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CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
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 NO. 23233 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 DC 198.L39A26 
 
 Memoirs of Count Lavalette, 
 
 3 1924 024 337 176 
 
DC 
 A2.6 
 
COUNT LAV ALETTE 
 
^ f ' f f f 
 
 iF this Edition of the Memoirs of 
 Count Lavalette Five Hundred 
 Copies are printed. Three Hundred and 
 Fifty for England, and One Hundred and 
 Fifty for America. 
 
 i 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024337176 
 
•fiWUrJjC.,u,\-A,^, 
 
MEMOIRS 
 
 OF 
 
 OUNT 
 
 AVALETTE 
 
 ADJUTANT AND PRIVATE SECRETARY TO 
 
 NAPOLEON 
 
 AND 
 
 POSTMASTER. GENERAL UNDER THE EMPIRE 
 
 fniH PORTRAITS 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 
 189^ 
 
DC 
 
 X-*SG"7^(/ 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Biographical Sketch of Count Lavalette . . . xv 
 
 Count Lavalette to the Reader .... xxxv 
 
 MEMOIRS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 My education and early tastes — I witness the beginning of the 
 Revolution — Plunder of M. Reveillon's warehouses — Convo- 
 cation, of the States-General — Taking of the Bastille — Murder 
 of M. Foulon ....... I 
 
 CHAPTER Ii: 
 
 Organisation of the National Guards*— Lafeyette — Bailly — The 5th 
 
 and 6th of October at Versailles — The King returns to Paris . 10 
 
 CHAPTER Hi: 
 
 I am employed by M. d'Ormesson, one of the Presidents of the 
 Parliament — His advice and influence — I become a Royalist — 
 TEe Marquis de Favras — Silly conduct of the Nobility . . 19 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Departure of Louis XVI. for Varennes and his return — The Legis- 
 lative Assembly — Beginning of the. war — Riot of the 20th of 
 June — False hopes of the Royalists — Attempts of M. de 
 Lafeyette in favour of the King — Failure of those attempts, 
 and flight of Lafayette ...... 28 
 
vi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 rAGB 
 
 Preparations for the loth of August— My Company repairs to 
 the Tuileries— The King retires to the Assembly— Attack on 
 the Palace— Dissolution of the Legislative Assembly— The 
 Girondins .....•• 4* 
 
 CHAPTER VI. . 
 
 Approach of the enemy— Taking of Verdun— The 2nd and 3rd of 
 September — I leave Paris and enlist — My hopes and dis- 
 appointments—Arrival of Colonel d'Hilliers — He joins the 
 Army of the Rhine, whence he sends me a commission of 
 Sub-Lieutenant— Death of Louis XVI. . . . -53 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 I arrive at Worms — Treachery of Dumouriez — Retreat of Custines — 
 He is recalled and sentenced — Alexander Beauharnais succeeds 
 him — Pichegru — Mission of St. Just — Atrocities of Schneider . 66 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Opening of the Campaign of 1794 — Our victories — The Legion of 
 Cond^ — Junction oif the Armies of the Rhine and the Moselle — 
 Discussions — The two Generals are separated — I return to Paris 
 with General d'Hilliers — Observations' on the Army of the 
 Rhine ........ 79 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Paris in August, 1794— Constitution of the Year III.— Revolt of the 
 
 Sections — Bonaparte — The 13th Vend^miaire . . .89 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Directorjr — General Bonaparte marries the widow of General 
 Alexander Beauharnais — He sets off for Italy — Pacification of 
 the Vend& — General d'Hilliers receives an order for service in 
 Italy, whither I follow him . . . . .100 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 My arrival at Milan— I am appointed Aide-de-camp to the General- 
 in^chief- The army marches to Vienna— Battles of Rivoli, La 
 Corona, &c. ....... 107 
 
CONTENTS. vii 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 My Mission to Tyrol — Its dangers — Preliminaries of Leoben — Venice 
 is ceded to Austria — Riot at Genoa — Murder of a Frenchman — 
 General Bonaparte sends me to ask satisfaction . . • H? 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Embarrassed conduct of the Directory — Meditated coup Utat — 
 Bonaparte sends me to Paris — His instructions — I transmit to 
 him the result of my observations — Madame de Stael — The 
 l8th Fructidor — My return to Italy . . . .126 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 My return to Paris after the i8th Fructidor — First idea of the 
 Expedition to Egypt — Its motives — Its aim — Mbsion of M. 
 Pousseilgues to Malta ...... 140 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Departure of General Bonaparte for Rastadt — Murder of the 
 
 Plenipotentiaries .,...,.. 148 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Preparations and departure of the Egyptian Expedition — Malta — 
 
 I am sent to Corfu and Janina — Return to Egypt . -154 
 
 CHAPTER Xvil. 
 
 Interview with Admiral Braeys on board the Orient — My arrival at 
 Cairo — Mourad Bey — His intrepidity and firmness — Oppressive 
 government of the Mamelukes — Battle of Salahieh — The 
 General receives the news of the loss of the Battle of Aboukir 158 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Ibrahim Bey retires to Syria — Project of an Expedition to Syria — 
 Revolt at Cairo — Death of Colonel Sulkowski, Aide-de-camp to 
 the General-in-chief — Mission of M. de Beauchamp — The plague 
 at Alexandria — Expeditious mode of administering justice adopted 
 by the Cadi at Cairo ...... 16$ 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Ggife^al's motives for his Expedition to Syria— Regiuer—JCl^beri 
 —Bon-jrJyannes—Murat— Departure of tjie Expedition— Taking 
 of El Arisch— Taking of Jaffa— The G?neral-in-qhiefs presence 
 of mind— The Army arrives before St. John of Acre— Loss of 
 the Flotilla conveying stores for the siege . . . 173 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Ibrahim Bey reappears— Battle of Gafarkala— Battle of Mount 
 Thabor— The General-in-chief sleeps at Nazarfth — Respect 
 of General Bonaparte for religious prejudices — De^th of the 
 interpreter Venture — Return before St. John of Acre — Death 
 of General Caffarelli — Thirteenth Storm — We penetrate into 
 the town and are forced to go out again — Fourteenth Storm . 180 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 The General-in-chief resolves to return to Egypt — The wounded 
 are sent away — Passion of General Bonaparte — Pretended 
 poisoning of the wounded — Return to Jafifa — The infected — 
 Instance of humanity in the General — Return to the capital of 
 Lower Egypt — Judgment on the Syrian Campaign — Landing of 
 the. Turks — Battle of Aboukir — Departure for Europe — ^Arrival ■ 
 in Corsica ....... 188 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 General Bonaparte "re-establishes some order at Ajaccio — He lands at 
 Fr^jus-T-Enthusiasm of the population — His arrival at Lyons and 
 Paps — State of public afi^rs — The Directory give General 
 Bonaparte b. dinner in the Church of St. Sulpice — Conspiracy 
 to overthrow the Durectory-^The General presents himself before 
 the Council of the Elders — Both the Councils are transferred to 
 St, Qqud — The Council of Five Hundred assemble in the 
 Conservatory — General Bonaparte and Siiyes— rResolutions of 
 the formeri—General tumult — He gives an order to drive the 
 members put of the House— ^The Constitution of the Third Year 
 is abolished — Three Consuls : Bonaparte, Cambac^r^s, and Lebrun 198 
 
 CHAPTER XXin. 
 Sensation produced by the Revolution of the l8th , Brumaire-rThe 
 First Consul.sends me on a mission to Dresden^r-My journey, to 
 Bedfli.in iSpi- The First Consul recalls me to Paris-JHie 
 Infejoial Machine — Conspiracy of Georges and Pifihegru^ 
 Sentence on the Duke d'Enghien . . . .209 
 
CONTENTS. ix 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Reflecti9ns on the death of the Duke d'Enghien — Suicide of Pichegru 
 — rfieorges is executed with nine of his accomplices — The Emperor 
 Paul assassinated— rConsternation — ^The Continental War breaks 
 out^ain — Campaign of Austerlitz — .Organisation of the General 
 Express service — Interior Administration — Prodigious memory of 
 the Emperor ....... 220 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Campaign of 1809 — Marriage and Divorce plans — Singular conver- 
 sation with Marshal * * '-TTrDespair of the Empress — Unfeigned 
 grief of the Emperors-Courage of Josephine — She is abandoned 
 by almost every one — Marris^e — Birth of the King of Romej . 230 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Breach between France and Russia-Campaign of 1812 — Fatal. 
 
 system of the King of Naples— Conspiracy of Mallet . . 240 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 Intelligence of the disasters of the Russian Campaign — Firmness and 
 intrepidity of the Emperor — Campaign of 1813 — The Emperor 
 returns to Paris — My evening conversations with him — His 
 prodigious application to business — Formation and composition 
 of the National Guards ...... 250 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 Campaign of 1814 — Intrigues of the Royalists conducted by M. de 
 Talleyrand — Perplexity of the Council of Regency — Energetic 
 advice of Boulay de la Meurthe to the Empress — Departure of 
 the Government for Blois — Battle under the walls of Paris — 
 Capitulation — -Arrival of the Emperor at the stage called Le 
 Cour de France — His dejection — Entrance of the Allies — ^Aspect 
 of the Metropolis — Napoleon at Fontainebleau — Weariness and 
 felling off of the Chiefs — ^Abdication .... 257 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Departure of the Emperor , for the Island of Elba— Attempts to 
 poison and murder him — Entrance of Louis XVIII. into Paris 
 — Spirit of the populace-r^Varipus impressions — Sittings of the 
 Segate-^Reflections on the state of the nation . . . 269 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 My singular and perilous situation— The Empress Josephine at 
 Malmaison — The Emperor Alexander — His opinion of the 
 Bourbons — Death of the Empress Josephine — Errors of the 
 Government — Discontent of the Army — Anger of Marshal Ney 281 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 Conspiracy — Affair of General Excelmans — General Lallemant, 
 Marshal Davoust, the Dukes of Otranto and Bassano are at the 
 head of the Conspiracy — Prudent conduct of Marshal Davoust — 
 News of the Emperor's landing — ^Various sensations produced by 
 it — I seek refuge at the Duchess of St. Leu's — Departure of the 
 King — My visit to the Post-office .... 290 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 Aspect of the Tuileries — Arrival of the Emperor — Fouche at the 
 Police — Carnot at the Home Department — I again resume the 
 service of the Post-office on the 21st — Proclamation of the 
 Congress of Vienna — Situation of the Emperor ; its danger and 
 novelty — Champ de Mai — Declaration of the Council of State — 
 General Bourmont — Singular and painfiil discovery — Fouch^ . 305 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 Assembling of the Champ de Mai on the ist of June — Mass — 
 Affecting speech of the Emperor — His departure — Battle of 
 Waterloo — Return of the two Chambers — My conversation with 
 Napoleon at the Elys^e — He retires to Malmaison — Last con- 
 versation — His departure . . . . . .321 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 I am arrested — General Labedoy^re — My confinement at the Pre- 
 fecture of Police— My examination — Anecdote of one of the 
 Accomplices of Georges — I am transferred to the Conciergerie — 
 Marshal Ney — His delusion . . . . .331 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 My thoughts and occupations — The female prisoners — Apartment of 
 Queen Marie Antoinette— My examination before M. Dupuis, 
 Supernumerary Justice — His generous impartiality — Animosity of 
 the Royalists against me— Visits and comfortings of my friends, 
 
CONTENTS. xi 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Messrs. Alexander de la Rochefoucault, Vandeuil, Briqueville, 
 Tascher de St. Roses — I see my daughter £^ain for the first 
 time — M. Tripler ...... 341 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 Letter of the Duke de Richelieu against Marshal Ney — My anxiety 
 respecting. Madame Layalette — Opening of the debates — ^The 
 list of the jury communicated to me — M. Heron de ViUefosse — 
 My sentence of death is passed — The fetal news announced to 
 Madame Lavalette- — She solicits and obtains an audience of 
 the ICing— Words of Louis XVni. . . . -352 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 Madame de Lavalette comes to see me — Count Carvoisin — Some 
 particulars concerning Emilie Beauharnais — My marriage vrith 
 her — I leave her to go to Egypt — My Mission to Saxony — My 
 journey to Berlin ....... 361 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 Conduct of General Clarke towards me — M. Pasquier — The Duke of 
 Ragusa — His friendship for me — My prepossession — I grow 
 familiar with the idea . of a violent death, and its horrible 
 details — The Princess de Vaudemont takes measures in my 
 fevour — Trial of Marshal Ney — Disguised Life-guards — The 
 Marshal's execution — My sentence confirmed by the Court of 
 Cassation — The Duke of Ragusa accompanies Madame de 
 Lavalette to the' Tuileries — His courage — Answer of Louis 
 XVIII. — Harsh conduct of the Duchess of Angouleme . . 369 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 Consternation of the Turnkeys — Affecting trait of one of the female 
 turnkeys — Madame de Lavalette makes me acquainted with her 
 plan of escape — My objections — Its execution is put off to the 
 following day — Last attempt of Madame de Lavalette with M. 
 de Richelieu — ^Visit of M. de Carvoisin-^My daughter comes to 
 see me— I send her away — Madame de Lavalette brings her 
 back — She gives me my instructions — Last visit of M. de St. 
 Roses and Colonel Briqueville — Old Madame Dutoit — Our 
 supper — My disguise — I go away — I meet the sedan chair — The 
 chairmen not at their post — My perplexity, and the resolution I 
 take — Count Chassenon — New disguise — I follow M. Baudus on 
 foot — We meet gendarmes — We arrive at the Foreign-office — 
 Delicate attention of my hosts ..... 377 
 
xK CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Particulars related by M. Baudus— M. and Madame Bresson— Their 
 
 vow They both come to pay me a visit — Sensations produced 
 
 by my escape— Various reports— Precautions I was forced to 
 take— Fresh anxiety— I hear cried under my window the Police 
 Ordinance against those who might give me a refuge— Joineau 
 and his wife— Visit of Madame Bresson . . . -390 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 Account of what happened attheConciergerie— Rage of the Turnkeys— 
 Their brutal donduct to Madame Lavalette— M. Bellart examines 
 her with excessive severity — Chief cause of her illness — Her 
 terrors — She is placed in solitary confinement — My daughter 
 returns to her boarding-school — Conduct of the Superior towards 
 her-— The police pursue their investigation — ^Various plans to get 
 me out of France — Mr. Bruce — Sir Robert Wilson — Preparations 
 for my disguise — I leave the Hotel of Foreign Affairs — M. de 
 Chassenon brings me to the Rue de Helder — House of my 
 Reporting Judge — Mr. Hutchinson — Iset.ofif . . . 398 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 Various adventures — Conversation of Mr. Hutchinson with the 
 gendarmes at La Chapelle — Our arrival at Compiigne — Diffi- 
 culties started by the Postmaster at Valenciennes — I pass the 
 firontiers — I take leave of my two deliverers . . . 407 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 I travel under the name of Colonel Losack — I arrive at Worms, 
 where I read the newspapers — The police discover the generous 
 guilt of Sir Robert Wilson — Bribery and Informations — I pass 
 through the Grand-duchy of Baden and the Kingdom of Wir- 
 temberg — I arrive in Bavaria — ^Words addressed to me by the 
 King — I retire by his orders to Frayssingen — Information laid by^ 
 an old Emigrant — The Kmg sends me to Stamberg — Prince 
 Eugene comes to see me twice a week — Fresh change of abode 
 — Kindness of the King of Bavaria — I go and live at Munich 
 under a feigned name — France demands my expulsion, as well as 
 that of General Drouet d'Erlon — Answer of the King of Bavaria — 
 I seek refuge first at Eichstadt, and afterwards at Augsburg, with 
 the Duchess of St. Leu — I go back to France . . .411 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Berthier, Chief of the General Staff, to Citizen Lavalette, 
 Aide-de-camp to the General-in-Chief, 28 Floreal, Year 
 
 VI. 419 
 
 II. Bonaparte, General-in-chief, to Citizen Lavalette, 29 
 
 Prairial, Year VI. . . . . .419 
 
 III. The same to the same, 22 Frimaire, Year VII. . . 420 
 
 IV. 18 Nivose, Year VII. . . 420 
 
 V. 18 Vendemiaire, Year VII. . . 421 
 
 VI. Report addressed by Lavalette to the General-in-chief, on 
 
 his Journey to Peluse, dated 6 Brumaire . . .421 
 
 VII. Bonaparte, General-in-chief, to Citizen Lavalette, 27 
 
 Nivose, Year VIL . . . . . -423 
 
 VIII. The same to the same, 9 Pluviose, Year VII. . . 424 
 
 IX. 20 Pluviose, Year VII. . . 424 
 
 X. Extract of a Letter of the Duke de Ragusa to M. * • * . 424 
 
 XI. Letter of M. , Aide-de-camp of the Duke of Ragusa, 
 
 to M. ■ . . . . . .426 
 
 XIL Letter of Sir Robert Wilson to the Right Honourable the 
 
 Earl Grey ....... 427 
 
 Xllt Extract of a Letter from Count Lavalette to M. -, 
 
 dated from London ..... 434 
 
 XIV. Letter of M. Ballouchey to Count Lavalette, dated 16th 
 
 May, 1827 ....... 437 
 
 -XV. First Letter of Count Lavalette to the Duchess of Ragusa, 
 
 dated Starnberg, 28th July, l8l6 .... 440 
 
 XVI. Second Letter, 14th August, 1816 .... 442 
 
 XVII. Instructions for Citizen Lavalette on his departure on a 
 
 Mission to Saxony, dated Paris, 15 Pluviose, Year VIII. . 446 
 XVIII. Abstract of the General Instructions given to M. Lavalette 
 on his above-mentioned Mission to Saxony, dated 2 
 Pluviose, Year VIII. ..... 447 
 
 XIX. Instructions for Citizen Lavalette, from M. Talleyrand . 451 
 XX. The Minister of the Foreign Department to Citizen Lava- 
 lette, Paris, 12 Nivose, Year IX. .... 454 
 
LIST OF PLATES. 
 
 Napoieon. From an Engraving by Bromley and Murray, after 
 Gerard. {Frontispiece.) 
 
 Carnot. After Raffet. Face page 128 
 
 Kleber. After Raffet. Face page 184 
 
 Lavalette. From an Engraving. Face page 300 
 
 Lavalette, Countess. From an Engraving. Face page 36a 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF COUNT 
 LAVALETTE.i 
 
 A FEW days before the loth of August, King Louis XVI. 
 was reviewing the National Guards of Paris, assembled on 
 the Rue du Carrousel ; the monarch walked from the right 
 of the front of the line, with a slow and measured step, 
 distributing encouragements and praises, when, from the 
 opposite end of the line, a young soldier rushed forward 
 into the rank facing the King, and cried with enthusiasm, 
 " Long live the King ! Long live Louis XVI. ! We are all 
 for the King until death ! " Louis XVI. stopped surprised, 
 thanked the young man by a sign with his head and hand, 
 and asked his name — it was Lavalette. 
 
 Soon after, the events of the loth of August gave his 
 impatient courage an opportunity of showing itself. La- 
 valette got the command of a post at the Tuileries. He 
 defended it for a long while against the fury of the rebels, 
 who seemed to multiply under the fire of the palace. But 
 he was at last forced to yield. When the news came that 
 Louis XVI. had retired to the Assembly, the massacre began. 
 Lavalette, covered with dust and blood, was dragged away 
 by some friends, and thus by a miracle escaped a glorious 
 death ; but his fate was not to end there. 
 
 Five years later, on the 19th Fructidor, a young officer in 
 
 ' This was published a few days after the decease of Count Lavalette, 
 in the " Revue de Paris," vol. xii., No. I, 7th March, 1830. 
 
xvi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 a brilliant uniform, wearing round his arm the tricoloured 
 sash, quickly jumped into a cabriolet near the gate of the 
 Petit Luxembourg ; one of his former school-fellows, passing 
 by, recognised him, and after the usual congratulations 
 said : — 
 
 " Where are you going ? " 
 
 " I intend to return to Italy as quickly as possible." 
 
 ".Why in such a hurry ? " 
 
 "JBarras threatens to have me shot within four-and-twenty 
 hours." 
 
 " Then I advise you to get away, for he's in the humour 
 to do it." 
 
 " Who knows that better than I ? I wanted to make some 
 opposition to the barbarous follies of last night, and so they 
 send me away this morning ; but my conscience is clear, and 
 Bonaparte protects me. Adieu, I go ; if it please Heavea, 
 we shall see each other again." 
 
 The very evening after that conversation Lavalette left 
 Paris. 
 
 We shall leave him galloping on the road to Italy, and 
 going some years back, we will follow his steps from the 
 loth of August to the i8th Fructidor ; from a Royalist 
 Volunteer to a captain in the Republican army. 
 
 There is no doubt but the Revolution of 1789 was wished 
 for by the great majority of the French. Nevertheless the 
 cruelties that marked its commencement disgusted all honest 
 minds. Neither the plunderers of Reveillon's stores, the 
 murderers of Foulon and Berthier, nor the brawling rebels 
 of the 20th of June, represented the wishes and feelings of 
 France, and the party of Louis XVI. seemed at first to enlist 
 all the patriots, irritated by such criminal acts. 
 
 While the public mind was thus disposed, the foreign war 
 broke out, preceded by insolent threats : it proved a power- 
 ful diversion to the difficulties in which the Republican 
 party, then masters of the Legislative Assembly, were 
 involved. They turned it to advantage in a skilful manner ; 
 
CO UNT LA VALE TTE. xvii 
 
 and while the emigration of the nobles deprived the King 
 of all his natural support at home, those whom generous 
 feeling had rallied in his defence now flew to the frontiers, 
 and triumphed in the victories of Valmy, Jemmapes, and 
 Savoy, with Kellermann, Chartres, and Montesquiou ; they 
 heard no longer, in the rumour of camps and the intoxication 
 of glory, the cries of royalty in distress. 
 
 It was then that the throne fell for want of support. 
 Lavalette followed, under the standard of the Republic, 
 the crowd of young men who, like himself, without fortune, 
 name, or expectation, did not wish to speculate either upon 
 emigration or terror. From the armies which remained 
 neutral between the two opposite excesses, were destined at 
 a future period to rise those new fortunes, those reputations 
 so pure, so dear to France, among which Lavalette was to 
 shine.' 
 
 His father, who was a respectable tradesman in Paris, 
 gave him at Harcourt College an education which at first 
 sight appeared above his station in society. In consequence, 
 when- his parents began to think of his establishment, they 
 found nothing better than to devote him to the Church ; for 
 he had no taste for entering into trade, and he had too much 
 merit to pass his days in the idleness of a garrison. He 
 therefore took holy orders, obtained the situation of under- 
 librarian at Ste. Genevieve, and buried himself in books. 
 
 But the Revolution was soon announced by symptoms 
 that could not escape Lavalette. His ambition was roused 
 at the thoughts of the events that were preparing. 
 
 One day, as he was walking arm-in-arm with two friends 
 in the Rue Mazarin, the conversation happened to fall on 
 futurity. That subject is a common one among young 
 men. 
 
 " As for me," said Lavalette, " you think me very 
 quiet, quite buried in my books ; well, I can tell you that I 
 
 ■ Lavalette was born in Paris in 1769, in the same year with his pro- 
 tector and friend the Emperor Napoleon. 
 
 la 
 
viii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 wish to make my fortune. This Revolution encourages 
 me." 
 
 " You, my friend ! you will always be walking close to 
 the houses as you do now, for fear of being run over." 
 
 " Leave that to time ; we can answer for nothing. I shall 
 perhaps have the best part of the pavement in my turn, and 
 then, my friends, take care I don't bespatter you. Will you 
 bet that, in the highway they are opening for us, I do not get 
 on quicker than you ? " 
 
 The bets were agreed to. The two companions followed 
 honourably their several careers, but Lav alette advanced 
 with giant's strides, and at thirty years of age he had won 
 his wager. 
 
 The events of 1789 are known. Young Lavalette did 
 not follow the Church. A musket on his shoulder, he 
 entered the National Militia which Lafayette was organising 
 for the defence of King and country. In 1792 he signed the 
 Royalist petition of the ten thousand ; but his conduct on 
 the loth of August appearing suspicious, he enlisted as a 
 volunteer in the Legion of the Alps, and was one of the 
 soldiers of that army of peasants and citizens which formed 
 the coalition, on the banks of the Rhine, between their 
 mercenary bands and France. He served with great dis- 
 tinction during the whole campaign. At first named 
 adjutant of engineers, he was afterwards chosen as aide-de- 
 camp by General Baraguay d'Hilliers^ But when that 
 General came to Paris to defend Custines, whom all his 
 exertions could not save, he was persecuted himself, and 
 deprived of his liberty until the 9th Thermidor, so that he 
 could do nothing for Lavalette. 
 
 After the 9th Thermidor, the Revolution, tired of pro- 
 scription, stopped. The inviolability of the territory had 
 been secured, and the principles of reform were beyond 
 all danger : a second period was beginning, in which the 
 Revolution wished to get her rights acknowledged. She 
 was mistress of France, and her fate urged her on towards 
 
CO UNT LA VALE TTE. xix 
 
 the conquest or Europe ; with those old and obstinate 
 monarchies she could only treat sword in hand, and reply 
 to sophistry by victories. 
 
 The Constitution of the Third Year opened this second 
 and exclusively military period. France passed from the, 
 government of Terror to that of Glory : it was then that 
 Bonaparte appeared. 
 
 At the sight of this hero of twenty-six, with his pale and 
 melancholy countenance, his proud and calm deportment, his 
 eagle glance, his short sentences, his rapid gestures which 
 commanded obedience, his gravity which, notwithstanding 
 his youth, made him respected by the oldest generals of the 
 Republic — at sight also of that firm and devoted army that 
 was about to fight under his orders, of those young enthusi- 
 astic lieutenants who thronged around him, of that Italian 
 soil which presented itself as a rich prey, it might, perhaps, 
 not have been diflacult to foretell, that the first act of this 
 military drama, which began at Montenotte and terminated 
 at Waterloo, would be the most poetical and most brilliant 
 of all. 
 
 Lavalette was at first but coolly received among the staflF- 
 ofEcers of the General-in-chief, and was forced to conquer at 
 the point of his sword the esteem of Bonaparte. It was 
 on the field of battle at Areola that he received from the 
 General the title of aide-de-camp and the rank of captain. 
 Being wounded in his perilous mission to Tyrol, he was 
 complimented by Bonaparte, who said to him in presence of 
 the army, " Lavalette, you have behaved like a brave man. 
 When I write the history of this campaign, I shall not 
 forget you ! " He kept his word. In the meanwhile, our 
 young officer gained the friendship of his General by other 
 qualities as well as personal valour : he possessed solid infor- 
 mation, a scrutinising mind, wonderful sagacity, prudence^ 
 and perfect good breeding. This latter quality Bonaparte 
 liked above all things, and he distinguished Lavalette. 
 
 A few months afterwards he chose him for a difficult 
 
XX BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 mission. The General of the Italian army, surrounded by 
 his glory, nevertheless watched with anxiety the movements 
 and struggles of the parties which at that time agitated 
 France. In the conflict of so many passions, he could with 
 difficulty distinguish the truth. He therefore sent to Paris 
 his aide-de-camp Lavalette, to learn, through his reports, 
 the real state of affairs. A cipher, invented by Bourrienne, 
 served for their correspondence. 
 
 Lavalette, young and unknown, cast thus in the midst of 
 the dangers, intrigues, and seductions of political life, dis- 
 played nevertheless remarkable prudence and firmness. He 
 frequented all the societies of the period, but he connected 
 himself with none. At the Luxembourg, at Carnot's, in 
 Madame de Stael's drawing-room, at the circles of Augereau, 
 everywhere his ingenuity discovered the real aim of each 
 party, through the veil of vulgarity or refinement which 
 covered them. He saw the Directory in all the ridiculous 
 glory of its magnificence, and never could forget the farces 
 performed by those tyrants, in whose government ridicule 
 seemed to vie with cruelty. In 1829 he wrote the following 
 to one of his friends : ' 
 
 " I saw our five kings, dressed in the robes of Francis I., 
 his hat, his pantaloons, and his lace : the face of La Reveil- 
 Ibre looked like a cork upon two pins, with the black and 
 greasy hair of Clodion. M. de Talleyrand, in pantaloons of 
 the colour of wine dregs, sat in a folding-chair at the feet of 
 the Director Barras, in the Court of the Petit Luxembourg ; 
 and gravely presented to his sovereigns an Ambassador from 
 the Grand Duke of Tuscany, while the French were eating 
 his master's dinner, from the soup to the cheese. At the 
 right hand there were fifty musicians and singers of the 
 Opera, Lain6, Lays, Regnault, and the actresses, now all 
 dead of old age, roaring a patriotic cantata to the music of 
 Mehul, Facing them, on another elevation, there were two 
 hundred young and beautiful women, with their arms and 
 ' The author of this sketch. 
 
CO UNT LA VALE TTE. xxi 
 
 bosoms bare, all in ecstasy at the majesty of our Pentarchy 
 and the happiness of the Republic. They also wore tight 
 flesh-colour pantaloons, with rings on their toes. That was 
 a sight that will never be seen again. A fortnight after 
 this magnificent fite, thousands of families wept over their 
 banished fathers, forty-eight Departments were deprived 
 of their representatives, and forty editors of newspapers 
 were forced to go and drink the waters of the Elbe, the 
 Synamary, or the Ohio ! It would be ' a curious disquisi- 
 tion to seek to discover what really were at that time the 
 Republic and Liberty." 
 
 Lavalette had no power to oppose such violent acts. 
 He entered, however, a sort of protest against them by 
 refusing to Barras the money Bonaparte had promised him 
 out of the cash of the Army of Italy. This raised against 
 him the fury of the Directory and the brutal anger of 
 Augereau. But, if he did not prevent the i8th Fructidor, 
 he contributed, at least, to fix the General's opinion in 
 regard to that coup d^Hat, struck by a power at once 
 violent and weak, oppressive and despised, and who had not 
 courage enough to be equitable. From that moment the 
 Directory was condemned in the eyes of Bonaparte. He 
 saw that no futurity existed for the feeble Constitution of 
 the Year III., and from that day, even before the peace of 
 Campo Formio was signed, his long-sighted genius formed 
 the plan of the Egyptian campaign. 
 
 Having escaped from the threats of the Directory, La- 
 valette rejoined the General-in-chief at the Castle of Pas- 
 seriano. Bonaparte did not leave his zeal time to cool. A 
 few days afterwards Lavalette, his sash round his arm 
 and his sword in his hand, entered the walls of Genoa, 
 which had insulted the French. The gates of the Senate- 
 house were opened for him, and there, in the midst of the 
 patricians, trembling at once with fear and rage, he, with a 
 high hand and a loud voice, demanded satisfaction, and 
 forced the Doge to abandon and disown all English influence. 
 
xxii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 After the peace of Campo Formio, Bonaparte crossed 
 Switzerland on his way to Rastadt. Lavalette accom- 
 paniedi»him in this triumphant journey, during which the 
 people everywhere flocked to meet the conqueror of Italy. 
 The General did not remain long at Rastadt. Disgusted 
 at the protracted delays of German diplomacy, he left the 
 place, where Lavalette remained, entrusted with secret 
 powers, and placed in the most difficult position between 
 the. mistrustful plenipotentiaries of the Directory, who 
 detested him, and the ceremonious German Ministers, who 
 caressed in his person the name and influence of Bonaparte. 
 
 He was recalled a few months afterwards. It was then 
 that Bonaparte, not daring to solicit from Barras a reward 
 for Lavalette, married him to a young lady of the House 
 of Beauharnais, a niece of his wife, and whose father had 
 emigrated. Thus his kindness prepared the future welfare 
 of his friend, and allied a plebeian name to the lustre of his 
 dynasty. 
 
 Lavalette was no sooner married than he was forced to 
 depart. Bonaparte resolved to send him to Egypt, that he 
 might not be compromised in the trivial intrigues which 
 were going on in France. Near him, high in his confi- 
 dence, we still find Lavalette, with his soldierlike devotion, 
 his open cheerfulness, his taste for solitary studies in the 
 camp, his poetic enthusiasm for the distant and perilous 
 enterprise. After the capitulation of Malta, he was com- 
 manded to accompany to the end of the Adriatic the Grand 
 Master and his staff. On his return he visited the for- 
 tresses of Corfu. He was also to have carried assurances 
 of peace to the Pacha of Janina, but the latter was then 
 fighting on the banks of the Danube. On arriving before 
 Aboukir, Lavalette had a conversation with the unfortunate 
 Brueys, whom he found moored in the roads, preparing for 
 a battle and inflated with the hope of a certain victory. 
 He departed the day before the disaster, and after having 
 suffered a violent storm at the mouth of the Nile he went 
 
COUNT LA V ALETTE. xxiii 
 
 to Cairo, and from that time he only twice left the General — 
 first to accompany to Alexandria Citizen Beauchamp, at a 
 moment when the plague raged with the greatest violence 
 in that city, and the second to assist Andr^ossy when he 
 went to reconnoitre Pelusium.' 
 
 Lavalette was admitted to the intimacy, the conversa- 
 tions and the amusements of Bonaparte ; he was his table 
 companion and his reader,^ and he also shared his dangers.3 
 He fought next to him at the Pyramids and Mount Thabor ; 
 he crossed the desert by his side, and followed him to 
 the murderous siege of St. John of Acre. This was a 
 memorable period of Lavalette's life, and he was fond of 
 recalling it to his recollection. His friends will never forget 
 his narrative of the fourteenth assault commanded by Kleber, 
 which he used to take so much pleasure in repeating. It 
 seemed like a page taken from an epic poem. 
 
 The curtain that protected a great part of the town and 
 the palace of Djezzar had been opened. The grenadiers of 
 Kleber, brought back to the trenches by a strong fire of 
 musketry, openly demanded a fresh assault. Bonaparte 
 hesitated ; however, pressed by these brave men, he gave 
 the signal. The scene was grand and terrible ! The 
 grenadiers rushed forward under a shower of bullets ; 
 Kleber, with his giant-like stature and his thick head of 
 hair, had taken his post, sword in hand, on the reverse 
 of the ditch, from whence he animated the assailants. 
 
 ' See in the Appendix the narrative of a journey to Pelusium. 
 
 ' Bonaparte was not fond of novels. One evening, however, he said 
 to Lavalette, " Come, Mr. Enthusiast, read me that &mous letter from 
 La Meillerie ! " It was at CairOj and the heat was suffocating. La- 
 valette, to shelter himself from the insects, had taken his seat behind the 
 muslin curtains of the General, who was in bed, and showed, as the 
 reading advanced, the greatest signs of impatience ; at last he stopped 
 him, and bade him good night in the following words : " That's enough, 
 Lavalette ; this passion is too talkative for me." 
 
 3 Bonaparte had brought eight aides-de-camp virith him to Egypt ; four 
 perished there. Julian and Sulkowsky were murdered by the Arabs; 
 Croisier was killed at St. John of Acre, and Guibert at Aboukir ; Duroc 
 and Eugene Beauhamais were severely wounded ; Lavalette assisted in all 
 the hottest encounters and escaped. 
 
xxiv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 The sound of the cannon, the cries of rage and enthu- 
 siasm of our soldiers, and the roaring of the Turks, were 
 mixed with the thundering accents of his voice. In the 
 meanwhile General Bonaparte, standing in the breach 
 batteries, followed the movement with a spying-glass 
 resting on the fascines. A cannon-ball passed over his 
 head, and the shock threw him down. In vain Berthier 
 pressed him to leave his perilous post ; he received no 
 answer. At the same instant a bullet mortally wounded 
 the young and unfortunate Arrighi, who stood between 
 the General-in-chief and Lavalette, others were killed by 
 his side, and still he did not make the slightest motion to 
 retire. All of a sudden the column of the besiegers stopped. 
 Bonaparte rushed forward and saw the ditch emitting 
 flames ; thick grape-shot came from under the ground and 
 beat down whoever dared to approach ; the troops, how- 
 ever, persisted with incredible ardour. Kleber, enraged, 
 was striking his thigh with his sword, but the General-in- 
 chief, convinced that the obstacle was not to be surmounted, 
 gave, by a sign with his hand, the, order for the retreat. 
 
 It was thus that the siege of St. John of Acre concluded. 
 Bonaparte having left Syria and added to his immortal 
 campaign the bulletin of Aboukir, delivered the command 
 of his army into the hands of Kleber ; and after stopping at 
 Corsica on his way, he was received on the shores of France 
 by the enthusiasm of the citizens, carried in triumph to 
 Paris, where he overthrew, as it were with a breath, the 
 worm-eaten throne of the Directors. France applauded 
 when the young hero, borne upon the consular shield by 
 his lieutenants, appeared in her eyes as an umpire and a 
 saviour. Lavalette had followed Bonaparte on his return, and 
 was useful to him in the coup de main of the i8th Brumaire. 
 
 War, however, continued with Austria. The French 
 Government wished to have near the eventful scene a 
 man capable of judging which moment would be most 
 favourable for a negotiation. Lavalette was sent to 
 
COUNT LA V ALETTE. xxv 
 
 Dresden, with all the necessary powers to treat of peace 
 with Austria ; but General Moreau was at Hohenlinden 
 as the real negotiator for France. Peace was concluded, 
 and Lavalette returned to Paris. 
 
 Here ended his military and diplomatic career. The 
 First Consul, whose chief care was directed towards his 
 reign, which had already begun, though under a republican 
 form, wished to associate with himself, in the government 
 of France, all those among his companions in arms of 
 whose fidelity, zeal, and talent he had received proofs. La- 
 valette was chosen among the first. Appointed in the 
 beginning Commissioner-General of the Post Office, he 
 obtained at the establishment of the Empire the title of 
 Postmaster-General, to which Bonaparte, at a later period, 
 added those of Count, Councillor of State, and Grand 
 Officer of the Legion of Honour. 
 
 M. Lavalette gave himself wholly up to the duties of 
 his situation. His ambition was satisfied. So that when, 
 in 1 815, Napoleon ofiFered him the Ministry of the Home 
 Department, he preferred resuming the functions he had 
 already fulfilled, in difficult times, with equal zeal and 
 success. It must, in fact, not be forgotten that he had to 
 organise the service of the Post Office at a time when 
 France, bounded on one side by the Rhine, extended on 
 the other to both the Peninsulas, and kept up armies 
 over all Europe. He was, in some measure, the centre 
 from whence motion and life was to depart and circulate 
 over that vast empire. He constantly maintained, with 
 a laudable ardour, the sacred connections of the soldiers 
 with their mother country ; the exchange of glory and 
 enthusiasm between the army and the citizen. His elevated 
 station put him in possession of many family secrets. 
 Never could policy oblige him to reveal them. " With him 
 candour and effusion of heart never carried any danger 
 with them." ' 
 
 ' Words spoken by General Sebastian! over the tomb of Lavalette. 
 
xxvi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 We need not recall, then, the many famous events which 
 filled up the period of the Empire, but which have no 
 connection with the present sketch. We may pass over 
 the golden dreams of a man too strongly intoxicated with 
 his fortune ;— we may leave M. Lavalette, governing during 
 twelve years the Post Office with a firm and discreet hand ; 
 ■carrying to the discussions of the Council of State his know- 
 ledge, clear judgment, and the inspirations of his upright 
 conscience ; shining in the circles of an elegant and polished 
 Court ; and towards the decHne of so much grandeur, when 
 the soil began to tremble beneath the throne, giving to the 
 Emperor the bold advice of a friend, which was proudly 
 rejected. The world knows the rest. 
 
 The events of 1814 restored Count Lavalette to private 
 life, from which he did not stir until after the return of 
 Bonaparte to the capital on the 20th March of the following 
 year. Attempts have been made to place in a false light 
 the motives that rallied him to the Imperial throne after 
 the whole army had acknowledged the Emperor, and in the 
 midst of such exciting circumstances. These motives, how- 
 ever, he drew from his conscience. " He was accu§g^ of 
 having been prejudiced ; he was convinced he had been 
 faithful." ' 
 
 His return to public affairs was marked by an act of 
 moderation, of which he in vain set the example to his 
 enemies. One of the chief clerks of his department came 
 in a busy manner and presented him with a list of suspected 
 persons ; M. Lavalette let him speak out, and when the 
 informer had finished, he said to him : " Pray, Sir, have 
 you ever looked an honest man in the face ? " The clerk, 
 abashed, faltered out a few confused words. "Well, Sir, 
 now you may learn who I am," and taking the list he 
 threw it into the fire. 
 
 M. Lavalette was frequently called to the Emperor 
 during the Hundred Days. He saw him in his councils 
 ' Words of Count Montlosier. 
 
COUNT LAVALETTE. xxvii 
 
 and in his privacy. The Emperor was resolved not to 
 continue at war unless it were to defend the soil. The 
 spirit of liberty had made its way to him ; his table re- 
 echoed with liberal professions that perplexed him. He 
 said at one time to M. Lavalette, in the secret bitterness 
 of a confidential conversation : " But what do they want ? 
 the liberty of the press ? I shall give them more of it 
 perhaps than they wish. Let them only suffer me to save 
 France." France was again invaded ; and the fortune of 
 the Emperor expired on the field of Waterloo. 
 
 That event was for Count Lavalette the beginning of a 
 series of unheard-of sufferings. Secure in the persuasion of 
 his innocence, he remained in Paris ; but he was appre-' 
 hended on the i8th of July, while at table with his friends. 
 He was placed in solitary confinement. His trial began : 
 the preparations were tedious and threatening. The fate 
 of Labedoyfere, then of Marshal Ney, were bad omens for 
 his own. On the 19th of November he appeared before 
 the jury accused of having been an accomplice in the 
 conspiracy which brought on the events of the preceding 
 10th of March ; he defended himself in the most noble 
 manner ; ' but after two days' discussion, overwhelmed by 
 the force of the insatiable passions which had been excited 
 by the reaction, and were daring enough to seek vengeance 
 through the medium of the law, he was sentenced to death. 
 He heard his sentence read with great calmness, and said 
 with a firm voice to his sorrowing friends, " My friends, this 
 is a cfennon-ball." Then turning to the numerous clerks of 
 the Post Office who had borne witness against him, he made 
 them a salute with his hand, and said : " Gentlemen of the 
 Post Office, receive my farewell greetings." 
 
 His voice, which resounded mildly, yet firmly, through 
 the court, amidst tl^e general consternation, might have 
 made people suppose he was resigned : but, when he 
 
 " The celebrated Tripier helped him with his advice, and gave him 
 proofs of the most generous friendship. 
 
xxviii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 returned to his solitary dungeon, the old soldier felt his 
 heart quail at the thoughts of the death that awaited him. 
 He wrote to one of his old companions in arms, who at that 
 time enjoyed great influence at court, to beg he would 
 solicit for him the favour of being shot. A cruel refusal 
 was the only answer he received from his friend. From 
 that moment the consciousness of the injustice under which 
 he suffered stimulated his courage. He endeavoured to 
 reconcile his mind to the idea of that death at which he was 
 so dismayed : he listened to the description the turnkeys 
 made of the humiliating preparations by which it was 
 preceded, and of the horrible details of the execution. He 
 made them repeat their story several times, and insisted on 
 knowing all. At last, after having struggled for some time 
 with the horror of these gloomy thoughts, which filled hjs 
 days and agitated his sleep with frightful dreams,' he at last 
 
 ' One dream in' particular left very deep impressions on the mind of 
 Lavalette, which time itself was not able entirely to efface. This is the 
 manner in which he related it : 
 
 " One night, while I was asleep, the clock of the Palais de Justice 
 struck twelve, and awoke me. I heard the gate open to relieve the sentry; 
 but I fell asleep again immediately. In this sleep, I dreamed that I was 
 standing in the Rue St. Honor^, at the corner of the Rue de I'Echelle. A 
 melancholy darkness spread around me ; all was still, nevertheless a low 
 and uncertain sound soon arose. AH of a sudden, I perceived at the 
 bottom of the street, and advancing towards me, a troop of cavalry, the 
 men and horses, however, all flayed. The men held torches in their hands, 
 the red flames of which illuminated skinless faces and bloody muscles. , 
 Their hollow eyes rolled fearfully in their vast sockets ; their mouths opened 
 from ear to ear, and helmets of hanging flesh covered their hideous heads. 
 The horses dragged along their own skins, in the kennels, which over- 
 flowed with blood on both sides. Pale and dishevelled women appeared 
 and disappeared alternately at the windows, in dismal silence ; low, 
 inarticulate groans filled the air; and I remained in the street alone, 
 petrified with horror, and deprived of strength sufficient to seek my safety 
 by flight. This horrible troop continued passing in a rapid gallop, and 
 casting frightful looks on me. Their march, I thought, continued for five 
 hours ; and they were followed by an immense number of artillery-wagons, 
 full of bleeding corpses, whose limbs still quivered ; a disgusting smell of 
 blood and bitumen almost choked me. At length, the iron gate of the 
 prison shutting with great force, awoke me again. I made my repeater 
 strike ; it was no more than midnight, so that the horrible phantasmagoria 
 had lasted no more than two or three minutes — that is to say, the time 
 necessary for relieving the sentry and shutting the gate. The cold was 
 
CO UNT LA VALE TTE. xxix 
 
 felt himself capable of tranquilly awaiting death ; and all his 
 thouglits were then directed to the comforting of his family 
 and friends. " Why do you deplore me ? " he said to them ; 
 "an honest man may die murdered, but his conscience 
 follows him to the scaffold." 
 
 Days, however, passed on. The Court of Cassation had 
 rejected his writ of error : a petition for pardon, presented 
 by Madame Lavalette, and vainly supported by the cou- 
 rageous zeal of the Duke of Ragusa, had also been refused. 
 The day of execution approached. The unfortunate man 
 had no hope left : the turnkeys themselves trembled, as 
 they came near him, with pity and emotion. On the eve 
 of that last day, the Countess Lavalette entered his prison. 
 She had put on a pelisse of merino, richly lined with fur, 
 which she was accustomed to wear when she left a ball- 
 room : in her reticule she had a black silk gown. Coming 
 up to her husband, she assured him with a firm voice that 
 all was lost, and that he had nothing more to hope than in 
 a well-combined escape. She showed him the woman's 
 attire, and proposed to him to disguise himself. Every 
 precaution had been taken to secure his escape. A sedan- 
 chair wouM receive him on his coming out of prison ; a 
 cabriolet waited for him on the Quai des Orffevres ; a 
 devoted friend, a safe retreat, would answer any further 
 objections. M. Lavalette listened to her without ap- 
 proving of so hazardous a plan : he was resigned to his 
 fate, and refused to fly from it. " I know how to act my 
 part in a tragedy," he said, " but spare me the burlesque 
 farce. I shall be apprehended in this ridiculous disguise, 
 and they will, perhaps, expose me to the mockery of the 
 mob ! On the other hand, if I escape, you will remain a 
 
 severe and the watchword short. The next day, the turnkey confirmed 
 my calculations. I nevertheless do not remember one single event in my 
 life, the duration of which I have been able more exactly to calculate, of 
 which the details are deeper engraven in my memory, and of which I 
 preserve a more perfect consciousness." 
 
XXX BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 prey to the insolence of prison valets, and to the persecution 
 of my enemies ! " 
 
 " If you die, I die ; save your life to save mine ! " 
 
 The prisoner yielded to her urgent entreaties. 
 
 "Now put on the disguise," she added; "it is time to 
 go ; no farewell — no tears — your hours are counted ! " 
 
 And when the toilet was finished, 
 
 " Adieu ! " she said ; " do not forget to stoop when you 
 pass under the wickets, for fear the feathers of your bonnet 
 should stick fast ! " 
 
 She then pulled the bell, and rushed behind a screen. 
 The door opened ; he passed, followed by an old servant of 
 his wife, and leaning on his daughter's arm. When they 
 arrived at the sedan-chair, the chairmen were not there. 
 The soldiers of the guard-house had assembled to see 
 Madame Lavalette, and looked on without moving ! This 
 was a fearful moment. The men arrived at last ; the chair 
 went off. A few minutes later, a cabriolet, drawn by a 
 swift horse, rolled over the stones of the Pont Michel. 
 
 This took place on the 23rd of December. M. Lavalette 
 remained concealed in Paris until the loth of January. A 
 singular favour of fortune gave him as a retreat the very 
 roof under which lived one of his political enemies,' equally 
 powerful by his name, his station, and his wealth. From 
 the garret floor which Lavalette inhabited, he heard persons 
 crying in the streets the police ordinance which prescribed 
 search after his person. The barriers were shut ; the delivery 
 of passports suspended ; expresses, bearing the description 
 of his person, were flying about on every side. In the 
 Chambers, in the Court circles, the utmost consternation, 
 prevailed among those who were convinced that all was lost 
 if M. Lavalette was not retaken. Paris, however, rejoiced, 
 while the police, falsely accused of connivance, burned with 
 impatience to damp the public joy, and answer, by a feat 
 
 ' This was a secret which he kept until his death, but which his Memoirs 
 win now explain to the public. 
 
• COUNT LA VALE TTE. xxxi 
 
 worthy of its zeal, the complaints of the gilded drawing- 
 rooms, and the reproaches that re-echoed from the tribune. 
 
 In the midst of all these dangers Count Lavalette lived,, 
 protected by a family to whom he was personally unknown, 
 but whose courageous friendship helped him to bear the 
 agonies of his concealment. His days passed on between 
 agreeable conversation and diversified reading : a double- 
 barrelled pistol, hid under his pillow, like a talisman, secured 
 to him some nightly rest. This lasted seventeen days. 
 Finally, on the 9th of January, 1816, at eight o'clock in 
 the morning, he went on foot with a friend to Captain 
 Hutchinson's lodgings, and next day, at the very hour when 
 a gibbet was being put up on the Place de Grfeve for his 
 execution in effigy, he set off, dressed in English regimentals, 
 with Sir Robert Wilson, crossed the barriers in an open 
 cabriolet, and proceeded to Mons. During this journey, M. 
 Lavalette, who did not know one word of English, was 
 forced to keep a handkerchief to his face, as if he had been 
 suffering from a violent toothache, that he might not be 
 under the necessity of speaking to the numerous English 
 officers that stopped his guide on the road. Once, at 
 Compiegne, having entered a public room in an inn, a 
 travelling clerk of a trading house told him the whole 
 history of his escape from prison, accompanied by the most 
 ridiculous circumstances, and adding between every sentence 
 the words, " You may believe me, for I was in Paris at the 
 time." Another time, near the frontiers, a captain of 
 gendarmerie asked for their passports, and took them with 
 him. M. Lavalette travelled under the name of Colonel 
 Losack.' The captain came back a long while afterwards, 
 saying that there was no colonel of that name in the English 
 army. Sir Robert replied that he was talking nonsense 
 — that they were fools for staying so long ; and, making a 
 sign to the postillions, they set off at full speed. At Mons 
 his generous guide was to leave him. M. Lavalette, deeply 
 
 ' M. Lavalette took the name of Cossar when he arrived in Bavaria. 
 
xxxii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 affected, pressed his hands while expressing his gratitude |' 
 but Sir Robert, still maintaining his wonted gravity, smiled 
 without replying. At last, after half an hour's silence, he 
 turned to M. Lavalette, and said, in the most serious 
 manner possible, " Now pray, my dear friend, why did you 
 not like to be guillotined?" M. Lavalette stared at him, 
 surprised at such a question. " Yes," added Sir Robert, "I 
 have been told you solicited as a favour to be shot." 
 
 " Because the condemned person is placed in a cart, his 
 hands tied behind his back ; then he is bound to a plank 
 which is slipped under the axe." 
 
 " Ah ! I understand ; you did not wish to have your 
 throat cut like a calf." 
 
 M. Lavalette crossed a part of Germany, and soon entered 
 upon the hospitable soil of Bavaria. The King received 
 him with great zeal, and protected him against the French 
 Ministry, who insisted on his being delivered up to them. 
 The Duchess of St. Leu offered him her house ; and Prince 
 Eugene lavished on him all the consolations of friendship. 
 
 In 1822, letters of pardon, granted by Louis XVIIL, 
 restored him to his native country. M. Lavalette thus 
 hoped to enjoy still some happy days ; but, when he arrived 
 in Paris, in the midst of the congratulations that poured on 
 him from all sides, one voice remained silent, and that was 
 his wife's ! From that decisive hour when, with such over- 
 powering energy, she had arranged his escape, and remained 
 a hostage in his place, she had not seen him. And now 
 she looked upon him without emotion and without tears. 
 She knew him not ! The unfortunate lady had spent all her 
 reason in saving him ! 
 
 This last trial surpassed all the rest. M. Lavalette was 
 overwhelmed by it. He wrote to the King : — " Your 
 Majesty has restored to me possessions I prized more than 
 life ; but all your royal favour can never counterbalance my 
 misfortune." 
 
 His unfortunate situation traced to him the path he ought 
 
COUNT LA VALETTE. xxxiii 
 
 to follow. He gave up the world, where he had left such 
 brilliant recollections and so many faithful friends, and 
 devoted himself to complete solitude, which he only once 
 left to go to London in 1826, and support Sir Robert 
 Wilson's election. His life was one continued scene of 
 devotion. He repaid his wife by daily care, and by- pious 
 and delicate attentions, almost as great as he had received 
 from her ; and when death overtook him, he expired tran- 
 quilly, for he left no debt behind him. 
 
 Study was the only comfort he had in his retirement ; 
 during all his lifetime he had cultivated literature with 
 assiduity and enthusiasm. In the camp before Mentz, at 
 the table of General Bonaparte, in the drawing-room of the 
 Tuileries, he always passed for a remarkably witty man aind 
 a most agreeable narrator. His misfortunes multiplied for 
 him opportunities for study and reflection, so that, jvhen he 
 returned from exile, he had nothing to do but to foUow the 
 movement and progress of New France. Though far from 
 his country, he had advanced with her ; he had her manners, 
 her enduring patience, her confident hope in future events, ^ 
 her ardour for useful reform, her freedom from all ridiculous 
 delusions. His mind possessed all the freshness of youth, 
 and he viewed with enthusiasm the elForts making in favour 
 of glory and liberty. The consequence was, that he was 
 respected by men of all ages, but that he was more particu- 
 larly pleasing to the young. They loved to hear him speak ; 
 all the past lived in his recollection, with its real colours, 
 adulterated neither by enthusiasms nor by regret for the 
 high station he had lost. Numberless witty sayings, inte- 
 resting and unexpected, flowed without effort in his rich and 
 easy conversation. His imagination gave a colouring to 
 objects ; but fiction was repugnant to his just and accurate 
 mind. His lively discourse, like an amusing book, kept his 
 
 ' M. Lavalette should have lived a few months longer. The Revolu- 
 tion of July has realised his hopes, it would have fulfilled all his wishes. — 
 Note of the French Editor. 
 
 lb 
 
xxxiv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 friends by his side till night was far advanced, and cheated 
 time in its rapid flight. 
 
 Death, however, unexpectedly aimed his shaft at his 
 victim amidst his books and his unfinished labours. Even 
 the day preceding his decease was devoted to study and 
 friendship. Under the hoary frost of age, his mind preserved 
 all its vigour; his heart was young by the warmth of his virtues. 
 
 This reflection comforts us. 
 
 Though he fell beneath an unexpected blow, Count La- 
 valette died in the sixty-first year of his age, surrounded by 
 his family, and regretted by his friends. 
 
 If he had died in 1815, by the political sword which struck 
 so many other victims, fifteen years of his existence would 
 have been suddenly cut off" (not the happiest surely) ; but 
 what a cruel death awaited him, what a funeral ! a scaffold 
 on a pubjic thoroughfare, a cart transporting his mutilated 
 remains, and after the cries of the GrSve, the solitude of 
 Clamart. 
 
 But the victim escaped. Banishment defended him 
 against death ; by degrees passions are calmed ; rage and 
 resentment appeased. Thus, at one breath the whole 
 edifice of a sanguinary trial falls to the dust ; the justice 
 of the Sovereign tears out the fatal page-; an honest man 
 resumes his place and rank under the same heaven that 
 serves as a canopy to his accusers and his judges ; and when 
 his last hour arrives, his soul leaves the earth among the 
 endearments and blessings of his children ; religion receives 
 him ; his country honours his remains ; his companions of 
 all times, his friends of all parties, throng around him ; the 
 salute of the brave resounds over his grave, and Fame repeats 
 to France the farewell of friendship. 
 
 Manes of victims, of whatever party, who have been con- 
 demned for political crimes, and on whom the thunderbolt 
 has fallen in the fury of the storm, let the fate of Lavalette 
 comfort you : — ^you have all been restored to your rights in 
 his person ! Cuvillier Fleury. 
 
TO THE READER. 
 
 I NEVER should have determined to record, in writing, the 
 events which have passed before my eyes, nor even those in 
 which I have acted a part during eight-and-twenty years, 
 had I not been involved in so conspicuous a manner in the 
 catastrophe that put an end to the Imperial Government ; 
 but I thought it my duty to leave, both to my family and 
 my friends, an indisputable testimony of my innocence and 
 general conduct. It would, moreover, be but ill requiting 
 the interest with which so many honourable persons have 
 favoured me, to maintain a silence which my enemies might 
 misuse to justify their persecutions. 
 
 My first intention was to describe only late events ; but, 
 having been for above twenty years attached to the Emperor 
 Napoleon, it appeared to me that I ought not to pass over in 
 silence one part, at least, of his glorious history. Could I 
 look upon myself as at liberty to deprive posterity of any cir- 
 cumstances connected with a hero who will never cease to 
 engross attention ? He has been exposed to the insults of 
 his ungrateful contemporaries, and it is my duty to oppose 
 truth to those insults. No exertion has been wanting on 
 my side to avoid being led away by the deep affection I shall 
 cherish to the end of my life for a man who has been my 
 general, my sovereign, and my benefactor. It is not, how- 
 ever, his public actions, and still less the wars which have 
 shed a lustre over his life, that I pretend to describe. He 
 
xxxvi TO THE READER. 
 
 has still friends left among the generals who shared his toil 
 and his glory : to them the noble task belongs. I shall paint 
 the private man. Few persons have known him as well as 
 I have ; and historians, gathering materials, may place full 
 confidence in my recital. I shall mention no other facts 
 than those of which I have been an eye-witness ; and I am 
 much mistaken if my character will not prove a sufEcieni; 
 voucher for their truth. 
 
 Still, I require much indulgence. I write far from my 
 country,' in deep solitude, often depressed by misfortune, 
 and deprived of the materials requisite for recalling facts, 
 dates, and names. The impressions are, however, still vivid 
 in my memory and in my heart. , 
 
 Many persons, seeing my name on the title-page of these 
 Memoirs, will perhaps expect to find in them an abundant I 
 feast of anecdote and scandal : they will be mistaken. During 
 thirteen years I filled a delicate situation, thanks to which I] 
 have discovered some painful secrets of the humaa heart ; 
 but I will not disgrace my character by publishing them. It 
 is not with rubbish that durabla monuments can be raised. 
 
 It is my resolution that this work do not appear during 
 my life. Not that I wish to escape criticism ; but because 
 a feeling which honourable minds alone can appreckte 
 makes, it a duty to, me to occupy the public, atteation no 
 longer with myself. My unibrtunate celebrity has beeffl 
 dearly bought,, and I now want rest rather than pity. 
 
 ' A great part of these Memoirs was written in Bavaria, during ST. 
 Lavalette's banishmestt, in his various retreats on the borders of Late 
 Starenberg, at Eichstadt, and at Augsburg. It will, however, be observect 
 in reading the conclusion, that they were revised and finished at Paris, or 
 rather in the country near Sivres.— JVbfe of the BdHor. 
 
MEMOIRS 
 
 OF 
 
 COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I WAS born in Paris in 1769. My father having enjoyed 
 a liberal education, and being sensible of its advantages, 
 watched over mine with constant application. I went late 
 to school, because my health was indifferent, and left it in 
 1788 ; after having, for eight years, filled my head with 
 Latin, in which I never was a proficient— and with Greek, 
 which I have completely forgotten. My confessor was a 
 most excellent man, but he heated my imagination to pre- 
 serve my morals. He put into my hands a great many 
 religious books, and took a particular pleasure in making me 
 learn the sacred orators by heart. I was so pleased with the 
 sermons of Massillon, and the funeral orations of Bossuet, 
 that I had no doubt but the church was my real calling. I 
 tormented my family until I got permission to follow a 
 course of lectures on theology ; but the very first year was 
 sufficient to disgust me. The method of disputing in bad 
 Latin, the everlasting passion for proving both sides of the 
 question, without presenting fixed ideas upon any subject 
 whatever, inspired me with an aversion for that study. I 
 could not conceive why so much trash should be deemed a 
 
2 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 necessary introduction to the eloquence of the pulpit. I re- 
 solved, therefore, in preference, to follow the bar. My father 
 observed with satisfaction the turn my taste had taken, and 
 it was decided that I should be placed, first in a notary's, and 
 then in an attorney's office. The notary's business appeared 
 to me still more irksome than theology. I remained, how- 
 ever, nearly a year with him, after which I went to the legal 
 practitioner, and was fortunate enough to find him a sensible 
 man. His name was Dommanget, and his love of his pro- 
 fession was confined to the profits he drew from it. He pos- 
 sessed a large and well-chosen library ; and as I cost him no 
 salary, he suffered me to pass my time among his books. 
 There I read many excellent works, and gained a taste for 
 literature that has never diminished. I studied, in particular, 
 the history of France, of which I had not previously the least 
 idea. A strange system of instruction prevailed at that time. 
 Thousands of young men every year left the university, after 
 having finished their studies, their heads being filled with 
 republican maxims, their minds inflamed with adrniration of 
 the virtue of the ancient commonwealths, most cordially 
 despising all monarchical governments, and at the same time 
 shamefully ignorant of the history of their mother country. 
 Not once during my eight years' studies did I hear the name 
 of Henry the Fourth pronounced ; and I must own that at 
 the age of seventeen I was acquainted neither with the time 
 nor the manner in which the House of Bourbon mounted 
 the throne. 
 
 The events that preceded the grand drama of 1789 took 
 me by surprise in the midst of my books and my love of 
 study. I was then reading " L'Esprit des Lpis," a work that 
 charmed me by its gravity, depth, and sublimity. I wished 
 also to become acquainted with the code of our own laws ; 
 but Dommanget, to whom I mentioned my desire, laughed, 
 and pointed to the Justinian Code, the common law code of 
 the kingdom, the parliamentary decrees, and the statutes of 
 our kings, accompanied by an immense number of inter- 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 3 
 
 preters and cpmmentators. So monstrous a heap of folio 
 ■volumes made me shudder, and I concluded somewhat 
 rashly, but like many other people, that it was better to re- 
 model the whole than to load my memory with such obscure 
 lore. To my graver studies I added the perusal of political 
 pamphlets, which then began to be numerous. Thus my 
 imagination was excited, and, wiseacre of twenty as I was, I 
 thought I should do well to unite with the meditations of 
 my closet the observation of those scenes of disorder that 
 were the harbinger of the Revolution. 
 
 There lived at that time, in the Faubourg St. Antoine, a 
 wealthy paper-hanging manufacturer called Reveillon. This 
 man employed several hundred workpeople, who, being dis- 
 satisfied with his refusal to raise their wages, and probably 
 instigated by the enemies of their master, resolved to murder 
 him and ransack the establishment by which they got their 
 livelihood. The disturbance soon rose to a great height, and 
 the guet, or guard of the town, not being strong enough to 
 suppress it, a detachment of the regiment of the Gardes 
 Fran^aiserwas ordered out against the rioters. Wishing to 
 be a witness of the scene, I went to the spot, and was stand- 
 ing between the plunderers and the troops, when the latter 
 arrived by divisions and fired. Many persons were killed, 
 several were sent to prison, and one man was, I believe, 
 hanged a few days afterwards. So brutal a manner of restor- 
 ing public order exasperated me, and I soon understood that 
 such is the custom of governments that wish, as the phrase 
 is, to show energy and inspire respect ; in one word, that it 
 is easier to repress crimes by force than to prevent them by 
 wisdom and resolution. The inhabitants of the suburb never 
 forgot this military expedition ; and I have good reason to 
 believe that it contributed greatly to keep alive the spirit of 
 revenge and sedition that prevailed so long among the popu- 
 lation of that part of Paris. 
 
 The resistance of the Parliament to the orders of Govern- 
 ment caused great agitation in the public mind. The 
 
4 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 magistrates would no longer consent to administer justice ; 
 the counsel and attorneys would no longer follow their suits ; 
 all the clerks of the bar assembled tumultuously, and sided 
 openly with the Parhament. These young men formed at 
 that time a corporation called " La Basoche." They had 
 their own chiefs, observed a sort of discipline, and wore a 
 peculiar dress. Though I was not enlisted in their body,, 
 one of my fellow clerks proposed that I should join them, 
 and I consented. We found them in the garden of the 
 Luxembourg, several hundred in number, highly excited, 
 and disposed to procure arms. I took it in my head to pro- 
 pose to several among them to attack the guard of the 
 Theatre Frangais, seize their muskets, and march against the 
 battalion of the guards stationed in the Place Dauphine. My 
 proposal was received with enthusiasm, and communicated 
 to all the groups. Some young men, more reasonable than 
 the rest, and who probably had come there with the sole 
 view of dissuading and restraining the others, expressed z. 
 wish to see the author of so wise a plan. One of them ex- 
 amined me from head to foot. The shortness of my stature 
 made him smile, and he found but little difficulty in proving 
 the extravagance of a resolution, the consequences of which 
 must inevitably be fatal to us. The most violent among us 
 left the garden to proceed towards the Place Dauphine. The 
 soldiers stood dispersed with their arms piled beside them. 
 We looked at one another ; and I know not what would 
 have been the result, if the drum had not suddenly beat to 
 rally the troops. 
 
 These tumultuous scenes had already lasted eighteen, 
 months, and, by the ridiculous success obtained in the Fau- 
 bourg St. Antoine, Government seemed persuaded that the 
 armed force would be sufficient to answer all ends. The 
 States-General had assembled at Versailles, having been sum- 
 moned at once by the Parliament, who wished to embarrass 
 the Court and revenge itself, — by the Ministers, who knew 
 not which way to act, — and by the majority of the nation^ 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. S 
 
 justly discontented with an incapable Government, and per- 
 haps also tired of too uniform a tranquillity. The States- 
 General soon felt that the system and prejudices of the Court 
 ■would be insuperable obstacles to the redress of the evil. 
 They wished for a plan of government in which the rights 
 of the nation at large, rather than those of the privileged 
 classes, might be considered. M. Necker, who was a clever 
 financier, a philosopher, and by birth the citizen of a 
 republic, encouraged them. But the King, yielding to the 
 representation of his courtiers, and to a secret aversion he 
 entertained for M. Necker, dismissed him from his councils. 
 The news of this event reached Paris abruptly on the 12th 
 of July, at a moment when the inhabitants were dispersed in 
 the several public walks. It spread confusion and grief on 
 all sides ; whilst the busts of M. Necker and the Duke of 
 Orleans were carried in triumph through the streets. Orators, 
 mounted on chairs in the Palais Royal, drew crowds around 
 them. " All is lost," they said : " the States-General are to 
 be dissolved. Already your most zealous defenders are obliged 
 to ily, and soon you will groan under an insufferable load of 
 taxes, and the sanguinary caprice of a horrible despotism." 
 The agitation occasioned by speeches of this kind was con- 
 siderably augmented by the presence of the Swiss soldiers. 
 Government wanted to make use of the regiment of the 
 Guards to disperse those whom they called rebels ; but the 
 soldiers pushed their officers back, and took the part of the 
 people. A detachment of the regiment of Royal German 
 cavalry presented itself, and was hooted. They tried to 
 charge the crowd, but they were fired at, and the Swiss 
 encamped in the Champ de Mars were sent away. The 
 mob, grown furious through exasperation, then fell upon 
 their natural enemies, the persons employed by the Ferme 
 Generale for the collection of the excise duties. These per- 
 sons were forced to conceal themselves, and the barriers 
 were set on fire. In the midst of this disorder a rumour 
 suddenly spread, fearful even in its uncertainty, that robbers 
 
6 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 were approaching to ransack the capital. This was at best 
 but a ridiculous joke, the inventors of which, however, 
 seemed well acquainted with the character of the Parisians. 
 The citizens, after remaining peaceful spectators of this great 
 tumult, showed at last some signs of spirit, and on the 13th 
 of July above two hundred thousand men had armed them- 
 selves with whatever weapons they could find. The news of 
 this general insurrection terrified the Court, and all the 
 regular troops disappeared from the environs of the capital; 
 
 At length arrived the 14th of July, a day for ever famous, 
 an era for ever memorable, in the annals of France, and 
 almost equally so in the history of every other nation ; for 
 there exists no people whose political and civil existence has 
 not been considerably modified by the French Revolution. 
 
 For the mob to pursue police officers, collectors, and spies, 
 is a natural thing ; but how did an immense population first 
 conceive the idea that their fate was connected with the 
 taking of the Bastille, and persuade themselves that their 
 victory was complete when they were masters of it ? 
 
 The fortress of the Bastille was built in the reign of 
 Charles the Fifth, at a time when fire-arms were scarcely 
 known. Situated without the precincts of the city, beyond 
 the Porte St. Antoine, it was evidently never intended as a 
 check upon the metropolis. It was said the King meant to 
 keep his treasures there ; but the interior distribution clearly 
 evinced that it was destined to serve as a state prison. This 
 pretended fortress consisted of five towers, about one hun- 
 dred and twenty feet high, joined together by strong high 
 walls, and surrounded by broad deep ditches. Its entrance 
 was protected by drawbridges, and on the 14th of July it 
 was commanded by a governor, and defended by about sixty 
 Swiss veterans ; a few old guns, of small size, were placed 
 on the terraces of the towers. There was nothing very 
 formidable in its appearance ; but something like a super- 
 stitious terror pervaded ' the minds of the people, and most 
 marvellous stories were told respecting the Bastille. For 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 7 
 
 many ages, the most noble victims of despotism had groaned 
 within its mysterious tjwUs. Some prisoners, who had been 
 fortunate enough to escape from it, had published most 
 terrifying accounts. Those formidable towers, those vigilant 
 sentinels, who suffered no one, even by stealth, to cast a 
 look towards them ; — these numerous ferocious-looking 
 guards, frightful by their appearance, and more frightful 
 still by their deep silence, — all united to excite terror and 
 anxious curiosity. Nevertheless, this state prison was not 
 dangerous for the people : it was designed for persons of 
 high birth, or for literary people who ventured to displease 
 the ministry. But to the wish of satisfying curiosity was 
 added a noble feeling of pity for the numerous victims sup- 
 posed to be shut up in the fortress, and the whole population 
 of Paris resolved to make themselves masters of the Bastille. 
 A considerable number of muskets and some cannon were 
 deposited at the Invalides. The mob repaired to that place, 
 seized them, and rushed against the Bastille, headed by the 
 Gardes Francaises. A few cannon were fired, but did not 
 much injure the walls. The governor answered by some 
 balls that were lost in the Rue St. Antoine. Terror and 
 rage soon rose to the highest pitch. The governor had 
 neither troops nor ammunition sufficient to defend himself. 
 He had not even received any positive orders to that effect. 
 It is said that he lowered the drawbridge to receive a depu- 
 tation of patriots summoning him to surrender. Hulin, 
 afterwards a general, who was one of the deputation, 
 assured me that, on entering the governor's court, he and 
 his companions were fired on. The governor was arrested 
 first, the Swiss major afterwards, and the Bastille was taken. 
 These two officers were dragged to the Place de Greve, and 
 loaded with blows and imprecations. I was there with the 
 unformed battalion of my district. The unfortunate major 
 passed before our ranks ; his stature was tall, and his aspect 
 venerable. Two men held him by the throat, and cried 
 ■with furious gestures, " Here is the. villain ! " The major 
 
8 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 strove to keep up a bold appearance, but dismay and agony 
 were painted in his countenance. A few minutes afterwards 
 we heard the report of some fire-arms. A pistol shot had 
 put an end to his sufferings. That terrible spectacle inspired 
 me with a horror and disgust for the licentiousness of the 
 mob that nothing ever could allay ; and the scenes I have 
 yet to describe were but too strongly calculated to augment 
 those sentiments. 
 
 I could, however, in some way comprehend that foreigners 
 who had killed Frenchmen might, in the first heat of battle, 
 be slaughtered by ferocious conquerors who had no idea of 
 the laws usually observed in war ; but I never could explain 
 the murder of Messieurs Foulon and Berthier de Sauvigny. 
 The former had been, I believe, Intendant of Paris, and the 
 latter was his son-in-law, and successor in that employ. In 
 the province, an Intendant was, through his functions and 
 influence, a considerable personage. His character or abilities 
 might create esteem, or, as it more frequently happened, his 
 incapacity might excite dislike. In Paris, on the contrary, 
 the Intendant was in a manner lost in the immensity of the 
 city. In times of scarcity, the people blamed the Pr6v6t 
 des Marchands, the Lieutenant of Police, and sometimes the 
 Parliament. The Intendant, not being a magistrate, was 
 unknown to the multitude ; and I dare assert, without fear 
 of being contradicted, that among the middling, and still 
 less among the lower classes, no one was acquainted either 
 with his person or his name. They knew at best the way 
 to his office, where the taxes used to be paid. All of a 
 sudden, however, a rumour was spread about that the Inten- 
 dant had said, and repeated aloud, that " hay was good 
 enough to feed the Parisian rabble." Messieurs Foulon and 
 Berthier had fled. Some zealous patriots pursued and over- 
 took them at about twenty leagues from Paris. They 
 brought them back, and some hundred wretches butchered 
 them, under circumstances of atrocious barbarity. I crossed 
 the Place de Grfeve to go to the Com^die Francaise ; it rained. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 9 
 
 and there was no tumult anywhere but facing the Hotel de 
 Villa. I was standing on the parapet, when I saw raised 
 above the crowd the figure of an old man with grey hair ; 
 it was the unfortunate Foulon being hanged at the lamp- 
 post. I returned home to study my beloved Montesquieu ; 
 and from that moment I began to hate a revolution in 
 which people were murdered without being heard in their 
 defence. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 The tumult, which on the 14th had been only a riot, next 
 day became a decided revolution, the consequences of which 
 were not to be calculated. The taking of the Bastille had 
 elated the minds of the people : three thousand disciplined 
 troops (the Gardes Francaises) formed the vanguard of an 
 army above one hundred thousand strong, of which at least 
 thirty thousand were armed with muskets. It would have 
 been impossible either to attack or disband that army. The 
 Government, taken unawares, was forced to consent to its 
 organisation, and to the choice of M. de Lafayette as com- 
 mander-in-chief. The Prevot des Marchands and city 
 magistrates had fled. In their place were put a mayor and 
 common council, titles already in use in several French 
 towns. M. Bailly was elected. He was a celebrated astro- 
 nomer and a clever writer. The States-General had chosen 
 him for their president. The whole organisation was com- 
 plete in three days; and on the 17th the King came to 
 Paris, where he legitimatised by his presence and his speeches 
 all the outrages that had been committed. This step taught 
 his friends what they had to expect of him, and the partisans 
 of the Revolution all they might dare to undertake. Re- 
 bellion had reached its highest pitch : soldiers and official 
 persons had been killed in the exercise of their duty, and 
 still the Sovereign spoke hesitatingly on the subject of these 
 crimes. The provinces, encouraged by the example of Paris, 
 hastened to follow it. The same couriers that brought down 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. ii 
 
 to the country intelligence of the revolution of the metro- 
 polis carried back accounts of similar occurrences in the 
 several places they had passed through. The States-General, 
 which had given the impulse, received it in their turn. The 
 two first estates were obliged to unite to the third. The 
 States took the title of a Constituent Assembly, and from 
 that moment set themselves to work to raise a monarchy 
 where the nation was to be represented by its deputies. 
 Then began the long struggle between new interests and 
 uncurbed passions. The King was a stranger to all the 
 ideas that had circulated for thirty years among his subjects. 
 Bred in the maxims and customs of an absolute monarchy, 
 he could not but observe with dismay the conduct of the 
 Assembly ; and, if he rejected the violent measures he was 
 pressed on to adopt, it was owing to the weakness of his 
 character rather than his wish to spare blood, and also to 
 the hope that some more favourable chance might replace 
 in his hands the authority that rebels had wrested from 
 him. The only reasonable step would have been to awe 
 the Assembly he no longer possessed the power of dissolving, 
 by going still farther than they did ; and to give of his own 
 accord a constitution which would have maintained some of 
 the privileges of the nobility, and determined the rights of 
 the people. Such was, in fact, M, Necker's proposal : the 
 King rejected it, and all was lost.' 
 
 The plan of quitting Versailles, and establishing himself 
 in some stronghold, appeared to the King the most advan- 
 tageous one ; but it was soon discovered, and the patriots 
 
 ' The translator cannot help remarking that M. de Lavalette has been 
 betrayed by his memory in several parts of this passage, i. The Prev6t 
 des Marchands (M. de Flesselles) had nat fled ; he was murdered at the 
 H6tel de Ville, on the 14th of July, whilst presiding over the electors of 
 Paris. 2. The States did not take the name of Constituent Assembly, 
 that name having been used for the first time two years later. 3. So far 
 from rejecting any plan of M. Necker, the King, of his own accord, threa 
 weeks before these riots (on the 23rd of June), proposed to the Assembly a 
 complete constitutional charter, in thirty-five articles, which the Assembly 
 rejected without even vouchsafing to discuss it. 
 
12 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 felt alarmed. The inhabitants of Paris had not only organ- 
 ised their military force, but also their political institutions. 
 The sixty headquarters of the several battalions were at the 
 same time so many centres of districts, each of them having 
 a president, secretaries, and officers. There all the idlers of 
 the middle and lower orders went to listen to the • popular 
 orators, who practised themselves in that flow of hollow 
 words that afterwards proved so fatal. Three months later 
 a rumour was suddenly spread in the districts that the King 
 was preparing to fly. The population of the Faubourg St. 
 Antoine was soon set in motion. An immense number of 
 people assembled before the Hotel de Ville, declaring they 
 would march to Versailles and bring back the King. M. de 
 Lafayette for a long while refused to put himself at their 
 liead ; but at last, intimidated by their threats, and foresee- 
 ing that they would otherwise do without him, he sent word 
 to the principal officers of the National Guards, inviting them 
 to lead to Versailles all the reasonable citizens they could 
 collect, to prevent if possible the fatal consequence he but 
 too clearly anticipated from these disturbances. A great 
 many National Guards, among whom were some incomplete 
 companies of my battalion, went to the Hotel de Ville, where 
 I hastened to join them. There we found an enraged multi- 
 tude exclaiming that they were betrayed, and stirring one 
 another up to murder and all manner of outrage. At last 
 the torrent began to move, thickening as it advanced. The 
 commander-in-chief marched foremost, followed by cannon 
 and caissons, driven by inebriated women, the refuse of 
 human kind. Then came the National Guards, the pelo- 
 tons of which were continually broken through by those 
 furious wretches. 
 
 My company grew dissatisfied, and received so ill those 
 who came amongst us, that no one would venture to approach 
 us. Our march lasted eight hours, and night had closed in 
 when we arrived at the avenue of Versailles. If the Court 
 could have resolved to take violent measures, they must un- 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 13. 
 
 doubtedly have succeeded. The National Guards did not 
 amount to above six thousand men. The ruffians that 
 preceded and surrounded them were in number about eight 
 or ten thousand, but kept such bad order that one charge 
 of a few squadrons of horse would have been sufficient to 
 disperse them, whilst a volley or two of cannon-ball would 
 have effectually prevented their return ; but the Court 
 lacked courage, and the King thought his family safer in a 
 badly guarded palace than on a high-road surrounded by 
 faithful troops. The arrival of the rabble dismayed the 
 palace, made the regular soldiers stagger, and satisfied the 
 Assembly. Those members who influenced its decisions 
 were not unacquainted with the insults lavished on them at 
 Court, nor with the fate they had to expect if the King 
 succeeded in escaping. The courtiers openly acknowledged 
 that the most disgraceful death awaited the members who- 
 had begun to distinguish themselves in the contest. It was 
 therefore resolved that the King should come to Paris and 
 remain there ; but in all probability no one knew by whom 
 he was to be escorted, and what outrages were about to be 
 committed. We halted in the great square facing the palace.. 
 The Flanders regiment was drawn up before us. The mob 
 surrounded the military. Women, holding glasses of liquor 
 in their hands, entertained the soldiers with vulgar tales and 
 low jests. This was too strong a seduction for men indif- 
 ferent to all political discussions. The want of discipline 
 was too general for them to be able to resist such tempta- 
 tions, and all the exertions of their officers to maintain order 
 were useless. The colonel either knew not what to do, or 
 dared not come to a resolution, for he had no positive orders. 
 M. de Lusignan, who commanded the regiment, and whom 
 I knew at a later period, was an honourable man ; but how 
 could he extricate himself from so difficult a position, when, 
 at fifty steps from him, the King was in as great a perplexity- 
 as he ? The regiment being seduced, the Monarch had no 
 other defence left than the Life Guards, the Cent Suisses^ 
 
14 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 and his unserviceable Court. The National Guards remained 
 under arms until one o'clock in the morning, when they got 
 permission to retire to rest, but with orders to be ready at the 
 first beat of drum. M. de Lafayette went up to the palace, 
 where he strove to comfort the Royal Family, but was received 
 with an appearance of distrust and coolness, at which, in 
 fact, he could scarcely be surprised ; for, having arrived at 
 the head of a troop of enraged ruffians, he was in some way 
 to be looked upon as their commander. He could not dis- 
 semble that the population of Paris, and even the Con- 
 stituent Assembly, wished the King to fix his abode in the 
 metropolis. The Court had therefore to decide whether 
 they would consent to go there, or set out in search of some 
 distant refuge. I cannot say whether or not these points 
 were ever discussed. It seems that the King expected either 
 military assistance, or a strong resolution of the Assembly, 
 that might impress the multitude with awe. The proffered 
 assistance of M. de Lafayette was rejected. The King 
 declared that his guards were sufficient for his protection, 
 and that, far from accepting the service of the National 
 Guards of Paris, who were extremely devoted to his person, 
 he did not even require those of the Versailles Guards, over 
 ■whom Alexander Berthier (afterwards Marshal Prince of 
 Neufchatel) was second in command. From him I heard 
 .that he was very ill-treated by the Court party ; and, though 
 sincerely attached to the King, no one would hear his name 
 mentioned from the day he had accepted a command in the 
 National Guard. 
 
