The Tragedy of St. Helena Part 9

Napoleon never altered his opinion of Lowe's perfidy towards him. On one occasion, in conversation with the truthful Gourgaud, he exclaims, "Ah! I know the English. You may be sure that the sentinels stationed round this house have orders from the Governor to kill me. They will pretend to give me a thrust with a bayonet by mistake some day."

Gourgaud reports him as saying on another occasion, "Hudson Lowe is a Sicilian grafted on a Prussian; they must have chosen him to make me die under his charge by inches. It would have been more generous to have shot me at once."

It would be absurd to affirm that Napoleon said these things without sound foundation, and although, when his personal vanity and abnormal jealousy was aroused by some fancied injury to himself, Gourgaud would resort to the most remarkable fibbing, what he relates as to his master's opinion of the Governor may be relied on, being, as it is, confirmed in a more complete form by O'Meara, Las Cases, Montholon, Bertrand, Antommarchi, and each of the Commissioners. The former sacrificed everything rather than be a party to what he termed treatment that was an "outrage on decency."

These are only a few of the men who bear witness against Sir Hudson being termed "good"; and I may add one other to the galaxy, poor Dr.

Stokoe, who shrank from having the abominable indignity of inquisitor and spy tacked on to his high office and distinguished profession. He refused, as O'Meara had done, to sacrifice his manhood or his sense of honour. Tricked into a false position by Lowe and the virtuous (?) Sir Robert Plampin, Dr. Stokoe, who had only paid five professional visits to Longwood, was deprived of his position and all its advantages, after twenty-five years' service in the Navy, because he refused to become a sneak and a rascal at the bidding of these two unspeakable Government officials, the one disgracing the service of his country in the capacity of Governor and the other the name of a sailor and an Admiral.

In 1819 Stokoe resigned his position on the _Conqueror_, and sailed for England. Lowe sent a report addressed to the Lords of the Admiralty by the same vessel, and Stokoe had scarcely landed when he was bundled back to St. Helena. He rejoined the _Conqueror_ under the impression that his conduct had been approved, but was disillusioned by being forthwith put under arrest. A bogus court-martial was inst.i.tuted in the interests of Lowe, and Plampin and these packed scallywags sentenced him to dismissal from the Navy. The charges against Stokoe were that he failed to report himself to Plampin at the Briars after a visit to Longwood, and that in his report he had designated the patient as the Emperor instead of General Bonaparte.

This is a sample of the "good old times" that a certain species of creature delights to show forth his wisdom in talking about. I believe the immortal John Ruskin indulged occasionally in reminding a twentieth-century world of these days that were so blissful.

Forsyth, the self-reputed impartial historian, neglects to insert in his work in defence of Lowe's conduct the following amazing charges, which shall be fully given. They have been published before, but they are so unique, so unmanly, and so perfidious, I think they ought to be given to the public again, so that the amiable reader may know the depth of infamy to which England had sunk in the early part of the nineteenth century. Here is the whole story on which Dr. Stokoe was condemned. His bulletin about Napoleon's health a.s.serted that "The more alarming symptom is that which was experienced in the night of the 16th instant, a recurrence of which may soon prove fatal, particularly if medical attendance is not at hand." The Governor and the worthy Admiral were incensed at such unheard-of arrogance in making a report not in accordance with their wishes and that of the Government and the oligarchy, so the indictment of Stokoe, based on this bulletin, proceeds: "Intending thereby, contrary to the character and duty of a British officer, to create a false impression or belief that General Bonaparte was in imminent or considerable danger, and that no medical a.s.sistance was at hand, he, the said Mr. John Stokoe, not having witnessed any such symptom, and knowing that the state of the patient was so little urgent that he was at Longwood four hours before he was admitted to see him, and further, knowing that Dr.

