Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume I

81

A singular instance of this overstrained and dangerous enthusiasm is given by Madame Roland. [Memoirs, part i., p. 144.] It being the purpose to rouse the fears and spirit of the people, and direct their animosity against the court party, Grangeneuve agreed that he himself should be murdered, by persons chosen for the purpose, in such a manner that the suspicion of the crime should attach itself to the aristocrats. He went to the place appointed, but Chabot, who was to have shared his fate, neither appeared himself, nor had made the necessary preparations for the assassination of his friend, for which Madame Roland, that high-spirited republican, dilates upon his poltroonery. Yet, what was this patriotic devotion, save a plan to support a false accusation against the innocent, by an act of murder and suicide, which, if the scheme succeeded, was to lead to massacre and proscription? The same false, exaggerated, and distorted views of the public good centering, as it seemed to them, in the establishment of a pure republic, led Barnave and others to palliate the massacres of September. Most of them might have said of the Liberty which they had worshipped, that at their death they found it an empty name. – S.

82

So called, because the first sittings of the Club were held in the ancient convent of the Jacobins.

83

July 11. "The formal command to quit the kingdom was accompanied by a note from the King, in which he prayed him to depart in a private manner, for fear of exciting disturbances. Necker received this intimation just as he was dressing for dinner: he dined quietly, without divulging it to any one, and set out in the evening with Madame Necker for Brussels." – Mignet, tom. i., p. 47.

84

The Marshal was born in 1718, and died, at the age of eighty-six, in 1804.

85

Cockneys.

86

"M. Foulon, an old man of seventy, member of the former Administration, was seized near his own seat, and with his hands tied behind his back, a crown of thistles on his head, and his mouth stuffed with hay, conducted to Paris, where he was murdered with circumstances of unheard-of cruelty. His son-in-law, Berthier, compelled to kiss his father's head, which was thrust into his carriage on a pike, shortly after shared his fate; and the heart of the latter was torn out of his palpitating body." – Lacretelle, tom. vii., p. 117.

87

M. de Flesselles. It was alleged that a letter had been found on the Governor of the Bastile, which implicated him in treachery to the public cause. – See Mignet, tom. i., p. 62.

88

For an account of Lord George Gordon's riots in 1780, see Annual Register, vol. xxiii., p. 254; and Wraxall's Own Time, vol. i., p. 319.

89

"If the gardes Françaises, in 1789, had behaved like our regular troops in 1780, the French Revolution might have been suppressed in its birth; but, the difference of character between the two sovereigns of Great Britain and of France, constituted one great cause of the different fate that attended the two monarchies. George the Third, when attacked, prepared to defend his throne, his family, his country, and the constitution intrusted to his care; they were in fact saved by his decision. Louis the Sixteenth tamely abandoned all to a ferocious Jacobin populace, who sent him to the scaffold. No man of courage or of principle could have quitted the former prince. It was impossible to save, or to rescue, the latter ill-fated, yielding, and passive monarch." – Wraxall, vol. i., p. 334.

90

"Que voulez-vous qu'il fit contre trois? Qu'il mourût,Ou qu'un beau désespoir alors le secourût."Corneille —Les Horaces, Act iii., Sc. 6.

91

We have heard from a spectator who could be trusted, that during the course of the attack on the Bastile, a cry arose among the crowd that the regiment of Royales Allemandes were coming upon them. There was at that moment such a disposition to fly, as plainly showed what would have been the effect had a body of troops appeared in reality. The Baron de Besenval had commanded a body of the guards, when, some weeks previously, they subdued an insurrection in the Fauxbourg St. Antoine. On that occasion many of the mob were killed; and he observes in his Memoirs, that, while the citizens of Paris termed him their preserver, he was very coldly received at court. He might be, therefore, unwilling to commit himself, by acting decidedly on the 14th July. – S.

92

Charles the Tenth.