 At one o'clock we received permission to go to bed. I 
 sheltered myself under the roof of a citizen, who granted me 
 a chamber for my money. The man was attached to the 
 King's household — I cannot recollect in what quality : he 
 pretended to be a warm patriot ; and if I had lent an ear 
 to all he had to say of the inhabitants of the palace, and of 
 .the Queen herself, I might have thought myself fully justi- 
 fied in mixing with the rebels. I inquired very coolly from 
 
MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA VALE TTE. 1 5 
 
 ■whence he had collected all those infamous stories. My 
 question at first disconcerted him, but he soon answered in 
 an angry tone : "What I have been telling you is the talk 
 ■of all Versailles : and yet if the Parisians take the Royal 
 Family from us, they'll beggar the whole town." I turned 
 my back on the man, and went to sleep till six o'clock, when 
 the drum beating the alarm summoned me to the square. 
 The crime had already been committed in the shades of 
 night. The report was, that the wretches had entered the 
 palace by a secret and feebly guarded door ; they had 
 murdered the guards that defended it, and pursued the 
 Queen to her bedchamber, from whence she had but just 
 time to escape to the King's apartments. I must own, that 
 so great was my surprise and indignation that I joined in 
 the hue-and-cry of some of my comrades against the Marquis 
 de Lafayette. We had been summoned by him to come 
 and protect the Royal Family and secure public tranquillity. 
 Why then were we left to be witnesses of such horrible 
 crimes ? Why had vye not been employed ? Could there 
 have been any doubt entertained of our fidelity? Surely 
 one-half of the six thousand men we mustered would have 
 been sufficient to defend the palace, and would not have 
 been overawed by an ill-armed rabble, exhausted at once by 
 fatigue and intoxication. But it was too late ; the victims 
 had fallen, and those who were doomed to perish next were 
 as yet beyond their reach. The Life Guards had barricaded 
 themselves round the King's apartments ; their resistance 
 had dismayed the assassins, and given General Lafayette 
 time to come up. He took all the military he fell in with, 
 and the rabble filled the marble court, rending the air with 
 their savage cries. I remained long in suspense concerning 
 the general's conduct during that fatal night. The details 
 of the proceedings instituted a short time afterwards against 
 many persons who perhaps were not guilty appeared to me 
 far from satisfactory. I learned the truth at a later period, 
 and Madame de Stael has published it in her Memoirs. 
 
i6 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 The whole misfortune was owing to the aversion of the 
 Court to the Marquis de Lafayette,— to the stupid opinion 
 still entertained that the Royal Family was sacred in the 
 eyes of the multitude, who would not dare to look them in 
 the face ; and, above aU, to the foolish presumption of the 
 nobility, who wished to preserve their exclusive privilege of 
 defending their Sovereign. M. de Lafayette had insisted on 
 guarding the palace with his faithful troops, and I venture 
 to assert that he had brought with him all the members of 
 the National Guards who were most distinguished for their 
 honourable feeling, courage, and loyalty ; but his offers were 
 coolly and sarcastically rejected. However, notwithstanding 
 that refusal and the insults that accompanied it, the general 
 did not give way to culpable confidence. He visited the 
 posts, and showed himself everywhere, until midnight. 
 Tranquillity then prevailed on all sides. The rabble lay 
 dispersed and asleep. At two in the morning the deepest 
 silence reigned in the courts, the great square, and the 
 streets of the capital ; nothing seemed to forbode the 
 approaching outrages. The . palace was attacked a little 
 before daybreak. All eye-witnesses have declared that the 
 mob entered by one of the communication doors which had 
 been left open ; the unfortunate Life Guards who defended 
 it did their duty, for they were killed at their posts. But 
 why was that door open, so near to the Queen's apartments ? 
 The palace being of a vast extent, the Life Guards were not 
 sufficiently numerous to protect it effectually ; but then why 
 not close all the outlets ? or, rather, why not augment the 
 guard with all the loyal persons that could be found ? Why> 
 at the moment of attack, were not ten thousand swords 
 drawn by that nobility, so clamorous in their speeches, but 
 who never knew how to defend the King they so bitterly 
 regret ? Emigration had at that time not yet commenced. 
 There were in Paris, Versailles, and the environs, more than 
 twenty thousand noblemen, devoted by feelings of honour 
 and interest to the defence of the throne and the life of the 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 17 
 
 monarch ; notwithstanding which, Louis XVI. was forsaken 
 by them on that fatal day, the plans of which had been 
 openly arranged and proclaimed by those whose real aim 
 was undoubtedly the murder of the Royal Family. I have 
 not yet done with the nobility : their conduct on other 
 occasions was more disgraceful than on this. 
 
 The mob crowded in the marble court, and wandering on 
 the outside of the palace, began to express again their designs 
 with frightful howhngs. " To Paris ! to Paris ! " were the 
 first cries. Their prey was promised them, and then fresh 
 cries ordered the unfortunate family to appear on the 
 balcony. The Queen showed herself, accompanied by her 
 children ; she was forced by threats to send them away. I 
 mixed in the crowd, and fceheld for the first time that 
 unfortunate Princess : she was dressed in white ; her head 
 was bare, and adorned with beautiful fair locks. Motionless, 
 and in a modest and noble attitude, she appeared to me like 
 a victim on the block. The enraged populace were not 
 moved at the sight of woe in all its majesty. Imprecations 
 increased, and the unfortunate Princess could not even find 
 a support in the King, for his presence did but augment the 
 fury of the multitude. At last preparations for departure 
 did more towards appeasing them than promises could have 
 done, and by twelve o'clock the frightful procession set off. 
 I hope such a scene will never be witnessed again. I have 
 often asked myself how the metropolis of a nation so cele- 
 brated for urbanity and elegance of manners, — how the 
 brilliant city of Paris could contain the savage hordes I that 
 day beheld, and who so long reigned over it ! In walking 
 through the streets of Paris, it seems to me, the features 
 even of the lowest and most miserable class of people do not 
 present to the eye anything like ferociousness, or the meanest 
 passions in all their hideous energy. Can those passions 
 alter the features so as to deprive them of all likeness to 
 humanity ? or does the terror inspired by the sight of a 
 guilty wretch give him the semblance of a wild beast ? 
 
i8 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 These madmen, dancing in the mire and covered with mud, 
 surrounded the King's coach. The groups that marched 
 foremost carried on long pikes the bloody and dishevelled 
 heads of the Life Guards butchered in the morning. Surely 
 Satan himself first invented the placing of a human head at 
 the end of a lance. The disfigured and pale features, the 
 gory locks, the half-open mouth, the closed eyes, images of 
 death, added to the gestures and salutations the executioners, 
 made them perform, in horrible mockery of life, presented 
 the most frightful spectacle rage could have imagined. A 
 troop of women, ugly as crime itself, swarming like insects, 
 and wearing grenadiers' hairy caps, went continually to and 
 fro, howling barbarous songs, embracing and insulting the 
 Life Guards. This scene lasted eight hours before the 
 Royal Family arrived at the Place de Gr^ve and alighted 
 at the Hotel de Ville, their first resting-place during pro- 
 tracted misery that terminated some years afterwards in a 
 horrible death. 
 
 Thus terminated the memorable 6th of October, — a day 
 during which it is difficult to decide what is most to be 
 regretted— the imprudent weakness of the King, or the 
 terrible necessity that forced the representatives of a noble 
 nation to trample on the sacred rights of humanity, and the 
 majesty of the throne, for the accomplishment of their grand 
 design. 
 
CHAPTER m. 
 
 The impression that frightful spectacle made on me taught 
 me that nature had not designed me to play a part in the 
 Revolution, and that I ought to keep carefully aloof from it. 
 But the sight of the Queen so shamefully insulted, and the 
 fate that was preparing for her august children, inspired in 
 me feelings of loyalty which grew stronger every day. I 
 could not bear to think of the situation of the Royal Family, 
 and the success of the patriots had caused them to show 
 a presumptuous exultation which made me hate them. At 
 that period a lucky circumstance allowed me to resume my 
 studies. The convents were suppressed, and a friend of my 
 father got me admitted among some persons chosen to make 
 out the catalogue of the monks' library. Some time after- 
 wards, M. d'Ormesson de Moiseau, one of the presidents 
 of the Parliament of Paris, who had been appointed King's 
 librarian, wished to employ a well-informed and laborious 
 young man. I was introduced to him. He received me 
 with a kindness that delighted me. He had been told that 
 I knew a little Greek ; he was himself deeply versed in that 
 language, and, to try my knowledge, he laid before me a 
 Xenophon in two columns, Latin and Greek. I blushed at 
 the sight of the formidable book. The hero himself, during 
 his celebrated Retreat of the Ten Thousand, never was more 
 perplexed than I. However, my courage revived when I 
 looked at the president, whose amiable features inspired me 
 with confidence. I owned that I had made but superficial 
 studies in an obscure college ; that I never had any share 
 
20 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALtlTTE. 
 
 in the triumphs of the university ; and that my utmost 
 exertions in Greek had not gone beyond the explanation of 
 some fragments of Demosthenes. He smiled at my candour, 
 and began to read fluently the Greek in French, requesting 
 me to follow him in the Latin translation. During the 
 time, he placed his hands between the two columns, so that 
 I might see he made no use of the Latin. I could scarcely 
 follow him. I had never met with so learned a Greek 
 scholar, and I expressed openly iny admiration. He appeared 
 satisfied with me — partly, perhaps, because he was so with 
 himself, and he promised to provide for me. I felt com- 
 pletely happy. A part of the day was spent among dusty 
 old books, but I passed every morning a few hours with M. 
 d'Ormesson. All I had to expect through his influence was 
 merely an inferior employment in the King's library ; but 
 I looked upon that as the highest pitch of good fortune ; 
 and often since, when in the most brilliant situations, I have 
 sighed in thinking of the sweet obscurity I had been pro- 
 mised. We were then far from entertaining an idea that 
 the same scaffold was designed for both of us, and, in con- 
 science I must own, for having both done our duty. The 
 painful gratitude with which I remember the kindness of 
 that respectable gentleman will last as long as I live. I 
 never hear the name of Ormesson without emotion ; and 
 whenever chance brought me in presence of some person of 
 his family, I have felt an involuntary wish to address him, 
 to speak of his unfortunate relation, and to solicit his 
 friendship. 
 
 The generous kindness of M. d'Ormesson extended not 
 only to my pecuniary welfare ; he also gave me some excel- 
 lent advice on the conduct I was to observe in the world- 
 pointed out to me, with truly paternal solicitude, the 
 different quicksands I might encounter. In speaking of the 
 King, he showed himself a subject whose loyalty was carried 
 to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, though he deplored the 
 fatal weakness that hurled the Monarch down the precipice 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 2t 
 
 through torrents of blood. " The King," he said, " shudders 
 at the thought of spilling one drop of blood ; and all his 
 most faithful friends will die without being able to save him. 
 He has been warned of his mistake, but nothing can make 
 him open his eyes ; we have therefore no choice but resig- 
 nation and death." All our conversation was upon the 
 same subject ; and M. d'Ormesson communicated to me the 
 ardour of his own sentiments. Notwithstanding the horror 
 I felt at the scenes of tumult that we witnessed every day, I 
 still comprehended well enough that, the Revolution being 
 a struggle between the privileged classes and the nation, the 
 latter would, if successful, reap advantages which it had a 
 right to claim. I also felt, that as I did not myself belong 
 to the privileged classes, I was at liberty to remain indif- 
 ferent to their interests and their contest. But M. d'Ormes- 
 son fixed all my thoughts on the deplorable situation of the 
 King and his family. My imagination took fire, and all 
 I then perceived was a virtuous Prince in durance — his 
 noble consort and her children exposed to the most bar- 
 barous treatment ; and I vowed from that moment to take 
 a share in all the plans that should be attempted for their 
 deliverance. 
 
 I must acknowledge that my disgust for the idle prattling 
 of the Revolution not a little contributed to make me a 
 Royalist. I am far from refusing a just tribute of esteem 
 to the eminent talents of the Constituent Assembly, and 
 only mean to speak of the assemblies of my section that 
 were held every day, and where I was forced to assist as a 
 national guard. The citizens of Paris are unquestionably very 
 honourable men ; but it must have been impossible for any 
 person of good sense and some little instruction not to feel 
 disgusted at their foolish and extravagant speeches. Their 
 mania for political assemblies and long orations were encou- 
 raged by the immense number of gentlemen of the Bar, who 
 made themselves quite ridiculous by misusing perpetually 
 their excessive facility of elocution. In my neighbourhood 
 
22. MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 there lived a lawyer of some repute called B— — , whose 
 exuberance of speech was truly marvellous. The objects of 
 the deliberations were necessarily very circumscribed ; but 
 when that man opened his mouth, we were sure to be over- 
 whelmed with a deluge of quotations and moral sentences, 
 all frequently about a lantern or the stall of an apple-woman. 
 His stentorian voice made the roofs ring ; and, after speaking 
 for two hours, he was sure to be rewarded by thunders erf 
 applause. The orator then seemed to think himself a Mira- 
 beau, and his auditors the Constituent Assembly deciding 
 over the fate of France. These people setting the example, 
 others, who at first listened to them patiently, wished to 
 speak in their turn ; and three years afterwards they cut the 
 throats of their instructors, and of those whom the latter 
 had taught them to regard as hostile to their views. 
 
 In 1790, I frequently mounted guard in the palace. I 
 expected to find in the countenance of the King some marks 
 of grief and pride ; but, I must own, I saw nothing but 
 listlessness. His enormous embonpoint — his eyes without 
 expression — his gait deprived of all manner of dignity, dis- 
 concerted a little my enthusiasm ;— but it rekindled at 
 sight of the Queen and her children. She was a woman 
 and a mother. Born in a foreign country, she had been 
 «i trusted to the honour of France. How strong were her 
 claims on our profound devotion ! The errors of which she 
 had been accused, even supposing the truth of the accusa- 
 tions, were surely deserving of pardon among a nation 
 frivolous enough to be vain of its corruptness. For that 
 unfortunate Queen, therefore, and for her children, my heart 
 was moved by the most tender and respectful admiration. 
 Madame Royale was then about thirteen years old : the 
 dignity of her countenance — the melancholy expressiow 
 spxead: over her features at so tender an age — the sincere 
 piety that seemed to fortify her in her misfortunes, drew 
 tears from my eyes. I followed the Princesses to the chapel, 
 And returned quickly to the saloon of the guards to behold' 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 23 
 
 them again. I would willingly have given my life for them. 
 So much grandeur in such abasement, so much innocence 
 and beauty threatened with such a fate, might well have 
 ensured to them the protection of every Frenchman. Wher- 
 ever I went, I spoke of them with a warmth of which, 
 however, I could not succeed in making other young men 
 of my age partake. 
 
 I could not imagine that there was not in the Constituent 
 Assembly a strong and active party to save the Royal 
 Family. I knew that M. de Clermont-Tonnerre was very 
 much attached to the Queen. I wrote several letters to him 
 to express my grief, and to beg he would employ my 
 youthful courage^ I suppose he looked upon me as a 
 young enthusiast who might bring him into some 
 trouble :^— he never answered me, and I believe he acted 
 wisely. 
 
 I soon observed that M. d'Ornlesson became less unre- 
 served than usual in his conversation. I suppose he was 
 himself terrified with the success of his plan for making me 
 a Eoyalist ; for, having tried in vain to moderate the warmth- 
 of my zeal, he probably feared I should ruin both him and 
 myself at the same time. When I asked him whether any 
 measures had been taken to place the Royal Family in 
 safety, he observed that the time for that would come ; and 
 then entered into general remarks, of which I could not 
 comprehehd the drift. One day, I had just left him when 
 I learned the imprisonment of the Marquis de Favras. It 
 was ten o'clock in the morning : the particulars of the crime 
 of which the Marquis was accused were not yet known ; and 
 already the speech delivered at the Hotel de Ville by Mon- 
 sieur, brother to the King, had been published. The Prince 
 Had demanded during the night that the Council should 
 assemble at eight o'clock ; and there he betrayed M. de 
 Favras, his former servant,^ who had received his instruction 
 
 ' M. de Favras had been attached to Monsieur as Captain of the Ceiit 
 Snisses, or guards of the &oat.-^Note of the Author. 
 
24 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 and acted by his orders, with whom he had arranged the 
 flight of the King, of the Royal Family and himself. He 
 made many protestations of his attachment to the new order 
 of things and to the Constitution, and declared himself the 
 first citizen of the kingdom. By that means he delivered 
 over his confidant to the rigour of the laws and to an infamous 
 death on the gallows. The Royalists were overwhelmed with 
 dismay and indignation. The most sensible amongst them 
 felt convinced that the royal cause was irretrievably lost, and 
 that no hopes were left for the King. Such treachery, 
 which could not but be the consequence of the most shameful 
 cowardice, discouraged all the friends of the King. " What 
 is to be done," said they, "for a Prince who suffers those 
 who take up his defence to be sent to the scaffold, — who, 
 far from trying to protect them, finds informers against them 
 among his own family ? " Of all the faults committed by the 
 Court, this was the most unpardonable. Excuses may be 
 found for want of experience, resolution, and strength of 
 mind ; but to deliver up one's friends out of fear, — to 
 abandon them without once raising a hand to save them 
 from the scaffold, is unpardonable baseness ! M. de Favras 
 was sentenced to death. I was on duty on the Quai Pelletier 
 when the unfortunate man passed it in a cart, with a halter 
 round his neck, and his hands tied before his breast. His 
 confessor seemed as dejected as though he himself had been 
 doomed to die. Favras, on the contrary, by his noble attitude, 
 his proud and animated look, reminded me of Samblancay, 
 on whose death Marot made those celebrated lines, " Lorsque 
 Maillard," &c. He walked up to the Hotel de Ville, uttered 
 a few noble sentences, took great care not to expose the man 
 who had so cruelly betrayed him, and courageously submitted 
 to his fate. Some wretches were base enough to applaud. 
 A few days before his death, he expressed a wish to see M. 
 Talon, the Advocate-General. To him he told in confidence 
 all the particulars of his plan, and the orders he received 
 from the Count de Provence. " Have you these orders in 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 2J 
 
 writing?" asked the magistrate. "No."— "In that case 
 you have nothing to do but to recommend to the King's 
 generosity your wife and children, for you are a lost man." 
 I heard twenty years ago, at Dresden, that the family of the 
 unfortunate Favras Uved in Bohemia in the greatest misery. 
 My indignity at the strange and odious conduct of the Court 
 in this affair was so strong that I made no secret of it ta 
 M. d'Ormesson. "You are too young," he said, "and at 
 too great a distance from the Court, to be able to judge 
 of its motives. Supposing even M. de Favras had re- 
 ceived orders, could the Royal Family acknowledge them ? 
 That man's death is undoubtedly a very unfortunate cir- 
 cumstance, but it was a necessary sacrifice to the King's- 
 safety. He has perished, the victim of his loyalty. He 
 has suffered an ignominious death ; but God will receive 
 him in grace, and his sentence will be rectified by pos- 
 terity." I had too much respect for M. d'Ormesson to 
 make any reply ; but he must certainly have perceived 
 that he had not convinced me. 
 
 Twenty-eight years have now elapsed since the death of 
 M. de Favras. I have read more than twenty times over 
 all the particulars of his trial. Neither age, knowledge of 
 mankind, experience, nor the various events I have witnessed, 
 have had power to weaken or modify the first impression I 
 received. I am still convinced that those who sacrificed 
 him were guilty of a total want of honesty and good policy^ 
 and acted with the utmost baseness. By his conduct in this 
 affair the King was irretrievably lost ; and a part of his 
 family inspired sentiments of hatred and contempt that still 
 subsist to this day. Those sentiments were not felt alone 
 by those who were by birth and rank connected with 
 royalty ; they were shared by every honest citizen. Many 
 years afterwards I discovered in all classes the same energetic 
 indignation ; and when Louis XVIH. re-entered the metro- 
 polis, all those who were not led away by tlie enthusiasm of 
 novelty, and the number was great, had at the bottom of 
 
i26 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 their heart and on their lips the name of the unfortunate 
 Favras." 
 
 This enterprise, which so fatally terminated, augmented 
 ■the distrust of the people, and was of wonderful service to 
 the revolutionary party. Those who still believed that the 
 King really intended to give the people their promised 
 advantages were undeceived, and his enemies turned it to 
 account to envenom their accusations. Libels were spread 
 about with so much profusion and such rapidity, that it became 
 impossible for the Court to offer any defence. It was about 
 that time that the rage of emigration began. It appeared 
 an easier task to go to Coblentz to threaten than to remain 
 in Paris to assist the King, or to commence in the provinces 
 a civil war, the chances of which would at that time have 
 been doubtful, especially when waged by men who were 
 unable to cast off their luxurious habits, and who, unknown 
 to themselves, carried in their breasts some of the seeds of 
 the revolution, that is to say, want of discipline and sub-- 
 ordination, discontent and a taste for innovation. The 
 Koyal Fatffiily remained, therefore, surrounded by a few 
 hundred noblemen, whom duty, or the most noble and 
 courageous fidelity, still retained in France ; but this fidelity 
 was accompanied with so much hatred of the patriots, and 
 -so much foolish presumption, that it proved more dangerous 
 than useful to their master. They were jealous of the 
 National Guards who did duty in the palace ; their ever- 
 lasting derision and threats disgusted all the citizens honestly 
 attached to the King. As soldiers, the National Guard un- 
 doubtedly were not undeserving of some little ridicule ; but 
 ought they to have been thus irritated whilst they were giving 
 such disinterested proofs of fidelity, and when they might 
 have been so extremely useful ? The commander-in-chief 
 
 ' The reader must here not lose sight of the peculiar situation in which 
 ■Count Lavalette was placed, as a devoted friend of the Emperor and a 
 personal enemy of Louis XVIII. A very different account of the affair of 
 M. de Favras may be found in Bertrand de Moleville, Histoire de la Rhio- 
 Jution, vol. ii. page 341. — Note of the Translator. 
 
MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA VALETTE. 27 
 
 •of the Guards was more particularly the object of their 
 Tsitter satires. This soured our temper, and I observed with 
 regret that many honest men who would have laid down 
 "their lives for the King took the fatal resolution of 
 abandoning him. I must say, however, that the Royal 
 Family were far from approving the conduct of their pre- 
 tended friends. The King and Queen always showed the 
 greatest affability to the National Guards ; but their example 
 Tv^as not followed, nor were even their remonstrances listened 
 to. I may quote one instance, of which the consequences 
 were fatal. The Duke of Orleans had for some time felt 
 that he stood in an equivocal light, and that his position at 
 Court was unworthy of his name and character. He wished 
 to come to a reconciliation with the King and Queen. A 
 negotiation, prudently managed, succeeded completely. It 
 was agreed that the first Prince of the Blood should come 
 publicly to pay his respects^! think it was on Easter 
 Sunday. The apartments were crowded. The Prince 
 appeared at the moment dinner was being served up to 
 the Royal Family. Immediately some silly young men, 
 thinking themselves very clever, cried out — " Take care of 
 the dishes ! Here comes the Duke of Orleans ! " Another 
 imagined he was doing some wonderful achievement in 
 brushing by the Prince, and saying insolently — " That was 
 a kick." The Prince, seeing himself thus insulted in the 
 King's presence, left the palace abruptly, convinced that the 
 •Queen had drawn him into an odious snare. From that 
 moment he joined the most violent of the factions, and the 
 fatal and shameful consequences of that step are but too well 
 'known. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The members of the Constituent Assembly were still chiefly- 
 occupied in preparing an ill-combined Constitution ; by it^ 
 however, they laid the foundation of the Representative- 
 System, which cost us so dear, but by which alone France 
 can be saved. All the powers of the state became vested in 
 that Assembly, from the time that the King was unable 
 to wield them. Public Opinion, a jealous and capricious- 
 sovereign, had commenced her stormy reign : Louis, whom 
 she was driving from his throne, aware that her strength 
 no longer reigned, imagined that he should recover his 
 sceptre and his crown, where his brother, and the small 
 troop of emigrants that surrounded him, were under foreign 
 control assuming a threatening attitude. As he could not 
 hope to find any Frenchman that would aid. his flight, the 
 King confided his design to a foreigner, the Swedish 
 Ambassador. The plan was executed with an address and 
 a zeal deserving of better success than it obtained. The 2ist 
 of June, at eight o'clock in the morning, the city learned, 
 with the greatest astonishment that the whole Royal Family 
 had disappeared ; but the first feeling of surprise was 
 immediately succeeded by an indiiference so general, and 
 by so decided a resolution to dispense with the King and 
 with the royal authority of King, that the grand question 
 of a republic seemed decided. However, some persons^ 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 29 
 
 ashamed of having been deceived, wished to stop the 
 •fugitives : the particulars of the King's arrest at Varennes 
 are well known. The postmaster Drouet, with whom I 
 became acquainted a long time afterwards, told me that the 
 King might have passed without hindrance, if he had not 
 mounted on horseback the moment he was stopped. Drouet 
 -was then too agitated to have acted in such a case with 
 decision. Besides, the escort was more than sufficient to 
 overawe the few persons whom curiosity had drawn 
 round the carriage ; and even when the tocsin had col- 
 lected a greater number, a few firm words from the 
 King would have dispersed them or checked them ; but 
 the King would not, or rather dared not speak. How 
 severely would history have judged this prince, had he 
 been less unfortunate ! 
 
 His return to Paris was at the same time a most dismal 
 and most imposing scene. An immense population crowded 
 around him as he passed ; a hundred thousand armed men 
 lined the road and the Champs Elysees, to the Tuileries ; a 
 feeling of delicacy, as well as pride, dictated to this multi- 
 tude the deepest silence. A man deprived of the faculty of 
 hearing might have fancied he saw the triumphant entrance 
 of a conqueror, whilst, in truth, the solemn scene was only 
 an escort of prisoners. This was the second time they 
 passed in agony the square embellished with the statue of 
 Louis XV. ; they were destined to visit it once more, and 
 there to suffer by the hands of the executioner. The sight 
 of that family was heartrending. Their incomprehensible 
 fate excited horror in some, whilst the timid recoiled from 
 them as from beings bearing a mark of inevitable doom, 
 and whose approach brought with it the contagion of mis- 
 fortune. 
 
 The National Assembly adopted the only reasonable 
 course left to that body, namely, to suspend the royal 
 functions. Louis, on the contrary, chose the worst possible 
 ■course — that of wishing to remain a king, after his flight 
 
30 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 had proved his resolution not to execute sincerely the new- 
 laws, and his antipathy for all that had taken place since 
 the Revolution. His forced return, and all the circum- 
 stances with which it was accompanied, had degraded the 
 majesty of the throne, and dissipated those illusions with- 
 out which royalty cannot exist in France. A short time 
 afterwards, the Constitution was completed and presented 
 to him for his acceptance. He signed it, and here begins 
 that long series of acts with which he was reproached in his 
 trial. All things are difficult to a weak mind. A thousand 
 dangers presented themselves to the King's imagination, and 
 it must be owned that he was still more unfortunate in the 
 people that surrounded him than in his own disposition^ 
 A crowd of ambitious men besieged the gate of his palace. 
 The King, who himself had no faith in the Constitution, 
 chose ministers who wished to make it serve their private 
 ends, and who sometimes indeed struggled with the public 
 folly, but who frequently caressed it. At first the King was. 
 suffered to try quietly enough the scanty prerogatives of a 
 constitutional royalty. He was allowed to form a guard for 
 the protection of his person, but he entrusted the command 
 of it to friends of his own, who were enemies of the Revolu- 
 tion. The law completed this guard with non-commissioned 
 officers and privates influenced by the revolutionary spirit^ 
 and a few sons of citizens were admitted into it as a proof of 
 the King's sincerity. The division between these different 
 elements surpassed the most sanguine hopes of the Re- 
 publicans, besides which the King took no pains to attach 
 his new guards to his person : attentions, kind words, and 
 all that amiability of manner by which men are won, had 
 been since Henry IV. unknown to his posterity ; a con- 
 temptuous etiquette scorned the use of such means, ands 
 regarded them as vulgar intrigue. The consequence was 
 that the Assembly, under I know not what pretence, dis- 
 banded this troop, which already amounted to fifteen 
 hundred men. Two obscure municipal officers came to the 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTB- 3i 
 
 Palace of the Tuileries ; induced the Guards to follow thenx 
 to the Military School, where they peaceably laid down their 
 arms ; the next morning not a trace of them was remaining. 
 By a chain of those extraordinary circumstances which belong 
 to the history of our age, there arose from the ranks of these 
 obscure soldiers, who thus passed under the most igno- 
 minious yoke, a Marshal of France (Bessieres), a man equally 
 distinguished by his gallantry and by his faithful devotion to 
 his master, when acknowledged as King by all the Sovereigns 
 of Europe. The life of Bessiferes was distinguished by 
 brilliant feats of valour, and would have occupied many 
 bright pages in history, had he not in his latter days dis- 
 graced his crown of glory by odious ingratitude towards- 
 his benefactor. 
 
 The Constituent Assembly, fatigued by long struggles^ 
 had resolved, as much perhaps out of disinterestedness as 
 discouragement, to abandon the field of battle. It was 
 succeeded by the Legislative Assembly, who found itself 
 surrounded by hatred of royalty among the people, hatred 
 qf the Constitution on the part of the King, discouragement 
 in the hearts of all honest men, and a faction full of energy 
 in favour of a republic. The Assembly divided under two 
 banners. The most numerous party, and, what is more 
 singular, the most talented one, set to work at the destruc- 
 tion of the monarchy, with an ardour and a blindness so 
 inexplicable that the members of that party who still 
 survive have never been able to assign any reasonable- 
 motives to justify so much fury. The Legislative Assembly, 
 on opening, received the King in a very decorous manner,, 
 and the Book of the Constitution with a ridiculous solemnity. 
 It is sufficient to. point out to a people the road to ruin and 
 degradation, and they will stride in it with giant's steps. 
 In the present circumstance they did not mistake the mark. 
 They began by loading the King with obloquy, and then 
 they ridiculed the Constitution itself. But the King was a 
 defenceless victim held in reserve, whom they were sure of 
 
32 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 finding whenever they might be disposed to sacrifice him. 
 Pirst of all, it was necessary to overthrow the fundamental 
 laws. The Constitution was therefore attacked in its essence 
 — in the Ministers and the King that were to put it in 
 execution and protect it. During the last three years, a 
 Ijoundless profusion of laws had been enacted, — a circum- 
 stance which deprived them of solemnity, their most neces- 
 sary appendage. It was consequently not very diflicult to 
 bring them into contempt. After them nothing remained 
 but the Sovereign, despoiled and insulted, a true Ecce homo, 
 who had borne the greatest outrages, and had not resolution 
 to look in the face a people whose first and constant idol 
 had always been courage. They were to overthrow that 
 King, and never was design wrought with more open 
 audacity. The numerous insults, their regular progress, 
 -their variety until the terrible day of the fall, — all was 
 calculated with a coolness and a depth of combination of 
 which there is no other example in history. If the hour of 
 destruction were protracted, no merit is due to the exertions 
 of the Court. The abettors of the Revolution wanted to 
 dispose all things according to their plan, and one of their 
 <;hief points was to degrade their victim before they 
 slaughtered him. 
 
 However, the Sovereigns of Europe now began to imagine 
 that they ought not to remain idle spectators of our conten- 
 tions. The French Revolution had not alarmed them, for 
 they hoped that our troubles would weaken us. The power 
 •of our brilliant nation had made others pay dearly for our 
 glory ; and our civilisation, which they were forced to admit 
 amongst themselves, wounded their pride. But when at 
 last they saw that the great question of social organisation 
 assailed their thrones, they resolved to stop the torrent that 
 threatened them. Two of the Sovereigns had a conference 
 together, and with the Elector of Saxony at Pilnitz, who, 
 although too wise to approve of their plans, was still, as a 
 monarch, too weak to reject them. Thus, in conjunction 
 
MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA VALETTE. 33 
 
 with an Emperor of Austria and a successor of Frederick the 
 Great, a French prince was planning the dismemberment 
 of France, without uttering a word in the defence of his 
 country. The news of this act, so like the partition of 
 Poland, fell on Paris like a thunderbolt. The great ques- 
 tion of war was discussed in the Legislative Assembly. The 
 debates that took place there had less influence on public 
 opinion than those of the Jacobin Club, where Robespierre 
 began to rule. This man voted against the war. Was it a 
 forewarning that military glory would one day be fatal to 
 him ? Did he fear that the French would be beaten ? — 
 that foreigners would overthrow the Republic he wanted to 
 raise up, and punish him for the crimes he was about to 
 ■commit ? However, in spite of his faction, war was resolved 
 on. It was undoubtedly the wisest measure ; for the enemy 
 was resolved to begin, and France, ill prepared, would have 
 lost all the advantages of the attack. The King gave 
 the command of the army to generals who had taken part 
 in the Revolution, such as Messieurs Lafayette, Luckner, 
 Montesquieu, Biron, De Broglie, Custines, Kellerman, 
 Beauharnais, &c. 
 
 But the Jacobins, who already possessed a formidable 
 power, had by far outrun the patriots of 1789. Their 
 ■cherished government was the Republic, whilst the latter 
 remained true to the constitutional Monarchy. The first 
 action of the war was disgraceful. Our troops attempted an 
 attack on the enemy at Mons, but were repulsed in such 
 confusion that, if the uprightness of our generals had not 
 been so well known, the affair might have seemed concerted 
 either with the Court or with the Jacobins. M. de Dillon, 
 one of the commanders, was on his return assassinated by 
 his soldiers, exasperated at the disgrace they had suffered. 
 But in Paris the Jacobins threw all the blame on the King, 
 and persuaded the people that it was impossible for the 
 troops to gain a victory when commanded by generals 
 appointed by him. In fact, the Monarch, having no more 
 
 4 
 
34 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 power, was unable to transmit energy and discipline to the 
 army. The generals themselves, placed in a most false 
 position, and foreseeing political changes, no longer knew 
 for whom they fought. The soil of France was undoubtedly 
 to be protected ; but it was necessary to know in favour of 
 what government. All the generals were noblemen ; they 
 had wished for freedom, but with a Monarchy ; and the 
 principles of the Jacobins could not be very pleasing to 
 them. The latter resolved to put an end to all uncertainty, 
 by hastening the fall of the throne and the establishment of 
 a republic. 
 
 I have already described how the National Guards, who 
 were the King's real defenders, had been discouraged by the 
 Court ; they were afterwards intimidated by the faction of 
 the Jacobins. The destruction of the throne, and the 
 establishment of a republic, determined and proclaimed by 
 furious men, whom torrents of blood were incapable of with- 
 holding, spread dismay among the respectable citizens of the 
 metropolis. Had they been gifted with but a small portion 
 of energy, had unity reigned among them, and had they 
 themselves known how numerous they were, the throne 
 would have been preserved. But could obscure citizens be 
 required to show that foresight in which men of the highest 
 rank had been wanting ? Could they be expected to die for 
 a Sovereign who did not choose to defend himself ? They 
 in consequence kept aloof, and the disaffected, delivered of 
 that obstacle, had only the regiment of Swiss Guards to 
 conquer. The King had preferred being protected by them, 
 because he thought it easier to pay foreign troops than to 
 gain the good-will of the French. The Jacobins found but 
 little difficulty in exciting the people against the Swiss ; and, 
 thanks to their speeches and writings, the fury of the citizens 
 equalled that of Spanish bulls at the sight of a red flag. 
 " Why," said they, " do Swiss peasants act as guards to the 
 King of the French ? Why do those men, so foreign to our 
 customs, our manners, and our language, place themselves 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 35 
 
 between the people and their constitutional King? Are 
 there no more French soldiers ? The National Guards have 
 lost the confidence of the Court, who seek the protection 
 of foreigners, and a time will come when foreigners will 
 triumph over them. The Royal Family, the generals, the 
 foreign powers, are bound by a secret compact, the execu- 
 tion of which grows every day more visible. There is 
 treason ever3rwhere, and, if adequate measures are not 
 soon taken, all France, but particularly Paris, will be 
 delivered up to fire and sword. Not a moment must be 
 lost." 
 
 Sedition of this sort was circulated in a thousand pam- 
 phlets, and repeated in all the assemblies of the mob with that 
 vulgar energy so powerful over them. It afforded increased 
 excitement to minds in which all ideas of order or submis- 
 sion were long since obliterated. The Jacobins began their 
 operations ; but they wished to begin by a trial, in the hope 
 of gaining amidst the fury of a new riot what might perhaps 
 not succeed in a regular attack. On the 20th of June, the 
 whole faubourgs set themselves in motion, and came down 
 to the Palace of the Tuileries, under the pretence of claiming 
 from the King his assent to several decrees he had rejected. 
 General Lafayette was no longer in Paris ; the heads of the 
 divisions commanded by turns the National Guards ; but 
 none of them had any influence. The orders that were 
 given to the citizens to assemble at the palace were not 
 executed, and the Royal Family had only to depend on it& 
 own influence and that of the courtiers who did not show 
 themselves. The rebels entered the palace, broke open the 
 doors, and advanced to the apartments of the King, who 
 came to meet them with noble spirit. The sight of the 
 Monarch, and the calmness of his manner, disconcefted 
 those who inarched foremost, and who were probably the 
 most desperate of the gang. That first moment saved the 
 King and his family. The shouts and imprecations of the 
 mob that followed were without effect. The opportunity 
 
36 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 was lost for slaughter, and the rebels attempted in vain to 
 regain their advantage. A sort of strange dialogue took 
 place between the King and the leaders of the mob. The 
 vanity of the latter was flattered, but the Monarch could 
 not avoid the humiliation of putting on the red cap. The 
 roof rang with horrible cries and frightful abuse. The 
 Queen, in particular, was the object of most terrible threats, 
 and she was present all the while. This time the King's 
 condescension was not an act of weakness. His fate must 
 be deplored, and the barbarous insult of the red cap must 
 be considered in the same light as the crown of thorns 
 placed on the head of the Christian lawgiver.' That 
 despicable triumph satisfied the Jacobins. They let the 
 mob depart, firmly resolved, however, to take more decided 
 measures. 
 
 The 20th of June was a signal victory for the rebels ; but 
 did it cause the Court and the Royalists, who prided them- 
 selves in being so courageous and powerful, to open their 
 eyes ? If the King still entertained hopes, they could only 
 be founded on the enemies of France. A pitiful resource ! 
 Ought he not to have felt that their triumph would be a 
 sentence of death for him ? When a great body of men, 
 led by bold and able chiefs, have once placed outrage between 
 themselves and reconciliation, their success can only be 
 ensured by crimes. One step alone, and the noblest, re- 
 mained to be taken by the King ; — ^that was, abdication : he 
 should have laid down all the ensigns of royalty, have left 
 the Tuileries in broad daylight, on foot, surrounded by his 
 family, and, having disbanded his guards, put his life in the 
 hands of the magistrates. That would have been a bold 
 act ; but the King had no comprehension of such a 
 Step. 
 
 I know that it is easy to reason on events after they are 
 passed ; but in this case the Monarch's conduct was traced 
 
 ' Le L^gislateur des Chretiens. The translator begs his readers' pardon 
 for M, Lavalette's impiety. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 37 
 
 out by circumstances. He had no more hope left — no more 
 friends whose devotion amounted to the sacrifice of their 
 lives — no more power, for his enemies turned it against him. 
 When disgraced on the throne, it was high time to become 
 a private citizen. Such a noble step would have struck awe 
 in the minds of every one. In the eyes of the people, he 
 had been till then an every-day King ; but that King, divest- 
 ing himself of his purple robes, stepping down from the 
 throne, and saying to the nation, " I have governed you 
 during eighteen years with moderation ; you deprive me of 
 the necessary power to hold the reins of the state ; you wish 
 for a republic ; establish one ; I submit to your will. In 
 giving up the throne, I only ask for the lives of my wife 
 and children. As for myself, I remain in your hands. You 
 may subject me to insult and bodily suffering ; but my soul 
 belongs to God — you can neither enfeeble nor debase it." I 
 am much mistaken if such words addressed to the French 
 people would not have deeply touched and perhaps reclaimed 
 them. Instead of that, the unfortunate Monarch wished to 
 retain a sceptre already broken in his hands : the result is 
 but too well known. 
 
 Among the persons whom I met in society, my attach- 
 ment to the royal cause particularly attracted the attention 
 of the Marquis de Verdiere. He was an old man, of an 
 ardent and chivalrous mind. His long services in India had 
 raised him to the rank of a major-general. He was not rich, 
 and at the age of sixty-five he came to court dangers in 
 defence of his King, with as much spirit as he formerly had 
 sought them in battle for the sake of glory. That amiable 
 old gentleman had conceived a particular friendship for me. 
 I used to see him every day, especially in the interval 
 between the 20th of June and the loth of August. It was 
 through him that I was enabled to form some idea of all the 
 childish delusions with which the poor defenders of the King 
 fed their fantastic hopes. They had suffered during three 
 years all the insults of their enemies, and instead of fixing 
 
38 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 their eyes on the inevitable future, they triumphed when 
 perchance some biting pamphlet, well seasoned with witty 
 sarcasms, was published with success. I frequently left the 
 Marquis in the evening hopeless and dejected, and the next 
 •morning he appeared full of the most extravagant hopes. 
 Letters had been received from Coblentz, announcing the 
 advance of three formidable armies, or one of the provinces 
 had risen up in arms, or some secret plot was to burst like 
 thunder and level the Jacobins with the dust. Even after 
 the 20th of June he still dreamed of the most decided 
 successes : an immense party was forming among the 
 National Guards, under the protection of the Ministry, 
 and the Federation of the 14th of July was to give the 
 signal of the King's triumph over his enemies. The long 
 wished-for day came at last, and brought with it only fresh 
 insults to the unfortunate Monarch. 
 
 The inhabitants of Paris were at that time infatuated with 
 a deputy of the Legislative Assembly, called Petion. He 
 was a member for one of the departments of the late province 
 of Picardy. I have in vain consulted my memory to dis- 
 cover in what manner he became mayor of Paris. The 
 publications of the time have recorded of him not one 
 action, not one speech, capable of explaining his celebrity. 
 It is, however, probable that his party found him possessed 
 of some talent, or they would not have conferred on him 
 the highest magistracy of the metropolis, at a period when 
 that office gave so much influence over the Assembly to the 
 man who enjoyed it. Petion was in the meridian of life ; 
 he was a man of tall stature and dignified appearance ; his 
 manners were polite, and his character bold, which latter 
 quality was, I suppose, the circumstance that determined 
 the choice of his party. Perhaps, however, that boldness 
 was nothing more than ambition in a shallow mind ; for 
 nothing resembles courage more than ignorance of danger. 
 Petion was then the idol of the people. He succeeded M. 
 Bailly, who, a little while beforehand, had exercised the 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 39 
 
 greatest rigour of the law against the rebels who assembled 
 in the Champ de Mars to proclaim the Republic. On their 
 refusal to disperse, he hoisted the red flag as a signal that 
 martial law was to be executed, and gave orders to fire upon 
 them. A mayor who, on the contrary, caressed the caprice 
 of the mob, and who had devoted himself entirely to the 
 Republicans, could not fail to excite considerable enthusiasm. 
 On the 14th of July, Petion appeared at the head of all the 
 most vulgar and turbulent part of the populace of Paris. 
 Above one hundred thousand men wore on their hats, m 
 large characters, the inscription : Petion or death. This 
 was the watchword of the day, and appeared like a funda- 
 mental maxim of the horrible anarchy that was about to 
 €xercise its fury. 
 
 The King was dragged to the ceremony with his family. 
 There he heard once more, and not for the last time, 
 expressioas of hatred and rage. He took his station in the 
 same palace, and at the same window, where two years 
 before the better portion of the nation had assembled in his 
 presence, to render him the homage of veneration and 
 gratitude, which was then sincere. Undoubtedly at that 
 time the illusion which a faithful people had impressed 
 on the King's mind was removed, and this new and gloomy 
 representation must have appeared to him as the conse- 
 quence of the first, but how different in the eyes of those 
 who observed with attention the succession of events ! In 
 1790, a great people, inflamed by liberty, powerful by the 
 consciousness of their strength and their rights, demanded 
 sincerely a monarchy founded on law : the most affectionate 
 ■concord seemed to reign between the people and the Sove- 
 reign. The storms of July and October, 1789, the agitations 
 which had taken place in some of the provinces, had grieved 
 all honest men, who detested them from the bottom of their 
 hearts : love for the Monarch, and an abhorrence of anarchy, 
 seemed a sacred pledge that France would be no more 
 troubled by it. In the month of July, 1792, on the con- 
 
40 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 trary, that nation, so generous, so united, had in a manner 
 disappeared before a horde of barbarians. Feelings of 
 hatred and revenge had succeeded nobler sentiments. The 
 Monarch, but lately so beloved by the country, and his 
 family^ her most cherished hope, were disgraced by ciruel 
 insults, and dragged to the public squares like as to the 
 place of execution; At the ceremony of the Federation, the 
 King was forced to pass between two files of ruffians utter- 
 ing insults and threats of rage, on his way to the Champ de 
 Mars to swear once more that he would maintain a Consti- 
 tution he had signed in spite of himself, and that had already 
 disappeared under the rebels' feet. 
 
 M. de Lafayette, having received the account of the 
 criminal attempt of the 20th of June, wanted to lead his 
 army to Paris to protect the King against the Republicans ; 
 but he soon discovered that all feeling of love, and even of 
 interest for the fate of the Monarch, was extinguished in the 
 hearts of his soldiers. A king seemed now to be a thing 
 superfluous, or out of place, in the Constitution. The army 
 was in the enemy's presence ; its chief desire was to wash off 
 the disgrace of its first defeats, and to lay by victory the 
 foundation of national independence. M. de. Lafayette had 
 the noble courage to attempt alone what he could not obtain 
 of his army. He came to Paris, appeared at the bar of the 
 Assembly, complained with energy of the insults the King 
 had suffered, of the acknowledged plan of destroying the 
 Constitution, and of the anarchy with which France was 
 threatened. This noble step, although supported by the 
 minority of the Assembly, did not succeed, and Lafayette 
 was on the point of being impeached. From thence he 
 went to the Palace of the Tuileries, where he was received 
 with coolness. Instead of appearing grateful for this act of 
 fidelity, the prejudices of the Royal Family were so strong, 
 that it is said the Queen declared she would prefer dying to 
 being served by such an enemy. The general left Paris, 
 sorely grieved for the fate of his King and country. He was 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 41 
 
 soon followed by the emissaries of the municipality ; and a 
 few days after his return to the camp, he was obliged to fly 
 to a foreign country for refuge ; but, instead of finding that 
 refuge, he was, in violation of all the laws of nations, made 
 a prisoner in the dungeons of Austria. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 The enterprise of M. de Lafayette, notwithstanding its ill 
 success, made the Jacobins sensible that they had not a 
 moment to lose for the accomplishment of their plans. 
 The Court was upon its guard : it was no longer possible 
 to attempt assassination ; an attack by open force was in 
 consequence resolved and fixed on for the 4th of August. 
 But whether the conspirators were not yet ready, or whether 
 that day had only been named to deceive the Court, the 
 attack did not take place then. M. de Verdiere passed all 
 day at the palace, and on returning in the evening he used 
 to make me share his fears without being able to inspire me 
 with his hopes. He told me that emissaries were dispersed 
 through all the suburbs, and even in the club of the Jacobins 
 itself ; that all their designs were known ; that the National 
 Guards were commanded by M. Mandar, a late officer of the 
 Gardes Frangaises ; that on the first order he might give, 
 twenty thousand citizens would rise in arms ; that all the 
 loyal nobility and citizens of Paris would go to the palace ; 
 that the King would mount his horse ; and that the day 
 intended for his ruin would be his triumph. I did all I 
 could to convince him that the National Guards would not 
 march ; that they had lost all confidence in their own power ; 
 that they were divided in their opinions, and, above all, dis- 
 couraged ; in one word, that they were afraid of the Jacobins. 
 I observed that M. Mandar was scarcely known, and inspired 
 no confidence ; that three or four battalions of gallant men 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 43 
 
 would be insufficient to repulse the aggressors, who were the 
 whole populace of Paris ; that the Swiss Guards were objects 
 of horror, and would be overpowered by the irritated people ; 
 that it would therefore be wiser to make use of the protec- 
 tion of these troops, for the purpose of leaving Paris, and 
 retiring towards Normandy, where a numerous body of 
 cavalry might join the Court. I insisted chiefly on the 
 necessity of leaving the TuUeries in the night. The Swiss 
 being masters of the post at the turning bridge that com- 
 municated with the Place Louis XV., the first hours of thq 
 retreat would pass off tranquilly. But it was impossible to 
 make Verdifere listen to reason. He continually referred to 
 the marks of courage and loyalty exhibited in petitions 
 signed by two hundred and twenty thousand citizens, who 
 every day, and on every occasion, openly declared their love 
 for their King and their implacable hatred of the rebels. 
 ^' These are only signs manual," I said ; "the citizens will 
 :fly on the firing of the first cannon. You do not know what 
 it is to hear women lament and children cry. The good 
 people will retire to their beds and weep." I was unable to 
 'Convince him, and he was a faithful echo of all those who 
 surrounded the Royal Family. However, this noble old man 
 behaved very gallantly; he escaped by a miracle the 
 massacre at the palace, went to Coblentz, and having re- 
 turned to Paris a short time afterwards, he perished on the 
 scaffold. 
 
 The loth of August was at last decidedly fixed upon by 
 the conspirators. The battalion of St. Antoine, in which I 
 •served, was not decided to take any share in the day, although 
 it was commanded by a staunch Royalist ; but my company 
 of chasseurs was under the orders of a young architect named 
 Bleve, a man of determined spirit, and one in whom we 
 placed entire confidence. He sent us word at two o'clock in 
 the morning. The greatest part of the company joined him, 
 and at four we set off for the Tuileries. A dismal sight pre- 
 sented itself to us in the way. Numerous groups of common 
 
44 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 people, armed with sabres, pikes, and pistols, crossed the Rue 
 St. Antoine, going towards the suburb, and casting threaten- 
 ing looks, as if they were surprised to see us march another 
 way. Some of them abused us, others called their neigh- 
 bours. The women were at the windows, or in the streets^ 
 embracing with tears their husbands and sons. The gloomy 
 energy of these men was depicted in their countenances and 
 motions. As we advanced, the deepest silence reigned on 
 the quays ; daylight seemed to recoil before the sacrilegious 
 spectacle of a city abandoned to all the horrors of civil war 
 and crime. 
 
 We arrived in the court of the Tuileries a little before five 
 o'clock. At that time the palace had not the imposing aspect 
 which now renders it one of the most noble royal residences. 
 The large court, separated in all its length from the square 
 by an iron railing, was divided in three parts, each encum- 
 bered by houses and walls. Instead of the railing there were 
 old decayed buildings, occupied by tradespeople, and the 
 grand entrance closed with a foldings door. A short while 
 after we had arrived in the middle court, a company of 
 artillery of the sections of the Blancs Monteaux entered with 
 two field-pieces, crying Vive le Roi ! The battalions of the 
 Petits Pferes and the Filles St. Thomas had preceded us, and 
 were drawn up in line of battle in the court. We soon joined 
 together, interchanging the most touching tokens of friend- 
 ship for one another, attachment to the King, and hatred of 
 the rebels. 
 
 At five o'clock we learned that the King was going to 
 review us. He soon appeared, accompanied by a few oflicers 
 of his household and about twenty persons in plain dresses, 
 armed with pistols and muskets. His cold tranquillity and 
 apathy under such terrible circumstances produced a painful 
 impression. He addressed to us, as he was passing by, a few- 
 words we did not hear, and returned to the palace. This 
 scene made a dismal impression upon us, but it was quickly 
 dissipated when the grenadiers of the battalion of the Filles 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 45 
 
 St. Thomas proposed to us to sign a proclamation in favour 
 of the King, written by one of their officers. We went into 
 a room on the ground-floor, which has since served as ante- 
 chamber for the home department of the Council of State. 
 The gallant author of the proclamation had been wounded a 
 Jew days before by the Marseillais in the Champs Elysees, 
 and had been carried to the Tuileries in a handbarrow. We 
 had the pleasure of embracing him. I suspect he must have 
 perished a few hours afterwards, and I am sorry I do not 
 yecoUect his name. 
 
 The emissaries we sent to the Faubourg St. Antoine came 
 every now and then to tell us that the enemy was setting 
 out and would soon arrive. We were fully determined to 
 repulse him. Nevertheless our unbounded devotedness to 
 the royal cause could alone make us blind to the smallness 
 of our numbers and our desperate situation. I can affirm 
 that there were no more than three hundred men in the 
 chief court, and none at all either in the Pavilion de Flore 
 or in the Pavilion Marsan. The Swiss occupied all the 
 apartments of the palace, and, to crown the whole, the gene- 
 ral in chief of our well-disposed army was M. de Wittinghoff, 
 an old man above sixty, who spoke barbarous French, knew 
 nothing either of France or Paris, was rather lame, and cer- 
 tainly had not the least idea of the enemies he had to oppose 
 or the position he had to defend. In fact, if the Jacobins 
 themselves had arranged the order of our defence, and chosen 
 our general, they could not have done better for their own 
 interest. 
 
 On the approach of the enemy, the King resolved to seek 
 refuge in the Legislative Assembly. A grenadier of the 
 National Guards informed us that he had carried the Prince 
 Royal in his arms on the terrace of the Feuillants, and 
 ■described all the insults the Royal Family had endured from 
 the populace, who already filled that part of the garden. A 
 little while afterwards, M. Roederer, syndic or president of 
 the directory of the department of the Seine, came to us, 
 
46 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 and desired us, in the name of the law, not to attack, but to^ 
 repel force by force. This was, no doubt, very prudent on 
 his part ; but what were we to defend ? Was it the palace 
 and its furniture ? or did not the King, by leaving his resi- 
 dence and going to the Assembly, seem to declare that he 
 surrendered himself up to that Assembly which was now the 
 sovereign authority, and whence we were to receive our 
 orders ? The King's retreat, and the speech of M. Roederer, 
 spread discouragement and confusion among the National 
 Guards ; the cannoneers of the battalion of Blancs Monteaux 
 threw down their matches, stamped upon them, and said 
 there was nothing more to be done, there being no king to- 
 defend. 
 
 During this scene, I was on duty at the gate of the court,, 
 facing a Swiss, an absolute machine, with whom it was im- 
 possible to exchange a word. But an aide-de-camp of General 
 Wittinghoff passing near me, I asked him what his general 
 intended doing. He shrugged up his shoulders and said, " I 
 do not think he knows himself ; but I believe we are in an 
 awkward situation. We have to fight the Marseillais ; I 
 know the people of Provence ; and if the plan is to spare 
 them, we are lost." He had scarcely spoken, when howlings- 
 gave us notice of the enemy's approach, and the doors soon 
 gave way to the repeated blows of the thick beams with 
 which they struck them. All the guards that were in the 
 court dispersed, and I followed gravely my Swiss companion, 
 who, according to the orders he had received, returned at a 
 slow pace to the palace, and we entered together the saloon 
 of the guards. 
 
 The Swiss were ranged on the two sides of the great stair- 
 case, and in all the apartments facing the windows, three in 
 depth. The officers were trying to stimulate them, but their 
 faltering voices betrayed their consternation. I had expected, 
 to find National Guards in the palace. Surprised to see 
 nothing but foreigners, I was uncertain as to the manner I 
 should act, when a Swiss officer, taking me by the armr 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 47 
 
 begged me to accompany him to the garden, where his com- 
 pany was stationed. My regimentals were a sort of protec- 
 tion. We went down together to the first landing-place,, 
 facing the door that leads to the old chamber of the Council 
 of State. There we found the great staircase barred by a beam,, 
 and defended by several Swiss officers, who were politely 
 disputing the way with about fifty men, whose dress made 
 them look like robbers in a melodrama. They were intoxi- 
 cated, and their coarse accent betrayed their origin : they 
 came from Marseilles. The officer repeatedly told them that 
 the Ro3ral Family were gone to the Assembly, that there was 
 nobody in the palace, and that the Swiss had received a 
 positive order to defend its entrance. But reason was of no 
 avail with them. " We will enter ! we will examine all the 
 apartments ! " was their only answer, mingled with cries of 
 " Vive la Nation ! " The soldiers, by command of the 
 officers, returned in bad French the same cries, and raised 
 their hats on their bayonets. At last the conspirators suc- 
 ceeded. The barrier gave way to their eiforts ; they forced 
 their passage, and we seized the opportunity to go down. 
 We were still in the vestibule, when a well-directed fire began 
 from the apartments and almost at the same moment the 
 cannon were heard. I am convinced that the Swiss fired 
 first ; my memory has never for a moment deceived me in 
 respect to that circumstance. It is, however, useless to dis- 
 cuss the point ; for it is certain that the conspirators came 
 with a view to attack the King : if the Swiss began to fire, 
 it must have been because the Court had hopes of gaining 
 the victory. But in that case the Swiss ought to have gone 
 down, or rather to have marched against the enemy, and 
 have attacked him in the streets before he had time to draw 
 up in the square. It seems that the plan was to attack the 
 enemy's flank, as some Swiss, posted in the court of Marsan, 
 made a sortie, and even took two field-pieces ; but they were 
 repulsed. The first discharges from the palace had killed or 
 wounded a great many, and the principal court had been 
 
48 MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 quickly evacuated : but the cannonade brought disorder and 
 consternation into the ranks of the Swiss. They abandoned 
 the windows ; the enemy advanced with renewed courage, 
 crossed the court, and rushed into the apartments. The 
 unfortunate Swiss were unable to defend themselves any 
 longer. The most horrible massacre began, and terminated 
 only when the last of them fell. They were pursued from 
 ■chamber to chamber ; the most obscure corner, the most 
 solitary cabinets, even the chimneys into which some had 
 crept, could not save them. They were thrown out of the 
 windows, and their bodies were stripped and exposed to the 
 tarbarous derision of women of the lowest class, as those 
 of the murdered Protestants after St. Bartholomew were 
 subjected to the indecent railleries of the ladies of the 
 -Court. 
 
 Two hours sufficed to exterminate twelve hundred warlike 
 and well-disciplined soldiers commanded by brave and 
 devoted officers. Three or four hundred noblemen stationed 
 in the apartments that join the Pavilion de Flore, and who 
 were undoubtedly designed to attack the enemy's left flank, 
 had the good luck to escape through the gallery of the 
 Louvre. They had been hoping for a triumph in the result 
 of the battle. 
 
 A battle it really was, and ability as well as courage 
 ensured the success of the revolution party. The manner in 
 which the royal troops were disposed, was, as I mentioned 
 above, quite contrary to common sense. The throne and the 
 existence of the Royal Family were at stake, and they were 
 trusted to an old Courlander in the service of France, and to 
 Swiss soldiers. In such a populous metropolis, where so 
 many brave men might have come to assist the Monarch, he 
 was left with only four hundred defenders. The King might 
 at least have stimulated his troops by his presence and his 
 courage ; instead of which, he left them in the decisive 
 moment to seek refuge among his most inveterate enemies. 
 On the part of the conspirators the plan for the attack had 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAV ALETTE. 49 
 
 been well combined ; the vanguard was composed of Mar- 
 sellais and enthusiasts, who feared no danger and looked upon 
 ■death as a glorious martyrdom. The army was protected 
 by fifty cannons, well served, and had determined chiefs. 
 Among these were principally distinguished an Alsatian 
 named Westermann, who acquired a great name in the war 
 of the Vendee afterwards, and Ragowski, a Polish refugee, a 
 well-informed man, and tutor to the son of one of the first 
 noblemen in France. Forced to leave his country, after 
 having fought for his liberty, he had carried to his new 
 home all the hatred he entertained for the treachery of his 
 Sovereign. Louis XVI. appeared to him as guilty as Ponia- 
 towski, and he seemed on the loth of August inspired with 
 a wish to avenge the indifference which the cabinet of Ver- 
 sailles had shown to Poland at the time of her first mis- 
 fortunes. He was killed at the head of the column he 
 commanded. 
 
 Cannon-balls fell on all sides in the garden of the Tuileries. 
 I sought refuge in the Legislative Body. What a scene did 
 I witness there ! The King and his family were crowded 
 into a reporter's box near the President. The King remained 
 motionless, and affected the air of an indifferent spectator ; 
 the Queen softly pressed her children to her bosom, and 
 seemed from time to time to wipe away her tears with her 
 handkerchief. In the hall some persons showed marks of 
 fear, while others took pains to disguise their fiiry and their 
 satisfaction ; all betrayed an agitation, an anxiety that did 
 not allow them to remain in their places. The debates con- 
 tinued, however, with an appearance of order, on subjects 
 foreign to the terrible tragedy that was acting. Victory was 
 at last announced by the conquerors themselves bearing into 
 the hall the spoil of the palace, and proclaiming the massacre 
 of the vanquished amidst furious cries of " The Nation for 
 ever ! Death to all traitors ! " The King had been obliged, 
 in the beginning of the contest, to sign an order forbidding 
 the advance of the Swiss battalion at Courbevoye ; and it is 
 
 5 
 
so MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 a circumstance worthy of remark, that the Court, being 
 resolved to defend itself, did not call in that battalion during 
 the night. 
 
 I left the melancholy scene and went to the Marquis de 
 VerdiSre. The unfortunate old man was not yet come 
 home, but he soon arrived, half dead with despair and 
 fatigue. He had passed the night in the palace, and had 
 escaped by a sort of miracle through one of the doors of the 
 gallery of the Louvre. We embraced one another, and 
 both of us shed tears. He was at last convinced that no 
 hope remained, and I pressed him to leave the country as 
 quickly as possible. He wanted to take me with him, but 
 I told him I was going to join the defenders of my country. 
 " Your cause is no more mine," I said ; " I am not born a 
 nobleman ; I have paid my debt to my Sovereign, and now 
 my country claims me. I must defend her against foreigners 
 who wish to divide her for their spoil, and I shall remain 
 faithful to her." He had no more illusions to offer me ; he 
 yielded, and we separated never to meet again. I learned 
 since that, after having made a pilgrimage to the Royalist 
 army, where he was badly received, because he came too 
 late, he returned to Paris, was denounced as a returned 
 emigrant, and died on the scaffold. 
 
 The day after the loth of August, the fate of the Royal 
 Family was at last decided. They had passed the night in 
 the cells of the convent of the Feuillants, near the hall of 
 the Assembly. They stepped into a large coach, and were 
 led in triumph to the tower of the Temple, along the Boule- 
 vard, and across the Place Vendome, where the equestrian 
 statue of Louis XIV. had already been thrown down. I 
 wished to cast a last look on the unfortunate family before 
 their imprisonment, and I forced my way into the mob while 
 they were getting out of the coach. Among the number of 
 persons that surrounded the carriage, I observed a horrible- 
 looking man. Half his face was covered with a long and 
 thick beard ; he was dressed in a sort of smock frock, which 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 51' 
 
 soon after became the uniform of the Jacobins. Though 
 his look was haggard and furious, he seemed embarrassed 
 on observing the anxious curiosity of those that stood around 
 him. I asked who he was. "It's Jourdan of Avignon," 
 was the answer ; " Jourdan, Coupe-Tete." In fact it must 
 have been either the wretch who distinguished himself by 
 the massacres of the Glaciere d'Avignon, or some one 
 resembling him, placed there with a view to augment the 
 terror of the Royal Family. 
 
 A few days after the loth of August, the Legislative 
 Assembly closed its session, and decreed that another 
 Assembly should sit in its stead. The members of the 
 Gironde party, who had contributed most to the fall of the 
 throne, hastened to get themselves re-elected. 
 
 Among the members, of that party, some have so many 
 surviving friends .that they ought not to be condemned 
 rashly. Great praise is still bestowed on the uprightness of 
 their intentions, their rigid honesty, their eminent talents, 
 and their invincible courage. I am far from disputing these 
 two last quahties ; but what was the situation of France 
 when they entered the Legislative Assembly, and what did 
 they do to maintain the Constitution which that Assembly 
 was appointed to protect ? Had it become utterly impossible 
 to support it ? Was the King an invincible obstacle, or the 
 republican faction an enemy whose progress could no longer 
 be stopped ? Was not a courageous struggle in favour of 
 constitutional monarchy a sacred duty? Was not unani- 
 mous, firm, and heroic resistance preferable to the miserable 
 presumption of wishing to reign on the ruins of the throne 
 and the Constitution ? I fear history will accuse the Gironde 
 party of having been led away by the desire of shining as 
 orators ; and it will probably be said that the greater part 
 of them were more intent on keeping up a successful contest 
 with the heroes of the Constituent Assembly than impelled 
 by the noble ambition of saving their country by following 
 a steady line of conduct. 
 
S2 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 The last twenty days of the month of August were not 
 lost for the revolutionary party. They knew the maxim, 
 that a victorious general must not leave a moment's rest to 
 his vanquished enemy. As soon as they had shut up the 
 Royal Family in the Temple, and butchered all the Swiss 
 soldiers that remained in Paris and its environs, they 
 hastened to imprison all persons suspected of being attached 
 to the King. Noblemen, clergymen, servants of the palace, 
 women, and even children, who had had the least connec- 
 tion with the Court, were seized without any exception, and 
 prisons were soon more numerous than playhouses. A 
 new misfortune roused to the highest pitch the rage of the 
 Jacobins, and filled the public with consternation : a foreign 
 enemy obtained alarming successes, whilst the ridiculous 
 manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick announced to the city 
 of Paris the terrible punishment that threatened her. The 
 frontier towns of Longwy and Verdun had surrendered ; 
 and, by a shameful and criminal policy, the Sovereigns who 
 came to assist the unfortunate Louis XVI. placed their 
 banners on the conquered cities, as a proof that they would 
 never restore them. The French nation, insulted in its 
 independence, united its exertions to the fury of the 
 Jacobins, and France was saved amidst torrents of blood. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The news of the surrender of Verdun, and the impossi- 
 bility of stopping the advance of the enemy, reached Paris 
 on the morning of the 2nd of September ; and by five 
 o'clock some members of the municipality began to ride 
 about the streets on horseback with flags in their hands, and 
 crying, " To arms ! — The enemy," they added, " approaches 
 — ^you are all lost ! The city will be a prey to fire and 
 pillage ! Take up your swords, join the armies, and the 
 infamous foreigners will be repulsed ! You have nothing 
 to fear from the traitors and conspirators you leave behind ; 
 they are in the hands of the patriots, and national justice 
 will strike them with its thunderbolts." These terrible 
 words, repeated on all sides, spread general dismay. What 
 was the meaning of the thunderbolt of justice ? Alas ! that 
 expression was but too soon explained : about two hours 
 after, it was reported that the prisoners were to be executed I 
 I ran to the hall of my section, where I found M. Dutillet. 
 He took me aside, and said, " Within an hour the prisoners 
 at the Hotel de la Force will be butchered. I have an order 
 from Tallien for the release ot Madame de Tourzel and her 
 daughter. Bleve, captain of the Chasseurs, accompanies 
 me. We want a third person : will you go with me ? " I 
 accepted most readily his proposal. It was agreed that 
 Dutillet should enter the prison ; that Blfeve and he should 
 take charge of the two ladies ; and that I should accompany 
 
54 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 them, for the twofold purpose of engaging the attention of 
 such as might stop them in a part of the town where they 
 were so well known, and to help to defend them in case they 
 should be attacked. We encountered no difficulty in getting 
 the ladies out of prison ; we passed along the Rue du Roi da 
 SiScle, and boldly crossed the church of the Petit St. Antoine, 
 where the Assembly was held. By good luck, night was 
 beginning to protect us ; we were in no manner disturbed, 
 and Madame de Tourzel found in the Rue St. Antoine her 
 friends, who placed her in safety. When we returned to 
 Dutillet's, we deliberated on the means of preventing the 
 massacre of the prisoners of La Force. The consciousness 
 of doing a good action augments one's courage. It was 
 impossible to think of beating the gin'erale without an order 
 from the commander-in-chief; time pressed, and, besides, 
 the commander was Santerre, one of the leaders of the 
 Jacobins. We had no alternative but to run to some of the 
 National Guards whom we looked upon as the most steady. 
 I spoke to a great many of them in the space of an hour and 
 a half, and, notwithstanding my most pressing entreaties, I 
 could make no impression on them. Men in the prime of 
 life and health, in whom I thought I had discovered a strong 
 love of liberty, feelings of humanity, and respect for the laws, 
 remained unmoved, while I pictured to them the slaughter 
 they were going to witness. " What can we do ? " was the 
 answer of all those I saw. I could not excite them to a noble 
 effort. Some did not believe the massacre ; others said they 
 could not march without an order from their chiefs. Some 
 even said to me — " The prisoners are conspirators who deserve 
 no pity ; our sons are going to the army ; civil war will break 
 out ; we shall perish the victims of our humanity ; it is said, 
 besides, that there will be judges, and that the innocent will 
 be spared." The exertions of my two companions were not 
 crowned with more success than my own ; we separated at 
 nine o'clock. The massacre was already raging in all its 
 force. Being less known than my friends, I flew to the 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 55 
 
 prison. Before the wicket that leads to the Rue des Ballets, 
 I found about fifty men at most. These were the butchers ; 
 the rest had been drawn there by curiosity, and were perhaps 
 more execrable than the executioners ; for, though they dared 
 neither go away nor take part in the horrid deed, still they 
 applauded. I looked forward, and at sight of a heap of 
 bodies still palpitating with life, I uttered a cry of horror. 
 Two men turned round, and, taking me abruptly by the 
 collar, dragged me violently to the street, where they 
 reproached me with imprudence, and then, running away, 
 left me alone in the dark. The horrible spectacle I had 
 witnessed deprived me of -all courage : I went home, over- 
 whelmed with shame and despair for humanity so execrably 
 injured, and the French character so deplorably disgraced. 
 
 The particulars of the massacre having all been recorded 
 in the memoirs of the time, I need not repeat them here. I 
 was moreover no spectator of them. They lasted three days, 
 and, I blush while I write it, at half a mile from the different 
 prisons nobody would have imagined that their countrymen 
 were at that moment butchered by hundreds. The shops 
 were open, pleasure was going on in all its animation, and 
 sloth rejoiced in its vacuity. All the vanities and seductions 
 of luxury, voluptuousness, and dissipation, peaceably swayed 
 their sceptre. They feigned an ignorance of cruelties which 
 they wanted the courage to oppose. And still there existed 
 an Assembly, the organ and supreme protectress of the laws, 
 ministers entrusted with the executive power, a paid guard 
 and magistrates. The unfortunate prisoners that were 
 slaughtered had friends and relations, on whom they could 
 not bestow a last look. They perished, after horrible agony, 
 in the midst of the most cruel torments. Twelve hundred 
 persons were killed in those three days. 
 
 Still, so much bloodshed did not satisfy the rage of the 
 September murderers ! They were sensible that the 
 slaughtering of twelve hundred persons would spread dis- 
 may and indignation over France and Europe. Victory 
 
56 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 was therefore become doubly necessary. National pride 
 and the bad policy of the enemy were of wonderful service 
 to them. In less than a fortnight, more than sixty thousand 
 men left Paris for the army. The youths of the depart- 
 ments, animated by the most generous patriotism, did not 
 wait for the example of the metropolis, and in a short time 
 the armies were augmented threefold. I did not dare to 
 enlist in a battalion of volunteers, being noted as an enemy 
 of the country, — that is to say, of the Jacobins. The more 
 indulgent blamed me : they said I was hot-headed, heedless, 
 and had thrown myself through vanity into a party I ought 
 to have detested. I had moreover signed all the petitions 
 in favour of the Court, and had been at the palace on the 
 loth of August : that was more than sufficient for a sentence 
 of death. Not knowing how to get away, I went and con- 
 sulted one of my best friends, Bertrand, the same who has 
 since made himself so honourably known by his talent and 
 his devotion to the Emperor, and who is at present at St. 
 Helena. I had made his acquaintance at the office of the 
 attorney Dommanget, where he studied for the bar. His 
 family had designed him to fill a judicial post in his pro- 
 vinces ; but since the suppression of the parliaments his 
 studies were without aim. He acted more wisely than I 
 had done. Instead of meddling in political quarrels, he 
 applied himself during eighteen months in perfect retire- 
 ment to the study of mathematics. Gifted with judgment 
 and a tenacious character, he could not but succeed. He 
 had just passed his examination, and, having been received, 
 he was going to Chalons to study engineering. To take me 
 with him was not to be thought of ; but he advised me to 
 enlist in a free corps, and gave me the address of Lieutenant- 
 Colonel d'Hilliers, who was then organising the Legion of 
 the Alps. Some of my friends were in the same situation 
 as myself ; we went therefore together to that officer. 
 There were five of us — young, well educated, possessing 
 some fortune, desirous to fight, but, above all, to leave Paris, 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 57 
 
 M. d'Hilliers received us very well ; he gave us orders for 
 our route, and next morning, the 7th of September, at five 
 o'clock, we were on the road to Fontainebleau, our knap- 
 sacks on our backs, military caps on our heads, and perfectly 
 well disguised by a sort of sailor's dress called a carmagnole. 
 I must beg leave to stop for a few moments before I enter 
 the army. I feel a wish to cast a look behind me on my 
 conduct during the latter years. My education had been 
 rigid. The principles on which it was formed were ex- 
 pellent in all respects. Until I was twenty years old, all 
 scenes of corruption had been carefully kept out of my sight. 
 My parents, my tutors, all the persons who surrounded me, 
 had shown me no examples but those of the purest morality. 
 At a period when the most important political questions 
 were discussed, my educators preserved me from sharing 
 the errors that were most generally adopted. The ridiculous 
 harangues of the section orators saved me from the wish of 
 imitating them. To the study of the works of Montesquieu 
 I added those of Fenelon, Voltaire, Rousseau, Mably, &c. \ 
 , but the authority of the first awed me. I should have 
 imagined I had committed a bad action if, even in language, 
 I had swerved from the discretion a young man must be 
 inspired with by reading such works. I was therefore wise 
 enough to await a maturer age before I manifested political 
 opinions of any sort, and to consult for my conduct my 
 conscience and my heart. These two guides kept me 
 within the bounds of reason and modesty. The Revolution 
 took me by surprise when I was twenty years old. I was 
 born in too obscure a class to be acquainted with all the 
 abuses which that Revolution was meant to correct. I 
 think, however, I did my duty in embracing the Royal 
 cause; and still, at this present moment, I recur with 
 pleasure to the feelings I experienced. Nevertheless, since 
 I grew acquainted with the emigrants, I have frequently 
 asked myself what I had to do among those privileged 
 persons who reckoned the commoners for nothing — I who 
 
S8 MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 was born a commoner ? Whether, after victory, they 
 would have shown me any gratitude for having fought 
 with them? and also, whether, in case a civil war had 
 broken out, I should have done a good action in destroying 
 the sacred cause of Liberty, and marching against my 
 countrymen, and perhaps against my family ? I did not 
 wish for the new revolution which took place four years 
 ago, to answer some of those questions against myself. But 
 at that time I did not yet know all I have since learned by 
 experience. 
 
 We arrived at Auxerre on the third day after our 
 departure, delighted with having quitted Paris, but full 
 of anxiety for the dear friends we had left there. The 
 Revolution had also passed through that town, and had 
 left bloody traces behind it. The inhabitants were full of 
 consternation, and deploring several young clergymen, sons 
 of the most honourable citizeng, that had been slaughtered. 
 We lodged with the uncle of one of these victims, the corpse 
 of whom had been left for three days ion a dunghill, his 
 parents not being suffered to bury him. We thought that 
 we ought not to remain long in that city. We set off in 
 consequence for Autun, and we arrived next day at a village, 
 not far from Vermanton, situated amidst woods, and the 
 inhabitants of which got their livelihood by making wooden 
 shoes. Two days before, a bishop and two of his grand 
 vicars, who were escaping in a post-coach, had been arrested 
 by them. The coach was searched, and some hundred 
 louis-d'or having been found in it, the peasants thought 
 the best way to gain the property would be to kill the real 
 owners. Their new profession being more lucrative than 
 their former one, they resolved to continue it, and in con- 
 sequence set themselves on the look-out after all travellers. 
 Our sailors' dresses were not very promising, but we carried 
 our heads high, — our manners seemed haughty ; and so 
 a little hunchbacked man, an attorney of the village, 
 guessed we might perhaps contribute to enrich them. The 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 59 
 
 inhabitants being resolved not to make any more wooden 
 shoes, applauded the hunchback's advice. We were brought 
 to the municipality, where the mob followed us. The 
 attorney placed himself on a large table, and began reading 
 with emphasis and in a loud voice all our passports : Louis 
 Amed6e Auguste d'Aubonne, Andr6 Louis Leclerc de la 
 Ronde, Marie Chamans de La Valette. Here the rascal 
 added the de, that was not in my passport. On hearing 
 these aristocratical names, a rumour began : all the eyes 
 directed towards us were hostile, and the hunchback cried 
 out that our knapsacks ought to be examined. The harvest 
 would have been rich. I was the poorest of the set, and I 
 had iive-and-twenty louis in gold. We looked upon our- 
 selves as lost, when D'Aubonne, whose stature was tall, 
 jumped on the table and began to harangue the assembly. 
 He was clever at making verses, and knew besides at his 
 fingers' ends the whole slang dictionary. He began with a 
 volley of abuse and imprecations that surprised the audience ; 
 but he soon raised his style, and repeated the words country 
 — liberty — sovereignty of the people, — with so much vehe- 
 mence and such a thundering voice that the effect was 
 prodigious. He was interrupted by unanimous applause. 
 The giddy-headed young man did not stop there. He 
 imperiously ordered Leclerc de la Ronde to get upon the 
 table. La Ronde was the cleverest mimic I ever saw. He 
 was thirty-five years old, of a grotesque shape, and as dark 
 as a Moor. His eyes were sunk in his head and covered 
 with thick black eyebrows, and his nose and chin im- 
 measurably long. D'Aubonne said to the Assembly : 
 "You'll soon be able to judge whether or not we are 
 Republicans coming from Paris." And turning to his 
 companion, he said to him : " Answer to the Republican 
 catechism. What is God ? What are the people ? What 
 is a King ? " The other, with a contrite air, a nasal voice, 
 and winding himself about like a harlequin, answered, 
 " God is nature ; the people are the poor ; a King is a lion, 
 
6o MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 — a tiger, — an elephant — who tears to pieces, devours and 
 crushes the poor people to death." It was not possible to 
 resist this. Astonishment, shouts, enthusiasm, were carried 
 to the highest pitch. The orators were embraced, — hugged, 
 — carried in triumph. The honour of lodging us grew a 
 subject of dispute. We were forced to drink, and we were 
 soon as much at a loss how to get away from these brutal 
 wretches, now our friends, as we had been to escape out 
 of their hands while they were our enemies. Luckily, 
 D'Aubonne again found means to draw us out of this scrape. 
 He gravely observed, that we had no time to stop, and that 
 our country claimed the tribute of our courage. They let 
 us go at last. On the road my companions blamed me for 
 having taken no share in the scene, and having maintained 
 an air of gravity that might have become suspicious in the 
 eyes of people who only sought a pretext to murder us. I 
 had nothing to answer to their observations. I had admired 
 their presence of mind and their gaiety ; but my humour 
 did not accord with such tricks. Nature cannot be forced. 
 During the farce they had acted, I recollected a fact I had 
 read, I think in a work of M. Lebceuf, on the History of 
 France during the thirteenth century. A monk of Auxerre,. 
 or Dijon, intimated to the abbot of the Benedictines of Paris, 
 who had expressed a wish to see hini, that at his age he 
 could not leave his country and undertake so distant and so 
 perilous a journey. Alas ! at the end of the eighteenth 
 century, the journey was more perilous still ! 
 
 From this haunt of robbers we went to Autun. One of 
 us had letters of introduction to a member of the Legislative 
 Assembly, who had not been distinguished in the Con- 
 vention, and was afraid of showing himself at his usual 
 abode. His family consisted of a respectable and clever 
 wife and three charming daughters. Our stay with them 
 might have endangered them ; we therefore continued our 
 journey. There, as well as everywhere else, terror was 
 carried to a great height. Not a motion, not an attempt 
 
MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA VALE TTE. 6 r 
 
 had been made to counteract the enterprises of the factious. 
 People remained silent, or left the place, for fear of exposing 
 themselves. The most honest were denounced, the lower 
 ■classes made everybody tremble with their clamour, and 
 became everywhere masters, through the misunderstanding 
 and want of courage of those who, having property to save, 
 did not blush to fall back before those who had nothing 
 to lose. 
 
 We arrived at last, on the 12th of September, at Ville- 
 franche, near Lyons, where the legion of Montesquiou was 
 in garrison. M. d'Hilliers had shown us a pattern of the 
 regimentals, and had boasted to us of the discipline and good 
 appearance of the regiment. We were to be received in the 
 most flattering manner by the officers, all of them well-bred 
 young men, and who would undoubtedly live as brothers 
 with us. We formed to ourselves most delightful ideas of 
 our new manner of living. As we got nearer to Villefranche, 
 our excited imagination made us hasten our pace. We 
 came to the side of a very extensive field, at the other end 
 of which we saw some troops manoeuvring. My companions, 
 either through some illusion, or indistinctness of vision, fell 
 into rapture at the wonderful good order of the troops. In 
 fact, their muskets glittered in the rays of the sun, and their 
 lines seemed to present admirable regularity. As for me, 
 I saw nothing but strange dresses, or rather the rags of 
 misery ; and the reader may judge of our consternation, when, 
 on approaching, we found four or five hundred wretches in 
 tattered garments, and none but the ofGcers dressed in the 
 elegant regimentals we had so much admired. We were 
 going away, and should perhaps have taken the dangerous 
 resolution of deserting, when an officer came up to us, and 
 asked us, in a strong German accent, whether we had not 
 the honour to belong to the corps. Without waiting for 
 the answer of my companions, I showed my feuille de route. 
 They were all obliged to do the same ; and, as soon as the 
 mancEuvres were finished, the officer placed us in the rear of 
 
62 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 the troop and we entered the city, marching like experienced 
 soldiers, but asharned of being seen in such bad company 
 by the fair ladies of Villefranche, who looked at us as we 
 passed, and did not seem greatly to admire our appearance. 
 
 This still incomplete legion, whose existence, by the bye, 
 was neither long nor brilliant, consisted of the remainder of 
 the regiment of Royal Liegeois that had been disbanded for 
 some wild freaks, and of young men who had enlisted for 
 ten crowns each. They were all of them averse to discipline, 
 and wished to fight for diversion ; but the major, M. Ross, 
 was a grave man. I have never since met with a person who 
 carried to so great a degree as he did his enthusiasm for the 
 military catechism, and for all the minutiae of the service. 
 He knew just French enough to command his troop, -which 
 consisted almost wholly of Flemings and Alsatians. After 
 five-and-twenty years' service he had attained the rank of 
 major ; but still M. Ross was not satisfied. Since he could 
 no longer maintain discipline by flogging, he complained 
 that command fatigued him. I had become his firiend 
 because he had found me exact, attentive, and serious at my 
 exercise. " My friend," he used to say to me, " war is 
 always fatal to an army ; there is no more discipline, no 
 more order, no more subordination ; woe to the regiment 
 that leaves its garrison for the field of battlte ! Oh ! if you 
 had seen the camp at Verberie or St. Omer ; what a beauti- 
 ful sight that was ! The tents all in straight lines ; the 
 troops under arms at four o'clock in the morning, their 
 dresses cleaft, admirable manoeuvres, and in the evening at 
 the calling over, nobody missing, everybody ready ! Now 
 I have to command nothing but tattered wretches ! What 
 am I to do with these young men, whom it is impossible to 
 keep in order ? This will be a war indeed ! Things will 
 go as bad as they can. But I am resolved to retire from the 
 service." Poor man, he did, in fact, retire the following 
 year, and I hope he lived long enough both to wonder and 
 rejoice at our victories. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 63 
 
 I suffered a great deal in the beginning. I had lived in 
 affluence in Paris in the midst of my family, by whom I 
 was beloved, and in the society of agreeable friends. Now 
 I was forced to live with soldierg : the sergeants vouchsafed 
 to protect me, but the officers never cast a look on me. I 
 began to feel some disgust ; but luckily, before it was too 
 late, I made deep reflections on my situation, and I conceived 
 it might be possible to raise myself out of it by giving 
 myself up entirely to the duties I had to fulfil. Till then 
 I had passed my time in coffee-houses, or in reading novels. 
 I left off that idle life : I studied the military law, and 
 rigidly obeyed it in all its details ; so that within six weeks 
 I was made a corporal. My situation was growing better. 
 I stin obeyed everybody, but I commanded a few. 
 
