he had appointed. He sent for me about the middle of the day, and we again perused some chapters of the Campaign of Italy. I compared that which treats of the battle of Arcole to a book of the Iliad.
Some time before the dinner-hour, he assembled us all around him in his chamber. A servant entered to announce that dinner was ready; he sent us away, but, as I was going out last, he called me back. “Stay here,” said he, “we will dine together. Let the young people go; we old folks will keep one another company.” He then determined to dress, intending, as he said, to go into the drawing-room after dinner.
While he was dressing, he put his hand on his left thigh, where there was a deep scar. He called my attention to it by laying his finger in it; and, finding that I did not understand what it was, he told me that it was the mark of a bayonet wound by which he had nearly lost his limb, at the siege of Toulon. Marchand, who was dressing him, here took the liberty of remarking that the circumstance was well known on board the Northumberland; that one of the crew had told him, on going on board, that it was an Englishman who first wounded our Emperor.
The Emperor, on this, observed that people had in general wondered and talked a great deal of the singular good fortune which had preserved him, as it were, invulnerable in so many battles. “They were mistaken,” added he; “the only reason was that I always made a secret of all my dangers.” He then related that he had had three horses killed under him at the siege of Toulon; several others killed and wounded in his campaigns of Italy; and three or four at the siege of St. Jean-d’Acre. He added that he had been wounded several times; that, at the battle of Ratisbon, a ball had struck his heel; and at the battle of Esling, or Wagram, I cannot say which, another had torn his boot and stocking, and grazed the skin of his left leg. In 1814, he lost a horse and his hat at Arcis-sur-Aube, or in its neighbourhood. After the battle of Brienne, as he was returning to head-quarters in the evening, in a melancholy and pensive mood, he was suddenly attacked by some Cossacks, who had passed over into the rear of the army. He thrust one of them off with his hand, and was obliged to draw his sword in his own defence; several of the Cossacks were killed at his side. “But what renders this circumstance very extraordinary,” said he, “is, that it took place near a tree which at that moment caught my eye, and which I recognized as the very one under which, when I was but twelve years old, I used to sit during play-hours and read Jerusalem Delivered.” ... Doubtless on that spot Napoleon had been first fired by the love of glory!
The Emperor repeated that he had been very frequently exposed to danger in his different battles, but it was carefully kept secret. He had enjoined once for all, the most absolute silence on all circumstances of that nature. He said that it would be impossible to calculate the confusion and disorder which might have resulted from the slightest report or the smallest doubt relative to his existence. On his life depended the fate of a great Empire, and the whole policy and destinies of Europe. He added that this habit of keeping circumstances of that kind secret had prevented him from relating them in his campaigns; and indeed he had now almost forgotten them. It was only, he said, by mere accident, and in the course of conversation, that they could recur to him.
MY CONVERSATION WITH AN ENGLISHMAN.
26th.—The Emperor continued indisposed.
One of the English gentlemen, whose wife had yesterday been refused admittance, in company with the Admiral, paid me a visit this morning, with the view of making another and a final attempt to get presented to Napoleon. This gentleman spoke French very well, having resided in France during the whole of the war. He was one of those individuals who were known at the time by the title of