93

"Is there nothing else we can renounce?" said the old Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, in the time of the Commonwealth, after he had joined in renouncing Church and King, Crown and Law. "Can no one think of any thing else? I love RENOUNCING." The hasty renunciations of the French nobles and churchmen were brought about in the manner practised of yore in convivial parties, when he who gave a toast burned his wig, had a loose tooth drawn, or made some other sacrifice, which, according to the laws of compotation, was an example necessary to be imitated by all the rest of the company, with whatever prejudice to their wardrobes or their persons. – S.

94

"Next day Siêyes gave vent to his spleen to Mirabeau, who answered, 'My dear abbé, you have unloosed the bull do you expect he is not to make use of his horns?'" – Dumont, p. 147.

95

Mignet, tom. i., p. 89; Lacretelle, tom. vii., p. 185.

96

Prudhomme, tom. i., p. 236; Thiers, tom. i., p. 135.

97

In the beginning of the Revolution, when the mob executed their pleasure on the individuals against whom their suspicions were directed, the lamp-irons served for gibbets, and the lines by which the lamps, or lanterns, were disposed across the street, were ready halters. Hence the cry of "Les Aristocrates à la lanterne." The answer of the Abbé Maury is well known. "Eh! mes amis, et quand vous m'auriez mis à la lanterne, est ce que vous verriez plus clair?" —Biog. Univ.– S.

98

Mounier must be supposed to speak ironically, and in allusion, not to his own opinions, but to Mirabeau's revolutionary tenets. Another account of this singular conversation states his answer to have been, "All the better. If the mob kill all of us – remark, I say all of us, it will be the better for the country." – S. – Thiers, tom. i., p. 138.

99

Prudhomme, tom. i., p. 257.

100

"In the gallery a crowd of fish women were assembled under the guidance of one virago with stentorian lungs, who called to the deputies familiarly by name, and insisted that their favourite Mirabeau should speak." – Dumont, p. 181.

101

Mignet, tom. i., p. 92.

102

This was proposed by that Marquis de Favras, whose death upon the gallows, [Feb. 19, 1790,] for a Royalist plot, gave afterwards such exquisite delight to the citizens of Paris. Being the first man of quality whom they had seen hanged, (that punishment having been hitherto reserved for plebeians,) they encored the performance, and would fain have hung him up a second time. The same unfortunate gentleman had previously proposed to secure the bridge at Sevres with a body of cavalry, which would have prevented the women from advancing to Versailles. The Queen signed an order for the horses with this remarkable clause: – "To be used if the King's safety is endangered, but in no danger which affects me only." – S. – "The secret of this intrigue never was known; but I have no doubt Favras was one of those men who, when employed as instruments, are led by vanity much further than their principals intend." – Dumont, p. 174.

103

Lacretelle, tom. vii., p. 217.

104

Rivarol, p. 300; Mignet, tom. i., p. 93.

105

One of the most accredited calumnies against the unfortunate Marie Antoinette pretends, that she was on this occasion surprised in the arms of a paramour. Buonaparte is said to have mentioned this as a fact, upon the authority of Madame Campan. [O'Meara's Napoleon in Exile, vol. ii., p. 172.] We have now Madame Campan's own account, [Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 78.] describing the conduct of the Queen on this dreadful occasion as that of a heroine, and totally excluding the possibility of the pretended anecdote. But let it be farther considered, under what circumstances the Queen was placed – at two in the morning, retired to a privacy liable to be interrupted (as it was) not only by the irruption of the furious banditti who surrounded the palace, demanding her life, but by the entrance of the King, or of others, in whom circumstances might have rendered the intrusion duty; and let it then be judged, whether the dangers of the moment, and the risk of discovery, would not have prevented Messalina herself from choosing such a time for an assignation. – S.

106

The miscreant's real name was Jourdan, afterwards called Coupe-Tête, distinguished in the massacres of Avignon. He gained his bread by sitting as an academy-model to painters, and for that reason cultivated his long beard. In the depositions before the Chatelet, he is called L'Homme à la barbe– an epithet which might distinguish the ogre or goblin of some ancient legend. – S.