Verling was at hand, ready to attend if required in any such emergency or considerable danger. He had knowingly and willingly designated General Bonaparte in the said bulletin in a manner different from that in which he was designated in the Act of Parliament for the better custody of his person, and contrary to the practice of His Majesty's Government, of the Lieutenant-General Governor of the island, and of the said Rear Admiral, and he had done so at the especial instance and request of the said General Bonaparte or his attendants, though he, Mr. John Stokoe, well knew that the mode of designation was a point in dispute between the said General Bonaparte and Lieutenant-General Sir Hudson Lowe and the British Government, and that by acceding to the wish of the said General Bonaparte he, the said Mr. John Stokoe, was acting in opposition to the wish and practice of his own superior officers, and to the respect which he owed them under the general printed instructions." The very idea of any grown man being expected to have "respect" for superior officers who had no more sense of justice, dignity, or self-respect than to produce such a blatant doc.u.ment for the supreme purpose of covering up a sample of mingled folly and rascality, and ruining a poor man who was at their ill-conditioned mercy!

Indeed, we need no further justification for Napoleon's statements as to what the official intention was towards him. Without a doubt Dr.

Max Lenz is too reckless in his generosity towards Lowe, for his actions from beginning to end of his career prove that he was a dreadful creature. The thought of him and of those incarnate spiders who kept spinning their web, and for six mortal years disgracing humanity, is in truth enough to unsettle one's reason. Vainly they had ransacked creation in search of persons in authority to support them in the plea of justification, but never a soul came forth to share what is now regarded as ingrained criminality.

Perhaps the virulent treatment of Byron ranks with the meanest and most impotent actions of the militant oligarchists because of his shocking (?) sympathy with England's enemy. The fierce though exquisite weaver of rhymes, who had been the idol of the nation and the drawing-room, was sought after by the highest and most cultured in the land. Byron had fallen a victim to public displeasure partly because he gave way to excesses that shocked the orthodoxy of a capricious public. He had reached a pinnacle of fame such as no man of his years had ever attained, and suddenly without warning he fell, a victim to unparalleled vituperation. His faults, if the meagre accounts that have been handed down are true, were great, but many of them were merely human. His marriage was not compatible, and his love entanglements embarra.s.sing. His temper and habits were very similar to those of other geniuses, and great allowances should be made for personalities whose mental arrangements may be such as to nullify normal control.

It is all very well to say that these men should be compelled to adhere to a conventional law because ordinary mortals are expected to do so, but a man like Byron was not ordinary. In his particular line he was a great force with a brain that took spasmodic twists. It is absurd to expect that a being whose genius produced "Childe Harold"

and "Manfred" could be fas.h.i.+oned into living a quite commonplace domestic life. Miss Milbanke, who married him, and the public who first blessed and then cursed and made him an outcast, were not faultless. Had they been possessed of the superiority they piously a.s.sumed, they would have seen how impossible it was for this eccentric man of stormy pa.s.sions to be controlled and overridden by conventionality.

It is possible the serene critic may take exception to this form of reasoning and produce examples of genius, such as Wordsworth, who lived a strictly pious life, never offending any moral law by a hairbreadth; but Wordsworth was not made like Byron; he had not the personality of the poor wayward cripple who at one time had brought the world to his feet, neither had Wordsworth to fight against such wild hereditary complications as Byron. Wordsworth never caught the public imagination, while Byron had the power of inflaming it. But, alas! neither his magnetic force nor his haughty spirit could stem the whirlwind of hatred, rage, and calumny that took possession of the virtuous and capricious public. The story of cruelty to his wife grew in its enormity, his reported liaisons multiplied beyond all human reason. The bleached, white hearts of the oligarchal party had been lashed into fury by his withering ridicule and charge of hypocrisy, but the climax came like a tornado when the poet's sense of fair play caused him to satirise the Prince Regent and eulogise the Emperor Napoleon with unique pathos and pa.s.sion.

This was high treason! He had at last put himself beyond the mercy of the chosen people. They had twaddled and stormed about his immorality, but his praise of Napoleon sent them into diabolic frenzy. He was proclaimed an outlaw and hounded out of the country. The beautiful and rich Lady Jersey, a leader of society, convinced that he was misunderstood and was being treated with unreasonable severity, defended him with all the strength of her resolute character, but malignity had sunk too deep even for her power and influence to avert the disaster. So intense was the feeling engendered against him that it became dangerous for him to drive out without risking an exhibition of virulent hostility. Had he merely abused the Prince Regent, it is improbable that any exception would have been taken to it; but to praise and show compa.s.sion for the Man of the French Revolution, who had fought for a new condition of things which threatened the fabric on which their order held its dominating and despotic sway, was an enormity they were persuaded even G.o.d in heaven could not tolerate; why then, should _they_ be expected to do so?--they were only human.

