Читать книгу The Life, Exile and Conversations with Napoleon - Emmanuel-Auguste-Dieudonné Las Cases - Страница 74

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24th.—The Emperor had been reading some publication in which he was made to speak in too amiable a strain; and he could not help exclaiming against the mistake of the writer. “How could they put these words into my mouth?” said he. “This is too tender, too sentimental, for me: every one knows that I do not express myself in that way.” “Sire,” I replied, “it was done with a good intention; the thing is innocent in itself, and may have produced a good effect. That reputation for amiableness, which you seem to despise, might have exercised great influence over public opinion; it might at least have counteracted the effect of the colouring in which a certain European system has falsely exhibited your Majesty to the world. Your heart, with which I am now acquainted, is certainly as good as that of Henri IV., which I did not know. Now, his amiableness of character is still proverbial: he is still held up as an idol; yet I suspect Henri IV. was a bit of a quack. And why should your Majesty have disdained to be so? You have too great an aversion to that system. After all, quackery rules the world; and it is fortunate when it happens to be only innocent.”

The Emperor laughed at what he termed my prosing. “What,” said he, ”is the advantage of popularity and amiableness of character? Who possessed those qualities in a more eminent degree than the unfortunate Louis XVI.? Yet what was his fate? His life was sacrificed!—No! a sovereign must serve his people with dignity, and not make it his chief study to please them. The best mode of winning their love is to secure their welfare. Nothing is more dangerous than for a sovereign to flatter his subjects: if they do not afterwards obtain every thing they want they become irritated, and fancy that promises have been broken; and if they are then resisted, their hatred increases in proportion as they consider themselves deceived. A sovereign’s first duty is doubtless to conform with the wishes of the people; but what the people say is scarcely ever what they wish: their desires and their wants cannot be learned from their own mouths so well as they are to be read in the heart of their prince.

"Each system may, no doubt, be maintained: that of mildness as well as that of severity. Each has its advantages and its disadvantages; for every thing is mutually balanced in this world. If you ask me what was the use of my severe forms and expressions, I shall answer, to spare me the pain of inflicting the punishment I threatened. What harm have I done after all? What blood have I shed? Who can boast that, had he been placed in my situation, he could have done better? What period of history, exhibiting any thing like the difficulties with which I was surrounded, presents such harmless results? What am I reproached with? My government archives and my private 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.