Ten Years' Exile. Madame de Staël
This infanta of Spain was ordered to Paris for the purpose of exhibiting to the French the spectacle of a prince of the ancient dynasty humbled before the first consul; more humbled by his gifts than he ever could have been by his persecution. Bonaparte tried upon this royal lamb the experiment of making a king wait in his antechamber: he allowed himself to be applauded at the theatre, upon the recitation of this verse:
"J'ai fait des rois, madame, et n'ai pas voulu l'etre:"
(I have made kings, madam, and have not wished to be one:) promising himself to be more than a king, when the opportunity should offer. Every day some fresh blunder of this poor king of Etruria was the subject of conversation: he was taken to the Museum, to the Cabinet of Natural History, and some of his questions about quadrupeds and fishes, which a well educated child of twelve years old would have been ashamed to put, were quoted as proofs of intelligence. In the evening, he was conducted to entertainments, where the female opera dancers came and mixed with the ladies of the new court; the little monarch, in spite of his devotion, preferred dancing with them, and in return sent them next day presents of elegant and good books for their instruction. This period of transition from revolutionary habits to monarchical pretensions in France, was a most singular one; as there was as little independence in the one, as dignity in the other, their absurdities harmonised perfectly together; each of them in their own way formed a group round the parti-coloured potentate, who at the same time employed the forcible means of both regimes.
For the last time, the 14th of July, the anniversary of the revolution, was celebrated this year, and a pompous proclamation was put forth to remind the people of the advantages resulting from that day, not one of which advantages the first consul had not made up his mind to destroy. Of all the collections that were ever made, that of the proclamations of this man is the most singular: it is a complete encyclopedia of contradictions; and if chaos itself were employed to instruct the earth, it would doubtless, in a similar way, throw at the heads of mankind, eulogiums of peace and war, of knowledge and prejudices, of liberty and despotism, praises and insults upon all governments and all religions.
It was at this period that Bonaparte sent General Leclerc to Saint Domingo, and designated him in his decree our brother-in-law. This first royal we, which associated the French with the prosperity of this family, was a most bitter pill to me. He obliged his beautiful sister to accompany her husband to Saint Domingo, where her health was completely ruined: a singular act of despotism for a man who is not accustomed to great severity of principles in those about his person; but he makes use of morality only to harass some and dazzle others. A peace was in the sequel concluded with the chief of the negroes, Toussaint-Louverture. This man was, no doubt, a great criminal, but Bonaparte had signed conditions with him, in complete violation of which Toussaint was conducted to a prison in France, where he ended his days in the most miserable manner. Perhaps Bonaparte himself hardly recollects this crime, because he has been less reproached with it than others.
In a great forge, we see with astonishment the violence of the machines which are set in motion by a single will: these hammers, those flatteners seem so many persons, or rather devouring animals. Should you attempt to resist their force, they would annihilate you; notwithstanding, all this apparent fury is calculated beforehand, and a single mover gives action to these springs. The tyranny of Bonaparte is represented to my eyes by this image; he makes thousands of men perish, as these wheels beat the iron, and his agents are the greater part of them equally insensible; the invisible impulse of these human machines proceeds from a will at once violent and methodical, which transforms moral life into its servile instrument. Finally, to complete the comparison, it is sufficient to seize the mover to restore every thing to a state of repose.
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