Both public and private resentment ran amok, and thus it was that the immortal poet's belauding of the immortal Emperor became linked to the ignominy of being accused of gross immorality. The reaction against this eccentric being was a fanaticism. There was neither sense nor reason in it, and as he said, "If what they say of me be true, then I am not fit for England; but if it be false, then England is not fit for me"; and with this thought thrilling in his mind he left his native land, never more to see it.

Caught without a doubt by the spirit of the great man whose eulogy had given such offence in certain quarters, he embarked on the crusade of emanc.i.p.ating the Greeks, was stricken with fever, and died at Missolonghi.

Adhering to human tradition, the nation which had so recently cast him out became afflicted with grief. Men and women cast reflection on themselves for their misguided judgment of him, and he became a G.o.d in memory again, his wife being a singular exception in the great demonstration of national penitence. The incomparable poet had sinned grievously, if rumour may be relied upon, but he was made to suffer out of all proportion to his sinning. His faults were only different from other men's. It may be said quite truly that one of his defects was in having been born a genius, and allowing himself to be idolised by a public whose opinions and friends.h.i.+ps were s.h.i.+fty. Second, he erred in disregarding and satirising puritanical conventionalisms.

Thirdly, and probably the most provocative of all, was his defiance of the fiery patriotism of some of the ruling cla.s.ses in lauding him whom they stigmatised as the enemy of the human race and lampooning the precious Prince Regent. His extraordinary talents did not s.h.i.+eld him, any more than they did the hero of fifty pitched battles whose greatness he had extolled.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] Vol. iii. pp. 451-2.

CHAPTER V

MESDAMES DE STAeL AND DE REMUSAT

It is a strange human frailty that cannot stand for long the purgatory of seeing the elevation of a great public benefactor. The less competent the critics, the more merciless they are in their declamation and intrigue. They hint at faults, and if this is too ineffective, they invent them. Men in prominent public positions rarely escape the vituperation of the professional scandalmonger.

These creatures exist everywhere. Their vanity is only equal to their incompetency in all matters that count. Their capacity consists in knowing the kind of diversion a certain cla.s.s of people relish, and the more exalted their prey is, and the larger the reputation he may have for living a blameless life, the more persistent their whisperings, significant nods, and winkings become. They know, and they could tell, a thing or two which would paralyse belief. They could show how correct they have been in consistently proclaiming that so and so was a very much overestimated man, and never ought to have been put into such a high position; "and besides, I don't want to say all I know, but his depravity! Well, there, I could, if I would, open some people's eyes, but I don't want to do anybody any harm," and so on. These condescending ulcerous-minded defamers congratulate themselves on their goodness of heart in withholding from the public gaze their nasty imaginary accusations, which are merely the thoughts of a conceited and putrid mind.

Many and many a poor man, without knowing it, is the innocent victim of unfounded accusations, hatched and circulated in that subtle, insinuating way so familiar to the s.e.xless calumniator. The genuine female traducer is an awful scourge, especially if she be political.

No male can equal her in refined aggressive cunning. She can circulate a filthy libel by writing a virtuous letter, and never a flaw will appear to trip her into responsibility for it. And her sardonic smile is an inarticulate revelation of all she wishes to convey. It is more than a mere oration. It emits the impression of a bite.