 M. d'Hilliers arrived. Our troop was soon completely 
 equipped ; and as that officer had served in the regiment of 
 Alsace, he subjected us to such severe and rigid discipline 
 that in less than two months our legions could vie with the 
 finest corps of the Northern army. 
 
 The duties prescribed for each moment, instead of dis- 
 couraging me, made me fond of them. The manoeuvres of 
 a battalion gave me a desire to learn the elements of the art 
 of war, and I read with eagerness several new works that 
 had lately appeared, such as " La Guerre de Poste," by 
 Cossac ; " Les Fortifications de Campagne," by De Belair, 
 and others. My colonel, who had taken a liking to me, gave 
 me lessons in strategy and castrametation, and taught me to 
 understand military maps. I was soon raised to the rank of 
 sergeant, and my hopes knew no more bounds when, all on a 
 sudden. General Custines summoned Colonel d'Hilliers to 
 the Rhine army, instead of General Houchard, his first aide- 
 de-camp, who had been appointed to the command of the 
 Moselle army. 
 
 The departure of M. d'Hilliers was a thunderstroke for 
 me. But he promised to transfer my companions and myself 
 to the Rhine army, and he kept his word. A short time 
 
64 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 after his arrival at Mentz, we received commissions of 
 second-lieutenants in the 93rd regiment of infantry of the 
 line. 
 
 It was at Bourg I received the order to go to the Rhine, 
 and just then arrived the news of the sentence and death of 
 the King. Although the Jacobins were masters of the 
 town, and added, by their vociferations, consternation to the 
 terror their threats and conduct had already inspired, still 
 the fatal account caused a deep impression on the minds of 
 the public. To form a just idea of that terrible sentence, 
 we must consult a pamphlet published by M. de Chateau- 
 briand in the beginning of 1815, wherein he explains with 
 great sagacity the secret motive that induced so many 
 deputies to vote for the death of Louis XVI. The munici- 
 pality of Paris ruled with all the energy of savage and 
 desperate tyranny. That body insisted at any rate on the 
 death of the King, and threatened openly to murder the 
 whole Royal Family, who were then in their sole power. 
 Many deputies imagined that the only way to save the heir 
 to the throne and his family was to offer up the unfortunate 
 King as a victim to popular fury. They were mistaken, but 
 still deserving of pardon. On the other hand, if it be true 
 that Louis XVI. signed the treaty of Pilnitz ; that he per- 
 suaded the privileged classes to leave France and enlist 
 under foreign banners ; that he had agreed with his brothers 
 and their party that they should try to deliver him by 
 means of a war that was to expose his country to all the 
 horrors of invasion, though he had sworn to maintain and 
 execute the Constitution : — if all this be true, I do not 
 hesitate to say that he was guilty ; he could reign no 
 longer. But the Convention had no'' right to try him, and 
 by putting him to death they committed a most impolitic 
 fault. Did they not see that by taking the life of Louis 
 XVI. they gave the crown to Louis XVIII. ? that they 
 ought to have kept the King prisoner, lest they should place 
 a King in the hands of the enemy ? that the life of a Monarch 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 65 
 
 so celebrated for weakness, and for false and contracted ideas, 
 ought to have been carefully protected, as he would soon or 
 late be succeeded by his brother, the qualities of whose mind 
 were so superior to those of the King, and whose character, 
 already known, would have so deplorable an influence over 
 the destiny of France ? But the Convention was pressed 
 by passing events, inflamed by resentment, and by the con- 
 test of the loth of August. It consisted in a great part of 
 men without experience, who, seized with a fatal mania for 
 celebrity, wished to impress the minds of the people with a 
 sort of horror mixed with admiration, by a great act of 
 injustice, which they called an act of national justice. They 
 succeeded ; but the revenge of Europe fell heavily on France, 
 and France, mighty through the fury of her government, 
 , subdued the armies of Europe. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 None but young men can well feel the happiness of wearing 
 an epaulette, and particularly those who rise from the ranks. 
 It is a feeling of vanity, I own ; but that vanity makes heroes. 
 I was not destined to be one ; but it is not my fault, for I 
 never felt a greater degree of incitement. During the journey, 
 I constantly reflected on the duties I should have to fulfil. 
 My heart beat at the thoughts of my country ; I was proud 
 at the idea of shedding my blood for her. War then raged 
 in all its force. At every place where we stopped to rest, I 
 read the newspapers ; I questioned my landlords ; and when- 
 ever I learned that the Rhine army had fought, I burned with 
 impatience. It seemed to me as if I ran the risk of arriving 
 too late. All the ideas that had tormented me in Paris were 
 forgotten ; the happiness of fighting for my country had 
 absorbed them all. If I speak of these deep impressions, 
 that every Frenchman shared, it is because at present they 
 are considered as criminal. 
 
 In the Holy Week of the year 1793 I arrived at Worms, 
 where the second battalion of my regiment was in garrison. 
 I went to see my colonel, M. de Loriol. He was an old man, 
 who bore in his countenance all the austerity of a former 
 major, and all his vexation at being obliged to command 
 plebeian officers. He received me very ill, assigned me a 
 company, and sent me away. I then went to my new 
 captain. If the colonel's reception was haughty, that of the 
 captain was impertinent. He had served as sergeant in the 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAV ALETTE. 67 
 
 King's regiment, the non-commissioned officers of which 
 used to learn a little mathematics, to distinguish them from 
 their comrades of other corps. This poor man consequently- 
 looked upon himself as an officer of old standing. He spoke 
 ill of his comrades and superiors ; said a number of absur- 
 dities about war, which he did not understand ; and would 
 perhaps have succeeded in making me very unhappy in my 
 situation, if I had not found a protector in M. de la Poterie, 
 my lieutenant-colonel. This respectable gentleman invited 
 me to come and see him frequently, and promised to advance 
 me if I behaved well. He was killed a short time after, at 
 the head of his battalion. His memory has always been 
 dear to me, and I shall never forget the kindness he showed 
 me. 
 
 The success of our armies began, however, to diminish. 
 Our conquests had been rapid, but we were in danger of 
 losing them again. Dumouriez, after having deceived both 
 the Court and the Jacobins, wanted to draw the King out of 
 the abyss, and crush his enemies. His presumption led him 
 ■ to hope that he should be luckier than M. Lafayette. But 
 the army took no interest in the King, being bound by no 
 tie to his person ; and, though the troops had no affection 
 for a Provisional Government scarcely established, they still 
 remained nobly faithful to their high duty of defending the 
 territory, and insuring the independence of the country. 
 Dumouriez lost Belgium, and was obliged to seek refuge in 
 foreign countries, after having committed two disgraceful 
 acts I — namely, treating with the enemy of his country, and 
 delivering over the commissioners of the Convention, among 
 whom was one of his own old comrades. General Bournon- 
 ville. The army of the Rhine also was attacked by the 
 enemy with renewed force. Frankfort was evacuated, and 
 we retired to Mentz, and from thence farther back. General 
 Custines left there, as commander-in-chief. General Doird ; 
 as commander of the engineers. Colonel Meguier ; as 
 commander of the fortified camp, Major-General Kleber ; 
 
68 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 and as commander of the fortress, M. Aubert Dubayet. 
 General Blou was ordered to leave the town at the head of a 
 body of some thousand men, and the garrison of Worms was 
 to cover his retreat. The command of the four battalions 
 of that garrison was given to a young officer of the staff : 
 this was Desaix, who subsequently distinguished himself by 
 so many noble feats, and by his heroic character. General 
 Blou, embarrassed in his retreat by an enormous quantity of 
 equipages belonging to persons unconnected with the army, 
 that had been sent out of the town, was unable to resist the 
 imposing force of the enemy, and was obliged to re-enter 
 the city. He and his troops contributed largely to the loss 
 the enemy suffered during the siege. 
 
 General Custines might have taken a fine position behind 
 the Queich, but he preferred retiring behind the lines of the 
 Lutter, resting on the mountains of the Vosges, and on the 
 Rhine at Lauterbourg. The intention of the general in 
 choosing a position so far from Mentz, a place that could 
 not long be left to itself, was undoubtedly to take leisure to 
 instruct and discipline a young and inexperienced army. 
 But he was blamed by many generals, and particularly by 
 Coquebert, one of his aides-de-camp, an officer of distin- 
 guished merit, and much esteemed by his commander, not 
 only for his extended information in different branches of 
 military science, but also for a frankness of character which 
 was perhaps not devoid of some asperity. Two days after 
 the arrival of the headquarters at Weissemburg, Coquebert 
 came to the general, and after having again brought to his 
 mind the weighty reasons that ought to have led him to 
 prefer the position of the Queich, he said somewhat harshly 
 that evil reports had been the result of his contrary resolu- 
 tion, and that even the word treason had been pronounced. 
 Custines immediately seized his pistols, and, throwing them 
 on the table, cried, " If I am a traitor, blow my brains out ! " 
 Coquebert, struck with the noble indignation of a man so 
 unjustly aspersed, was himself confounded, and the only 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 69 
 
 answer he gave his general was, to discharge one of the 
 pistols off in his own face. He fell : his jawbone was 
 broken ; but he did not die of his wound. At the trial of 
 General Custines, Coquebert was called as a witness, in the 
 hope that he would renew his charge ; but he behaved like 
 an honourable man, completely justifying his general, and 
 accusing himself of a fit of madness. He was subsequently 
 taken prisoner at the battle of Hondschoote. I saw him 
 afterwards in Paris ; but probably the sufferings he ex- 
 perienced during his captivity deranged his intellects, for he 
 completely lost his senses, and died in a madhouse, notwith- 
 standing the pains that were taken for several years to cure 
 him. 
 
 The departure of General Houchard left the post of chief 
 of the general staff of the army vacant. Custines bestowed 
 it on Colonel d'Hilliers, who was made a major-general, and 
 who chose me for his aide-de-camp. I occupied that post 
 with a great deal of pleasure, because it was an advancement, 
 and procured me means of instruction. The army was at 
 that time not above forty thousand strong. The generals 
 were well chosen ; most of them belonged to that part of 
 the nobility which had given proofs of fidelity to their 
 country, in defending it against foreigners, but for which 
 they were cruelly punished. Distrust of the nobility was 
 growing stronger every day in the new Government. Near 
 the armies were placed commissioners of the Convention, 
 who shared the same sentiments. The extent of power 
 with which they were invested prompted them to misuse it. 
 The general-in-chief was forced to communicate and discuss 
 with them, not only his plans, but even the particulars of 
 the service. They were the fountains of favour, and their 
 influence soon became dangerous and fatal to the respect 
 due to the general-in-chief. Several commanders bore 
 impatiently the contumely with which these pro-consuls 
 affected to treat things, and they frequently uttered offensive 
 railleries against their persons. 
 
70 MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA VALE TTE. 
 
 The violent temper of General Custines made him repel 
 with anger contradictions that were rendered unbearable by 
 a total absence of propriety and military knowledge. His 
 situation grew more difficult from day to day. It became, 
 however, necessary to act. The communication with Landau 
 had ceased to be militarily established. The siege of Mentz 
 was urged with vigour. Custines was at this time made 
 commander-in-chief of the Northern army, in the place of 
 General Dampierre, who had been killed. He would not, 
 however, leave the army of the Rhine without having drawn 
 it out of the unfortunate position in which it then was ; 
 he attacked the enemy along his whole line, but without 
 success. It was reported that his intention was to get his 
 army beaten by the corps of emigrants — an absurd calumny ; 
 we scarcely saw that body on the 1 7th of May. The fact is, 
 that the general who commanded the right of the army at 
 Lauterbourg did not obey the orders he had received, or 
 executed them ill. The enemy, who, according to the plan 
 of the general-in-chief, was to have had his left wing turned, 
 not being attacked on that side, found himself in full force 
 before the centre of the army commanded by Custines ; a 
 charge of cavalry was repulsed by a masked battery of two 
 field-pieces, and in their flight the cavalry hurried along 
 with them some battalions. I only mention this battle be- 
 cause it became one of the charges against the unfortunate 
 Custines. He left us on the following day for the Northern 
 army, where the same prejudice and calumny awaited 
 him. He was soon after deprived of his command, and 
 summoned to Paris, where he died on the scaffold. His 
 condemnation was one of the first crimes of the sanguinary 
 tribunal which afterwards committed so many. Custines 
 was a lover of liberty, and never did a thought of treason 
 enter his mind. The consolation of religion soothed his 
 last moments ; and such was the fanaticism of his time, 
 that a man who had always shown himself full of intre- 
 pidity under the greatest trials was accused of cowardice 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 71 
 
 because he walked to the scaffold accompanied by a clergy- 
 man. 
 
 General Custines had his son with him at the army of the 
 Rhine. All who have known that young man loved him for 
 the noble qualities with which he was gifted. He accom- 
 panied his father to the Northern army, and afterwards to 
 Paris, and he soon followed him to the scaffold. It is of 
 little importance to know what pretence was employed, to 
 condemn this amiable youth ; the judges had already begun 
 to trample on the most sacred forms. His age, his pro- 
 fession, his manner of living, made him equally a stranger 
 to all factions.. He left an only son, who will, I hope, not 
 "betray the noble qualities of his father and the glory of his 
 grandfather. 
 
 General Alexander de Beauharnais, who took the place 
 of Custines, had also been a member of that Constituent 
 Assembly so replete with honourable men. He had neither 
 the faults of his predecessor, nor his habit of command. The 
 former was violent to an excess, and sometimes incapable of 
 listening to the voice of reason ; still, he was beloved by the 
 soldiers for his frankness and popularity. M. de Beau- 
 harnais, on the contrary, had a cultivated mind and a calm 
 temper ; he was fond of order and discipline ; his activity 
 was boundless ; his perception was quick and accurate ; his 
 valour cool and briUiant. The army soon became fond of 
 him. Modest, and even a little circumspect, he showed 
 reserve in the presence of the troops ; and as he did not say 
 much to them, he did not inspire them with the same 
 •enthusiasm as General Custines, who liked to make speeches, 
 knew the name of every private soldier, visited the men in 
 the camp and hospitals, and whose blunt good-humour and 
 repartees were quoted everywhere. 
 
 General d'HiUiers was also superseded and summoned to 
 Paris, where he was thrown into prison. His successor as 
 ■chief of the staff was Lieutenant-Colonel Clarke, of Irish ex- 
 traction, who some years before had been attached to the Duke 
 
72 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 of Orleans. At the battle of the 17th of May he commanded 
 a troop of the 2nd regiment of cavalry. His horse having 
 been killed in a charge, and being unable to procure another, 
 he took up a musket and placed himself in the ranks of a 
 company of grenadiers. That action was then considered as 
 very courageous, and he was made a colonel. M. de Beau- 
 harnais took him for chief of his staff, and procured him the 
 rank of major-general. M. Clarke added to a taste for his- 
 profession all the suppleness of a man who wishes to advance, 
 and that sort of spirit of intrigue for which his countrymen 
 are reputed. He left the army on the 12th of October, 
 having been superseded and sent to Paris. That campaign 
 was the only one in which he ever served. He died a 
 marshal of France. I shall have more than one occasion to 
 mention him ; and, although I have cause to be dissatisfied 
 with him, I hope to do him justice. 
 
 M. de Beauharnais hastened his march to Mentz ; and, 
 though the resistance of the enemy grew stronger from day 
 to day, he succeeded in repelling him. After having fought 
 for five days, we made ourselves masters of Spire and 
 Frankenthal. Two days more and we should have arrived 
 under the walls of Mentz, when accounts of the town having 
 capitulated were received at our headquarters. We were 
 forced to return behind the Lutter. 
 
 Courage and good intention were the only qualities of 
 the garrison of Mentz at the beginning of the siege. The 
 generals were intelligent and bold ; but the attacks of the 
 besiegers were so vigorous and repeated that the besieged, 
 soldiers as well as officers, acquired both experience and 
 valour in so remarkable a degree that they might afterwards 
 be looked upon as the most formidable body the Republic 
 was able to oppose to its enemies. 
 
 The Prussians, eager to make themselves masters of that 
 barrier of the Rhine, and not caring what use the French 
 Government might make of these troops, were satisfied with 
 stipulating that they should retire into the interior of the 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 75 
 
 country, and not serve against the Allies for the space of a 
 year. This article of the capitulation saved the Republic, 
 and cost the enemy dear. The garrison of Mentz, com- 
 manded by the intrepid general Kleber, flew to the western 
 departments, defeated the Vendeans, and when the year was 
 expired reappeared under the walls of Mentz. 
 
 Having returned to Weissemburg, we were soon obliged 
 to prepare for the attacks of an enemy that had become 
 formidable by his junction with the Prussian army, and was 
 besides free in all his movements. But the commissioners 
 of the Convention wanted first of all to abolish the distinction 
 that still subsisted between the troops of the line and the 
 battalions of national volunteers. The amalgamation was a 
 difficult and dangerous £)peration at the moment of a decisive 
 action. The generals explained their fears ; but instead of 
 being listened to, they became objects of suspicion ; and, 
 just at that instant, a decree of the Convention having 
 ordered the dismissal of all the officers who belonged to the 
 nobility, the Army of the Rhine was thrown all of a sudden 
 into a state of confusion, of which the enemy did not fail to 
 make use. The decree also concerned M. de Beauharnais : 
 by disobeying, he would have placed himself in open defiance 
 to Government. The commissioners, however, proposed 
 that he should wait for an individual order and the appoint- 
 ment of his successor ; but the Committee of Public Safety 
 had already named the officer that was to command in his 
 place. The choice had fallen on General Delmas, a young 
 man of great merit, but as yet too inexperienced for so im- 
 portant a command in such difficult circumstances : he was, 
 besides, at Landau, and that town being blockaded, his return 
 to the army was impossible. 
 
 General Beauharnais was deeply grieved at leaving the 
 army: his noble spirit could not brook the thought of 
 departing from the scene of the glorious contest to which the 
 voice of the country called all Frenchmen. In returning to 
 the interior of the Republic, he moreover was exposed to 
 
74 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 innumerable dangers. He had constantly supported the 
 system of representative government ; and although he felt 
 the necessity of defending a Republic born amidst storms, yet 
 the system of the Jacobins and their cruelty inspired him 
 with horror. All the members of the Constituent Assembly 
 were persecuted, and even the purest and most prudent con- 
 duct was far from ensuring him tranquillity in an obscure 
 retreat. I was in his closet at the moment that he was con- 
 fiding his grief and regret to the bosom of his faithful friend 
 Lahorie, who had been his secretary, and who was then one 
 of the officers of his staff. This gentleman advised him to 
 attack the enemy and seek an honourable death, rather than 
 expose himself to all the outrages of his foes in the interior 
 of France. The advice was more courageous than wise. 
 The general answered : "I must first of all consider the 
 interest of the army and my country. I do not flatter myself 
 as to my future fate ; but the death of so many brave men 
 must not rest on my head, nor all the fatal consequences of 
 a defeat. The army will perhaps be commanded by a more 
 fortunate chief ; besides, the decree that supersedes me is 
 positive : even victory would be looked upon as a crime, and 
 I see no possibility of gaining one at present : we have 
 scarcely thirty-five thousand men, in bad order ; and the 
 enemy have eighty thousand ; my death would be of no use ; 
 I must go.'' The day after, he resigned his command and 
 left the army, which remained without a commander in the 
 presence of a formidable enemy, and the organisation went 
 on but slowly. Little attention was paid to that state of 
 disorder. Forty thousand farmers arrived without arms or 
 regimentals : they were undoubtedly well disposed ; but 
 they had no experience, having never faced the enemy. The 
 choice of a general-in-chief was a difficult one : the post was 
 first offered to General Laudremont, who commanded the 
 vanguard ; but he was a nobleman, and, though he had 
 great merit, he was recalled a few days after his appointment. 
 Thus it was necessary to seek somebody else, and one 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 75 
 
 €olonel Corbin did not fear to take the burden on his 
 shoulders. Two days after his appointment, the commis- 
 sioners of the Convention, to put him entirely at his ease, 
 dismissed abruptly from the army thirteen generals, the 
 chief of the staff, the commander of the vanguard, generals 
 of division ; no one was spared. This foolish measure was 
 adopted on the 12th of October, 1793, and on the 13th, at 
 four o'clock in the morning, the enemy attacked us on the 
 whole length of our line, broke through our ranks, put us 
 to the rout, and at eight o'clock we had lost the lines and 
 were in full retreat towards Brompt in the greatest disorder. 
 3y good luck, our forty thousand peasants were so active 
 in their flight they did not long embarrass our retreat ; 
 they had their houses and families to defend. The second 
 day there was not one of them remained behind : 
 nevertheless they afterwards became very excellent soldiers 
 when they were recalled ; but they had been ren- 
 dered able to fight before they were placed in front of the 
 enemy. The rear-guard was well enough commanded to 
 •cover our retreat : it fought courageously on the heights of 
 Brompt during a whole day, so that the army had time to 
 arrive at Haguenau ; there the commissaries and the general- 
 in-chief deliberated whether it would not be best to retire to 
 Saverne and leave Strasburg to defend itself ; happily, before 
 they came to a resolution, they thought it necessary to con- 
 sult M. de Villemanzy, commissary-general of the army. He 
 declared that Strasburg having constantly furnished the 
 army with provisions and stores, its magazines were com- 
 pletely exhausted, and that some time would necessarily 
 elapse before the town could be put in a state to support a 
 siege ; so that, if left to itself, it was to be feared it would be 
 oiliged to capitulate. M. de Villemanzy was taken prisoner 
 at Haguenau, where he had remained to keep an eye on the 
 ■evacuation of the magazines : the general opinion at the 
 time was that he had delivered himself up. If that be true, 
 I think he acted wisely ; he would undoubtedly have been 
 
76 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 arrested on his arrival at Strasburg, and probably have died 
 on the scaiFold. He passed for an enemy of the Republic. 
 I can say nothing as to that : all I know is that he was a 
 well-bred, agreeable man, and that his situation was an 
 object of envy. Villemanzy's observations made the council 
 resolve to cover the town ; the headquarters were estab- 
 lished at Schiltikeim, a village a league from Strasburg. 
 The army extended in a line of more than ten leagues, from 
 the banks of the Rhine to Saverne, and until orders from 
 the Government could be received, the chief command was 
 entrusted to General Michaud. This temporary choice was 
 a wise one. General Michaud was a prudent man, who felt 
 the danger of his situation, and did his utmost to make the 
 best of it, presenting to the enemy an appearance of strength 
 that forced them to be cautious. 
 
 It was Wurmser who commanded the combined armies 
 opposed to us. With a little more resolution he might have 
 beaten us once again, and perhaps made himself master of 
 Strasburg. But he reckoned on the friends he flattered 
 himself he possessed in Alsatia. He was persuaded that the 
 bad government of the Jacobins, and his own intrigues,, 
 would make the whole population of the province fly to him. 
 He was mistaken. The Austrians were still more detested 
 than even the Jacobins, for the Alsatians were Frenchmen. 
 While he was contriving low intrigues, the army had time 
 to recover, and the eastern frontiers were saved. 
 
 At last the arrival of a general-in-chief was announced \ 
 but our astonishment was great when we heard the name of 
 Pichegru : he was completely unknown to the army. After 
 many inquiries, we learned that he had had an obscure 
 command in the department of the Upper Rhine ; that he 
 had served in the artillery as a non-commissioned officer ; 
 and that he had a little while before been chief clerk in the 
 War OflBce. The name of Pichegru, which a short time 
 after became famous in France and all over Europe, was 
 mentioned with contempt by all the giddy-headed youths of 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 77 
 
 the army. A few days were, however, sufficient to gain him 
 the esteem of every one. I was still on the staiF, and was 
 one of the first persons who saw him. He was about thirty- 
 five, and of middling size. His eyes were fine, full of fire 
 and intelligence ; his air was martial, and his deportment 
 calm and dignified in the highest degree. He began by 
 restoring order in the army, and by rectifying as much 
 as possible all that was faulty in its positions. He again 
 inspired the troops with a consciousness of their strength, 
 spoke to them of their duty without harshness, and promised 
 them success without exaggeration. The winter was then 
 in all its rigour ; many were the obstacles to be surmounted, 
 but they were the same for both armies. The Prussians 
 and Austrians did not agree well together ; their generals 
 hated one another ; and M. de Wurmser appeared timid 
 and irresolute. Our part was therefore to make use of the 
 favourable chances those circumstances presented us, to 
 attack and raise the blockade of Landau. We soon received 
 reinforcements, and St. Just, a member of the Committee 
 of Public Safety, arrived unexpectedly at the army. The 
 conduct of that young man made me acquainted with the 
 existence of a government most terrible from its energy, 
 while we imagined we were swayed by a turbulent and 
 stupid Assembly. St. Just severely reprimanded his col- 
 leagues, and sent several of them away. He asked also 
 an account of the causes that had led to the loss of the lines 
 of Weissemburg ; he arrested several generals, and eight or 
 ten superior officers. Among them were the poor noblemen 
 who had not yet left the army. A sanguinary tribunal 
 sentenced them, and they were shot in front of the ranks. 
 This was a useless act of cruelty ; for no treason had been 
 committed, and the loss of the lines was much less owing to 
 the generals than to the bad measures of the commissioners 
 of the Convention ; but St. Just had read that the Romans 
 sometimes made use of cruel severity to re-establish discipline 
 among their troops ; and that man, who imagined he pos- 
 
78 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 sessed the genius of Sylla because he had his cruelty, thus 
 made a prelude to the scenes of murder which a few months- 
 after he extended all over France. He probably thought 
 he had made a just compensation by threatening the presi- 
 dent of the atrocious tribunal he had employed. This man 
 was a wretched foreign priest, called Schneider, who gloried 
 in his assumed title of the Marat of the Rhine. For several 
 months he had acted as president of the tribunal and general 
 of the revolutionary army, and terrified Alsatia with his 
 cruelty and debauchery. He used to travel through the 
 province, followed by judges who were no better than 
 robbers, and by soldiers who were his executioners. A 
 guillotine drawn by horses, like a field-piece, accompanied 
 him everywhere ; and when he arrived in any town, not 
 one of the inhabitants could count on escaping. Sex, age, 
 beauty, respectability, fortune — nothing was sacred in the 
 eyes of this wretch. Of all the ferocious men that made 
 themselves famous during that period, Schneider perhaps 
 bore the greatest resemblance to Nero. The sight of death 
 and blood gave him a sensation of unspeakable delight. 
 The examples of this monster of cruelty have in them 
 a sort of originality that makes one shudder ; and one 
 would wish to doubt their truth, if the testimony of one 
 hundred thousand inhabitants and the evidence of facts 
 were not certain proofs of their existence. St. Just had 
 the monster arrested and sent to Paris. There he was 
 condemned, not for the crimes he had really committed^ 
 but for prior conspiracies that never existed ; so far was- 
 justice reviled in those deplorable times. 
 
CHAPTER Vni. 
 
 The campaign opened in the month of December. The 
 right wing of the army was commanded by General St. 
 Cyr, and the left by General Desaix. General Hoche, who 
 was at the head of the Army of the Moselle, seconded our 
 movements by vigorous and perpetually renewed attacks. 
 Brilliant though dearly-bought successes brought us to the 
 heights of Brompt ; they caused us both to love and respect 
 our new general-in-chief. 
 
 It was near Brompt that we had a cavalry engagement 
 with the corps of Condd, in which we were on the point 
 of taking prisoners a part of that corps, with the three 
 Princes who commanded it. The Duke of Bourbon was 
 wounded, but he escaped by the devotion of the brave men 
 that surrounded him, and by one of those chances the 
 influence of which so strongly modifies events. An officer 
 of the 39th regiment of dragoons, called Dieudonne, had 
 distinguished himself by valour on those same heights of 
 Brompt during our retreat. The commissioners of the 
 Convention sent him to Paris to present two standards he 
 had taken. He was received mth marked distinction by 
 the Assembly, and he returned to the army a month after- 
 wards with the rank of general of brigade. In the battle 
 which might have been so fatal to the Bourbon Princes, 
 Dieudonne commanded two regiments. That was too much 
 for his experience. He did not know how to develop them 
 in due time, and the Princes were saved. His error was 
 
So MEMO/US OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 considered a crime : he was arrested and sent to Paris as 
 a traitor ; he died on the scaffold. 
 
 The battle of Brompt gave us a superiority over the 
 enemy which we did not afterwards lose. General Hoche 
 continued advancing on the right of the enemy, He 
 succeeded in turning his position near Pirmasens ; and a 
 few days after, while debouching from behind the moun- 
 tains, the two French armies met near Weissemburg. The 
 enemy, discouraged, began to retreat, and Landau was 
 delivered. Pichegru's fame was from that moment firmly 
 -established. He also displayed his character in a trait I 
 must not omit. General Desaix was of noble extraction ; 
 but the decree that excluded all noblemen had not yet been 
 applied to him. The commissioners of the Convention 
 hesitated to deprive the army of an able, valiant, and 
 beloved officer. The Committee of Public Safety, never- 
 theless, sent three times to Pichegru orders to dismiss him ; 
 but he did not obey them, and even took care not to 
 mention the fact to any one. It was not till the campaign 
 was over that Desaix learned it. Thus, by his generous 
 disobedience, he saved a general who, during ten years, shed 
 lustre on the armies of France, and whose noble character 
 may be offered as a model to all soldiers. 
 
 The junction of the two armies, after such great successes, 
 was a beautiful scene. The generals congratulated one 
 another on their mutual exertions ; but discord soon 
 created between them dissensions more dangerous than 
 even the enemy had proved. Each pretended to the 
 greatest share of the glory, and wounded vanity would 
 perhaps have soiled the field with blood, had not Govern- 
 ment checked the misunderstanding by separating the 
 commanders. Pichegru was sent to the Northern army, 
 and Hoche to that which was assembled near Nice. He 
 had scarcely arrived there when he was arrested, and shut 
 up in the dungeon of the Conciergerie, where he remained 
 until after the 9th of Thermidor. Thus the Committee of 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 8i 
 
 Public Safety made him expiate his glory, and humbled his 
 proud character. 
 
 The Army of the Rhine pursued its successes during the 
 remainder of the year 1794. Our position on the Queich 
 was secure :• the Austrians had repassed the Rhine. We 
 had some other brilliant actions with the Prussians ; and 
 I remember that at the close of one of them that had proved 
 entirely to our advantage, in the environs of Germersheim, 
 we saw the words chalked on the doors of a village we had 
 taken — " Adieu ! brave Frenchmen ! " A short time after, 
 the treaty of Basil was signed, and established friendship 
 between two nations which already esteemed one another. 
 The common hatred awoke again at a more recent period, 
 and a long time wiU now be required to suppress it. 
 
 In the month of October the army established itself 
 before Mentz, to keep the enemy in awe, and prevent him 
 from advancing on that point. The soldiers constructed 
 huts underground in a very ingenious manner. Protected 
 by field fortifications that covered this new sort of camp, 
 they passed there one of the longest and severest winters 
 ever recorded. The result aimed at in taking that position 
 was obtained, at least, during six months ; but it was too 
 dearly bought. In the month of January, one-half of the 
 army lay sick in the hospitals. In June the enemy again 
 began his operations, and, as we might have foreseen, he 
 crossed the Rhine behind us, turned our position, and 
 obliged us to fall back on the Lutter. General Moreau 
 came to take command of the Army of the Rhine. The 
 history of that campaign is known ; I shall therefore enter 
 into no particulars concerning it. I left the army a Uttle 
 while before its retreat. General d'Hilliers had just got out 
 of prison, and had been appointed chief of the staff of the 
 first military division in Paris. He proposed to me to 
 return and resume my duty as his aide-de-camp. I was 
 happy in the army, but I wished to see my family once 
 more ; so I set off. 
 
 7 
 
82 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 Before I leave the Army of the Rhine, to which I shall 
 not again allude, I must beg permission to take leave of 
 it with a few lines. That army was by no means the first, 
 either by its consequence or its exploits. Its duty was to 
 protect Alsatia and defend that part of the Palatinate it had 
 conquered. It succeeded by battles strongly disputed, but 
 in the issue always favourable ; and it was of great service 
 to France, for the enemy coveted that part of our frontiers' 
 that he would perhaps never have restored. Lorraine is 
 the cradle of the Imperial house, and the Germans look 
 upon Alsatia as a part of the empire, which it is as much 
 their advantage as their honour to unite again to the 
 mother country ; — there prevail the same language, the 
 same customs, the same religion, and, above all, the strong 
 wish of weakening France, and enabling themselves to 
 attack her in the very heart. The plan is not yet given up. 
 
 The Army of the Rhine shared at that period with 
 our other armies the advantage of being commanded by 
 generals and officers, almost all of whom had risen from its 
 own ranks and been instructed among them. At the head 
 of the most able must be placed Kleber, Desaix, and St. 
 Cyr. Kleber was born at Strasburg : he had served before 
 the Revolution in the Austrian army, and he came to ours 
 as commander of a battalion of volunteers of the Upper 
 Rhine. His stature was strong and gigantic, and called to 
 mind the heroes of Homer : his voice was sonorous and 
 imperious ; his spirit rose and warmed at the sight of 
 danger ; though learned in all the branches of military 
 science, he was not gifted with that boldness of execution 
 that distinguished other generals : but he possessed the 
 prudence which long experience gives, joined to the 
 resources derived from an imperturbable coolness and rapid 
 perception. Of all our generals, Kleber is perhaps the one 
 of whom the soldiers retain the most flattering recollection,, 
 for he loved them as if they had been his children, was 
 continually thinking of their comforts, and diverted them 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 83 
 
 in the midst of their perils by quaint sayings, which were 
 rendered more piquant by the harsh accent of his mother 
 tongue. 
 
 Desaix, who was born in Auvergne, had served for several 
 years as an officer in the regiment of Brittany. His stature 
 was tall, and his figure singular. He had fine black fiery 
 eyes, and a nose that seemed to descend from the top of the 
 forehead ; his thick and usually separated lips showed a set 
 of teeth of sparkling whiteness ; his hair, flat and black as 
 jet, shaded his dark face. His gait was embarrassed, but 
 still without awkwardness, and betrayed bashfulness and 
 want of knowledge of the world. Altogether, he resembled 
 a savage of the banks of the Oroonoko dressed in French 
 clothes. But one soon got accustomed to him. His voice 
 was soft, and, when once drawn out of his usual reserve, he 
 delighted by the variety of his information and the sim- 
 plicity of his manners. He had none of the faults of men 
 accustomed to camp life : I never heard him utter a vulgar 
 expression — an indecent word made him blush. As he was 
 constantly easy and kind, his staflF led a merry life, and the 
 pretty girls of the Palatinate used frequently to visit his 
 headquarters. He smiled at our pleasures without sharing 
 them, but with the indulgence of a father who shuts his eyes 
 on his children's wild tricks. I do not think I ever saw him 
 dressed in the uniform of his rank : he usually wore a blue 
 coat without any lace, and the sleeves of which were so- 
 short that we used to say in jest he had certainly worn it 
 when he first took the sacrament. He frequently mounted 
 his horse without a sword when he went to visit the posts. 
 One night, having ordered an attack on the convent of 
 . Marienborn, near Mentz, which the enemy occupied in force, 
 he suddenly found himself without arms in the midst of a 
 surprised body of infantry which was defending itself with 
 the bayonet amongst the vines. Desaix, perceiving he had 
 forgot his sword, pulled a vine-prop out of the ground, and 
 continued fighting as if he had had Orlando's sword in his 
 
84 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 hand. Savary, who was then his aide-de-camp, threw him- 
 self before him, just in time to save his Hfe, and killed a Hun- 
 garian grenadier that was about to pierce him with his bayonet. 
 I must not forget General St. Cyr, though still alive and 
 in the enjoyment of power ; — but this work is not meant to 
 appear till after my death. He entered the army as captain 
 of a free corps raised in Paris during the terrible month of 
 September, 1792. This troop, which consisted of Parisian 
 vagabonds (I need not say any more), boasted on the road 
 that they were going to teach the army the right step, 
 meaning that they would make it Republican ; for, to say 
 the truth, we were neither robbers nor braggers. However, 
 they committed such terrible outrages that General Custines 
 ordered his cavalry to surround and disarm them, after 
 which they were disbanded. St. Cyr remained in conse- 
 quence unemployed. He had in his early youth visited 
 as an artist Italy and Greece, and he had a great facility for 
 drawing. One day he was busy near Mentz sketching the 
 positions of Oekheim, when General Custines, whose 
 glance was piercing, observing him at a distance; darted 
 towards him with all the swiftness his horse was capable of. 
 Seeing him dressed in a uniform he detested, he asked him 
 angrily what he was doing, and tore the paper out of his 
 hands. Finding, however, that the positions were taken 
 accurately, he asked him some questions, appeared satisfied 
 with his answers, and appointed him officer of the staif. A 
 few months afterwards, and shortly before our disaster at 
 Weissemburg, chance was still more serviceable to him. 
 We had been repulsed in the pass of Annweiller ; the com- 
 missioners of the Convention, seeing treason ever3rwhere, 
 knew not to whom they ought to entrust the command of 
 the troops : St. Cyr was crossing the street under the win- 
 dows of the headquarters ; an officer pointed to him as a 
 man in whom the greatest confidence might be placed. He 
 was called upstairs, and, after a few questions, the commis- 
 sioners proposed to him to march oflF with two thousand 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALB.TTE. 85 
 
 men and attack the enemy. His surname Gouvion, how- 
 ever, made them frown ; the same had been that of a friend 
 of M. de Lafayette, a former major-general of the National 
 Guards of Paris. Though the latter had been killed in the 
 army, his relations were not the less persecuted for that, 
 St. Cyr beat the enemy, made some hundred prisoners, and 
 retook the positions. Three months later he was a general 
 of division. He constantly commanded the centre of the 
 army, and was called its shield. Next to these celebrated 
 generals shone a great number of young men, who have all 
 acquired lasting glory-— Sainte Suzenne, Guyot, Boursier,, 
 Bellavesne, Ferino, Haxo, Dode, Nempde, Clemencel, 
 Fririon, D'Astrel, and the unfortunate Lahorie ! so praise- 
 worthy for his constancy of spirit, which ten years' adversity 
 was unable to shake, and who received death with a smile. 
 And you also, my old chiefs, my dear friends ! why cannot 
 I surround your names with all the splendour of your noble 
 deeds ? You greatly contributed to save France ! Could 
 you expect that your services would one day be rewarded 
 by forgetfulness and persecution ? 
 
 With such chiefs, and friends of the soldiers, most of 
 whom had commanded as private officers, discipline was 
 exact but gentle. They all loved their profession, and 
 were well acquainted with it. Mean jealousy, hatred, and 
 backbiting were unknown. The oldest of these generals 
 was scarcely thirty, and the Revolution having found them 
 in a middling condition, and at a time of life when luxury 
 and corruption have not yet gained an empire over the mind, 
 they had no wish but for glory, and glory itself pleased them 
 only when surrounded by perils. I have frequently heard 
 doubts raised as to the skill of our generals, notwithstanding 
 the constant successes by which their fame has been estab- 
 lished. It has been declared impossible to learn so quickly 
 and so well the most difficult of all sciences, and that which 
 more than any other requires a number of different branches 
 of knowledge, which can only be acquired by a great deal 
 
86 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 of time, particularly where the pecuhar education is wanting, 
 as was the case with most of the Republican generals. It is 
 not sufficiently known that the first quality necessary to 
 attain distinction in the military career is strength of mind. 
 That gift of nature, which is so little esteemed, and of so 
 little use in ordinary life, is however so important that it 
 might have saved France a few years ago, if those who at 
 that time influenced her fate had been possessed of it. It is 
 quite indispensable in the military profession. Nature alone 
 can give it ; and she did give it to all our celebrated generals. 
 In the second place, it is not true that their education had 
 been neglected ; for, to speak only of those of the first 
 period of the war, Pichegru, Bernadotte, Jourdan, Moreau, 
 Kleber, Desaix, St. Cyr, and Hoche (the latter was bred at 
 the school of the sons of the gardes Franfaises), had all 
 studied the military art. The education of most of them 
 had been as well attended to as that of the nobility. It 
 must also be considered that in other professions the most 
 ambitious student can scarcely devote more than twelve 
 hours a day to his studies, and is frequently interrupted ; 
 whereas, in the army, every instant is given up to military 
 knowledge. A passion for glory, ambition, the pleasure of 
 command, freedom from the duties of the world — all induce 
 soldiers to talk and think unceasingly of their profession. 
 The variety of events, their rapidity, their number, hourly 
 correct the wrong judgment of young officers, enrich their 
 memory, multiply the examples they may want, and com- 
 plete their improvement. Their mistakes appear in open 
 daylight ; they are quickly punished ; and as the blow 
 strikes not only the guilty, but also those who are placed 
 below or around him, each individual is in some respect 
 answerable for his neighbour, and all have the greatest 
 interest in acting well. 
 
 The composition of the troops, as well as their valour, 
 contributed also to our successes. The love of their country 
 and the hatred of a foreign yoke had animated them even 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 87 
 
 tinder the paternal roof since the year 1789. At the first 
 call, the citizens flew to the frontiers ; a great number of 
 well-educated young men, whom the passion for glory and 
 ambition had assembled under the banners of the army, 
 were like a nursery of excellent officers. The warlike 
 Marseillaise hymn filled every breast with such deep 
 emotion and enthusiasm that its first notes were sufficient 
 to make the troops rush on the enemy with irresistible 
 impetuosity. - At Gaisberg, near Weissemburg, the enemy 
 had crowned the plateau with thirty cannons, which dealt 
 death and devastation into our ranks. The troops advanced 
 nevertheless with a slow step : when they arrived at the 
 foot of the frontier, the warlike song was heard, and at the 
 same instant the soldiers, as if they had been borne up by a 
 whirlwind, overcame every difficulty. The position was taken, 
 the cannon were in our power, and the enemy put to flight. 
 The perils and sufferings our troops endured at that 
 period were the more deserving of admiration, because they 
 had no other compensation than the love of their country 
 and their ambition. The most simple enjoyments were 
 -unknown to us. We were all of us poor. The soldier 
 received no more than an ecu per month in money ; and 
 the officers, of all ranks, only eight francs. Our salaries 
 were paid us in assignats, which were already depreciated in 
 France, and were of no value at all in foreign countries. 
 During the severe winter of I794) I shared with some of my 
 comrades a peasant's room in the village of Fintheim near 
 Mentz : we had only one bed amongst us, and every week 
 we drew lots who was to sleep in it ; the rest lay upon 
 straw. Our assignats were barely sufficient to procure us a 
 little bad wine three times a month : we knew that our 
 landlord possessed a considerable quantity, but not one of 
 us ever cherished the idea of forcing him to give it us for 
 nothing. My companions were all young officers of engineers. 
 Three of them, Haxo, Dode, and Nempde, became celebrated 
 generals in that corps — the rest were killed. 
 
88 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 I beg pardon for having dwelt so long on this subject. 
 To the Army of the Rhine I owe those qualities that have 
 embellished my life, and the strength of mind that decided 
 my fate. When I entered it, I was full of enthusiasm, but 
 my ideas on military subjects were confused, and I wanted 
 experience. I had not yet seen the enemy, and I was very 
 anxious to know what figure I should cut in the first battle. 
 My ardent courage did not leave me at full liberty for reflec- 
 tion ; but I was lucky enough to be attached to the division 
 of General Desaix. The easy and immovable calmness, 
 the soft cheerfulness of that excellent man in the midst of 
 the most murderous fire, made me sensible that there exists 
 no real valour without those qualities. I reflected seriously, 
 and was discontented with myself. I did not know how to 
 manage my horse when in the direction of the balls ; I 
 crossed too rapidly the field of action ; and I frequently went 
 a round-about way, when I could have rode straight before 
 me. I blushed at such foolish conduct, and schooled myself 
 so well that case shot soon lost all power of embarrassing 
 me. It required time before I arrived at that degree of self- 
 possession. How often did I not go back and place myself 
 purposely in the middle of the fire ! How satisfied T was 
 when I had remained long in such a situation ! That moral 
 strength did not contribute considerably to my advancement, 
 but it made me worthy of being the aide-de-camp of the 
 Conqueror of Italy, and gained me his esteem : it also made 
 me bear prosperity with moderation, and was a strong 
 support to me in the days of misfortune. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 I ARRIVED in Paris towards the middle of August. When 
 I left that city in 1792, the people, freed from the whole- 
 some restraint of the laws, intoxicated with fury, and elated 
 with their abominable triumphs, were madly enjoying a 
 savage licentiousness, and, ever threatening, ever oppressive, 
 set no bounds to their tyranny. What a change did I not find 
 after the short space of three years ! Scarcity was terrible, 
 misery at the highest pitch, and the dethroned Sovereign 
 scarcely dared to complain. The people were no better than 
 a vile rabble, devoid of energy, shrinking under the rod that 
 chastised them, but having not even the thought of resist- 
 ance. In the morning, the city presented a deplorable 
 spectacle : thousands of women and children were sitting on 
 the stones before the doors of the bakers' shops, waiting 
 their turn for receiving a dearly-bought bit of bread. More 
 than one-half of Paris lived on potatoes. Paper money was 
 without value, and bullion without circulation : this lasted 
 nearly a year. A still stranger sight struck the observer's 
 eyes. The unfortunate prisoners had recovered their liberty, 
 and, having escaped almost certain death, they enjoyed their 
 good luck with a sort of ecstasy. The dangers to which 
 they had been so long exposed excited a lively interest in 
 their favour ; but vanity, so ingenious in France, discovered 
 the means of turning their situation to advantage. Each 
 person pretended to have suffered more than his neighbour ; 
 and, as it was the fashion to have been persecuted, a great 
 
-90 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 many people who had remained safe in their hiding-places, 
 or had bought their security by base concessions, boasted of 
 having languished in prison. An immense number of inno- 
 cent persons had, in fact, perished on the scaffold ; but, if 
 ■credit could have been given to the accounts propagated by 
 hatred and vanity, one might have thought that one-half of 
 Paris had imprisoned or butchered the other half. Confu- 
 sion was at this period at its highest pitch in society : all 
 distinctions of rank had disappeared ; wealth had changed 
 possessors ; and as it was still dangerous to boast of birth, 
 and to recall the memory of former gentility, the possessors 
 of newly-acquired wealth led the ton, and added the ab- 
 -surdities of a bad education to those of patronage devoid 
 of dignity. The class of artists, more commendable, acquired 
 consideration through the general thirst for amusement, and 
 through the necessity many persons were in of seeking a 
 livelihood in the arts of imagination. This same taste for 
 -the fine arts, so universally diffused, caused in the fashions 
 and even in the morals of the metropolis a most inconceiv- 
 able licentiousness : the young men dressed their hair en 
 ^ictime — that is to say, raised up at the back of the neck as 
 if they were going to suffer on the scaffold. The women, 
 on the contrary, imitated in their dresses the costume ot 
 ancient Greece. It is scarcely credible to those who have 
 not seen it, that young females, well-bred, and distinguished 
 by their birth, should have worn tight skin-coloured panta- 
 loons, sandals on their feet, and transparent gauze dresses, 
 Tvhile their bosoms were exposed, and their arms bare up to 
 their shoulders ; and that when they appeared thus in the 
 public places, instead of making modesty blush, they became 
 objects of universal admiration and applause. The palaces 
 and private gardens were changed into scenes of riotous 
 pleasure, called Elysium, Paphos, Tivoli, Idalia, &c., where 
 crowds of people, boisterous diversions, bad manners, and 
 an utter contempt for decency, created both shame and 
 disgust. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 91 
 
 Between the two extremes of the inhabitants of the Fau- 
 hourg St. Marceau and the Chauss^e d'Antin were still to b'e 
 met with the estimable citizens, and those numerous well- 
 informed men, friends to their country and to fi-eedom, 
 whose indignation, hitherto suppressed by terror, blazed up 
 with an energy that at last brought on the catastrophe of 
 the 13th of Vend^miaire. To unfold the causes of that 
 catastrophe, it is necessary to cast a look on the government 
 of the Conventional Assembly. 
 
 That Assembly had been loaded with an enormous burthen. 
 The King had been precipitated from his throne, and the 
 monarchy existed no longer. The Republic had been 
 established without consulting the people ; and the King 
 had been put to death because his existence was trouble- 
 some to the Assembly. The members soon became few, 
 and they were composed of elements too hostile to one 
 another to be able to direct affairs securely and rapidly ; 
 they enacted therefore among themselves a government 
 called the Committee of Public Safety, that was to superin- 
 tend the general administration of the country, and to direct 
 the exertions of France against her foreign enemies. They 
 instituted also a Committee of General Safety, that was to 
 suppress the attacks of interior foes. The successes of the 
 Vendeans and of the allied armies carried these two com- 
 mittees beyond all reasonable ideas, and made the Conven- 
 tion feel that it must conquer or die. Defence was main- 
 tained with all the force and energy that personal safety and 
 revenge can inspire. The excellent direction given to the 
 armies, which they followed with admirable courage, pre- 
 served France from a foreign yoke ; but the progress of civil 
 war, and the secret exertions of the royalists, could scarcely 
 justify the massacres and the horrible tyranny under which 
 the country groaned for so long a period. The rulers of the 
 Assembly will remain for ever loaded with the odium which 
 their barbarous government (of which history does not 
 present another instance) will excite among future genera- 
 
92 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 tions. Of all the lessons given by the history of human 
 passions, there is one especially on which the moralist must 
 insist with force — I mean, the impossibility, which the most 
 honourable men will ever experience, of stopping, if once 
 their passions draw them into the path of error. Surely, if 
 a few years before so many crimes were committed, they 
 could have been pictured before the eyes of the most bar- 
 barous among their perpetrators, I fear not to say that all, 
 even Robespierre himself, would have recoiled with horror. 
 Men begin by caressing theories ; heated imagination presents 
 them as useful and easy of execution ; they toil, they advance 
 unconsciously from errors to faults, and from faults to 
 crimes, till the contaminated mind corrupts sensibility,, 
 and adorns by the name of state policy the most horrible 
 outrages. 
 
 It must, however, be acknowledged that several of those- 
 men felt themselves justified, and perhaps encouraged, by 
 the praises which historians of all ages have lavished on the 
 scourges of humanity. The pulpit itself has not been able 
 to avoid so fatal a folly. Every schoolboy has learned by 
 heart the beautiful picture of Cromwell drawn by Bossuet : 
 " A man was found," &c. What ambitious mind can hesi- 
 tate on the road to crime, when he reads such praises written 
 by the first of sacred orators ? The Cardinal de Richelieu 
 found a defender in the grave and wise author of " L'Esprit 
 des Lois ; " his cruelty, his thirst of blood and revenge, are 
 considered by most historians as the workings of a superior 
 mind, or at least as a proud contempt for humanity. The 
 memory of that man has perhaps done more harm to France 
 than his genius did her good. The execrable maxim, " The 
 dead never rise again," is written in letters of blood through- 
 out his history ; and I have many reasons to believe that 
 the rulers of the Convention had chosen him for their model. 
 The horrible system of killing one's enemies instead of sub- 
 duing them, and of reigning by the aid of terror, is convenient 
 to cowardly and narrow minds ; but men of elevated genius 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAV ALETTE. 93 
 
 follow other maxims. They know that scaffolds are but 
 indifferent means of government. Henry the Fourth was 
 the most indulgent of sovereigns, and he made himself 
 popular by gaining the affections of every one. Once he 
 gave way to a fatal and sanguinary policy. It is but too 
 sure that the death of Biron was of no use, either to his 
 own authority, or to the happiness of the following genera- 
 tions. 
 
 The rage of the Convention necessarily drew to an end. 
 The government they had established exercised their tyranny 
 on themselves : fear gave birth to despair ; thousands of 
 victims had been butchered under the eyes of the Assembly, 
 which remained insensible, and at last sacrificed the govern- 
 ment to its own safety. But it did not foresee that general 
 contempt would succeed to terror. In vain did the Conven- 
 tion expel and punish such of its members as had bathed 
 themselves in blood — in vain did it recall those who had 
 made themselves respected by their courage and humanity. 
 Hatred and indignation assailed it on all sides ; and such 
 was its situation, that even when adopting an amended 
 course it was surrounded by the distrust of all honourable 
 men, and the clamour and threats of a populace whose 
 perverseness it had itself completed by encouraging outrage. 
 In the month of Prairial, the Faubourg St. Antoine be- 
 sieged the Assembly, and came to seek for victims in its 
 bosom ; and if the Convention was not forced to submit, it 
 was owing to the heroic resistance of Boissy d'Anglas, whose 
 admirable courage subdued the mob. The Assembly resolved 
 at last on a desperate measure, the only one that could suc- 
 ceed : regular troops were called in, and Pichegru led them 
 to the suburb. The rebels were disarmed and humbled. 
 This victory, which did not cost a drop of blood, has 
 delivered us for a long while, I hope, from the fury of the 
 rabble. 
 
 When I arrived in Paris, these events had already taken 
 place. The Convention was at that time completing a Con- 
 
94 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 stitution which was not good, but which at least gave force 
 and independence to the executive power, while it preserved 
 the representative system. But the nation would accept 
 nothing from that polluted Assembly ; and, notwithstanding 
 all its exertions, the Constitution was but little approved of. 
 The Convention, not wishing to renew the fault committed 
 by the Constituent Assembly, who had abandoned the fruit 
 of their labours to jealous and hostile hands, had passed a 
 law declaring that two-thirds of its members were necessarily 
 to belong to the new councils established by the Constitu- 
 tion. Public opinion, however, was against them ali ; so 
 that, when the citizens came together in the primary 
 assemblies, to vote on the Constitution and on the Law of 
 the Two-thirds, they were exasperated publicly by orators 
 whom misfortune and resentment had soured, and secretly 
 by crafty royalists. " Must we," they said, " continue to see 
 for several years sitting among our legislators and deciding 
 over our fate, men who have favoured and practised the 
 most horrible tyranny ? We will have nothing more to do 
 with them ; let them go. It is sufficient that we accept 
 their labour and insure their safety by a generous oblivion 
 of their crimes." Such violent speeches, repeated with 
 emphasis in all the assemblies, stirred up the spirit of the 
 citizens, who, after having in vain attempted to reject the 
 Constitutional Act and the Law of the Two-thirds, resolved 
 to repel by force of arms those whom they had not been 
 able to remove by their votes. General Menou was com- 
 mander-in-chief of the military division. General d'Hilliers 
 made me acquainted with all the details of his staff. The 
 regular troops at the disposal of Government did not amount 
 to above five thousand men. They were sufficient to main- 
 tain tranquillity, but not to oppose thirty thousand hostile 
 and well-armed national guards. It was not possible to 
 draw any troops from the armies. The war was going on 
 actively ; the disturbances in the Vendee were not sup- 
 pressed ; and strong forces were required against the rob- 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAV ALETTE. 95 
 
 beries of the Chouans. It was therefore resolved to deceive 
 the people in regard to the weakness of the garrison by- 
 multiplying its movements, so that it continually marched 
 out of one gate and into the other. This little stratagem 
 was soon discovered : it augmented the assurance of the 
 leaders of the sections, and the day for the attack was fixed. 
 On the evening of the 12th of Ve'ndemiaire (2nd October),, 
 several battalions of national guards had taken up arms. 
 Those of the Petits Pferes and Filles St. Thomas assembled 
 in the Rue Vivienne. General Menou surrounded them 
 with regular troops, and summoned them to disperse. He 
 might have forced them to do so without engaging in a 
 battle ; but an orator stepped out of the ranks and began to 
 harangue the general with a warmth which he communi- 
 cated to his comrades. Menou had the weakness to listen 
 to him, and even to answer him. From that account all 
 was lost ; the battalion remained, and the general retired, 
 giving them a proof of his irresolution, and leaving Govern- 
 ment in doubt concerning his fidelity. The Convention 
 felt that such a man might ruin its cause : the command 
 was taken from him during the night, and given to the 
 deputy Barras. A Commission of Public Safety was also 
 appointed, to whom very extensive powers were given. 
 Barras was a man of resolution, and had greatly contributed 
 to the fall of Robespierre on the 9th of Thermidor. Having 
 been a commissioner of the Convention with the Southern 
 army in 1793, he had remarked a young officer of artillery, 
 whose courage and advice had a great influence on the 
 retaking of Toulon. This young man, who, after the 9th of 
 Thermidor, had been dismissed by one of his former com- 
 rades called Aubry, a member of the Convention, had come 
 to Paris a few months before, where he was soliciting with- 
 out success his restoration to his rank of general of brigade. 
 Vexation and disgust had, it was said, made him at last seek 
 permission to go at the head of a troop of cannoniers, to 
 serve among the Turks, to teach them the manoeuvres of 
 
t 
 
 ■96 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 artillery. He was ready to set oiF when Barras sent for him, 
 and presented him to the Committee, who consulted him on 
 the diiEculty, which they were resolved to get out of at any 
 price. The members of the Committee agreed with one 
 another on one point only ; that is to say, that all was lost 
 if the sections gained the victory. Civil war would then 
 extend its ravages all over France, and nobody could calcu- 
 late its consequences. On the other hand, they could not 
 bring themselves to fire upon the people. Some wanted to 
 make concessions which would have destroyed all hopes of 
 redress ; others spoke of stoically awaiting death in their 
 chairs like true Romans. The artillery officer laughed both 
 at their scruples and ridiculous resolution : he demonstrated 
 to them that the Parisians were nothing but fools, led on by 
 cunning rogues ; that Government had in its favour power 
 and right ; that nothing was easier than to disperse, without 
 spilling much blood, inexperienced battalions, which had 
 neither clever leaders nor artillery. His firmness, his elo- 
 quence, his consciousness of great superiority, which his 
 countenance itself betrayed, inspired confidence and carried 
 persuasion into the minds of every one. This young man's 
 name was Bonaparte. The command of the artillery was 
 given to him, and he was left master of all the arrangements 
 for the defence. He immediately assembled the officers, and 
 made himself sure of their obedience. He then placed two 
 <;annons at the entrance of the Rue St. Nicaise, another 
 facing the church of St. Roche at the bottom of the Petite 
 Rue du Dauphin, two more in the Rue St. Honore, near the 
 Place Vendome, and two facing the Pont Royal on the Quai 
 Voltaire. Reserves of infantry were stationed behind the 
 cannon, in order to protect them, and on the Place du Car- 
 rousel. The cavalry was posted in the Place Louis XV. 
 He afterwards acquainted the battalions that they were at 
 liberty to remain where they were as long as they chose ; but 
 that if they went one step beyond the prescribed limits, or 
 if they fired a single musket, he would repel them with his 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 97 
 
 artillery. His firmness, instead of inspiring awe, convinced 
 the enemy that he was afraid, and would not dare to fire. 
 After a good deal of hesitation, the enemy's troops put 
 themselves in motion, those who were behind pushing, on 
 those who were in front, and a discharge of musketry was 
 the signal of the attack. At the same instant the grape shot 
 of the three field-pieces carried death and terror into their 
 ranks. Their flight was so rapid, so abrupt, and so com- 
 plete, that a bullet shot off along the Rue St. Honor^ did 
 not toudi a single person. General Carteaux had been 
 placed on the Pont Neuf with a battalion of infantry of the 
 line, in order to cut off the communication between the two 
 banks of the Seine. I was sent to carry him an order to 
 stand firm ; but he had already retired under the garden of 
 the Infante, and the columns of the sections appeared already 
 on the Quai de la Monnaye, with a view to make themselves 
 masters of the Pont Royal, and attack the Tuileries from 
 that side. The general who commanded at the foot of the 
 bridge sent them word not to advance any farther. They 
 took no heed of it, and received the discharge of the two 
 cannons, after which they dispersed. That was enough to 
 make the citizens tired of fighting ; but the most determined 
 among them, whose fear had subsided when they imagined 
 the danger distant, wanted to resume the attack. They had 
 made themselves masters of the Palais Royal, and, like mad- 
 men, fancied they should be able to defend themselves there. 
 Luckily night brings counsel : in the morning the leaders 
 put themselves in safety, and the rest went home. Peace 
 was signed next day, and order was re-established. I do not 
 think that the regular troops lost more than four or five 
 men. On the part of the sections the loss was more con- 
 siderable. By the most exact calculation, it seems to have 
 amounted to forty killed, and about two hundred wounded. 
 This will not appear exaggerated if we consider that the 
 steps of the church of St. Roch were covered with people ; 
 that the cannon fired in that direction was at no more than 
 
98 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 sixty paces distant, and that the battalion of the Rue St. 
 Honors filled the whole space to a great depth. The com- 
 mand of the Parisian army was entrusted to General Dani- 
 can, a man almost unknown, even in the ranks, where he had 
 served for some time, and whom the Restoration did not 
 bring into distinction. 
 
 Government felt that a too severe inquiry on this affair 
 would only contribute to exasperate the minds of the public, 
 and that they ought to enjoy with moderation a victory 
 which had been bought at the price of so much blood. A 
 court-martial was nevertheless instituted, with a view to 
 frighten the leaders ; but they were all acquitted, with the 
 exception of one unfortunate emigrant, named Lafont, who 
 had got secretly into Paris in order to intrigue in favour of 
 his employers, and who had made himself conspicuous by a 
 very violent behaviour. He was sentenced to death ; but 
 even he would have been saved, if his intense devotion to 
 the cause of the Bourbons had not made him reject all the 
 means he might have used to avoid his condemnation. 
 
 The Royalists have pretended of late years that this insur- 
 rection of the Parisians was a generous effort attempted in 
 favour of the Bourbons. I declare that this is not the fact. 
 I was placed in the most favourable position for observing 
 the passions and intrigues which brought about the un- 
 fortunate catastrophe of the 13th of Vendemiaire. I was 
 acquainted with several honourable men who had taken part 
 with the sections, and I saw neither in the people nor in 
 their leaders any wish for the return of the Bourbons, much 
 less a plan for recaUing them. The death of the King was 
 deplored by all sensible men ; but liberty was beloved. 
 Hatred of the Convention was carried to the highest pitch, 
 on account of the horrors with which that Assembly had 
 visited the country. I questioned the most violent as to 
 what they wished to establish in the place of the expiring 
 government. Their answer was, " We will have nothing 
 more to do with them. It is the Republic we wish for, with 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAV ALETTE. 99 
 
 honest men to govern us." No one went farther than this. 
 It is true, that some insinuations were made in the sections, 
 in favour of the Royal Family ; but so feeble, so ambiguous, 
 that very little attention was paid to them. No one thought 
 of pronouncing the name of that family. I have no doubt 
 that, if the sections had triumphed, the attempt would have 
 been more direct and more bold ; perhaps even it would have 
 succeeded, but then civil war would have broken out on 
 all sides. And if, eighteen years after, with the aid of all 
 Europe, the Bourbons were unable to maintain themselves 
 on the throne, what would have been their fate at a period 
 when France, not yet accustomed to the yoke, was animated 
 by republican habits and ideas, and uncurbed energy ? 
 
 Two days after the 13th of Vendemiaire, Barras introduced 
 to the Convention all the generals and officers of the staff 
 who had contributed to save that Assembly. General Bona- 
 parte was there, but he mingled with the crowd. When 
 Barras, in his speech, pronounced his name with compli- 
 ment, those who surrounded him wanted to make him 
 advance to the first rank. He pushed them aside with a 
 look of ill-humour and diffidence which pleased me. There 
 was in his actions less of pride than a delicate feeling of pro- 
 priety. He was ashamed to be praised for such a victory. 
 Besides, it is certain he felt no great esteem for those in 
 whose favour he had fought, and who were thus lavishing 
 their applause on him. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Convention hastened to put an end to its stormy- 
 session, so fatal to humanity, but still so memorable from 
 the incredible vigour with which it saved France from a 
 foreign yoke. The reins of government were delivered into 
 the hands of the Directory. General Bonaparte was made 
 commander-in-chief of the first military division and of the 
 city of Paris. One of the first measures that were taken by 
 the new Government was the disarming of all the citizens of 
 the metropolis. They delivered up their arms without much 
 regret : the trial they had just made of their strength was 
 not of a nature to inspire them with great confidence in 
 themselves. This measure was executed with great rigour. 
 Swords and sabres were comprehended in the general con- 
 fiscation. The widow of General Beauharnais was going to 
 deliver up to one of the commissioners entrusted with these 
 orders the sabre of her late husband, when her son Eugfene^ 
 then scarcely thirteen years old, seized the weapon, and 
 declared that they who wished to have it must first take his 
 life. The commissioner consented to leave it him, provided 
 he got a permission from the general-in-chief. Eugene flew 
 to his house : the deep emotion the child evinced, his name, 
 his interesting appearance, the ardour and simplicity with 
 which he expressed his wishes, touched the general. He 
 embraced him, allowed him to keep the dearly-beloved 
 sword, and visited Madame de Beauharnais. She was 
 young, amiable, and more than pretty. He fell in love 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. loi 
 
 -with her, and soon after married her ; so that their union, 
 which was so long a happy one, had its origin in an amiable 
 trait of filial piety. 
 
 When General Beauharnais left the Army of the Rhine, 
 he had retired to one of his estates, situated a few leagues 
 from Blois. There he lived in profound retirement, lament- 
 ing the deplorable outrages that disgraced liberty, and 
 bitterly regretting the glory he could no longer share. 
 But his name had been too celebrated for him to enter- 
 tain a reasonable hope of escaping the persecutions to which 
 the members of the Constituent Assembly were exposed. 
 He was arrested, and thrown into the prisons of Paris, 
 shortly before the 9th of Thermidor, and at a time when 
 the people were at last returning to right feeling and begin- 
 ning to shudder at the sight of the blood with which they 
 had long feasted their eyes. The Jacobins invented the 
 prison conspiracies, as a pretence for prolonging their 
 measures. They Had mixed with the prisoners some spies, 
 who found men vile enough to purchase their lives by 
 atrocious calumny. One of these wretches, enraged at 
 having been discovered by M. de Beauharnais in the midst 
 of his infamous intrigues, and at hearing him speak openly 
 of the fact with all the honourable pride of an upright man, 
 denounced him. He was sent to the scaffold, and suffered 
 on the 7th of Thermidor, two days before the fall of Robes- 
 pierre. 
 
 Madame de Beauharnais had been locked up, during 
 eighteen months, in one of the prisons of Paris, where 
 she had fallen seriously ill, when her indictment, which 
 was no better than a sentence of death, was transmitted 
 to her. Fortunately a Polish physician, an honest and 
 •courageous man, whose name I am sorry I do not know, 
 attended her. He declared that she would not survive eight 
 days longer, and by that means saved her life. When she 
 came out of prison, she exerted with resolute benevolence all 
 the advantages which her name, her misfortune, and the 
 
102 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALET TE. 
 
 gifts of her amiable mind conferred on her, to obtain the 
 liberty of the greatest part of her former companions in 
 captivity. She was beloved and esteemed by the most 
 respectable members of society. The excellent qualities 
 of her heart made her fully worthy of her exalted station, 
 I shall more than once recur with pleasure to her in the 
 course of these memoirs. 
 
 The functions of commander-in-chief of the city of Paris 
 gave considerable influence to General Bonaparte, and his 
 conduct on the 13th Vendemiaire ensured him a just title to 
 the confidence of the Directory ; but Government soon felt 
 itself troubled and even humbled by the authority of the 
 young general. To say the truth, he continually acted 
 after his own way, meddled with everything, decided on 
 everything, and never acted but upon his own ideas. The 
 activity and extent of his mind, and the pride of his nature, 
 rendered him unable to obey in any circumstances. The 
 Directory wished still to spare the Jacobins ; the General 
 locked up their assembly-room, and Government learnt the 
 step he had taken just when they were going to deliberate 
 upon it. Some members of the old nobility seemed 
 dangerous in Paris. The Directory resolved to send them 
 away ; the General extended to them his protection, and 
 Government was forced to yield. He prescribed measures, 
 recalled disgraced generals, repelled with pride all prepos- 
 session, wounded the vanity of everybody, laughed at pre- 
 judices, braved hatred, and condenmed the slow and em- 
 barrassed pace of Government. If the Directory happened 
 to remonstrate with him, instead of appearing offended, he 
 developed his ideas and plans with so much clearness, care, 
 and eloquence, that no objection was possible, and two hours 
 afterwards all he proposed was executed. But, if the Directory 
 was tired of Bonaparte, the General was no less so of Paris 
 life, which aiforded no career to his ambition, no field for his 
 genius. He had, a long time before, formed a plan for the 
 conquest of Italy. Long service in the Army of Nice had 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 103 
 
 procured him the necessary leisure to mature his designs, to 
 calculate all their difficulties, and guess all their chances. 
 He solicited of Government the command of that army with 
 money and troops. He was made general-in-chief : he got 
 troops, but only the small sum of one hundred thousand 
 crowns. With those scanty means he was to conquer Italy 
 at the head of troops who had received no pay for the last 
 six months, and who had not even shoes to their feet. But 
 Bonaparte felt the consciousness of his strength ; and, look- 
 ing forward with delight to the future, he took leave of the 
 Directory, who saw his departure with secret pleasure, happy 
 to be rid of a man whose character awed them, and whose 
 projects were, in the eyes of the majority of its members, 
 nothing more than the wild fancies of a youth full of pride 
 and presumption. 
 
 General d'Hilliers had been dismissed on the 13th Vende- 
 miaire, for having expressed himself in strong terms against 
 that expedition. He went to General Bonaparte, who pro- 
 cured him a fresh appointment, and he was sent as chief of 
 the staff to the right division of the Western army, whose 
 headquarters were at Alen^on. The war in the Vendee was 
 brought to an end through fatigue and want of food. The 
 consequences of the passage of the Loire had been too fatal 
 to the Vendeans to leave them in a situation to prolong the 
 contest. Their most able leaders were killed. ' ' The grand- 
 children of Henry IV." had disdained to appear among those 
 gallant soldiers, who fought without regimentals, without 
 order, and whose appearance had not the sometimes useless 
 brilliancy of regular troops. Charette, the only man who 
 still might have supported his part, had been shot at Nantz 
 by order of Government, who would have acted more 
 honourably in granting him his pardon ; and the un- 
 fortunate attempt at Quiberon had struck the last blow 
 to the enthusiasm and hopes of the rebels. Scattered 
 bands, acting without any decided aim, still ravaged some 
 parts of the country. General Hoche, to whom the com- 
 
I04 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 mand of the western departments was entrusted, succeeded 
 in a short time, by his wisdom, moderation, and reso- 
 lution, in destroying the last remains of civil war. He 
 established a system of movable columns, whose motions 
 were calculated with so much precision that, while they were 
 continually crossing the country in all directions, they 
 frequently met and were enabled to support one another 
 in case they should be attacked by superior forces. The 
 enemy, thus chased, unable to enjoy one moment's rest or 
 safety, got discouraged, and at last preferred to exertions 
 without aim a peace which ensured him the free exercise of 
 those religious duties for which he had taken up arms, and 
 the hope of better times. In Normandy, where I was, war 
 was raging without glory, but not without peril. The 
 Chouans, secured against surprise behind their high hedges, 
 aimed close upon us, and cost us a great number of men. 
 When they wanted to replenish their military chest, they 
 stopped the stage-coaches, stripped the travellers, and 
 frequently killed them. These gentlemen fancied that 
 their title of Royalists ennobled even their profession of 
 robbers. A little while before our arrival, a general and 
 well-directed bush-beating had taken place against them, 
 and had disgusted them at a profession which left them no 
 other prospect than the punishment due to highway robbers. 
 Count Frott6, who commanded those noble troops, gave his 
 companions leave to make their peace, and went over to 
 England, after having, as it was reported, broken his sword. 
 The principal leaders then wrote to General Montigny, who 
 commanded the division, to solicit an interview, which took 
 place at the castle of Louvet, near Alencon. I went to meet 
 these gentlemen into a wood near the castle. I was conducted 
 there blindfolded ; and after a quarter of an hour's walk, I 
 found in a thicket a dozen tattered wretches lying on the 
 grass, exhausted from fatigue and want. Some of them were 
 remarkable for a haughty expression of countenance which 
 they did not belie during the conference. Their submission 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 105 
 
 was unreserved. Several among them were obliged to leave 
 the scene of their achievements, others joined the armies of 
 the Republic. When the treaty was signed, we all stepped 
 into a room, where a splendid breakfast was prepared. 
 There were twenty of us standing round the table and 
 looking at one another in silence. General Montigny 
 invited them to sit down. An unequivocal motion of the 
 head was all the answer they gave. Cold ceremonies were 
 exchanged ; after which, we all mounted our horses and 
 separated. 
 
 One of the conditions of the treaty was that the leaders 
 •of the troops should recover the unsold part of their property, 
 as those of the Vendean army had already done. This 
 favour was justly due, not only to their valour and exertions, 
 but also to their patriotic sentiments, which had made them 
 prefer the dangers of civil war to the disgrace of serving 
 under foreign banners. Now that the emigrants are happy 
 in the enjoyment of the rank and confidence the Sovereign 
 allows them, one may speak freely on their conduct. The 
 first impulse which urged them to fly cannot be blamed ; 
 but how can one justify the disgraceful resolution of placing 
 themselves in the pay of the enemies of their country ? The 
 Revolution was a family quarrel, from which foreign nations 
 -ought by all means to have been excluded. What was to 
 be expected of the Austrians, the Prussians, or the English, 
 but the subjection of France, her dismemberment, and dis- 
 grace? The Vendeans also fought to maintain their religion 
 and the monarchy ; but, far from giving themselves up to a 
 foreign enemy, they never would suffer English troops to come 
 to their support. They had not forgotten that Henry IV. 
 was obliged to take German troopers into his pay, but that 
 his magnanimous soul would have recoiled at the thought 
 of receiving pay of the Germans. The cause of the Vendeans, 
 thus defended, was respectable. They certainly could not 
 hope to get the better of the determined will of a whole 
 nation resolved to be free, and who could not be so under 
 
io6 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 the government of the Bourbons ; but at least they were 
 Frenchmen, and the troops who fought against them expe- 
 rienced a feehng of pride at the sight of French peasants 
 opposing them with more courage and firmness than all the 
 kings of Europe united together. 
 
 This war against the Chouans was not more pleasing to 
 General d'HiUiers than to myself. He did not wait for the 
 pacification to solicit of General Bonaparte the honour of 
 serving under his orders. The letters of appointment soon 
 arrived. M. d'Hilliers set oflf post for Italy. I was obliged 
 to travel on horseback. The name of Bonaparte greeted my 
 ears in every place through which I passed. Each day 
 brought in the account of some new victory. His letters to 
 Government — his proclamations, so elevated in style and so 
 wonderfully eloquent, roused all minds. All France shared 
 the enthusiasm of the army for so much glory — for such 
 brilliant and numerous triumphs. The words Montenotte, 
 Millesimo, Lodi, Milan, Castiglione, were repeated with a 
 noble pride next to those of Jemmapes, Fleurus, and Valmy. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 When I arrived at Milan the victory of Castiglione had just 
 been gained. General Wurmser, beaten, was flying in the 
 direction of Mantua ; and after having come to force us to 
 raise the siege of that city, he was himself obliged to seek 
 a refiige within its walls. I was convinced that General 
 d'Hilliers was to be employed in military service, and during 
 the journey I indulged in glittering dreams of glory and 
 advancement. How great was now my consternation when 
 I found him governor of Lombardy ! I was going to be 
 buried again in the paper business of a staff, sentenced to 
 distribute the bulletins of our victories — to be busy about 
 the thousand minutiae of an ofBce, so tiresome to a soldier — 
 and at last not even dare to acknowledge that I had been in 
 the Army of Italy, of which I should share neither the perils 
 nor the triumphs. Besides, my sword was my only fortune, 
 and could I hope for advancement when I had not deserved 
 any ? These thoughts grieved me sorely, and made me 
 adopt the resolution of soliciting the command of a troop 
 of infantry in a brigade of the vanguard. General d'Hilliers 
 attempted in vain to make me alter my mind. Forced at 
 last to yield to my entreaties, he was about to give me my 
 orders, when the intelligence of the victory of Areola arrived 
 at Milan. Two aides-de-camp of the General-in-chief had 
 been killed — Muiron, an ofliicer of artillery, for whom he 
 entertained a great regard, of which his good qualities 
 made him worthy — and young Elliott, a nephew of General 
 Clarke. M. d'Hilliers spoke of me to General Bonaparte 
 
noS MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 with great warmth, and got me appointed to succeed Muiron. 
 My first sensation was joy at this unexpected favour of 
 fortune, but it was soon troubled by the fear of being 
 severely judged by one so well able to scan my merits. 
 My uneasiness was such as to make me regret the success 
 General d'Hilliers had obtained. I went to the General-in- 
 -chief, who lodged in the Palazzo Serbelloni. He was giving 
 audience. His saloon was filled with military men of all 
 ranks, and high civil officers. His air was affable, but his 
 look so firm and fixed that I turned pale when he addressed 
 himself to me. I faltered out my name, and afterwards my 
 thanks, to which he listened in silence, his eyes fastening 
 on me with an expression of severity that quite disconcerted 
 me. At last he said, " Come back at six o'clock, and put on 
 the sash." That sash, which distinguished the aides-de- 
 camp of the General-in-chief, was of white and red silk, and 
 was worn round the left arm. 
 
 When I went back to the palace at the appointed hour, 
 the officer on duty introduced me into the saloon of the 
 aides-de-camp. This was a new subject of perplexity. I 
 was not acquainted with any of them. They could see by 
 my sash that I was a new comrade, but not one came up to 
 me. They communicated their observations to one another, 
 directing towards my person looks that did not seem to me 
 very favourable, until Marmont came in, and perceiving me, 
 took me by the hand, and said, " Here is a new comrade, 
 who will soon be a friend." " In the field of battle," I 
 answered with a blush, " I shall be less embarrassed than I 
 am here." A few days were sufficient to establish between 
 us a degree of friendship that has never diminished. The 
 aides-de-camp of the General-in-chief were at that time eight 
 in number. Murat, who had been named general of brigade, 
 was no longer one of them. The first was Colonel Junot, 
 afterwards Due d'Abrantes. He was born in Burgundy, 
 and enlisted as a private soldier in a company of volunteer 
 oannoniers of his department. At the siege of Toulon he 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 109 
 
 was admired for an instance of intrepidity that has seldom 
 occurred since. The famous redoubt called Les Sans- 
 culottes, defended by the English, had been attacked for 
 several hours, but its fire was still very troublesome to us. 
 General Bonaparte ordered a battalion to take it by storm. 
 Although Junot did not belong to that battalion, he rushed 
 first of all into the ditch, climbed up the scarp, jumped into 
 the redoubt through a battlement, killed two cannoniers at 
 their posts, and by that means gave his companions time to 
 join him. The redoubt was taken amidst cries of " The 
 Republic for ever ! " General Bonaparte made him 
 sergeant ; and his handwriting being clear and neat, he 
 made use of him as his secretary during the remainder of 
 the campaign. When I met him for the first time he was a 
 colonel, and had been wounded at the battle of Castiglione. 
 Junot added to great courage much natural shrewdness. 
 After having served during twenty years, and passed through 
 all military ranks, he ended his life in a deplorable manner. 
 The cold he suffered in the Russian campaign disordered 
 his mental faculties. The unhappy man died under his 
 paternal roof. His reason returned a short time before he 
 breathed his last, and seeing himself again in the humble 
 chamber in which he had passed his youth, he was enabled 
 justly to appreciate his glittering dream of fortune and 
 glory. 
 
 Marmont, a colonel of artillery, was also born in Burgundy ,^ 
 of an ancient and respectable family in that province. His 
 education had been particularly well attended to, and he 
 had entered very young into the army. The principal 
 features of his character were at that time an unbounded 
 passion for glory and ambition, and an attachment to his 
 general that amounted to enthusiasm. Duroc was the third 
 aide-de-camp. Though less brilliant than the two former, 
 he possessed greater solidity of judgment, and a remarkable 
 tenaciousness of character. In 1789 he was an officer of 
 artillery ; he had emigrated, but had speedily returned to- 
 
no MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAV ALETTE. 
 
 France. The General-in-chief was much attached to him. 
 Duroc was grateful, and I beheve his fidelity would have 
 nobly borne the dangerous ordeal of the revolution of 1814. 
 The fourth aide-de-camp was Le Marrois, a young man 
 scarcely seventeen years old, and already covered with 
 wounds. After him came Sulkowski, a true Pole, of 
 chivalrous valour, passionately fond of adventures, with a 
 romantic and restless mind, well informed, and speaking 
 fluently all the languages of Europe. When almost a 
 child he had fought for the liberty of his country. Wounded 
 at the siege of Warsaw, and compelled to fly, he came to 
 France. He was soon after sent to Constantinople with 
 M. Descorches, our ambassador. The Committee of Public 
 Safety wishing to have an agent in India, Sulkowski under- 
 took that mission. He had already passed Aleppo, where 
 the English discovered him, and got some Arabs to rob 
 him of his papers. Having escaped out of their hands, he 
 returned to Paris, and obtained an appointment in the 
 Army of Italy. He was engaged at the siege of Mantua, 
 when a report that he had addressed to the chief of the staff 
 fell under the eyes of the general-in-chief, and the following 
 day he was made his aide-de-camp. We had also among us 
 Louis Bonaparte, then scarcely sixteen years of age, and 
 whom his brother spared no more than the rest of us on 
 the most perilous missions. Louis fulfilled them with a 
 satisfaction which proved him worthy of his name. Elliott 
 having been killed, as I mentioned above, the General-in- 
 chief took in his place Crossier, a brave and clever officer of 
 cavalry. 
 
