Part 37

The suburb of St. Antoine, that cradle of the revolution, was not forgotten. The Emperor traversed it from one end to the other. He had the doors of all the workshops opened to him, and examined them very minutely. The numerous workmen of the manufactory of M. Lenoir, who retained a grateful remembrance of what the Emperor had done for their master and for themselves, loaded him with expressions of their attachment. The commissary of police of the quarter had followed Napoleon into this manufactory; and, willing to set the example, opened his mouth to its utmost extent, to holla as loud as he could bawl "Long live the Emperor!" but, by a terrible slip of the tongue, a very distinct "Long live the King!" on the contrary issued from it. This caused great confusion: but the Emperor, turning to him, said in a rallying tone: "So, Mr. Commissary, you are determined then not to get rid of your bad habits." This sally was the signal for a general laugh: and the commissary, plucking up his spirits, convinced Napoleon by many a vigorous "Long live the Emperor!" that we never lose any thing by a little patience.

The Emperor was accompanied only by three officers of his household. It was impossible for them to defend him from the approaches and caresses of the people: the women kissed his hands; the men squeezed them, till they made him cry out; both expressed to him in a thousand ways, which I cannot transcribe, the difference they made between him and his predecessor. At all times he had been much beloved by the class of workmen and artisans. He had enriched it: and interest is the prime mover of regard among the people, as well as among the great.

On the other hand, the new court, in order to distinguish itself from the imperial court, substituted the most offensive simplicity for the useful pomp of Napoleon. The richest emigrants imitated this pernicious example; and, as Napoleon remarked, the luxury of the table was almost the only kind, on which encouragement was not spared. The result of this economical system was, that the produce of our manufactories remained unemployed, and industry was suddenly paralyzed.

Thus commerce, which had loudly called for peace, was almost totally annihilated by it: and the manufacturers, the mechanics, the merchants (those of the sea-ports excepted), greatly regretted those happy times, when we were at war.

In fact, it must be admitted, that our industry was indebted to the war, and to our conquests, for its progress, and its prodigious increase. The war, by depriving us of the products of the English manufactories, had taught us, to manufacture for ourselves. The continual prohibition of these articles protected our rising manufactures from the danger of competition; and allowed them to engage with safety in the trials and expenses necessary for equalling or surpassing in perfection foreign manufactures. In all parts of the empire were seen manufactories for spinning and weaving cotton; and this branch of trade, almost unknown before, employed three hundred thousand work people, and produced goods to the value of more than two hundred and fifty millions.

The other products of our industry equally received improvements and extension; and France, in spite of the conscription, reckoned in its numerous workshops nearly twelve hundred thousand workpeople.

If this flourishing state of our continental trade were the effect of the enlargement of our territory, and the scope the war had given to our industry, we must say, that it was also the result of the succour, encouragement, and honorary distinctions, which Napoleon knew how to bestow appropriately on our manufacturers; and the return for those enormous sacrifices he made, to create, repair, and keep in order, those superb roads, and those numerous canals, which rendered the communications between France, and the countries subjected to its empire, equally easy, safe, and pleasant.]

The Emperor received a great number of petitions during his excursions. Unable to read them all, he ordered me, to examine them carefully, and give him an account of them. He loved to repay the confidence that the people reposed in him; and frequently granted to the request of an obscure and unknown citizen, what he would perhaps have refused to the entreaties of a marshal or a minister. The utility of these familiar communications between the nation and the sovereign was not confined, in his eyes, to the solitary interests of the petitioner. He considered them as efficacious means of coming at the knowledge of abuses and acts of injustice, and of keeping the depositaries of authority within the limits of their duty. He was fond of encouraging them, that the phrase, If the Emperor knew it, or The Emperor shall know it, might solace the heart of the oppressed, and make the oppressor tremble.

In former days he had appointed a special commission, to receive petitions, and give them suitable effect. This benefit not appearing to him sufficiently complete, he would have them subjected to a preliminary examination, under his own eye. He decided himself the method to be followed: and directed me, to make known to him every day, without disguise, the complaints, wants, and wishes, of the French people. I made it a point of duty, of honour, to execute this task in a proper manner, and to become the zealous protector of those who had none. Every morning I laid before the Emperor an analytical report of the requests capable of demanding his attention: he examined them with care, made marginal notes on them with his own hand, and sent them to his ministers with a favourable decision, or an order to verify them, and give him an account of the result.

In fine, to fulfil, as much as in him lay, the public expectation, the Emperor made numerous changes in the laws relating to the consolidated taxes (droits reunis), which, while they diminished the impost, freed it from its abuses and tyrannical forms, and rendered it less odious, and more supportable. These beneficial meliorations, though incomplete, were received with gratitude; and the Emperor was thanked for his endeavours to reconcile the interests of individuals with the wants of the public treasury.