Madame de Stael showed an apt.i.tude for this ign.o.ble aggressiveness towards Napoleon after she had exhausted every form of strategy to allure him into a flirtation with her. She was frequently a sort of magnificent horse-marine who bounced herself into the presence of prominent individuals, thrusting her venomed points on those who had been flattered into listening; at other times she was feline in her methods. Talleyrand and Fouche made use of this latter phase of her character to serve their own ends. She had a talent which was used for mischief, but her vulgarity and egotism were quite deplorable. She would have risked the torments of Hades if she could but have embarked upon a liaison with Napoleon. She plied him with letters well seasoned with pa.s.sion, but all to no purpose. She came to see him at the Rue Chantereine, and was sent away. She invited him to b.a.l.l.s to which he never went. But she had opportunities given her which were used in forcing herself upon his attention. At one of these she held him for two hours, and imagining she had made a great impression, she asked him abruptly, "Who was the most superior woman in antiquity, and who is so at the present day?" Napoleon had had enough of her love-making chatter, so snapped out in his quick practical way, "She who has borne the most children." The lady's discomfiture may be imagined. It was a deadly thrust.

This very same lady, who had tempted the ruler of France without success, made violent love to Benjamin Constant, who was no friend of Napoleon's at the time. Her letters to him were pa.s.sionate, and Napoleon told Gourgaud at St. Helena that she even threatened to kill her son if Benjamin would do what she wished him to. This fussy female intriguer suggested to Napoleon that if he would give her two million francs she would write anything he wished. She was immediately packed about her business.

Madame de Stael was not an important personage at all, but she had the power of attracting people to her who, like herself, had grievances to be discussed, and we may without doubt conclude that these gatherings were composed of well-selected intriguers whom she had fixed in her feline eye. Her great grievance was the First Consul's, and subsequently the Emperor's, coldness towards her. He estimated her at her true value. He treated her with the courtesy due to a French citizen, but nothing more, and when she misbehaved in his presence, he rebuked her with due consideration for her s.e.x. When she caused people to talk to him of her, he merely shrugged his shoulders as was his habit, and smiled disdainfully; though occasionally he could not resist the temptation of ridiculing her comic pretensions. But this human curiosity had power for mischief.

She was not only an intriguer, but, subsequent to her failure in love-making, she developed a literary tyrannicide. She condescended to patronise the head of the State by causing it to be conveyed to him that her hostility would cease under certain well-defined conditions.

When he became the real Governor of France, Napoleon put a stop to religious persecution, and put the churches into use. He re-established religion, and by doing so brought under his influence one hundred million Catholics. This wise policy created strong opposition from a section of the clergy. Madame de Stael and the friends whom she had whipped up, many of them being the princ.i.p.al generals, were mischievously opposed to it, and brought pressure to bear so that he might be induced to establish the Protestant religion.

Napoleon ignored them all. He knew he was on the right ground, and that the nation as a whole was with him. France was essentially a Roman Catholic country, and the head of it gave back to her people what was regarded as the true faith. The exile frequently referred to these matters in conversation with one or other of his followers.

Napoleon's disdain for Madame de Stael was well merited, and he never saw or heard of her that it did not set his nerves on edge. She was the "death on man" sort of female who persisted in being, either directly or indirectly, his political adviser. Dr. Max Lenz accuses the Emperor of developing a despotism that caused him to drive a woman like Madame de Stael from land to land, "and trampled under foot every manifestation of independence."

Really, the good doctor lays himself open to the charge of not making himself better informed of the doings of this sinister person, who was steeped in treason, and who refused to accept the laws of life with proper submission. It is merely farcical to a.s.sume that Madame de Stael was kept well under discipline because of a whimsical despotism on the part of the man who had fixed a settled government on France, and who was kept well informed of the attempts of the Baroness and her anarchist a.s.sociates to undermine and destroy the Const.i.tution it had cost France and its ruler so much to reconstruct and consolidate. "Let her be judged as a man," said Napoleon, and in truth he was right in deciding in this way, as her whole att.i.tude aped the masculine. He was right, too, in showing how wholly objectionable she had made herself to him. He had been led to adopt a sort of "For G.o.d's sake, what does she want?" idea of her during the early years of his rule, though he never at any time showed weakness in his actual dealings with her. He disliked women who a.s.serted themselves as men, and he disliked the amorous offspring of Necker more because he loathed women who threw themselves into the arms of men; she had surfeited him with her persistent attempts at making love to him. In one of her letters to him she says it was evidently an egregious error, an entire misunderstanding of human nature, that the quiet and timid Josephine had bound up her fate with that of a tempestuous temper like his. She and Napoleon seemed born for each other, and it appeared as if nature had only gifted her with so enthusiastic a disposition in order to enable her to admire such a hero as he was. Napoleon in his fury tore this precious letter up and exclaimed, "This manufacturer of sentiments dares to compare herself with Josephine!"