107

Lacretelle, tom. vii., p. 238.

108

Thiers, tom. i., p. 182; Lacretelle, tom. vii., p. 241.

109

Rivarol, p. 312; Campan, vol. ii., p. 81.

110

Mémoires de Weber, vol. ii., p. 457. – S.

111

"The Queen, on returning from the balcony, approached my mother, and said to her, with stifled sobs, 'They are going to force the King and me to Paris, with the heads of our body-guards carried before us, on the point of their pikes.' Her prediction was accomplished." – M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 344.

112

It has been said that they were borne immediately before the royal carriage; but this is an exaggeration where exaggeration is unnecessary. These bloody trophies preceded the royal family a great way on the march to Paris. – S.

113

"Nous ne manquerons plus de pain; nous amenons le boulanger, la boulangère, et le petit mitron!" – Prudhomme, tom. i., p. 244.

114

Prudhomme, tom. i., p. 243.

115

"The King said to the mayor, 'I come with pleasure to my good city of Paris;' the Queen added, 'and with confidence.' The expression was happy, but the event, alas! did not justify it." – M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 344.

116

The Mayor of Paris, although such language must have sounded like the most bitter irony, had no choice of words on the 6th October, 1789. But if he seriously termed that "a glorious day," what could Bailli complain of the studied insults and cruelties which he himself sustained, when, in Oct. 1792, the same banditti of Paris, who forced the King from Versailles, dragged himself to death, with every circumstance of refined cruelty and protracted insult? – S. – It was not on the 6th October, but the 17th July, three days after the capture of the Bastile, that Bailli, on presenting Louis with the keys of Paris, made use of this expression. – See Prudhomme, tom. i., p. 203.

117

"As the arrival of the royal family was unexpected, very few apartments were in a habitable state, and the Queen had been obliged to get tent-beds put up for her children in the very room where she received us; she apologized for it, and added, 'You know that I did not expect to come here.' Her physiognomy was beautiful, but irritated; it was not to be forgotten after having been seen." – M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 345.

118

Lacretelle, tom. vii., p. 265.

119

"On being informed of the King's determination to quit Versailles for Paris, the Assembly hastily passed a resolution, that it was inseparable from the King, and would accompany him to the capital." – Thiers, tom. i., p. 182.

120

See Richard the Third, act v., sc. iii.

121

Barnave, as well as Mirabeau, the Republican as well as the Orleanist, was heard to exclaim, "Courage, brave Parisians – liberty for ever – fear nothing – we are for you!" – See Mémoires de Ferrieres, li., iv. – S.

122

See the proceedings before the Chatelet. – S. – See also Thiers, tom. i., p. 184; Lacretelle, tom. vii.; and M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 350.

123

Thiers, tom. i., p. 192; Lacretelle, tom. vii., p. 262.

124

"The indignant populace murmured at the severity. 'What!' they exclaimed, 'is this our liberty? We can no longer hang whom we please!'" – Toulongeon, tom. i., p. 168.

125

"A simple decree, proposed, June 20th, by Lameth, that the titles of duke, count, marquis, viscount, baron, and chevalier, should be suppressed, was carried by an overwhelming majority." – Mignet, tom. ii., p. 114.

126

Richard the Second, act iii., sc. i.

127

"One of the most singular propositions of this day was, that of renouncing the names of estates, which many families had borne for ages, and obliging them to resume their patronymic appellations. In this way the Montmorencies would have been called Bouchard; La Fayette, Mottié; Mirabeau, Riquetti. This would have been stripping France of her history; and no man, how democratic soever, either would or ought to renounce in this manner the memory of his ancestors." – M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 364.