 Such were my new comrades, whose acquaintance I made 
 while waiting for the General-in-chief. He arrived at seven 
 o'clock, and we sat down to converse. He placed me next 
 to himself. All the guests were as much surprised as I was 
 at this extraordinary favour ; but I did not remain long in 
 suspense as to the cause to which it was owing. The 
 General wished to know what he had to expect of the new 
 
MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA VALE TTE. 1 1 1 
 
 acquaintance he had rather rashly made. His questions 
 "began with the very first course, and lasted till we rose from 
 the table ; that is to say, during three-quarters of an hour. 
 ^' Where have you served ? In what army ? At what time 
 did you enter on service ? Under what generals have you 
 fought ? What was the strength of the Rhine army ? 
 What position did it occupy before Mentz ? Why did they 
 not go to the assistance of that city ? How were the lines 
 of the Lauter lost ? How was Landau delivered ? What 
 generals had the highest reputation in the Rhine army ? 
 What were the forces of the enemy on the 13th of October, 
 and when the lines were retaken ? " He listened attentively 
 to all my answers, and shortened them when they were too 
 diffuse. I perceived, by his pithy observations, that he was 
 perfectly well acquainted with the history of the Rhine 
 army. The distance and position of the different places, 
 the abilities of the generals, their systems and faults — all 
 were familiar to him. When dinner was over he ceased to 
 speak to me. I was afraid he was dissatisfied with my 
 answers. I was comforted, however, by the thought that 
 the ordeal of the field of battle would be more favourable 
 to me. 
 
 We remained a fortnight at Milan, waiting for the enemy 
 to come once more down from Tyrol, and make a fresh 
 attempt on Mantua. The General-in-chief was at that time 
 just married. Madame Bonaparte was a charming woman ; 
 and all the anxiety of the command — all the trouble of the 
 government of Italy, could not prevent her husband from 
 giving himself wholly up to the happiness he enjoyed at 
 home. It was during that short residence at Milan that the 
 young painter Gros, afterwards so celebrated, painted the 
 picture of the General. He represented him on the bridge 
 of Lodi, at the moment when, with the colours in his hand, 
 he rushed forward, to induce the troops to follow him. The 
 painter could never obtain a long sitting. Madame Bona- 
 parte used to take her husband upon her lap after breakfast, 
 
1 1 2 MEMO/US OF CO UNT LA VA LETTE. 
 
 and hold him fast for a few minutes. I was present at threfr 
 of these sittings. The age of the newly -married couple, and 
 the painter's enthusiasm for the hero, were sufficient excuses 
 for such familiarity. The portrait was at the time a striking 
 resemblance. Some copies have been taken of it ; but the 
 original is in the possession of the Queen of Holland^ 
 Duchess of St. Leu. 
 
 We set off for Verona. The day after our arrival I' 
 received an order to reconnoitre the enemy posted on the 
 banks of the Adige, facing Roveredo. My instructions were 
 to force him to make some demonstrations, but not to come 
 to an action. I was to bring back an exact account of all 
 points the enemy occupied in the valley, with particulars 
 — which, by the bye, the General was very fond of — on the 
 respective positions of the two vanguards. Some troops 
 were put at my disposal, and I learned some days after that 
 a secret order had been given to one of the generals of the 
 vanguard to follow me in all my movements, and rectify my 
 blunders. This commission was not very important. The 
 manner in which I acquitted myself of it was not very bad ; 
 and if the General bestowed no praises either on my beha- 
 viour or on my report, at least I received no reproaches. 
 
 The enemy soon returned in force. General Bonaparte 
 had foreseen on which side he was to be attacked, the chief 
 aim of the Austrians being naturally the deliverance of 
 Mantua. He had in consequence placed the mass of his 
 army along the Adige, at Rivoli and La Corona. He knew 
 that the Archduke Charles was intent on taking Kehl, and 
 that that small fortress, less formidable still by the strength 
 of its walls than by the determination of General Desaix,. 
 who defended it, would cost the Prince a great many men 
 and much time. The diversion the enemy made on Porto 
 Legnago and St. Georgo was of no use ; they were beaten 
 at Rivoli by the division of Massena, under the command^of 
 General Bonaparte. The consequences of this battle were 
 beyond all calculation for the Army of Italy. Tyrol was 
 
MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA VALE TTE. 1 1 3 
 
 open to us ; Mantua surrendered, and the General-in-chief 
 found time to explain himself with the Pope at Tolentino. 
 A short time before the battle of Rivoli, General Brune had 
 arrived at the army. He was sent by the Directory. He 
 experienced such a flattering reception as surprised us. His 
 name was utterly unknown. Report stated that he had 
 come to make his first campaign, and we were curious to 
 judge in how far he would deserve the distinction General 
 Bonaparte had shown him, who was not often prodigal of his 
 praises, and who knew so perfectly well how to appreciate 
 real merit : however. General Brune justified them. I was 
 not at Rivoli, having been sent to St. Georgo ; but I learned 
 the next day, through Sulkowski, that Brune had fought at 
 La Corona with great skill and singular valour. He had 
 acquired an extraordinary reputation as a Republican. In 
 1 79 1, when the expiring monarchy was struggling against 
 an enemy who crushed it at the end, Brune was one of the 
 leaders of the club of the Cordeliers, and led the riot of the 
 Champ de Mars, which the mayor, Bailly, dispersed by pro- 
 claiming martial law. He was imprisoned, and a report was 
 spread that his Court friends had attempted to get rid of 
 him by odious means. At the beginning of the war, Brune 
 was employed in some obscure posts ; but afterwards, 
 whether the Directory was afraid of a man of such unusual 
 spirit, or whether he felt himself that his courage would be 
 better employed in the army, he obtained leave to serve in 
 Italy. General Bonaparte, foreseeing that he should one 
 day have great contests with the Jacobin party, resigned to 
 General Brune a part of the honour of the victory of Rivoli, 
 and made him a general of division. Some years after, he 
 was appointed commander-in-chief of the same army, of 
 which he had been one of the least distinguished generals. 
 These distinctions were owing either to some talents he 
 really possessed, or to General Bonaparte's wish of attaching 
 to his person one of the leaders of a party among which 
 several men of merit were to be found. The pursuit of the 
 
 9 
 
1 14 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 enemy and the conquest of Tyrol were entrusted to General 
 Joubert, a young man, who had begun his military career in 
 the Army of the Pyrenees, and whom the General-in-chief 
 raised in a short time from the rank of colonel to that of 
 general of division. His merit was so conspicuous that his 
 comrades, though older than he, did not complain of a 
 preference he deserved by his courage, talents, and prudence, 
 which Massdna himself openly acknowledged. I was ordered 
 to accompany Joubert to Trente, of which he made himself 
 master five days after he had begun the attack. 
 
 While the Austrians were making so unlucky an effort to 
 deliver Mantua and drive the French out of Italy, the Pope, 
 excited by them, and discontented with the loss of the three 
 Legations, hastily raised some troops and resolved to take a 
 part in the formidable contest. The time when the pontiffs 
 used to influence so powerfully the doctrines of Italy was 
 long past : Pius the Sixth, a stately pontiff, possessed none 
 of the dangerous qualities of Julius the Second. The 
 General-in-chief marched against him with a single division. 
 His aide-de-camp, Junot, was ordered to oppose this new 
 enemy. He fell in with him near Faenza. A few cannon 
 shots were exchanged ; but all the troops he found laid down 
 their arms with so much docility, that the Pope sent in 
 haste three cardinals to sign a treaty, which caused him 
 long to repent his imprudent attack. 
 
 By this treaty the cession of the three Legations was 
 confirmed, while the Pope was obliged to pay fifteen 
 millions for his perilous enterprise, and deliver up the 
 most precious masterpieces of antiquity which adorned his 
 capital and provinces. This episode of the war was very 
 short. The Archduke Charles, having at last made himself 
 master of Kehl, was marching to us in great haste to help 
 
 General to deliver Mantua and the Holy Father. He 
 
 arrived too late: the town had opened its gates, and the 
 Pope delivered up his treasures. A certain number of 
 emigrants were found in the fortress. The laws that had 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 1 1 5 
 
 been passed against them were far from being repealed ; the 
 General-in-chief nevertheless ordered General Serrurier to 
 let them pass unmolested. I do not know whether they 
 showed themselves grateful for that act of generosity. 
 
 The General-in-chief, foreseeing that his new campaign 
 would require great exertions, applied to Government for a 
 fresh supply of troops. He could not continue fighting in 
 exhausted Lombardy ; but having his line of operations 
 strongly supported on Mantua, he wanted to go in his turn 
 to seek the enemy, and, uniting his operations with those of 
 the armies of the Rhine, disgust the Republicans of a war 
 which had no longer a reasonable aim, and was kept alive by 
 malicious passions. In France, everybody was desirous of 
 serving under General Bonaparte. Bernadotte obtained the 
 preference, and his army arrived on the banks of the Piave, 
 the day before the passage of that river. I was ordered to 
 go and compliment him, and to seek a ford where he might 
 pass the river. The most elegant politeness of manner 
 distinguished the general and his staff; they appeared 
 delighted at forming a part of the army, and especially at 
 serving under the command of the hero of Italy. The 
 interview took place next day, and it was marked by a 
 degree of cordiality and candour which produced a good 
 impression among the troops present at the scene. 
 
 The first attacks of the French army were made with so 
 much impetuosity that the enemy felt himself unable to 
 resist, and compelled to choose another ground. He retired 
 to the Tagliamonte, the passage of which he resolved at last 
 to defend. General Bonaparte settled everything so that 
 the honour of the day might belong to Bernadotte : a corps 
 of six thousand grenadiers was placed under his orders, and 
 he received the command of the centre, where the enemy 
 had the strongest forces to oppose to ours. Bernadotte 
 passed the numerous branches of the rivers, at the head of 
 his soldiers, crying, " The Republic for ever ! " and under 
 the most murderous fire ; but Massena, who commanded the 
 
1 1 6 MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA VALE TIE. 
 
 left wing, had attacked with so much vigour, that the enemy 
 before us only fought to get to the end of the day, and not 
 to be too much harassed in their retreat. 
 
 The result of this battle made the General-in-chief 
 sensible that the Archduke retreated to await him beyond 
 the plains of St3rria, and that the nearer he might approach 
 to Vienna, the more equal the forces and the more stubborn 
 the defence would become. Bonaparte resolved, therefore, 
 to recall the division of Joubert that was at Brixen. He left, 
 it is true, Lombardy open to the enemy, who would not fail 
 to attack it ; but he was very sure that if once the Austrians 
 were vanquished and forced to make peace, it would not 
 prove very difficult for him to recover his conquests and 
 re-establish order everywhere. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 With two companies of grenadiers of the 69th, and some 
 cavalry, I was sent to fetch General Joubert. General 
 Zayonjeck, a Pole, newly arrived at the army, received an 
 order to support me with some squadrons of dragoons. I 
 arrived at Lienz without any impediment ; but there I got 
 certain information that J could not, without losing all my 
 men to the very last, penetrate to the place where our first 
 troops stood under the command of General Belliard. I 
 wished, however, to carry my undertaking into execution, 
 and what I could not do with my soldiers I resolved to 
 attempt alone. I therefore left my troop at Lienz under the 
 command of a good captain, and taking with me a lieutenant 
 named Acyorte, a brave and resolute man, I threw myself 
 with him into a calfeche, both of us well wrapped up in our 
 cloaks, hoping we might be able to cross that part of Tjrrol 
 in the character of Italian merchants. We advanced, in 
 fact, some stages without meeting with any obstacle. We 
 had already reached the first houses of Miihlbach at nightfall, 
 when our carriage was stopped by the clergyman of the 
 place, who said to me in Latin : " Do not enter ; fly to the 
 mountains, or you are lost. You are expected, and nobody 
 will be able to save you." Since I had left college, I had 
 entirely neglected the Latin language. I scarcely under- 
 stood it, and I was making the clergyman repeat his speech, 
 when his sudden flight, added to furious cries, warned us 
 
 that we had not a moment to lose. In an instant we jumped 
 
 117 
 
1 18 MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 out of the carriage and ran to the hills. We hid ourselves 
 in a ditch : when up to our necks in the snow, we heard the 
 Tyroleans pass and fire their muskets. The pursuit was 
 long, and not without uneasiness to us. At last we ventured 
 to change our position. We penetrated farther into the 
 mountains, and the garret of a hovel was our retreat for the 
 remainder of the night. At daybreak we were obliged to 
 adopt some resolution. To advance was impossible : we 
 decided, therefore, to return on foot to Lienz, avoiding the 
 inhabited places. We succeeded for some leagues ; but 
 after having in vain attempted to turn a village, we were 
 forced to pass through it. The peasants were at church, the 
 doors of which were open. Some old women called after us, 
 and a dozen of the most alert among the men soon reached 
 us. We were forced to yield to numbers.' We did not 
 know German enough to make ourselves understood by 
 people who besides spoke that language very ill, and they 
 resolved to lead us back to Muhlbach. The whole popula- 
 tion of the town and environs were assembled together. 
 We were introduced into the townhall, situated in the 
 great square. The people were highly excited, and I could 
 see, by the fear depicted on the faces of the municipal 
 officers, that our situation was becoming dangerous. Several 
 of those brutes were dragging us along, when, after having 
 suddenly disengaged myself from their hands, I peremptorily 
 insisted on being heard. But then came again the difficulty 
 of making myself understood. I sat down, took up a pen 
 and wrote in Italian, that I was an aide-de-camp of the 
 General-in-chief Bonaparte ; that I was carrying to General 
 Joubert the news that a truce had been signed with the 
 Archduke Charles ; that they were at liberty to murder 
 us, — but in that case, my mission not being executed, 
 hostilities would continue in Tyrol, and my death be re- 
 venged on the inhabitants. This account being proclaimed 
 from the top of the balcony, and repeated among the crowd, 
 succeeded in calming them. I then asked leave to continue ^ 
 
MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA VALE TTE. \ \ 9 
 
 my journey, but the cries began anew. The only permission 
 I obtained was to return to Lienz. We were escorted there 
 by a gentleman and a clergyman respected by the peasants. 
 On our arrival I gave them a written acknowledgment of 
 their generous conduct, and hope one day to be able to 
 record their names, and recommend them to the esteem of 
 all friends of humanity. 
 
 I had scarcely arrived at Lienz, when I learned that I was 
 about to be attacked by the Tyroleans who had assembled 
 in the mountains. The inhabitants of the place were not 
 very peaceably disposed ; but I hoped to awe them by my 
 firmness. I could not entertain the intention of engaging in 
 a useless action. I wished, however, to carry along with 
 me about fifty wounded Frenchmen whom I found in the 
 hospital, and whom the Austrians had abandoned in their 
 retreat. While I was taking the necessary measures for 
 their transfer, I was told that one of the posts placed at the 
 entrance of the town had been killed by the Tyroleans, who 
 were advancing against us. I returned to the inn to get on 
 horseback ; but, just as I was coming out of the door, a 
 dozen of these rebels, placed in ambush at thirty steps 
 distance, fired at us and killed my horse, and also those 
 my servant was holding by the bridle, and gave me 
 a severe bruise in the belly. I had just time to extri- 
 cate myself and rejoin the troops. To attempt resistance 
 in the interior of the town would have been madness : we 
 left it amidst a shower of bullets, shot from the windows. 
 The Tyroleans were waiting for us at the gate. We were 
 obliged to repulse them with the bayonet, and continued 
 fighting till we arrived at Spital, several leagues oflf. There 
 I found General Zayonjeck, who had at last succeeded in 
 getting forward, and was coming to join me. This afiFair 
 cost us five-and-twenty men killed and wounded, and three 
 distinguished officers. This loss grieved me sorely, and 
 though I had done all that prudence required, I was never- 
 theless anxious to know what impression it would make on 
 
1 20 MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 the General-in-chief. My report had preceded me : I was 
 well received, though he blamed me for having ventured 
 alone, and without the hope of being assisted. The order I 
 had been the bearer of had also been entrusted to an officer 
 who went from Trente, and who was more fortunate than I. 
 General Joubert hastened to join the General-in-chief with 
 his whole army corps ; but the truce was already signed. 
 
 After the victory of Neumarck, General Bonaparte had 
 written to the Archduke to propose peace. The Cabinet of 
 Vienna, tired of the long and unfortunate contest, and fear- 
 ing that the loss of a battle might bring the enemy to the 
 gates of their metropolis, eagerly seized the only means of 
 stopping the French in their victorious career. The truce 
 was signed at Judenburg on the 7th, and the preliminaries 
 at Leoben on the 1 8th of April, by Messieurs de GuUo and 
 Meerfield on the part of the Austrians, and General Bona- 
 parte and M. Clarke on the part of the French. 
 
 The close of hostilities and the expectation of a speedy 
 and lasting peace were hailed by the belligerent nations 
 with the greater enthusiasm, because during the latter 
 years the war had no longer for its object either the safety 
 of the people or the dignity of the Sovereign. The Govern- 
 ment of the French Republic was acknowledged by a part 
 of Europe, and the conquest of the Austrian states was 
 commemorated by twenty victories. However great might 
 be the talents the Archduke Charles had displayed in his 
 German campaigns, the Emperor could not expect to be able 
 to beat the Army of Italy with troops discouraged by so 
 many defeats, and by a system of retreat in which they only 
 saw a proof of their inferiority, without guessing at the real 
 plan of their leader, which was to draw his adversary out of 
 Italy, from whence he got all his supplies. 
 
 The march of Bonaparte through the hereditary states, 
 where he seemed obstinately pursuing an enemy continually 
 retiring before him, was strongly criticised at that time 
 when the lustre of his glory had surrounded him with envy. 
 
MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA V ALETTE. 1 2 1 
 
 It has been said that, if the Archduke Charles had refused 
 the truce, Bonaparte would have been obliged to follow him 
 to the banks of the Danube, and that there all the chances 
 of success would have been in favour of the Austrians ; that 
 2l first check in that position would have been the certain 
 prelude of a defeat, after which he would have had no means 
 of retreating and avoiding total ruin. No one doubted but 
 Italy would have been lost, General Laudon having pene- 
 trated into Lombardy through Tyrol, while the insurrection 
 of the Venetian states had spread disorder among our troops, 
 and consternation among all the friends of France. If all 
 those assertions had been founded in truth, it must be 
 acknowledged that Bonaparte not only wanted prudence in 
 his campaign, but also that, by a degree of vanity contrary to 
 all common sense, he resolved to expose to the most perilous 
 chances his army, his glory, and Italy, to satisfy the frivolous 
 ambition of vanquishing Prince Charles, and making himself 
 master of the metropolis of the Austrian empire. But it 
 was not so. In the first place, the necessity of repulsing 
 the Archduke was urgent, the Prince having come to seek 
 Bonaparte on the banks of the Piava. In pursuing him 
 beyond the Julian Alps, the French general took all the 
 precautions that the art of war and the most consummate 
 prudence required. The left of his army had made itself 
 master of the valleys of the Adige and the Drave, in those 
 parts of Tyrol of which it was necessary that he should have 
 possession in order to ensure his operations. When he saw 
 that by the retreat of the Archduke he should be obliged, 
 if he wished to pursue him, to penetrate into the interior 
 of Styria, he recalled General Joubert, and reinforced his 
 army by twenty-two thousand men. This augmentation of 
 his troops gave him a superiority in numbers which the 
 Austrians would not have been able to equal even under 
 the walls of Vienna ; for all the forces of the monarchy were 
 already exhausted, — and the campaigns of Austerlitz and 
 Wagram have sufficiently proved that the inhabitants of 
 
122 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 Vienna, and even those of the hereditary states, except the 
 Tyroleans, do not readily take up arms. They would 
 probably have remained peaceable spectators of the contest, 
 of which the object was of no advantage to them. As 
 to the loss of Italy, there was no likelihood of such an 
 event. The small corps commanded by M. de Laudon 
 might certainly have caused some confusion at first ; but 
 that general was without support — without any real line 
 of operations. We possessed well-furnished fortresses, 
 numerous garrisons, a body of excellent and well-com- 
 manded troops. The insurrection of the Venetian states, 
 on which the enemy reckoned, had been much exaggerated. 
 Some hundred wretches, urged by the Venetian Govern- 
 ment, had massacred the sick at Verona, and some solitary 
 Frenchmen on the highway ; but there was a great difference 
 between these outrages and a general strongly organised 
 insurrection, gathering force from hatred and the thirst for 
 revenge. The Venetian people were but little attached to 
 their government. The creation of a powerful republic in 
 the midst of them inspired them with a desire of making a 
 part of it ; while a taste for novelty made them shut their 
 eyes on the sacrifices which revolutions require, and their 
 vivid imagination had exaggerated the advantages they 
 expected to reap from it. The friends of government were 
 undoubtedly numerous, especially among persons in office 
 and the priesthood, who cannot but lose in modern revolu- 
 tions ; but the mass of the people were strangers to their 
 designs and their ambition. I have rather enlarged on the 
 subject of this campaign, because I found in Paris, some 
 time after, people who blamed it openly, notwithstanding 
 its brilliant and solid result ; but I was soon convinced 
 that those reflections originated with the members of the 
 Directory, who had been much less uneasy about the result 
 of the conquest than dissatisfied with the haughty in- 
 dependence of General Bonaparte, who did not choose to 
 submit to the plan traced out by Government. The passage 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 123 
 
 of the Rhine by Hoche and Moreau was a powerful diversion 
 which the conqueror of Italy had himself wished for ; but 
 that operation, to have been really advantageous, ought, in 
 his opinion, to have been put into execution much earlier. 
 A last consideration, and which is in itself an answer to all 
 objections, is the intimate and convincing knowledge the 
 General-in-chief had acquired of thfe dispositions of the 
 ministers and persons who enjoyed decisive influence over 
 the mind of the Emperor. 
 
 After the signature of the Treaty of Leoben, the army 
 took up its position beyond the Tsgliamento, and the 
 General-in-chief came to Milan ; but in his way he thought 
 fit to punish the cruelties committed during the insurrection. 
 He knew well that the insurrection had been prepared and 
 directed by the Government of Venice ; and he had acquired 
 proofs that it had been concerted with the enemy, and in 
 his interest. But Bonaparte's revenge was one of an able 
 politician. Austria had a great wish to get Venice into her 
 possession. Bonaparte destroyed its government, and was 
 enabled, by that means, to ofl'er that rich prey as a com- 
 pensation in the negotiation. It was accepted, without 
 blushing, by a government which never hesitated in making 
 its friends pay for faults caused by its own misconduct. 
 
 In the meanwhile a circumstance happened at Genoa that 
 strongly fixed the General's attention. The government of 
 that small republic had refused to admit one of our squadrons 
 into its ports. The English party, that was uppermost in 
 the Senate of Genoa, had stirred up a riot among the rabble ; 
 a Frenchman had been killed, and the frigate La Modeste 
 had been burned. Such acts of violence required a speedy 
 and energetic repression ; but General Bonaparte wished 
 that such punishment might be inflicted by the French 
 Government. Secret emissaries, sent from Paris, had been 
 instructed to obtain, by all possible means, the union of 
 Genoa with France. This was, however, not the opinion 
 of General Bonaparte. It would have caused a renewal 
 
124 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 of painful discussions with the Austrians, at the very 
 moment when the treaty was being put into execution. 
 Besides, the Itahan army derived considerable advantages 
 from the Genoese republic. In consequence, General Bona- 
 parte thought fit to send me to Genoa, with precise 
 instructions, and an order to deliver to the Doge, in full 
 Senate, the letter he addressed to him, giving him no more 
 than four-and-twenty hours to execute the measures of which 
 I was the bearer. My entrance into the city caused great 
 anxiety, and the approach of a terrible though unknown 
 danger made the magistrate, in whose hands the care of the 
 public reposed, feel that the republic was irretrievably lost, 
 if any fresh outrages were committed in the presence of an 
 aide-de-camp of General Bonaparte. The people became 
 calm, as if by enchantment. M. Faypoult, the French 
 ambassador, was greatly dispirited ; and, when I declared to 
 him that the orders of the General-in-chief were that I 
 should deliver my letter to the Doge in full Senate, he 
 recoiled with alarm, and said there was no instance of a 
 stranger ever having entered the Petty Council presided by 
 the Doge. I replied, that there was no instance either of 
 an order of General Bonaparte not being executed, and that 
 he was immediately to acquaint the Doge of my arrival ; 
 that in an hour's time I would go to the palace of the 
 Senate ; that I had nothing to do with the forms of the 
 republic, nor to care for the peril I might run in executing 
 the orders of my chief. Half an hour afterwards I was 
 informed that I might go to the palace. When I entered 
 the hall, anger and consternation were visible on the features 
 of all the members of the Council. After having delivered 
 my letter, and required the execution of the orders it con- 
 tained within four-and-twenty hours, I retired ; and the 
 agitation was so strong in the Assembly that I heard a 
 powerful voice repeating the words, "Ci batteremo" (We 
 will fight). However, they did not fight. Three senators 
 were arrested. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 125 
 
 Despatches were sent to the General-in-chief. A pro- 
 visional government was instituted, and a commission 
 chosen to modify the Genoese constitution. Anxiety, agita- 
 tion, and fear were carried to the highest pitch. I thought 
 I should be able to set off the next day, when a vessel that 
 entered the port gave me fresh cause of uneasiness. She 
 had on board Madame Bonaparte (the General's mother), 
 with two of her daughters — afterwards known as Queen of 
 Naples and Grand Duchess of Tuscany — and M. Bacciochi, 
 newly married. These ladies had not seen the General-in- 
 chief for several years. They had come from Marseilles, 
 fancying that Italy was tranquil. General Bonaparte had not 
 received the letter in which they acquainted him with their 
 arrival. No measures had been taken — no orders given ; 
 the riots might perhaps begin anew, and they might fall 
 victims to popular fury. My first thought was, to remain 
 with them, and to collect some means of defence, in case 
 they should be attacked. But Madame Bonaparte was a 
 woman of great sense and courage. " I have nothing to 
 fear in this place," she said ; "since my son holds as hostages 
 the most considerable persons of the republic. Go quickly 
 and acquaint him with my arrival. To-morrow I shafl 
 continue my journey." I followed her advice, merely taking 
 the precaution of ordering some detachments of cavalry I 
 found in my way to go to meet them. They arrived 
 without accident the next day at Milan. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 While France and her armies were at last enjoying the 
 repose bought by such heroic exertions, Government be- 
 trayed, by its internal dissensions, the fatal secret of its 
 weakness and incapacity. The enlightened part of the 
 country had soon become sensible that the Directory 
 would never obtain any but a temporary and stormy 
 existence. Besides the impossibility of preserving perfect 
 harmony between five persons, possessing power in common, 
 while they were swayed by different passions, prejudices, 
 and characters, it was easy to be convinced that even the 
 concentration of power in so few hands, being an homage 
 paid to monarchy, would recall too many recollections, and 
 too much regret for the old form of government, not to 
 tempt its adherents to make efforts in its favour. In the 
 eyes of the Royalists, the Directory was then only a passage 
 to monarchy. They hoped that it would be short ; and 
 their wishes, inflamed by the expectation of success, made 
 them bold. For the first time, they combined a reasonable 
 plan by addressing themselves to the passions of their foes, 
 and to ambition so atdent in its calculation. The Con- 
 stitution of the Year III. had created two councils — one 
 called the " Council of Five Hundred," and the other the 
 " Council of Ancients." Among the persons composing 
 them were still many members of the Convention, who 
 could not bear the idea of the return of the Bourbons ; but 
 among them also sat some old Constitutionalists, who had 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 127 
 
 united their exertions and wishes for the establishment of a 
 representative monarchy. The greatest part among them 
 ■were men of merit. All had been persecuted by the Com- 
 mittee of Public Safety. The members of the Directory 
 had been all chosen out of the Convention, and the majority 
 of them had voted for the death of the King. These were 
 no titles to recommend them to the confidence of the 
 people, and much less so that of the Constitutionalists. 
 This difference between the conduct and the opinions of 
 Government, and a part of the Chambers, soon created an 
 animosity which betrayed itself in all their mutual concerns. 
 Perhaps, however, it would not have brought on a cata- 
 strophe, if one of our most celebrated generals had not 
 entered the Council of Five Hundred, already resolved 
 to carry into execution a conspiracy in favour of the 
 Bourbons. 
 
 Pichegru it was who conceived that fatal design a long 
 time before. I was told by General Lahorie, who accom- 
 panied him to Paris when the Convention summoned the 
 conqueror of Holland to her aid to crush the Jacobins, that 
 when he left the metropolis after the affair of the 12th 
 Germinal, Pichegru lost no opportunity of showing his 
 contempt for the Assembly, — contempt so great, that he 
 grew angry at the thought of the praises and honours 
 that had been lavished on him. Such were his ideas when 
 he took the command of the Rhine army, and soon after 
 began his correspondence with the Prince of Conde. It 
 could not remain long a secret : the Prince wavered, asked 
 advice, and sohcited orders of the Count de Lille. This 
 hesitation, these numerous letters, let so many people into 
 the secret that authentic papers were alone wanted to 
 establish complete evidence of the plot. Those papers were 
 soon found. Count d'Entraigues, a fiery and active-minded 
 emigrant, though not very prudent, was one of the agents 
 of the correspondence. He was attached to the Russian 
 legation which had been sent to the former govern- 
 
1 38 MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 ment of Venice, and he remained in that city, thinking- 
 himself safe in his foreign regimentals. The General- 
 in-chief had him arrested. A great part of the corres- 
 pondence was seized among his papers, and sent to the 
 Directory. 
 
 A government that felt itself strong enough to be just 
 would have had the traitor arrested, and the laws would 
 have decided. But the Directory considered that Pichegru 
 was protected by eminent services, by his great reputation, 
 his title of Deputy, and the support of a whole party. The 
 examination of the plot proved, besides, that if General 
 Moreau had not taken a direct part in it, he had at least 
 known of it. When he learned that Government was 
 acquainted with it, he hastened to disclose it ; but this 
 tardy disclosure, instead of destroying suspicion, confirmed 
 it. Besides that, other respectable names might be exposed. 
 All these considerations made Government fear legal pro- 
 ceedings, the publicity and final result of which might too- 
 probably prove fatal to its members ; so that it was deemed 
 preferable to involve in one common destruction, by a coup 
 d ^Hat, the private foes of Government and thosie who had. 
 betrayed the Republic. 
 
 General Bonaparte followed attentively the progress of 
 these sad dissensions. In the heat of the debates of the 
 Council of Five Hundred, some aspersions had been directed 
 against his lieutenants, and even against himself. He at 
 first proudly repelled them ; but on maturer thought, he 
 resolved to send to Paris some one who could obtain exact 
 information on the situation of affairs, and I was chosen for 
 that mission. "Mix with everybody," he said; "do not 
 let yourself be led away by party spirit ; tell me the truth,, 
 and tell it me free from all passion." 
 
 I arrived in Paris in the month of May. The five 
 members of Government were, at that time, Barras, Rew- 
 bell, Carnot, La Reveilliere L6paux, and Barthelemy. The 
 first four had been members of the Convention ; and 
 
;/^iKi©T= 
 
MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA VALE TTE 1 29 
 
 although none of them had been famous during the Reign 
 of Terror for any atrocious act, still the three first had voted 
 the death of the King, — a vote which, notwithstanding the 
 fatal though powerful Consideration that may be presented 
 in alleviation, placed them among the most furious Jacobins, 
 and was prejudicial to the respect with which they ought to 
 "have been invested. The people bore impatiently the yoke 
 of men who recalled to their minds such fatal events ; and 
 they were especially disliked by the Constitutionalists of 
 1 791, who reproached them at once with the destruction 
 of their edifice, and the persecutions which had so long 
 weighed upon them. 
 
 When I arrived, the contest was violent, and the antago- 
 nists of Government made no secret of their wish to over- 
 throw the majority. My first visit was to Barras, who 
 seemed to have preserved favourable sentiments for General 
 Bonaparte, and who expressed to me a wish to maintain the 
 friendship which had so long united them. After him I saw 
 Carnot, who spoke to me with a reserve commanded by the 
 intimate connection of General Bonaparte with Barras. A 
 ■difference of systems and views on some points of govern- 
 ment had created between these two Directors an animosity 
 yhich betrayed itself in invectives and threats, that left no 
 •opening for reconciliation. Carnot, however, expressed him- 
 self with candour. " It is impossible," he said, " to go on 
 any longer on the revolutionary road. If a lasting system 
 of moderation be not adopted, all is lost. France feels 
 horror for whatever brings to mind the deplorable 
 measures to which the necessity of saving her has carried 
 the country. The public mind is irritated, and unless great 
 care be taken, the effect will be to involve us again in a 
 confusion, out of which we shall be extricated only to bend 
 under the yoke of the Bourbons. The faction against which 
 I am struggling does not blush to charge me with being a 
 Royalist ; and nevertheless, nobody is more convinced than 
 I am of Pichegru's treason, and the necessity of punishing 
 
 10 
 
130 MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 but him ; they want to govern France as they would a club. 
 Narrow views, passionate factious spirit, the prejudices of 
 ignorance and fear, ever suspicious and blind, preside over 
 all our acts : they prefer the violence that irritates, while 
 moderation and firmness would be sufficient to smooth 
 everything. My situation is painful ; for I am forced to 
 move with a party in which, exclusive of Pichegru, there 
 are men to whom I am obnoxious, who perhaps conspire 
 with him, and who will ruin the Republic, without obtaining 
 the secret aim of their endeavours. I have tried," he added, 
 " to reclaim Pichegru ; I was not personally acquainted with 
 him ; but the conversation I had with him convinced me 
 that he is cleverer than I thought, and that he has taken 
 his final resolutions. I do not know what are his means of 
 execution, now that he is no longer with the army ; but, 
 whatever they may be, they will miscarry when opposed by 
 the firm vigilance of Government, and by public opinion, 
 which is strongly declared against the Bourbons." 
 
 This conversation, of which I have only recorded the most 
 remarkable parts, was the only one I had with Carnot. The 
 house of Barras was open to me, and I went there so often 
 that Carnot could not but look upon me as a man entirely 
 devoted to the party of that Director : it was, however, not 
 so. All his speeches breathed hatred and vengeance. A 
 month before the catastrophe took place, it was secretly 
 resolved to make it terrible, and the victims were marked 
 out. My position and my duty forbade me taking any part 
 in the contest, but I wrote the truth to General Bonaparte. 
 I observed that he would tarnish his glory if he gave any 
 support to acts of violence, which the situation of Govern- 
 ment did not justify ; that nobody would pardon him if he 
 joined the Directory in their plan to overthrow the Constitu- 
 tion and liberty ; that proscriptions were about to take place 
 against the national representation, and against citizens 
 whose virtues made them worthy of respect ; that punish- 
 ments would be inflicted without trial, and that the hatred 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 131 
 
 resulting from such measures, would extend not only to the 
 Directory, but to the whole system of republican govern- 
 ment. Besides, it was not certain that the party they were 
 going to proscribe really wished the return of the Bourbons ; 
 and in any case the legal punishment and banishment of 
 Pichegru would be sufficient to destroy any plans of that 
 sort. These considerations made so much impression on 
 the mind of General Bonaparte that he soon avoided, in his 
 correspondence with the Directory, all allusion to the interior 
 situation of France, and at last left off writing to them alto- 
 gether. His long silence appeared strange to Barras, who, 
 however, easily guessed the cause of it. He continued seeing 
 me ; but I perceived by his gravity, and the insidious ques- 
 tions of his favourites, that he suspected me of not being his 
 friend. I never loved equivocal situations, and I hastened 
 to get out of the one I was in by candidly declaring my 
 sentiments to one of his confidants. "I know enough," I 
 said, " of the plans of Government to hurt them if I were to 
 acquaint their enemies with what I do know : it would, how- 
 ever, be an act of treason, of which you know I am incapable. 
 But, as a citizen and an honest man, I cannot dissemble that 
 I do not approve of the coup d^'etat that is meditating : you 
 are going to trample on laws and liberty. Such a system ox 
 violence will sooner or later recoil on your own heads. After 
 having toiled and suffered ten years to obtain a representa- 
 tive government, it is distressing to reap nothing but tyranny, 
 or the convulsions of anarchy." He answered me by some 
 commonplace observations on the necessity of striking a 
 great blow at a faction that wanted to overthrow the 
 Republic. Barras, to whom this conversation was reported, 
 according to my intention, thought it requisite to dissemble : 
 he did not treat me ill, but he had me watched with a vigi- 
 lance that extended even to my correspondence with General 
 Bonaparte. My letters to him were written in cipher ; and 
 that proof of mystery and mistrust, by augmenting their 
 suspicions, contributed perhaps to hasten the catastrophe 
 
132 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 through the fear that Bonaparte might take some resolution 
 that would perplex the Directory. 
 
 I may here briefly describe the different members of the 
 Directorial government, whose existence was so short, though 
 its operations had so much influence on the destinies of 
 France and the affairs of Europe. 
 
 Barras, who then discharged the functions of president, 
 was descended from one of the most ancient families of 
 Provence. A restless disposition, and the wish to advance 
 rapidly in the military career, had induced him to go to 
 India, where he served in a colonial regiment. Having 
 returned to France in 1789, he declared himself in favour of 
 the Revolution, in which, however, he obtained no celebrity. 
 Nature had refused him those qualifications which ensure 
 success to an orator, but he had a great deal of resolution ; 
 and his conduct at the fall of Robespierre, by bringing upon 
 him the hatred of the Jacobins, gave him a share in the 
 gratitude all France felt for those who had contributed to 
 the destruction of their horrible tyranny. 
 
 At the period I am now speaking of, Barras was the most 
 violent of the three members of the Directory who wished 
 for an alteration in the councils. His hatred of Carnot was 
 so strong that, a few days before the i8th Fructidor, one of 
 his confidants, to whom I made the observation that Carnot 
 would undoubtedly find means of escaping from persecution, 
 answered, " We will kill him." He had continually in his 
 mouth the most insulting expressions against those whom 
 he suspected of being Royalists. On the other hand, how is 
 it possible to reconcile that hatred of the Bourbons and their 
 friends with the revelations published by Fauche Borel 
 since the Restoration, and which Barras never denied. The 
 above-mentioned agent of Louis XVIII. has asserted that 
 the Director had consented to the plan of the Count of Lille 
 to bring about a Royalist revolution ; that a formal pardon 
 had been sent to him, and an amnesty for his vote in the 
 trial of the late King ; finally, that several millions had been 
 
MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA VALE TTE. 1 33 
 
 promised him to make up for the loss of his rank as Director. 
 If the assertion of Fauche Borel be true, the animosity of 
 Barras against the Royalist party can only be explained by 
 the impossibility in which he found himself of accomplish- 
 ing his promises, or by his grief at being obliged to share 
 glory and the profit of a Restoration with persons whom he 
 detested, and whose reputation and talents would offer the 
 King better pledges than he could present. The conduct of 
 Napoleon in regard to Barras, during his reign, may also 
 be explained by the knowledge he had acquired of his 
 treason. 
 
 Rewbell, the second Director, was a lawyer from Alsatia : 
 his name will hold but a trivial place in history. He was at 
 that time accused of amassing his fortune with an avidity 
 that might have procured him immense wealth ; however, 
 that charge has since been disproved in the clearest manner. 
 After living fifteen years in obscurity, Rewbell died a short 
 time ago, leaving a very middling fortune. 
 
 The third Director was named La Reveillfere Lepaux : he 
 also was a lawyer. A reputation for unsullied integrity and 
 talent, proclaimed by four committees, had caused him to be 
 regarded as a man capable of governing the state. Carnot 
 has used him very ill in one of his works. I believe there 
 is a great deal of exaggeration in that picture, which is 
 traced by resentment ; several features of it, however, 
 approach very near to the truth. His friends and his 
 valets used to call him the good soul {le hon homme), and he 
 wept for joy when on the i8th Fructidor he heard that 
 thirty legislators were to be transported to the burning 
 sands of Cayenne. As a philosopher, he was at the head of 
 a sect, and the Theophilanthropy which he sought to propa- 
 gate was nothing more than pure Deism. He used to lay 
 oiferings of flowers on his altars, while poor Christian priests 
 under his government expiated the crime of teaching their 
 religion in dark and solitary dungeons. 
 
 The only man in the council who deserved his high 
 
134 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 station, and who enjoyed undisputed respect, was Carnot. 
 At that period he had not yet completely displayed the 
 inflexibility of conscience and the wonderful disinterested- 
 ness that have made him hitherto inaccessible both to the 
 seduction and to the threats and severity of power ; but 
 those who approached him admired in him a dignity of 
 character combined with virtue and vast information, 
 entirely devoted to support the liberty and independence 
 of his country. The turn of his mind, and the unshaken 
 firmness of his soul, inspired him with a predilection for a 
 Republican government, which experience does not seem to 
 have weakened. Being himself a stranger to all the mean 
 passions that animate and maintain society, he did not calcu- 
 late on the corruption and the vanity of his countrymen. 
 A republic being in his eyes the best of all governments, he 
 thought nothing appeared too difficult for its preservation, 
 nor perhaps nothing too severe to insure its triumph. This 
 austere Republican was, however, a good and amiable man : 
 in the bosom of his family, he was indulgent to weakness and 
 error. His enemies themselves did not confound him with 
 his cruel colleagues of the Convention. At the period I am 
 speaking of, he struggled to alleviate the situation of the 
 emigrants and insure the tranquillity of their families : he 
 resisted all oppressive measures, and wanted to establish the 
 prosperity of the state on good laws and the benefits of 
 peace. 
 
 The ministers who formed the cabinet under this Pent- 
 archy have not been able to escape oblivion, with the ex- 
 ception of one whose name will be recorded in history on 
 account of the variety of parts he has acted. M. de Talley- 
 rand left France in 1792, as bishop of Autun ; he returned 
 in 1796 a Republican, and with all the docile modesty of a 
 disgraced man who wishes to return to favour. He possessed 
 a remarkable degree of talent, which was much praised by 
 his friends. He had, however, not yet attained the fame he 
 afterwards enjoyed, as one of the most clever diplomatists 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 13S 
 
 of Europe. In that respect the Directory were not in want 
 of his services. Numerous and important treaties had been 
 sighed by obscure persons, and were not the worse for that. 
 But the vanity of the Directors was flattered at having 
 under their orders a man who had formerly been a grand 
 seigneur^ who had given more than one pledge to the 
 Revolution, had lost the right of complaining of its excesses, 
 having himself professed all its principles, and whose supple- 
 ness of character insured his obedience. He possessed, 
 besides, considerable advantages over his predecessor, and 
 even over his new masters — I mean his connection with 
 influential men in foreign countries, a strong taste for 
 politics, and the most perfect polish of manner. Notwith- 
 standing their rude republican pride, the Directors were 
 sensible that, in their negotiations with foreign courts, a 
 man of birth belonging to the old monarchy might be of 
 use to them. 
 
 When M. de Talle5n-and entered the ministry, dissension 
 was at its greatest violence. He gently discarded his old 
 friends who were struggling in the councils against the 
 majority of the Directory, by feigning to believe that they 
 all wished for the return of the Bourbons, and he remained 
 a cool spectator of their disasters. The chief point he had 
 in view was to keep his place and re-establish his fortune, 
 which had been destroyed by former disorders and public 
 events. He quickly obtained his aim, from which nothing 
 could divert him, neither the clamour raised by his enemies, 
 nor the reproaches of his masters, to which he constantly 
 opposed a calm, patient, and, I may almost say, a careless 
 resignation. I have witnessed some instances of it, and I 
 felt that ambition cannot fail to create disgust when bought 
 at such a price. He lived on a footing of intimacy with 
 Madame de Stael, already celebrated for her superior mind, 
 and a passion for fame, united to kindness of heart that has 
 not been sufficiently appreciated. To say the truth, it was 
 a little her own fault. I am convinced that she did not 
 
136 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 foresee the cruel proscriptions that oppressed the vanquished 
 party ; but I certainly never witnessed so much warmth of 
 persecution. She undoubtedly saw nothing more in the 
 struggle than the triumph of her political opinions, — I 
 should rather say feelings ; but still it must be acknowledged 
 that an absence of all reflection could alone have led her to 
 embrace so openly the part of men who trampled on liberty 
 and national representation, the two most cherished objects 
 of her worship. All that time she carried to enthusiasm 
 her admiration of General Bonaparte. I saw her for the 
 first time at M. de Talleyrand's. During dinner, the praises 
 she lavished on the Conqueror of Italy had all the wildness,. 
 romance, and exaggeration of poetry. When we left the 
 table, the company withdrew to a small room to look at the 
 portrait of the hero ; and as I stepped back to let her walk 
 in, she said : " How shall I dare to pass before an aide-de- 
 camp of Bonaparte ? " My confusion was so great, that she 
 also felt a little of it, and our host himself laughed at us. I 
 went to see her next morning. Her reception was kind 
 enough to make me return often to her house ; and I do 
 affirm that her lively imagination and her incredible activity 
 continued unceasingly the same up to the catastrophe. She 
 had nothing before her eyes but the counter-revolution, the 
 return of the Bourbons, the revenge of the emigrants, and 
 the loss of liberty. 
 
 The denouement grew at last inevitable. The rage of the 
 several parties had reached its greatest height. The jour- 
 nals, pamphlets, and posted bills contained the most violent 
 provocations. The Constitution not having left the Direc- 
 tory space enough for defence, it resolved to overthrow all 
 barriers. Still, there was wanted a celebrated general to 
 put the plan into execution. Augereau came to their 
 assistance. The day before he arrived from Italy I received 
 a letter from General Bonaparte, in which he said : " Auge- 
 reau is going to Paris. Place no confidence in him. He 
 has brought confusion into the army : he has a factious 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 137 
 
 spirit." When I returned to Italy, I learned that the mis- 
 understanding between the generals and the officers of the 
 two divisions of Augereau and Bernadotte had extended to the 
 private soldiers, and that they taxed one another mutually 
 with being Jacobins and Royalists. General Augereau had 
 openly declared for the majority of the Directory : Barras^ 
 who reckoned upon him, called him to Paris and gave him 
 the military command. 
 
 Government, being once certain of the support of the 
 General, marked out their victims ; and in the night of the 
 17th Fructidor, orders to arrest them were delivered. As 
 they might have escaped in the night it was resolved to 
 wait till daybreak, and by a wretched contrivance, worthy 
 of a melodrama, this outrage was immediately announced 
 by the discharge of a four-and-twenty pounder on the plat- 
 form of the Pont Neuf. The explosion broke all the 
 windows in the neighbourhood and spread dismay through 
 the city. At eight o'clock in the morning the Director 
 Barthelemy, thirty members of the two councils, and several 
 writers, were sent to prison. A few days afterwards a part 
 of France witnessed their representatives dragged along, in 
 trellised carts, like wild beasts. They were taken to Roche- 
 fort, and from thence to Guyenne, where the unwholesome 
 climate proved fatal to some of these unhappy men. Several 
 of the victims succeeded in escaping. Carnot found a refuge- 
 in the house of M. , one of the warmest advocates of 
 
 the arrest. But he was the countryman and friend of the 
 Director, and his generous soul found means to conciliate 
 the duties of friendship with the passion of party spirit. 
 
 I had passed the evening of the 17th with Barras. The 
 ill-disguised agitation of his courtiers, and some words 
 which I caught en passant^ taught me the secret of the 
 night. I retired early, resolved not to show myself the next 
 day, as I did not wish to lead any one to suppose by my 
 presence that General Bonaparte approved of such unheard- 
 of violence. I went, however, to Barras on the day after. 
 
138 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 As soon as he perceived me he called me to his closet, and 
 then, assuming a threatening look and tone of voice, he 
 said : " You have betrayed the Republic and your General. 
 For the last six weeks Government has received no private 
 letters from him. Your opinions on what is going forward 
 are known to us, and you have undoubtedly painted our 
 conduct under the most odious colours. I declare to you 
 that last night the Directory deliberated whether you ought 
 not to share the fate of the conspirators that are on the road 
 to Guyenne. Out of consideration for General Bonaparte 
 you shall remain free, but I have just sent off my secretary 
 to explain to him what has happened, and your conduct." 
 I answered very coolly : " You have been deceived. I never 
 betrayed any person ! The events of the i8th are calami- 
 tous. Nobody shall ever persuade me that Government 
 has a right to punish representatives of the people without 
 trial, and in contempt of the laws. I have not written 
 anything else for the last six weeks, and if you wish to 
 ascertain the fact here is the key of my bureau : have my 
 papers seized ; their examination will cover my false ac- 
 cusers with confusion." This moderate and firm reply, 
 but especially my proposal, pacified him. He tried to 
 begin an explanation, but I retired. When I returned 
 home I burned my correspondence : it might have exposed 
 my general, and consequently I could not hesitate. When 
 that was done I sent oiF, as an express, an officer of the staff 
 who was at Paris to acquaint the General with all that 
 had happened ; and not wishing that my sudden departure 
 should be attributed to fear, I remained eight days longer 
 in town. I went, however, to General Augereau to inquire 
 whether he had any commission to give me. Since he had 
 been in Paris he was like a man beside himself. He spoke 
 to me of the General-in-chief with a great deal of flippancy, 
 and of the i8th Fructidor with more enthusiasm than he 
 would have done of the battle of Areola. " Do you know," 
 he said, " that you deserve to be shot for your behaviour ? 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 139 
 
 — but you need not be uneasy, and you may rely on me." 
 I thanked him with a smile ; but I felt it would be useless 
 to put his kindness to the proof, and the next day I set off 
 for Italy. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 I LEFT Paris on the ist Vendemiaire, just as the Directory, 
 the Ministers, and all the constituted authorities, were 
 going to the Champ de Mars to celebrate the new year, 
 according to the custom of the time. The President of 
 the Government walked up to the altar of the country and 
 made a speech, in which, among great praise bestowed on 
 the armies, were frequently introduced threatening insinua- 
 tions against the enemies of Government, and abuse against 
 the Sovereigns at war with the Republic. It was under 
 the canopy of heaven, and in presence of the Supreme 
 Being (to use the then fashionable expression), that those 
 sermons were preached before the multitude, which never 
 failed to be very numerous if the weather happened to 
 be fine. 
 
 I was very anxious to be on the other side of the Alps, 
 that I might know what the General-in-chief thought of my 
 conduct. At the passage of Mont Cenis I met an aide-de- 
 camp of General Augereau, called Deverine, who was re- 
 turning dismayed with the harsh reception he had met with 
 from General Bonaparte, and who acquainted me with his 
 misfortune. He had been sent to Italy by his general a 
 few days after the i8th Fructidor, to claim from the pay- 
 master of the army 600,000 francs which were not owing 
 to him, and which he thought no one would dare to refuse 
 him. The same officer was also the bearer of copies of 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 141 
 
 Clarke's secret correspondence with Carnot, from the time 
 of his entrance into Italy. The generals of the army to 
 whom Augereau sent copies of those letters were very 
 much abused in them by the military diplomatist, and the 
 General-in-chief was even attacked in his private cha- 
 racter. Enraged against Clarke, they thought fit to deliver 
 into the hands of their chief these abusive letters, without 
 dissembling their contempt for a man they had never seen 
 in their ranks. General Bonaparte, having heard of the 
 demand for money made on the paymaster of the army, 
 ordered him not to pay it ; and, having sent for the poor 
 aide-de-camp, he gave him a severe reprimand, and sent 
 him back to Paris as quickly as he could. The young man 
 was extremely grieved at his adventure, and bestowed many 
 imprecations on Augereau for having exposed him by such 
 a ridiculous message. 
 
 This little accident gave me some insight into General 
 Bonaparte's disposition, and I hurried the more to rejoin 
 him. 
 
 I was entering the long avenue leading to the castle 
 of Passeriano, when I perceived Clarke, who stopped my 
 carriage. The Directory had deprived him of his diplo- 
 matic mission, and dismissed him as a general on half-pay. 
 "I am in the most wretched condition," he said to me, 
 " but you may still be of service to me. Do not speak of 
 the Directory's being incensed against me, and mention my 
 dismissal as a natural consequence of the fall of Carnot. 
 By that means General Bonaparte will keep me with him. 
 He knows the secret of what I wrote against the generals ; 
 he'll silence them." Clarke was unfortunate. I had been 
 long acquainted with him, so I gave him my word that I 
 would serve him. The thing was not altogether very 
 diflScult : the General-in-chief had a liking for him ; the 
 Directory forgot him, and did not insist on his leaving the 
 army. 
 
 I had scarcely arrived at the castle when General Bona- 
 
142 MEMOIRS OF CO UNI LAVALETTE. 
 
 parte sent for me into the garden, and there continued 
 questioning me during four hours. My correspondence had 
 acquainted him with all the particulars of the event ; but I 
 was still obliged to describe the hesitations, fits of passion, 
 and almost every gesture of the principal actors. His 
 opinion had been long fixed respecting the different mem- 
 bers of the Directory, and even the nature of the Govern- 
 ment itself. " But," said he, '' with such rude forms, why 
 so much weakness ? Why, then, so much temerity when 
 firmness would have been sufficient. There was cowardice 
 in not daring to put Pichegru on his trial. His treason was 
 obvious, and the witnesses more than sufficient to convict 
 him. At best, if the High Court had acquitted him, he 
 would nevertheless have been dishonoured in the face of 
 the army and all France. Force is good when one cannot 
 do otherwise ; but when one is free to choose, justice is 
 better." Then, according to custom, he continued for a 
 long while walking about in silence. At last he added, on 
 taking leave of me, " All things well considered, this revo- 
 lution will prove a vigorous stroke to the nation." When 
 he returned to the castle he sent for Botteau, the secretary 
 to Barras ; had a long conversation with him, and sent him 
 back in the course of the night. 
 
 A few days afterwards Bernadotte returned from Paris. 
 I soon perceived that he had represented events under a 
 more favourable light for Government than I had; but 
 through all the particulars he mentioned, his numerous 
 animadversions on the War Department, and his conjec- 
 tures on the renewal of hostilities, General Bonaparte had 
 no difficulty in penetrating his ambition and his designs. 
 The Directory had loaded him with praises ; the Ministry of 
 the War Department had been promised him ; and when, a 
 short time after, the General-in-chief learned the nomina- 
 tion of General Augereau to the command of the Army of 
 the Rhine, he felt that with so weak a companion, and so 
 ambitious a minister, it would be impossible for him to 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 143 
 
 advance freely and to obtain glorious results. Peace was 
 consequently resolved on in his mind. I am far from 
 doubting that considerations of a more elevated nature, 
 and especially the wish to give peace to France, then sink- 
 ing under the burthen of her sacrifices, swayed his resolu- 
 tion ; but most certainly the choice of those two men 
 contributed greatly to fix it. 
 
 During the long unoccupied days that the diplomatic 
 debates afforded him, the General-in-chief used to pass a 
 part of his evenings with the learned Monge, whom he had 
 summoned near his person. Among the varied and instruc- 
 tive conversations which delighted the General-in-chief, the 
 plan of conquering Egypt so often presented to the ministry 
 in the reigns of Louis XV. and Louis XVI. was discussed. 
 The General, who always went to the bottom of everything, 
 wished to read all that had been written on the subject.. 
 Monge, having held for some time the portfolio of the 
 Marine Department, was enabled to procure him quickly all 
 the most interesting papers. The measures that had been 
 proposed appeared faulty to the General-in-chief; but the 
 fertility of his mind made him discover the advantages he 
 might derive from his position, to lay down a plan easier of 
 execution and better in its result. It is probable that the 
 idea was at that very moment communicated to the Direc- 
 tory ; for, soon after, the first germs of its execution began 
 secretly to develop themselves. M. Pousseilgues, late Chief 
 Clerk of the Treasury, was at that time Secretary of the 
 French Legation at Genoa. This gentleman had several 
 relations, merchants, at Malta. He was called to the head- 
 quaj'ters, and from thence he went to Malta. His mission 
 wa^ to sound the disposition of the Government, and of the 
 French Knights, to get well acquainted with the spirit of the 
 people, and to ascertain what were the means of subsistence, 
 or the obstacles to be expected. Finally, he was to do his 
 utmost to send to the headquarters some of the Knights of 
 Malta whom Bonaparte might have known at the Military 
 
144 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 School. This mission was executed with great secrecy and 
 intelligence ; and during Pousseilgues' absence, secret efforts 
 in furtherance of the object advanced rapidly. To lead curi- 
 osity astray, the General spoke of a journey he proposed to 
 make after the peace was concluded. He said he intended 
 to go to Germany and the North of Europe with his wife, 
 Monge, Generals Berthier and Marmont. I was destined to 
 accompany Eugfene Beauharnais, who at that time was no 
 more than seventeen years of age. General Bonaparte 
 •diverted himself with setting up a plan of studies and obser- 
 vations, of which we were to give an account at the different 
 places where we were to meet. That plan was the more 
 reasonable, as General Bonaparte could scarcely live at 
 rest in France, if peace lasted any time. He would not 
 have been able to avoid the clashing of the different 
 factions, and would perhaps have been forced to take 
 part in the measures they would have attempted, with a 
 view to triumph. The Directory was afraid of him; his 
 glory was annoying ; his influence over the enemy could 
 not fail to be immense. On the other hand, he was too 
 young to have a place in the Directory, and the idea of 
 being the minister of Barras and La Reveillfere Lepaux was 
 not to be borne. 
 
 All these reflections determined him to make peace, not- 
 withstanding the contrary orders of the Directory. Mis- 
 understanding and dissatisfaction showed themselves in all 
 the letters he addressed to the Government. His unpub- 
 lished correspondence contains three of those letters, in which 
 his ill-humour is displayed with a degree of energy and pride 
 that made the Directory tremble, and was the source of the 
 hatred which in course of time brought on the i8th Brumaire. 
 The Directory did not wish to sacrifice Venice to Austria : 
 General Bonaparte wanted to retain Mantua ; and as his 
 instructions did not prescribe absolutely that he should not 
 abandon Venice, he took upon himself to sign, on the 4th 
 Vend6miaire (zSth September), the treaty of Passeriano, 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. MS 
 
 well convinced that Government would not dare to express 
 discontent openly ; and that France, rejoiced at peace, would 
 overrule with her applause the rumours of the General's 
 enemies. According to our calculations, the courier of the 
 Directory was to arrive at Passeriano on the very day fixed for 
 the signature. Bonaparte was reckoning with me the dis- 
 tance the courier had to go, and the hour he might arrive ; 
 and he candidly acknowledged the perplexity he would be in, 
 if he received from Government an order not to go any 
 farther. Recollecting afterwards with disgust the slow march 
 of Moreau in Germany, a few months before, while he was 
 at Leoben, and the appointment of Augereau to the com- 
 mand of the Rhine army, instead of Desaix, whom he had 
 recommended in the most pressing manner, he added, in a 
 tone of much ill-humour, " I see very well that they are pre- 
 paring defeats for me. That man (meaning Augereau) is 
 incapable of conceiving an extensive plan. He will get beaten, 
 or will not advance at all ; all the Austrian forces will then 
 fall upon me, and my beloved Italy will be the grave of the 
 French army." He then questioned me as to the disposition 
 of that part of France through which I had travelled, and I 
 assured him that peace would be received with enthusiasm ; 
 that the people would bestow blessings on him, and that 
 public happiness would be his work. 
 
 At last, on the 27th of Vendemiaire, the ministers of 
 Austria were called to Passeriano, and the secretaries of the 
 two Legations made copies of the treaty. That business 
 lasted the whole day. The General was delightfully merry. 
 No more discussions ! He remained a part of the day in hir. 
 saloon, and would not even have the candles lighted when it 
 grew dark. We sat talking and telling one another ghost 
 stories, like a family living in an old castle. At last, at about 
 ten o'clock at night, he was told that all was ready. He ran 
 to his closet, cheerfully signed the document, and at mid- 
 night General Berthier, the bearer of the treaty, was on the 
 road to Paris. Twelve hours afterwards, the courier of the 
 
 II 
 
1 46 MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA VALE TTE. 
 
 Directory arrived. The orders were positive ; and, if they 
 had come to hand the day before, the treaty would not have 
 been signed. The next day the General-in-chief wrote to 
 the Directory, expressing his wish to leave Italy, and to come 
 to France to enjoy a little repose ; but it was absolutely 
 necessary first to organise the Cisalpine Republic ; to take 
 prudential measures against the Pope and the King of 
 Naples, who showed the most hostile intentions. A squad- 
 ron, with troops, had been sent to Corfu, Zante, and Cepha- 
 lonia, to take possession of these Venetian islands, which 
 had been given to France by the treaty of Campo Formio, 
 and the General did not think fit to leave Italy before he 
 received accounts of their organisations. 
 
 In the meanwhile, M. Pousseilgues was beginning to give 
 the required information respecting the disposition of the 
 public mind at Malta. He had succeeded in sending to the 
 
 General M. N , his former schoolfellow at the Military 
 
 School, and who had been for several years a Knight in the 
 island. From his report, and the letters of M. Pousseilgues, 
 it appeared that the Knights of the French tongue, receiving 
 neither money nor reward from their relations, and reduced 
 to the most miserable shifts to live, would not stand much 
 upon their fidelity to the Order ; and that they would have 
 no objection to leave the island, provided they got leave to 
 return to France ; that the Grand Master Hompesch, a man 
 devoid of strength of mind, would probably make no use of 
 the means of defence he possessed in his military position, 
 and the land and sea forces he had at his disposal. The per- 
 sons who surrounded him had an influence over him, so 
 much the more pernicious on account of the desire of both 
 the English and the Russians to gain possession of the island. 
 The Russian consul was a bold and active man, who 
 frightened the Government by his threats, and spread dis- 
 order and terror in the minds of every one. It was therefore 
 of great consequence to General Bonaparte to take a resolu- 
 tion and show himself before the island with an imposing 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. IA7 
 
 force, that might decide the Grand Master in favour of 
 Prance. He resolved at last to leave Italy. He addressed a 
 proclamation to the army, and left it under the command of 
 General Kilmaine. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Bonaparte crossed Switzerland, and went to Rastadt : his 
 travelling companions were Generals Marmont, Duroc, my- 
 self, his secretary Bourrienne, and Ivan his physician. The 
 only place at which he stopped was Geneva, where the 
 Directory was already beginning, by underhand manceuvres, 
 to augment the number of its adherents, who were one day 
 to eifect the union of that Republic with France. Carnot 
 had sought refuge in that city, and General Bonaparte pri- 
 vately sent him advice to leave it as soon as possible, so as 
 to prevent a persecution he was not able to prevent. 
 
 M. Necker was then living on his estate at Coppet, near 
 Geneva. He still looked upon himself as a great man, and 
 flattered himself that the Conqueror of Italy would pay him 
 a visit. I do not know what was at that time General Bona- 
 parte's opinion of the financial talents of the late minister 
 of Louis XVI. ; but I am sure he had but little esteem for 
 his personal character, and had positively declared his dis- 
 approbation of the Sovereign's choice of a minister for 
 France. We had a great desire to go with him and see the 
 seat that Voltaire had celebrated in the latter part of his 
 life ; but the General-in-chief had also a grudge against 
 Voltaire. He therefore thought fit not to make either of 
 the two pilgrimages. We crossed Switzerland without stop- 
 ping anywhere. However, his carriage having broken 
 down a league from Morat, we travelled that part of the 
 way on foot. Though it was no more than seven o'clock 
 
 in the morning, the road was covered with people, and 
 
 148 ' 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 149 
 
 especially women, who had passed the night there, to get 
 a peep at the Conqueror of Italy. When we arrived near 
 the bone-house, where lie deposited the remains of the 
 Burgundian soldiers killed in the famous battle of Morat, 
 we found a General d'Erlac, of the celebrated family of that 
 name, who was waiting for the General-in-chief, in the 
 expectation that he would stop to see the monument. 
 General Bonaparte not being in military uniform, the 
 stranger, without knowing him, gave him all the par- 
 ticulars he could wish respecting the victory of the Swiss. 
 After he had examined the military position, he only said, 
 " Charles the Bold must have been a great madman ! " 
 This reflection, uttered in a firm tone, apprised M. d'Erlac 
 that he was in the presence of the hero he had so much 
 wished to see. A respectful bow, and a compliment ex- 
 pressed with emotion, were the only homage he was enabled 
 to pay him, for the General proceeded on his journey. 
 
 Two days afterwards we passed through Offenbach, the 
 headquarters of Augereau, the general-in-chief of the 
 Rhine army. General Bonaparte stopped before his door, 
 and sending him word that he was there, but in too great a 
 hurry to get out of his carriage, he added that he wished to 
 see him for one moment. The lieutenant of the general- 
 in-chief had, however, already begun to forget him, and his 
 only answer was that he was dressing. This unpoliteness 
 was but ill repaired the next day, when he sent his aide-de- 
 camp. Augereau's hatred of General Bonaparte augmented 
 in proportion with his wrongs, and only ended with his life. 
 
 By the treaty of Campo Formio it was agreed that a 
 congress should assemble at Rastadt to treat of peace 
 between the Empire and the French Republic. The choice 
 of the place recalled to memory the celebrated period of 
 1707, when the Castle of Rastadt united on its walls the 
 Duke de Villars and Prince Eugene of Savoy. This time 
 the Emperor did not think fit to be represented by one of 
 his warriors. They had all of them been beaten by the 
 
ISO MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 French. Count Metternich represented the Roman Em- 
 peror, and Count Latorbach the King of Bohemia and 
 Hungary. Count Cobentzel came there with other nego- 
 tiators, who had signed the treaty of Campo Formio. On 
 the side of France there was M. Treilhard, late member of 
 the Convention, who not only had voted for the death of 
 the King, but who had even boasted at the time that it was 
 he who had persuaded the Duke of Orleans to give the same 
 vote. He was a very learned lawyer, and a man of rigid 
 character. The criminal code was composed by him. He 
 was far from being eloquent, and had not even an easy style 
 of elocution. He was accompanied by M. Bonnier d'Arco, 
 a harsh man, of a violent, and frequently untractable 
 humour. These two plenipotentiaries were all but pleasing 
 to the diplomatists covered with stars, and whose ancient 
 names were preceded by their high-sounding titles. The 
 contrast was singular ; for the two ambassadors of the 
 Republic never wore any but round hats, and their shoes 
 were fastened with strings ; but the other nations were 
 obliged to submit to the French Republic, and the railleries 
 to which these two gentlemen were exposed were never 
 expressed in their presence. The General-in-chief had no 
 desire to remain at Rastadt. The obscure discussions of 
 the negotiation, and the artful finesse of the German 
 chancery, would have been a sad recompense for the fatigue 
 he had suffered in the army, and a still sadder one for his 
 victories. Nothing therefore took place but mere form. 
 Only one remarkable circumstance happened during his 
 short stay. The King of Sweden, in his quality of the 
 Grand Duke of Pomerania, had sent to the Congress ot 
 Rastadt Count Fersen, formerly celebrated at the Court ot 
 France, and who had acted so conspicuous a part in the 
 famous journey to Varennes. The hatred of his Sovereign 
 for France was a well-known fact, and the Count could not 
 be agreeable. He happened to express the fatal wish of his 
 being presented to the General. When he was in his 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 151 
 
 presence, the latter said to him, " How could you expect, 
 sir, you could be able to serve the interests of Sweden — 
 you who are only known by your affection for a government 
 iustly proscribed in France, and by your useless exertions 
 for its re-establishment ? " M. de Fersen replied by a few 
 words which we did not hear. General Berthier, who was 
 present, wishing to relieve him, recalled to his memory that 
 they had fought together in America. By that means the 
 ambassador retired a little less perplexed, and the next day 
 he left Rastadt, whither he did not return until some time 
 after. 
 
 Two days after this scene General Bonaparte set oflF for 
 Paris, leaving me at the Congress with M. Perret, Secretary 
 of the Legation at Campo Formio. " I cannot take you 
 with me to Paris," he said ; " the Directory has not yet 
 forgot your conduct on the i8th Fructidor, and this is not 
 the fit moment for justifying yourself. I shall make you 
 amends for this hereafter. Remain here. Write me all 
 you hear of the diplomatic gossip. You will not easily 
 find again the same opportunity of gaining instruction. I 
 leave with you some of my servants, for I want people to 
 think I shall soon come back." 
 
 His intention was not, however, to return to Rastadt. 
 The difficulties brought in by the insinuations of M. de 
 Thougeat every moment impeded the negotiations. After 
 three months' debates, nothing was agreed on as to the 
 manner of concluding. The deputies of the powers of the 
 second order in Germany, a great many members of the 
 " immediate " nobility, and the numerous and rich holders of 
 livings, sought support from the King of Prussia, who had 
 neither the will nor the power to protect them. Convinced 
 of the hatred of the Emperor, and of his resolution to 
 sacrifice them, the greater number amongst them sought 
 another support by secret negotiations with the minister of 
 France. 
 
 My position had become very diflScuIt. I was detested by 
 
152 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 the members of the Directory, and consequently mistrusted 
 by the plenipotentiaries of the Republic. I could not 
 mention the real motive that kept me at Rastadt. My 
 presence at the Congress was displeasing to Messrs. Treil- 
 hard and Bonnier ; and the ministers of Germany, obliged 
 by their position to oiFer a kind reception to the French who 
 resided with them, looked upon me as their representative ; 
 and, finding it less painful to have a connection with an 
 officer who enjoyed the confidence of General Bonaparte, 
 they bestowed on me alone the attention they ought to have 
 divided amongst us, and left nothing but cold ceremony for 
 the others. Consequently, I was continually in company 
 with Count Cobentzel and the family of Metternich. But 
 I took care to acquaint General Bonaparte with my new 
 position. He approved of it, recommending me, however, 
 to act with due discretion. I shall not repeat the particulars 
 of what took place during five months in this small German 
 town. Diplomatic prattle, debates, generally without result, 
 grand dinners, and ennui, would by no means interest the 
 reader. However, he may possibly be glad to know what I 
 have since learned respecting the murder of the plenipoten- 
 tiaries of the Republic. These particulars were communi- 
 cated to me by the Prince of Leiningen and the Count of 
 Solms Laubach, with whom I was very intimate. They 
 were at Rastadt on their own business, and showed in that 
 catastrophe much courage and devotion for our unfortunate 
 ministers. 
 
 These ministers had eagerly taken advantage of the secret 
 proceedings of the ministers of the second and third rank 
 and several members of the nobility of Germany. In hopes 
 of being spared if the war broke out again, they promised to 
 side with France. These secret dealings could not escape 
 me, as, by the situation of my apartments in the castle, 
 I frequently met the Secretaries of Legation of the small 
 Princes of Germany sneaking in at Messieurs Treilhard and 
 Bonnier's lodgings, which were not very distant from mine. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 153 
 
 When M. Roberjot came instead of M. Treilhard, those 
 manoeuvres grew still more frequent. He had filled several 
 diplomatic missions ; and his manners were more polite and 
 attractive than those of his colleagues. Count Lehrbach, a 
 man of determined character, full of energy, and a sworn 
 •enemy of France, was undoubtedly soon acquainted with 
 the disposition of the hidden foes of Austria. The more the 
 negotiations advanced, the more evident it appeared that 
 the peace would not be of long standing ; and the war was 
 already secretly resolved, when the news came that General 
 Bonaparte had embarked for the East, with some of the 
 most able French generals, and thirty thousand of the best 
 troops of the Republic. Count Lehrbach left Rastadt a 
 short time before the commencement of hostilities, and it 
 can scarcely be doubted but that it was he who induced 
 the Austrian Cabinet to resolve to arrest the ministers of 
 France. 
 
 A regiment of hussars of Szeckler, a sort of pandiers, 
 recruited on the frontiers of Turkey, already surrounded 
 Rastadt, when the French ministers received an order to 
 leave the place. The Baden commander of the town had in 
 vain advised them to set oiT in the morning, that they might 
 cross the Rhine before nightfall. Their preparations caused 
 delay : they were encumbered with papers they wished to 
 keep, and they were besides convinced that their sacred 
 character of ambassadors would shelter them from insult. 
 The day was far advanced when they departed. At a few 
 leagues from Rastadt they were stopped and murdered. I 
 am persuaded that the Austrian Government did not give 
 an order for murdering them, but only for seizing their 
 papers ; while the soldiers, finding a great deal of money 
 about them, urged by avarice, and probably intoxicated, 
 thought the best way would be to stifle their complaints by 
 murdering them. 
 
 I arrived at Paris about a month before our departure for 
 Toulon. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 I SHALL speak hereafter of my marriage with Mademoiselle 
 Emilia Beauharnais. The preparations of the Eastern 
 expedition had been made very secretly. The Directory 
 had not even entrusted to their clerks the task of coppng 
 the various orders that were to be transcribed, and the secret 
 had been so well kept that England in no way suspected our 
 design, nor could take any means to prevent it. Fourteen 
 ships of the line were assembled at Toulon. Each ship took 
 only half the necessary number of seamen, the rest of the 
 crews was composed of all the regiments of the army. 
 Admiral Brueys commanded the fleet ; and the officers who 
 served under his orders, all full of ardour, had most of them 
 already acquired reputation as clever men. 
 
 Besides the fleet of Toulon, troops who were embarked at 
 Genoa, Ajaccio, and Civita Vecchia had received orders to 
 join the fleet before its arrival at Malta. I embarked on 
 board the frigate Artemzsa, which was a sort of aide-de-camp 
 to the admiral. The flotilla of General Desaix not having 
 come to the rendezvous, the Artemtsa was sent on discovery. 
 General Murat joined us ; and when we were not far from 
 Malta, he obliged the captain to give him a boat, that he 
 might go down to the outward defences of Valetta. This 
 was an act of imprudence : he was also guilty of another, 
 which I shall mention, because it gives an idea of the 
 character of that general. While cruising before Malta, 
 the only man-of-war the Order possessed came up to us, 
 wanting to get into the port. Murat made a signal for 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. IJS 
 
 her to steer leeward of our frigate. This was contrary to 
 custom : but the captain of the Maltese ship being taken 
 unawares, and intimidated at sight of the tricoloured flag, 
 obeyed the signal without hesitation ; on his arrival he 
 spread the alarm ; and the city, which we might have taken 
 by surprise, was in a state of defence when we landed. 
 
 On the loth of June the fleet at last appeared in sight of 
 Malta. The aspect of so large a fleet, with four hundred 
 transports and a formidable army, threw the Grand Master 
 and his council into the greatest dismay, and spread confu- 
 sion among the Knights and inhabitants of the island. The 
 disorder augmented, and a French Knight had already been 
 murdered by the populace of the city, when the General-in- 
 chief sent his aide-de-camp, Junot, to summon the Grand 
 Master to open the gates. The answer being that the 
 Government was resolved to defend the place, a part of the 
 army landed, attacked all the small forts which defended the 
 shore, took possession of them, and soon after invested the 
 town. The fortifications of Valetta consist of a ditch dug 
 in the rock, the dimensions of which make an attack 
 extremely difficult. It was quite impossible to open the 
 trenches, as all the island together could not have procured 
 us wood nor even earth enough to establish our batteries 
 and shelter us from the fire of the fortress. Fortunately, 
 the Grand Master was seized with fear. The Russian 
 Consul had already required that the island should be 
 delivered over to some Russian troops who were expected. 
 The Grand Master, fancying that the Order of Malta was 
 irretrievably lost, and forgetting that from one moment to 
 another an English fleet might arrive and deliver him, 
 resolved to sign a capitulation with General Bonaparte. 
 The treaty was soon concluded ; and, two days after our 
 arrival, the army was master of the city and forts, and the 
 fleet at anchor in the fine harbour of Valetta. General 
 Caffarelli, on examining more minutely the fortifications, 
 said to the General-in-chief — " It is very lucky for us that 
 
156 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAV ALETTE. 
 
 there were people in the place to open the gates for us ; for 
 if it had been deserted, the army would never have got 
 in, notwithstanding all our exertions." Next day the Grand 
 Master and all his officers went on board of a brig, and I 
 received orders to conduct them, with the frigate Artemt'sa, 
 to the extremity of the Adriatic Gulf, that they might not 
 fall into the hands of the Barbary corsairs, who would have 
 considered them glorious trophies. Two days after our de- 
 parture we met a Ragusan vessel, from whom we learned 
 that she had seen in the morning an English fleet steering 
 towards Malta. Fortunately the army and its chief were 
 already gone off. Our great fleet, with our four hundred 
 transports, sailed during the night along the north coast 
 of Candia, while Nelson was waiting for it on the south. 
 
 It was long discussed in the fleet what would have been 
 the result if Nelson had met us. The military officers, and 
 especially those who were on board the ships of the line, 
 were convinced that we should have beaten the English 
 fleet : General Bonaparte supported that opinion by all the 
 authority his name could add to it. I must, however, 
 acknowledge that I never shared it. Four hundred trans- 
 ports, the captains of which were but in a small part 
 Frenchmen, and which extended along all points of the 
 horizon, would quickly have been dispersed by the English 
 frigates. In spite of all our exertions, we should have 
 experienced great losses. The Egyptian expedition would 
 no more have been practicable ; but the army might have 
 thrown itself on the coast of Sicily, and have made itself 
 master of that island. The cowardice of the Grand Master, 
 and the wretched defence of the Knights of Malta, were a 
 stroke of fortune that seemed to protect the destiny of the 
 General-in-chief. 
 
 I had received an order to inspect the fortifications of 
 Corfu, and the magazines with which that city was pro- 
 vided.' From thence I was to go and acquaint Ali, the 
 ' See Appendix, No. I. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 157 
 
 Pacha of Janina, with the conquest of Egypt, and try to 
 persuade him, that as we remained friends with the Grand 
 Seigneur, it was his interest not to break with France. My 
 mission was difficult and dangerous. We knew AH Pacha 
 for a man incapable of keeping faith. He was then on a 
 good understanding with the troops dispersed through the 
 Ionian Islands, and the coast of that part of Greece over 
 which he had command ; but it was certain he would 
 abandon us and become our enemy as soon as his policy 
 might show him any advantage on the other side. When I 
 arrived at Corfu I met General Chabot, who asked me 
 whether I was the bearer of rich presents for Ali Pacha, and 
 of a great deal of money to pave my way ; for he added, 
 " These are the best arguments you can make use of with 
 him." These were precisely the things General Bona- 
 parte had forgot. " But," said he, "you need not be uneasy : 
 the Pacha is on the Danube, fighting, much against his will, 
 at Udin, with Paswan Ogla." This account took a great 
 burden off my mind. I hastened to execute the other part 
 of my mission, and got to Egypt. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 At a few leagues from Aboukir, whither I had received 
 orders to go, the frigate I was on board of was chased by an 
 English vessel that came to reconnoitre the fleet. This hap- 
 pened on the 2 1st of July. I went on board the Orient to 
 see Admiral Brueys, the commander of the fleet. I had not 
 expected to find the fleet moored in the roads of Aboukir. 
 The following is word for word what the Admiral said to me. 
 " When General Bonaparte left Alexandria to penetrate into 
 the Desert, he gave me the choice either to enter the old 
 port of Alexandria, or to go with the fleet to Corfu, after 
 having landed all the goods and provisions of the army. 
 Since that moment I have received no account whatever 
 from the army, nor its leader. I have sounded the passes of 
 the old port ; but it can only be entered with a north-west 
 wind, and by boats : this has taken up much time, and the 
 
 is the only ship that has as yet been able to get into 
 
 the port. It is quite impossible for me to leave the coast of 
 Egypt before I receive accounts from the army. Can I set 
 off and enter a port of Europe, without having any satis- 
 factory news to give France and her Government ? If, what 
 I scarcely think possible. General Bonaparte were to find in 
 the country insurmountable obstacles, and if he were obliged 
 to re-embark, would it not be a criminal act on my part to 
 deprive him of the only means of retreat he has left at my 
 disposal ? I have seen to-day an English vessel for the first 
 time since I have been here. Most probably I shall be 
 
 IS8 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 159 
 
 attacked to-morrow or the day after. I shall send for the 
 vessel that is in the old port. If you follow my advice, you 
 will remain with us. We have sanguine hopes of success, 
 and you will enjoy the satisfaction of carrying to your Gene- 
 ral the intelligence of a glorious victory. As I could neither 
 enter the old port of Alexandria, nor go away, I have taken 
 up a sort of military position here. I have been forced to 
 moor the ships ; because, having left Toulon with half-crews, 
 I have not men enough to fight sailing." To this Admiral 
 Gantheaume added: "We are at some distance from the 
 island you see yonder, because the ground there will not 
 hold our anchors, and it would be dangerous to run nearer 
 to the shore ; but we are defended from that side by a for- 
 midable battery." 
 
 After my conversation with the Admiral, I went during 
 the night, alone, over that immense ship, which carried 130 
 guns. I did not meet a single person upon deck ; it 
 appeared to me as if I were in the Church of Notre Dame. 
 A circumstance that made the solitude still more singular 
 was that, before our landing, there had been 2,145 persons 
 on board, and at that moment there were not above six hun- 
 dred. The more I examined that vast floating citadel, the 
 less inclined I felt t-o take part in the battle. In fact, I was 
 not a sea officer, and my duty was to join my general. There 
 would be no want of messengers to bring him intelligence of 
 a victory, whilst I should reap much blame and very little 
 pity, if by some disaster or other I were to be taken prisoner 
 or killed. I went therefore to the Admiral and said to him-: 
 " After mature consideration, I am resolved to continue my 
 journey. I must give an account of my mission, and the 
 position wherein I found you." He gave me a boat to carry 
 me to Rosetta ; but I soon repented the step I had taken. 
 The swell occasioned by the meeting of the Nile with the 
 sea was then very strong, and a violent tempest added to the 
 danger that threatened us. A vessel laden with provisions 
 had just been totally lost ; another much larger, which was 
 
i6o MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 still struggling, was kind enough to throw us a rope, that 
 we might fasten the boat to her, and avoid running out to 
 sea, where we might go to the bottom, or split upon the 
 breakers. We remained seventeen hours in that situation, 
 when at last, the sea growing a little less boisterous, I pro- 
 posed getting forward at a quick rate, so as to gain the 
 mouth of the Nile. The sailors were not much pleased at 
 my plan ; but I was seconded by the ensign who commanded 
 the boat, and who was a young man full of energy and 
 intrepidity. The first billow nearly submerged us. One 
 more effort was necessary ; and while the sailors, pale as 
 death, continued rowing with vigour, one of my travelling 
 companions, an officer in the Guides, fell on his knees and 
 began the Lord's Prayer, of which he did not omit a single 
 word. When the danger was over, his courage returned, 
 and, ashamed of an act he could not himself comprehend, he 
 whispered to me : "I am now thirty-eight years old, and 
 from my sixth year I never said a prayer in my life. I can- 
 not conceive how I recollected that one ; and I do declare 
 that at the present moment I should not be able to repeat a 
 single word of it." This officer was nevertheless one of the 
 bravest of the Egyptian army. I think he died a general of 
 brigade in Spain. 
 
 At Rosetta I found that the commander, Bidon Julien, 
 knew no more about the army than Admiral Brueys did. 
 " I am, however, easy," he said to me. " The inhabitants are 
 perplexed, and that is a sure sign that we are victorious. 
 You have nothing to fear on the Nile : I shall give you an 
 armed vessel to carry you to Cairo, of which place the army 
 must by this time have taken possession." The day after I 
 embarked on the Nile, I met Arrighi (now Duke of Padua), 
 who had come from Cairo, and was conveying to the 
 Admiral an account of our victories, with the reiterated 
 order to go to Corfu. When I told the General-in-chief that 
 the fleet was still at Aboukir, he showed signs of great ill- 
 humour ; and fearing that Arrighi might encounter diffi- 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. i6i 
 
 culties in his way, and not join the Admiral quick enough, 
 he sent off that very night his aide-de-camp, Juhen, with 
 fresh orders. The unfortunate youth went down the Nile 
 in a djerme, escorted by a dozen soldiers. His want of ex- 
 perience was the cause of his death. Having entered the 
 branch of Alexandria, he thought he might rest for the 
 night ; but the Arabs murdered him and his escort. In him 
 General Bonaparte lost one of the best officers of his staff, 
 and I a most excellent friend. 
 
