dinner, which was not served until eight or nine o’clock. He required my attendance about five or six o'clock, together with my son. I could neither write nor read, owing to the state of my eyes; but my son was enabled to supply my place. He wrote to the Emperor’s dictation, and I was present only to help him afterwards to correct his hasty scrawl; for, by dint of habit, I could repeat, almost literally and entirely, all that had fallen from the Emperor.
The Campaign of Italy being now finished, we began to revise it, and the Emperor corrected, and dictated anew. We dined, as I have before observed, between eight and nine o’clock. The table was laid out in the room nearest to the entrance of the house. Madame de Montholon sat on the right of the Emperor; I on his left; and Messrs. de Montholon, Gourgaud, and my son, sat in the opposite places. The room still smelled of paint, particularly when the weather was damp; and though not very offensive, it was sufficiently annoying to the Emperor: we, therefore, sat no longer than ten minutes at table. The dessert was prepared in the adjoining apartment, which was the drawing-room, and we again seated ourselves round the table. Coffee was then served up, and conversation commenced. We read a few scenes from Moliere, Racine, and Voltaire, and always regretted not having a copy of Corneille. We then played at reversis, which had been the Emperor’s favourite game in his youth. The recollection was pleasing to him, and he at first thought that he could amuse himself for a length of time at it; but he was soon undeceived. We played at the game and all its varieties; which made it so complex that I have seen from fifteen to eighteen thousand counters in use at once. The Emperor’s aim was always to make the reversis; that is to say, to make every trick, which is no easy matter. However, he frequently succeeded:—character developes itself every where and in every thing. We retired about ten or eleven o’clock.
To-day, the 19th, when I paid my respects to the Emperor, he shewed me a libel upon himself which had fallen into his hands, and asked me to translate it. Amidst a mass of other nonsense, some private letters were mentioned, which were said to have been addressed by Napoleon to the Empress Josephine, under the solemn form of Madame et chère Epouse. Allusion was next made to a combination of spies and agents, by whose aid the Emperor knew the private affairs of every family in France, and penetrated the secrets of all the cabinets in Europe. The Emperor wished to proceed no farther, and made me lay aside the book, saying,—“It is too absurd.” The fact is that, in his private correspondence, Napoleon always addressed the Empress Josephine very unfashionably by the pronoun “thou” (tu); and “my good little Louisa” (ma bonne petite Louise) was the form by which he addressed Maria Louisa.
The first time I ever saw the Emperor’s running-hand was at Saint-Cloud, after the battle of Friedland, when the Empress Josephine amused herself by making us try to decipher a note which she held in her hand, and which seemed to be written in hieroglyphics. It was to the following effect:—“My sons have once more shed a lustre over my career: the victory of Friedland will be inscribed in history, beside those of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena. You will cause the cannon to be fired; Cambaceres will publish the bulletin.”
I was again favoured with the sight of a note in the Emperor’s hand-writing, at the time of the treaty of Tilsit. It contained the following:—“The Queen of Prussia is really a charming woman. She is fond of coquetting with me; but do not be jealous: I am like a cerecloth, along which every thing of this sort slides, without penetrating. It would cost me too dear to play the gallant.”
On this subject, an anecdote was related in the saloon of Josephine. It was said that the Queen of Prussia one day had a beautiful rose in her hand, which the Emperor asked her to give to him. The Queen hesitated for a few moments, and then presented it to him, saying: “Why should I so readily grant what you request, while you remain deaf to all my entreaties?” She alluded to the fortress of Magdeburg, which she had earnestly solicited him to give up. Such was the nature of the intimacy, and such the conversations, that were so unblushingly misrepresented in English works of a certain degree of merit, where the Emperor was described as an insolent and brutal tyrant, seeking, with the aid of his ferocious Mamelukes, to violate the honour of the lovely Queen, before the very face of her unfortunate husband.
As to the grand machinery of spies and police, which has been so much talked of, what state on the Continent could boast of having less of such evils than France; and yet what country stood more in need of them? What circumstances more imperatively called for them? Every pamphlet published in Europe was directed against France, with a view of rendering odious in another country that which it was thought advisable to conceal at home. Still, however, these measures, so necessary in principle, though doubtless hateful in their details, were looked at merely in a general way by the Emperor, and always with a strict observance of his constant maxim, that nothing should be done that is not absolutely indispensable. In the Council of State, I have frequently heard him make enquiries into these subjects; investigate them with peculiar solicitude; correct abuses and seek to obviate evils, and appoint committees of his Council to visit the prisons, and make reports to him. Having been myself employed in a mission of this nature, I had an opportunity of observing the misconduct and abuses of subaltern agents; and, at the same time, of knowing the ardent wishes of the sovereign to repress them.
The Emperor found that this branch of the administration in a certain degree clashed with established prejudices and opinions; and he therefore wished to elevate it in the eyes of the people, by placing it under the control of a man whose character was beyond the reach of censure. In the year 1810, he summoned the Councillor of State, Baron ——, to Fontainebleau. The Baron had been an emigrant, or what nearly amounted to the same thing. His family, his early education, his former opinions,—all were calculated to render him an object of suspicion to one more distrustful than Napoleon. In the course of conversation, the Emperor said:—“If the Count de Lille were now to discover himself in Paris, and you were intrusted with the superintendence of the police, would you arrest him?”—“Yes, certainly,” answered the Councillor of State, “because he would thereby have broken his ban, and because his appearance would be in opposition to every existing law.”—“If you were one of a committee appointed to try him, would you condemn him?”—“Yes, doubtless; for the laws which I have sworn to obey would require that I should condemn him.”—“Very well!” said the Emperor, “return to Paris: I make you my prefect of police.”
With regard to the inspection of letters under the government of Napoleon, whatever may have been publicly said on that subject, the Emperor declared that certainly very few letters were read at the post-offices. Those which were delivered either open or re-sealed, to private persons, had, for the most part, not been read: to read all would have been an endless task. The system of examining letters was adopted with the view of preventing, rather than discovering, dangerous correspondence. The letters that were really read exhibited no trace of having been opened, so effectual were the precautions employed. “Ever since the reign of Louis XIV.,” said the Emperor, “there had existed an office of political police for discovering foreign correspondence: and from that period the same families had managed the business of the office, though the individuals and their functions were alike unknown. It was in all respects an official post. The persons superintending this department were educated at great expense in the different capitals of Europe. They had their own peculiar notions of propriety, and always manifested reluctance to examine the home correspondence: it was, however, also under their control. As soon as the name of any individual was entered upon the lists of this important department, his arms and seals were immediately engraved at the office; and thus his letters, after having been read, were closed up and delivered without any mark of suspicion. These circumstances, joined to the serious evils which they might create, and the important results which they were capable of producing, constituted the vast responsibility of the office of postmaster-general, and required that it should be filled by a man of prudence, judgment, and intelligence.” The Emperor bestowed great praise on M. de Lavalette, for the way in which he had discharged his duties.
The Emperor was by no means favourable to the system of inspecting correspondence. With regard to the diplomatic information thereby obtained, he did not consider it of sufficient value to counterbalance