The letters were not answered, though this had no deterrent effect on Madame de Stael. She continued to pour out in profusion adoration. He was "a G.o.d who had descended on earth." She addressed him as such, and his callous reception of her madness drove her into despair and vindictiveness which brought salutary punishment to herself. Her weapons of wit and sarcasm availed nothing. He looked upon her as a sort of gifted lunatic that had got the idea of seducing him into her head. She became so mischievous that he bundled her out of France.

"As long as I live," said he, "she shall not return." He advised that she should live in Berlin, Vienna, Milan, or London, the latter for preference. There she would have full scope for her genius in producing pamphlets. "Oh yes," says the "G.o.d who had descended on earth"; "she has talent, much talent, in fact far too much, but it is offensive and revolutionary." This poetess-politician, who said brave things and wrote amazing diatribes against her "G.o.d," was in truth one of the most servile creatures on earth. She pleaded to be allowed to come back to her native land, and pledged herself to a life of retirement, but the great man's faith in his own sound judgment was not to be shaken.

"Her promises are all very fine," he said, "but I know what they mean.

Why should she be so anxious to be in the immediate reach of tyranny?"

Like all eccentric women who desire to play the part of man, she made her appearance before Napoleon in the most absurd, tasteless attire.

This woman of genius and folly lacked the wisdom of gauging the taste of Bonaparte, whom she desired to captivate with her s.l.u.ttish appearance and whirling words.

This man of method and order, who had a keen eye for grace or beauty in its varied phases, was always p.r.o.nounced in his opinion that women should dress simply but with faultless taste. It improves good looks, and, if need be, it covers up defects; but in any case it is the bounden duty of women to dress with some regard to conventional custom. It gives them much greater influence than they would otherwise have. Most women know the importance of this trick, and do it, and they are amply rewarded for their good sense.

Madame de Stael did quite the opposite. She appeared before the Man of Destiny in a shocking garb, and he regarded it as a piece of impertinence. It stirred up his prejudice openly against her, in spite of his indifferent attempts to conceal it, but her egotism was so gigantic, she actually believed she was making great strides towards curing his callousness towards her. This woman has been used elaborately by anti-Napoleonic writers to prove that he was an inhuman despot and she a high-minded, virtuous Frenchwoman, and a genius in the art of government. They quote her as a great authority. Her knowledge of his evil deeds and mistakes of administration is set forth as being flawless. They bemoan his treatment of this amiable female, and in the midst of their ecstasy of compa.s.sion and wrath they hand down to posterity a record of unheard-of woes. There is little doubt Napoleon's remark that "the Neckers were an odd lot, always comforting themselves in mutual admiration," is well merited. The daughter utilised the name of the father with lavish persistence. Her ambition and impudence were boundless, and were the cause of Napoleon bestowing some wholesome discipline upon her, which, like a true heroine, she resented, and sent forth from her exile streams of relentless wailing, adorned by a fluency of venom that would have put the most militant suffragette in our time to the blush.

But suddenly her hysteria subsided, and after a brief repose she switched off the truculent side and sought the pity of the man whose life she had set herself to make one long ache if he did not yield to her arrogant pretensions. She had written in a perpetual scream of his iniquities, and was thrown over by her former a.s.sociates, who saw clearly enough that no real good could be accomplished by whining about cruelty when stern flawless justice only existed. They recognised that she was a personality, but her antics puzzled them, and well they might. She bewailed her isolation with a throbbing heart, and after committing indiscretions that Robespierre would have sent her head flying for, she was suddenly bereaved of her neglected husband. This event gave Benjamin Constant a better chance, but the Baroness aimed at higher game. She was held in the grip of a delusion that she had it in her power to hypnotise the First Consul and cause him to become her lover. She had an uncontrollable idolatry for this august person, whom she hoped to win over by writing for the consumption of his enemies the many reasons for her aversion to him.