 The English were above a fortnight without showing 
 themselves ; and Arrighi found the Admiral, who was 
 convinced that they had counted the number of his ships, 
 and did not dare to engage. It was not until the first of 
 August that Nelson appeared off Alexandria with fourteen 
 ships of the line and several frigates. The particulars of 
 the battle, at which, however, I was not present, are too 
 well known to require my repeating them here. 
 
 Although but a few days had elapsed since the arrival of 
 the General-in-chief in Cairo, he had been preceded, as he 
 was everywhere else, by such strict orders and excellent ad- 
 ministration, that the soldiers, and in general all the French, 
 were accustomed to walk through the metropolis and its 
 environs without feeUng the slightest uneasiness. The city 
 of Cairo presented a curious spectacle to the Europeans 
 who saw it for the first time. I had landed at Boulack on 
 the Nile, at a great distance from the square of El Bekir, 
 where General Bonaparte lived. The narrow streets of the 
 city were filled with camels fastened to one another in long 
 rows, carrying all sorts of goods on their backs, a:nd led by 
 a single man. The inhabitants passed through the small 
 vacant spaces with slow gravity and with their pipes in 
 their mouths ; while our soldiers, mounted on donkeys, 
 galloped cheerfully, sliding between the camels and bursting 
 into roars of laughter. A shocking dust and an offensive 
 smell of mummies suffocated us. Here and there a few 
 grave Mussulmans, seated on their mules, opened them- 
 
 12 
 
i62 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 selves a passage by the aid of their stick-bearers, who struck 
 all that opposed them, and even the men who did not rise 
 at their approach. Beggars, carefully hiding their faces, 
 and little inclined to discover what ours show, pestered the 
 passers-by with their singular cries, and seemed to be 
 soliciting alms with angry imprecations. 
 
 Mourad Bey, after the battle of the Pyramids, had sought 
 refuge in Upper Egypt. He had still with him several 
 thousand Mamelukes. His influence over people was con- 
 siderable ; and, as it might prove dangerous, the General- 
 in-chief, while he was preparing against him the expedition 
 entrusted to Desaix, tried to gain him over by secret negotia- 
 tions. His legitimate wife and his whole harem remained 
 at Cairo. Bonaparte sent Eugfene Beauharnais to the wife 
 with his compliments, and the assurance that she had 
 nothing to fear. She received Eugfene politely, and, in 
 return for the presents the General in-chief had sent her, 
 she gave him her husband's beautiful shawl and some of his 
 arms. But the respect shown to the wife of Mourad Bey 
 had no effect on that chief. The vigour and talent of 
 General Desaix, and the courage of our troops, who more 
 than once forced him to retire to the Oasis, and reduced his 
 followers to a few faithful friend-s, could not persuade that 
 intrepid leader to lend an ear to any arrangement whatever ; 
 and it was not until after two years' conflict and adversity 
 that he had at last consented to come to an understanding 
 with the head of the French army ; but at that time General 
 Bonaparte had already left Egypt. 
 
 It had been supposed that in so fruitful a country all the 
 wealth of the East would be accumulated. Instead of that, 
 we found misery everywhere. The government of the 
 Mamelukes was devoid of either common sense or modera- 
 tion. Besides the miri and another tax which the people of 
 Egypt were obliged to pay to the Grand Seigneur, they were 
 loaded with imposts, which the caprice and t3n-anny of the 
 subordinate officers were perpetually inventing. The Beys, 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 163 
 
 who were the chiefs of the Mamelukes, the officers quartered 
 in the different provinces, and even the private horsemen 
 who were sent to maintain order in the villages, thought 
 themselves entitled to impose and levy taxes more or less 
 heavy. The fellah^ or peasant, groaned under the load of 
 these numerous exactions ; and if he was unfortunate 
 enough to have children of either sex that drew the at- 
 tention of the leaders, they were taken away from him to 
 satisfy their brutal lust. 
 
 One of the first measures of the General-in-chief was to 
 set the people secure in regard to their property, to make 
 them comprehend the plain and judicious system of taxation 
 about to be established, and to acquaint them that for the 
 arbitrary laws to which they were subject under the Mame- 
 lukes would be substituted, in each province, divans com- 
 posed of the most reputable men, to judge their disputes. 
 These various declarations soon dissipated alarm ; and we 
 had, in fact, no cause to complain of the people during the 
 •first six months of our stay in the country. 
 
 The Arab tribes were still, however, very dangerous. 
 We had succeeded in making peace with some of them ; 
 but several others, more numerous and better armed, con- 
 tinued frequently to interrupt our communications and 
 plunder our convoys, by land as well as on the Nile. We 
 were in consequence obliged to organise a system of pursuit, 
 which was followed up with so much energy that the tribes 
 felt at last convinced that they must either submit or retire 
 to other deserts. 
 
 Mourad Bey, who was now in Upper Egypt, gave us no 
 more cause of uneasiness ; but Ibrahim Bey, next to Mourad 
 the most powerful leader of the Mamelukes, had gone for- 
 ward to meet the caravan returning from Mecca ; and, 
 under the pretence of defending it against the French 
 army, he stopped it in its way, and plundered it. He 
 afterwards returned to Egypt by the way of Salahieh, and 
 proclaimed his intention of attacking the French army from 
 
1 64 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 that side. General Regnier, whom I accompanied on that 
 short expedition, had not much trouble with the Arabs and 
 Mamelukes of the vanguard ; but he was conscious that his 
 small division would soon be destroyed if no one came to 
 his assistance. I went to acquaint the General-in-chief with 
 this circumstance, who immediately flew to help him, at 
 the head of some regiments of cavalry which he had 
 succeeded in mounting with the horses he found in Lower 
 Egypt. The Mamelukes were beaten at Salahieh, from 
 which place the battle took its name. It was then that the 
 General-in-chief learned the disaster of our fleet at Aboukir. 
 The news was brought to him by an aide-de-camp of 
 General Kleber. The officer's horse being unable to go 
 any further, he had written some particulars in an open 
 letter, which I found in the hands of a peasant to whom he 
 had entrusted it. I read the letter, and advancing towards 
 the General-in-chief, I begged him to withdraw for a moment 
 from the group of staff ofBcers which surrounded him. I 
 then gave him the note. When he had read it he said to 
 me, *' You know its contents ; keep the secret." We re- 
 turned to Belbeys, where we found breakfast on the table. 
 Everybody was in good spirits, and particularly the troops, 
 who had retaken from the Mamelukes the spoil of the 
 caravan. They were going to sell the goods for almost 
 nothing ; but the General-in-chief forbade the officers to 
 buy any of them there, and ordered the soldiers to dispose 
 of them on their return to Cairo. All of a sudden, while 
 breakfasting, the General-in-chief said to his guests : " It 
 seems, you like this country : that is very lucky, for we 
 have now no fleet to carry us back to Europe." He then 
 acquainted them with the particulars of the battle of 
 Aboukir, and they were listened to with as much earnest- 
 ness as the General had related them. Every one soon 
 appeared reconciled to the event, and nobody talked any 
 more of it. 
 
CHAPTER XVni. 
 
 Ibrahim Bey had retired to Syria, and there was no doubt 
 but he would organise in that country considerable bodies 
 of irregular troops which would disturb our frontiers. The 
 General-in-chief had also learned that the news of the 
 invasion of Egypt had been received with great displeasure 
 at Constantinople. 
 
 The English, enraged at the conquest of Malta, and 
 sensible of the important consequences of the occupation 
 of Egypt to their establishments in India, pressed the Turks 
 to go to war. The General-in-chief had therefore reason to 
 expect that he would not only be continually harassed by 
 Ibrahim Bey, but also that the English would make them- 
 selves masters of the ports of Syria. He took a resolution 
 to be beforehand with them ; but it was first of all necessary 
 to know what might be the dispositions of the Pacha who 
 commanded all Syria. The name of the Pacha for the time 
 being was Djezzar, a man of a very energetic character, who 
 had maintained himself for several years in his post, in spite 
 of the Sultan himself, and who enforced obedience by the 
 terror his cruelties inspired. The General-in-chief sent to 
 him a young Frenchman, just come home from Mascata 
 with the Consul Beauchamp, and who was very well ac- 
 quainted with the Arabic language. Djezzar sent an 
 ambiguous answer, which served to convince General 
 Bonaparte that it would be necessary to support his de- 
 
 i6s 
 
i66 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 clarations with an army. But a fatal incident occurred, 
 which threatened the expedition with an indefinite delay. 
 While perfect tranquillity seemed to prevail in Cairo and 
 its outskirts, a rebellion, without any apparent cause, sud- 
 denly broke out at one of the gates of the city. 
 
 A number of wounded, who had been at the battle of 
 Salahieh, and some invalids of the division of Regnier, 
 filling about twenty transports, were murdered, and the 
 rebellion quickly spread through the city like wildfire. 
 General Dupuis, commander of the fortress, immediately 
 mounted his horse, with all the men he could bring together ; 
 but he was assassinated, with several of his companions. To 
 oppose the rebels any longer in the streets was not to be 
 thought of. Means were, however, found to restrain them, 
 though they had made themselves masters of one of the 
 largest mosques in the town. It was then resolved to fire 
 on them from the citadel. The bombs and howitzers made 
 great havoc among them ; after which, some battalions of 
 infantry attacked the mosque, where all the rest were killed 
 or taken prisoners. This rebellion lasted three days, and 
 did not occasion any great loss to the army ; but the 
 General-in-chief lost one of his best aides-de-camp. Colonel 
 Siilkowski had already been wounded at Alexandria, and 
 also at the battle of Salahieh, and was not yet completely 
 recovered, when, the General-in-chief wishing to send some 
 officer to reconnoitre out of the city, he offered himself, 
 pretending that it was his turn to march, and that his 
 wound was entirely healed. Accompanied by fifteen guides, 
 he was crossing that part of the Desert that separates the 
 town of Cairo from the citadel, when a troop of Arabs, that 
 had concealed themselves behind a number of small hillocks, 
 suddenly rushed upon him. He was killed, with the greatest 
 part of his escort ; for only two men returned to Cairo, 
 TVhere they brought the fatal tidings. I was not then in 
 Cairo.' By order of the General-in-chief, I was accom- 
 • See Appendix. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 167 
 
 panying General Andreossi on an expedition to the lake 
 Mensale and Peluse. We were completely ignorant of what 
 was going forward in the capital ; and I was sailing leisurely 
 up the Nile, when I learned that at Mansoura, or Laman- 
 sour, the hospital containing our sick and wounded, with a 
 detachment of soldiers, had been surprised, and all the men 
 butchered without mercy. The rebellion of Cairo had 
 reached the two banks of the river, and more particularly 
 the branch of the Damietta. Some revolted villages were 
 burned to make an example. The General-in-chief was 
 very desirous to know whether the inhabitants of Mansoura 
 had retained any remembrance of their victorious resistance, 
 when, under the reign of St. Louis, they had been so im- 
 prudently attacked by the Count d'Artois. But it appeared, 
 from all inquiries, that these Egyptians were acquainted 
 neither with the name of St. Louis, nor with the gallant 
 actions that had illustrated their ancestors. 
 
 In the month of December, 1798, the General-in-chief 
 had not yet received any accounts from the Directory. The 
 political object of the expedition had experienced great 
 impediments by the loss of the fleet. It was no longer to 
 be hoped we should ever be able to lead the army to India, 
 the superiority of the English being now concentrated on 
 the sea. All that remained therefore to be done was- to 
 profit by our situation, to bring back the Turks to their old 
 sentiments of friendship for the French, and detach them 
 from the English, or at least to prevent the two Emperors 
 of Austria and Russia from concerting with each other the 
 total dismembering of the Ottoman empire. The General- 
 in-chief thought himself authorised to suppose that M. de 
 Talleyrand, who had been appointed French Ambassador in 
 Constantinople, had really departed for that metropolis, and 
 had succeeded in maintaining his post there. In those 
 circumstances it was important to correspond with him, and 
 the best way appeared to be, to send M. Beauchamp to 
 Constantinople ; but it was necessary for him to escape the 
 
i68 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 watchful eyes of the English cruisers. General Bonaparte 
 contrived, for that purpose, the following plan. The 
 Turkish caravella which had come over to bring the Sultan 
 the yearly tribute from Egypt was then riding at anchor in 
 the port of Alexandria. The captain of that vessel was a 
 man respected in his own country, and he had with him his 
 two sons. He received an order to carry M. Beauchamp to 
 Constantinople, and to leave one of his sons in Alexandria 
 as a hostage for the safe return of that gentleman to Egypt. 
 The ostensible commission of the Consul was to require the 
 release of all the Frenchmen who were detained in Syria, 
 whether merchants or consular agents, and also of such 
 military as had been made prisoners either in coming to 
 Egypt or in returning to France. He was, in the course of 
 his negotiation with the Grand Vizier, to insinuate that 
 France would abandon Egypt, and make a treaty of friend- 
 ship with Turkey, if the latter consented to give up all her 
 connections with England ; in which case, the French 
 troops would join those of the Sultan, either to put an end 
 to the war with the two Emperors by one common treaty, 
 or to give him support, if peace should not take place. 
 
 Unfortunately, M. Beauchamp was discovered by the 
 EngUsh, and sent to the Seven Towers at Constantinople. 
 
 It was about this time that the plague began its ravages 
 at Alexandria. I was ordered to accompany M. Beauchamp 
 to that place, that I might superintend the preparations for 
 his departure,' and make a report to the General-in-chJef on 
 the state of the fortifications there. When I arrived, I 
 found General Marmont commanding the province and the 
 whole seashore as far as Rosetta. " You arrive at an unfor- 
 tunate moment," he said: "the plague has broken out 
 yesterday among our troops. It appears that the order 
 given on our arrival at Alexandria, to burn the ' clothes of 
 the persons who had died of the contagion, has been 
 negligently executed. Some of the inhabitants have worn 
 ' See Appendix. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 169 
 
 them again ; and, our troops being in close connection with 
 them, the contact has spread the plague among the French, 
 and I have been assured that it cannot fail soon to break out 
 also among the Turks. Yesterday four Frenchmen died ; 
 there are eight sick to-day, who will probably be numbered 
 •with the dead to-morrow." 
 
 All possible precautions had already been taken by 
 General Marmont : the troops were lodged under tents, 
 and all communication betwixt them and the inhabitants 
 ■was prohibited. The most rigorous orders had also been 
 issued, forbidding the battalions to which the sick belonged 
 to hold any connection with the others ; but the careless- 
 ness of the soldiers destroyed all the good effects of these 
 measures. They looked upon the plague as an enemy it 
 was their duty to challenge ; and the communication of the 
 soldiers with each other continued, notwithstanding the 
 severest discipline. My orders were to order Commissary 
 Michaud from Rosetta to Alexandria ; he came with a 
 suite of ten persons, and lodged with us at General Mar- 
 mont's. In the space of two days he was the only survivor 
 of all those he had brought with him. One of his 
 secretaries, named Renaud, left the hotel to go and sign 
 some orders at the lodgings his master had taken in the 
 ■city. The paper on which he wrote sufficed to communicate 
 the disease to his blood. The next morning he sent word 
 that he was not very well, and could not breakfast at the 
 General's table. We went immediately to see him. He 
 was still up ; but his features already bore all the marks 
 of the fatal malady : his eye glared, his tongue faltered, 
 he had a profuse cold perspiration, and pains in his limbs. 
 The physician who was called to visit him just appeared at 
 the door of his room, with a thick long stick in his hand. 
 After having looked at him for a moment, he ordered hot 
 water to be placed before him, and retired without adminis- 
 tering any other remedy. The unfortunate young man 
 Pegged us to get him ink and paper, that he might write to 
 
170 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 his family. In the afternoon he expired in great agony ; sO' 
 that his illness did not last above fifteen hours. 
 
 The contagion soon assumed a most terrible aspect. All 
 the physicians died successively ; the overseers of the in- 
 firmaries went away, and it was no longer possible to enter 
 the hospitals with impunity. We were obliged to take 
 Turks to nurse the sick, and to pay a very great price for 
 their services ; while the superintendence over them was so 
 relaxed, on account of the danger with which it was accom- 
 panied, that the most flagrant misconduct was not to be 
 prevented. At General Marmont's lodgings we had been 
 obliged to do without tablecloths or sheets ; all our clothes 
 were fumigated ; the out-door servants had no connection 
 with those of the interior. The carriage gateway was nailed 
 up ; while everything that was brought to the house from 
 out of doors, and even the meat, was thrown through a 
 wicket into a tub of water. With a view to avoid the 
 infection among us, we divided ourselves into two brigades ;, 
 and during the night we pursued each other from room to 
 room, throwing water in our faces, which was the only 
 ammunition we possessed. Among the few soldiers who 
 consented to nurse the sick, there was a gunner who had 
 been in Constantinople, where he pretended that he had 
 escaped the plague. According to his assertion, he pos-' 
 sessed an infallible preservative against the infection, which 
 was, to keep his face and hands perpetually moistened 
 with water. But it was discovered that he washed his' 
 hands in oil. Indeed, it had been observed in Cairo, that 
 the lamplighters never caught the plague. After remaining 
 six weeks in the unfortunate city of Alexandria, I received 
 from the General-in-chief an order to return to Cairo, that 
 I might accompany him in his campaign to Syria.' 
 
 The Arabs of the province of Damanhour, being well 
 acquainted with the situation of our troops at Alexandria, 
 took advantage of it to renew their depredations. I set off 
 ' See Appendix. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 171 
 
 with an escort of thirty men, and two small cannons we had 
 taken at Malta, and which General Marmont was kind 
 enough to entrust to me, to increase my slender means of 
 defence ; but I was obliged, according to custom, to take 
 under my protection a numerous caravan of peasants, 
 women, and children, who profited by my departure to 
 return to Damanhour and Ramanieh. We had scarcely 
 advanced two leagues when the Arabs began to hover about 
 our flanks. The French infantry, which a few months 
 before had not even courage enough to fly before the Arabs, 
 so soon accustomed themselves to dare them, that I had the 
 greatest trouble to prevent them from strolling about the 
 plain for the purpose of firing at these enemies. Two or 
 three Arabs were dismounted, and then, to put them com- 
 pletely to the rout, I had only to fire my two cannons at 
 them. On my arrival in Cairo, the General-in-chief had 
 already gone off. He had left the place two days before ^ 
 leaving me an order to traverse the city in all directions 
 with the Police Aga, to know whether all was quiet. The 
 Aga was at that time a Greek, called Barthelemi. He was 
 accompanied by his guards, the executioner and his servants. 
 We walked with a solemn pace, and at the sight of the Aga 
 all the pedlars in the streets, and those whose conscience 
 was not quite clear, immediately disappeared. In the Rue 
 du Petit Thouars, he stopped facing a coffee-house ; and his 
 stick-bearer, who walked before him, dragged along by force 
 a man, to whom he addressed some questions. The poor 
 fellow answered in great confusion. After reflecting for a 
 moment, the Cadi slowly made a horizontal motion with 
 his right hand, and we gravely continued our walk. The 
 gesture of the Cadi appeared singular to me. When we 
 had got thirty steps farther, I turned round, and seeing a 
 group of persons assembled before the coffee-house, I spurred 
 my horse, and perceived with horror a mutilated corpse, and 
 the executioner calmly putting a human head into his bag. 
 " What's the meaning of this ? " said I to the Cadi. " Oh," 
 
172 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 answered he coolly, " that fellow had a share in the rebellion 
 of Cairo, and escaped my vengeance." I insisted on his 
 putting the whole affair regularly down in writing, to be 
 communicated to the General-in-chief. In all probability 
 the unfortunate man was guilty ; but I am convinced, that 
 my presence, and the wish to give an example of severe 
 justice, were the real causes of his death. For the rest, 
 executions of this sort were not rare. The Cadi never went 
 out but accompanied by the hangman. The smallest in- 
 fraction of the police laws was punished by blows on the 
 soles of the feet — a punishment from which the women 
 themselves were not exempted. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Before we enter Syria, I think it will be well to give an 
 account of the General's motives for that expedition. 
 
 It was absolutely necessary to ensure the conquest of 
 Egypt by that of Syria, and especially by the possession of 
 the maritime places. 
 
 The two countries are dependent on each other, as well in 
 regard to natural productions as political connection. 
 
 Egypt has no wood, and a part of Syria is covered with 
 forests. The mutual exchanges extend even to many other 
 productions. The Desert alone separates the two countries, 
 and the necessity of establishing one or two forts at the 
 entrance of the Desert is indispensable for the possession of 
 Egypt. 
 
 To these general considerations, at all times equally in 
 force, must be added some particular circumstances which 
 had just been created by policy. 
 
 In declaring war against France the Sultan would launch 
 out against us the whole armed population of Syria. The 
 Pacha who commanded in that province had a personal 
 interest in showing himself our foe : he would effect his 
 reconciliation with the Porte by the services he might 
 render her ; he would draw a great deal of money out of the 
 English, and find war the means of subduing, or at least 
 removing, Ibrahim Bey, whose presence in Syria was dis- 
 agreeable to him, and caused him even some anxiety. 
 
174 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 On the other hand, General Bonaparte wished to deprive 
 the English of the means of communicating with and dis- 
 embarking on an extent of coast eighty leagues in length. 
 His intention was to make himself master of the maritime 
 places, and fortify them. He had hopes of drawing over to 
 his party a considerable portion of the inhabitants of Syria, 
 especially the Druses and Maronists, schismatic Mussulmans,' 
 whose manners are at variance with those of the Turks, and 
 who have no other connection with them but through the 
 enormous taxes they are forced to pay, and the multifarious 
 oppression under which they labour. Finally, he expected 
 by that means to force the Porte to explain herself openly ; 
 for he was not yet acquainted with the declaration of war 
 made by the Turks against France. He placed at the head 
 of the expedition General Regnier as commander of the 
 vanguard, and Generals Kleber, Bon, and Lannes, and 
 Murat for the cavalry. 
 
 He left in Egypt General Desaix vigorously pursuing 
 Mourad Bey, and keeping in awe all the provinces of the 
 Upper Nile as far as the Cataracts. General Dugua in Cairo 
 <;ommanded the Delta from Rosetta and Damietta. He 
 had under his orders General Lanusse, whose courage and 
 activity were sufficient to maintain peace in all those exten- 
 sive provinces. The season was favourable for the expedition 
 to Syria, which began in January, 1799. 
 
 The Desert, which divides Egypt from Syria, is eighty 
 leagues in breadth. In that space of land are found the wells 
 of Katisch, which were enclosed in a fort, that the army 
 -might not be without water. At two days' march beyond 
 the wells is the fort of El Arisch, which contains better 
 water than Katisch, but of which the enemy had already 
 made himself master. We were forced to besiege it, and it 
 was bravely defended by 2000 Arnauts. They were, how- 
 ever, constrained to capitulate, after a vigorous attack of 
 
 ' Here Count Lavalette has made a little mistake. The Maronists are 
 ■Christians, and not Mussulmans. — Note of the Translator. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. I7S 
 
 three days. In the treaty it was stipulated that they should 
 
 go to Damascus ; but the greater number among them threw 
 
 themselves into Jaffa, of which place they augmented the 
 
 garrison. We were obliged in consequence to besiege the 
 
 town.' Jaffa was taken by storm a few days after the first 
 
 attack, and the Arnauts who had capitulated at El Arisch 
 
 being found within its walls, were, according to the European 
 
 custom, shot for having violated the treaty. I was not at 
 
 that time with the General-in-chief, having joined him only 
 
 the day after the taking of Jaffa. 
 
 From Jaffa the army marched to Caiffa ; but the enemy 
 
 had abandoned that place, though it possessed a fort and 
 
 strong walls. We left there a small post, and continued our 
 
 way to St. John of Acre, near which city we arrived on the 
 
 evening of the 27th of March. While the tents were being 
 
 pitched, the General-in-chief was. surprised to hear at sea a 
 
 tolerably brisk cannonading. I went by his orders to the 
 
 shore, and soon perceived that the sound was becoming 
 
 more distant, so that I feared it might be the announcement 
 
 of some fatal event. 
 
 On entering Syria, General Bonaparte had given orders 
 
 to Marmont to send him by some brig the ammunition he 
 
 should want for the sieges of the Syrian towns. Captain 
 
 Standley, who commanded the frigate which was at the 
 
 head of the expedition, neglected to inquire whether we 
 
 ' When General Kleber left El-Aris(3i, to proceed to Kanjonnes, he was 
 led astray by his guides, who threw him much too far to the right in the 
 Desert. The General-in-chief followed him, not doubting that General 
 Kleber had crossed the village ; and he was going to enter it, escorted only 
 by his staff and fifty guides, when two horsemen, who formed the vanguard, 
 came back in full gallop, after having fired two pistols ; and we discovered 
 on the other side of the village the camp and cavalry of Abdallah Pasha, 
 who appeared disposed to charge them. The army was two leagues behind. 
 There was no possibility of standing gainst six hundred well-armed enemies, 
 or of escaping if they had been pursued. Fortunately, the General, on 
 this occasion, showed an instance of the admirable presence of mind he 
 possessed. He ordered the commander of the detachment to draw up his 
 men in a single line j the enemy thought them more numerous than they 
 really were ; and after some moments' deliberation he came to a resolution 
 of raising his camp and retreating. 
 
176 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 were masters of Jaffa, on the walls of which place we had 
 left the Turkish flag flying, to draw in the enemy's ships, 
 which might bring us provisions, and news from sea. 
 Standley, persuaded we were not at Jaffa, went in to St.. 
 John of Acre ; but Commodore Sir Sidney Smith, who was 
 cruising before the port with a ship and a frigate, gave him 
 the chase and took a part of his vessels. This was the cause 
 of the cannonading we heard ; and General Bonaparte was 
 convinced, as well as myself, that the army had lost all its 
 siege ammunition. The next day the army encamped to the 
 north of St. John of Acre, and the General-in-chief stood 
 during several hours on a height that commands St. John of 
 Acre, at about half a league distant. The enemy, perceiving, 
 the staff, made trial of the skill of their gunners. The 
 bombs fired with so much nicety that one of them was 
 buried in the ground three paces from the General, between 
 his two aides-de-camp. Merlin and Beauharnais. Another 
 fell and burst at two feet from the soil, in the midst of a 
 group of soldiers who were lying down and preparing their 
 breakfast. There were eleven of them, and not one survived 
 an instant. 
 
 The town of St. John of Acre is situated on the point of 
 a narrow slip of land, fortified towards the sea by batteries 
 and a small lighthouse, and also protected by some pieces of 
 cannon. On the land side it was enclosed by a high wall, 
 divided by a tower on which some pieces of ordnance had 
 been placed. The city was surrounded at a considerable 
 distance by gardens, which being all enclosed with hedges of 
 cactus, we had much trouble in repelling the riflemen who 
 harassed us from behind them. 
 
 The traveller Volney, whom we had found so accurate in 
 his description of Egypt, asserts that St. John of Acre is not 
 surrounded with ditches. This assurance proved fatal to us^ 
 in the beginning of the siege. Several officers of engineers 
 confirmed us in our prepossession, and particularly Colonel 
 Sampson, who was wounded in his hand while fighting in a 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. I77 
 
 muddy rivulet he supposed to have been the fosse of the 
 town. 
 
 After we had fired ten days on the tower I have men- 
 tioned, it was pierced, and the breach appeared large enough 
 to lodge some miners with an officer of the staff. The 
 troops made a movement to rush to the foot of the town ; 
 but they were suddenly stopped by a ditch fifteen feet broad 
 by ten or twelve deep, and lined with a good counterscarp. 
 We were, in consequence, forced to establish a globe of 
 compression to blow it up. The concussion took place, 
 and young Mailly-Chateau-Renaud, an officer of the staff, 
 received orders to enter the tower with four miners, to 
 remain there during the night, and to pierce it, while the 
 infantry endeavoured to make themselves masters of the 
 ditch. The intrepid young officer and his men executed 
 their orders ; but the enemy opened so strong a fire on our 
 troops that they were forced to abandon the fosse. Mailly 
 and his gunners were killed in the breach. 
 
 The aide-de-camp Duroc had been sent an hour before 
 into the ditch, to discover the progress of the breach : a 
 howitzer that burst wounded him deeply in the thigh, and 
 lamed him. The night falling in, we were constrained to 
 give up the attack, and to wait until the arrival of a larger 
 supply of artillery should furnish us with the means of 
 making breaches on all sides ; but just at that moment the 
 General-in-chief heard that all his ammunition, all his 
 artillery, sent from Alexandria, had been captured by Sir 
 Sidney Smith ; whUe at the same time we learned the secret 
 cause of the astonishing skill of the Turkish gunners. 
 
 When, a few years before the period I am speaking of, 
 General Aubert Dubayet was sent by the French Govern, 
 ment to Constantinople as ambassador, he obtained leave to 
 take with him a company of light artillery, to teach the 
 Turks those parts of gunnery they were still unacquainted 
 with, and especially all that concerned the letting off of 
 bombs. This company had since returned to France, and 
 
 13 
 
178 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 part of them were in the besieging army, but their pupils 
 were in the fortress ; so that Turkish bombardiers, instructed 
 by French troops, were sending us our own projectiles, of which 
 they possessed about eighteen hundred, with four mortars. 
 
 The trenches had not been regularly made, and the 
 consequence of that neglect was, that the soldiers, not 
 being sufficiently covered, fell victims to our precipitation. 
 General Caffarelli, commander of the engineers of the army, 
 was himself struck by a bullet on his left elbow, and he lost 
 his arm. He had already suffered the loss of a leg several 
 years before, during the retreat of Jourdan. 
 
 The Turks are wonderfully good soldiers behind a wall : 
 we had more than one instance of that during the whole 
 siege of St. John of Acre. It was almost impossible for a 
 Frenchman to show himself uncovered without being struck. 
 The terrible fire of the besieged was supported by the 
 batteries of Sir Sidney's ship Theseus, and his frigate. 
 
 The labours of the siege soon grew more complicated. 
 Sir Sidney Smith had with him a Frenchman named 
 Philippeaux, an emigrant, formerly a schoolfellow of 
 General Bonaparte, and an officer of engineers. He raised 
 two redoubts beyond the fosse, the batteries of which soon 
 ranged along the branches of our trenches, and forced us to 
 begin new works to change their direction.' 
 
 The field-pieces being too weak to destroy the tower, we 
 had recourse to mining ; but while we were working with 
 great activity and secrecy, we continued firing on the town. 
 
 ' I think I have mentioned, that among the persons sent to St. John of 
 Acre to carry proposals of peace to Djezzar Facha, was a young man, 
 named Mailly de Chateau-Renaud, who had returned from Mascate with M. 
 Beauchamp. This unfortunate young man was locked up in the lighthouse 
 at Acre, with about four hundred Christians he had collected on the coast 
 of Syria. The day after the failure of the first storm, some soldiers who 
 were in the trenches mentioned to General Vial, then upon service, that 
 in the seaside might be seen a great many dead bodies rolled up like bales 
 of rice or coffee. He went to look after them, and recognised poor young 
 Chateau-Renaud, who had been strangled during the night. Thus the two 
 lirothers, who, after a six years' absence, had met for a few hours at Cairo, 
 were both killed at the same instant near St. John of Acre. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 179 
 
 More than once we entertained the hope of gaining a footing 
 in it and destroying it ; but it was in vain that our grenadiers 
 and sappers endeavoured several times to take possession of 
 it. The part that looked towards the town continued to be 
 occupied by the besieged, who never ceased throwing on our 
 troops howitzers, grenades, and even bombs, which made 
 the post exceedingly dangerous. Notwithstanding all our 
 efforts, the two redoubts constructed by the enemy covered 
 us with their iire every time our troops crossed the ditch to 
 storm the tower. The officer of engineers, Philippeaux, 
 soon guessed we were making mines, and applied himself to 
 destroy those we were laying under the ditch. In con- 
 sequence, on the 1 8th Germinal, the enemy made a sortie 
 with so much abruptness and violence that a part of our 
 trenches was destroyed. The enemy's columns were com- 
 manded by intelligent English officers, one of whom reached 
 the entrance of the mine, where he was killed. The papers 
 on him informed us that he was Captain Hatfield, and that 
 he had been the first at the attack of the Cape of Good Hope. 
 His fall caused some confusion among the troops he com- 
 manded, who soon after, being attacked with energy, hastily 
 returned to the city, leaving a great many killed behind 
 them. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 While we were fighting under the walls of St. John of 
 Acre, like the Crusaders beyond the Jordan, Ibrahim Bey, 
 the bearer of the orders of Djezzar Pacha, assembled all the 
 Arabs of the mountains of Naplouse, and even of the 
 environs of Damascus. The General-in-chief had taken the 
 precaution to make himself master of the bridge of Jacoub 
 and the port of Japhet. The banks of the lake of Tabarieh 
 were constantly overrun by the cavalry of General Murat. 
 General Junot had posted himself at Loubi, near Nazareth. 
 He was soon attacked at a short distance from Gafarkala ; 
 and though he had only with him a part of the 2nd 
 regiment of light infantry, three companies of the 19th, 
 and one hundred and fifty dragoons, he did not hesitate to 
 dare the charge of above three thousand horsemen. Not- 
 withstanding all the efforts of the enemy, he succeeded in 
 reaching the heights of Nazareth without having been 
 routed ; and after eight hours of the most desperate fighting, 
 he forced the enemy to a temporary retreat. This glorious 
 defence made the General-in-chief feel the necessity of 
 terminating, once for all, the annoyance of these dangerous 
 enemies, whose plan was no less than to come and attack 
 him under the walls of St. John of Acre. He sent General 
 Kleber against them, and a few days afterwards he marched 
 himself to the support of Junot and Kleber with the rest of 
 his cavalry, the division of General Bon, and eight pieces of 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. i8i 
 
 artillery. He directed his way towards Fouli. At nine 
 o'clock in the morning he had reached the last heights, 
 whence the prospect extends three leagues over the plain 
 bounded by Mount Thabor. From thence we perceived 
 the squares of General Kleber, presenting a black Une, sur- 
 rounded and pressed by an enormous mass of cavalry and 
 infantry, which, at three leagues' distance, had all the 
 appearance of an ant-hill. Sometimes the French line 
 disappeared, and we thought it destroyed ; then it showed 
 itself again, covered by its own fire, during some minutes. 
 The General-in-chief began by throwing his cavalry on the 
 heights to his right, where the camp of the Mamelukes 
 had been established, and which we found deserted. He 
 thus formed two squares of infantry, and made his arrange- 
 ments so as to turn the enemy at a great distance. When 
 he arrived at within half a league of General Kleber, he sent 
 to him General Rampon, at the head of the 32nd half 
 brigade ; and as soon as that troop had begun to march, he 
 made known his presence by firing a twelve-pounder. The 
 effect was theatrical. At the same instant we saw General 
 Kleber, quitting his defensive attitude, advancing upon the 
 village of Fouli, of which he made himself master, and the 
 enemy flying in all directions. But on one side the enemy 
 found before him General Rampon, while General Vial had 
 cut off his retreat to the mountains of Naplouse, and General 
 Murat was waiting for him at the bridge of Jacoub. The 
 guides on foot attacked him near Jenin ; so that his only 
 resource was to fly behind Mount Thabor, from whence, 
 during the night, he reached Elmekanieh, and further up 
 the Jordan, where a great number were drowned in 
 attempting to cross the river. 
 
 After the battle the General-in-chipf went to sleep at 
 Nazareth. This small place is situated a good way within 
 the mountains, in a very picturesque situation, between two 
 groves, one of sycamore and the other of date-trees : the 
 chief part of the inhabitants are Christians. Before Bona- 
 
1 82 MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 parte entered the village, he stopped near an ancient fountain, 
 where a considerable number of cattle were drinking. The 
 elders of the village stood there waiting for the General-in- 
 chief : the whole scene recalled to memory the patriarchal 
 times so beautifully described in the Bible. The French 
 were received with great demonstrations of joy, and General 
 Bonaparte went with his staflF to pass the night at the con- 
 vent of Nazareth. 
 
 This convent was evidently built in the time of the 
 Crusades : the edifice is not very large. Next morning the 
 General-in-chief asked the superior to conduct him to the 
 church, which resembles our village churches, and contains 
 nothing remarkable but the chapel, which was once, they 
 say, the bed-chamber of the Virgin Mary. It is below the 
 chief altar, and a few very broad steps descend to it. An 
 altar fills the place of the bed ; and being cut out of the 
 rock, it is no more than seven feet in height. The superior, 
 who was a Spaniard, but spoke very good Italian, made us 
 observe on the left side of the altar a pillar of black marble, 
 the shaft of which touched the ceiling, while its basement 
 was broken off some feet from the ground, which made it 
 appear suspended. The prior told us, in the gravest manner 
 possible, that when the Angel Gabriel came to announce to 
 the Virgin her glorious and holy destination, he touched the 
 pillar with his heel and broke it in two. We burst out 
 a-laughing ; but General Bonaparte, looking severely at us, 
 made us resume our gravity. Along the cloisters were lying 
 about thirty men who had been wounded on the preceding 
 day ; several of them had just expired, and these latter had 
 nearly all received from the monks the last comforts of 
 religion. This was probably done at the instigation of these 
 pious cenobites ; for, at that period, the French troops were 
 very foreign to any religious feeling. Neither the aspect of 
 the country wherein they fought, nor the names of most 
 of those places which had been familiar to them during 
 their infancy (nearly all of them being born between the 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 183 
 
 years 1775 and 1780), seemed capable of recalling to their 
 memory the sentiments and recollection of their youth. 
 
 At Nazareth we lost a man who had been most useful to 
 General Bonaparte and the afmy ; namely, M. Venture, 
 first interpreter to the General-in-chief. This old man had 
 passed all his life in the East, and his wandering life had 
 produced a strange mixture of nations in his family ; his 
 wife being a Greek, his daughter an Egyptian, and his 
 son-in-law a Pole.' He was very much regretted, but his 
 place was adequately filled up by M. Jaubert, his pupil, 
 who, notwithstanding his numerous and perilous voyages, 
 still lives for his friends and the sciences. 
 
 We returned to St. John of Acre, and on our arrival before 
 the town the General-in-chief finally learned that Rear- 
 Admiral Duperrie had put on shore three four-and-twenty 
 and six eighteen pounders, and the necessary ammunition. 
 The works of the mine were continued, and on the Sth 
 Floreal it was decided to spring it. All the batteries began 
 to play upon the enemy, in order to deceive him, and fire 
 was set to the mine ; but a vault that existed in the tower 
 presented a line of slight resistance. One side only was 
 destroyed : it remained, however, in a state of breach. This 
 breach was as diiBcult to reach as it had been before. We 
 were therefore obliged to begin battering afresh the curtain 
 and the tower. The attack of the 6th was more murderous 
 than the former, and still without success. Four hundred 
 men remained during six hours in the breach that looked 
 towards the ditch ; the enemy, posted on the reverse, con- 
 tinued throwing incessantly burning projectiles into the midst 
 
 ■ I was presentat Venture's departure from Paris. He travelled in the 
 sarne coach with Colonel Sulkowsky. His wife and daughter were bShed 
 
 oScrXr a'/ho''°°" "^l ^^' r^" "^^^ "^^'^" °f thTn. would 
 come Dack. After an hour's grief they b^an to be comforted when the 
 
 th:S"%tSrfPPtT'- T"^- -«h had\rokenlTn"n?a! 
 ^Li^ ( i/i P^'^"* ^''^^^ lamentations ; but, to my great astonish- 
 
 tTe sameTeSn&i:^?/ '°^ "' *^ T""^^"* *^' ^^* °™^ "°- 
 cl^th grief was so much stronger when they heard of their 
 
i84 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 of that mass of men, who were unable to advance, and still 
 would not consent to go down. At last the break of day 
 rendered visible the most horrible disorder, and a position 
 which could not possibly be maintained ; we were again 
 obliged to abandon the tower. We had lost an enormous 
 number of officers, especially among the engineers : General 
 CafiFarelli, who had command of the engineers, showed some 
 signs of recovery ; but he every day asked why his comrades 
 came no longer to see him. Though the utmost care was 
 taken to conceal from him the fatal news of their death, 
 grief and anxiety augmented his sufferings. He sometimes 
 said to me, " It was I who seduced — I who led on all those 
 hopeful young men. Alas ! that they should have fallen 
 before such a wretched fortress ? " Finally, the death of 
 young Say, the chief of his staff, which could not be kept 
 a secret from him, threw him into a deep melancholy, and 
 he died soon after. 
 
 He was not regretted by the army alone. To extensive 
 information, CafFarelli added great feeling and a mildness of 
 disposition that will make his memory dear to all those who 
 knew him. , He would certainly have acted a very important 
 part under the Empire ; for General Bonaparte, had great 
 esteem and consideration for him. 
 
 The army had already stormed the city twelve times, and 
 withstood twentyrsix sorties, when General Kleber and his 
 division were recalled to the camp. A new mine had been 
 opened, and we were already on the point of charging it, 
 when the enemy once more gave vent to it : notwithstanding 
 all our efforts, he reached the branch ; so that we were 
 obliged to make our miners retire precipitately out of the 
 mine, and stop it up by explosion. This circumstance was 
 the more fatal, as by it we lost all hopes of making ourselves 
 masters of the town by that means. We had to return to 
 cannonading, which also speedily relaxed, the gunpowder 
 we expected from Gaza not having arrived. On the next 
 day, however, we received a sufficient quantity : the courage 
 
ji -L i X) i ja . 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 185 
 
 of the soldiers increased ; and when they heard that the 
 division of Kleber was coming, the whole camp went to 
 meet it, with congratulations and prophecies that the honour 
 of taking the town would belong to the new-comers. The 
 batteries had destroyed a great part of the curtain, which 
 presented a space wide enough to mount for an assault. 
 The grenadiers of Kleber's division received that honour- 
 able though perilous commission ; but just as they were 
 descending into the ditch in order to cross it, the enemy 
 opened on their flank a tremendous fire from the two sides. 
 The grenadiers, however, penetrated into the town ; but 
 when there they were fired upon from all sides of a large 
 square, and from the Palace of Djezzar. The difficulty of 
 climbing up the breach prevented our soldiers from rushing 
 easily into this new circle : the bravest among them were 
 killed ; the rest hesitated. It became necessary to lead the 
 troops back into the trenches. 
 
 The General-in-chief could not resolve to order the four- 
 teenth assault ; but the grenadiers and most of the officers 
 who had already been in the town insisted in so pressing a 
 manner for leave to go up once more, that the General-in- 
 chief, after having got the breach widened, let them advance * 
 again. General Kleber placed himself on the reverse of the 
 fosse, where, sword in hand, he animated his troops with 
 his stentorian voice, amidst the dead and the dying. On 
 looking on that gigantic figure, a whole head taller than the 
 rest of the soldiers, one might have taken him for one ©r 
 the heroes of Homer. The noise and smoke of the cannon, 
 the cries of the soldiers, the roaring of the Turks — our troops 
 rushing on the enemy, made our hearts beat with enthusiasm. 
 Nobody doubted but the town would be taken ; when sud- 
 denly the column stopped. General Bonaparte had placed 
 himself in the breach battery, to examine once more the 
 movements of the army. He had fixed his glass between 
 the fascines of the battery, when a ball from the town struck 
 the superior fascine ; and the General-in-chief fell into the 
 
i86 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 arms of General Earthier. We thought him killed ; but 
 fortunately he had not been touched ; his fall was only 
 an effect of the commotion lof the air. In vain General 
 Berthier pressed him to retire : he received one of those 
 harsh and dry replies, after which no one dare insist. While 
 we were examining the singular absence of all motion on 
 the part of the troops, a bullet entered the head of young 
 Arrighi, who was standing between the General-in-chief 
 and me. Some others were killed afterwards. General 
 Bonaparte still refusing to retire. At last we learned what 
 was the obstacle that prevented the troops from advancing. 
 In the interval between the two assaults, the enemy had 
 filled up a wide ditch with all sorts of inflammable matter, 
 so that repeated and terrible explosions killed all those that 
 came near it. It was too broad to be crossed ; there were no 
 means of turning it ; and our soldiers stood before that in- 
 surmountable obstacle, enraged at not being able to advance, 
 and still resolved not to go back. Several generals were 
 wounded, and a great number of officers and soldiers killed. 
 We lost the General of division Bon, the Adjutant-general 
 Fouler, and Croisier, aide-de-camp to the General-in-chief. 
 
 To continue the siege would have been paying too dearly 
 for the conquest of a city already ravaged by the plague. 
 The disease had been brought to the camp by the second 
 light demi-brigade that had caught it at Damietta. The 
 army had also found it at Jaffa ; and though it was not 
 marked here by those terrible symptoms it had shown at 
 Alexandria, and went under the name of a benign plague, it 
 still swept away many victims, and would undoubtedly have 
 cost us more men still if we had taken St. John of Acre. 
 
 General Bonaparte felt convinced that that fever was 
 really the plague ; the Physician-in-chief, Desgenettes, 
 alleged, on the contrary, that it was nothing more than a 
 common fever. His opinion and arguments served to tran- 
 quillise the soldiers ; but they had one bad effect — that of 
 disposing them to neglect the caution necessary in all con- 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 187 
 
 tagious diseases. He wished, however, to add practical 
 demonstration to his arguments by inoculating himself 
 with the plague. In the middle of the hospital, and in 
 the presence of all the sick, he plunged a lancet into the 
 bubo of one of the patients, and pricked himself with it in 
 his left side. This act, which was the more courageous as 
 he afterwards acknowledged that the disease had really all 
 the characteristics of the plague, excited the admiration of 
 the whole army, and insured to the physician lasting glory 
 with posterity. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 The General-in-chief formed the resolution of returning to 
 Egypt. The favourable season for landing approached, and 
 he had received advice that the EngUsh, united with the 
 Turks, were to attempt one in Lower Egypt. Measures 
 were immediately taken for sending away the sick, and 
 provisioning El Arisch and Katisch. All the posts were 
 drawn back, and in the night of our departure the brigade 
 that was on service in the trenches gradually evacuated the 
 artillery, and only set off themselves the next day, protecting 
 all they had before them, and protected in their turn by 
 the cavalry. The invalids, who were eighteen hundred in 
 number, and who had all been wounded by fire-arms, were 
 placed in the centre of the divisions to which they belonged ; 
 and, as there were no means of transport, all the saddle 
 horses, and even all the asses, which the soldiers had in use 
 when they came to Syria, to carry water and provisions, 
 served, on our return, to bear the wounded. But when they 
 arrived at Jaffa, the soldiers, seeing before them the terrible 
 Desert, and aware of what they must suffer in crossing it 
 without water, began first to complain, and then broke out 
 into mutiny. It was on this occasion that General Bonaparte 
 gave' up all his horses, without even keeping one for his 
 private use. The master of his stables having had the 
 imprudence to supplicate in favour of the beloved mare of 
 the General, he put himself in such a passion that for the 
 first time in my life I saw him strike a man. In his rage he 
 went up to him, and whipped him across the body. 
 
 s88 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 189 
 
 I must here say a few words on an odious imputation made 
 long since against General Bonaparte— I mean the pretended 
 poisoning of the soldiers sick of the plague. 
 
 It is so contrary to truth that General Bonaparte proposed 
 to poison the unfortunate men, that M. Larry, first surgeon 
 to the army, never ceased to pronounce it an atrocious 
 calumny ; and he several times, in the last fifteen years, 
 pressed M. Desgenettes to declare publicly with him the fact 
 through the riledium of the press. The latter, having been 
 ill-used by the King's government, recoiled probably at the 
 thought of a declaration which might make his situation 
 still more painful. It is, besides, impossible to name any 
 person to whom the. proposal should have been made. 
 Finally, the calumny was spread by the English while they 
 were in Egypt, and propagated by a writing of Sir Robert 
 Wilson, who was then extremely young, and who in maturer 
 age has openly declared that he had been mistaken." 
 
 When, in our return from St. John of Acre, we stopped 
 at Jaffa, where the plague had ceased its ravages, I received 
 from the General-in-chief an order to go through the 
 numerous gardens that surround the town, and where a sort 
 of lazaretto had been established for the sick, that we might 
 take along with us all that were not too ill to follow the 
 army. I found five or six poor soldiers lying beneath the 
 trees : when they saw me, they cried out, " Pray, Com- 
 mander, take us with you ! We are still able to bear the 
 march." I replied, " Try to get up ; endeavour to walk." 
 But all the symptoms of the plague were already evident. 
 Not one of them could rise, and I was obliged to leave them, 
 for no soldier would have lent them his aid. I went and 
 made my report to General Bonaparte, who was walking on 
 the seashore. He listened to me without stopping, and we 
 came up to a young horseman, who asked also to be taken 
 with us, and who succeeded in rising from the ground. The 
 General, touched with compassion, ordered one of his guides 
 ' See the Memoirs of Bounienne. — Note of the Translator. 
 
I90 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 to give his horse to the poor sick man. Neither the authority 
 of the General, nor the fear of punishment, was sufficient 
 to enforce obedience. The Colonel of the Guides was 
 obliged to go up to him, and promise him in a whisper a 
 great deal of money, which motive was the only one by 
 which he was brought to a decision ; and even then the 
 Colonel was forced to use the greatest vigilance lest the 
 sick man should be thrown from his horse. I believe he 
 remained at El Arisch, and I do not know what became of 
 him. As for the poor soldiers I mentioned, it is to be hoped 
 they died in the course of the night, or at least the following 
 day, so as to have escaped from the cruel death the Arabs 
 prepared for all those who fell into their hands. I feel no 
 remorse for my conduct on that occasion. All I had seen 
 of the plague at Alexandria had convinced me that it is a 
 fatal humanity that induces people to come in contact with 
 the infected, when they are once arrived at the last stage of 
 the disease. Nevertheless, I cannot think of those unfortu- 
 nate men without pain ; and if it had been possible to save 
 them, I would have done it. 
 
 The army carried with it eighteen hundred wounded men. 
 We had succeeded in constructing about twenty litters for 
 the general officers, such as Lannes and Veaux, Duroc and 
 Croisier : the two latter were aides-de-camp of the General- 
 in-chief. Croisier died in the Desert. The infected that 
 could not bear a long journey were deposited at El Arisch, 
 but placed without the fort, under the protection of a detach- 
 ment of infantry that was to defend them against the attacks 
 of the Arabs. Several of them recovered, and in particular 
 I may name young Captain Digeon, who commanded the 
 breach battery during the whole siege : he was a most 
 intrepid officer, and fortune spared him. He is now a 
 lieutenant-general. We lost very few of our wounded 
 while crossing the Desert, and the army made with great 
 hlat its entrance into the capital of Egypt. 
 
 This Syrian campaign has been judged with great severity 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 191 
 
 by our enemies ; and during the reign of the Emperor it 
 was not allowed to speak impartially of its result. It was 
 undoubtedly indispensable to enter into Syria to repel 
 Ibrahim Bey and the troops which Djezzar Pacha was 
 preparing to launch against Egypt. The operations were 
 conducted with great skill. The failure of St. John of Acre 
 must only be attributed to some fatal circumstances in- 
 dependent of the General-in-chief ; but we must not there- 
 fore conclude with General Berthier, that the French army 
 really gained all the advantages it expected to reap in Syria. 
 We lost in that province three thousand men, several skilful 
 generals and hopeful officers ; and we were obliged to abandon 
 the towns we had taken. In quitting Syria, we left the 
 country just as it was before we entered it. Barren victories 
 must not be looked upon as real advantages ; and if General 
 Bonaparte had remained in Egypt, he would undoubtedly 
 have beaten the Grand Vizier when he came the following 
 year to drive us out of Egypt, and repulsed the English, who 
 had taken Aboukir. But most certainly he could not have 
 begun the campaign of Syria over again, having no means 
 of receiving supplies from France ; so that he would with 
 difficulty have been able to maintain himself some years 
 longer in Egypt. 
 
 During the campaign of Syria, General Desaix had suc- 
 ceeded in keeping quiet possession of Upper Egypt, and 
 reducing Mourad Bey to the condition of a fugitive. Lower 
 Egypt had been the scene of many troubles, occasioned by a 
 sort of fanatic who styled himself the Angel El Mahad6 ; 
 but General Lanusse pursued him with so much vigour, 
 that he soon destroyed the troops he had collected. 
 
 The landing season was fast approaching. The General- 
 in-chief did not wish to leave Cairo. He therefore resumed 
 the administration of the country : he busied himself with 
 filling up the vacant places in the army and completing the 
 corps. He had posted himself with a part of his cavalry 
 near the Pyramids, waiting for the accounts General Desaix 
 
192 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 would transmit him respecting Mourad Bey, whom that 
 general was pursuing in his last entrenchment, and who it 
 was supposed would throw himself into the Oases that are 
 situated at a short distance from the Pyramids. 
 
 It is a well-known fact that the great Pyramid had been 
 opened several centuries ago by the Arabs. General Bona- 
 parte had resolved to visit the interior of that structure with 
 Messieurs Monge, BerthoUet, and Duroc. I only mention this 
 circumstance because his name has been written in the great 
 gallery leading to the chamber called the King's Chamber. 
 He had scarcely come out of the Pyramid, when an express 
 sent off by General Marmont, who commanded at Alexan- 
 dria, brought him tidings of the landing of a Turkish army 
 at Aboukir, where they had made themselves masters of the 
 great redoubt and of the fort, after having massacred our 
 soldiers that defended them. The attack was quite un- 
 expected, and the Turkish army was so numerous that 
 General Marmont had not thought fit to march against 
 them at the head of his garrison, for fear he might not 
 be able to prevent their disembarking, and might, moreover, 
 endanger the city of Alexandria, the fortifications of which 
 were not yet completed, and which besides contained all the 
 resources we possessed in artillery and ammunition. 
 
 It was to be expected that after the enemy had taken the 
 fort he would spread about the country and attack either 
 Alexandria or Rosetta. Instead of that, he fortified himself 
 in the peninsula of Aboukir, evidently waiting for Mourad 
 Bey, with whose desperate condition he was not yet 
 acquainted. 
 
 General Bonaparte resolved, therefore, to march rapidly 
 against him. The distance from the Pyramid to Aboukir is 
 more than eighty leagues. On the fourth day the army 
 arrived at Alexandria ; on the 7th of Thermidor it was 
 assembled within a league of Aboukir, under the orders of 
 the Division-Generals Lannes and Lanusse, and Murat for 
 the cavalry. The enemy was retrenched in front of Aboukir, 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 193 
 
 on the sandy hillocks of which he had made redoubts, and 
 under the protection of the English gunboats. His force 
 consisted of about seventeen thousand men, with twelve 
 pieces of cannon. The General quickly made his disposi- 
 tions, and ordered General Dastaneg to attack the enemy's 
 left, which he put to flight after a long resistance. The 
 Turks fled towards the village of Aboukir ; but a part of the 
 cavalry, that was in the centre, pursued them, sabred and 
 drove them into the sea. The right of the enemy was 
 ^ attacked with equal vigour. The division of Lannes made 
 themselves masters of the redoubt, which being turned by a 
 squadron of cavalry, the Turks had no other resource left 
 but to throw themselves into the sea. It was a horrible 
 sight to contemplate nearly ten thousand men of whom 
 nothing was to be seen but their heads covered with 
 turbans, and who were seeking in vain to reach the 
 English fleet anchored at more than half a league ixota 
 the shore. Two thousand men had sought a refuge on 
 the strand, at the foot of a rock that covered them. It 
 was impossible to make them comprehend that they might 
 surrender by laying down their arms. We were obliged to 
 kill them all to a man, but they sold dearly their lives. 
 General Murat was wounded by a bullet in his head ; 
 Guibert, aide-de-camp to the General-in-chief, was killed, 
 and the corps of engineers, that had already suffered so 
 severely, lost Colonel Cretin, who had succeeded to the post 
 of General Caffarelli. Wounded by two bullets, the Colonel 
 was lying before the door of a house in the village occupied 
 by the Turks. Eight persons had already been killed or 
 wounded in seeking to get him away. Bertrand, who was 
 at that time a major of engineers, devoted himself to save 
 his commander : he rushed into the house, followed by 
 twenty sappers, and succeeded in killing every one of the 
 Turks ; but he was severely wounded, and Colonel Cretin 
 did not survive the injuries he had suffered. 
 After the victory was gained, the fort of Aboukir, still- 
 
 14 
 
194 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 remained to be taken. General Lannes, who was not yet 
 recovered from the wounds he had received at St. John of 
 Acre, got the command of the troops that were to invest the 
 place. I was with him. The day after the departure of the 
 General-in-chief, I accompanied General Lannes on a visit 
 to the posts, when a furious sortie of Turkish troops sur- 
 prised our advanced posts, and the unfortunate General 
 received a bullet in his leg. It was the eighth wound he 
 got from fire-arms. 
 
 Fortunately the enemy had no water in the fort of 
 Aboukir, so that he surrendered four days after the battle. 
 
 During the short stay of the General-in-chief at Aboukir, 
 he had some communications with Sir Sidney Smith, by the 
 medium of his secretary. We had not received for a long 
 time any news from Europe, and the English Commodore 
 took a malicious pleasure in acquainting us, by the news- 
 papers, of the situation of the Republic. We learned that 
 the whole south of Italy was evacuated, that war was waging 
 on the frontiers of Piedmont, and that France was in the 
 most desperate condition. General Bonaparte took great 
 care not to let the army know these dismal accounts ; but, 
 fi-om that moment, he resolved to return to Europe, con- 
 vinced that he alone was capable of repairing the evils the 
 bad government of the Directory had accumulated on the 
 country. 
 
 After the surrender of the fort of Aboukir, the defence of 
 which had only lasted four days, General Bonaparte went 
 back to Cairo ; but not before he had given secret orders 
 to General Gantheaume, who commanded the marines at 
 Alexandria, to arm and provision the two frigates Mmron 
 and Carrhre. He then spread the report that he was going 
 to travel to Upper Egypt, but that he would perhaps first 
 take a trip in the Delta. The news of his intended jouiney 
 put everybody on the alert, in the expectation of recaving 
 his praises. He spent a fortnight in regulating once more 
 the administration of Egypt, provisioning its strong places, 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 195 
 
 and writing to the Grand Vizier ; and when all his measures 
 were duly taken, he went down the Nile again, after having 
 appointed General Kleber to meet him near Alexandria, 
 that he might deliver over the command into his hands ; 
 but that general not having arrived in time, his despatches 
 were sent to him ; and, at ten o'clock at night, the General- 
 in-chief, accompanied by his staff, and leaving his horses on 
 the shore, embarked on board of the Mutrom. He took with 
 him Generals Berthier and Gantheaume, Messieurs Monge 
 and BerthoUet, his aides-de-camp, Eugene Beauharnais, 
 Duroc, Merlin, and his private secretary. In the frigate 
 Cavrlre went Generals Lannes and Murat, both wounded, 
 Marmont, Messieurs Denon, Castas, and Parseval-Grand- 
 maison. The scientific commission had been for some 
 months in Upper Egypt. 
 
 Our passage presented many difficulties. The secretary of 
 Sir Sidney Smith, in a conversation with me, had allowed 
 the observation to escape that there was a great advantage 
 in blockading out of sight. We were therefore to expect 
 that we should find the English Commodore in our way. 
 In that case the frigate Carrire had received orders to 
 engage, so as to give the Muiron time to escape. But both 
 the frigates were Venetian-built ships, and very bad sailers ; 
 it became therefore necessary to make use of some stratagem 
 to avoid being seen. Admiral Gantheaume thought the best 
 way would be to run, for thirty days, along the flat shores of 
 Africa, where no ships reconnoitre, and to make short tacks 
 of half a league, without ever standing far out to sea. The 
 time appeared very long to us all ; for it would have been 
 imprudent to keep a light at night, so that we were obliged 
 to go to bed with the sun. Our days were spent in reading, 
 or discussing various topics ; the inexhaustible information 
 of our two learned travelling companions filled up our time 
 in a very agreeable manner. Plutarch frequently came to 
 our assistance ; and sometimes, during our long evenings, 
 the GeneraUin.chief would tell us ghost stories, in which he 
 
196 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 was very clever. The situation of France, and the future 
 state of the country, were often the subjects of his reflections. 
 He never mentioned the government of the Directory but 
 with a degree of severity that savoured of contempt. In the 
 meanwhile his conversation never betrayed what he intended 
 to do ; though some words that escaped him, some musings, 
 and some indirect insinuations, gave a wide scope to our 
 surmises. His administration in Egypt had been pure, his 
 operations full of genius ; but was that enough to clear him 
 in the eyes of a government that feared him, and was far 
 from wishing well to him ? He would be obliged to make 
 war ; but could he submit to the plans of a government 
 deprived of military knowledge, that might place him in an 
 awkward situation, and give his rivals means of success which 
 they would refuse to allow him ? These different ideas made 
 him very thoughtful. 
 
 At last the east wind began to blow in a constant manner. 
 We passed Cape Bone during the night, and we arrived 
 speedily at Ajaccio. This little town is the birthplace of the 
 General-in-chief : he had left it eight years before, when he 
 was only a captain of artillery. At the sight of this place 
 his heart was deeply affected. Coming from Egypt, where 
 the plague still prevailed, it was impossible for us to enter 
 the port. The inhabitants, surprised to see the Admiral's 
 flag hoisted on the mainmast, rushed towards the shore ; but 
 when they learned that their illustrious countryman was on 
 board his old friends and relations threw themselves into a 
 number of boats, came on board the frigate, and broke 
 through the quarantine. There was, however, no great 
 danger, for after forty-four days' navigation we had not one 
 sick person on board. Among the crowd that was bustling 
 round the state cabin there was an old woman dressed in 
 black, who continually held up her hands to the General, 
 saying, " Caro figlio ! " without being able to attract his 
 attention. At last he perceived her, and cried out '■'■Madre ! " 
 It was his nurse, who is still living at the moment I write this. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 197 
 
 The General-in-chief learned here, though in a confused 
 manner, what had happened in France during his absence. 
 Italy was lost, and Massena continued fighting like a lion in 
 Switzerland. In the interior the confusion had been very 
 great. Treilhard and Merlin were no longer members of the 
 Directory ; their places were occupied by the lawyer Gohier 
 and General Moulin. On hearing the latter name, the 
 General-in-chief turned to Berthier and said, " Who is this 
 General Moulin ? " "I never heard his name mentioned 
 before," answered Berthier. General Bonaparte put the 
 same question to all of us, and received the same answer. 
 That man's nomination caused him to reflect deeply. 
 Astonished not to see any of the authorities from the 
 land, he soon learned that the members of the munici- 
 pality, and those of the departmental directory, had sent 
 each other to prison. The commissary of the Government, 
 a stranger to the country, was sole master in that state of 
 confusion. The cabinet revolution had soon become known 
 at Ajaccio, and the diiferent parties found it the most 
 natural thing in the world to persecute one another. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 It was necessary to re-establish some order in the midst 
 of so much anarchy. In consequence, the General-in -chief 
 went to his own house, sent for the magistrates, whom he 
 delivered out of prison, exhorted them to peace and concord, 
 and the next morning the two frigates left the port, sailing 
 in the direction of the Isles of Hy^res. The whole of the 
 first day our navigation was very favourable. We perceived 
 already the hills of Provence, and our joy at returning to 
 our dear country was carried to its highest pitch, when the 
 sailor who was on the look-out said he espied two large ships 
 in the west. They could be no other than enemy's ships, 
 and soon several discharges of cannon seemed to indicate 
 that they had discovered us. The General-in-chief called 
 a council, and the universal opinion, — even that of the 
 admiral, — was that General Bonaparte had nothing else to 
 do than to throw himself into the post-boat that accompanied 
 us and return to Ajaccio. He was indignant at such advice. 
 " Do you think," said he, " that I can consent to run away 
 like a coward, when fortune has never ceased to favour me ? 
 Let us continue our course. My destiny is not to be taken 
 and die here." So we went on ; but instead of steering, 
 as we had done till then, in the direction of the Isles of 
 Hyferes, we resolved to go to Frdjus. The General-in-chief 
 had judged rightly. The enemy, whom we distinguished 
 with facility, because they were under the setting sun, could 
 not perceive us, because we were in the , shade. After 
 
 zgS 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 199 
 
 standing on the whole night, the two frigates reached the 
 roads of Frejus. The Sanitary establishment was situated 
 at about a quarter of a league from the town. An officer 
 of the frigate went towards the shore in a boat. We dis- 
 tinguished him perfectly well. Some men came to meet 
 him ; but after a few minutes we perceived a great confusion : 
 some people ran towards the town, and soon after the strand 
 was covered with an immense multitude of persons. The 
 boats were filled, and, as at Ajaccio, a number of men rushed 
 on board of the ship through the portholes. The cries of 
 " Long live Bonaparte ! " resounded all over the country. 
 A white horse was brought for him, and he went to the 
 house of a brother of the Abbe Siey^s, who lived at Frejus. 
 The sentiments that animated the whole population were 
 expressed in a manner that did not leave even the shadow of 
 a doubt. " You alone can save France,'' was the universal 
 cry. " She'll perish but for you : it is Heaven that sent you ; 
 seize the reins of government ! " His journey to Lyons 
 was a triumphal march. We arrived in that city at seven 
 o'clock in the morning. His having landed was already 
 known, and his arrival wished for with an ardour impossible 
 to describe. Lyons was still famous for its antipathy to the 
 Republican government, and we imagined that the General 
 would not stop ; but to our great astonishment he declared 
 that he intended to spend the remainder of the day there. 
 He received all the authorities and most distinguished 
 citizens ; without explaining himself, however, on {he direct 
 insinuations that were made to him to place himself at 
 the head of the government, but receiving with a cold 
 severity the Republicans that had organised a constitutional 
 club, and who came to congratulate him. He had been 
 invited to go to the theatre of the Celestins, where a piece 
 and a song had been prepared for the occasion. He chose 
 one of the boxes on a level with the pit ; and Duroc having, 
 by his order, placed himself in the front of the box, the call 
 for Bonaparte grew so violent and so unanimous, that the 
 
200 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 General-in-chief was obliged to change places with him 
 during the whole representation. 
 
 Towards midnight he set off, and passed through the Bour- 
 bonnais, wishing to avoid Micon, where the Republican club 
 had exasperated the aristocratic classes. From the very first 
 day of his arrival at Paris, the General-in-chief applied him- 
 self to avoid the eyes of the multitude, who were so desirous 
 of seeing him and expressing their enthusiasm. His inter- 
 view with the Directory was cold and unceremonious. The 
 members that composed it at that time were Barras, General 
 Moulin, and Gohier, who shared the same sentiments ; 
 Sieyfes and Roger Ducos were in the opposition. It was 
 said at that time that the two latter, despairing of being 
 able to maintain the Republican system, and wishing to 
 prevent at any rate the re-establishment of the Bourbons 
 in France, had cast their eyes on a prince of the House of 
 Spain, whose power would have been circumscribed in such 
 narrow limits that Liberty and all the principles of the 
 Revolution would have been in safety. Whatever may be 
 the truth of that anecdote, it is, however, certain that these 
 two Directors, when they explained to General Bonaparte 
 the disposition of the people's minds, and the impossibility 
 of continuing any longer under the directorial form of 
 government, entreated him to put himself at the head of 
 an insurrection that might overthrow it. A feeling of 
 affection that the General had preserved for Barras per- 
 suaded him to make some indirect overtures to that Director 
 to draw him into his party. Barras refused, either because 
 he had entered into secret engagements with the House oi 
 Bourbon, or rather by a want of enlightened views, and by 
 the Republican sentiments he could not decide to give up. 
 
 It became, therefore, necessary to do without him, and, 
 moreover, to take a speedy resolution. France was op- 
 pressed by the expenses of the war, and disgusted with a 
 violent government which, perceiving that its enemies 
 were augmented from day to day, and wishing to place in 
 
MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA VALETTE. 201 
 
 the same predicament the disaffected that its administration 
 created, with its inveterate enemies of the. aristocratic classes 
 and the families of the emigrants, loaded all indiscriminately 
 with the same rigour. The fear of the influence of the 
 emigrants, and of a return to a monarchical system, made 
 the Directors lean towards those rigorous measures that had 
 caused the success of the Committee of Public Welfare, and 
 most of their acts bore the marks of these measures. Their 
 partisans, that were no longer to be found anywhere else 
 than among a part of the public officers, were perpetually 
 exciting their anxiety on the spirit of the army ; and 
 General Bonaparte, in particular, inspired them with alarms 
 that could not fail soon to produce a violent attack against 
 him. These partisans of the Directory formed, nevertheless, 
 everywhere a minority, and especially in the two councils ; 
 but their activity and their audacious spirit compensated 
 for the smallness of their numbers. The General-in-chief 
 arrived on the 26th of Vendemiaire ; the conspiracy that 
 was to overturn the Directory was arranged and decided in 
 the first days of Brumaire, and several members of the two 
 Councils had been entrusted with the secret. Government 
 wishing, however, to show General Bonaparte a public 
 testimony of satisfaction, resolved to give him a splendid 
 dinner. It was decided that the board should be spread 
 in the nave of the Church of St. Sulpice. Arrangements 
 were made to bring together the two Councils and all the 
 high officers of the State. The General-in-chief went there 
 with a few generals and with his staff. An immense table 
 in the form of a horseshoe filled the whole church. The 
 General-in-chief sat next to the President of the Directory. 
 He trusted so little to the good faith of the Government that 
 he ordered a loaf of bread and half a bottle of wine to be 
 brought there for his private use. I had not been previously 
 informed of that circumstance, and I only learned it when 
 Duroc asked me in the church for those two articles of 
 provision which were fetched from the General's coach. I 
 
202 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 never witnessed a more silent assembly, nor one where the 
 guests showed less confidence and cheerfulness. Scarcely 
 any one addressed his neighbour, and those who were in the 
 secret of the plot preferred not to speak rather than to risk 
 dangerons conversation with neighbours who might differ 
 in opinion with them. The toasts that were given were 
 received without enthusiasm, even the one meant for 
 Gteneral Bonaparte, so deeply were the minds of every 
 one prepossessed with their own private thoughts. After 
 having sat for about half an hour, the General got up, 
 walked slowly round the tables, addressed a few words to 
 the guests, escaped by a side door, and was back in his 
 own lodgings before any one had observed his absence. 
 
 The most celebrated general officers of the army were 
 at the time nearly all at Paris. Moreau, Macdonald, 
 Bournonville, generals-in-chief, had entered into the plot. 
 Augereau, member of the Council of Five Hundred, had 
 not been made acquainted with it, nor Bernadotte. The 
 opinions of the latter were rather violent ; and a feeling 
 of jealousy, the cause of which was not extremely honourable 
 to them, had rendered them both enemies of General Bona- 
 parte. His having formerly commanded in Paris insured 
 him the friendship of all the officers of the staff ; whilst the 
 colonels of the regiments that held garrison in the metropolis 
 were all equally devoted to his person. 
 
 Notwithstanding the precautions that had been taken 
 (JO keep the whole affair a secret, it had, however, spread 
 among the higher classes, and almost all the military 
 residing in Paris. The three members of the Directory 
 learned it also ; and then for the first time the force of 
 public opinion made them start back before the measures 
 they might so easily have taken to annihilate the conspiracy. 
 It would undoubtedly have been sufficient to have appre- 
 hended the General during the night ; but then what would 
 liey have done with him ? How would they have made 
 out any charge against him ? Where would they have 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 203 
 
 found judges ? The General-in-chief was so sensible of his 
 real situation, that he took no precaution whatever for his 
 personal security. He was surrounded by nobody but his 
 aides-de-camp : he seldom went out, and worked principally 
 with Roedeur, in whom he placed his chief confidence. 
 
 On the 1 6th of Brumaire there was so little appearance 
 of the plot bursting the following day, that Eugfene and I 
 passed the evening at a ball, where he remained a part of the 
 night, and I left at midnight because that was the hour 
 when my duty began. The next morning at six o'clock the 
 sixty tafficers on duty in the quarter were assembled in the 
 courtyard of the General's house in the Rue de la Victoire. 
 The General explained to them in a forcible manner the 
 desperate situation of the Republic, and asked of them 
 a testimony of devotion to his person, with an oath of 
 allegiance to the two Chambers. He then mounted his 
 horse and flew to the Carrousel, where he found Sebastiani 
 at the head of his regiment, the fifth dragoons. On entering 
 the Tuileries, he also found the guards of the Directory, 
 whom their colonel had brought to remain at the disposal 
 of the Council of the Elders. The Minister of the War 
 Department had, nevertheless, two days beforehand strictly 
 prohibited the chiefs of the different corps from making the 
 slightest movement without his orders, under pain of death. 
 But besides the little esteem and confidence which that 
 minister (Dubois de Crance) inspired, the troops were 
 delighted on finding themselves placed under the command 
 of General Bonaparte. Their enthusiasm was so great that 
 they would not have hesitated a moment to fire on the 
 Directory if they had received an order to that effect. 
 
 General Bonaparte presented himself at the bar of the 
 Elders, where M. Le Mercier was in the chair. He there 
 received the decree by which he was appointed General-in- 
 diief of the troops of the first division, and an order to 
 march next day to St. Cloud, where the two Councils were 
 to hold their sitting. In fact, the following day the majority 
 
204 ' MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 of the two Councils assembled in the Palace of St. Cloud. 
 The General had required M. Gohier, President of the 
 Directory, to tender his resignation ; but he refused ; and, 
 as a lawyer, the reason he gave was that the order was con- 
 trary to the Constitution. His wife remained with Madame 
 Bonaparte, and they were obliged to work upon her alarm 
 to obtain her husband's submission. 
 
 The Council of Elders, not being very numerous, had 
 been easily accommodated in one of the large apartments ; 
 but the Council of Five Hundred, which was to sit in the 
 Conservatory, had not yet been able to assemble, because 
 the preparations were not completed. In consequence, the 
 sitting did not open till three o'clock. Lucien Bonaparte 
 was in the chair. Great excitement prevailed ; the friends 
 of the Directory seemed to be more numerous than the day 
 before. They all showed themselves indignant at a measure 
 which, bearing all the characteristics of a coup d'Hat^ pre- 
 sented besides what they called liherticide violence^ and an 
 odious violation of the Constitution. Scarcely had the 
 debates begun, when one of the members proposed that each 
 individually should mount the tribune, and swear allegiance 
 to the Constitution of the Year III. The General had given 
 me orders to remain in the hall, and bring him every five 
 minutes a report of what was going forward. The cere- 
 mony of the oath was undoubtedly meant to gain time and 
 prolong the sitting until night should fall in. In the space 
 of five minutes, no more than three oaths were taken ; so 
 that it was evident more than five hours would elapse before 
 the ceremony was terminated. I acquainted General Bona- 
 parte with the circumstance, and found him walking with 
 much agitation in an apartment that had no other furniture 
 than two armchairs. Sieyfes was alone with him, sitting 
 next to the chimney, before a burning faggot which he was 
 poking with a stick, for there was not even a pair of tongs. 
 After having listened to what I had to say. General Bona- 
 parte turned abruptly to Sieyfes and observed : " Now you 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 205 
 
 see what they are doing." — " Oh ! oh ! " answered the other 
 coolly, " to swear to a part of the Constitution may be 
 right ; but to the whole Constitution — that is too much ! " 
 
 I retired to the adjoining apartment, where I found about 
 thirty officers of the staff, and General Berthier in the midst 
 of them. All their faces were lengthened ; and they looked 
 gloomy. When I told General Berthier what was going 
 forward at the Five Hundred, he grew pale and heaved 
 a sigh. But all of a sudden the folding-door opened, and 
 General Bonaparte appeared, beating the floor with his whip 
 and exclaiming 4 "This must have an end!" They all 
 rushed out, and we soon found ourselves at the entrance of 
 the courtyard, where a regiment of infantry, just arrived 
 from Paris, were ranged in line of battle. He assembled the 
 officers, harangued them for a few minutes ; and then, turn- 
 ing his horse's head, he galloped back to the foot of the 
 great staircase, which he rapidly ascended, and presented 
 himself at the bar of the Council of the Elders. The speech 
 he made there was faithfully reported in the papers of the 
 time ; but his agitation of mind was carried to such a pitch, 
 that he hesitated, and his words were uttered with the 
 utmost disorder. When he arrived at that part of his 
 speech where he mentioned that a great plot had been 
 formed against Liberty, one of the members of the Council 
 said coolly to him : " General, you must reveal that plot." 
 Instead of answering him, the General continued still in 
 a little confusion ; but at last recovering his presence 
 of mind, he went on with a firmer voice, and finished his 
 speech. One part of the Council had shared his emotion ; 
 the other, on the contrary, enjoyed his confusion ; and as 
 the Council was to deliberate on what he had said, he with- 
 drew. But, instead of returning to the place he had come 
 from, he went to the Council of Five Hundred. In the 
 vestibule he found the grenadiers, who took up arms. The 
 noise they made alarmed the Assembly ; and when Bona- 
 parte presented himself, a great number of members rushed 
 
2o6 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 forward to meet him with angry cries, among which one 
 might have distinguished the word dictcdor. He was so 
 pressed between the deputies, his staff, and the grenadiers, 
 who had rushed to the door of the apartment, that I 
 thought for a moment he would be smothered. He could 
 neither advance nor go back. At last those who had 
 accompanied him felt that it was necessary to open a 
 passage for him, and they succeeded, though not without 
 violent efforts. He then went down again to the court- 
 yard, mounted his horse, and remaining at the foot of the 
 staircase, he sent an order for the President to come to him, 
 which the latter did as soon as he could escape. In the 
 meanwhile the confusion in the Assembly was carried to the 
 highest pitch : several members rushing towards the win- 
 dows which opened into the courtyard, pointed to him and 
 cried out : " Down with the Dictator ! — let him be out- 
 lawed ! " At that moment, M. de Talleyrand, Arnaud the 
 poet, and some other persons with whom I was talking, 
 suddenly turned as pale as death : they all fled except those 
 I have named. The terrible word of outlaw {kors la lot) 
 still possessed all its magic force ; and if a general of some 
 reputation had put himself at the head of the troops of the 
 interior, it would be difficult to guess what might have 
 happened. But the General took a resolution, and gave 
 Murat orders to clear the hall. Murat placed Colonel 
 Dujardin at the head of a detachment of grenadiers, who 
 crossed the hall at a quick pace. When the colonel was at 
 the end of the hall, he turned round towards the members 
 who filled the benches ; but these, getting out by the 
 windows, disappeared, and laid down their costume, which 
 consisted of a sort of Roman toga with a square cap. 
 
 When General Bonaparte entered the hall of the Council 
 of Five Hundred, one of the grenadiers who had followed 
 him received a thrust from a dagger, which penetrated his 
 coat, and which in all probability had been meant for the 
 General. The grenadier was rewarded, and I think died 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 207 
 
 a captain. The deputy marked out as the assassin was 
 a Corsican, called Arena : he perished a short time after, 
 heing implicated in the conspiracy of which Coracchi and 
 Topineau Lebrun were at the head, and the object of which 
 was to assassinate the First Consul at the Opera, in the 
 midst of the confusion they intended to create by letting 
 off squibs. Having left France a few days after the i8th 
 Brumaire, I could obtain no particulars of the affair. 
 
 Immediately after the expulsion of the deputies, the 
 members of the two Councils who had been appointed to 
 consult on the measures that were to be taken met ; and on 
 the 19th the city of Paris, and soon after all the rest of 
 France, learned that General Bonaparte had been created 
 First Consul, and that Messrs. Cambac^rfes and Lebrun were 
 to be Second and Third Consuls with him.' The former 
 had been a magistrate in the Parliament of Aix. He was 
 celebrated for his thorough information and his conciliating 
 temper. He had sat in the Convention, and his mitigated 
 vote in the King's trial gave the true measure of the weak- 
 ness of his disposition. The Third Consul, M. Lebrun, was 
 said to have written the beautiful ordinances of Chancellor 
 Maupeon, whose Secretary he had been. He was a very 
 well-informed man, and published two remarkable transla- 
 tions, one of the " Iliad," and the other of Tasso's " Jeru- 
 salem Delivered." He had the reputation of being a great 
 financier. The discernment of the First Consul in appoint- 
 ing him was universally applauded. 
 
 The Minister of Police at that period was M. Fouche, 
 subsequently Duke of Otranto. On the 17th Brumaire he 
 had pledged his word to General Bonaparte to serve him 
 unreservedly ; but on the i8th, as I was walking up and 
 down the apartments of St. Cloud, I met one of my old 
 schoolfellows named Thurot, whom I had not seen since 
 
 ■ Count Lavalette's memory has again betrayed him in this instance : — 
 the first three Consuls were Bonaparte, Siey^s, and Roger Ducos. Cam- 
 hac^res and Lebrun succeeded to the two latter a short time afterwards. — 
 Note of the Translator. 
 
2o8 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 I left college. He told me that he was secretary-general 
 of the police ; and as I questioned him. rather in a pressing 
 manner, he confessed that his master had sent him to St. 
 Cloud to witness the event, and that we must succeed at any 
 cost, as he was well enough acquainted with his patron 
 to know that he would make us pay our failure dearly. In 
 truth, we learned since that the Minister had taken 
 measures to have us apprehended, and perhaps shot, if the 
 undertaking at St. Cloud had not completely succeeded. 
 The Emperor learned that circumstance ; and, knowing his 
 own strength, he used sometimes to joke with his minister 
 about it. 
 
 Although I had not kept up my connections with the 
 family of Metternich, the First Consul, hoping to press the 
 Austrians so closely that peace would be the consequence 
 of the first campaign, sent me to Saxony with secret powers 
 to sign an armistice, in case the events of the war should 
 incline the Austrians that way. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 The expulsion of the late Government caused no manner of 
 regret to the public, though the terms of that expulsion created 
 some anxiety. Notwithstanding the violence of the preced- 
 ing Governments, the nation was not yet accustomed to them. 
 She had not forgotten the aim towards which all her exer- 
 tions had been directed for the last twelve years — the estab- 
 Ushment of liberty founded on solid and respected laws. 
 She found, however, in the new Constitution none of those 
 securities she was entitled to expect. Although the First 
 Consul crowned the country with his own glory, and though 
 his genius left him no fears for its independence, France 
 wished to find in the result of victory all the advantages of 
 peace, and all the wealth of industry and trade. Therefore, 
 when the periodical press was consulted on the question of 
 the Consulate for life, an immense majority of citizens ex- 
 pressed their approbation in the most striking manner, con- 
 vinced that a lasting magistracy oflFered to their interests a. 
 greater security. 
 
 One of the earliest measures of the First Consul was to 
 send new diplomatic agents to foreign countries. To me he 
 entrusted a mission to Dresden,^ ordering me, immediately 
 after my arrival, to write to Vienna that I had powers to 
 treat for a cessation of hostilities, in case the Cabinet of 
 Vienna should prefer addressing itself to me. The condi- 
 tions were in the form of preliminaries of peace. The 
 circumstances of the war on the Rhine hastened its con- 
 • See Appendix, Nos. XVII.— XX. 
 