But the satisfaction Napoleon derived from the happy effects of his solicitude was frequently disturbed by the disquietude and perplexity, which the cabals and manoeuvres of the royalists occasioned him. "The priests and the nobles," said he one day in a fit of ill-humour, "are playing a deep game. If I were to let loose the people upon them, they would all be devoured in the twinkling of an eye."

By a decree of the 25th of March, he had already ordered the ministers of the King, and the civil and military officers of his household, as well as of those of the princes, as also the chiefs of the Chouans, of the Vendeans, and of the royal volunteers, to remove to a distance of thirty leagues from Paris. This prudent precaution was but imperfectly executed. M. Fouche, to secure himself a refuge in the King's party, had sent for the principal of the proscribed persons to his house; expressed to them how much he felt interested for their situation, and the efforts he had made, to prevent their banishment; and finally authorised them pretty generally, to remain at Paris.

The Emperor, not aware that their audacity was owing to the protection of his minister, watched for an opportunity of intimidating them by an act of severity. While things were in this state, a M. de Lascours, a colonel, was arrested at Dunkirk, where he had introduced himself as an emissary from the King. Napoleon, deceived by the similarity of the name, supposed this officer to be the person, who pretended, in 1814, to have received orders, to blow up the powder magazine at Grenelle, and refused to execute them. "I should be sorry," said he, "to sacrifice by way of example a worthy man; but an impostor like this deserves no pity. Write to the minister at war, to have him taken before a military commission, and tried as an instigator to civil war, and to the overturning of the established government."

The Emperor, turning towards me, added: "How is it, that the absurd fable of this man has not been contradicted?"--"Sire," I answered, "Gourgaud has often assured me, that all your officers had publicly avowed their sentiments on it; and that it had been the intention of several generals, and particularly of general Tirlet, to unmask this odious lie to the King; but...." "Enough," said the Emperor, "I make no account of intentions: send the order, and let me hear no more of him."

I lost sight of this business: but I have since learned, that M. de Lascours was acquitted.

If M. de Lascours had been so unfortunate, as to fall a victim to his zeal, the Emperor would have been accused of barbarity; yet he was neither cruel nor sanguinary, for cruelty must not be confounded with severity. I know but one single act, the result of the most fatal counsels, for which, alas! he may be reproached by posterity. Who besides have been the victims of his pretended ferocity? Will the death of Georges, and his obscure accomplices, be considered as a judicial murder? Are the infernal machine and its terrible ravages forgotten? Georges, at the head of the Chouans, was a misled Frenchman, to be pitied, and to be spared. Georges, at the head of a band of assassins, was undeserving of pity, and the cause of morality, as well as of humanity, demanded his punishment.

The following memorandums are taken from papers, from which the note was to have been compiled.

Reports from the police had informed Napoleon, that there were conspiracies of the royalists beyond the Rhine, and that they were conducted and supported,

1st, by Messrs. Drake and Spencer Smith, the English ministers at Stutgard, and at Munich;

2dly, by the Duke d'Enghien and General Dumourier:

The central point of the former was at Offenbourg; where were some emigrants, some English agents, and the Baroness de Reich, so noted for her political intrigues:

The central point of the latter was given out to be at the castle of Ettenheim, where the Duke d'Enghien, Dumourier, an English colonel, and several agents of the Bourbons, resided.

The hundred and twenty thousand francs given by the minister Drake to the Sieur Rosey, chef de bataillon, to excite an insurrection,

The declarations of Mehee;

And the reports of M. Sh***, prefect of Strasbourg, and brother-in-law of the Duke de Fel....; leave no doubt of the existence of the intrigues at Offenbourg and Ettenheim, to which M. Sh*** ascribes in particular the agitation, and symptoms of discontent, that prevail at Weissembourg, and in several parts of Alsace.

On the other hand, the conspiracy of the 3d of Nivose had just broken out. The discoveries made by the servant of Georges, and by other individuals, led to the belief, that the Duke d'Enghien had been sent by England to the borders of the Rhine, in order to place himself at the head of the insurrection, as soon as Napoleon was made away with.

The necessity of putting an end to these plots, and strike terror into their instigators by a grand act of reprisal, squared in an incredible degree with the political considerations, that led Napoleon to attempt a bold stroke, in order to give the revolution, and the revolutionists, those guaranties, which circumstances demanded:

Napoleon, named consul for life (I borrow here the language of the Manuscript from St. Helena), felt the weakness of his situation, the ridiculousness of his consulship. It was necessary to establish something solid, to serve as a support to the revolution. The republicans were alarmed at the height, on which circumstances had placed him: they were suspicious of the use he might make of his power: they dreaded his renewing an antiquated royalty by the help of his army. The royalists fomented this rumour, and took a delight in representing him as an ape of the ancient monarchs: other royalists, more adroit, whispered about, that he was enamoured of the part of Monk, and that he would take the pains to restore the power, only to make a present of it to the Bourbons, when it should be in a proper state to be offered them.