128

The Comte de Mirabeau was furious at being called Riquetti l'ainé, and said, with great bitterness, when his speeches were promulgated under that name, "Avec votre Riquetti, vous avez désorienté l'Europe pour trois jours." Mirabeau was at heart an aristocrat. But what shall we say of Citoyenne Roland, who piques herself on the plebeian sound of her name, Manon Philipon, yet inconsequentially upbraids Citoyen Pache with his father's having been a porter! – S. —Memoirs, part i., p. 140.

129

This proposition was made by Talleyrand, then Bishop of Autun. In support of it he argued, that "the clergy were not proprietors, but depositories of their estates; that no individual could maintain any right of property, or inheritance in them; that they were bestowed originally by the munificence of kings or nobles, and might now be resumed by the nation, which had succeeded to their rights." To this Maury and Siêyes replied, "that it was an unfounded assertion that the property of the Church was at the disposal of the state; that it flowed from the munificence or piety of individuals in former ages, and was destined to a peculiar purpose, totally different from secular concerns; that, if the purposes originally intended could not be carried into effect it should revert to the heirs of the donors, but certainly not accrue to the legislature." – Thiers, tom. i., p. 193.

130

M. de Chateaubriand says, "The funds thus acquired were enormous, the church-lands were nearly one-half of the whole landed property of the kingdom."

131

See Sir Henry Spelman's treatise on the "History of Sacrilege."

132

See M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 384. "The retreat of Necker produced a total change in the ministry. Of those who now came into office two were destined to perish on the scaffold, and a third by the sword of the revolutionary assassins." – Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 92.

133

Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 38.

134

Mignet, tom. i., pp. 107, 121; Thiers, tom. i., pp. 240, 266.

135

Mignet says, "The Constitutional Church establishment was not the work of the modern philosophers, but was devised by the Jansenists, or rigid party." No doubt, the Jansenists, dupes of the philosophers, fancied themselves guides instead of blind instruments.

136

It was their custom to sit on the highest rows of benches in the hall.

137

Mémoires du Marquis des Ferrieres, l. iii.

138

Mémoires de Bailli, 16 Août.

139

Prudhomme, tom. ii., p. 297.

140

See Mignet, tom. i., p. 126; Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 128.

"I have had in my hands a letter of Mirabeau, written for the purpose of being shown to the King. He there made offer of all his means to restore to France an efficient and respected, but a limited monarchy; he made use, among others, of this remarkable expression: 'I should lament to have laboured at nothing but a vast destruction.'" – M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 401.

"He (Mirabeau) received for a short time a pension of 20,000 francs, or £800 a-month, first from the Comte D'Artois, and afterwards the King; but he considered himself an agent intrusted with their affairs, and he accepted those pensions not to be governed by, but to govern, those who granted them." – Dumont, p. 230.

141

Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 126.

142

Mirabeau bore much of his character imprinted on his person and features. He was short, bull-necked, and very strongly made. A quantity of thick matted hair hung round features of a coarse and exaggerated character, strongly scarred and seamed. "Figure to your mind," he said, describing his own countenance to a lady who knew him not, "a tiger who has had the small-pox." When he talked of confronting his opponents in the Assembly, his favourite phrase was, "I will show them La Hure," that is, the boar's head, meaning his own tusked and shaggy countenance. – S.

143

"Mirabeau knew that his end was approaching. 'After my death,' said he, 'the factions will share among themselves the shreds of the monarchy.' He suffered cruelly in the last days of his life; and, when no longer able to speak, wrote to his physician for a dose of opium, in these words of Hamlet, 'to die – to sleep.' He received no consolation from religion." – M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 402.

144

"His funeral obsequies were celebrated with extraordinary pomp by torchlight; 20,000 national guards, and delegates from all the sections of Paris, accompanied the corpse to the Pantheon, where it was placed by the remains of Des Cartes." – Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 135.

145

Toulongeon, tom. i., p. 242; Mignet, tom. i., p. 132.

146

Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 220.