Without a doubt the woman was madly in love with the object of her supposed aversion, and was driven to frenzy by his obvious distaste for her.

In 1811 she secretly married a young officer called M. de Rocca, who had fallen desperately in love with her. He was amiable and brilliant; became an officer of Hussars in the French Army; did valiant deeds amongst the hills in Andalusia in 1809; and was awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honour. Subsequently he was shot down by guerillas, badly wounded in the thigh, foot, and chest; had a romantic deliverance; was hidden in a chapel by a young lady, and nursed into consciousness and convalescence by loving care, which enabled him to reach Madrid, and ultimately Geneva, where, in the radiance of youthful infatuation, he rode with reckless energy down a risky steep part of the city, so that he might pa.s.s the window of the lady, who was more than old enough to be his mother, and in a few months was to be made his wife. A child was born to them in 1812, and in order to save its legitimacy, she acknowledged the marriage to a few, but it was not generally known until after her death that Rocca was her lawful husband. Conscious, and sensitive no doubt, that it was not quite natural for old women to marry young men, she prudently had the event kept secret. The young husband did not only possess tender affection for her, but he combined chivalrous ambitions which made the romance additionally attractive.

Be it remembered that Benjamin Constant was a former lover of Madame de Stael. The young bridegroom, following a natural instinct, had a great dislike to Benjamin, and took an opportunity of really small provocation to challenge him to a duel, which, owing to wiser counsels, was never fought. There does not seem to have been very much to fight a duel about. Constant had a quarrel with his father in which he involved Madame de Stael, and Rocca resented it like a gallant youthful husband, who was at that stage when it is thought desirable to shoot or otherwise kill somebody, in order to show the extent of his devotion to his enchantress. Rocca had hoped to die (so he said) before her, but fate willed that he should linger on and suffer for six months more. Madame de Stael slept peacefully into her last long sleep on July 14, 1817.

Her career was chequered and restless. She had influence, which she used oft-times recklessly, and led less gifted people than herself into committing needless errors. She wrote and spoke with a wit and sarcasm which charmed all but those at whom it was directed. Her bitter rebuffs and severe trials were mainly of her own making. For the most part she wrote with superficial feeling and without real soul. During the Napoleonic regime, time was a creeping horror to her, but she found pleasure in the thought that it was a torture to her suffering heart. George Eliot knew and used her extraordinary power; Madame de Stael wasted hers. Nevertheless she had many friends who loved her society. Wellington was brought under her influence. Byron, who shrank from her at first, says, "She was the best creature in the world." She had been at some pains to try to bring Lord and Lady Byron together. She was capable of impressing people with her charm, but magnetic influence she had none when living, and has left none behind.

Rocca exclaimed, when he heard that she had pa.s.sed to the shadows, "What crown could replace that which I have lost!" And the distracted Benjamin Constant, filled with remorse, reproached himself for some undefined suffering he had caused her, and did penance all night through in the death-chamber of his divine Juliet.

This crazy woman seems to have been capricious in everything. She made and broke liaisons with amazing rapidity while undergoing a compulsory sojourn at Coppet. She formed there an attachment for the son of a person named M. Baranti, which very nearly cheated Rocca from becoming her husband, and the faithless Benjamin Constant from being, erroneously perhaps, a.s.sociated with her name as the author of the ma.n.u.script of St. Helen, and she the notoriety of writing "Ten Years of Exile," which was published after her death.