 IS ^ 
 
210 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 elusion, and it was signed after the battle of Hohenlinden 
 by the Under-Chief of the Staff of Moreau. 
 
 The apparent object of my mission to Dresden was to 
 maintain good friendship between Saxony and France. I 
 had superseded a man of considerable merit ; but his having 
 been an agent of the Directory was sufficient to make his 
 situation perplexing and unpleasant. Mine was nearly the 
 same. The Elector was still officially at war with France, 
 as a member of the Empire, though he had recalled his 
 troops a long while before. I should have been obliged, 
 in a manner, to force the posts, and thus give displeasure. 
 My instructions gave me full authority to act in that 
 manner ; but such proceedings were not to my taste ; and 
 I entertained so great a regard for a prince who had 
 rendered his throne venerable by his virtues, that I should 
 certainly never have been able to surmount the aversion 
 I felt to give him the least uneasiness. I never even saw 
 him. I lived at Dresden in the greatest retirement. The 
 climate did not agree with my wife's health, and my want 
 of activity was disagreeable to me. When I received the 
 news of the battle of Marengo, my mind was filled with 
 grief at the thought that a military career was for ever 
 closed against me, and that I should soon be prohibited 
 from wishing for either glory or advancement. I was, how- 
 ever, somewhat comforted by the permission I received to 
 pass the Carnival of 1801 at Berlin. 
 
 A great many emigrants lived at Leipsic and Dresden 
 who owed their retreat and maintenance to the generous 
 bounty of the Elector. My arrival at first spread alarm 
 among these small colonies. My predecessor had been un- 
 able to afford them much protection, but he had at least 
 removed persecution. They imagined that an aide-de-camp 
 of General Bonaparte would not fail to drive them out of 
 the only retreat they had left. Instead of that I endeavoured 
 to remove their fears. I had no great merit in showing 
 them marks of humanity. I felt naturally incUned to con- 
 
MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA VALE TTE. 2 1 1 
 
 sider them in the light of unfortunate countrymen, who had 
 ceased to be dangerous from the time they had laid down 
 their arms. Besides which, I had received from the First 
 Consul a positive order to facilitate the return to France of 
 all such as appeared willing to carry back to their country 
 feelings of peace. I made no distinction, and, during twelve 
 years, I had no cause to repent. I now seek to forget that, 
 in 1 8 14, some of them repelled the gratitude they owed me 
 as an insult. During these twelve years, at least, the Im- 
 perial government was not displeasing to them. The 
 greatest part of them had solicited and obtained official 
 situations. 
 
 At Berlin we lodged with the French Ambassador, 
 General Burnonville. His polite attention and delicate 
 friendship enhanced the pleasure that reigned that year 
 in the metropolis of the Prussian dominions. It was 
 during my stay there that peace was signed with Russia ; 
 and I could not help remarking, as a curious circumstance, 
 the sudden eagerness with which the Russians sought us, 
 when a few days before a member of the diplomatic body 
 •would not have dared to dance in the same quadrille with a 
 French lady. I had the honour to see and approach fre- 
 quently the Queen, who was still more to be respected for 
 her virtues than admired for her beauty. It is impossible 
 to imagine a more charming person united with a more 
 dignified and majestic demeanour. 
 
 The simplicity of her manners added a still more sacred 
 character to the feelings of veneration she inspired. She 
 had no splendour, no retinue. She went out every day in 
 the plainest carriage, and frequently on foot, when the 
 weather permitted. The inhabitants of Berlin, or at least 
 many persons attached to the Court, used at ' that time to 
 express themselves with perhaps too great a freedom re- 
 specting their Sovereign and his family ; but never was the 
 sUghtest blame mixed with the praises bestowed on the 
 Queen. Surrounded by her lovely children, lavishing on 
 
3 1 2 MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA VALE TTE. 
 
 them the softest caresses with the most touching tenderness, 
 and without the least affectation, she received the French 
 with a grace and a feeling of preference dictated by policy ; 
 and it was easy to perceive that her attentions were owing 
 to the title of Frenchman more than to any particular merit 
 in the person to whom she addressed them. 
 
 She had then with her the Princess of Mecklenburg, a 
 sister of the Emperor Alexander, whose beauty was dazzling, 
 but whose noble features already bore traces of the com- 
 plaint of which she died a short time after : the whole 
 expression of her countenance presented something so pro- 
 foundly melancholy that whenever she spoke she seemed 
 to bid you a last adieu. 
 
 The most singular man of the Court of Berlin was Prince 
 Henry of Prussia. Posterity, which has now begun for him, 
 fully justifies all the praises of fame, and I owe respect to its 
 sentence ; still I must say that that sentence has not been 
 ratified by the city of Berlin. He was become a general 
 object of raillery and disregard. His manner of living, the 
 eccentricity of his tastes, the singularity of his dress, cer- 
 tainly contributed a great deal to the feeling of the public 
 towards him ; but it was chiefly owing to his hatred for 
 Frederick the Great, to which he frequently gave vent in 
 the most bitter sarcasms. Louis Bonaparte, having passed 
 through Berhn, went for a few days to Rheinsberg, the 
 usual residence of the Prince. On his return to town he 
 repeated to me with indignation the following words the 
 Prince had uttered at table : " You have a great idea in 
 France of my brother Frederick ; but how greatly mistaken 
 you Frenchmen are ! You do not know the secret of his 
 victories. He ought to have written as long as he lived— 
 it was for that alone nature destined him." A thousand 
 traits of this kind have been related to me at Berlin by 
 persons of rank. The most strange eccentricities may be 
 united with the greatest merit ; but so much hatred, such a 
 constant wish to lower in public estimation so great a man, 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 213 
 
 and particularly to attack him in his most justly acquired 
 glory, is conduct unworthy of a patriot, a prince, and a man 
 of good sense. 
 
 The truce with Austria was signed on the 4th of Nivose, 
 and, according to the promise of the First Consul, I was 
 soon after recalled. When I arrived in Paris, I found the 
 public still in the first excitement occasioned by the shock- 
 ing event of the Infernal Machine. The execrable attempt 
 showed how much hatred the House of Bourbon had con- 
 ceived against Bonaparte. It must be entirely attributed to 
 the Princes ; for in 18 14 the emigrants, then masters of the 
 field, openly boasted of it, and made no secret of the means 
 they had employed. Limoelan, Carton, and St. Rejant 
 were all three Vendeans, who had come from England 
 expressly for this noble enterprise. Limoelan escaped, and 
 nothing further has been heard of him ; St. Rejant also 
 escaped at first, but was retaken afterwards with Georges. 
 I shall here mention in what manner he was discovered. 
 
 I expected, on returning to the First Consul, to resume 
 the functions of aide-de-camp : I was mistaken. After 
 passing a few days at Malmaison, the First Consul sent 
 me word by Duroc that his intention was I should fill an 
 official post, and next morning I read in The Montteur 
 that I was appointed one of the directors of the Sinking 
 Fund. This appointment, which had been made without 
 consulting me, and of which I received the first account 
 through a newspaper, vexed me. I felt for that sort of 
 employment, and for Paris life in general, an aversion 
 which the catastrophe of 181 5 has but too well justified. 
 I went to M. Maret, Secretary of State, and declared that 
 I would not accept the situation ; and that I preferred 
 living in obscurity to accepting a post to which I felt 
 aversion. At five o'clock I went to dine at the Tuileries, 
 as usual. General Lannes, who was on duty, had heard of 
 my refusal : he came up to me, approved of it, and en- 
 couraged me. "This man wants to send away his most 
 
214 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 faithful friends : we shall see what he'll gain by it." The 
 approbation of the general did not add in the least to my 
 resolution, which was firmly taken. The First Consul 
 passed by in going to dine, and perceiving me, he took me 
 to the window and said, " You do not wish, then, to enter 
 into official employment ? " I answered rather drily, " No." 
 " Well," he replied, " you shall do as you please ; I'll 
 have nothing more to do with you." Saying that, he left 
 me. Those were the only harsh words I had ever heard 
 from him ; but they went to my heart. I retired in a rage, 
 
 and sending all to the d 1. Three days after, observing 
 
 my absence, Bonaparte sent Clarke and Eugene to order me 
 to go to speak to him. I went ; and he spoke so persua- 
 sively that I accepted the office. He then told me that his 
 intention was to make me Postmaster-General, in the room 
 of a man who was wholly devoted to M. de Talleyrand ; but 
 that, his secret having been discovered, he had encountered 
 an opposition which he wished to defeat by side measures. 
 At that time he was not yet absolute master. In fact, a 
 few months afterwards I received an order to take possession 
 of the Post Office. I entered it against my will. I never- 
 theless did my duty there during thirteen years, with a 
 devotedness and a zeal which were not sufficient to ensure 
 my welfare, and for which I have been cruelly punished in 
 
 i8iS- 
 
 When I took the management of the Post Office, I found 
 the fatal custom established of delivering up to the police of 
 every corner of France all the letters claimed as suspicious. 
 I immediately put an end to this practice by sending but of 
 office those directors that had been guilty of it. From that 
 time, at least, the secrets of families were no longer pried 
 into by the worst set of men. I soon resolved to cut oif all 
 communication with Fouch^ — a measure which he never 
 forgave me. 
 
 Government, however, met with the approbation of all 
 France. The new system of administration was better 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 215 
 
 appropriated to the spirit of the nation. The magistrates 
 had been chosen from among the enlightened classes of 
 society. All the public officers felt a wish to please, and 
 the necessity of being friends. Politeness, and the good 
 manners customary in civilised states, had taken place of 
 the vulgar forms of the Republic. Order reappeared on 
 all sides. The First Consul had promised peace : he gave 
 it with every appearance of durability. 
 
 France was proud of her First Magistrate, and her glory 
 was carried to the highest pitch. Northern Italy had been 
 added to the several conquests of the Revolution — a brilliant 
 acquisition that delighted the nation, which always was 
 destined to pay dearly for it. Peace with England gave the 
 finishing stroke to the national glory. Imagination itself 
 could set no bounds to the expected prosperity of France ; 
 and all those golden dreams seemed on the point of being 
 realised. The expedition to St. Domingo, entrusted in toO' 
 feeble hands, and which ought perhaps not to have been 
 undertaken at all, was a disappointment ; and the renewal 
 of the war with England a misfortune. But France was 
 full of energy, and shared the boldness and good fortune of 
 her chief. She had no other fear but that of losing him ; 
 and what fate could not effect amidst the perils of war, the 
 Princes of the House of Bourbon attempted once more, and 
 nearly succeeded. Experienced casuists may perhaps find 
 the means of conciliating the maxims of the Gospel, and the 
 inspirations of piety, with a resolution to commit the greatest 
 of all crimes, murder. Certain at least it is, that the Princes 
 commanded that murder, entered into all the details of its 
 execution, and marked out the victim ; whilst one of them 
 sent over with that purpose his most faithful servants and 
 most devoted friends. 
 
 It was in 1 804 that this event took place. For some time 
 previously, the First Consul, who had the English news- 
 papers carefully translated for his perusal, was surprised 
 not to find in them the usual abuse or threats against his 
 
2i6 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 person. Their silence appeared suspicious : and one night, 
 being unable to sleep, he arose, and looking over the reports 
 of the police he had received several months before, he found 
 that a person called Querelle had been arrested on the 
 coast of Normandy, with two other individuals ; that they 
 had been kept in prison since that time, as they were 
 strongly suspected of being Chouans, and of having come 
 over from England with some black design. He immediately 
 sent an order to put these young men on their trial. They 
 were probably found guilty, for they were sentenced to die. 
 The commander of the division delivered the sentence to the 
 chief of the staff for execution. That gentleman was at a 
 ball : he conned the letter on his return home, and went to 
 bed. If the order had been given immediately, and executed 
 next morning at seven o'clock, it is probable that the secret 
 of those unfortunate men would have been for ever buried 
 in their graves : but when daylight appeared the horror of 
 approaching death dismayed the mind of Querelle. He fell 
 into such violent convulsions, that he was supposed to have 
 &een poisoned. The doctor who was called to his assistance 
 tried to comfort him ; and some broken sentences which 
 escaped him led the doctor to the idea of sending him. a 
 person who might draw from him important disclosures by 
 promising him his pardon. The promise was made. When 
 his companions were ready to go to the fatal spot, they 
 exhorted him to remain firm. One of them said to him, 
 ■" Thou'lt say more than thou knowest. Death is so near, 
 and the pang so short ; a little more courage, and all will be 
 over ! " He resisted : his two accomplices left him, with a 
 shrug of the shoulders, and went calmly to be shot. How- 
 ever, Querelle acknowledged that several emigrants were 
 to have left England to assassinate the First Consul ; that 
 Georges and some of his companions had a share in the plot. 
 He did not mention General Pichegru. This slight indica- 
 tion gave a clue to the police. Fouche was then no longer 
 Minister of that department ; — it had been joined to the 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 217 
 
 department of Justice; an odd adjunction, universally 
 blamed, and which gave Government an appearance of 
 odious despotism : Justice raised her veil to seize, and 
 lowered it to judge. Still the whole structure of Fouchd 
 remained ; and although the Grand Judge, Regnier, did not 
 inow how to make use of it, perhaps because he used it 
 against his will, the heads of the police set on this occasion 
 all their skill to work. It was soon known that M. de 
 Riviere and the son of the Duke of Polignac had arrived in 
 Paris. They were arrested, and with them a dozen wretched 
 "bravoes, who had gained no reputation even in the Vendue 
 — robbers of diligences, polluted by the vilest and most 
 •odious crimes. Some of these wretches declared that 
 Georges was at the head of the conspiracy. One of the 
 accomplices said that he had seen in Georges' lodgings a 
 man for whom that chief showed the greatest consideration, 
 and whom he treated with evident respect. This person 
 was supposed to be the Duke d'Enghien ; and Bonaparte 
 sent an aide-de-camp to Ettenheim, to inquire what the 
 Duke d'Enghien was doing there, and whether he frequently 
 left that residence. The aide-de-camp came back, saying 
 that the Duke was often absent from ten to twelve days, and 
 that nobody knew where he went. From that circumstance 
 it was concluded that he came to Paris incognito, and that 
 it was he whom Georges treated with so much respect. His 
 arrest was decided. A few days after his death, Pichegru was 
 also arrested ; and then Picot, who had made the declaration 
 about Georges, being confronted with the prisoner, said it 
 was he whom he had meant when speaking of the superior 
 chief. When the First Consul heard this, he trembled with 
 despair, and cried, " Cursed report ! fatal aide-de-camp ! " 
 Pichegru being arrested, Bonaparte resolved also to make 
 sure of Moreau. The enmity between these two men ought 
 to have concluded in no other way but by a desperate duel. 
 The former had been betrayed by the latter before the i8th 
 •of Fructidor. Bonaparte had, nevertheless, obtained certain 
 
2i8 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 proofs that their quarrel had been made up by the interposi- 
 tion of an Abbd David. He did not, however, produce these- 
 proofs, and he acted wisely. In the hearing of the cause, no 
 doubt was left but Georges and his friends had come to Paris- 
 to murder the individual at the head of the Government ; 
 that M. de Rivi&re, first aide-de-camp to Monsieur, Comte- 
 d'Artois, was in the plot ; that he had been sent over tO' 
 take a leading part in it ; that Messieurs de Polignac, attached 
 by affection and birth to the House of Bourbon, had come 
 with the same intentions ; and that Pichegru and Moreau 
 were to profit by the attempt to recall the Bourbons and 
 replace them on the throne. I say, to profit by ; because it 
 appears, by an observation that escaped Pichegru, that he 
 had refused to take a direct share in the murder of a warrior' 
 to whom, at least, he owed considerations. On his arrival 
 in Paris he saw Georges ; and, hearing from him that the 
 act was not yet committed, he said with a haughty air, 
 " What mean all these delays and precautions ? In London 
 you never thought of calculating anything. Speedily fulfil 
 your promise. I do not wish to see you until all is ready." 
 In fact, notwithstanding his intrepidity, Georges, on his 
 arrival, had not calculated everything. He remained five 
 months and a half concealed in Paris : during so long a 
 space of time, fortune presented him with only two oppor- 
 tunities of committing the crime he meditated, with a due 
 regard for the chances of success and his own safety. The 
 First Consul was not to be attacked in the Tuileries, and it 
 was very difficult to surprise him in his walks, for which he 
 had no regular hours. To assassinate him in a playhouse 
 was become impossible, since the attempt of the Infernal- 
 Machine had miscarried. The design of Georges could 
 therefore only be put in execution during one of his 
 journeys ; and still it was not possible at the moment of 
 his starting. The army was then assembled at Boulogne.. 
 The First Consul went twice thither. The first time he 
 started from Paris ; and I only learned his departure at a 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 219- 
 
 ball the Second Consul gave. Bonaparte came there. It 
 was ten o'clock : he perceived me, as he was walking in the 
 saloon ; and, having made me a sign, I stepped into an 
 apartment where there were but few people. He said to me, 
 en passant, " I intend to set oiF in two hours for Boulogne ; 
 two coaches, six horses, eight ponies, and General Duroc." 
 I was prepared. The usual express went off an hour before 
 him, and he arrived before any one knew in Paris where 
 he was gone. But his return was easier to be known. It 
 was natural to imagine that he would not remain long at 
 Boulogne. The plan of Georges, according to his own con- 
 fession, was to waylay him on his return, dressed ivith some 
 of his accomplices as guides, who, mounted on ponies, 
 fatigued by the express service, generally followed the coach 
 at a considerable distance. They were to stop the First 
 Consul, put him in a cabriolet escorted by them, drive 
 rapidly to Normandy, and embark him for England. The 
 latter part of the plan was evidently too absurd for a man 
 of Georges' sense to have ever thought it feasible. He 
 only invented that fable, because he was ashamed of 
 acknowledging that he intended to murder the First Consul ; 
 and, in fact, nothing would have been easier for him, while- 
 accompanying the coach as a guide, than to let oif a tromblon,. 
 the shot of which Bonaparte could not have survived. At 
 Bonaparte's first return, Georges had not yet got together 
 all his people : he wished, besides, to strike the blow in 
 Paris. The second journey took place with the same pre- 
 cautions, only that Bonaparte travelled under the name of 
 General Bessieres. I do not know what circumstance pre- 
 vented Georges from executing his plan that time. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 The death of the Duke d'Enghien was partly occasioned by 
 the mistake into which the report of the aide-de-camp led 
 the First Consul ; but I must say that that was not the only 
 -cause of it. Proofs had been obtained that the Prince really 
 did come from time to time on the left bank of the Rhine, 
 
 where he held conferences with the Mayor of , and 
 
 stopped at the village of . It was but natural to con- 
 clude from that circumstance that he was not a stranger to 
 the plots of Pichegru. In truth, what was the plan of the 
 ■conspirators, according to their own confession and those of 
 their friends who now boast of it ? Pichegru was to throw 
 himself into Alsatia, to proclaim the King, and make that 
 province declare itself in favour of the Bourbons ; while 
 Moreau was to do the same with the army of the coasts. 
 Why then should not Pichegru have called in a Prince of 
 the House of Bourbon, who lived at seven short leagues 
 distance : a Prince, the only one of his family who had 
 acquired military reputation in these very departments of 
 the Rhine, and whose presence would have warmed the 
 Tiearts and moved the courage of every one. 
 
 Another motive, perhaps the most peremptory, must be 
 sought for in Bonaparte's character — impetuosity and love 
 of revenge, which might be called vendetta Corsica. That 
 feeling was, besides, at the period I am describing, raised to 
 the highest degree by his enemies. I heard him say a few 
 ■days afterwards, "Let them throw all Europe on my 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 221 
 
 shoulders ; my part will then be to defend myself : their 
 attack is a legal one. But to blow up whole streets, to kill 
 or maim more than one hundred persons in the hope of 
 coming at me ; to send, as they now have done, forty 
 bravoes to murder me — that is too much. I will make 
 them shed tears of blood. They shall learn at their 
 expense what it is to make murder legal." 
 
 Revenge is but a vulgar passion, and still it is the 
 commonest amongst kings. The First Consul was worthy 
 of setting himself above it. I should have wished him to 
 have had the Duke d'Enghien arrested and condemned -, 
 but after the judgment to have sent for him, have given 
 him the proofs that were obtained of his having conspired 
 against him, and then to have immediately sent him over tO' 
 England. I am sure the Prince's heart was too noble not 
 to be moved by such an act of magnanimity ; and if his 
 family were destined one day to reign again, Bonaparte 
 would not have fourid in him an enemy, nor in his own 
 heart a reproach which he was never able to silence. For 
 the rest, their actions served as a foundation to the fabric 
 of horror raised against him all over France and Europe, 
 But without naming all the Princes who, after having 
 committed the same fault, have nevertheless retained the 
 respect of mankind, does not the greatest and wisest of our 
 writers, Montesquieu, when speaking of Alexander, say, 
 " He burned Persepolis and killed Clitus, but &c." ? I 
 went to St. Cloud a few days after the trial. I was ac- 
 customed, while waiting for the order to enter the closet 
 of the First Consul, to stop in the library with a young 
 man named Ripaule, who took care of his books, and who 
 told me that the day before, while going out of that room, 
 Bonaparte perceived a bust of the Great Cond6 placed in 
 a passage leading to his closet : he immediately said to 
 Ripaule, with an abrupt tone and an agitated voice : " Let 
 that bust be placed somewhere else." 
 
 The arrival of the Prince and his death were known at 
 
232 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 the same moment at the palace. Madame Bonaparte burst 
 into tears and threw herself at her husband's feet, to ob- 
 tain the Prince's pardon ; it was too late. His sister-in-law, 
 Madame Elisa, wrote him a letter composed by Fontanes : 
 he remonstrated with her for having sent it, but without 
 any appearance of resentment. Caulaincourt, on his arrival 
 from Strasburg, learned the fatal news from Madame 
 Bonaparte. His grief was so great that he fainted. I 
 have no doubt of his having been a perfect stranger to 
 the arrest of the Duke d'Enghien, and my proof is his 
 "having accepted the place of chief equerry. Caulaincourt 
 would never have deigned to receive the wages of blood. 
 His elevation was only owing to his merit and .attachment 
 to the First Consul. 
 
 This fatal coup (THat had not yet ceased harassing Bona- 
 parte's mind, when it received another violent shock by the 
 ■death of Pichegru. He had been arrested, examined, and 
 •confronted. The worthless behaviour of the subalterns 
 towards. him, and the total ruin of his hopes, made him 
 resolve to avert the horrors he had still to encounter, by 
 ridding himself of a life he had no more means of pro- 
 longing. Perhaps also he was urged to the act by the 
 shame of having associated with such accomplices for the 
 performance of such a crime. He was found dead in prison. 
 It would be insulting both Bonaparte and Pichegru to 
 imagine that one of the two could have taken the other's 
 life in that manner. One must not seek to rob that 
 ■energetic soul of the glory of having nobly escaped from 
 the hands of his enemies. His retreat was that of a gallant 
 warrior ; and if all the particulars that have been published 
 were not sufficient to exonerate Bonaparte from the suspicion 
 of having murdered him, the character of Pichegru, well 
 known to those who approached him, had left not the least 
 doubt in their minds. 
 
 The condemnations of the other prisoners created a 
 general feeling of pity, particularly among the family of 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 223 
 
 the First Consul, and those who were devoted to his person. 
 Too much blood had already been spilled, and every person 
 sought to obtain from the Sovereign the pardon of some 
 -victim or other. Madame Bonaparte took upon her to 
 save M. de Rivifere and the Pohgnacs. I accompanied to 
 St. Cloud Madame Louis Bonaparte, having by her side the 
 daughter of Lajolais. The mother of the First Consul, and 
 Madame Joseph, the wife of General Murat, and her two 
 •sisters, undertook to solicit the pardon of the others. When 
 I arrived at St. Cloud, the First Consul, on perceiving me, 
 ■said : " What are they doing in my wife's apartments ? 
 They are weeping, and she the most of all. It is a heart- 
 Tsreaking sight." 
 
 I had found him agitated ; his emotion grew more and 
 more visible. He walked two or three times up and down 
 the closet, and said : "The wretches wanted to murder me ! 
 What a base act ! " 
 
 He then went out of the room. A little while afterwards, 
 the sister of M. de Rivifere and the female relations of the 
 Polignacs came in, led by Madame Bonaparte, and fell at 
 Tiis feet. He did not hesitate a moment, but immediately 
 .signed the pardon of Messieurs de Polignac and de Rivifere. 
 Georges had written to Murat a very noble letter, in which 
 lie solicited, not his own pardon, but those of his com- 
 panions. The General read it to me with emotion. He 
 offered, however, to be the first to throw himself on the 
 English coast if life was granted to him. It was, he said, 
 only changing the manner of his death ; but in that way at 
 least it would be useful to his country. His letter was read 
 in a secret council. Bonaparte himself appeared disposed to 
 pardon, but it was represented to him that those men had 
 killed public functionaries in the streets ; that no favour 
 could be allowed to a double murder ; that it would be 
 showing a sort of favour to murderers, and discourage those 
 whose duty it was to defend him ; that Georges, an obscure 
 man in his own party, was, after all, nothing but a leader of 
 
224 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 banditti, famous only for atrocious acts ; and, in one word,, 
 that if he were spared nobody could with justice be 
 punished. He was executed with nine of his accomplices ; 
 and the mob, according to their custom, went to see the 
 tragedy performed, and to seek emotions at the sight of the 
 violent death of individuals who |had attempted to recall 
 the Bourbons. 
 
 This conspiracy made the First Consul sensible that he 
 ought to hasten his ascent to the throne. It was the secret 
 wish of all those whose ambition looked for favours which a 
 Republic was unable to bestow. To Bonaparte it offered 
 not alone protection, but also an extent of power, of which 
 he felt the want for the execution of his great design. 
 Besides that, it was the only means of reconciling to his 
 government the Sovereigns of Europe, who trembled at the 
 thought of a Republic. England alone excepted, being 
 scarcely a monarchy in its foreign concerns, all the other 
 powers were convinced that the presence of a monarch in 
 France would stem the torrent of Republican ideas, and the 
 discontent that prevailed among all nations. Peace had 
 already been concluded with all, and confirmed during the 
 Consulate. The Emperor Paul had gone farther still. In 
 his hatred of the English, he found a powerful auxiliary in 
 the First Consul. Both these monarchs sought to mark 
 their reign by illustrious actions, and their common hatred 
 of the English had brought them a great deal nearer to one 
 another. There had been some questions of an expedition 
 to India by their joint forces. The Emperor Paul im- 
 prudently betrayed his secret, and perished. His death was 
 probably as much owing to that circumstance as to the 
 despotism with which he swayed his family and his court. 
 
 The return so skilfully prepared from republic to mon- 
 archy was marked by the most solemn ceremony the 
 Christian world had witnessed for the last thousand years. 
 All Christendom most ardently wished that the kingdom of 
 France, after having presented to the world a deplorable 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 225 
 
 example of scandalous impiety, might also offer a majestic 
 instance of a nearer return to the Christian religion. The 
 Pope, rising above all mean passions, hatred, and prejudice 
 — convinced, besides, that the leader of France was directed 
 by Providence — concluded a treaty dictated by wisdom, 
 policy, and the sanctity of his high calling. He could not 
 have resisted the wish that was expressed to him, to conse- 
 crate the union of Church and State by the authority of his 
 presence, and the pompous ceremonies of that worship, 
 which acknowledged in him its sovereign pontiff. He left 
 Rome, and came to France. The First Consul received 
 him at Fontainebleau, and the most majestic gravity pre- 
 sided over their mutual relations during the whole of his 
 stay in France. The ceremony of the coronation was the 
 most solemn that ever had bestowed a sacred character on 
 the legitimacy of a sovereign. The Pope, a venerable old 
 man, surrounded by all his prelates, and by more than one 
 hundred French bishops ordained with his consent, the 
 chief functionaries of the state, the whole diplomatic body 
 of Europe, and the universal assent of France and the army, 
 have given to that act a degree of legitimacy which the 
 House of Bourbon will never be able to weaken. These 
 united claims to all that is legitimate among men were 
 perhaps not sufficiently felt by the Emperor, when he 
 -abdicated at Fontainebleau. His resistance would un- 
 doubtedly have cast him into captivity ; but what ought 
 his own fate to have been in his eyes ? He was persecuted 
 as a sovereign. But his son never could forfeit his right ; 
 and although he abdicated in his favour, that modified act 
 was void, because not expressed by his own sacrifice. I 
 shall have an opportunity of recalling these reflections to 
 mind. 
 
 England soon felt that the peace with the whole 
 Continent, and with herself, would be fatal to her. The 
 expedition to St. Domingo had begun successfully. It was 
 altogether a bad enterprise that ought not to have entered 
 
 16 
 
226 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 into the plans of the Emperor ; but the remembrance of the 
 prosperity of St. Domingo, the numerous colonists who had 
 fled to France and sighed over the wreck of their fortune, 
 called loudly for the conquest of the island. The Emperor 
 yielded to the general delusion, and to a desire of employing 
 his navy, which was eager to share the national glory.' 
 The Directory had made a bad choice and taken half- 
 measures : this was more than sufficient to produce failure. 
 The general to whom they had given the command of the 
 expedition was a man of little capacity, though of great 
 personal integrity. He failed, and fell a victim to the skill 
 of the blacks. He was shipped off and sent away with the 
 reputation of a dupe, and the disgrace he had cast on the 
 name of the French. The general to whom the Emperor 
 entrusted the second expedition had more sense and talent 
 than his predecessor, but, like him, he had to contend with 
 a destructive climate, and a power augmented by first 
 success. It must also be acknowledged that liberty, with 
 all its advantages, its energy, and its hopes, bad given to the 
 negroes, already organised, and proud of their former 
 victory, a degree of strength and skill over which it was 
 no longer possible to triumph. The General-in-chief died 
 a victim to the climate ; and, although he had sent to 
 France Toussaint Louverture, the chief man in the country, 
 he sunk under the national energy and advantageous 
 positions of his enemies. 
 
 England seized the moment when the success of the 
 expedition was doubtful, to break the peace. Mr. Pitt, 
 accustomed to trample on the most sacred rights and 
 conventions, began the war without declaration, captured 
 trading vessels, ruined merchants, and set the Continent 
 again on fire. Russia and Austria united took up arms 
 
 ' It is easy to discover that the writer has here made a slight mistake, or 
 lather has transposed events. The expedition to St. Domingo took place 
 in 1802, before the First Consul had mounted the Imperial throne, and 
 Toussaint Louverture died at Fort Joux on the 14th of April, 1803.— iV«/e 
 i>fthe French Editor. 
 
MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA VALE TTE. 227 
 
 again. The Emperor left the shores of the Atlantic for 
 Austria, and made the admirable campaign which termi- 
 nated with the battle of Austerlitz. It was then that I 
 adopted for the first time, on a large scale, the system of 
 expresses the Emperor had commanded me to organise, 
 and the invention of which was his. He had felt the 
 inconvenience of letting a single man cross such a vast 
 «xtent of country. More than once, the couriers, oppressed 
 with fatigue or badly mounted, did not by their speed 
 satisfy his impatience. He did not like either to put in 
 the hands of a single man papers, the speedy reception of 
 which might have a serious and sometimes decisive influ- 
 ence over the most important events. Consequently, by 
 liis orders I organised the express service, which consisted 
 in sending by the postillions of each stage the cabinet des- 
 patches shut up in a portfolio, of which he and I had each 
 a key. When a postillion arrived at a stage, he delivered to 
 the next one a little book, on which the name of all the 
 stages was inscribed, and in which the hour of the arrival 
 and departure of the despatches was to be mentioned. 
 Fines and severe punishment were inflicted for the loss 
 of the little book, or for any negligence of the postmaster 
 in setting down the hour of the arrival and departure of 
 the despatches. I had a great deal of trouble in obtaining 
 a due execution of those forms ; but by means of an active 
 and constant superintendence I succeeded at last, and the 
 service continued during eleven years with most wonderful 
 success. I was enabled to account exactly for a day's delay 
 on a space of four hundred leagues. The express departed 
 and arrived every day from and to Paris, Naples, Milan, the 
 mouths of the Cataro, Madrid, Lisbon, and, at a later period, 
 also Tilsit, Vienna, Petersburg, and Amsterdam. This plan 
 besides ensured considerable economy : the couriers used 
 to cost seven francs and a half per post, whereas the ex- 
 presses were no more than three francs. The Emperor 
 received on the eighth day the answers to the letters he 
 
228 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 addressed to Milan, and on the fifteenth to those of Naples. 
 This service was very useful to him, and I may say without 
 vanity that it proved one of the elements of his success. 
 
 The campaign began by the affair of Ulm, which came 
 like a thunderbolt : Russia was dismayed, and hastened to 
 hide her hostile projects. Austerlitz forced Austria to bend 
 the knee, and the astonished Russians to fall back. The 
 following year, Prussia was defeated in the battle of Jena, 
 and added a fresh proof to a thousand others, that an abso- 
 lute monarchy is nothing if its leader be not the most 
 skilful man in the nation. This event was also a proof that 
 Prussia is not a strong nation. Its sovereign, dismayed by 
 the loss of one battle, sought an auxiliary in the most 
 distant north ; while its army, which still contained pupils 
 of Frederick the Great, had lost all its old energy, and even 
 the enthusiasm of its former glory. One day it fought, and 
 the next it was nothing more than a mass of men without 
 discipline or energy. One only saved the honour of the 
 monarchy, and preserved some sparks of the same fire that 
 influences all hearts. This was not done by a prince of the 
 House of Prussia, but by Bliicher, and his march towards 
 Lubeck, with his noble defence, gave the Prussians a great 
 lesson of courage in adversity, the most important and most 
 useful lesson men and nations can receive. 
 
 These two years' triumph did not inspire the Emperor 
 with an idea of conquering Europe to become her master or 
 her president ; it was his genius and his character that 
 developed the idea : for those great conquerors of the world 
 are all cast in the same mould — everywhere they must be the 
 first, or perish I He had spent four years of his consulate 
 in discussing the Civil Code, an edifice which has already 
 been shaken in one of its most important parts, but which 
 will never be destroyed as long as the love of our country 
 and a taste for civilisation shall preside over our destinies. 
 In the interval from his second war to his last, he busied 
 himself with the interior administration. Some disorder, 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 229 
 
 occasioned more by want of experience than by dishonesty, 
 had arisen during his absence. On his return, he displaced 
 some persons, rectified some of his choices, and gave to the 
 general administration a lively though steady impulse. His 
 astonishing memory made him master of all things, not only 
 in their ensemble^ but also in their most minute details. 
 The consequence of this was, that his conversation was 
 extremely perplexing for men who were not perfectly 
 acquainted with the subjects they were to demonstrate. It 
 was his constant application to all sorts of affairs, and his 
 excellent method of classing them in his mind, that enable^d 
 him to carry his success so far. It has frequently happened 
 to me to be less sure than he was of the distances of places, 
 and of a number of particulars in my department which he 
 knew well enough to correct. M. de Talleyrand told me, 
 that as he was one day travelling with him from Boulogne 
 to Paris, a short time after the army had left the court for 
 the banks of the Rhine, the Emperor met a detachment of 
 soldiers going to join their corps, which they did not know 
 where to find. Having inquired the number of their 
 regiment, he immediately calculated the day of their 
 departure, and the road they had taken, and said to them — 
 " You will find your battalion at such a place." The army 
 was at that time two hundred thousand men strong. The 
 admirable order in which he arranged his ideas, and his 
 prodigious memory, made him as much beloved by the 
 soldiers as respected by the ofiScers of the army. Every 
 one knew that he never forgot the name of a brave man, 
 and that it was always sufficient to recall to his memory 
 some brave action to ensure its recompense ; and whenever 
 he promised anything, he always kept his word. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 I NOW proceed to the campaign of 1809. The success of the 
 Wagram campaign had a considerable influence over the 
 destinies of France : not so much, however, because peace 
 was once more ensured to the Continent, as on account of 
 the alliance between the two crowns. The first proposals of 
 the marriage of the Emperor with the Archduchess Maria 
 Louisa were made at Vienna with Prince Metternich, not- 
 withstanding the exertions of a considerable party that 
 would not listen to such an aUiance. I first suspected what 
 was going forward through a singular circumstance. The 
 Emperor did not well know how to divorce a woman who 
 was so deserving of liis love, and whose adorable qualities 
 had made her an object almost of worship in the eyes of the 
 French. He would not have been sorry to have seen others 
 set an example which might make some impression on the 
 public, and render the matter less difficult to him : at least, 
 
 I have always thought so. Marshal came to see me 
 
 the day after his arrival. We were friends of long standing : 
 he placed in me an unbounded confidence, and he spoke to 
 me of his wife with great discontent. I had always thought 
 him jealous, and I believe he did not do his wife justice. In 
 our conversations he even went so far as to say he could not 
 live any longer with her, and he repeated to me what the 
 Emperor had said to him at Vienna. Napoleon affected to 
 pity the Marshal's domestic vexations, and observed that the 
 best thing he could do would be to end them by a divorce. 
 
MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA VALE TTE. 23 1 
 
 " You will naver have any children by her," he added, " and 
 still you ought to wish that a name like the one you bear 
 be not lost. Divorce her, and then you may choose among 
 the most illustrious families of France a consort who will 
 give you successors to your rank and titles." The Marshal, 
 when he mentioned the fact to me and asked my advice , 
 was as far as myself from suspecting the secret motive of the 
 Emperor's words. I had not the least doubt of his wife's 
 virtue : she possessed many amiable qualities, and had 
 brought him a considerable fortune. I advised him not to 
 take a step he might perhaps long regret. He followed my 
 advice, and I believe he acted wisely. 
 
 A few days after the Emperor returned from the army, 
 and at the end of two months he went to Fontainebleau. 
 I followed him thither almost immediately. As soon as I 
 arrived, the Empress sent me word to come to her apart- 
 ment by a back staircase. I found her melancholy, and 
 her countenance betrayed the effect of strong agitation. 
 " Fouche has just left me," she said, " and what do you 
 think he said to me ? ' Madame, your Majesty must give 
 France and the Emperor a great proof of devotion. It is 
 necessary for the Emperor to leave behind him children who 
 may perpetuate his name, and give to France a family that 
 may deprive the Bourbons of all hopes of return. Ten 
 years' marriage leaves the nation and the Emperor no 
 expectations of his having any children by your Majesty. 
 You are therefore, in this respect, the only obstacle to the 
 solid happiness of France. Vouchsafe to follow the advice 
 of a man who is wholly devoted to you. The peculiar 
 situation in which you are placed obliges you to make a 
 great sacrifice to your own glory and the interest of all. I 
 know how hard it will fall upon you ; but your noble mind 
 will easily learn resignation. The Emperor will never dare 
 to propose it. I know his attachment for you. Be greater 
 than he is great, and give this last token of devotion to your 
 country and your sovereign. History will repay you for it, 
 
232 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 and your place will be marked above the most illustrious 
 women that have sat upon the throne of France.' I was 
 utterly disconcerted at that speech," added Josephine ; "the 
 only reply I could give to so strange a proposal was that I 
 would consider of it, and give him an answer in a few days. 
 Lend me,' therefore, your advice — you who are at once a 
 relation and a friend to me. Does it not appear past all 
 doubt that Fouche has been sent by the Emperor, and that 
 my fate is already decided ? Alas ! to descend from a 
 throne is no sacrifice to me. No one knows how many 
 tears I have shed over it ! But to lose also the man on 
 whom I have bestowed all my affection — that is an act of 
 self-denial to which my resolution is not adequate." 
 
 I shared the Empress's surmise, that Fouche had been 
 sent by the Emperor ; but that strange news surprised me 
 as much as it did her, and I asked for some hours to reflect 
 before I gave her an answer. It required, however, but 
 short meditation to be convinced, that whether the proposal 
 had really been made by order of the Emperor, or that 
 Fouch6 wished to keep to himself the glory of such a 
 change, it was altogether too advantageous to be abandoned, 
 and that the sacrifice was therefore unavoidable. On the 
 other hand, I was too well acquainted with the attachment 
 of the Empress to her husband not to be convinced that she 
 never would of her own accord make the sacrifice. I had 
 been for a long time devoted to her : I was her son's friend, 
 and her niece's husband. It was therefore by no means 
 proper that I should encourage a plan which had perhaps 
 no other source than Fouch^'s ambition, and break all the 
 ties which united me to that family : I do not mean only 
 the ties that might be of service to me, but chiefly those of 
 friendship. I have, besides, never placed much confidence 
 in that human wisdom which pretends to control events 
 by foretelling them. None but the most enlightened and 
 strongest minds are able to see the future, and even they are 
 often mistaken. I advised the Empress to remain silent 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 233 
 
 on the subject, to let the Emperor begin, and to declare to 
 Fouche, that as her first duty was attachment to the 
 Emperor, her second was obedience, and that in consequence 
 ■she did not wish to hear any more upon the subject from 
 any other person than the man who held her fate in his 
 hands. She approved of my advice, and followed it. But 
 the storm was not long before it burst. All was undoubtedly 
 already concluded with Austria, when the Emperor sent for 
 Eugene from Italy, that he might comfort his mother at the 
 fatal moment of the divorce ; and a few days after he held a 
 secret council, where he admitted, besides the grand officers 
 and ministers, the members of the family. He explained in 
 that council the motives which had swayed his decision, by 
 ■seeking, for the advantage of the state, in another marriage, 
 his long-lost hope of begetting direct issue. He gave them 
 afterwards to understand that he was at liberty to choose his 
 new consort either in the House of Austria, or in that of 
 Russia, or in some of the sovereign Houses of Germany. 
 The grand officers of the empire, who were probably already 
 acquainted with his secret determination, gave their votes 
 for an Austrian princess. Prince Eugene was of the same 
 opinion, and adduced as his principal motive the Roman 
 Catholic religion, in which the Archduchess was bred. The 
 King of Naples gave his vote for a Russian princess, on 
 account of the advantage that would accrue from a union 
 with the most powerful sovereign of Europe, and the most 
 ■distant from France : he opposed the alliance with Austria, 
 by recalling the fatal experience we had already reaped from 
 it. " A family alliance," he added, " never gave to France 
 any real advantage. France will be obliged to support all 
 the wrong steps of the foreign government, and to share its 
 heavy and dangerous burthens. Nothing but the situation 
 of Austria can force her to a connection which in her proud 
 heart she certainly detests. It is Austria who more than 
 any other power has given the force of a maxim to the idea 
 that sovereigns have no relations. France will be obliged 
 
234 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 to support her at great cost in her awkward and frequently- 
 dishonest policy, and in the wars she so badly manages ; and 
 when in our turn we shall want her as an ally, we shall find 
 in her neither energy nor fidelity. An alliance with Russia 
 has none of those dangers for us.'' 
 
 These were very sensible observations, but could have no 
 effect against a fixed resolution. I have been told that some 
 proposals of a marriage with a Grand-duchess had really 
 been made, and the person who entrusted me with that 
 secret enjoyed such a high character for honesty, and was in 
 so favourable a situation to get acquainted with the most 
 important affairs, that I can have no doubt upon the subject. 
 However, the Emperor was at that time so strongly deter- 
 mined, that the debate of which I have been speaking 
 could have had no other foundation than a feeling of vanity,, 
 to which he was perhaps not altogether a stranger, and some 
 political object which I never could discover. 
 
 A few days before he had sent for me. He had been 
 looking out for some friend of the Empress who might help 
 to sweeten the bitter about to be presented to her. His 
 choice fell on me. " The nation," he said, " has done so 
 much for me, that I owe her the sacrifice of my dearest- 
 affections. Eugfene is not young enough for me to keep 
 him for my successor ; nor am I old enough to give up all 
 hopes of having children, and yet by Josephine I can have 
 none. The tranquillity of France requires my choosing a. 
 new consort. The Empress has Uved already for several 
 months in all the torment of uncertainty. Everything is. 
 settled for my new union. You are the husband of her 
 niece ; she honours you with her esteem ; will you not take 
 upon you to acquaint her with the fatal news, and prepare 
 her for her new situation ? " 
 
 I answered that my relationship to the Empress did not 
 permit me to undertake that commission ; that the attach- 
 ment I had at all times professed for her left me no plausible 
 reason wherewith to justify such a misfortune, and that it. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 235 
 
 appeared to me more proper that his Majesty should select 
 some person for whom the commission might be of a less 
 delicate nature. He did not seem at all offended at my 
 
 refusal, and he gave the charge to M. N , who acquitted 
 
 himself with propriety and success. The arrival, of Prince 
 Eugene was a great comfort to Josephine. When in the 
 council, before the Emperor, and in the presence of the 
 grand officers of the empire, she was obliged to declare that 
 she consented to the divorce, she displayed so much courage 
 and firmness of mind that all the spectators were deeply 
 moved. The next day she left the Tuileries, never to 
 return more. The Emperor had during the preceding day 
 passed some hours with her ; his grief was sincere ; and the 
 man whom the most important events could not even shake 
 for an instant bent his knee before that excellent woman, 
 and shed abundant tears. I went to see her the morning 
 before her departure. Some persons of the Court came 
 coolly to take leave of her, and express, in an embarrassed 
 way, a few insincere wishes ; and when she got into her 
 coach with the Countess d'Alberg, her lady of honour, and 
 with her chevalier d'honneur, not one single person remained 
 to show her a grateful face. Every wish, every pretension 
 was already directed towards the new court. The Emperor 
 retired for a fortnight to Trianon. His grief was deep 
 and sincere ; but the Archduchess arrived, and from that 
 moment he gave himself entirely up to the joy his new 
 bride promised him. 
 
 Fortune, which till then had seconded his genius, bestowed 
 unreservedly this new favour upon him. The young 
 Empress was tall, well made, and in excellent health. She 
 appeared adorned with all the grace and beauty that usually 
 accompany youth. Her face, which displayed the family 
 features of the Imperial House of Austria, was remarkable 
 for an air of kindness ; and, unhke the rest of her family,, 
 her smile was amiable and sweet. The lustre that sur- 
 rounded her, the splendour of the first throne in the 
 
336 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 universe, all the arts vying with each other to please her ; 
 a young, brilliant, and warlike court at her feet, the atten- 
 tions paid her by the Emperor, whose fame had for several 
 years already struck her imagination, made her abode in 
 Paris deUghtful to her. She frequently expressed her 
 satisfaction with a warmth and a naivete that made her 
 generally beloved. The marriage ceremony took place with 
 great pomp. Many persons, however, recalled to their 
 memory the arrival of the Archduchess Marie Antoinette, 
 and the fatal fireworks let off in the Place Louis XV. where 
 so many lives were lost. The public took some pleasure in 
 comparing the two periods, especially on the occasion of the 
 fete given at the Champ de Mars by the Imperial guard, 
 where the most admirable order had prevailed among six 
 thousand people assembled in a temporary wooden room, 
 surrounded by eighty thousand others who had come to 
 «njoy the sight of the fireworks. All these rejoicings were 
 over, when the Emperor thought he could not refuse 
 attending a soiree given by the Austrian Ambassador, 
 Prince Schwartzenberg, in his hotel. Rue de Mont Blanc. 
 There were at least six hundred persons present ; and the 
 house not being large enough for so numerous a company, 
 the Ambassador had ordered a round temporary saloon of 
 woodwork to be erected in the garden communicating with 
 his apartments. The architect had completed all the 
 preparations in four days. Unfortunately he fixed the floor 
 of the saloon on one side to the steps that went down to the 
 garden, and on the other to the rock of a grotto, where 
 there never entered a drop of water. A gallery also of 
 wood had been erected, leading to the Rue de Provence. 
 It was in the beginning of summer, and the heat was 
 -excessive. Gauze and muslin draperies, with a great pro- 
 fusion of garlands, lined the saloon and all its avenues. An 
 immense quantity of wax candles added to the heat of the 
 atmosphere, and gave to all the ornaments a most inflam- 
 mable dryness. A candle fell against one of the curtains of 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAV ALETTE. 237 
 
 the gallery and set fire to it. One of the chamberlains, a 
 man of very tall stature, perceived it and tore it down ; but 
 the flames extended with so much rapidity, that in a few 
 seconds they reached the saloon, and quickly spread all 
 round the room. Everybody ran toward the garden ; but, 
 as there was only one door, the company was all crowded 
 to the same point ; the floor gave way, and many persons 
 fell into a hollow of more than five feet deep. The con- 
 fusion then grew excessive. The cries of despair and fright, 
 the dismay and the wish to escape from the danger, that 
 spared neither sex nor rank, made the scene horrible to 
 witness. The flames having soon reached and consumed 
 the roof of the saloon, ithe ceiling fell in, and the whole 
 presented the appearance of a vast furnace. In three 
 minutes' time the flames had spread in every direction. 
 The company escaped to the gardens and the streets, half 
 covered with the remainder of their burning clothes. The 
 Emperor had retired just as the fire began to communicate 
 with the saloon ; but after having placed the Empress in 
 safety, he quickly returned in a plain dress with Prince 
 Eugene, who had saved the Princess Augusta with great 
 presence of mind. At that moment the sight was appalling. 
 Some unfortunate women who had fallen under the floor 
 had attempted to get out through the beams that supported 
 it ; but, already half burnt, they vainly extended their 
 wounded arms through the bars, and when assistance came 
 it was too late. Those who were saved died a short time 
 after in excruciating pain. The Princess de la Dijon, a 
 woman as remarkable for her beauty as she was respectable 
 for her virtue, was carried, nearly half burnt, to the lodge 
 of a poor portress of a neighbouring hotel. She was speech- 
 less. The old woman covered her with her own clothes ; 
 and a Swedish officer, who had saved her, without knowing 
 who she was, brought her in a hackney coach to Passy, 
 where he supposed she lodged, as that had been the only 
 word she had been able to utter. He went with her from. 
 
338 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 door to door, until at last her servants recognised her voice. 
 The unfortunate lady died four days afterwards, in the 
 prime of her age, after having given with tears her blessing 
 to her daughter, who was married at her bedside. 
 
 The fate of the Princess Schwartzenberg, sister-in-law to 
 the Ambassador, was no less tragical. She was at the ball 
 with her children : radiant in beauty, splendidly dressed, 
 and glittering in diamonds. She saved herself in the 
 garden, where, not seeing her eldest daughter by her side, 
 and having sought for her in vain, the courageous mother 
 flew back to the saloon. The floor sunk under her feet, and 
 she was engulfed in the flames. A few hours later, when 
 the fire was at last extinguished, she was found a shapeless 
 ■corpse, burnt to the bones, blackened, and shrunk to half 
 her size. She was only known by the rings she wore on 
 her fingers. Some business had kept me at home ; the 
 blaze of the fire and the public alarm made me fly to the 
 fatal scene. It was no longer possible to come near it. 
 The mob filled all the avenues. Their unpitiful memory 
 recalled the misfortunes of the Place Louis XV, at the 
 marriage of Marie Antoinette. The most dismal com- 
 parisons, the most sinister predictions accompanied the 
 name of Maria Louisa ; and I went back, my heart deeply 
 grieved at the behaviour of the crowd, who showed so little 
 sensibility for the victims, and who, by the cruel malice of 
 their observations, gave but too sure a proof that they felt 
 no pity for the unfortunate persons, whose pleasures and 
 high rank wounded their vanity. 
 
 The fatal forewarnings of the people were, however, not 
 immediately confirmed. The Empress was delivered of a 
 son on the twentieth of March. Her pregnancy had given 
 great hopes ; and the people, who had frequently enjoyed 
 the sight of her, showed her all the interest she could wish 
 to inspire. Government had announced, that if she were 
 delivered of a son the salute would consist of a hundred 
 and one guns, but only of twenty-five if it were a princess. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 239 
 
 At the twenty-sixth gun the joy of the people was carried 
 to a fit of delirium, not only in Paris, but all over France. 
 I call the whole generation to witness that all our wishes 
 were fulfilled. The prosperity of the state seemed, assured, 
 and France delivered from all fear of revolution. It was 
 then, I have often since repeated with many other people — 
 it was then that the Emperor ought to have hung up against 
 the wall his conqueror's sword, and sought rest in the 
 administration of his extensive empire. France would 
 have been happy, and the memory of the Bourbons for ever 
 iDuried in oblivion. 
 
 The Empress's delivery had been tedious. She suffered 
 severely for several hours. I arrived at the palace a short 
 time before it was over, although I was not called there by 
 iny rank ; but I had free access at all hours. The Emperor 
 was much agitated, and went continually from the saloons 
 to the bedchamber and back again. At last the medical 
 gentlemen appearing in some doubt as to the mode of 
 delivering the Princess, the Emperor said to them in a 
 loud voice and much moved : " Do as you would with a 
 , citizen's wife. Save the mother, by all means." The child 
 came, however, safe into the world, and the Emperor 
 immediately presented it to us. The wishes for his welfare 
 and the general emotions were sincere. May he one day 
 reahse all the wishes that accompanied his birth ! — and if it 
 be not for the happiness of France, may she still one day be 
 proud that he was born among her children ! 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Notwithstanding the glorious resistance of the Spaniards, 
 and the varied success of our armies in Spain, the Emperor 
 had kept a part of Prussia in his hands, and established the 
 centre of his military position in the North at Hamburg,, 
 which was intrusted to the care of Marshal Davoust. The 
 Marshal deserved the Emperor's confidence by his noble 
 conduct at Jena, and by an unbounded devotion. The 
 conditions of the Treaty of Tilsit, in regard to England, 
 were only to remain in force for three years. The Emperor 
 Alexander was perplexed by the state of his trade. The 
 produce of his empire remained on hand, the English 
 refusing to receive it ; and the great landowners of the 
 country, who were noblemen, complained. In a govern- 
 ment where the life of the sovereign is frequently exposed 
 to the effect of conspiracies, it is perhaps more dangerous^ 
 than in other places to wound the passions and interests of 
 the great, as it is not necessary there to stir up the people, 
 while three or four ferocious rebels and a handful of soldiers 
 may decide the fate of the sovereign and the empire. This 
 consideration had certainly a due influence on the new 
 determination of the Emperor Alexander. He was besides 
 but little satisfied with his ally Napoleon. The rigour with 
 which Prussia had been used displeased him, and the 
 sovereignty of Italy vexed him. The dominion of the 
 French in the latter country, and the possession of the 
 seven Venetian Islands, situated so near Greece, made him 
 
 240 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 241 
 
 fear a watchful and terrible enemy, if ever he wished to 
 resume Catharine's old plans in regard to the Ottoman 
 empire : he therefore began by degrees to seek a recon- 
 ciliation with England. 
 
 His conduct greatly displeased the Emperor, who strongly 
 felt the consequences of it. All the powers of the Continent 
 had suffered severely ; Russia alone still preserved all the 
 energy of her immense strength. The Emperor resolved 
 to attack her. He did not, however, carry his resolution 
 into effect without having first exhausted all means of 
 conciliation ; but when he saw how stubborn the enemy 
 remained, he opened the campaign. The Emperor Alex- 
 ander imagined he had disposed all things favourably ; but 
 the first attacks were so vigorous, that he soon grew sensible 
 he should be obliged to make one of his last resources and 
 (Sacrifice everything if he wished to get the advantage in this 
 giants' strife. He began by making peace with the Turks. 
 Unfortunately for France, the Emperor Napoleon thought 
 the Divan would be too well aware of its true interests, to 
 conclude a peace with its mortal enemy at a moment when 
 that enemy was going to be so powerfully attacked. He 
 thought that the Divan, according to its old maxims,, leaving 
 the Christians to weaken one another by their wars, would 
 profit by their exhausted state, either to attack them, or 
 at least to obtain that degree of rest which would ensure 
 ■safety. The Emperor sent off his ambassador. General 
 
 , too late, and when he arrived at the Turkish frontiers 
 
 he learned that peace had been concluded between the 
 Ottoman Porte and Russia. Napoleon had another enemy 
 in Bernadotte, Prince Royal of Sweden, whom he had 
 thought attached to his interests. I never could conceive 
 why he remained so unconcerned at that general's exalta- 
 tion. He was perhaps not sorry to get him out of France ; 
 and, accustomed to obtain everything by force and despise 
 old diplomatic manoeuvres, he certainly had no idea that 
 Bernadotte would be in a situation to injure him. However, 
 
 17 
 
242 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 the Prince Royal of Sweden laid down a plan of resistance, 
 such as the most inveterate enemy of France could scarcely 
 have imagined. To his natural policy, as Prince of Sweden, 
 he added his hatred of Napoleon, which made him give 
 able and fatal advice to Russia ; and General Moreau was 
 recalled, with a view^of being placed at the head of a Russian 
 army, and invading France as the head of a party. The 
 campaign, which had begun in so brilliant a manner, and 
 which with a little more prudence the Emperor would have 
 concluded in good time, owed a part of its disasters to the 
 fatal conviction of Napoleon that his enemies would always 
 ■yield, and that accumulated humiliation would never pro- 
 duce anything but ineffectual fury. I have often heard it 
 repeated that the King of Naples greatly contributed to our 
 misfortunes, by keeping the Emperor in a fatal security. 
 The Russians caressed that King ; they intoxicated him 
 with perfidious praises, which unfortunately had too much 
 power over his mind. He was, they said, the hero of the 
 French ; the Du Guesclin, the Bayard of his age ; he was 
 the prop of the throne, and the support of national glory ; 
 it was with him alone that they would consent to treat ; 
 every concession that could be made without danger, they 
 would offer to him, happy if he deigned to accept their 
 terms. The return of a courier sent to the Emperor 
 Alexander was looked for with impatience, and then peace 
 was to be immediately signed. The King of Naples, who 
 had already entered into private engagements with Russia 
 for the preservation of his Neapolitan throne, was delighted 
 by finding in the Russians a fresh security. He therefore 
 kept the Emperor in an illusion, which, to say the truth, he 
 shared himself, though the still burning ruins of Moscow 
 ought to have taught them that a sovereign capable of 
 taking such a step would never sign a disgraceful peace. 
 In fact, the Russians were already preparing to harass, by 
 all possible means, the French army in its retreat. The 
 disasters of that campaign are known. While they were 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 243 
 
 going on, the city of Paris witnessed a prodigy such as is 
 often seen on the eve of the great convulsions of nature. 
 What all Europe in arms had not dared to plan for the last 
 twenty years, namely, the conquest of Paris, a single man, 
 in prison, without friends, money, or reputation, was bold 
 enough to attempt, and almost succeeded. I had served 
 with Mallet as staff officer in 1793. He was a man of an 
 extraordinary turn of mind : his manners were eccentric, 
 and he was tormented with a deep melancholy that made 
 him morose and disagreeable to his comrades. The acces- 
 sion of Bonaparte to the throne had displeased him, and he 
 had not attempted to hide his feelings. The loss of his 
 liberty, added to the grief of seeing his career stopped 
 when so many officers of younger standing than himself 
 rose to the highest rank and acquired great reputation, 
 made him take a part in an ill-conceived conspiracy con- 
 sisting of those old remains of brawling Jacobins, who take 
 no counsel but their rage, and have no means of realising 
 their wretched projects. Mallet was discovered, and the 
 particulars of the plot having been laid before the eyes of 
 the Emperor, he shrugged up his shoulders through con- 
 tempt. After some years' imprisonment. Mallet obtained 
 leave to remove to one of those private hospitals {maisons 
 de santi) which surround Paris, and which were for the 
 police a sort of seminaries, where they kept, subject to a 
 severe supervision, all such persons who could not be 
 convicted, but whom, however, it would have been danger- 
 ous to set entirely free. We had remained during twenty- 
 six days without any accounts from the army ; sinister 
 reports were beginning to circulate ; when Mallet, after 
 having combined his plan with the Abb6 Constant, a com- 
 panion of his captivity, found means to get out of prison, 
 dressed in a field-marshal's uniform, and went at four 
 o'clock in the morning to the barracks of the Municipal 
 Legion. Having called up the colonel, who was still asleep, 
 he told him with an air of dismay that the Emperor was 
 
344 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 dead ; that the Senate was assembled to restore the 
 republican government in France ; and that he, Mallet, 
 who had been appointed commander of Paris, wanted six 
 hundred men of the regiment to go to the Hotel de ViUe 
 and protect the Senate, that was assembling there. At 
 this fatal news the colonel was at first seized with alarm, 
 and his grief for the death of the Emperor made him shed 
 tears. The disorder of his mind did not permit him to 
 reflect on the news he had heard, nor cast his eyes on the 
 suspicious person that stood before him. He ordered the 
 guard to assemble, and, overwhelmed with consternation, 
 left Mallet master of his forces. The name of a Republic, 
 which recalled to mind licentiousness, was a counterpoise 
 to the death of the Emperor. The most brilliant promises 
 and temptations were held out ; the officers all believed 
 what Mallet chose to tell them. Each soldier was to be 
 rewarded by advancement and double pay ; the officers 
 were to get draughts on the treasury of twenty and even 
 fifty thousand francs : for Mallet had provided against every 
 difficulty. He soon got together four hundred men, at 
 whose head he -went to seek his accomplices, and the future 
 ministers of France, in the prison of La Force. In that 
 prison there had been in confinement, for some time, an 
 adjutant-general, named Guidal, and General Lahorie, of 
 whom I have already spoken. Both had served with 
 Mallet, but had heard nothing more of him, and were totally 
 ignorant of his plans. Mallet entered the prison, claimed 
 his two old comrades, and told the great news. The jailer 
 •refusing to deliver his prisoners, he signed their liberation, 
 introduced two hundred men, and went to Lahorie's 
 chamber. The first words Mallet said to him were, " Yqu 
 are the minister of police. Rise, dress yourself, and follow 
 me." Poor Lahorie, who now saw, for the first time during 
 the lapse of twelve years, a man whom he had never looked 
 upon. as quite cow/oj w««?ftj, imagined all he heard was hut 
 a dream, and rubbed his eyes while looking at him. At last 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 245 
 
 the assurance of the death of the Emperor, of the assembling 
 of the Senate, of the re-establishment of the Republic, con- 
 vinced him that he once more witnessed another of those 
 revolutions so common in modern history. He rose, dressed 
 himself, and found six hundred men at the gate. With 
 Guidal by his side, he immediately went to the Minister of 
 Police, who was still in bed. The soldiers entered quietly, 
 and without any obstacle ; when, finding the door of the 
 Minister's chamber locked, they broke it open with the butt 
 ends of their muskets. The Minister, waking at the noise, 
 jumped out of bed, and, without waiting to dress himself, 
 rushed upon the murderers. He was seized, and treated 
 in the most brutal manner ; but at last, at sight of the 
 prisoner Lahorie, and the intelligence of the death of the 
 Emperor, he began to comprehend that he was the victim 
 and' the dupe of a revolution. He obtained, not without 
 some trouble, leave to dress ; and Guidal led him, escorted 
 by a detachment, to the prison of La Force. On the Pont 
 Neuf he jumped from the cabriolet, but was retaken. When 
 he arrived at the prison the jailer burst into tears. Savary. 
 whispered to him — '' Place me in your darkest dungeon 
 and hide, the key of it. God knows what is the meaning 
 of this, but it will all clear up." A few minutes later the 
 Prefect of Police was also brought to the prison ; a: detach- 
 ment had gone to fetch him, and had dragged him along. 
 Whilst the heads of the police were thus treated) Mallet 
 went to General Hullin, commander of the military 
 division and of the city of Paris. The general was just 
 getting up to receive an order from the. Minister of the 
 War Department, which could be delivered into no hands 
 but his own. Mallet was accompanied, by some officers of 
 his troop. On seeing the general,, he said to him with. the. 
 greatest coolness, and with an air of gravity, " I am very, 
 mortified) General, to have so painful a commission to execute ; 
 but my orders: are to arrest. you." Hullin remonstrated,, and 
 looking at Mallet, whose face, ha knew, he said, " How! 
 
246 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 Mallet, is it you ? You arrest me — a prisoner ? How did 
 you come here ? What is your business doing here ? " — 
 " The Emperor is dead." These words struck HuUin dumb, 
 and Mallet repeated the fable he had invented. However, 
 the arrest and the order to go to prison appeared wondrous 
 strange to the general. He continually spoke iof the death 
 of the Emperor and his own imprisonment : — at length 
 asked Mallet to show him his order. " Very willingly," 
 replied the other, '' will you step with me into your closet ? " 
 Hullin turned round, and as he was entering the closet he 
 fell, struck by a bullet that touched his head. While lying 
 on the ground, he saw his murderer looking coolly at him, 
 and preparing to fire once more, but, thinking him dead, he 
 left the place. He crossed the Place Vend6me, and went 
 to the staff, whither he had sent before him a letter, 
 
 acquainting the adjutant-general, N , that he was 
 
 advanced to the rank of major-general. The latter, when 
 he saw Mallet, could not disguise his doubts. Struggling 
 between his duty and his ambition, he was perhaps at the 
 point of yielding, and entering into arrangements, when 
 one of the heads of the military police, the old Colonel 
 Laborde, came into the apartment. The appearance of that 
 man showed sufficiently that he could be neither deceived 
 nor seduced. Mallet was therefore going to blow out his 
 brains, when Laborde seized him abruptly by the arm, 
 called for assistance, and had him arrested. This Laborde 
 was an old soldier, who, having long retired from active 
 service, had chosen Paris for his camp and the scene of his 
 observations. Attached to the police under all possible- 
 governments, no one could impose upon him by illusions. 
 His youth had been passed in vice, and he now felt pleasure 
 in pursuing it in its last holds. He made use of his privilege 
 with all the despotism which subalterns of that class love to 
 exercise upon the rabble. Rank, titles, glory, virtue, crime 
 itself, is sacred to them as long as it remains prosperous ; 
 but, as soon as the day of misfortune arrives, they trample 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 247 
 
 upon everything, and neither respect nor pity must be 
 expected from them. Laborde had seen Mallet in prison. 
 At the first report of the Minister of Police being arrested, 
 he set himself at the head of a platoon of infantry, went to 
 the office, and found Lahorie calmly seated at his desk, 
 writing orders, after those he had given at the Hotel de 
 Ville. He had him immediately seized and tied to his arm- 
 chair, while he addressed to him reproaches that opened the 
 unfortunate Lahorie' s eyes to the madness of Mallet. He 
 then went to the staff, where he arrested the latter, and, 
 flying to the prison, he delivered the Minister and Prefect 
 of Police. The Prefect went home ; but his hotel being still 
 full of the soldiers who had arrested him, they pursued him, 
 and he was glad to find a refuge in a neighbouring house. 
 All these scenes, well deserving of a place in the Arabian 
 Nights' Entertainments, happened between five and eight 
 o'clock in the morning. By nine all was over ; and the 
 happy inhabitants of Paris, when they awoke, learned the 
 singular event, and made some tolerably good jokes upon it. 
 The attempt of Mallet was nothing more than the 
 extravagance of a madman whose imagination had been 
 excited. It made, however, a deep impression on the 
 public, and became a subject of dismal reflection. In the 
 following year the Royalists did not fail to place Mallet 
 among the number of their martyrs, and honoured with 
 the name of a Bourbonian attempt the mad freak of a 
 man who, far from ever having belonged to that party, had 
 always been worked upon by Republican ideas. His plan 
 was a sufficient demonstration of that. He had planned the 
 assembling of the Senate ; he had spoken of nothing else to 
 the soldiers than the re-establishment of Liberty and the 
 Republic ; and he could only hope to succeed by stirring 
 up the lowest classes of the people. Would the confusion 
 have been considerable, and long enough for him to have 
 succeeded, in case the Emperor had really been killed ? I 
 do not believe it ; but at least I must suppose, from the 
 
248 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 knowledge I had of his character, that he would not have 
 fled, but would have committed suicide. The noble firm- 
 ness he showed until the moment of his death is a proof of 
 that. A few days after he had been arrested news was 
 received fron;i the Emperor. He was by no means discon- 
 certed, and expressed no other feeling than that of regret 
 for the loss of liberty and the prolongation of the Emperor's' 
 despotism. The most incredible thing was that in the 
 midst of the confusion, during three hours, nobody thought 
 of the Empress or her son. The. Prefect of the department 
 had quietly slept at his country seat in the Forest of Vin- 
 cennes. He was coming home on horseback, when an express 
 met him and delivered to him a note, wherein he found, 
 written with pencil, these two words, " Fuit ImperatDr." 
 At first they appeared inexplicable. The express had not 
 waited for an answer, and it was only after a good' deal of 
 reflection,. and after having read the note four times, that. 
 he' at last understood it. He hastened to the Hotel de: 
 Ville; where he found everything in confusion, and General 
 Lahorie already giving orders for the Assembly. He then 
 burst into tears, and found no other resource but. submis- 
 sion. The Colonel, who first had been surprised by Mallet,, 
 did not show either more firmness or more presence of mind 
 than the Prefect. All those who had been surprised by the 
 news carried their reflection no farther. It seemed as if 
 everything was over by the death of the Emperor, and that 
 he had taken along with him not only the secret of the 
 government, but all the foresight and energy of those who 
 were devoted to him. There is not the least doubt but two 
 hours later every one would have come to their senses ; 
 but then, perhaps, it would have been too late. I did not 
 conceal this observation from the Emperor, who looked 
 very grave when he heard it. Generals Mallet, Lahorie, 
 and Guidal, who was arrested a few hours after the rest, 
 and about. fifteen poor officers, who had committed no other 
 fault than obeying generals whom they looked upon as 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 249 
 
 their leaders, were condemned to death. In going to the 
 fatal spot these officers cried, "Long live the Emperor ! " 
 They all died with a courage bordering on indifference : 
 several of them were not killed at the first discharge, and 
 they reproached the soldiers for their awkwardness. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 The first account from the Emperor, dated from the 
 Beresina, brought the distressing particulars of the retreat. 
 Those that were given in the bulletins, and especially in the 
 29th, could not be read without horror. It was not sur- 
 prising that many persons should have been deluded by the 
 austere energy that had presided over their composition, 
 and should even feel some indignation at it. Accustomed 
 for so long a period to nothing but triumph, the particulars 
 of our first defeat, accompanied by so much calamity, spread 
 consternation all over France. The enemies of the Em- 
 peror grew more numerous, and skilfully made use of the 
 circumstance to raise an outcry against his tyranny. Just 
 as the agitation of the public mind was at the strongest, his 
 arrival at the Tuileries was suddenly published. He ad- 
 mitted everybody ; showed severity towards some — intre- 
 pidity in presence of all. He explained the cause of the 
 misfortune of the campaign, and without seeking to dis- 
 semble the fault that had been committed, he boldly claimed 
 the support he wanted, to begin' the war anew, repel the 
 enemy, and conclude a peace, of which he more than any 
 one felt the absolute necessity. His noble courage in 
 wrestling with misfortune electrified the whole country. 
 Three hundred thousand men were granted ; the young 
 came forward with courage, the old with firmness. Within 
 a few months an army was raised, admirably brave, though 
 still uninstructed, and the fields of Lutzen and Bautzen 
 witnessed fresh triumphs. The disasters of the campaign 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 251 
 
 of Moscow had brought Russia and Austria to an under- 
 standing, and alarmed the powers of the second class. 
 Peace was, however, proposed to the Emperor, but they 
 had no longer to treat with the sovereign of the world. 
 He began to feel that, after having been conquered by the 
 elements, he would be so by man. Though his last battles 
 had turned out in his favour, he now saw that he might 
 have rivals. Pretensions were brought forward, the most 
 important of which was that he should give up his influence 
 over Germany, and abandon that part of the continent to 
 the left bank of the Rhine. If he had consented he would 
 have abandoned the Confederation, the House of Saxony, 
 and the kingdom of Westphalia — that is to say, he would 
 have dethroned his brother. He would perhaps have done 
 so one day of his own accord, but he could not bear to be 
 commanded. The Emperor felt that a power contested in 
 that way is a fallen power. His proud mind, which never 
 knew how to stop, recoiled at the proposals. The negotia- 
 tions broke off, and he began the war again without con- 
 sidering the youth and inexperience of his soldiers, or the 
 discontent of his generals-in-chief. He fought like a lion, 
 but like a lion forced into its den. I must, however, 
 acknowledge that he was badly seconded. A short time 
 after that period some particulars were told me in confi- 
 dence, but with so much appearance of truth that I cannot 
 omit mentioning them here. The Cossacks were a new 
 engine which made the war perilous, especially to the 
 officers who went out to reconnoitre. Several of them, and 
 particularly those of the general staff, who were chosen 
 indiscriminately by the major-general, preferred giving us 
 reports taken from peasants, to exposing themselves at a 
 distance to the attacks of the Cossacks. By this means the 
 Emperor could no longer ascertain the truth. The reports 
 lie received were all satisfactory, because they were not true. 
 He thought himself able to resist, because he entertained a 
 false idea of the strength of the enemy. He commenced 
 
252 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 the battle of Leipsic in the full persuasion that the enemy's- 
 forces were but half as numerous as they really were. He 
 lost the battle, and that defeat completely disorganised his- 
 army. His new retreat was more disastrous still than when 
 he came from Russia. The army still, however, made one 
 effort at Hanau. A German who owed the first foundation 
 of his fortune to the Emperor, whose praises constitute all 
 his glory, dared to resist him at Hanau, after having abused 
 the confidence of his sovereign, and forced him to abandon 
 his allies ; but the troops he commanded were destroyed. 
 This was the last struggle of Antaeus in the arms of Her- 
 cules. A month later, when he had again set his foot on 
 the land of his birth, his strength returned ; and if he wa& 
 finally levelled to the ground, it was only when treason 
 joined its efforts to those of violence. 
 
 The army returned in the most grievous disorder. The 
 sick and wounded were innumerable. There were neither 
 hospitals nor private houses sufficient to contain them 
 allj and the most destructive of all diseases, the typhus, 
 attacked not only the army, but all the towns and villages- 
 through which the troops passed. 
 
 The Emperor returned for the second time to Paris on 
 the loth or nth of November. The attachment of the 
 French for him was so great that on all sides nothing was 
 heard but cries of grief ; and if here and there some insults 
 were uttered, they must be laid to the account of the emi- 
 grants, who began to foresee his fall and the return of the- 
 Bourbons. He remained about six weeks in Paris. I think; 
 r have already said in these Memoirs, that whenever he was 
 unfortunate he turned to me. I must not be proud of that 
 circumstance. My attachment to his person was a duty,- — 
 my antipathy to ambition and intrigue was natural to me. 
 A habit of reflection made me in general consider affairs in 
 their true light ; and as I was very conveniently placed for 
 observing them in their ensemble^ I gave him my opinion 
 with a frankness and sincerity to which the ear of sovereigns 
 
MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA V ALETTE. 253 
 
 is but little accustomed. At my arrival he commanded me 
 to come every evening into the bath-room next to his bed- 
 ■chamber. He then had me called in to him, while he 
 warmed himself, undressed before the fire. We talked 
 familiarly together for an hour before he went to bed. 
 The first evening I found him so cast down, so over- 
 whelmed, that I was frightened. I went to see his secre- 
 tary, who was my friend. I communicated to him my 
 fears that his mind, formerly so strong, had begun to sink. 
 ■" You need not fear," he replied ; " he has lost nothing of 
 his energy ; but in the evening you see him quite bent 
 •down with fatigue. He goes to bed at eleven o'cleck, but 
 he is up at three o'clock in the morning, and till night 
 ■every moment is devoted to business. It is time to put an 
 •end to this, for he must sink under it, and I shall fall before 
 him." 
 
 The principal subject of our conversation was the situa- 
 tion of France. I used to tell him with a degree of frankness, 
 the truth of which could alone make him pardon its rude- 
 ness, that France was fatigued to an excess ; that it was 
 quite impossible for her to bear much longer the burthen 
 with which she was loaded, and that she would undoubtedly 
 throw off the yoke, and according to custom seek an allevia- 
 tion to her sufferings in novelty, her favourite divinity. 
 I said in particular a great deal of the Bourbons, who, 
 I observed, would finally inherit his royal spoil, if ever 
 fortune laid him low. The mention of the Bourbons made 
 Tiim thoughtful, and he threw himself on his bed without 
 littering a word ; but after a few minutes, having ap- 
 proached to know whether I might retire, I saw that he had 
 fallen into a profound sleep. 
 
 He was then busy with the organisation of the National 
 Guards of Paris. The choice of the commanders was a very 
 important point. He spoke frequently with me about that 
 •organisation. I wished it to be as military as possible. 
 It appeared to me of very great consequence to compose 
 
2S4 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 it of ancient warriors, who, having their homes and the 
 national glory to defend, would electrify the citizens, and 
 easily find in the ardent youth of the metropolis an army of 
 brave men sufficient at least to repel the enemy from their 
 walls. I could not draw from him a single observation on 
 the point, notwithstanding the warmth with which I spoke. 
 The list of the superior officers was at last presented, I do 
 not now recollect by whom ; but, the very day of the 
 
 presentation, the Prefect came to pay me a visit, 
 
 to acquaint me that I stood on the list as commander of 
 a division. In the evening I went to the Emperor, accord- 
 ing to custom. Marshal Berthier came there, and the 
 Emperor said to him in my presence : " Do you know 
 whom I have appointed as Colonel of the National 
 Guards ? " He then read over his list, and instead of 
 my name, I heard that of Jaubert, Governor of the Bank 
 of France. Berthier thought the choice very good ; and 
 I was not surprised at it. As for me, I was angry at the 
 circumstance (though there was nothing but blows to be 
 gained), and I left the room. The following day, after 
 mass, I stood at the audience next to Jaubert. He was 
 a councillor of State, formerly a barrister at Bordeaux, an 
 honourable and clever man, but who never had had any- 
 thing to do with the army, and who was besides rather 
 a little ridiculous as a military man on account of his figure 
 and his habits of life. The Emperor went up to him, and 
 he thanked him respectfully for the new dignity with which 
 he had been invested. The Emperor smiled, and said with 
 that joking air so severe in a sovereign : " You never rode 
 on horseback, I believe?" "I beg your pardon, Sire!" 
 " Oh yes, I suppose you rode on a pony from Bordeaux 
 to Tonnelle ; " and then he passed on to another. Poor 
 Jaubert nevertheless loaded his two shoulders with the 
 marks of his rank ; but he never showed himself more 
 worthy of the lawyer's cloak than the day the enemy 
 attacked the capital. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 255 
 
 This singular composition of the staff of the National 
 Guards was explained by the still more singular form of the 
 Parisian fortifications. Plain palisadoes surrounded, ridicu- 
 lously enough, the barriers of the city ; they were barely 
 sufficient to stop a few straggling Cossacks who might 
 intrude so far. He did not wish to frighten the Parisians, 
 and draw them from their amusements, by an appearance 
 of' formidable fortifications, and by a warlike composition of 
 the National Guards. He undoubtedly thought that if he 
 proved unable to beat the enemy, it would be useless to try 
 to defend a city that presented so few means of resistance 
 and so many resources for rebellion. Before he set off, he 
 assembled at the Tuileries all the officers of the National 
 Guards, and taking his son in his arms, he presented him 
 to the assembly, and made a speech that electrified every 
 heart. The cries of " Long live the Emperor ! " were so 
 energetic and so unanimous, that I was persuaded for some 
 time that a feeling expressed with so much enthusiasm 
 might perhaps produce some fine result. A little reflection, 
 however, recalled the dismal truth that penetrated my soul. 
 I saw the Emperor again in the evening : he spoke to me 
 of what had happened in the morning. I told him freely 
 that the disposition of the public mind would remain good 
 as long as the enemy should not come near Paris ; but that 
 it ought not to be put to the test if the enemy approached. 
 He smiled, and, pulling me by the ear according to his 
 custom, he said: "You old Roman! you have no illusions." 
 " No, Sire," I replied ; " but I rest great hopes on this 
 campaign, and a fine victory will do more good than all 
 this morning's enthusiasm." " Ah ! " said he, getting into 
 bed, " it must be gained ! " 
 
 I remained that night at the Tuileries. He started at 
 four o'clock in the morning. He appeared cheerful, firm, 
 and in perfect good health. I had always seen him so when 
 departing, and the state of his mind inspired me with fresh 
 confidence. 
 
256 MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA VALE.TTM. 
 
 General Sebastiani returned from the army and remained 
 two days at Paris. He gave me sad particulars ,. of , the 
 campaign. The enemies were so numerous, the disasters 
 so great, the country so horribly ravaged, that it appeared 
 difficult for the Emperor to hold out much longer. He 
 soon felt, after the observations I made, how dangeraus it 
 would be to make known his alarms, which he had already 
 in some way propagated ; and wishing to neutralise their 
 effect, he mentioned the necessity of defending Paris, as the 
 only means of saving France. Furious complaints and 
 sarcasms arose against him in Talleyrand's circle, and 
 among all the high nobility, who already were in cor- 
 respondence with the Count d'Artois. He left the capital, 
 hooted by the emigrants ; and if he told the Emperor all 
 he really thought, I cannot but think that it was upon his 
 report that the Emperor commanded the Minister of Police 
 to arrest Prince Talleyrand, and send him far from the 
 metropolis. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 While the Emperor, opposed by all the armies of Europe, 
 was struggling like a lion, running from one to another, 
 thwarting all the manoeuvres of the enemy by the rapidity 
 of his movements, deceiving them in all their calculations, 
 and exhausting them with fatigue, other foes, much more 
 dangerous than they, were in Paris entering into a secret 
 league *ith foreigners to hasten his fall. M. de Talleyrand, 
 whom they had chosen for their leader, did not, however, 
 second their hostile measures as much as their impatience 
 required. The great name of Napoleon — fifteen years of 
 brilliant victories — the inexhaustible resources of his genius 
 — ^his unconquerable vigour of mind — the still existing 
 possibility of a peace in the midst of battle — finally, the 
 sentiments of France, who still wished well to the Emperor 
 — all these circumstances rendered the greatest prudence 
 necessary. Besides,- what had he to expect from the 
 Bourbons ? ' Could they have forgotten that his conduct 
 had been ever hostile towards them for the last five-and- 
 twenty years? — Director of the Constituent Assembly — 
 Minister of the Directory, and Napoleon — a married priest, 
 how could he find grace in their eyes ? On the other hand, 
 if France finally triumphed over so many enemies, what 
 would he not have to fear from an irritated conqueror, who 
 could not but be acquainted with his treasonable conduct ? 
 Was he destined to end, far from his country and in exile, 
 the last days of an infirm and disgraced old age ? He there- 
 fore did his utmost to keep his friends in bounds ; and, that 
 
 1 8 257 
 
258 MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 he might not be crushed by the violent measures of the 
 boisterous Minister of Pohce, his ingenuity and skill were 
 exercised to throw trouble and perplexity in the way of the 
 Duke de Rovigo. It was he who, according to public 
 report, had presided at the execution of the Duke 
 d'Enghien : he had not striven to hide the particulars of 
 it, which had been exaggerated ; and nothing could equal 
 the hatred the royalists bore him. He had a numerous 
 family, and his fortune was not sufficient for him to do 
 without the salary he drew from Government. 
 