147

Mignet, tom. i., p. 132; Thiers, tom. i., p. 287.

148

See Annual Register, vol. xxxiii., p. 131.

149

"To deceive any one that might follow, we drove about several streets: at last we returned to the Little Carousel. My brother was fast asleep at the bottom of the carriage. We saw M. de la Fayette go by, who had been at my father's coucher. There we remained, waiting a full hour, ignorant of what was going on. Never did time appear so tedious." – Duchess of Angoulême's Narrative, p. 9.

150

Bouillé's Memoirs, pp. 275-290; Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 258.

151

The following anecdote will serve to show by what means this conclusion was insinuated into the public mind. A group in the Palais Royal were discussing in great alarm the consequences of the King's flight, when a man, dressed in a thread-bare great-coat, leaped upon a chair and addressed them thus: – "Citizens, listen to a tale, which shall not be a long one. A certain well-meaning Neapolitan was once on a time startled in his evening walk, by the astounding intelligence that the Pope was dead. He had not recovered his astonishment, when behold he is informed of a new disaster, – the King of Naples was also no more. 'Surely,' said the worthy Neapolitan, 'the sun must vanish from heaven at such a combination of fatalities.' But they did not cease here. The Archbishop of Palermo, he is informed, has also died suddenly. Overcome by this last shock he retired to bed, but not to sleep. In the morning he was disturbed in his melancholy reverie by a rumbling noise, which he recognised at once to be the motion of the wooden instrument which makes macaroni. 'Aha!' says the good man, starting up, 'can I trust my ears? – The Pope is dead – the King of Naples is dead – the Bishop of Palermo is dead – yet my neighbour the baker makes macaroni! Come! The lives of these great folk are not then so indispensable to the world after all.'" The man in the great-coat jumped down and disappeared. "I have caught his meaning," said a woman amongst the listeners. "He has told us a tale, and it begins like all tales —There was ONCE a King and a Queen." – S.

152

Three commissioners, Petion, La Tour Maubourg, and Barnave, were sent to reconduct the fugitives to Paris. They met them at Epernay, and travelled with them to the Tuileries. During the journey, Barnave, though a stern Republican, was so melted by the graceful dignity of the Queen, and impressed with the good sense and benevolence of the King, that he became inclined to the royal cause, and ever after supported their fortunes. His attentions to the Queen were so delicate, and his conduct so gentle, that she assured Madame Campan, that she forgave him all the injuries he had inflicted on her family. – Thiers, tom. i., p. 299.

153

"Count de Dampierre, a nobleman inhabiting a chateau near the road, approaching to kiss the hand of the King, was instantly pierced by several balls from the escort; his blood sprinkled the royal carriage, and his remains were torn to pieces by the savages." – Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 271; M. de Campan, tom. ii., p. 154.

154

Drawn up by Brissot, author of the Patriot Française.

155

Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 311.

156

Mémoires de Mad. Roland, art. "Robert," – S. – [part i., p. 157.]

157

Thiers, tom. i., p. 312.

158

"Mr. Fox told me in England, in 1793, that at the time of the King's departure to Varennes, he should have wished that he had been allowed to quit the kingdom in peace." – M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 408.

Napoleon said at St. Helena: – "The National Assembly never committed so great an error as in bringing back the King from Varennes. A fugitive and powerless, he was hastening to the frontier, and in a few hours would have been out of the French territory. What should they have done in these circumstances? Clearly facilitated his escape, and declared the throne vacant by his desertion. They would thus have avoided the infamy of a regicide government, and attained their great object of republican institutions."

159

Mignet, tom. i., p. 141; Dumont, p. 244.

160

"One evening M. de Narbonne made use of this expression: 'I appeal to the most distinguished members of this Assembly.' At that moment the whole party of the Mountain rose up in a fury, and Merlin, Bazire, and Chabot, declared, that 'all the deputies were equally distinguished.'" – M. de Staël, tom. ii., p. 39.