The youthful Baranti found no scope for his talents at Coppet, and being offered an inducement to go to the metropolis so that he might have larger opportunities of advancement, he abandoned the famous auth.o.r.ess, and she, in loving despair, was seized with the impulse to immortalise his severance by attempting suicide, and thereby ending her pa.s.sion for liaisons, virulence, and fame. The attempt, presumably feeble, left her long years of mischievous mania for attack on the supposed author of all her woes. She readily found amongst his enemies (and thus the enemies of France) those who yearned with her in the hope she freely and openly expressed that her native land should suffer defeats, and in this her desire was fully acquiesced in by the combination of hysterical and purblind Kings, aided by a coterie of irreconcilables, who welcomed the destruction of their fatherland in order that the man who had made it the glory and the envy of the world should be driven from it. Many of these creatures were members of the same Senate who, a few years previously, sent Napoleon a fervent address couched in grovelling language, imploring him to cement the hold his personality had on the national life. The following is what they say, and what they ask him to do:--"You have brought us out of the chaos of the past, you have made us bless the benefits of the present. Great man, complete your work, and make it as immortal as your glory!"

The authors of this whining appeal are worthy to be a.s.sociated with the traitorous daughter of Jacques Necker, Minister of Finance to Louis XVI., and of those apoplectic monarchs who sought her guilty and inflammatory aid.

Then we come to another female celebrity, though less notable than Madame de Stael, who is regarded by the traducers of Napoleon as a historian because she wrote in her memoirs that which they wished the world to think of him, and because they flattered themselves that it exculpated them from the charge of injustice and mere hatred. Madame de Stael's book, "Considerations sur la Revolution Francaise," made its appearance. Its violent characteristics inflamed Charles de Remusat to urge his mother to enter into compet.i.tion with this work, the result being the production of Madame de Remusat's memoirs, edited by her grandson, M. Paul de Remusat. Charles (her son) had reproached her for having destroyed memoirs she had written previously,[23] but lurking in her mind was the thought of all the favours she and her family had received, and her correspondence, teeming with adulation for the man whom she was now induced to declaim against. The knowledge that she was about to expose her perfidy "worried" her, and she wrote to Charles thus:--"If it should happen that some day my son were to publish all this, what would people think of me?" and the son, obviously influenced by the mother's fears, delayed until the fall of the Second Empire the publication of one of the most unreliable and barefaced calumnies ever produced against a great benefactor.

In her memoirs she says that she and her husband excited general envy by the high position the First Consul had given them. She was first Lady in Waiting, and subsequently Lady of the Household, her husband being "attached to Napoleon's household." She says that she was witty and of a refined mind, and though she was less "good-looking" than her companions, she had the advantage of being able to "charm his mind,"

and she was almost the only woman with whom he condescended to converse. She relates residing in the camp at Boulogne "and having breakfast and dinner daily with Bonaparte." In the evenings they used to "discuss philosophy, literature, and art, or listen to the First Consul relating about the years of his youth and early achievements."

No doubt the young Madame de Remusat became a.s.sured in the same way as Madame de Stael that she would one day be raised to heights of glory unequalled in history, and the disappointment embittered her. She admits that she "suffered on account of blighted hopes and deceived affections and the failure of her calculations." Moreover, Josephine had an eye on the lady whose husband in evil times sought her influence with Napoleon to stretch out a helping hand and save them from the poverty by which they were beset. Napoleon's big heart spontaneously responded to the appeal of his fascinating spouse, the result being that favours were heaped upon M. de Remusat and his wife from time to time, and Josephine's goodness was repaid by seeing Madame in feline fas.h.i.+on purring at her Imperial master's affections, and on the authority of Madame de Remusat she "becomes cold and jealous." Finding that Napoleon did not appreciate her love-making, she, like Madame de Stael under similar circ.u.mstances, took to intriguing, which got her quickly into disgrace. She is anxious to make her fall as light as possible in the public eye, so relates that he told her that "his desire was to make her a great lady, but he could not be expected to do this unless she showed devotion." But in spite of the wife's defection, as is always Napoleon's way, he does not visit her sins on the husband, but raises him to the important posts of Grand Master of the Robes, High Chamberlain, and then Superintendent of Theatres, and in addition gave him large sums to keep up his status, and notwithstanding Josephine's cause for "cold jealousy," Madame de Remusat was generously kept in her service after Marie Louise had become Empress. M. de Remusat remained in the Emperor's service until the fall of the Empire, and then went over to Louis XVIII. Both of these sycophants were content to accept the favours of the Imperial couple and eat their bread and cringe at their feet while they plotted with the plotters for the Emperor's downfall.