 How could he, besides, preserve his rank, or even his 
 tranquillity, under the reign of the Bourbons ? M. de 
 Talleyrand, after having presented him with a faithful 
 picture of what his situation would be in case the 
 Emperor should fall, an event which appeared scarcely 
 to be avoided, applauded his fidelity and devotion ; but 
 advised him not to shut out from himself all possibility 
 of pardon, or even favour, at the hands of Louis XVIII. 
 by taking measures of rigour and violence against the 
 royalists, the consequences of which might be fatal even 
 to the Emperor himself, as they might occasion disturbance 
 in the capital which the police would not be able to 
 suppress. The Minister was most certainly shaken. The 
 Messieurs Polignac, who had been confined since the aifair 
 of Georges, first in a state prison, and then in a maison 
 de santi, escaped about that time, after having given a 
 thorough beating to the police inspector, who was to have 
 transferred them to a prison a considerable distance from 
 Paris. The Duchess of Rovigo was their relative ; and 
 a few days after the entrance of the Count d'Artois, the 
 Duke told me that the Messieurs Polignac had just been with 
 him, and had requested him to publish in print that it was 
 to him they owed their liberty. He waived the proposal ; 
 but it was easy to judge that he was not sorry the Count 
 should believe the truth of the anecdote. 
 
 After the battle of Montereau, the Emperor had given 
 
MEMOIRS OP COUNT LA VALETTE. 259 
 
 the Duke de Rovigo an order to send M. de Talleyrand 
 from Paris, with a positive injunction to cut off all .com- 
 munications between him and his friends in the metropolis. 
 I was in the Duke's closet when he opened the despatch, 
 which grieved him extremely. "What is the Emperor 
 thinking of ? " he said. " Have not I enough to do^to keep 
 in awe all the royalists in France ? Does he want to throw 
 another Faubourg St. Germain on my shoulders ? Talley- 
 rand alone is able to keep them at peace, and prevent them 
 from taking some foolish step. I shall not execute that 
 order, and by and by the Emperor will thank me for it." 
 
 The measure would nevertheless have been very wise. 
 The royalists would have been without leaders, and the 
 enemy without directors or encouragement. They would 
 perhaps not have dared to venture their march upon 
 Paris, which proved so fatal to the Emperor. Marmont 
 would not have signed the truce of the 30th of March, 
 and Napoleon would have gained the twelve hours he 
 wanted to enable him to reach the capital. 
 
 That deplorable prepossession of the Duke de Rovigo, 
 who nevertheless remained faithful, was not the only cause 
 of our misfortunes. All persons attached to Government 
 soon shared the same feeling — all had fallen into dismay 
 and discouragement ; and with the exception of Boulay 
 de la Meurthe, Thibaudeau, and some other retainers of 
 the Revolution, familiar with political disturbances, who 
 had nothing to expect and everything to fear from the 
 Bourbons, all the others were only intent on saving some 
 part of the wreck for themselves. The Emperor had 
 appointed his brother Joseph Lieutenant-General of Paris. 
 That Prince, though a man of amiable mind and extended 
 information, wanted energy : he could neither persuade the 
 Council nor excite the people, who were only waiting for 
 a leader. To say the truth, he was distinguished by 
 nothing but his obsolete title of King of Spain ; and the 
 Peninsular war had cost too much blood for any gratitude 
 
26o MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 or confidence to attach to. the person for whose profit it was 
 undertaken.' The Archchancellor Cambac^r^s, a learned 
 lawyer, but a stranger, more by character than even by the 
 habits of his life, to those energetic resolutions which 
 great dangers require, could do nothing but submit to the 
 common fate. The Duke de Feltre, Minister of the War 
 Department, a good secretary, but a man of a narrow mind, 
 and the slave of his vanity, which stuck to everything, 
 served the Emperor with suspicious carelessness, and 
 dreamed already of the prodigious honour he would 
 acquire by being a minister of the Bourbons. A council, 
 at which the Empress presided, was held at the moment the 
 enemy entered Nancy, while pursuing Marshals Ragusa and 
 Treviso. The Empress requested that a resolution might 
 be taken in regard to herself and her son, for she relied no 
 longer on her father, and no accounts had arrived for 
 several days from the Emperor. None but generous advice 
 ought to have been given to her. Boulay de la Meurthe 
 took the task upon himself, and recalling to her memory 
 the conduct of her grandmother, Maria Theresa, in pre- 
 sence of the Hungarians, he said, " Madam, go to the Hotel 
 de Ville ; cross the streets of Paris with your son in your 
 arms. The whole capital will accompany you to the ad- 
 vanced posts. Acquaint the Allied Sovereigns with your 
 resolution to remain in Paris, surrounded by your faithful 
 subjects, to share their dangers, and to descend only by 
 force from the throne, on which you seated yourself amidst 
 the applause of those very nations and kings who now 
 besiege you." 
 
 ' When the Duke de Ragusa arrived at Meaux, he sent his aide-de- 
 camp, Fabvier, to apprise Government of his perilous position. I met 
 that officer at the hotel 6f the minister, Clarke. He complained bitterly 
 that Prince Joseph had left him three hours waiting in the Luxembourg, 
 before he could gain admittance. " He is not yet up," was all the answer 
 he received. " Why should we (fisturb him ? You will not be better 
 satisfied with this one than with the other," said I. In feet, when Fabwr 
 came out of the closet of the minister, he said to me — "What will become 
 of us, good God? We have nothing else to do than to get ourselves 
 killed." 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 261 
 
 This energetic advice appeared to the weakness of the 
 others no better than revolutionary boasting. Cambaceres 
 read a letter from the Emperor, but of old date, which con- 
 tained the order never to expose the Empress and her son 
 to the risk of falling into the hands of the enemy. This put 
 an end to all debate, and a resolution was taken to send the 
 Court to Blois, with the members of Government. 
 
 Among the considerations that determined the Council 
 not to follow the advice of keeping the Empress in Paris, 
 one of the most important, and which had a great influence 
 over the deliberations, was the fate of the Emperor. 
 
 In fact, what would have become of him, if the Allies had 
 acknowledged the King of Rome and the Regency ? Paris 
 would have shut its gates upon him. The people, reduced 
 to the utmost extremity, would have submitted to the new 
 Government. The army would undoubtedly have recoiled 
 at the idea of a civil war, or the enemy would quietly have 
 destroyed it. Besides, could the Empress sign the destruc- 
 tion of her husband ? For it was not possible to keep him 
 at liberty near France ; and his situation would have become 
 so very peculiar, that there would perhaps not have been 
 one corner in all Europe where the Conqueror of the 
 World could have rested his head in peace ; whilst his wife 
 and his best friends would have been forced, for the interests 
 of their country, to wish for his everlasting proscription. 
 
 When the Empress was leaving Paris with aU the 
 Ministers, the two corps of Marshals Marmont and Mortier 
 hastily retreated to the heights round the capital, pursued 
 by the Russians and Prussians, who had at last resolved, by 
 the pressing solicitation of M. de Talleyrand, to advance and 
 make themselves masters of the city. The two corps did 
 not muster above fourteen thousand men. Some thousand 
 troops, drawn from the depots at Versailles and Rambouillet, 
 were sent to join them. The brave young men of the 
 Polytechnical Institution flew to their aid on the hills of 
 Chaumont, and a few battalions of National Guards went 
 
262 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 also out of the barriers. All these troops fought bravely ; 
 but the forces of the enemy, augmenting from hour to hour, 
 were by no means in proportion with those of the besieged. 
 Prince Joseph, having no precise instruction for so unforeseen 
 a circumstance, did not dare to take upon himself to prolong 
 the defence, without any appearance of success. The people, 
 and especially the inhabitants of the suburbs, would not have 
 refused to fight. Some already prepared to unpave the 
 streets, to raise battlements on the houses that were nearest 
 to the barriers, and to take all possible precaution against 
 cavalry, and to fire in case the enemy were to carry things 
 to such an extremity. The people, as I have said, were well 
 disposed ; but towards the evening of the 29th of March 
 there were no public authorities in the city but Marshal 
 Moncey, Commander of the National Guards, the two Pre- 
 fects of the Department, and the police. In leaving Paris, 
 the Ministers had enjoined them to do all in their power to 
 preserve the peace, and provide for the subsistence of the 
 inhabitants. Five days had elapsed since any certain news 
 had arrived from the Emperor, and all means of communica- 
 tion were intercepted. In vain I sent off intrepid couriers, 
 and, during the last two days, several fleet and clever 
 messengers. They were bearers of letters written in c)^her, 
 wherein I begged the Emperor to return at any price. I 
 told him that the police was no longer strong enough to 
 repress the royalists ; that his presence alone could put a 
 stop to the evil, and that he was lost beyond resource if the 
 enemy got possession of the capital. It is unfortunately 
 true that the agents of Government, attached for a long 
 time to a system of absolute authority, and accustomed 
 never to take the smallest responsibility upon themselves, 
 trembled at the idea of adopting any measure without the 
 special order of the Emperor : some, because he was master 
 of all ; others, because the passing events appeared above 
 all human power. Prince Joseph was the first who yielded 
 to the general dejection. After casting a look of dismay on 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 263 
 
 the plain of St. Denis, covered with foreign soldiers and 
 smoking villages, he fled to Blois, authorising the two 
 marshals to sign a capitulation that might save the capital. 
 
 Officers, sent on parley by Prince Schwartzenburg, came 
 to the Duke de Ragusa, and declared, that if the gates of 
 Paris were not opened to them before night, the next day 
 it would be too late, and that the capital would be delivered 
 over to all the rigour of military execution. 
 
 The Duke had no news from the Emperor ; and although 
 he was given to understand that, notwithstanding the threats 
 of the enemy, there could be no danger in waiting till next 
 day, — that it was possible Napoleon might arrive in the 
 night, — that Alexander would certainly not rush madly 
 with his army in the midst of so populous a capital, the 
 inhabitants of which were highly incensed ; — yet Marmont, 
 confused, and not wishing perhaps to leave to another the 
 honour of saving Paris, resolved to sign the capitulation, 
 without having received any direct order to that effect from 
 his General and Sovereign. 
 
 I went to his house on the evening of the 30th of March. 
 He was still at table, and next to him sat Count OrlofF, and 
 several other Russian officers. He came to meet me, led me 
 to a private room, and there did his best to prove that he 
 could not have acted otherwise than he had done ; that 
 with less than twenty-eight thousand men, any farther 
 defence would be but useless spilling of blood. That, I 
 acknowledged ; but could he not wait until the next day to 
 sign ? Twelve hours' delay might be of an immense benefit 
 to the Emperor. I could not suppose it possible that he 
 should not be met by at least one of the great numbers of 
 couriers I had despatched. I was convinced that his presence 
 would re-establish affairs. The Marshal was inflexible : he 
 was too far engaged to be able to draw back. The chief 
 heights round the capital were already occupied by the 
 enemy. Our situation was terrible, it is true ; but the 
 presence of the Emperor was alone worth an army. The 
 
264 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 people, already well disposed, and full of ardour at the sight 
 of their Sovereign, would have done wonders. 
 
 I had received no orders to go to Blois. I therefore 
 thought I would set off with the Duke de Ragusa, who had 
 acquainted me with his plan of going to Fontainebleau. I 
 left him with an intention of coming back, when, on going 
 out of the apartment, I met Prince Talleyrand and his 
 emissary Bourrienne, who were slipping up to the second 
 floor. The sight of them was enough for me. These two 
 men, who were in open treason, had undoubtedly come 
 to involve the Marshal in their toils. M. Pasquier had 
 accompanied me in my carriage. I communicated my 
 suspicions to him. " What shall I say to you ? " he 
 answered : "all seems to be over ; there is nothing more 
 to be done." I set him down at the Prefecture of Police, 
 and retired to my lodgings in the Faubourg St. Germain, 
 determined never to re-enter the Post-office. A little 
 before daybreak I received an express with letters from the 
 Emperor to the Empress. The courier informed me that 
 Napoleon had arrived during the night at the stage called 
 La Cour de France, and that there he had heard the fatal 
 news of the capitulation. The unfortunate Prince had been 
 flying with all his speed to save his capital. The blow was 
 terrible for him : he sat down on the parapet of the foun- 
 tains of Juvisy, and remained above a quarter of an hour 
 with his head resting on his two hands, lost in the most 
 painful reflections ; after which he set off again for 
 Fontainebleau. 
 
 The following day I returned to M. Pasquier's : he had 
 just come back from the camp, whither he had been 
 summoned by the Emperor of Russia. " You took your 
 resolution last night," he said to me ; "I adopted mine 
 this morning. I have received an order to continue my 
 functions. Napoleon's reign is over, and I have written to 
 Fontainebleau to acquaint them that they must no longer 
 reckon upon me. My family has always been attached to 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 265 
 
 the House of Bourbon. I have served the Emperor faith- 
 fully. I have taken no share in the events which have cast 
 him from the throne, and I return to the ancient dynasty." 
 " Ido not pretend to discuss your motives," was my reply ; 
 " but for me, I owe everything to the Emperor : I shall not 
 go near his successor. My public career is at an end, and I 
 return to my obscurity. I have only one favour to claim of 
 you : protect me in that retreat where I intend to go and 
 live with my family, and let not malevolence disturb the 
 peace I wish to enjoy." 
 
 With these words we separated. I was already convinced 
 that, with the men Louis XVIII. was obliged to make use 
 of, his difficulties would multiply at every step ; and without 
 foreseeing as yet the events that broke out eleven months 
 later, I was glad to remain a stranger to duties for which I 
 felt so strong an aversion, that neither the sanctity of an 
 oath, nor the most rigid integrity, could have bound me to 
 them on the 20th of March following, without the greatest 
 struggle and grief on my part. 
 
 The Emperor Alexander entered the city at the head of 
 several beautiful divisions of infantry, appointed as if for a 
 parade. He was preceded by a numerous and brilliant staff. 
 As the procession advanced along the boulevards, it was soon 
 augmented by numbers of Frenchmen whom our armies had 
 never seen in their ranks. The Montmorencys, the Don- 
 deauvilles, the Noailles, who then faced the enemy for the 
 first time, were eager to welcome him to the metropolis, and 
 to lay at his feet the homage and joy of the French people. 
 One might have thought for twenty years France had been 
 wishing for their presence. A little farther, all the genteel 
 company of the Paris drawing-rooms joined the retinue. 
 Women dressed out as for a.fite^ and almost frantic with joy, 
 waved their pockethandkerchiefs and cried, " Long live the 
 Emperor Alexander ! " The windows of the houses and the 
 open windows were filled with people. I was not so far off 
 but that I distinguished among them many ladies whose 
 
266 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAV ALETTE. 
 
 husbands had long filled elevated stations in the fallen Court, 
 and who themselves, loaded with honour and riches, had 
 been attached to the service of the two Empresses. I might 
 name them, — but wherefore disgrace their memory ? Many 
 of them will have descended into the grave before this work 
 appears, and their children ought not to be punished for the 
 shameful conduct of their parents. 
 
 The Emperor Alexander had nowhere on his march 
 witnessed this boasted enthusiasm of the French for the 
 King and his family. He was candid enough to acknow- 
 ledge this at a council held at M. de Talleyrand's. It was 
 therefore through motives of policy, and the necessity of 
 circumstances, that the latter persuaded him not to establish 
 a regency. The absence of the Emperor of Austria, the 
 unpopularity of his minister, Metternich, who was present, 
 the force of old recollections, and perhaps also the falling 
 off of the Duke de Ragusa, swayed his resolution. 
 
 While these discussions were going on in Paris, Napoleon, 
 at Fontainebleau, had already recovered from the blow he 
 had experienced. He sounded the danger of his position, 
 and calculated his resources. He every day reviewed his 
 troops, animated them by his presence, and looked as if he 
 wished to familiarise them with the idea of marching back 
 to Paris, and driving the enemy from the capital. Such an 
 act of despair, in a man like him, might have had terrible 
 consequences. Notwithstanding the severe discipline to 
 which the foreign troops were subjected, the troops being 
 too numerous for the barracks to contain them, were 
 encamped at considerable distances from each other. Many 
 officers lodged in hotels, far from their troops. The play- 
 houses, coffee-houses, ale-houses, and bagnios, were filled 
 with them until a late hour of the night. Attacked on all 
 sides, finding at every step some new obstacle to their 
 assembling, with enemies in every street, confusion might 
 soon have spread among the troops, and the terrible cry of 
 " Long live the Emperor ! " resounding on a sudden, would 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 267 
 
 have augmented the disorder, and exasperated the people. 
 If driven out of the capital, and a battle lost in the plain, 
 what would have been the fate of all these triumphant 
 troops ? This plan appeared feasible during forty-eight 
 hours, and was secretly whispered among the people. Not 
 only the soldiers, but even three-fourths of the officers, were 
 by no means afraid to undertake it. But it was discovered 
 by the Marshals, and they opposed it through apparent 
 motives of prudence, but in fact through weariness and a 
 secret wish to abandon the Emperor. The correspondence 
 with Paris grew every moment more frequent, and the 
 defections more numerous. Military commanders were all 
 rich ; their families were in the enemy's power. To the 
 anxiety with which they were tormented, they added the 
 hope of remaining great men under the Bourbons. The 
 promises made by the conspirators were unbounded. The 
 Allies and the King would open their arms to them. They 
 were already in idea marshals of France, of the old monarchy. 
 The Cross of St. Louis, the Order of the Holy Ghost, govern- 
 ments. Court favours, their uncontested pre-eminence over 
 the most ancient families, their names placed next to those 
 of Turenne and Villars, seemed in their eyes to give them a 
 lustre that would fear no comparison, even in future times. 
 These childish illusions, this sordid egotism, made them 
 forget natural honour and the faith they owed to their 
 real sovereign. A few days were sufficient to deceive most 
 of them. 
 
 Alas ! at no period was it more requisite that a deep 
 feeling of patriotism should have animated their hearts ! 
 Twenty-two years before (I was then twenty-three), when 
 the Prussians spread over the plains of Champaigne, Paris 
 and all France rushed out against the enemy. French 
 youths, devoid of experience and instruction, but conspicuous 
 for love of their country, exasperated by generous fury, 
 trampled on the old bands instructed by Frederick the 
 Great. Now the barbarians of Russia, and all the European 
 
268 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 armies we had vanquished, paraded in our squares, sat 
 insolently round our hearths ; and the French, who were 
 again grown polite, whom prosperity and the luxury of a 
 Court had refined and enervated, looked on the strange 
 scene with eyes of indifference. We deserved but too well 
 our fate. 
 
 The fire that animated our soldiers was extinguished 
 when they learned that the Emperor recoiled before ill 
 fortune, and acknowledged himself vanquished. It was 
 then that the army, in despair, felt obliged to submit. 
 
 However, the Allied Sovereigns had not expected that sub- 
 mission, and they showed their satisfaction by the treaty of 
 the I ith of April. The title of Emperor was left to Napo- 
 leon ; the Island of Elba was given to him in full sove- 
 reignty ; a competent income was allowed, not only for 
 him, but also for his family, and gratuities were granted tO' 
 almost all the members of his military household. These 
 various arrangements were made in presence of the Bour- 
 bons. The King refused to sign them, under the pretence 
 that he could not acknowledge Napoleon as an Emperor ;. 
 but it was agreed, and he engaged his word, that the treaty 
 should be executed in all its stipulations. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Meanwhile the Emperor departed for the Island of Elba, 
 and the rage of his enemies augmented with that circum- 
 stance. Neither his fall nor his banishment was able to 
 satisfy them ; they sought his death alone ; and war having 
 spared him, they resolved to get rid of him by assassination. 
 This was the last homage paid to the genius of the Em- 
 peror. A sort of superstitious awe had seized the minds of 
 all those who had contributed to his overthrow. " As long 
 as that man lives," they said at the Tuileries, " there will be 
 no repose, no security for France." Maubreuil's perverse- 
 ness and desperate character give a great deal of probability 
 to all he has said of the proposals made to him by M. de 
 Talleyrand. But that was not the only attempt made 
 against him before his return from the Island of Elba : he 
 was nearly poisoned at Fontainebleau. Generals Drouet and 
 Bertrand will undoubtedly publish one day what the latter 
 told me of the horrible scenes that took place during the 
 Emperor's journey through the South of France, and all the 
 efforts made by murderers sent to the Island of Elba by the 
 Governor of Corsica, M. Brulard. 
 
 King Louis the Eighteenth made his solemn entrance 
 into Paris on the 3rd of May. The wealthy portion of the 
 population now took upon them to show that enthusiasm 
 which the mob is accustomed to lavish on the men who 
 dazzle their inconstant and unreflecting imaginations. The 
 sun shone with all the brightness of spring, and added to 
 
 the magnificence of the novel scene. Gendarmes opened 
 
 269 
 
270 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 the procession ; then came a great number of officers on. 
 horseback : some who the day before had been our foes on 
 the field of battle came to solicit a share of the Royal 
 largesse ; others, old servants of the monarchy, had long 
 held out their hands for Imperial favours. By a singular 
 distinction, or a cruel mockery, two companies of the Im- 
 perial Guards preceded the golden troop. The aspect of 
 those old warriors, covered with scars — their eyes fixed on 
 the ground, their countenances dejected, the rage of their 
 hearts depicted on their sun-burned faces — inspired compas- 
 sion. At last the King appeared in an open caliche, accom- 
 panied by the Duchess d'Angouleme and the two Princes of 
 the House of Condd. The enormous bulk of the Monarch, 
 his harsh look and severe features, disconcerted the enthu- 
 siasm of those who had a close view of him ; and after the 
 space of a few hours, there remained nothing, even in the 
 mass of the population, but cold indifference for the for- 
 tunate brother of Louis XVI. 
 
 One of the four royal personages ought, however, to have 
 excited very deep interest. The sight of the King recalled 
 no recollections : the two old warriors, leaders of a legion 
 that had shone with so little lustre, represented nothing but 
 an illustrious name and a cruel loss. The daughter of 
 Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, on the contrary, delivered 
 up in her tender years to all the violence of revolutionary 
 tyranny — deprived of her parents, who died on the scaffold — 
 abandoned in the dungeon of an old tower, was now passing 
 slowly before that same Palais de Justice out of which her 
 mother had gone in a cart to the scaffold. In passing that 
 same palace she was about to inhabit, what cruel recollec- 
 tions, what feelings of compassion and love might naturally 
 have been excited ! — and still the marks of joy, the enthu- 
 siasm were lavished alone on the old Monarch ! Was it that 
 policy got the better of the more refined feelings of humanity ? 
 or that the women, who were the most numerous among the 
 crowd, are expected, even when moved by the most noble 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. ill 
 
 feelings of the heart, to show always the smallest part to 
 persons of their own sex ? ' 
 
 The restoration of the Royal Family had been prepared with 
 much skill by M. de Talleyrand. It was, however, necessary 
 to give it a legal character ; and as the Legislative Body was 
 not at that time sitting, they had recourse to the Senate, 
 which closed its political existence by one of the most dis- 
 graceful acts recorded in history. In despite of all laws, the 
 Senate removed from the throne, and delivered over to 
 foreigners, their lawful Sovereign, whom France had elected, 
 and to whom they owed their existence. They had, more- 
 over, the baseness to insult the Prince they disowned. I am 
 far from refusing to acknowledge the noble qualities, the 
 eminent services, and even the conspicuous virtues, by which 
 many members of the Senate were recommended to public 
 esteem ; but the stain will nevertheless remain for ever fixed 
 on that Assembly, since no effort was tried, no resignations 
 offered, no protest uttered by any one against that fatal 
 sitting over which M. de Talle5rrand presided. 
 
 The first measure of the new Government was to establish 
 the administration, and to punish or stifle the disturbances 
 which disordered passions might occasion in the provinces 
 at the news of the installation. 
 
 But before we follow that Government in its measures, it 
 is necessary to cast a look upon the nation over which it was 
 about to rule. France had been subjected to the forms of a 
 Republic, to which had succeeded the Imperial monarchy. In 
 ,1814 but few influential leaders of the Republican Govern- 
 ment survived. With the exception of Carnot and Barras, 
 who had not bowed to Napoleon, the rest had been mowed 
 
 ' The translator is convinced that Count Lavalette was completely mis- 
 taken in both his surmises. The fact is, that men never forgive the wrongs 
 that they have themselves inflicted. The French nation had behaved like 
 savage cannibals towards the virtuous Duchess of Angouleme and her inno- 
 cent parents, and the sight of her was an everlasting reproach upon their 
 cruelty. To this sentiment must also be attributed the filthy caricatures 
 and scandalous libels on that spotless Princess that have" since disgraced 
 the French press. 
 
272 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAV ALETTE. 
 
 by the scj^he of Time or seduced by the head of the empire. 
 Merlin, Treilhard, Sieyfes, Fouch6, and many others, had 
 donned the robes of ministers and senators ; the Brutuses of 
 1793 were now designated by the titles of duke, count, and 
 even monseigneur. In the army I find none but Jourdan 
 who did not enlist among the titled generals. Kleber, 
 Hoche, Desaix, and Moreau were, it is true, no more ; but 
 would it be too much to suppose that these illustrious 
 warriors, who fell in defending the independence of their 
 country, would have also bent under the Imperial yoke ? 
 The whole nation had, on the i8th Brumaire, preceded the 
 conversion of the army. The First Consul found every- 
 where among the people an equal disgust for Republican 
 forms and government. He took advantage of this to estab- 
 lish the Consulate — and misused it to place the crown on his 
 head. Vanity, so powerful over the French, and hatred of 
 a yoke sprung from under their feet, rendered insupportable 
 to them an authority brutal in its forms and an offensive 
 equality. The persecutions and violent deaths which, dur- 
 ing more than two years, had spread mourning and dismay, 
 left such a deep impression on the people's minds that they 
 were resolved, cost what it might, never to go back to them. 
 The defeats the French armies suffered in 1799, the violent 
 and unskilful measures of the Directory, their coups d^itat, 
 and especially that of the i8th Fructidor, added to the 
 general impatience and to the disrepute in which they had 
 fallen ; so that when General Bonaparte returned from 
 Egypt, all classes of citizens opened their arms to him, 
 and begged him to save France. The i8th Brumaire took 
 place. But the Conqueror of Italy was accustomed to en- 
 force obedience : he therefore organised the country, and 
 commanded over it as he would over an army. The won- 
 derful success at Marengo, order re-estabUshed in the finances 
 as if by enchantment, everywhere excited enthusiasm. The 
 odious attempts of the infernal machine, and of the Chouans, 
 commanded by Georges and Pichegru, excited indignation 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 273 
 
 against the English and the Bourbons to the highest pitch. 
 Then it was that Napoleon, convinced that he might dare 
 all he wished, again raised up the throne of France with a 
 view to master Europe. Fifteen years' glory and an arbi- 
 trary government had made the French more supple ; and 
 the Bourbons never doubted but their government, which 
 • they called paternal, would be received with transports of 
 joy, especially as it appeared a sure pledge of sincere recon- 
 ciliation with the rest of Europe. 
 
 But Louis XVIII., dazzled by the easy obedience of the 
 nation to his predecessor, was far from suspecting what had 
 been hidden under the Imperial purple. He did not know 
 what troubles, what cares, what increasing obstacles, per- 
 petually arose against the former Government. He did not 
 suspect that the passion for Liberty had only been sup- 
 pressed, and that the contempt the nation felt for the last 
 kings of his race extended to him. The hatred of the old 
 Court and the nobility, indifference in regard to religion 
 and contempt for the clergy, had acquired new energy under 
 the Imperial reign. The King did not know that the Em- 
 peror had lost many adherents in all classes. Finally, since 
 the departure of the present King, in 1791, a new genera- 
 tion had arisen and taken its rank in the social state. They 
 were a grave population, full of energy, nursed in deep 
 study, free from superstitious mummery, leaving college to 
 fly to the field of battle. To them every career of science 
 and ambition was open, and to their success incapacity was 
 the only obstacle. 
 
 Nobody had told the King that all illusion in regard to 
 the majesty of the throne had vanished. The Emperor had, 
 in fact, never been a monarch, or at least the people had 
 never experienced for him the superstitious awe with 
 which they had been wont to look upon Louis XIV. and 
 Louis XV. 
 
 He was admired only as a great man. The people beheld 
 in him the gainer of so many battles, the conqueror of so 
 
 19 
 
274 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 many kingdoms, the invincible, the man of fate ; but still 
 he was always Bonaparte — a glorious name, which his 
 enemies have not been able to tarnish, nor he himself to deface. 
 
 Louis XVIII. therefore, on his return, no longer found 
 the halo of his House. In the eyes of sensible and cool- 
 thinking persons, he was nothing more than an old gentle- 
 man of Versailles, whom circumstances again raised to a . 
 throne. His family and himself returned, however, with 
 the old prejudices of five-and-twenty years before. They 
 thought that the Revolution had been made by men, and 
 not by the force of things — a fatal mistake which had 
 already ruined Louis XVI. They began, therefore, to 
 inquire of all they saw who they were, and what they had 
 done at various periods. An old rancour against the Con- 
 stituents, an affected contempt for the nobles who had 
 declared themselves in favour of the Revolution, a haughty 
 indifference towards all the members of the preceding 
 Government, a disdainfijl and humiliating politeness to- 
 wards the leaders of the army because they had still their 
 arms in their hands< — such were the features that marked 
 the conduct of the Court. 
 
 The foreign Sovereigns, in the midst of the intoxication of 
 their triumph, were, however, wise enough not to misuse it ; 
 and far from treating France with the violence of a con- 
 queror who thinks he may dare whatever he wishes, they 
 seconded the patriot party in their efforts to prevent France, 
 in her misfortune, from being deprived of the laws by which 
 she had been governed for the last thirty years. The 
 pledges required by a civilised age were therefore laid down 
 in a charter granted by the King, under the wretched title 
 of Ordinance of Reformation. The forms of the adminis- 
 tration were preserved, and the agents of public authority 
 provisionally maintained in their posts. Extraordinary 
 commissaries were sent into all the departments, to en- 
 lighten and calm the public mind. These commissaries, 
 chosen for the most part among the disinterested, and 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT I.AVALETTE. 275 
 
 -among the enemies of the Emperor, obtained but little 
 success. Private interest, however, weariness, and neces- 
 sity, produced a surer effect. The people showed them- 
 selves everywhere distrustful ; but I have no doubt that if 
 Government had advanced with firmness and good faith in 
 the principles laid down by the charter, it would soon have 
 . gained, if not affection, at least confidence, and oblivion of 
 Tthe principles with which it was surrounded. 
 
 But the intoxication of a triumph so easily obtained 
 turned the heads of the royalists. The bragging of the 
 ^emigrants knew no bounds. When they saw the Bourbons 
 ■seated on the throne, they imagined themselves masters of 
 their sovereign and all France. They asked, or rather 
 demanded, employments, favours, and money. All was 
 lavished on them. Most of them were old officers, who at 
 the time of their emigration enjoyed but an inferior rank 
 in the army. Five-and-twenty years' service was reckoned 
 for them. Senior lieutenants became colonels, and colonels 
 majors or lieutenant-generals. The pretensions of these 
 -old men to glory, their warlike disposition, now so out of 
 season, cast on them a ridicule that was eagerly seized by 
 the numerous idle young officers whom peace had brought 
 .together in the metropolis, and they became the subjects of 
 "biting pleasantry and bitter irony. Songs and caricatures 
 were directed against these people, and contributed to bring 
 them into disrepute. 
 
 An unimportant circumstance gave Government an idea of 
 "the exasperation that began to spread among the people. 
 An actress of the Theatre Frangais died about that time in 
 -the Chaussee d'Antin. Her funeral was accompanied by 
 most of the theatrical characters in the metropolis. As she 
 had enjoyed a good deal of celebrity, the procession was 
 soon augmented by a great number of those persons who 
 had applauded her talent. When they arrived in fi-ont of 
 -the Church of St. Roch, they found the doors shut by order 
 of the vicar, according to the ancient custom, by which in 
 
276 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVA LETTS. 
 
 France actors were considered as excommunicated. The 
 friends of the deceased were unable to soften the obstinacy 
 of the old priest. The mob, full of indignation, broke open 
 the doors of the church, lighted the wax tapers, and began 
 to sing the prayers consecrated to the dead. At last one of 
 the King's chaplains came, as it was said, to fill the sacer- 
 dotal functions, and the ceremony concluded peaceably. 
 For this unforeseen disturbance public authority was un- 
 prepared ; and if the King had followed his first impulse^ 
 which was to repel the people by his guards, a riot would 
 in all probability have ensued, the consequences of which 
 would have been incalculable. 
 
 This state of the public mind in regard to Government,, 
 this propensity towards resistance, spread rapidly from 
 Paris to the departments. The awkward position of the 
 Imperial magistrates and other persons who had been kept 
 in office, and who were all of a sudden obliged to preach 
 other duties, other affections, and contrary opinions, cast on 
 them a sort of obloquy ; and the necessity of making the 
 Bourboris forget their former devotion to the enemy com- 
 municated to the exercise of their authority a sort of 
 violence that wounded and irritated every one. 
 
 The purchasers of national property, who were extremely 
 numerous, ten millions of persons being supposed to be 
 interested in those sales, were soon tormented by the former 
 proprietors, who, far from accepting the offers that had been 
 made to them through fear, rejected all manner of arrange- 
 ment. They declared openly that their lands would be 
 restored to them by the King's authority, and that they 
 ought to resume the possession of their property by the same 
 title by which he had recovered his crown ; that the loss of 
 the subjects and the monarch having been the same, the 
 restitution ought to be made at the same time ; finally, that 
 the charter, which was only a temporary convention — a plain 
 ordinance of reformation — was to be modified on that point, 
 even if it were not abolished altogether. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 277 
 
 The King had returned with a very small number of nobles 
 •who remained faithful to his person ; but all the emigrants 
 ■who had come back in 1801, at the time of the amnesty 
 granted by the First Consul, hastened to invade the Tuileries, 
 and added to the joy they felt at the return of the Bourbons, 
 ■complaints on their former sufferings during their emigra- 
 tion. They appeared every day, by swarms, at the chapel 
 of the Tuileries, most of them dressed in plain clothes, 
 ornamented with shoulder knots, and having by their sides 
 the swords of their deceased regiments. The accounts of 
 their ancient prowess at Coblentz, and in the legion of Conde, 
 ■appeared pitiful to those who had beaten them with so much 
 facility. They seemed as if they had returned but the day 
 before ; and their boastings, supported by the favours of the 
 Court, gave great offence to the warriors who had recently 
 fallen with so much glory. Finally, after a space of twenty 
 years, the whole troop of Coblentz and the banks of the 
 Rhine insolently triumphed in 1814, as if they had succeeded 
 twenty years sooner. 
 
 The army was a still greater cause of uneasiness. Though 
 ■exhausted and mutilated by the last campaign, still a feeling 
 for glory and the name of the Emperor remained alive in 
 the hearts of the troops. The marshals, and many of the 
 guards, had yielded to necessity ; but the greatest part of 
 the officers remained faithful to these noble sentiments. 
 Discipline and the military virtues were nevertheless pre- 
 served, and shone with a new lustre. The King could not 
 review the troops himself, on account of the bad state of his 
 health ; and the Princes affected, every time they saw them, 
 a degree of distrust and neglect which seemed augmented 
 by the jealousy they felt for their glorious deeds. 
 
 The following circumstance has been related to me by 
 Count d'Erlon. The Duke de Berri was one day reviewing 
 some regiments garrisoned in the province of which Marshal 
 Duke de Treviso was governor and Count d'Erlon com- 
 mander. An officer came out of the ranks and asked the 
 
278 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 Prince for the cross of St. Louis. " What have you done to 
 desierve it ? " "I have served thirty years in the French 
 army." "Thirty years' robbery ! " repHed the Prince, turn- 
 ing his back on him. It is true that, the Marshal having 
 remonstrated, the officer obtained the next day what he had. 
 solicited ; but the words were reported about, and I leave 
 the reader to judge of the effect they had among the troops. 
 
 The corps dispersed on the surface of the empire were- 
 soon deprived of a part of their officers, whom disgust and 
 forced resignation banished from the army. The staff, and 
 that crowd of military agents now become useless, returned 
 to their homes, whither they carried the discontent and 
 hatred that filled their breasts. The two last campaigns- 
 had been ruinous to them. They had almost all lost 
 their baggages. Exasperated by the presence of an enemy,, 
 recently victorious, now masters of the country, but who- 
 had been beaten during twenty years, the necessity of sub- 
 mitting to the yoke of the Bourbons, whom that enemy had. 
 brought with them, soon grew unbearable. Without fortune 
 or possessions, rejected by Government, accustomed to the 
 adventurous life of a camp, they saw nothing before them 
 but misery and disgrace if the Bourbons remained on the 
 throne. They wished at any price to alter their situation,, 
 and their thoughts were directed with dissatisfaction towards 
 the Island of Elba. 
 
 So many causes of confusion were still not sufficient to- 
 open the eyes of the Bourbons. The three first months- 
 passed away in apparent tranquillity. Government thought 
 nothing was easier than to subdue the dispersed disaffected p 
 and the Allied Sovereigns, who began to fear the effect which 
 might be produced on their troops by the example of our 
 easy manners, and especially our opinions, consented to- 
 retire, after having settled their accounts. France had 
 immense sums of money to pay ; the terms and conditions 
 of payment were settled, not without a good deal of difficulty. 
 The Allies probably carried away with them doubts on the; 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 279 
 
 long continuance of a government that began so ill ; but 
 they were satisfied at seeing France weakened for a long 
 while, and fallen from the high station to which glory and 
 civilisation had raised her. 
 
 The charter had instituted two chambers. The Chamber 
 of Peers, which was the former Senate, had lost all considera- 
 tion. The honourable men it contained added no lustre to 
 it. They had, besides, all risen by the Revolution. The 
 King introduced into it all the old peers of the monarchy, 
 and some of these who had of late served with distinction. 
 The new-comers gave to that body, and received at the same 
 time from it, habits, and a love for subservience ; and if the 
 nation took but little interest in the elevation of men who 
 numbered in their ranks the Count de Bourmont and the 
 Mayor of Bordeaux, the King might at least be assured that 
 this assembly would for a long time still maintain the 
 traditional obedience of the Imperial Senate. 
 
 Things were, however, not quite the same in regard to 
 the members of the Legislative Body : they had been chosen 
 at a time when war had become for France an insufferable 
 burthen. Several of them had energetically opposed the 
 demands of Government in 1813. But the number of 
 royalists was not yet very considerable ; and if they had 
 consented to abandon the Imperial Government, it was not 
 with a view to submit to arbitrary law under the authority 
 of a king. Government found, therefore, if not obstacles, 
 at least serious warnings, when the counsellors of the crown 
 submitted to the Chamber projects which but ill agreed with 
 the principles of the fundamental law, and that wounded the 
 feelings and prejudices of the true friends of Liberty. One 
 of them, Count Ferrand, disgusted the Assembly when he 
 came, in the King's name, and established distinctions in the 
 conduct of the French at the different periods of the Revo- 
 lution, distributing praises to some and reproaches to others. 
 His comparison of the straight line and the curved hne 
 applied even to those who had rallied round Government, 
 
28o MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 spread alarm and indignation in every one's mind, and the 
 Emperor perfectly well appreciated how serious that im- 
 prudence was, when he said : " I came with M. Ferrand's 
 speech in my hand, convinced that the whole nation would 
 rally round me." 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 I OBSERVED all these seeds of confusion. I felt that the storm 
 "was not far distant, and I separated every day more and more 
 from the persons who might take a share in it. I must here 
 explain the singular and perilous situation in which I was 
 placed. 
 
 The day before the Emperor left Paris for the fatal cam- 
 paign of Russia, he kept me with him at the close of the 
 evening ; and after giving me all the necessary orders for 
 his journey, he said to me : " Go to the Grand Marshal ; he 
 will give you drafts on the Treasury for 1,600,000 fr. You 
 will convert them secretly into gold, which the Minister of 
 the Treasury will procure you the means of doing ; and you 
 will wait my orders to send it me." So much gold was 
 difficult to hide. I addressed myself to the keeper of the 
 Ordnance Depot (M. Regnier), who was a very ingenious 
 mechanic, and who made for me, in a very clever manner, 
 several boxes which looked exactly like as many quarto 
 volumes. Each of them contained 30,000 fr., and I placed 
 them in my library. When the Emperor came back from 
 the Russian campaign, he seemed to have entirely forgotten 
 the money, and he returned to Germany for the campaign 
 -of Leipsic without giving me any particular orders on the 
 subject. The only reply he made to my question respecting 
 it was, " We shall speak of that when I come home." At 
 last, when, a few months afterwards, he was going to leave 
 Paris for the cainpaign of France, I insisted on his relieving 
 me from the charge of a treasure for which I might perhaps 
 
282 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 not be able to answer in the midst of the important events- 
 that might threaten Paris. " Well, then," he said, " hide it 
 at your country seat." It was in vain that I remonstrated^, 
 observing that the castle of La Verrifere, situated on the road 
 leading from Versailles to Rambouillet, might be plundered 
 by stragglers of the enemy ; that my occupation in Paris- 
 never permitted me to remain long in the country, and that 
 chance and the slightest imprudence might make me lose 
 the money. He would listen to nothing, and I was forced 
 to obey. My steward was an honest and intelligent man. 
 He made, in my presence, during several nights, a hole under 
 the floor of a closet on the ground floor. There we deposited 
 the fifty-four volumes of Ancient and Modern History. 
 Never would any work have been read with more eager- 
 ness, nor appreciated nearer to its real value. The inlaid, 
 floor was carefully replaced, and nothing was suspected. 
 The taking of Paris threw the Emperor into Fontainebleau. 
 I most ardently wished to share his fate, or at least to receive- 
 probably his last orders. But he sent me word by the Duke 
 de Vicenza that it would be dangerous if I were to come to- 
 see him ; that he wished me to remain in Paris, where I 
 might act as I pleased ; and that he would let me know at 
 some later period how I was to dispose of his money. 
 
 That circumstance was one of the motives that made- 
 me keep so carefully at a distance from Government. My 
 attachment to the person of the Emperor, the oaths of 
 allegiance I had made to him, my gratitude for his kind- 
 ness and generosity, made me shudder at the idea of not 
 devoting to him the remainder of my life ; but, on the other 
 hand, honour forbade me to embrace the party of the Bour- 
 bons, when I was placed in the necessity of maintaining a 
 correspondence with him. What punishment would I not 
 have suffered and deserved, if the King's government, after 
 having received my oath, had discovered that I had in my 
 possession a part of Napoleon's fortune, and that I disposed 
 of it according to his orders ? At the time I was making. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 285 
 
 those painful reflections, three hundred Prussians occupied 
 the castle of Verrifere. Fifteen slept in the very room where 
 the treasure was hid. These soldiers were far from suspect- 
 ing that they would have had only to raise with the points 
 of their swords two boards of the floor, to fall upon heaps of 
 gold. They remained there nearly two months. During 
 all that time I was in continued agony. I expected every 
 day to learn that all had been discovered. Fortunately the 
 Prussians went away at last, and I was easy, at least, in that 
 respect. 
 
 The late Empress Josephine had, however, returned to- 
 Malmaison. After a short absence, during the month of 
 April, the Emperor of Russia invited her to return home. 
 He added such flattering assurances, that she soon resumed, 
 without uneasiness, her usual mode of living. At first few 
 persons went to see her ; but the Emperor Alexander and 
 the King of Prussia having visited her, a great number of 
 foreigners appeared in their train, and were soon followed 
 by many Frenchmen, who still felt gratitude and attachment 
 to Josephine, and who feared no longer to express their 
 feelings. The Emperor of Russia went frequently, and paid 
 her long visits : their conversations on Napoleon were in- 
 exhaustible. The Empress Josephine's mind was neither 
 extensive nor cultivated ; but she possessed a sound judg- 
 ment, ingenuity, a thorough acquaintance with good society, 
 and inimitable grace ; whilst her accent, which was rather 
 that of a Creole, added a great charm to her conversation. 
 Alexander appeared delighted with her.. One day he pre- 
 sented his brother Constantine to her, and said, " Do you 
 not think that the whole person of her Majesty, and even 
 the sound of her voice, have a great resemblance to the 
 Empress Catharine ? " 
 
 Notwithstanding some indiscreet observations that escaped 
 her in the freedom of those numerous conversations, Jose- 
 phine never belied the tender affection she still felt for 
 Napoleon. The revolution was complete, and the throne 
 
284 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 for ever lost, and still she never ceased to implore the 
 generosity of the Emperor, that he might soften the fate of 
 her former husband. The promises he made, and which 
 she repeated to me with sincerity, were speedily forgotten 
 at Vienna, if it be true that even at that time Alexander 
 consented to let Napoleon be taken from the Island of Elba 
 and sent to St. Helena. Prince Eugene came to Paris, 
 about the time I am speaking of The Emperor Alexander 
 took a liking to him, made him many professions of friend- 
 ship, and promised to give him in Germany a principality, 
 the population of which should not be less than sixty 
 thousand inhabitants. These arrangements were afterwards 
 altered : the Prince obtained the principality of Eichstadt, 
 which contains scarcely seven thousand inhabitants. The 
 day before his departure, the Emperor Alexander, in a 
 moment of effusion, said to Prince Eugene, " I do not know 
 whether I shall not one day repent having placed the 
 Bourbons on the throne. Believe me, my dear Eugene, 
 they are not good people.' We have seen them in Russia, 
 and I know from experience what to think of them." ., 
 
 In the midst of these splendid comfortings, surrounded by 
 the homage of the most powerful sovereigns of the Con- 
 tinent, death overtook the Empress Josephine. She was 
 subject to catarrhal colds, which a little care and repose 
 usually cured in a short time. One day, as she felt an 
 attack of one of these complaints, she walked round the 
 Park of Malmaison with the King of Prussia. She grew in 
 consequence worse. Three days afterwards she was so ill 
 
 that Dr. N , having been called in on consultation, gave 
 
 me the painful commission to acquaint Prince Eugene and 
 the Queen of Holland that within a few days they would be 
 motherless. The Emperor Alexander brought her, the next 
 day, his own physician, and remained the whole day with 
 
 ' If the Emperor Alexander really used these expressions, he was not of 
 the same opinion as our Yorick — "The Bourbons are a gentle race" 
 <" Sentimental Journey "). — Note of Translator. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAV ALETTE. 285 
 
 her ; but on the Sunday she softly expired in the arms of 
 the Countess d'Arberg, her lady of honour, and her friend. 
 The Empress was fifty-two years of age. She was an 
 excellent woman in all respects : she embellished the throne 
 by the most amiable qualities. Her benevolence and her 
 kindness may serve as models to all those whom birth or 
 fortune sentences to wear a crown. 
 
 The Emperor Alexander also wished to make a provision 
 for the Queen of Holland. Her husband had left her> 
 Alexander procured for her the title of Duchess of St. Leu. 
 Louis XVni. did not dare to refuse openly, but his 
 Minister Blacas made so many difficulties, that Alexander 
 sent his aide-de-camp to the Tuileries with an order not 
 ' to leave the palace until the patent was delivered to him, if 
 even he should be obliged to sleep there. 
 
 The Empress Josephine was buried in the Church of Ruel. 
 The funeral ceremony was celebrated with great splendour, 
 by special order of the Emperor of Russia, who wished to 
 give a last token of regard to the memory of Josephine, by 
 sending as chief mourner Field Marshal Sacken, of all his 
 generals the one for whom he had the greatest esteem, and 
 to whom he had entrusted the government of Paris. 
 
 The death of the Empress Josephine was the last blessing 
 fortune conferred on her. Accustomed to all the enjoyment 
 of luxury, and not knowing how to set bounds either to her 
 expenses or to her charity, whilst the new Government 
 refused to pay the pension that had been granted her by 
 the treaty of the nth of April, she was on the point of 
 feeling all that trouble that accompanies want of order and 
 imprudence. The return of the Emperor on the 20th of 
 March would, besides, have undoubtedly compromised her. 
 Her affection for him, and the enthusiasm his presence 
 would have created, would have led her into measures for 
 which she could not have expected pardon from the Bour- 
 bons. She would therefore have been obliged to end her 
 unfortunate days far from France and her friends. 
 
286 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 Prince Eugene was going to return to Germany. Not 
 Teceivii;ig any accounts from the Island of Elba, I resolved 
 to acquaint him with my situation. He was devoted to the 
 Emperor, and he was my friend. I proposed to him to take 
 ■charge of 800,000 francs, and send them to the Island of 
 Elba. 
 
 Feeling myself a little easier from the thought of having 
 saved half the sum, I exerted my utmost prudence to keep the 
 eyes of the police off me. M. Pasquier was no longer there ; 
 and his successor, prepossessed by the idea of the general 
 excitement which was daily augmented by newspapers and 
 pamphlets written by men who observed no moderation, 
 naturally forgot a person like myself, whom his investigators 
 never met with, and whose name was never uttered in his* 
 presence. 
 
 What I had foreseen happened at last. The charter was 
 infringed by underhand practices, and the press complained 
 openly of them. The abuse with which the Emperor was 
 overwhelmed by the Royalist papers exasperated all the 
 adherents and friends of the hero. Recriminations took a 
 violent character, and some writers searched the old Mont- 
 leurs, and published the odious imputation with which the 
 King had formerly been charged at the time of the trial of 
 the Marquis de Favras. 
 
 M. Rey, a lawyer from Grenoble, described in a work 
 which was eagerly read all the infringements made on the 
 charter from the day it had been granted. Two young 
 men, Messrs. Comte and Dunoyer, published a periodical 
 work, called Le Censeur, whence the principles of Liberty 
 were developed with an energy and a strength of argument 
 that gained universal applause. The writings of the royalists 
 contained abuse on the Revolution, and on all, without dis- 
 tinction, who had taken a share in it ; to which they added 
 such provoking threats, that it was impossible not to perceive 
 that their aim was to punish all. 
 
 This hostile disposition had extended all over France, by 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 287 
 
 the very measures that Government took to alter or weaken 
 it. Fearing, not without some reason, the troops assembled 
 Tinder the colours, they had come to the resolution of dis- 
 banding more than half of them. The sufferings of want 
 soon took the place of the happiness they had enjoyed on 
 finding themselves returned in peace to their homes. The 
 fatigues, the dangers, and even the disasters of the last 
 campaign were soon obliterated from their memory ; and 
 they only retained the enthusiasm with which the recol- 
 lection of the Emperor inspired them in their idle hours, 
 mingled with pity for his fall, and indignation at the dis- 
 graceful treatment he suffered from enemies he had so 
 often vanquished. The glory they had been promised, the 
 military rewards that could not have escaped them, the 
 illustrious title of soldiers of the Grand Army, and the 
 universal veneration that was to embellish the remainder of 
 their days, had all disappeared. They returned to their 
 homes poor and humbled, and had moreover to suffer from 
 the mistrust of the agents of the new authorities, and from 
 the contempt of that crowd of nobles, most of them old 
 emigrants, who ranked among their rights and privileges 
 the pleasure of detracting from the military glory, and 
 branding with the name of revolt the heroic exertions of 
 the French to save their country from a foreign yoke. 
 
 Most of the generals who had been retained, and even 
 those who commanded military divisions, soon perceived, 
 by the reception they met with at Court, that the day was 
 not far off when they would be set aside to make place for 
 the royalists, whose long idleness was repaid by an accumu- 
 lation of rank. 
 
 , I saw none of my old companions in arms ; but a con- 
 versation I had with one of my friends opened my eyes, 
 and made me more attentive to what was passing around 
 me. My lodgings, which were situated in the Faubourg 
 St. Germain, placed me under the necessity of frequently 
 crossing the garden of the Tuileries. I met there one day 
 
288 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 a former aide-de-camp of the Emperor. We talked about 
 public affairs, and he said to me : "I have just met Marshal 
 Ney ; I have never yet seen a man more exasperated than 
 he against Government. His lady was yesterday so cruelly 
 insulted at the Tuileries that she went home in tears. The 
 old duchesses taxed her with being the daughter of a 
 chambermaid.' Her aunt, Madame Campan, has just lost 
 the situation of superintending lady of the establishment at 
 Ecouen, notwithstanding the Marshal's solicitations. The 
 harsh and insolent manner of Count de Blacas, to whom the 
 King referred him, added to his exasperation." 
 
 This account appeared so singular to me, from the dispo- 
 sition in which I supposed the Marshal to be, that I could 
 not help expressing some idea that it might be exaggerated. 
 "If you think me mistaken," returned the aide-de-camp, 
 " let us continue our walk. He will soon pass through 
 here again to return home, for I know he is gone to the 
 Rue du Mont Blanc, and you may hear him yourself." 
 
 In fact, the Marshal appeared in about an hour. We 
 stood at the entrance of the terrace, by the water-side. 
 When he saw me, he immediately came up to me, and we 
 walked all three together. "Well," said he, "so you have 
 kept yourself aloof ; you are at peace, far from this puddle. 
 How happy you are, that have no insult or injustice to 
 suffer ! These people are so ignorant, they know not what 
 a Marshal Ney is. Shall I be obliged to teach it them ? " 
 
 He continued there for half an hour, to vent his passion ,- 
 and, notwithstanding some reflections we made with a view 
 to calm him, he left us abruptly. This fact will undoubtedly 
 appear a considerable charge against him ; and many' 
 
 " The lady of Marshal Ney was a daughter of Madame Angui^, chamber- 
 maid to the Queen. Her unfortunate mother, who wsis persecuted in 1793 
 by the revolutionary committees, threw herself into a well, to escape from 
 the scaffold, and to avoid by a voluntary death the confiscation of her pro- 
 perty. She had three daughters, all of them remarkable for their beauty 
 and the most amiable qualities : Madame Gamot (afterwards Madame 
 Delaville), the lady of Marshal Ney, and Madame de Broc, who met with 
 her death by falling into a torrent near Aix in Savoy. — Note of the At4thor. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 289 
 
 persons will be tempted to connect that speech with his 
 conduct in the month of March following. This would, 
 however, be a mistake. The Marshal was a man who always 
 acted upon the first impulse : he did not love the new 
 Government ; but (it must, alas ! be acknowledged) he 
 loved the Emperor still less. A few days after the con- 
 versation I mentioned, he went to his seat of Coudreaux, 
 and remained a complete stranger to all that follows. 
 
 20 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 The youngest and most ambitious among the general 
 officers were naturally the most discontented. Stopped all 
 of a sudden in the midst of their career, forced to mix again 
 with the crowd,' fortune and honours escaped "from their 
 hands, when they seemed to have only one step more to 
 take to gain them. Accustomed to a showy life, their large 
 salaries were suddenly cut off, and they experienced great 
 disappointment in not being able to keep up the brilliant 
 rank that had been assigned to them in the army and in the 
 world, the enjoyment of which would perhaps have com- 
 forted them. I do not say that their love of their country 
 and their devotion to the Emperor had not a great share in 
 their resentment ; and all those causes added together made 
 their situation insufferable. The universal contempt for 
 the new Government, and the clamour that was raised on 
 all sides, persuaded them that the favourable moment for 
 an insurrection had arrived ; and some of them did not 
 hesitate to employ for that end the troops with which 
 Government had entrusted them for its defence, in full 
 reliance on the oath of allegiance they had taken. I had 
 
 not the least knowledge of the plot. It was M. de P 
 
 who first spoke to me about it, and who, with the confidence 
 and levity of youth, acquainted me with all its particulars. 
 He did not even seek to hide the names of any of its leaders. 
 By all I had heard, I soon discovered that everybody knew 
 the secret except Government. It was Marshal Soult who 
 held the portfolio of the War Department ; but having at 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 291 
 
 that time no other wish than to efface by his new zeal the 
 remembrance of his old affection for the Republic and the 
 Emperor, he consecrated all his time to the Vendeans and 
 their history, making the King sign an ordinance for the 
 monument at Quiberon, and placing them in the army. 
 Far from enlightening the Sovereign on the spirit of the 
 army and the people, he knew so little about it himself, 
 that he thought it quite natural to assemble with great eclat, 
 in the city of Nantes, all the remains of the old rebels of the 
 Vendee, for a solemn distribution of pensions and orders. 
 The Nantese, at the sight of their old foes, who had so 
 frequently shown marks of cruelty, were at the point of 
 insurrection. The agent of the Minister was obliged to run 
 away, leaving behind him an incensed population, ready to 
 take up arms to repel this counter-revolutionary attempt. 
 
 This awkward act was soon after followed by an unjust 
 and brutal measure, which augmented the exasperation 
 of the military. General Excelmans, one of the most 
 brilliant leaders of the army, had been first aide-de-camp 
 to the King of Naples. One of the physicians of that 
 Prince setting off to join him, Excelmans gave him a letter, 
 ■wherein he feelingly expressed his attachment to his former 
 general. Some loose words on the energy of the army, 
 which still subsisted notwithstanding the peace, and offers 
 •of service, concluded his letter. The person who had taken 
 -charge of it was arrested ; the letter was then delivered to 
 the Minister of War (then General Dupont), who repri- 
 manded General Excelmans for the very slight impropriety 
 he had committed. But the letter remained in the office of 
 the Minister. One of the first measures of Marshal Soult, 
 when he took the portfolio, was to decide that General 
 Excelmans should leave Paris, and go and reside, until 
 further orders, in the department where he was born. The 
 general resisted, alleging, with reason, that his natural home 
 was in the metropolis, having no property in the depart- 
 ment, where he had not even been for the last twenty 
 
292 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 years. Finally, he only solicited a respite. Madame Excel- 
 mans had been for three days in the pains of child-birth. 
 All the friends of her husband surrounded him, and 
 encouraged him to resist an order which had all the 
 appearance of a lettre de cachet. The Minister was going- 
 to use violence, when one of the General's companions 
 in arms. General Flahaut, helped him to escape. A court- 
 martial assembled at Lille to try him : he went there and 
 was acquitted. This acquittal was a fresh triumph to the 
 friends of the Emperor, and a powerful encouragement to 
 those who were at the head of the plot. 
 
 One of the leaders was General Lallemant, whom I had 
 ktiown in Italy and in Egypt, when he was an officer of 
 the Guards, and afterwards aide-de-camp of General Junot. 
 He wished me to take an active part in the conspiracy, and 
 especially to undertake the commission of acquainting the 
 Emperor with it. He observed that I had undoubtedly 
 kept secure means of corresponding with him. He opened 
 to ttie his plans, which were to seize the persons of the 
 Bourbons, proclaiming the Emperor, and replace him on 
 the throne. Marshal Davbust, the Dukes of Otranto and 
 Bassano, and several others, whose names I forget, were the 
 heads of the enterprise. The more he advanced in his 
 explanation, the more my alarm and uneasiness deprived 
 me of all power of replying. In listening to him, it was 
 not, I acknowledge, the fate of the King that caused my 
 anxiety, but that of the Emperor. I, however, answered, 
 " The persons whom you have named are very able, and 
 their co-operation undoubtedly makes your success very 
 probable ; but still, it seems to me, you dispose very freely 
 of the Emperor, simply to acquaint him with an under- 
 taking, in regard to which he has not been previously 
 consulted : to dispose of his fate without his permission 
 appears to me a very bold act. First, I positively declare 
 I have no sure means of sending him a letter. I even 
 entreat his friends not to address him any, as I am sure 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 293 
 
 they will be stopped by the posts of France and Italy, and 
 sent to Vienna, where M. de Talleyrand strongly solicits 
 a more distant exile for the Emperor. The motives on 
 which he grounds his demand have not as yet appeared 
 sufficient to determine the Allied Powers to such a measure ; 
 but I leave you to judge what effect would be produced 
 upon them by a correspondence such as you wish to under- 
 take. I am convinced the Emperor would be sent to the 
 world's end, and perhaps even murdered. Who knows 
 whether he may not have plans of his own which yours 
 may counteract and destroy ? Do you think his mind is 
 weakened ? Has he no friends left in Italy ? Can he 
 not easily be informed of what happens here ? Finally, 
 has he left his orders with anybody? Has he sent any 
 over since he has been in the Island of Elba ? " "As you 
 think it dangerous to write," replied the general, " we shall 
 strive to send somebody of great trust. As for our plan, 
 it is too far advanced for us to delay the execution of it any 
 ionger. If we put it off till some other time, the Emperor 
 will be one day unexpectedly removed from the Island of 
 Elba, in spite of the brave men who guard him, and then 
 all will be lost beyond resource. For the rest, speak to the 
 Duke de Bassano ; communicate to him your anxiety ; but 
 be sure we will not. This government is not to be borne ; 
 we will break it with our swords ; our resolution is taken." 
 
 I went the day after to the Duke de Bassano, whom I 
 had not seen since the Restoration. After having related 
 the conversation I had had with Lallemant, I expressed my 
 fears, not only in regard to a correspondence with the 
 Island of Elba, but also to the strange trust they reposed 
 in the Duke of Otranto. Murat spoke openly to me-^ 
 ^'This is quite a military operation," he said; '■'■we have 
 nothing to say in it : all that concerns us is the return of 
 the Emperor. I know not how to acquaint him of it, if 
 you have no means, and if you think them all dangerous. I 
 am, moreover, as much convinced as you are that it would 
 
294 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 be his certain ruin to commit even a single word to paper - 
 and, in fact, I gave no letter to M. Fleury de Chaboulon,, 
 who, you know, set oif more than a fortnight ago. To be 
 sure, when he left us, the military conspiracy was not yet 
 hatched ; or, at least, I had no knowledge of it. As to the 
 Duke of Otranto, I do not share your mistrust : he has 
 entered on the business with so much ardour, and he is on 
 such bad terms with the Bourbons, that I am sure he will 
 not betray us." " Very well ; but suppose he be sincere in 
 this, who knows whether he has not some after-thought, 
 and whether he does not intend to work for another .' "■ 
 "I do not know for whom it should be: he can have no 
 thoughts on the Duke of Orleans. Of that I have indis- 
 putable proofs. Neither he nor any other would dare to 
 touch that question with the Prince. Come and see me 
 often, and I shall make you acquainted with everything." 
 
 My conversation with the Duke de Bassano had aug- 
 mented my fears for the Emperor. The name of the Duke 
 of Otranto appeared fatal to me, and I returned a few 
 days afterwards to the Duke's house, to speak again with 
 him on the subject. He was closeted with the Prince of 
 Eckmuhl ; but I found Count Thibaudeau, who was very 
 well informed of the whole business, and knew the plot in 
 its most minute particulars. I communicated to him my 
 anxiety concerning Fouche. His answer was — " It is not 
 yet very clear in my eyes that he really wishes for the 
 return of the Emperor, but he will remain faithful to us 
 on the occasion." 
 
 While we were talking together, the Prince of Eckmuhl 
 came out of the Duke's cabinet, and the latter taking us- 
 aside, acquainted us that the Prince had just declared he 
 gave up all co-operation in the undertaking. The reason 
 he gave was, the levity of the leaders, and the certainty 
 that the Court had already some suspicion on the subject. 
 His resolution came rather late ; his name had encouraged 
 all the others. The means of execution had been submitted 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 295 
 
 to him, and he had approved of them ; it was therefore 
 fear that made him recede, for repentance could scarcely 
 find a place in the heart of such a man. Finally, he stopped 
 rather late, the motion having already begun, the dike being 
 broken, and the torrent ready to overflow on all sides. 
 The initiated were expecting with great anxiety the news 
 of the rising. Only three days more were wanted for us 
 to receive it, when we learned that Lallemant and Lefebvre 
 Desnouettes had been discovered at La Feren, through the 
 vigilance of General Daboville and Colonel Lyon ; that Lalle- 
 mant was taken with his brother, and that a court-martial 
 was already convoked to try them. The cause seemed lost 
 beyond resource. Anxiety and despair seized all the friends 
 of the Emperor. Without uneasiness with regard to myself, 
 I sighed over the fate of so many brave men, who were 
 going to expiate on the scaffold their fidelity for him whom 
 they still looked upon as their Sovereign, when suddenly 
 an extraordinary event, an absolute miracle, began to be 
 reported about, secretly at first, but soon with undoubted 
 certainty. It was on Monday the 7th of March. I was 
 crossing the Tuileries at nine o'clock in the morning, when 
 I perceived on the steps of the gate leading to the Rue de 
 Rivoli, M. Paul Lagarde, late Commissary-general of the 
 Police in Italy. I saluted him with my hand in passing by, 
 and continued my way under the trees, towards the terrace 
 on the water-side. Hearing some person near me, I was 
 going to turn round, when the following words were whis- 
 pered in my ear : " Make no gestures ; show no surprise ; 
 do not stop ; the Emperor landed at Cannes on the ist of 
 March; the Count d'Artois set off last night to oppose 
 him." It would be impossible for me to express the con- 
 fusion into which these words threw me. I could scarcely 
 breathe from emotion : I continued walking like an inebriated 
 man, and repeating to myself — " Is it possible ? Is it not 
 a dream, or the most cruel mockery ? " When I arrived 
 on the terrace on the water-side, I met the Duke de 
 
296 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 Vicenza, went up to him, and I repeated to him the news 
 word for word, and in the same tone of voice in which I 
 had just received it. He being of a hasty temper, and 
 accustomed to view things on the worst side, exclaimed : 
 " What an extravagance ! How ! to land without troops ! 
 He will be taken ; he will not advance two leagues into 
 France ; he is a lost man. But it is impossible ! However," 
 he added, " it is but too true that the Count d'Artms set 
 off hastily last night." 
 
 The ill-humour of the Duke de Vicenza and his fatal 
 forebodings were irksome to me. I left him, to indulge 
 at liberty the joy I experienced. At home I found no one 
 who would share it. Madame Lavalette was dismayed at 
 the news, and drew sad omens from it. I ran to the Duchess 
 of St. Leu, and found her bathed in tears of joy and emotion. 
 After a lapse of a few moments, we began to calculate the 
 immense distance between Cannes and Paris. " What will 
 the generals do that command on that road ? What the 
 public authorities ? What the troops ? What effect will 
 the arrival of the Count d'Artois produce ? " It appeared 
 to us as if nothing could resist the Emperor ; and we con- 
 cluded that, when once he should arrive at Lyons, all 
 opposition would become impossible. From that moment 
 the Duchess closed her door. All the suspicions of the 
 royalists, all the eyes of the police, centred upon her. 
 During the eleven months that had elapsed, her house had 
 not been much frequented. Some generals, a feW ladies and 
 young men of the new Court, visited her often ; but the 
 conversation never turned upon the Emperor. A small 
 number of faithful friends alone now and then inquired 
 what was his manner of living, — what would be his future 
 situation. 
 
 An undefined feeling convinced us that he would return ; 
 that a life of miracles would not be terminated on a rock 
 between Italy and France ; but how, and by what means, 
 that was to happen, our imagination, active as it was, could 
 
MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA V ALETTE. 297 
 
 not conceive. Every day we counted the errors Government 
 committed, those they were supposed to commit, and the 
 mass of prepossessions, complaints, violent or satirical 
 writings, in which the ridicule of the royalists and the 
 absurdity of their plans were exposed to light with so much 
 bitter irony. But, notwithstanding all that, the people 
 were satisfied with laughing and shrugging their shoulders : 
 the soldiers obeyed, and the mob appeared to remain quiet. 
 How could the Emperor, therefore, think of showing him- 
 self to a Government that appeared strong, and to a people 
 that seemed to have forgotten him ? And lo ! all of a 
 sudden he lands in France ; he agitates the minds of every 
 one ; his formidable name spreads dismay and discourage- 
 ment among those who command, and those who detest 
 him. The days, hours, and minutes were counted. Every 
 morning the newspapers published the most sinister reports : 
 he had either been taken or had fled to the mountains. No 
 certain accounts were received. Our consternation augmented 
 from day to day. I took long walks in the suburbs, and found 
 everywhere the appearance of complete indifference. The 
 labours and habits of the people remained the same. But the 
 police, who carefully gathered the movements of the evening, 
 in the cabarets and other places of resort of the lower classes, 
 were struck with awe at the energetic speeches and terrible 
 plans that were secretly circulated. They dare not, however, 
 imprison any individual of those classes, for fear of causing 
 Tiots, the consequence of which might have been frightful.^ 
 
 ' I occupied at that time a part of the old H6tel de Lamoignon, which 
 belonged to M. de Lamoignon's son-in-law, M. de Caumont. Madame de 
 Stael lived on the ground floor of the same h&teL The day after the news 
 of the Emperor's landing had arrived, she sent to beg I would come down 
 to her. When I entered her drawing-room she came to meet me, 
 her arms crossed before her breast, and said with a faltering but still 
 sonorous voice: "Well, sir, so he is come back !" "He is not yet 
 arrived; the journey is long and I fear that many obstacles . . ." "He 
 will arrive ; he'll be here in a few days, I have no delusion ! Oh ! my 
 God ! Liberty is then lost for ever ! Poor France ! After so many 
 sufferings ; notwithstanding such ardent, such unanimous wishes. . . . His 
 ■despotism will prevail, and I must leave the country, — leave it undoubtedly 
 
298 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 It must, however, be acknowledged that the tradespeople,, 
 moneyed men, and lawyers, did not share these sentiments. 
 The position of the Court inspired no interest ; the jests 
 to which it was exposed gained rapid applause ; but stilly 
 the too recent presence of the enemy caused great anxiety 
 and a sort of stupefaction at the arrival of the Emperor- 
 Nevertheless, with the exception of a few young men who 
 enlisted at Vincennes as royalists, nobody appeared willing 
 to fight. The Count d'Artois returned in despair, unable 
 to place any confidence in the army. All the regiments he 
 
 for ever ! One month more, and I should have united those two poor 
 children. I should have been happy. " (She pointed to the room in which 
 her daughter and M. de Broglie had retired.) "But, Madame, why 
 should you take so desperate a resolution? You have nothing to fear 
 from the Emperor ; misfortune and public opinion, which is so powerfiil, 
 will have great influence over him." "No, I will go. What can I do 
 here ? I should have too much to suffer. Alas 1 when I saw these 
 Princes in England, they listened to truth. I depicted to them the 
 situation of France, what she wished to have, what it was so easy to give 
 her. I thought I had convinced them ; and here, during eleven months,, 
 will you believe that I have not been able once to speak to them ? I saw 
 them advancing towards the abyss, and my warnings have been rejected. 
 I love them, I regard them, because they alone can give me liberty, and 
 because they are honest men. I do believe that Bonaparte will not dare 
 to oppress me at present : but, to live under his eyes ! never 1 " Then 
 looking full in my face, she added: "I do not wish to discover your 
 secrets, nor to know what share you have had in this foolish expedition ; 
 but I reckon upon you to help me to escape from the ill-treatment and 
 persecution that may begin even before his arrival ; for all this appears to 
 me so well prepared." " For my part, you may rely on me. If I hear 
 that they have any intention of using you ill, you will find my doors open 
 at any hour of the day, and means of escaping through my garden shall be 
 provided for you. " I left her, deeply touched with what she had said, and with 
 her noble spirit. A few days afterwards she gave a rout to eight hundred 
 persons of the Court and the city. There was a concert and a supper. One 
 of my friends who had been there came up to me, and told me what he had 
 witnessed. The scene was animated with the greatest apparent freedom 
 and gaiety. The news that the Emperor had landed and was approaching 
 Lyons seemed not to create the least uneasiness. If his name was pro- 
 nounced, it was only to abuse him. Nobody seemed to doubt but that he- 
 would be obliged to fly, and would perhaps be taken ; and still a secret 
 feeling of fear disturbed the minds of every one ; they seemed to feel the 
 necessity of seeking forgetfiilness in noisy diversions, to avoid consternation 
 and terror. I saw Madame de Stael no more. She left Paris a few days 
 before the 20th of March ; and the Emperor, to whom I spoke of her 
 departure, appeared vexed at the step she had taken. It was even reported 
 to me at that time that he made some proposals for her to come back. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 299- 
 
 had met with, all the troops he had assembled at Lyons, 
 had refused to obey his orders. Marshal Macdonald, so 
 beloved by the army, could not even obtain a hearing. The 
 great name of Napoleon had intoxicated and turned the 
 minds of every one. An immense number of peasants had 
 joined the army. A word, a sign, would have been suffi- 
 cient to make them murder all the nobles and priests.- 
 Fortunately, some moderate men undertook to lead the 
 insurrection, and found means to direct it solely towards 
 Bonaparte. " Do not tarnish the Emperor's name ! " they 
 cried on all sides ; " he will not suflfer a drop of blood to be 
 spilt." 
 
 Days passed away, and each hour made the danger more 
 
 imminent. M. D , the Prefect of Police, was succeeded 
 
 by M. Bourrienne. The friends of the Emperor knew what 
 they had to fear from that man, who was a former school- 
 fellow of Napoleon, at the military college, and afterwards 
 his secretary. He had been dismissed for some shabby tricks,, 
 and at the Restoration he had delivered himself up, body and 
 soul, to the rbyalist party. The choice of this person had 
 been undoubtedly fixed upon because he was perfectly well 
 acquainted with all the friends of the Emperor and their 
 habits. I knew that he was capable of any act, and I was. 
 particularly anxious about the Duchess of St. Leu and her 
 two children, whom it was resolved to take as hostages, in 
 case the Court should be obliged to fly to foreign parts. She 
 went however, betimes, to seek a refUge with an old Creole 
 woman from Martinique, who was entirely devoted to her. 
 
 Not wishing to compromise any of my friends, I concealed 
 myself in the hotel of the Duchess, but in that part of the 
 house kept apart for the servants. It was the 14th of March :: 
 I had no news from the provinces ; but, notwithstanding the 
 false accounts with which the papers were filled, I could see 
 that the Emperor advanced rapidly, and that it was no 
 longer possible to oppose any obstacle to his march. The 
 Duke de Berry had just received the command of a camp 
 
.300 MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 near Paris. The officers, who had begun by immeasurable 
 professions of fidelity, soon grew colder and more reserved. 
 As for the soldiers, the wind itself seemed to waft to them 
 the name of the Emperor ; every bird they saw was to them 
 the Imperial eagle. The rigour of military discipline, exhor- 
 tations, entreaties, were not capable of keeping them within 
 bounds ; and during the three last days that preceded the 
 arrival of the Emperor, woe to those among the troops who 
 would have dared to abuse him, or designed to attack him ! 
 At last, on the 20th, of March, at six o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, I learned that the King and the whole Court had left 
 Paris during the night, and that the city was without 
 magistrates or military leaders. I left my retreat, intending 
 to return home ; for I was anxious about my wife, whom I 
 had left indisposed, and whom I had not seen for eight days. 
 As I came out of the Rue d'Artois, to cross the Boulevards, 
 I met General Sebastiani in a cabriolet. He told me the 
 news of the King's departure ; but he knew nothing of the 
 Emperor. " I have a mind," I said, " to go and inquire at 
 the Post-office." I seated myself next to him. "When I 
 ■ entered the audience-room that precedes the closet of the 
 Postmaster-general, I foimd a young man sitting before a 
 table, and asked him whether Count Ferrand was still in the 
 house. He answered that he was, and I gave my name, 
 begging him to ask for me a few moments' conversation with 
 'Count Ferrand. I had never seen him before, but had heard 
 that he was an infirm old man, and the father of a family. I 
 was surprised at his delay in setting off ; and, through a feel- 
 ing of generosity, I wished to protect his escape, and ensure 
 his safety. M. Ferrand came ; but, without stopping or 
 listening to me, he opened his closet : I did not follow him 
 there ; but I went to another room, where I found the chief 
 clerks delighted to see me again, and disposed to do any 
 thing to oblige me. M. Ferrand, after having put up his 
 papers, went away, and left his closet at my disposal. I had 
 3l great desire to fly to Fontainebleau and embrace the 
 
Waiwr L,CollB.Pti-Sc 
 
 COUNT LAVALETTE. ' 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAV ALETTE. 301 
 
 Emperor ; but I wished to see my wife before I went. To- 
 reconcile these two feelings, I resolved to write to Fontaine- 
 bleau. An express was given me, who went off immediately. 
 I acquainted the Emperor with the departure of the King,, 
 and solicited his orders for the Post-office, which M. Ferrand- 
 had left vacant. As soon as the express was gone, I went 
 home and remained there an hour. I was far from thinking 
 that the short and natural step I had taken would be charged 
 upon me as a crime. I had so little desire to take possession of 
 the Post-office, that I went to Prince Cambacerfes to consult 
 him on what I was to do. T found him, according to the 
 custom of his whole life, complaining of ill-health, and 
 struggling against the sufferings caused by his daily medi- 
 cines. I communicated to him my visit to the Post-office. I 
 pointed out to him the situation of Paris — deprived of magis- 
 trates, and perhaps at the point of an explosion of the most 
 dangerous character. I had forgotten to mention, that after 
 the departure of Count Ferrand, my fear that the cash might 
 be plundered made me go to General Dessolles, the com- 
 mander of the National Guards, and beg he would send a 
 detachment of soldiers to protect the money. The officer 
 who commanded them did not even consult me in placing 
 the sentries. One of the clerks took that task upon himself 
 When the Prince learned these particulars, he replied with 
 his usual coolness and gravity : " You have undoubtedly 
 acted very wisely : I foresee all the confusion that will pre- 
 vail in Paris ; but I shall take great heed not to say a word 
 or make a sign by which the Emperor may suspect that I 
 have anticipated his resolutions. I have not forgotten that 
 he reprimanded me on his return from the Russian campaign. 
 I will tell you the circumstance for your information. Yoa 
 know that, during his absence, it was I who presided at the 
 Council. The affair of Mallet took us by surprise. You 
 know he was sentenced with some of his accomplices. They 
 were executed. When the Emperor arrived at the Tuileries, 
 he sent for me, and as soon as he perceived me, he came up 
 
302 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAV ALETTE. 
 
 to me with looks that seemed to pierce me through and 
 through. 'Who allowed you,' he said, trembling with 
 anger, ' to shed the blood of my subjects without my order ? 
 They were brave soldiers, who had a hundred times exposed 
 their lives for me and the glory of their country. Have you 
 forgotten that the most precious jewel in my crown is to 
 pardon ? I know not what prevents me from punishing 
 you severely for it.' It is not necessary, I think," added 
 Prince Cambacer&s, " for me to say any more in the matter, 
 and you may easily suppose that I have not the least wish 
 to expose myself once more to his resentment." "As for 
 me, Monseigneur," I answered, " I act for his interest, and 
 have despatched to him an express. I shall undoubtedly 
 receive an answer, for which I am going to wait at the Post- 
 office." 
 
 On my return there, I was really surprised to learn that 
 ■Count Ferrand was not yet gone. The post-horses had been 
 waiting with the carriage from six o'clock in the morning. 
 The old man appeared quite beside himself, and all the exer- 
 tions of his family were unable to persuade him to leave the 
 place. He wanted to go to Ghent, and sent to me for a 
 permit for post-horses. I repeatedly refused to give him one, 
 -declaring that I had nothing to say there ; that he was the 
 sole master at the Post-office, and might protect himself 
 by his own signature. But M. Ferrand, prepossessed with 
 the idea that the return of the Emperor was owing to some 
 great conspiracy, of which I was one of the heads, insisted 
 •on having some paper in which my handwriting should 
 -stand, convinced that that alone would protect him in his 
 -journey, and especially in the streets of Paris. His wife said 
 to me : " It is for his safety that we ask you that permit." 
 At these words I hesitated no longer, and I enclosed the 
 paper, of which he made no use, not having been once obliged 
 to draw it out of his pocket-book, until he arrived at Orleans, 
 where he remained more than six weeks. 
 
 The conduct of the ministry in those last days, and 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAV ALETTE. 303 
 
 especially that of M. Ferrand, was inexplicable. The King, 
 before he went away, had issued a proclamation, wherein he 
 exhorted the Parisians, and consequently all France, to sub- 
 mission. This proclamation was inserted in the Moniteur of 
 the 20th. Its aim was to make all the royalists lay down 
 their arms, and still one of my crimes was stopping the 
 departure of the Moniteur and other journals. But if such 
 great importance was attached to the publication of that last 
 will of the King's, why did not M. Ferrand despatch it the 
 4ay I before by expresses ? It might have travelled sixty 
 leagues in twenty-four hours, in all directions, except on the 
 road to Lyons, and the Prefects would at least have known 
 how to act. I always suspected that the reason why M. 
 Ferrand did not send it off was because it did not please him. 
 The man has so publicly acknowledged his wishes and his 
 •opinions, that I do not think I speak ill of him in saying 
 that he wanted a civil war to break out, which the procla- 
 mation might prevent. As for the rest, I own I did wrong 
 in stopping the journals ; they could do no harm. Besides, 
 the proclamation was stuck up in all the streets ; and who- 
 ever wished to read it might do so. Though I wish to be 
 sparing in anecdotes, I cannot, however, omit one that paints 
 admirably well the men who at that tjme had so fatal an 
 influence over our affairs. The proclamation I mentioned 
 had been digested by the Chancellor d'Ambray ; but the 
 order for its insertion in the Moniteur had not been delivered. 
 The editor of that journal went at ten o'clock in the evening 
 to M. de Vitrolles, Secretary of the Council, to ask for the 
 order. M. de Vitrolles sent him to the Chancellor. After 
 having repeatedly rung the bell, the porter appeared at a 
 small window, and said that no one could then see his 
 
 master, who was asleep. M. M , vexed at not being able 
 
 to obtain an audience, even of the porter, made a great noise, 
 saying that he came by order of the King, and at last they 
 were obliged to let him in and walk upstairs. There he had 
 a fresh ceremony to go through before he could penetrate to 
 
304 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 his Excellency. The valet de chambre was to be awakenedt 
 and dressed, and afterwards the master himself roused from 
 
 the arms of Morpheus. At last M found himself in the 
 
 presence of the head of the law, whom he asked for an order 
 of insertion in the Moniteur. " Oh yes, to be sure, the pro- 
 clamation ! Have you seen it ? " Then, without waiting 
 for an answer, my Lord took it from under his pillow, and 
 began to read it slowly, complacently, and with pauses and 
 inflexioHS; of his voice, which showed all his paternal affec- 
 tion for that masterpiece of composition. " This is," said he, 
 " one of the things I have written most correctly, and I fear 
 not to say that it is one that will make the greatest sensation. 
 Yes, you may print it." So saying, he laid himself down 
 again on his pillow and closed his eyes. 
 
CHAPTER XXXn. 
 
 My thoughts were solely occupied with the fearful burthen 
 I should have upon my shoulders in a few hours later (for I 
 was resolved not to accept of any other employment than 
 that of the Post-office), and I found myself by degrees en- 
 gaged in fulfilling the duties of Postmaster-general. I was 
 encouraged and seconded by the commissioners, and by all 
 the clerks, who were delighted at seeing the Bourbons put 
 to flight, and convinced, as well as myself, that we should 
 never look upon them again. Indeed, they were already so 
 completely forgotten, that their reign of eleven months ap- 
 peared to us nothing more than an uneasy dream of a few 
 hours. After having arranged the business of the Post-office 
 in the best way I could for the interest of the Emperor, 1 
 went to the Tuileries. Five or six hundred officers on half- 
 pay were walking in the extensive court-yard, wishing each 
 other joy at the return of Napoleon. In the apartments the 
 two sisters-in-law of the Emperor, the Queens of Spain and 
 of Holland, were waiting for him, deeply affected. Soon 
 after, the ladies of the Household and those of the Empress 
 came to join them. The fleurs-de-lis had ever)rwhere super- 
 seded the bees. However, on examining the large carpet 
 spread over the floor of the audience-chamber where they 
 sat, one of the ladies perceived that a flower was loose : she 
 took it off, and the bee soon reappeared. Immediately all 
 the ladies set to work, and in less than half an hour, to 
 the great mirth of the company, the carpet again became 
 Imperial. 
 
 21 30s 
 
3o6 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 In the meanwhile time passed on : Paris was calm. Those 
 persons who lived far from the Tuileries did not come near 
 it ; everybody remained at home. . The departure of the 
 King and the arrival of the Emperor were such singular 
 events, that the fourteen centuries the monarchy had existed 
 did not in their course present one as extraordinary. And 
 nevertheless indifference seemed to pervade the minds of all. 
 Were these events above the capacity of common men ? or, 
 rather, did not the good sense of the people make them feel 
 that it was not for their happiness the two monarchs were 
 wrestling for the throne, and that they would reap from it 
 nothing but sufferings and sacrifices ? 
 
 But it was not the same in the country. Officers who 
 arrived at Fontainebleau, preceding the Emperor, told us it 
 was extremely difficult to advance on the road. Deep columns 
 of peasants lined it on both sides, or rather had made them- 
 selves masters of it. Their enthusiasm had risen to the 
 highest pitch. It was impossible to say at what hour he 
 would arrive. Indeed it was desirable that he should not be 
 recognised ; for, in the midst of their delirium and confusion,, 
 the arm of a murderer might have reached him. He there- 
 fore resolved to travel with the Duke de Vicenza in a common 
 cabriolet, which, at nine o'clock in the evening, stopped 
 before the first entrance near the iron gate of the quay of 
 the Louvre. Scarcely had he alighted, when the shout of 
 " Long live the Emperor ! " was heard ; a shout so loud 
 that it seemed capable of splitting the arched roofs. It came 
 from the officers on half-pay, pressed, almost stifled in the 
 vestibule, and who filled the staircase up to the top. The 
 Emperor was dressed in his famous grey frock-coat. I went 
 up to him, and the Duke de Vicenza cried to me, " For God's 
 sake ! place yourself before him, that he may get on ! " He 
 then began to walk upstairs. I went before, walking back- 
 wards, at the distance of one pace, looking at him, deeply 
 affected, my eyes bathed in tears, and repeating, in the[excess of 
 my joy : " What ! It is you ! It is you ! It is you, at last ! " 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 307 
 
 As for him, he walked up slowly, with his eyes half closed, 
 liis hands extended before him, like a blind man, and express- 
 ing his joy only by a smile. When he arrived on the land- 
 ing-place of the first floor, the ladies wished to come to meet 
 him ; but a crowd of officers from the higher floor leaped 
 before them, and they would have been crushed to death if 
 they had shown less agility. At last the Emperor succeeded 
 in entering his apartments : the doors were shut, not with- 
 out difficulty, and the crowd dispersed, satisfied at having 
 seen him. 
 
 Towards eleven o'clock in the evening, I received an 
 order to go to the Tuileries ; I found in the saloon the old 
 ■ministers, and, in the midst of them, the Emperor, talking 
 about the affairs of Government with as much ease as if we 
 had gone ten years back. He had just come out of his bath, 
 and had put on his undress regimentals. The subject of the 
 •conversation, and the manner in which it was carried on, 
 the presence of the persons who had so long been employed 
 under him, contributed to efface completely from my 
 memory the family of the Bourbons and their reign of nearly 
 a year. However, on one of the tables there stood, in con- 
 fusion, marble busts of Louis XVI., the Dauphin, father of 
 'the present Prince, and some of the Princesses. These busts 
 recalled to our memory the recollection of the day before. 
 ■On the following day they all disappeared. 
 
 When the Emperor perceived me, he advanced a few 
 steps, drew me into another chamber, or rather pushed me 
 :gently before him. Then pulling me by the ear, he said : 
 " Ah ! are you here, Mr. Conspirator ? " " No, indeed. Sire ; 
 and you know, if the truth has been told to you, that I would 
 
 have nothing to do with a business in which M. " " It 
 
 is well, it is well ! " 
 
 Fouche was already Minister of the Police. Our conver- 
 •sation, or rather the Emperor's everlasting questions, began. 
 He concluded by offering me the Ministry of the Home 
 Department. " No, Sire ! your Majesty will want a man 
 
3o8 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 accustomed to general business, and who ought to bear a 
 name celebrated in the Revolution. I entreat you to give 
 me again the Post-ofSce, where I may be of service to you."^ 
 "Well then," said he, " I shall name Carnot for the Home 
 Department." 
 
 JThis was a good choice. Not but that the manners of 
 Carnot, which were rather dry, and his want of experience, 
 gave rise to some complaints ; but he was a sincere man, who 
 ardently wished the good of France. Two months afterwards,, 
 the Emperor still congratulated himself with his choice, and 
 said to me, " Carnot is a very honest man ! " 
 
 My audience had been preceded by one given to M. Mold, 
 who had refused the appointment of Minister of Justice and 
 of Foreign Affairs, to return to the Roads and Bridges, which 
 had been entrusted to him before the last reign. These 
 several audiences continued till very late. At last, at about 
 three o'clock in the morning, the Emperor returned to the 
 saloon, and said, " Make out the patents for all these gentle- 
 men. As for Lavalette, he does not want any ; he has 
 conquered the Post-ofBce." 
 
 There was in the tone with which he uttered these words 
 something satirical, and even a little bitter, that made me 
 feel he was hurt at my conduct. In fact, I officiated during 
 the three months at the Post-ofBce without having obtained 
 any letters patent. This strange count might therefore have 
 been added to my indictment, and they might have put in — 
 " Accused of having, during the reign of the Emperor, filled 
 the situation of Postmaster-general without any written 
 authorisation from him." 
 
 This was the second time Napoleon had taken possession 
 of France. The first was on the i8th of Brumaire, in 1799, 
 when he came back from Egypt. France was then a Repub-. 
 lie, governed by the Directory, — a machine worn out, as well 
 by the powerful attacks of foreigners, as by its own bad 
 administration. Detested, and fallen into disrepute, civil war 
 was rising. up before its eyes. Rebellion triumphed over its 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 309 
 
 power, and the people seemed only waiting for a man who 
 might help them to cast oflF the hateful yoke. Nevertheless, 
 how much solicitude, how many manoeuvres were required 
 to arrive at the Revolution of the i8th Brumaire ! On his 
 way from Fr6jus to Paris, and particularly at Lyons, all 
 ranks of men, aristocrats, emigrants, citizens, peasants, — all 
 whispered in his ear — " Overturn the Directory ; take the 
 power into your hands ! " But on all sides also he must have 
 heard the firm voice of the republicans, who said aloud to 
 him — "Take the power into your hands ! Conquer, but let 
 lis be free ! " To succeed, he wanted the consent of Sieyes, 
 a grave and theoretical organiser of Republics, and of Roger 
 Ducos, his colleague. If the majority of the Directory had 
 possessed energy, they might have had him arrested ; and 
 then, even if the sword of justice had not dared to strike 
 him^ he would have expiated his glory and his temerity by 
 banishment, and perhaps transportation. 
 
 How wide was the difference in March, 181 5 ! Fallen from 
 the throne, erased from the list of sovereigns, banished to the 
 rock of the Island of Elba, he returned almost alone : scarcely 
 did he set his foot on the French shore, when the people 
 everjrwhere rose up. All France repeated with enthusiasm 
 — " Napoleon ! no more Royalty! no more Bourbons ! It 
 is Napoleon alone that France wishes to have ; it is Ms glory, 
 Ms genius she stands in need of. Woe to those who shall 
 dare to raise a finger against him ! or rather, woe to. those 
 who shall not declare in his favour ! " And in fact, peasants, 
 soldiers, citizens — all hastened to meet him ; all hailed him 
 with their wishes and their gratitude, like a good genius, like 
 a Providence. The royalty of the Bourbons was no longer 
 an3^hing more than a dream : it appeared as if royalists, 
 nobles, emigrants, had never existed. It was not the conse- 
 quence of a conspiracy ; it was a great national movement, 
 like that of 1789 for Liberty, of the 9th Thermidor against 
 tyranny, of the i8th Brumaire against incapacity. At what 
 period did man witness defections so abrupt, so remarkable, 
 
3IO MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 and in some respects so sincere ? What were the sentiments, 
 which at that time filled all hearts ? Patriotism, love of 
 glory, and an enlightened conviction that the newly accepted 
 dynasty was unable to do anything for the happiness and 
 independence of the kingdom ; . . . and three months after- 
 wards, this second dream also vanished ! ! ! 
 
 In the meanwhile I had takeni again upon me the busi- 
 ness of the Post-ofBce, whither I returned on the morning 
 of the 2 1st. Nothing had been wanting in the material part 
 of that service, for that would have been impossible ; but the 
 late Postmaster-general had thrown the persons employed 
 into the most deplorable confusion. He had not only urged 
 and favourably received the most absilrd informations, but 
 he had even rewarded them. In consequence, hatred and 
 distrust had made the greater part of the clerks enemies to 
 one another. They were all either Jacobins or noblemen. 
 I learned, for the first time, that in a department I had 
 governed during^thirteen years, there were priests, regicides, 
 knights of St. Louis, and emigrants. The latter especially, 
 so supple and incapable, had persecuted their superiors with 
 incredible fury, in hopes to get into their places. I put an 
 end to such scandalous practices, by refusing to take any 
 interest in them ; and these gentlemen were the foremost 
 to sign the Additional Act to the Constitution, and take the 
 oath of allegiance to the Emperor. 
 
 Within eight days' time I was perfectly aware of the deep 
 gulf that was opening beneath us. The too famous pro- 
 clamation of the Congress of Vienna had reached France 
 before that of the Emperor. It was impossible to entertain 
 a doubt of its authenticity ; and the Emperor, although he 
 did not acknowledge it, was as sensible as any one that the 
 storm could not be averted. I had wished that, renouncing 
 the past, he had taken no other title than Lord Lieutenant 
 of the Kingdom, governing in the name of his son. I 
 was, however, soon convinced that such a measure would 
 have been impossible. Nothing, therefore, remained but to 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 3" 
 
 advance boldly with the Imperial crown upon his head. 
 Was he to maintain the Constitution ? I know that that 
 question was debated very warmly, and that it found able 
 antagonists. In putting it aside, it was said, nothing 
 remained. The great fault of Napoleon's reign was then 
 paid for — I mean, the want of ensemble^ the absence of all 
 those laws, so strongly claimed by the old friends of Liberty, 
 which before had ruined all, and which still poisoned our 
 present situation. What a deplorable idea it was, to wish 
 to maintain those numerous contradictory decrees, a hundred 
 times more dangerous than the ordinances of the King ! 
 It was in the name of Independence that he ought to have 
 spoken ; in the name of his son that he ought to have 
 commanded. The enemy once beaten, it was time to think 
 of settling the internal contest. But I must acknowledge 
 that the Emperor was awed by the energy of all that 
 surrounded him. The eleven months of the King's reign 
 had thrown us back to 1792, and the Emperor soon per- 
 ceived it ; for he no longer found the submission, the deep 
 respect, and the Imperial etiquette he was accustomed to. 
 He used to send for me two or three times a day, to talk 
 with me for hours together. It happened sometimes that 
 the conversation languished. One day, after we had walked 
 up and down the room in silence, tired of that fancy, and 
 my business pressing me, I made my obeisance and was 
 going to retire. " How ! " said he, surprised, but with a 
 smile ; " do you thus leave me so ? " I should certainly not 
 have done so a year before ; but I had forgotten my old 
 pace, and I felt that it would be impossible to get into it 
 again. In one of those conversations, the subject of which 
 was the spirit of Liberty that showed itself on all sides with 
 so much energy, he said to me, in a tone of interrogation, 
 " All this will last two or three years ? " " That your 
 Majesty must not believe. It will last for ever." 
 
 He was soon convinced of the fact himself, and he more 
 than once acknowledged it. I have even no doubt, that if 
 
312 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAV ALETTE. 
 
 he had vanquished the enemy and restored peace, his power 
 would have been exposed to great danger among the civil 
 broils. The Allies made a great mistake in not letting him 
 alone. I do not know what concessions he would have 
 made, but I am well acquainted with all those the nation 
 would have demanded, and I sincerely think he would have 
 been disgusted with reigning, when he must have found 
 himself a constitutional king after the manner of the 
 patriots. Nevertheless, he submitted admirably well to his 
 situation — at least, in appearance. At no period of his life 
 had I seen him enjoy more unruffled tranquillity. Not a 
 harsh word to any one ; no impatience ; he listened to 
 ever5^hing, and discussed with that wonderful sagacity and 
 devoted reason that were so conspicuous in him. He ac- 
 knowledged his faults with most touching ingenuousness, or 
 examined his own position with a penetration to which his 
 enemies themselves were strangers. 
 
 The enthusiasm of the nation soon cooled. It has often 
 been said that the change was caused by the Additional 
 Acts. That measure, no doubt, contributed greatly to it ; 
 but there was another reason still, which was that the 
 people felt less love for the Emperor than hatred for the 
 Bourbons. The latter being once repulsed, the nation was 
 satisfied ; and when they received the Emperor with so 
 much warmth, the French, according to their custom, did 
 not think of the morrow. Contented to see the royalists, 
 who had made themselves the enemies of everybody, 
 humbled and restrained, they were soon shocked at dis- 
 covering that their victory would cost them peace, the 
 advantages of trade, and all the sacrifices that an obstinate 
 war draws after it ; and nevertheless, such a revolution 
 could not be made without running some risk, the foreign 
 sovereigns considering it a point of honour to maintain the 
 House of Bourbon on the throne. In the meanwhile, all 
 those who had already fought nobly answered to the call of 
 honour and necessity ; but as it was no longer possible to 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 313 
 
 think of conscription, instead of 400,000 men whom Govern- 
 ment declared to be under arms, there were scarcely 250,000, 
 and with those we were forced to begin the war. The 
 Bourbons had been strongly shaken in public opinion ; the 
 Emperor was still more so. The royalists, who had not 
 shown themselves, because they had been taken unawares, 
 hegan to feel more easy under the shelter of a Liberty they 
 were soon going to crush ; and all the patriots, who must 
 be carefully distinguished from the friends of the country, 
 found themselves face to face, covered with the colours 
 under which they fought. Old quarrels sprang up again, 
 and the new camp soon presented the image of anarchy. 
 The election was made in the same spirit, and the same 
 divisions appeared in the Chamber of Representatives. 
 The Emperor had thought of the Champ de Mai with a 
 view of making an impression on the public mind ; but the 
 electors who were sent there were shocked at the sight of 
 the throne, at the splendour of the Court, and even at the 
 mass that was celebrated ; for their prejudiced eyes saw 
 nothing but the Emperor and his arbitrary law, without 
 "thinking of the enemies that were assembling. A great 
 many were thinking of the miracles of 1792, without re- 
 flecting on the difference of the periods. In 1792 France 
 possessed an almost inexhaustible treasure in her paper 
 money. She was not embarrassed by a government she 
 had recently destroyed ; nor by her interior foes, whom the 
 people had all murdered or put to flight ; nor by preten- 
 sions, everybody being reduced to the same level — now the 
 ignorance of war appeared complete. Still, enthusiasm was 
 raised to its highest pitch, and the French wished for inde- 
 pendence at any price. The people were enraged, barbarous, 
 but not corrupt ; the army was brave, ambitious of glory, 
 but indifierent to wealth and favour. Now all was changed. 
 The men who had employments wished to keep them, and 
 were in consequence wavering and without resolution ; the 
 army had its marshals, ashamed of the wretched part they 
 
314 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 had played at the Restoration, and despised by the soldiers — 
 finally, in the presence of their old master, detesting the 
 Bourbons, and fearing their return, but still more fearful of 
 a new war, which they were sensible they could no longer 
 wage with the former advantages, which had procured them 
 so much glory and fortune. 
 
 The Emperor had resumed all his titles, and even the 
 offensive form of " Napoleon, by the grace of God and the 
 Constitution of the Empire." The Council of State took a 
 fancy to proclaim the Sovereignty of the People. This- 
 declaration was not very agreeable to him, but he let it 
 pass : he could no longer dictate laws. I recollect that the 
 day it was signed at the Council, I was not at the sitting. 
 When I crossed the Section of the Interior, the Secretary 
 proposed to me to sign it. I did so without even reading 
 it ; and meeting Regnaud de St. Jean d'Angely, I asked 
 him what it was. " It is," repUed he, laughing, " an act 
 that compromises you strongly." I was not much perplexed 
 
 at what he said. But M , to whom I mentioned the- 
 
 circumstance the next morning, told me he had thought 
 proper to sign it also. I appeared surprised that he should 
 have done it ; but he told me in confidence, " The Emperor 
 has not taken it amiss." I then read the paper with 
 attention, and I found, in fact, that it could not have been 
 
 very pleasing to the Sovereign ; so that M , instead of 
 
 doing an act of courage, made only the calculation of a 
 courtier. 
 
 The fatal division of opinions put in part a stop to th& 
 national enthusiasm, and extended its influence over all the 
 details of the administration. Many prefects were changed. 
 That was an indispensable measure ; but among some 
 excellent choices, favour also produced many bad ones. 
 Several young men, full of ardour, were selected, but who- 
 could not inspire much confidence. The reign of the laws 
 was preached everywhere, whilst the commissaries extra- 
 ordinary of the Emperor, sent into the Departments, every- 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 315. 
 
 where dismissed the persons in employment, to put in their 
 places either those who had held the situations before them, 
 or some who had in former times given proofs of patriotism. 
 These measures not only impeded public business, which so 
 greatly required expedition, but added also greatly to the 
 number of the disaffected. Such changes were undoubtedly 
 necessary, in as far as the chiefs were concerned, who cor- 
 responded directly with the Ministers ; but it was easy to 
 have an eye on the subalterns, and their treasonable practices 
 could not be very dangerous in the beginning. I struggled 
 as long as I could against that fatal system, but without 
 success. To my remonstrances they always opposed the 
 situation of affairs, and the success that had formerly been 
 obtained, chiefly by keeping the friends of the Bourbons out 
 of all public employments. But they did not sufficiently 
 consider that the greatest part of the persons employed by 
 Government were not traitors ; but weak men, whose chief 
 aim was to keep their situations, who wished in some degree 
 well to the Emperor, prayed for his success, but feared above 
 all things a defeat. I spoke to the Emperor of the harm his 
 emissaries did. He answered, " I want a victory ; I can do 
 nothing before that. I am perhaps the only man in the 
 empire who is cool ; and still I cannot give the impulse 
 everywhere, and direct all motions." He could not even 
 repulse his enemies, so far was his position changed. A few 
 days after his arrival, General Bourmont presented himself 
 at his levee ; he was in full regimentals ; and although he 
 had placed himself in the first rank, the Emperor went by 
 without stopping, and without looking at him. He was 
 not disheartened, and came back three days successively. 
 I soon learned that he had obtained the command of a 
 division in the Grand Army. I expressed my surprise, and 
 asked, with indignation, who had achieved such a master- 
 piece. " I," answered LabedoySre, turning round ; " I 
 pledged myself for him. He is a good officer, who loves- 
 only his country. He will fight well, and serve faithfully." 
 
3i6 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 "I wish it may be so," was all the reply I made ; and when 
 I saw Labedoyfere again, after he had returned from the 
 campaign, I spoke to him of his protigL " What could he 
 do ? " he observed : " his father had been arrested in the 
 Vendue." A fine excuse, indeed! Could he not have 
 solicited the Emperor to set him at liberty, who would 
 certainly not have refused him ? And besides, was that a 
 sufficient motive to betray his country and the Sovereign 
 he had acknowledged ? 
 
 Napoleon had undoubtedly expected that the Empress 
 and his son would be restored to him : he had, at least, 
 published his wishes as a certainty ; and it was, in fact, the 
 worst thing the Emperor of Austria could have done. His 
 hope was, however, soon destroyed. About a month after 
 his arrival, the Duke de Vicenza called upon me, and 
 presented to me a letter without address, which a courier, 
 just arrived from Vienna, had delivered to him among 
 several others, saying that it had been sent to him by M. de 
 
 , who had not dared to put the dirfection on it. I was 
 
 not lintimate enough with M. de to supposehe could 
 
 have written to me, so I refused to. take the letter. Caulain- 
 court said : " Be not too hasty ; I am convinced it is for 
 you. You would perhaps do well to open it ; for if you 
 persist I shall give it to the Emperor." " You may do so," 
 I replied ; " I have no interests in Vienna, and I wish the 
 Emperor may read it." 
 
 In the evening I was summoned to the palace. I found 
 the Emperor in a dimly lighted closet, warming himself in 
 a corner of the fireplace, and appearing to suffer already 
 from the complaint which never afterwards left him. 
 •" Here is a letter," he said, " which the courier from Vienna 
 says is meant for you ; read it." On first casting my eyes 
 
 on the letter, I thought I knew the handwriting of ; 
 
 but as it was long, I read it slowly, and came at last to the 
 principal object. The writer said that we ought not to 
 reckon upon the Empress, as she did not even attempt to 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 317 
 
 conceal her hatred of the Emperor, and was disposed to 
 approve of all the measures that could be taken against 
 him ; that her return was not to be thought of, as she 
 herself would raise the greatest obstacles in the way of it, 
 in case it should be proposed ; finally, that it was not 
 possible for him to dissemble his indignation; that the 
 
 Empress, wholly enamoured of , did not even take 
 
 pains to hide her ridiculous partiality for that man, who 
 had made himself master of her mind as well as of her 
 person. The handwriting of the letter was disguised, yet 
 not so much but that I was able to discover whose it was. 
 I found, however, in the manner in which the secret was 
 expressed, a warmth ' of zeal and a picturesque style that 
 did not belong to the author of the letter. While reading 
 it, I all of a sudden suspected it was a counterfeit, and 
 intended to mislead the Emperor. I communicated my 
 idea to him, and the danger I perceived in this fraud. 
 As I grew more and more animated, I found plausible 
 reasons enough to throw the Emperor himself into some 
 
 uncertainty. " How is it possible," I said, " that 
 
 should have been imprudent enough to write such things 
 to me, who am not his friend, and who have had so little 
 connection with him ? How can one suppose that the 
 Empress should forget herself in such circumstances, so far 
 as to manifest hatred to you, and, still more, to cast herself 
 away upon a man who undoubtedly still possesses some 
 power to please, but who is no longer young — whose face 
 is disfigured, and whose person, altogether, has nothing 
 
 agreeable in it?" "But," answered the Emperor, " 
 
 is attached to me ; and, though he is not your friend, the 
 postscript sufficiently explains the motive of the confidence 
 he places in you." The following words were, in fact, 
 written at the bottom of the letter : " I do not think you 
 ought to mention the truth to the Emperor ; but make 
 whatever use of it you think proper." I persisted, however, 
 in maintaining that the letter was a counterfeit ; and the 
 
3i8 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 Emperor then said to me : " Go to Caulaincourt. He pos- 
 sesses a great many others of the same handwriting. Let 
 the comparison decide between your opinion and mine." 
 
 I went to Caulaincourt, who said eagerly to me : "I am 
 
 sure the letter is from ; and I have not the least doubt 
 
 of the truth of the particulars it contains. The best thing 
 the Emperor can do is to be comforted : there is nothing 
 to be expected from that side." 
 
 So sad a discovery was very painful to the Emperor, for 
 he was sincerely attached to the Empress, and still hoped 
 again to see his son, whom he loved most tenderly. 
 
 Fouche had been far from wishing the return of the 
 Emperor. He was long tired of obeying, and had besides 
 undertaken another plan, which Napoleon's arrival had 
 broken off. I shall perhaps resume this part of his history 
 another time. I suppress it at present \yithout any scruple, 
 because it has nothing to do with mine. The Emperor, 
 however, put him again at the head of the police, because 
 Savary was worn out in that employment, and a skilful 
 man was wanted there. Fouche accepted the office, but 
 without giving up his plan of deposing the Emperor, to put 
 in his place either his son, or a sort of a republic with a 
 president. He had never ceased to correspond with Prince 
 Metternich ; and, if he is to be believed, he had tried to 
 persuade the Emperor to abdicate in favour of his son. 
 That was also my opinion ; but, coming from such a 
 quarter, the advice was not without danger for the person 
 to whom it was given. Besides, that advice having been 
 rejected, it was the duty of the Minister either to think no 
 more of his plan, or to resign his office. Fouche, however, 
 remained in the cabinet, and continued his correspondence. 
 The Emperor, who placed but little confidence in him, kept 
 a careful eye upon him. One evening the Emperor had a 
 great deal of company at the Elysee ; he told me not to go 
 home, because he wished to speak to me. When everybody 
 was gone, the Emperor stopped with Fouch6 in the apart- 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 319 
 
 -merit next to the one I was in. The door remained half 
 open. They walked up and down together, talking very 
 calmly. I was therefore greatly astonished when, after a 
 •quarter of an hour, I heard the Emperor say to him gravely : 
 " You are a traitor ! Why do you remain Minister of the 
 police, if you wish to betray me ? It depends on me to 
 have you hanged, and everybody would rejoice at your 
 death ! " I did not hear Fouche's reply, but the conversa- 
 tion lasted above half an hour longer, always walking up 
 -and down. When Fouche went away, he bade me cheer- 
 fully good-night, and said that the Emperor had gone back 
 to his apartments. In truth, when I went in he was gone ; 
 ■but the day after he spoke to me of that conversation. " I 
 suspected," he said, " that the wretch was in correspondence 
 with Vienna. I have had a banker's clerk arrested on his 
 return from that city. He has acknowledged that he 
 .brought a letter for Fouche from Metternich, and that the 
 answer was to be sent at a fixed time to Bale, where a man 
 was to wait for the bearer on the bridge. J sent for Fouche 
 a, few days ago, and kept him three hours long in my 
 •garden, hoping that in the course of a friendly conversation 
 he would mention that letter to me ; but he said nothing. 
 At last, yesterday evening, I myself opened the subject." 
 (Here the Emperor repeated to me the words I had heard 
 •the night before, " You are a traitor," &c.) " He acknow- 
 ledged, in fact," continued the Emperor, "that he had 
 received such a letter ; but that it was not signed, and 
 rthat he had looked upon it as a mystification. He showed 
 it me. Now that letter was evidently an answer, in which 
 the writer declared over again, that he would listen to 
 nothing more concerning the Emperor, but that, his person 
 ■excepted, it would be easy to agree to all the rest." 
 
 I expected that the Emperor would conclude his narrative 
 t>y expressing his anger against Fouche ; but our conversa- 
 tion turned on some other subject, and he talked no more 
 of him. Two days afterwards I went to Fouche to solicit 
 
320 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAV ALETTE. 
 
 the return to Paris of an officer of musketeers, who had 
 been banished far from his family. I found him at break- 
 fast, and sat down next to him. Facing him sat a stranger. 
 " Do you see this man ? " he said to me, pointing with his 
 spoon to the stranger : " he is an Aristocrat, a Bourbonite, 
 
 a Chouan : it is the Abbe M , one of the editors of the 
 
 Journal des Dkbats — a sworn enemy to Napoleon, a fanatic 
 partisan of the Bourbons ; — ^he is one of our men." 
 
 I looked at him. At every fresh epithet of the minister, 
 the Abb6 bowed his head on his plate with a smile of cheer- 
 fulness and self-complacency, and with a sort of leer. I 
 never saw a more ignoble countenance. Fouche explained 
 to me, on leaving the breakfast-table, in what manner all 
 those valets of literature were men of his ; and while I 
 acknowledged to myself that the thing might be necessary, 
 I scarcely knew who were really more despicable — the 
 wretches who thus sold themselves to the highest bidder, 
 or the minister who boasted of having bought them, as if 
 their acquisition were a glorious conquest. Judging that 
 the Emperor had spoken to me of the scene I described 
 above, Fouche said to me : " The Emperor's temper is 
 soured by the resistance he finds, and he thinks it is 
 my fault. He does not know that I have no power but 
 by public opinion. To-morrow I might hang before my 
 door twenty persons who have that opinion against them,, 
 though I should not be able to imprison for four-and-twenty 
 hours any individual favoured by it." As I am never in a. 
 hurry to speak, I remained silent ; but, reflecting on what 
 the Emperor had said concerning Fouch6, I found the 
 comparison of their two speeches remarkable. The master 
 could have his minister hanged with public applause, and 
 the minister could hang — whom? Perhaps the master 
 himself, and with the same approbation. What a singular 
 situation ! — and I believe they were both in the right ; so 
 far public opinion, equitable in regard to Fouche, had. 
 swerved concerning the Emperor. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 The ceremony of the Champ de Mai took place at last ; 
 it was on the ist of June. Nothing could be more singular 
 than that assemblage in the open air. It had but little 
 success, because it had been badly announced. The 
 Emperor wanted time : the minds of the people were not 
 prepared ; the influence of the patriots had not had 
 sufEcient opportunity to exercise its power, or rather no 
 one yet knew where to find them. Those who had begun 
 the Revolution were old, retired from public life, and few 
 in number ; those of 1793 were fallen into contempt. The 
 Imperialists, or Bonapartists, were not much regarded : 
 they had perpetually received and frequently misused 
 popularity. There were no persons truly respectable but 
 the military : though discontented and humbled, they alone 
 still knew how to express themselves with dignity concern- 
 ing their country and Liberty. But they were no longer 
 mixed with the people, having already joined their corps. 
 The majority of the electors, and many deputies, brought 
 with them a good spirit ; but the French, whose imagina- 
 tion is so lively, never know how to enter into the reality 
 of things until their first fire is extinguished : when pre- 
 possessed by a first impression, it is not till after much 
 extravagance that they re-enter the path of common sense. 
 In the beginning they only think of advancing, without 
 caring which way. Now, the way they had taken was bad. 
 At first they saw only a despot in the Emperor, and forgot 
 entirely the enemy : they never could feel that it was first 
 
 22 3n 
 
322 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 of all necessary to beat their foreign foes. I never could 
 bring that idea into the head of people who nevertheless 
 were full of merit and long experience. "We will have 
 no more senatus-consultum^ no double legislative body, 
 no arbitrary practices, — finally, no master. We want a 
 moderator, and nothing else. We are numerous enough 
 to beat the enemy, if he attack us. If he triumph, each 
 department will become a Vendee. France will never 
 hesitate between slavery and civil war." The imprudent 
 men did not observe that by such speeches they stopped 
 the enthusiasm of the people, who preferred to live in 
 expectation of what was to happen, rather than throw 
 themselves into the fatigues and dangers of a struggle 
 which appeared distant and uncertain, notwithstanding the 
 evident approach of the enemy. The ceremony of the 
 Champ de Mai was, however, a noble one ; but all France 
 was not there, and even there the feeling for the Emperor 
 was sincere among the crowd. The magistracy were opposed 
 to hini. All the judges preferred Louis XVIII. to the 
 Emperor : the pretension they put forward of succeeding 
 to the parliaments, of which they were the dross, flattered 
 their vanity. Under a weak prince they enjoyed real 
 authority, and the love of the Bourbons for old institu- 
 tions gave them a degree of power they greatly hoped to 
 augment. Under the Emperor, on the contrary, they were 
 forced to obey. All the heads and clerks in the public 
 offices were in a false position : they had everything to 
 fear, and nothing to hope : for they could not help seeing 
 that we were beginning a new era of revolutions, in which 
 all things would become uncertain. Finally, the impression 
 of the horrors that had accompanied the first invasion was 
 far from being blotted out, and the public mind shuddered 
 at the idea of a second one ! 
 
 The speech delivered to the Emperor by M. Dubois 
 d' Angers was full of energy. It contained a summary of all 
 the wishes, and expressed clearly the national will. But 
 
MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA V ALETTE. 323 
 
 •could a power that had nothing left give all that was 
 expected ? The answer of the Emperor, which was not 
 directed to that speech, was above all sincere. He promised 
 :a great deal ; but still he was obliged to explain what he 
 wished, in his turn, as the executive power. He displeased 
 his auditors by that. I soon perceived it in talking with 
 isome deputies who had heard him. After the celebration 
 of mass, to which, by the bye, everybody turned their 
 backs, the Emperor went down and took his place on an 
 amphitheatre in the middle of the Champ de Mars, from 
 whence he was to distribute the eagles to all the cohorts of 
 the departments. This was a beautiful scene, for it was a 
 national one. The situation besides was true. The Emperor 
 took care to address a word to each of the corps that re- 
 ceived these colours, and that word was flattering and full 
 of enthusiasm. To the departments of the Vosges he said : 
 "You are my old companions." To those of the Rhine : 
 "You have been the first, the most courageous, and the 
 most unfortunate in our disasters." To the departments of 
 the Rh6ne : " I have been bred amongst you." To others : 
 "Your bands were at Rivoli, at Areola, at Marengo, at 
 'Tilsit, at Austerlitz, at the Pyramids." These magic names 
 filled with deep emotion the hearts of those old warriors, 
 the venerable wrecks of so many victories. But, as I have 
 already said, all France was not present at that ceremony, 
 and the enthusiasm of the spectators was not communicated 
 to the people in the departments. A few days afterwards 
 the Emperor set off. I left him at midnight. He suffered 
 a great deal from a pain in his breast. He stepped, how- 
 ever, into his coach with a cheerfulness that seemed to 
 show he was conscious of victory. The particulars of that 
 campaign are too well known for me to repeat them here ; 
 but I saw with grief too many unworthy Frenchmen form 
 wishes for his defeat. The Assembly of Representatives 
 did not adopt the attitude or speak the language its 
 influence over the public mind rendered necessary. Old 
 
324 MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 hatred, former opinions, the hope of the return of the 
 Bourbons, and great anxiety in many respecting the conduct 
 the Emperor would pursue if he returned victorious, threw 
 confusion on the labours of the Assembly. It had been 
 said to them that the first point was to save the Country ; — 
 but they answered : " Let us save Liberty ! " as if Liberty 
 could be saved when the soil was invaded ! 
 
 At last I learned the fatal news of the battle of Waterloo^ 
 and the next morning the Emperor arrived. I flew to the 
 Elys6e to see him : he ordered me into his closet, and as- 
 soon as he saw me, he came to meet me with a frightful 
 epileptic laugh. " Oh ! my God ! " he said, raising his eyes 
 to heaven, and walking two or three times up and down the 
 room. This appearance of despair was, however, very short. 
 He soon recovered his coolness, and asked me what was 
 going forward at the Chamber of Representatives. I could 
 not attempt to hide that exasperation was there carried to a 
 high degree, and that the majority seemed determined to 
 require his abdication, and to pronounce it themselves if he 
 did not send it willingly. " How is that ? " he said. " If 
 proper measures are not taken, the enemy will be before the 
 gates in eight days. Alas ! " he added, " I have accustomed 
 them to such great victories, that they know not how to 
 bear one day's misfortune ! What will become of poor 
 France ? I have done all I could for her." Then he 
 heaved a deep sigh. Somebody asked to speak to him ; and 
 I left him, with an order to come back at some later hour. 
 I passed the day in seeking information among all my 
 friends and acquaintances. I found in all of them either 
 the greatest dejection or an extravagant joy, which they 
 disguised by feigned alarm, and pity for myself, which I 
 repulsed with great indignation. No hope could rest on the 
 Chamber of Representatives. They all said, they wished 
 for Liberty ; but, between two enemies who appeared ready 
 to destroy it, they preferred the foreigners, the friends of 
 the Bourbons, to Napoleon, who might still have prolonged 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 325 
 
 the struggle, because they were silly enough to despise 
 the former and fear the latter. Besides, each person took 
 counsel only from his resentment or egotism. Some hoped 
 to escape in the confusion, because they were unknown ; 
 ■others thought they might draw advantage from circum- 
 stances ; and the majority, foolishly trusting to the promises 
 •of the foreign Powers, were still persuaded that the Bour- 
 bons would not return to Paris, or, at least, that the King, 
 convinced of his weakness and incapacity for government, 
 would be so strongly bridled and fettered, that he would 
 neither be able to revenge himself nor to violate the Con- 
 stitution. Those who held the latter opinion were the 
 friends of Fouche, who had given them to understand that 
 nothing remained for them but to submit, but that he alone 
 would find means to save them, and erect the edifice of 
 Liberty. The Chamber of Peers presented a much sadder 
 spectacle. Except the intrepid Thibaudeau, who till the 
 last moment expressed himself with admirable energy 
 against the reign of the Bourbons, almost all the others 
 thought of nothing else but of getting out of the scrape 
 with the least loss they could. Some took no pains to hide 
 their wish of bending again under the yoke ; and looked 
 upon themselves as being paid in advance, either by their 
 remaining in the Chamber of Peers, or the necessity of 
 ■disarming revenge. The majority, however, wished to fall 
 with dignity ; but there existed no firm will. The Chamber 
 waited for the resolutions of the Representatives, and in- 
 trenched itself behind them, as if that shield could have 
 •saved it. I sued in vain to those who consented to listen to 
 me : " We have no means of escaping : you must give up 
 all hopes. The other Chamber has been named by the 
 people with the forms consecrated by the Constitution ; we, 
 on the contrary, are nothing but the Ex-Emperor's friends ; 
 we have not been forced to accept. Each of us, in setting 
 •our foot here, has received a sentence of proscription from 
 the Bourbons. It is we who are the rebels : we have 
 
326 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 nothing more to do than to signalise our last moments- 
 by a noble energy, and to fall with a good grace." 
 
 But I talked to men too old to give up the sweets of life^ 
 and who had nothing left in their hearts but the wish to 
 preserve them, and the fear of adversity. I must, however,, 
 make some few exceptions, among which I shall name old 
 Sieyes, who maintained fully the opinion I had formed of 
 him. He wanted the habit, and perhaps the courage, to^ 
 speak in public ; but I never heard any one express with 
 greater energy a hatred of slavery, and more forcible and 
 generous ideas on the necessity of fighting to the end 
 against it. 
 
 The next day I returned to the Emperor. He had 
 received the most positive accounts of the state of feeling 
 in the Chamber of Representatives. The reports had, how- 
 ever, been given to him with some little reserve ; for he did 
 not seem to me convinced that the resolution was really 
 formed to pronounce his abdication. I was better instructed 
 on the matter ; and I came to him, without having the least 
 doubt in my mind that the only thing he could do was to 
 descend once more from the throne. I communicated to 
 him all the particulars I had just received myself ; and I did 
 not hesitate to advise him to follow the only course worthy 
 of him. He listened to me with a sombre air ; and, though 
 he was in some measure master of himself, the agitation 
 of his mind and the horrors of his position betrayed them- 
 selves in his face and in all his motions. " I know," said I,, 
 " that your Majesty may still keep the sword drawn ; but 
 with whom, and against whom ? Dejection has chilled the 
 courage of every one ; the army is still in the greatest con- 
 fusion. Nothing is to be expected from Paris, and the coup 
 d^&tat oi the i8th Brumaire cannot be renewed." "That 
 thought," he replied, stopping, " is far from my mind. I 
 will hear nothing more about myself. But poor France ! " 
 
 At that moment, S and C entered, and having 
 
 drawn a faithful picture of the exasperation of the Deputies,, 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 327 
 
 they persuaded him to send in his abdication. Some words 
 he uttered proved to us that he would have considered death 
 preferable to that step ; but still he took it. 
 
 This great act being performed, he remained calm during 
 the whole day, giving his advice on the position the army 
 was to take, and on the manner the negotiations with the 
 enemy were to be conducted. He insisted especially on the 
 necessity of proclaiming his son Emperor, not so much for 
 the advantage of the child, as with a view to unite on one 
 head all the power of sentiments and affections. Unfortu- 
 nately, nobody would listen to him. Some men of sense and 
 courage rallied round that proposition in the two Chambers ; 
 but fear swayed the majority ; and among those who re- 
 mained free from it, many thought that a pubUc declaration 
 of Liberty, and the resolution to defend it at any price, 
 would make the enemy and the Bourbons turn back. 
 Strange delusion of weakness and want of experience ! It 
 must, however, be respected, for it had its source in love of 
 their country : but while we excuse it, can it be justified ? 
 The population of the metropolis had resumed their usual 
 appearance, which was that of complete indifference, with 
 a resolution to cry " Long live the King ! " provided the 
 King arrived well escorted ; for one must not judge of the 
 whole capital by about one-thirtieth part of the inhabitants, 
 who called for arms, and declared themselves warmly against 
 the return of the abandoned family. 
 
 On the 23rd I returned to the Elys6e. The Emperor had 
 been for two hours in his bath. He himself turned the 
 discourse on the retreat he ought to choose, and spoke of 
 the United States. I rejected the idea without reflection, 
 and with a degree of vehemence that surprised him. " Why 
 not America ? " he asked. I answered, " Because Moreau is 
 retired there." The observation was harsh, and I should 
 never have forgiven myself for having expressed it, if I had 
 not altered my opinion a few days afterwards. He heard it 
 without any apparent ill-humour ; but I have no doubt that 
 
328 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 it must have made an unfavourable impression on his mind. 
 I insisted on his choosing England, and the reason I gave 
 appeared plausible ; but after I had left him, I met General 
 
 F in the saloon, and communicated our conversation to 
 
 him. His answer was: "You are mistaken in respect to 
 the English Government. In that country, all the institu- 
 tions are excellent for the nation itself ; but foreigners are 
 not admitted to enjoy their benefits. The Emperor will 
 never find anything in that country but oppression and 
 injustice. The nation will not be consulted on the treat- 
 ment he will undergo ; and, believe my words, far from 
 finding protection there, all possible outrages will be 
 invented for revenge." 
 
 These reflections struck me, and I begged F to com- 
 municate them to the Emperor. I could not, however, 
 .admit them without some restriction. I could conceive 
 that the English Government might think it necessary to 
 the safety of Europe, to prevent -all connection between the 
 Emperor and his numerous adherents ; but to sentence him 
 to the slowest and most horrible death, — to exercise on his 
 person all manner of cruelty, — to invent for him sufferings 
 unknown to the most cruel tyrants — (for in what other 
 light can be viewed the insufferable separation from all 
 connection with civilisation and human kind ; — from his 
 wife and child, from whom he could not even receive letters 
 to comfort him in his banishment) : — these are things an 
 honourable mind could never have expected. After such 
 conduct, we may be allowed to suspect, that in England, 
 a nation so estimable in other respects, there exists a 
 coldness of heart, with a total absence, of humanity and 
 generosity, from the moment her pride is wounded. 
 
 The Emperor went to inhabit Malmaison. He was 
 accompanied thither by the Duchess de St. Leu, Bertrand 
 and his family, and the Duke de Bassano. I went there 
 several times a day ; for I could not leave Madame de St. 
 Leu, who had suffered much in her health Jjy the late 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 329 
 
 ■events. The day he arrived in that retreat, he proposed to 
 me to accompany him abroad. " Drouet," he said, " remains 
 in France. I see, the War Minister wishes him not to be 
 lost to his country. I dare not complain ; but it is a great 
 loss for me ; I never met with a better head, or a more 
 upright heart. That man was formed to be a prime minister 
 anywhere." I refused to accompany him, in the following 
 words : "I have a daughter of thirteen years of age : my 
 wife is four months advanced in pregnancy ; I cannot 
 resolve to leave her. Allow me some time, and I will 
 join you wherever you may be. I have remained faithful 
 to your Majesty in better times, and you may reckon 
 upon me. Nevertheless, if my wife had not a claim on me, 
 I should do better to go with you, for I have sad forebodings 
 respecting my fate." 
 
 . The Emperor made me no answer ; but I saw by the 
 ■expression of his countenance that he had no better augury 
 pf my fate than I had. However, the enemy was approach- 
 ing, and for the last three days he had solicited the Provi- 
 sional Government to place a frigate at his disposal, with 
 which he might go to America. It had been promised him ; 
 lie had even been pressed to set off ; but he wanted to be the 
 bearer of the order to the captain to convey him to the 
 United States, and that order did not arrive. We all felt 
 that the delay of a single hour might put his freedom in 
 jeopardy. After we had talked the subject over among 
 ourselves, I went to him, and strongly painted to him how 
 dangerous it might be to prolong his stay. He observed 
 that he could not go without the order. " Depart never- 
 theless," I replied ; " your presence on board the ship will 
 still have a great power over Frenchmen ; cut the cables, 
 promise money to the crew, and if the captain resist, have 
 him put on shore, and hoist your sails. I have not the 
 least doubt but Fouche has sold you to the Allies." " I 
 ielieve it also ; but go and make the last eflFort with the 
 Minister of Marine." I went off immediately to M. Decres. 
 
330 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 He was in bed, and listened to me with an indifference that 
 made my blood boil. He said to me: "I am only a 
 minister. Go to Fouch6 ; speak to Government. As for 
 me, I can do nothing. Good night." And so he covered 
 himself up in his blankets. I left him ; but I could not 
 succeed in speaking either to Fouche or to any of the 
 others. It was two o'clock in the morning when I returned 
 to Malmaison ; the Emperor was in bed. I was let into his 
 chamber, where I gave him an account of the result of my 
 mission, and renewed my entreaties. He listened to me, but 
 made no answer. He got up, however, and spent a part of 
 the night in walking up and down. The following day was- 
 the last of that sad drama. The Emperor had gone to bed 
 again, and slept a few hours. I entered his closet at about 
 twelve o'clock. " If I had known you were here," he said, 
 " I would have had you called in." He then gave me, on 
 a subject that interested him personally, some instructions 
 which it is needless for me to repeat. Soon after I left him^ 
 full of anxiety respecting his fate, my heart oppressed with 
 grief, but still far from suspecting the extent to which both 
 the rigour of fortune and the cruelty of his enemies would 
 be carried. 
 
CHAPTER XXXrV. 
 
 A FEW days after the departure of the Emperor, I was told 
 that a list of proscriptions, which was said to contain the 
 names of two thousand persons, was making up under the 
 inspection of Messieurs de Talleyrand and Fouch^, by order of 
 the Princes ; and that Madame the Duchess of Angouleme 
 vouchsafed to take an active part in the measure. Many 
 persons had already fled from France. The intrepid Thi- 
 baudeau, who, a few days after the return of the King, had 
 openly protested against his reign at the Chamber of Peers, 
 took some pains to make me comprehend the danger I stood 
 in. The Duke de Bassano, at his departure, wished to per- 
 suade me to follow him quickly ; but I, prepossessed by the 
 idea that my conduct was above all reproach, rejected the 
 cautions of friendship. The Princess de Vaudemont entreated 
 me at least to seek some retreat for a short time. She told 
 me that it was Fouch^'s wish that I should ; but he never 
 thought of offering me the passport I might stand in need 
 of. The situation of my wife, who was far advanced in 
 pregnancy and very unwell, made the idea of my flight 
 impossible for me to bear. From within the walls of a 
 prison, said I to myself, I may still protect her. Prejudice 
 will diminish, and the Royal resentment will undoubtedly 
 vent itself on those who are absent. The more I examined 
 my conduct, the more I was convinced that my cause could 
 only be brought before the Correctional Police, and the 
 result would be no more than an imprisonment for two or 
 five years, for having taken upon me the superintendence of 
 
332 MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 the Post-office a few hours before the Emperor arrived. 
 Having made up my mind to this, I was the more obstinate 
 in my refusal to fly ; and I proposed to the Princess de 
 Vaudemont to give her a letter addressed to M. de Talley- 
 rand, in which I should explain my conduct. She consented 
 to lay it before him. In that letter I unfolded to the 
 Ministry my whole conduct since the Restoration ; all the 
 steps I had taken on the 20th of March ; and I concluded 
 by soliciting my trial. My wishes in that respect were soon 
 complied with.' 
 
 On the 1 8th of July I was sitting at dinner with Madame 
 Lavalette and M. de Meneval, when an inspector of the 
 police came to tell me that the Prefect, M. Decazes, wished 
 to speak to me. When I stepped into the hackney-coach, I 
 saw that I was surrounded by three or four spies, who were 
 good enough to act the part Of footmen, and stepped up 
 behind the carriage. In less than half an hour I was in the 
 registering room of the prison of the Prefecture. I was 
 introduced to the jailer, who paid little attention to me, 
 
 ' Far from having any uneasiness on my own account, my whole anxiety 
 was for the fate of my friends. The Countess de Souza, the aunt of Labe- 
 doy^re, knowing that he was still in Paris, entreated me to go and see him, 
 to thrust him, if necessary, by the shoulders out of the barriers, and to per- 
 suade him to seek refuge with the Army of the Loire, from whence he might 
 go abroad. I went, therefore, at eight o'clock in the morning to Labedoy^re. 
 He was still in bed, playing with his child, and his lovely wife next to him. 
 When we were alone, I warmly pressed him to depart, and, by a singular 
 prepossession, I gave him the same reasons, made him the same entreaties, 
 placed before his eyes the same dangers with which my friends harassed me 
 on my own account. He listened to me with a smile and a yawn, and 
 turned himself round in his bed. I was obliged to put an end to that dis- 
 course, and talk of the fate of the Emperor and France, which interested 
 him more than his own. We had already lost more than three hours in useless 
 conversation, when his valet-de-chambre came to tell him that two Prussian 
 officers, who were billeted in his house, re&sed the apartment that had been 
 offered to them, and insisted on taking possession of his wife's. At these 
 words Labedoyire flew out of bed like a madman, and taking scarcely time 
 to slip on his clothes, he wanted to go immediately and cut off the ears of 
 ■these two insolent fellows. It required considerable exertions on my side 
 to make him keep quiet and wait the result of his wife's mother's remon- 
 strances. He did not set off till the evening. He gained the banks of the 
 Loire. I shall mention hereafter how he returned from thence. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 333 
 
 being busy with distributing lodgings to several new-comers, 
 
 among whom I discovered M. de P , who had been long 
 
 secretary to the Duke de Rovigo, and appeared to be the 
 person in whom he placed the greatest confidence. He 
 seemed so grieved and mortified to be where he was, that I 
 went up to him, and had already begun to express my pity 
 for his misfortune, when all of a sudden he turned aside, and, 
 pointing to me, said to the turnkey, " Conduct this gentle- 
 man to No. 17 " ; after which he disappeared. This man, 
 thought I, has very cleverly turned his coat ; and I followed 
 my guide, blushing at the mistake I had made. He intro- 
 duced me into a dirty garret with a window that opened in. 
 the roof at twelve feet from the floor. I was permitted, if I 
 could, to open it by means of an iron bar with notches, but 
 so heavy that it was not possible for me to raise it. When 
 one enters into prison, anger always follows the first surprise. 
 I began by throwing out some energetic exclamations against 
 the Prefect, who had not deigned to receive me in his apart- 
 ments, though he had sent for me to come and speak to him. 
 I was not yet acquainted with the code of politeness of the 
 Prefects of Police ; but I soon made great improvement in 
 that branch of knowledge. As there was no bell, I was 
 obliged to wait three hours before I received a visit from the 
 turnkey, who brought me for dinner some disgusting prison 
 ragout. I made some inquiries respecting the prisoners who 
 lodged on the floor above me. I had seen, through a key- 
 hole, men carrying bottles and all the preparations for a 
 feast. "They seem to be very merry,'' I added. "They 
 are two aides-de-camp of General Labedoyfere." " How ! is 
 he then arrested ? " "I believe so." 
 
 The next day these two officers were set at liberty ; and I 
 afterwards learned the following particulars. The unfortu- 
 nate Labedoyfere, kfter the Army of the Loire had been dis- 
 banded, had retired to the outskirts of Riom, with several of 
 his friends, among whom was General Flahaut, his near 
 relation. The latter, who possesses a cool head and unites 
 
334 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 prudence to much courage, immediately perceived the 
 danger of their position. He was convinced that nothing 
 remained for them to do but to pass the frontiers as quickly 
 as they could. Labedoyfere was of the same opinion ; but 
 no persuasion could make him alter his plan. He wanted 
 to go to the United States, but on his way to pass through 
 Paris, where he wished to take leave of his family and raise 
 some money. All the exertions of friendship had no power 
 over him. He stepped into the diligence under a false name, 
 and found among his travelling companions two wretches in 
 regimentals, who pretended they came from the Army of the 
 Loire, and who were scarcely arrived in Paris when they 
 informed against him. These were the two prisoners who 
 were merrily feasting on a part of the money they had 
 received as the reward of their treachery. 
 
 By ten o'clock in the evening the jailer came to call me 
 down to the chief clerk, who was to examine me. In my 
 situation, this might be looked upon as some amusement : I 
 was therefore far from wishing to decline it, and I was con- 
 ducted, through a labyrinth of passages, to a room on the 
 
 ground floor, where I found M. V , who was dismissed a 
 
 little while after. This inquisitor, who was a short, fat man, 
 was seated in his armchair, where for the space of twenty- 
 nine years he had been asking questions at all hours of the 
 day and night, under all possible governments. After having 
 taken down in writing three or four pages of questions and 
 answers, he stopped, and as we had neither of us much 
 inclination for sleep, he eagerly took advantage of some 
 inquiries I made about his occupations to relate to me all 
 the prowess of the prefects of police, the manner the prisoners 
 made their defence, and the confessions he extorted from 
 them ; his skill in troubling their conscience, in disconcerting 
 their firmness, in surpriang their tenets, in pursuing their 
 confessions, and finally in sounding the bottom of their 
 hearts. I cannot help recording here one of these anecdotes, 
 which I thought remarkable, in the words he gave it to me. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 335 
 
 "Among the conspirators of the Infernal Machine was 
 
 one M. N , an intimate friend of Limoelan, the first 
 
 inventor of the plot. He had served among the Chouans, 
 and the police supposed, reasonably enough, that he was in 
 Paris. After being hunted like a fox for several days, he 
 slept at night in the charcoal-boats in the Pot au Bled. 
 When the pursuit had ceased in that part of the town, he 
 ventured to seek a retreat in a miserable garret in a public- 
 house. The next day, the police came back ; but he had 
 escaped, and was seen no more. His room was searched, 
 and near the bed was found a scrap of half-burned paper, 
 which he had used to light his pipe. This paper contained, 
 however, some written lines, which seemed to be part of the 
 rough draft of a letter addressed to some general, who was 
 supposed to be Georges. On the last line were the following 
 words : ' I cannot write any more to-day, as I have a great 
 pain in my eyes.' This unfortunate man was afterwards 
 implicated and taken in the conspiracy of Georges, and I 
 had the pleasure of examining him. He was sitting where 
 you are, his face between two wax candles, as yours is. 
 While I was talking with him I continued writing. He 
 was my countryman. I spoke to him of his parents, of 
 his first aiffections, of his schoolfellows ; and having observed 
 that he began to gain assurance, and that his answers 
 betrayed a little more cheerfulness, I stopped all of a 
 sudden, and said in the most natural tone I could : ' But 
 the light annoys you : you may put out the candles if you 
 ■choose.' ' No ; I have no pain in my eyes.' ' I thought you 
 had.' ' No, not at present ; my eyes were bad, it is true, 
 about two years ago.' We continued our conversation. At 
 last I slowly read to him his examination : he was surprised 
 to find I had inserted in it so trivial a circumstance, and 
 asked why I had done it. ' It is my custom.' Now, will you 
 believe that this very trivial circumstance convicted him ? 
 The half-burned scrap of paper had been preserved. The 
 writing was compared with his, and his presence in Paris, at 
 the time of the Infernal Machine, was proved." 
 
336 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 "And what became of him?" said I. "He was guillo- 
 tined," answered V , with a most fiendish look and 
 
 gesture. He said to me : "I am fond of my profession : I 
 cannot remain one day out of this apartment. I might go 
 to the play and divert myself with my friends, my wife, my 
 children. But, no, I must be here." While listening to him, 
 I observed that by custom he constantly leered to the left 
 side, where the prisoners were placed ; and I am convinced 
 that if they had been put at his right, he would have lost 
 half his skill. When he read my examination to me, and 
 before I signed it, I asked why he had not inserted his anec- 
 dote in it. " Oh, your business cannot go far," he said r 
 "you are not an important man for me." 
 
 I remained a fortnight in that temporary prison without 
 seeing M. Decazes, who might have been a little troubled at 
 having me so near him, if he had not entirely forgotten our 
 former connection. The bad air and the vexations of a 
 prison gave me an inflammatory complaint. My physician, 
 who was also the medical attendant of M. Decazes, prescribed 
 for me with great care, which contributed to make them 
 change my prison, and send me speedily on my trial, for 
 fear I should escape by a natural death from the one they 
 were preparing for me. On Sunday, the 24th of July, I was- 
 abruptly put into a hackney-coach to be conveyed to the 
 Conciergerie, at a small distance from where I was. There 
 are many people in Paris wholly unacquainted with the 
 existence of the dungeons of the Conciergerie, which are 
 beneath the magnificent apartments of the Palais de justice, 
 and which, it is reported, served in the time of St. Louis as 
 kitchens and pantries for the royal household. I was intro- 
 duced into the registering room, where I found the jailer^ 
 whose name was, I think, Landrajein. He was a tall man,, 
 disagreeably familiar, though with tolerably polite manners. 
 He began to make out aloud the description of my person^ 
 and invited me afterwards to follow him to the end of a dark 
 passage where my new abode was situated. This was a long 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 337 
 
 and narrow space, terminated by a window covered with a 
 slanting roof, that just enabled me to distinguish a square 
 foot of the sky. Bare walls, covered with names and 
 exclamations of despair, traced with charcoal, were the 
 only ornaments of this dungeon. A wretched bed, an old 
 table, one chair, and two tubs of foul water, were all its 
 furniture. I describe it thus minutely, because it was there 
 that Marshal Ney passed the three first weeks that he 
 remained in prison. I was weaker than he, for he did not 
 complain of it ; but when I saw that it would be impossible 
 for me to read during half an hour, I burst into reproaches, 
 and wrote to the Prefect of Police that disease would soon 
 kill me if my lodging were not changed. In the evening the 
 jailer came to lead me to the promenade in a large yard 
 called the Green ; and at nine o'clock, instead of bringing 
 me up again to my dungeon, he introduced me into a room 
 on the ground floor, where I found a fireplace, and a window 
 looking into a small yard, separated from the women's yard 
 by a high wall. "I could not place you here this morning," 
 he said, " because General Labedoyfere was locked up in the 
 next room ; but he has been transferred to the Abbaye." 
 The next day I wished to see his chamber. It was still more 
 inconvenient and more dismal than the one I had left. He had 
 remained there eight days in the most rigorous solitary con- 
 finement, abandoned in a manner by the keepers, who only 
 visited him twice in twenty-four hours. The dungeon was 
 so narrow that he could not even walk about in it, though 
 that was the only diversion left him, as he was deprived of 
 books, newspapers, and even of all manner of correspondence. 
 They began, according to custom, to keep me during six 
 weeks without any communication. I could receive no letters 
 unless they were opened, nor see a friend except in the 
 presence of the registrar. The accounts I received from my 
 wife were painful. Her tremulous handwriting, the suffer- 
 ings she sought in vain to dissemble by repeated assurances 
 of good health, her five months' pregnancy, of which she 
 
 23 
 
338 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 never spoke, all added to my anxiety. I soon felt also the 
 inconveniences of my prison. Next to my room was an 
 enormous iron door, that was opened at every hour of the 
 day and the night to relieve the sentry : its violent motion 
 shook my bed and interrupted my sleep, while the cold and 
 damp of the air obliged me to have fire night and day. 
 
 Such torments, every instant renewed, were, however, far 
 from discouraging me, and I had no need to seek moral 
 force in meditation, or in delusions that vanished every day 
 more and more before the sad truth : I found it in my 
 attachment for the Emperor. I suffered, but it was for 
 him : my misfortune was heightened by the consideration 
 of the cause that had given it birth. My name and fate 
 were united to his immortal name ; and besides, were not 
 his sufferings worse than mine ? The perfidy of the English 
 Government was leading him to St. Helena. How many 
 torments were preparing for him in his banishment at the 
 world's end ! I should have blushed to complain in presence 
 of such a disaster. The vengeance of kings fell heavy on us 
 both, and I found at once honour and glory in sharing it 
 with him. It was that thought that constantly bore me up, 
 and saved me from all weakness. The idea that he would 
 read my trial, and that my death would cause him some 
 emotion ; that I showed myself worthy of his attachment 
 and his trust, elevated me in my own eyes. I shall explain 
 hereafter how that feeling of energy against misfortune 
 received a powerful support from another cause. 
 
 A few weeks after my imprisonment, as I was one day 
 walking in the yard, I saw Marshal Ney at the bottom of 
 the staircase which led to my former dungeon. He bowed 
 to me as he went quickly up, accompanied by the jailer and 
 an oflScer of the gendarmes. It was thus I learned that he 
 was arrested. Like me, he had scorned to leave the king- 
 dom, and had only sought refuge in the country-seat of one 
 of his wife's relations near Cahors. His sabre, which he had 
 left in the drawing-room, betrayed him for the first time. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 339 
 
 He suffered himself to be taken, convinced that they would 
 not dare to condemn him. After he had remained a month 
 in that dungeon, he was at last placed above me in the 
 registrar's lodging. There was a stove that defended him 
 from the cold ; and his grated window, being higher than 
 mine, procured him a less unwholesome air than what I 
 breathed. But his name and his rank could not protect 
 Tiim from the hardships they seemed to take pleasure in 
 inflicting on him. He played tolerably well on the flute, 
 and during several days he amused himself with his instru- 
 ment. He was, however, deprived of this resource, under 
 the pretence that it was against the rules of the prison. He 
 repeatedly played a waltz, which I long recollected, and 
 frequently hummed in my evening musings. I had never 
 heard it zajwhexe else, till once again it struck my ear in 
 Bavaria. It was at a bal champUre on the borders of Lake 
 Starnberg. I had before my eyes young peasant girls 
 merrily skipping on the fresh green sward. The air was 
 sweet and melancholy, and when played on the flute, it 
 immediately recalled to my memory the Conciergerie, and 
 I retired, unable to repress my tears, and repeating with 
 bitter feelings the name of the unfortunate Marshal. Dur- 
 ing the day we shared the right of walking in the small 
 yard, without being, however, allowed to remain there 
 together, though he was always accompanied by a gen- 
 darme. I was in the habit of taking my walk at six o'clock 
 in the morning : the Marshal wished to take that hour for 
 Ms walk ; I resigned it to him with great pleasure, and this 
 arrangement lasted until his solitary confinement ended. 
 From that time, his lady and children came every day to 
 ■dine with him. She always accompanied him in his walks. 
 One day she came near my window and said to me : " The 
 sentry that guards us is an old soldier who has served under 
 the Marshal ; he wishes very much to talk with you." The 
 Marshal in consequence came up : our conversation could 
 not be long. He said to me : " I am easy as to what con- 
 
340 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 cerns myself. A great many friends watch ' over me: the 
 Government is advancing fast again towards its ruin. The 
 foreigners already take our part ; the public indignation has 
 communicated itself to them ; and if you wish to have a 
 proof of it, read these papers and burn them when you have 
 done." He then slipped through the bars a file of pamphlets 
 and some manuscript sheets. I found in them violent threats 
 and even provocations, that appeared to me very ill-advised : 
 there was also a great deal of absurd news. According to 
 their accounts, the English already repented having replaced 
 the House of Bourbon on the throne ; and there was a long 
 protest of the Empress Maria Louisa against the resolution 
 of the Sovereigns who kept her out of France. What the 
 Marshal had told me about his friends was more correct ;. 
 but, some time after, I learned that he had failed in an 
 attempt to escape from the Conciergerie, and that six thou- 
 sand officers on half-pay had been forced to leave the metro- 
 polis by order of the Minister of War. A little while after 
 that conversation, we again exchanged the hours of our 
 walks. He then went down in the evening, accompanied by 
 his wife, his brother-in-law, and his sister-in-law, Madame 
 Gamot. The prisoners had retired to their dormitories ; 
 among them was a soldier called Dieu, whose good voice and 
 comic songs diverted the Marshal. 
 
 I felt a very great wish to see him again ; and one evening 
 I ventured to ask permission to go up to the Green. The 
 jailer was gone out : the turnkey opened the door and led 
 me there, where I found Marshal Ney and M. Gamot. I 
 joined them. It was about three months after our first con- 
 versation. At that period, all his delusions seemed to have 
 vanished. " Labedoyfere," said he, "has crossed the fatal 
 passage. Now it will be your turn, my dear Lavalette, 
 and mine afterwards." " It is all one," I answered, " who 
 fall first. I know there is no hope left." " Oh, oh ! that 
 we shall see. However, all these lawyers annoy me ; they 
 do not understand my situation ; but I shall speak for myself." 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 Time passes very slowly in prison. I did not know what to 
 do with myself : I was discontented without reason with my 
 ■situation, and uneasy in respect to my poor Emilie. Each 
 day brought me worse and worse accounts of her health. I 
 had obtained her promise that she would not come to see 
 me before her accouchement ; the visit might have killed 
 her. My time, so ill-employed in seeking to discover the 
 future, in exhausting all conjectures, in cursing the new 
 Revolution, threw me into a fatal dejection. I felt the 
 want of raising my spirits by the only diversion I was per- 
 mitted to take — reading. I sent for Hume's History of 
 England. When I perused the narrative of all the royal 
 misfortunes with which it is filled, I found my own more 
 bearable, and I reaped both courage and comfort from it. 
 Finally, in recurring to my own situation, I rested on the 
 idea that it was not possible I could be sentenced to capital 
 punishment, and that I should certainly come ofF with a few 
 years' imprisonment. This prospect was not cheerful ; but, 
 as I entertained the hope of being confined in one of the 
 prisons of Paris, I might see my family, comfort them, and 
 put my aflFairs in order. I also frequently thought of the 
 scaffold, but only as a vague threat that could never be 
 realised. I was in the abode of crime ; and I often figured 
 to myself the terrors of a thief, and especially of a murderer, 
 awaking in the night at the fancied cries of his victims, and 
 struggling, in vain, under the hands of the executioner. 
 
 341 
 
342 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 What must not his sufferings be ! As for me, I could at 
 least return without remorse to the 20th of March. The 
 indignation of the Sovereign, the anger of his adherents^ 
 could not make my heart beat more quickly. I felt myself 
 strong against their vengeance, and I escaped from it in 
 imagination, by following the Emperor, in a solitary bark^ 
 on his way to St. Helena. 
 
 I also took a fancy to know who were my new compatriots 
 in this strange country ; for the Conciergerie is like a distant 
 region, separated from all civilised nations — a sort of colony 
 of the New World, governed by brutal and despotic laws, 
 and whose population consists only of the dregs of society,, 
 and where ferociousness and depravity must be constantly 
 watched and repressed. To penetrate into that region, 
 passports are with difficulty obtained, and many humiliating 
 forms must be observed. The prisoner can see his relations,, 
 friends, and counsel, only across double bars, which keep 
 them at several feet distance, surrounded by turnkeys, who 
 are the privileged spies of his words and most trivial gestures^ 
 and who trifle with the most painful feelings, by enjoining 
 them a rigorous silence. 
 
 I took great pains to obtain any information. The turn- 
 keys could not answer any questions : but, from my own 
 observations, I think there must have been, at the time of 
 my confinement, about fifty prisoners. They slept in about 
 twenty rooms, containing each five or six beds, for which 
 they paid ten francs a month : this was called being h la 
 pistole. Those who did not possess the means of paying, 
 passed the night in a sort of shed, on straw very seldom 
 renewed. The greatest part of these wretches were doomed 
 to the galleys, and most of them had committed theft or 
 forgery. Their indifference as to the fate that awaited them 
 was quite inconceivable. 
 
 Not to deprive Madame Lavalette of the services of my 
 man-servant, I had accepted for myself those of a condemned 
 prisoner who was respited for a few months. He had filled 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 343 
 
 a responsible employment in one of the Government offices, 
 and had embezzled the money that passed through his 
 hands, for which crime he was to go for six years to the 
 galleys. He was a spy over me. His honeyed words and 
 affected officiousness inspired me with a great disgust ; but, 
 on the one hand, my pity for his fate, that seemed to frighten 
 him, and on the other, my fear of getting, instead of him, 
 one still more perverse, determined me to keep him. At 
 last, however, a perfidious trick he played to some others 
 became the cause of our separation. He slept with six other 
 prisoners, in a room situated in the western part of the 
 edifice. These wretches took it into their heads to get out 
 of prison, by digging a hole in the wall twelve feet thick, 
 and so to escape on the Quai des Lunettes. My honest 
 servant procured them one of those large iron bars called by 
 the prisoners, I believe, chanceliire ; but he had begun by 
 betraying them, and the jailer let them go on for some time 
 in their work. Every night they filled their pockets with 
 the rubbish, and in the morning they cleverly dispersed it 
 in the yard. To arrive at the outward wall, they were 
 obliged to take out and replace, every night, an enormous 
 stone of six feet in length. They had been already for 
 several months at work, and they only wanted one night 
 more to regain their liberty, when the jailer came to pay 
 them his visit, and all was easily discovered. The traitor 
 was, in appearance, condemned to the same punishment 
 that was inflicted on them all. But his companions were 
 not to be duped by this ; and the jailer told me that he ran 
 the risk of being murdered in the galleys. It would be even 
 difficult to let him travel thither with them. The galley- 
 slaves never pardon, among one another, a treachery of that 
 sort. Ten years would not be sufficient to make them 
 forget it. 
 
 The yard of the female prisoners was, as I have said, 
 facing my window, and separated from it by a high wall. 
 That circumstance was a continued source of annoyance to 
 
344 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 me. From eight in the morning to seven in the evening, I 
 was stunned by a deluge of the most vulgar, coarse, and 
 depraved expressions in the French language. The turn- 
 keys were frequently obliged to go and restore good order 
 among those harpies. It was on this yard that the two 
 windows of the Queen's prison opened. During my con- 
 finement, that chamber, situated on my passage when I 
 went to the Green, served as a speaking parlour for those 
 privileged prisoners who were allowed to receive visits from 
 their friends. It was a large room, divided in two by a sort 
 of pillar that formed two arches. The floor was paved with 
 bricks placed on the thick side, and must have been very 
 old, as the figures they represented are long since out of 
 use. The entrance was at the bottom of a dark passage. 
 The Queen had only a miserable bed, a table, and two 
 chairs : a large piece of tapestry that hung across the room 
 separated her from the gendarme and the jailer, who, how- 
 ever, left her during the night. How many times have I 
 not walked up and down in that prison, when grief and low- 
 ness of spirits used to oppress me ! There I found strength 
 and courage : I blushed to complain of the fate that might 
 be preparing for me, when I recollected the horrible destiny 
 of a Queen of France. I was certainly the first person who 
 openly expressed the wish that this dungeon might be con- 
 verted into a chapel. A short time after my escape, the 
 order was really given and executed. 
 
 The jailer, with his obsequious manners, began to weary 
 me ; and his everlasting questions, his long narratives of 
 prison adventures, became quite insuiferable. He used to 
 come eight or ten times a day, and interrupt me while I was 
 reading or meditating. I was imprudent enough to speak 
 in his presence of chess ; and from that instant I was obliged, 
 every evening, to let myself be beaten during three hours by 
 him. A circumstance of small importance happily delivered 
 me of that bore. He had been at a former period verger of 
 the Criminal Court, and had sold his office to a man who 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 34S 
 
 ■could not pay him. Having heard that I was particularly 
 •acquainted with M. Pasquier, then Keeper of the Seals, he 
 begged me to write a few words to Madame Lavalette, that 
 she might solicit for him permission to resume his office. 
 She, however, being rather mistrustful, was convinced that 
 Tinder his claim might be some dangerous plot against me ; 
 and she sent my letter to the Minister of Police, Decazes : 
 communications of that sort with the prisoners are wholly 
 prohibited ; so the jailer was sent away. This was very 
 fortunate for us at the time of my escape. Having been 
 born and bred in a prison, he was full of artifice, sagacity, 
 and penetration. He would undoubtedly have observed my 
 ■disguise, and all would have been lost. 
 
 They put in his place a man from Bordelais, a protkgi 
 of M. Decazes. This man was of a harsh humour ; his 
 manners were severe, and even rude ; and he was very 
 ■enthusiastic in his political opinions. He wanted at first to 
 imitate his predecessor ; to come into my room at all times, 
 and enter into conversation with me : but I took such a 
 high tone with him, that I silenced him the very first day. 
 Consequently, I only used to see him in the morning and in 
 the evening, when he came to examine whether all was 
 right. 
 
 I had chosen M. Tripier for my counsel, whom I did not 
 know, and he had taken for his assistant M. Lacroix Frain- 
 -ville. My friends had a great desire that I might be for- 
 gotten, and frequently expressed a wish that I might fall 
 sick. Count Alexander de La Rochefoucault, who came 
 "very often to see me, continually reproached me with my 
 looking too well. " If you were ill," he said, " and obliged 
 to keep your bed, they would be forced to put off your trial : 
 time would by degrees calm passions, and your friends would 
 do the rest for you." I was certainly of his opinion ; but 
 where was I to find an illness ? I could not come to the 
 resolution of breaking one of my legs or arms ; and one 
 ■cannot have just at the time one wishes it an inflammation 
 
346 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETJE. 
 
 on the lungs or in the stomach. I was therefore under the 
 necessity of keeping my health, and with it all the dangers 
 of my situation. It was at last decided that I should be 
 examined by one of the judges of the Royal Court, and M. 
 Dupuis was chosen for my reporter. I had several years before 
 frequently dined with him at the house of a mutual friend. 
 When I came before him, we knew each other again. The 
 presence of the registrar kept me silent. The magistrate 
 appeared to me to be moved by generous compassion ; but 
 as the examination went on, he was soon convinced that he 
 need not observe any particular delicacy in regard to me. 
 I took the advance on the required explanation. I urged 
 them on in all possible ways, and the first examination lasted 
 five hours, though he wanted several times to stop it, think- 
 ing I might be fatigued. But I felt myself so completely 
 innocent, I laid so much importance on destroying all pre- 
 possessions, all superstructure of false imputations which 
 filled the indictment, that I should have continued for two 
 hours longer if he had wished it. The next day we had 
 another sitting, which lasted again four hours. I have 
 heard from my friend, that M. Dupuis did not conceal his. 
 surprise at the importance that was attached to my business ; 
 and that, at the news of my being condemned, he expressed 
 his indignation with a generous frankness. Two months 
 elapsed, I believe, between this examination and my trial ; 
 but time did not alleviate the hatred to which I was exposed. 
 My friends were discouraged at the violence of the Paris 
 drawing-room against me. The royalists were enraged at 
 the recollection of their unworthy conduct in the month of 
 March, and sought to cover their shame by the imaginary 
 plot which they said had brought back the Emperor ; and 
 they appeared to have no doubt but that I had been at the 
 head of the undertaking. According to them, a very active 
 correspondence had taken place with the Island of Elba 
 during the eleven months of the first reign, and all the old 
 clerks of the Post-office had taken a part in it. The mails 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 34T 
 
 which went to the South of France were filled with letters 
 from me. Head clerks, under-clerks, couriers, postmasters 
 in the departments — all had been in the secret, and had 
 abetted in my design. To tell the truth, if I had been the 
 chief contriver of such a plan, I might claim credit for it : 
 its conception and execution would have ensured me ever- 
 lasting fame ; I should have been the most profound of all 
 conspirators, arid I might pretend to a great part of the glory 
 which people too frequently bestow on men who have made 
 themselves famous by great enterprises, even when their aim 
 is contrary to morals and humanity ; but nothing must go 
 before truth. 
 
 In 1 814, 1 had carefully avoided all connection with the 
 clerks of the Post-office. With my ardent wish for seeing 
 the Emperor again, I mixed no thought of ambition. The 
 love cherished for him by France ; the conviction I shared 
 with the country, that he alone could govern her, and place 
 her on a solid footing in the first rank among the nations of 
 the globe ; the hope, that to all the benefits he had already 
 bestowed on her he would also add the restitution of her 
 liberties ; and finally, a deep feeling of gratitude, — were the 
 only motives of my conduct. A thousand others, in my 
 place, would have done as much. Millions have been led 
 on by the same impulses. On his road, at his arrival, the 
 people pressed forward to meet him : the greatest in the 
 land had rushed to serve him, — as well those whom the 
 Bourbons had discarded, as those whom they had retained. 
 One lost battle had decided our fate ; but if victory had 
 remained faithful to us, the Empire, re-established on its 
 true foundation, would have repulsed for a long time, and 
 perhaps for ever, the family of the Bourbons, and thus- 
 Liberty would have undoubtedly found her place with glory 
 and peace ! 
 
 I was very much afraid that, during my confinement, 
 there would be some execution. The condemned cell was- 
 next to mine, at the bottom of the yard where I used to. 
 
348 MEMOIRS OF COUNl LAV ALETTE. 
 
 walk. Two persons, accused of murder, were tried, but 
 acquitted : one of them was a young man who had served 
 in the Life-guards. He had murdered his mistress in cold 
 ■blood, after having passed the night with her : the parti- 
 culars of his crime were horrible. He first fired a pistol at 
 her, and then discharged one at himself ; but his own wound 
 was slight. He was acquitted, as I have said, and they 
 brought him back to the vestibule adjoining my dungeon, 
 where he was to wait until the accustomed forms had been 
 gone through to set him at liberty. I was not yet made 
 acquainted with the verdict, when cries and sobs struck 
 my ear. I thought he had been condemned, and I must 
 confess that my courage was greatly shaken. It was not 
 until two hours afterwards that I was told that joy had 
 produced on him a violent nervous attack. Fortunately, 
 his fear of passing another night in prison gave him 
 strength, enough to go away. The other prisoner was a 
 woman who was accused of having pushed her invalid 
 -sister into the river, where she had been drowned. This 
 unfortunate person edified even the jailer with her good 
 behaviour ; so that he employed rigorous means to prevent 
 her odious companions from extending their abuse into real 
 outrages. The day she was tried, she dressed herself with 
 particular care. When she left the court she fainted, — but 
 her joy was moderate ; and on leaving the prison, she 
 wished to distribute among her wretched companions some 
 marks of her benevolence ; but as the money she possessed 
 did not make a considerable sum, she sent to beg ten francs 
 of me, to add to the present she made them, saying that 
 she would pray to God that I might find as equitable a jury 
 as hers had been. 
 
 When the time of my solitary confinement was over, 
 some friends came to visit me. In the foremost rank I 
 must place Count Alexander de La Rochefoucault, whose 
 -constant friendship never ceased softening my sufferings, 
 and who gave me an affecting proof of it by accepting 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 349 
 
 the charge of subrog'e tuteur ' to my wife during her illness, 
 and M. de Vandeuil, at present a member of the Chamber 
 of Deputies.' As he was obliged to go down to the country, 
 and remain there all the autumn, he put one day into my 
 hand two hundred gold louis, begging me to keep them, 
 saying, " Your communications with your family may become 
 difficult, and money can never do any harm. It is better 
 for you to have some now in your possession, than to be 
 obliged to ask for it." And indeed these two hundred louis- 
 were of great service to me when I fled to Bavaria two 
 months afterwards. His mother has been an angel of 
 kindness to my wife : it was she who brought her the first 
 consolation in her prison. Colonel Briqueville, who was 
 not yet cured of two wounds he received at the affair of Ver- 
 sailles, frequently left his bed to come and talk with me for 
 several hours together. I owe also many thanks to Messieurs 
 Frank O'Hagarty and de FidiSres for the marks of attach- 
 ment they lavished on me. But the most active friend of 
 all was one of our relations, Tascher de St. Roses, aide- 
 de-camp to Prince Eugene. This excellent young man, 
 though suffering from an asthmatic complaint which, from 
 his childhood, never allowed him to sleep in a bed, and the 
 attacks of which put him regularly twice a month in the 
 most imminent danger, used to come and pass whole days 
 with me. The charms of his conversation, and the gentle 
 cheerfulness of his temper, made me forget at once my 
 dungeon and my future fate. He continually maintained 
 that I would be sentenced to banishment, and he pressed 
 me to accompany him to Martinique, where he was born. 
 He painted to me, with the enthusiasm of a colonist, its 
 
 • Minors and insane persons have, in. France, besides their common 
 guardians (tuteurs), a siibrogi tuteur, who talces up the minor's interests 
 whenever they come in collision with those of their guardian. — Note of 
 the Translator. 
 
 ' The reader must not forget that these Memoirs were begun in exile, 
 and finished in Paris. This part appears to have been written by M. 
 Lavalette after the election of 1827 Note of the French Editor. 
 
JSo MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 beautiful climate, its cool shades, the various pleasures its 
 inhabitants enjoyed, the singularity of their manners, and 
 the attentions I should meet with from a numerous family 
 ■of which he was the favourite. He sung to me Negro songs, 
 talked the sweet jargon of the Negro women, and thus took 
 a pleasure in preparing for me, my wife and her child, a 
 Tiappy life in the New World. 
 
 I had not seen my daughter since my confinement, 
 through the fear of adding consternation to her grief at 
 the sight of the horrors of my prison. Her mother, 
 nevertheless, sent her to me to receive my blessing, the 
 day before her first communion. My daily correspondence 
 with my family was all my love for them required. I 
 thought I should have been able to set bounds to my 
 expansive aflFection for her ; but when I saw my only child, 
 adorned with all the graces of youth, falling into my arms, 
 bathed in tears, and afterwards at my feet in a deep swoon, 
 all the anguish and agonies of paternal tenderness lacerated 
 my heart. For the first time, I felt how great was my 
 misfortune. I could not master my grief ; silent tears 
 mixed with my daughter's sobs, and when I placed my 
 hands on her head, it was impossible for me to utter a 
 single word. 
 
 This scene made me reflect on my situation. I began 
 to consider it under its real aspect ; and my counsel, in 
 their conferences, tore off a part of the veil which till then 
 had covered my eyes. 
 
 The first, M. Tripier, was a man whose mind was cool, 
 accurate, and logical. The best way he found to prepare 
 himself for my defence was to attack me on all points. 
 What had I to do at the Post-office? Why did I go 
 there so early in the morning? Why did I send a courier 
 to Fontainebleau ? Why did I give orders during the 
 day ? Why that bulletin sent all over France by the mail ? 
 Finally : Why did I stop the newspapers, and especially 
 the Montteur that contained the King's proclamation ? He 
 
MEMOIRS OF CO UNT T.A VALETTE. 35 1 
 
 liad never done with his questions. My answers appeared 
 to him to be sincere and satisfactory ; but they did not 
 ■clear me of the fault I had committed. He was, however, 
 soon convinced that I had merely yielded to imprudent 
 impatience. But that was not enough to acquit me ; and 
 until the day before my sentence was passed, he thought 
 I should be condemned to five years' imprisonment for 
 having usurped the public power. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 The preliminary conferences continued twice a week during^ 
 nearly a month. A few days before the opening of the 
 debates, the Moniteur acquainted me with the terrible 
 Letter addressed to the Chamber of Peers, and signed by 
 the Duke de Richelieu, against Marshal Ney. How could 
 that man, of whom public fame proclaimed the frankness, 
 the gentle manners, the impartial and independent character, 
 — how could he attack before the Chamber of Peers, with 
 such brutal and sanguinary rage, one of the most honour- 
 able Frenchmen of our time, — one of our most illustrious 
 warriors, — an unfortunate, accused, but unjudged man, 
 whose examination was not yet known, and whom the 
 law ought to have surrounded with a generous compassion? 
 When M. de Lacroix Frainville, one of my counsel, entered 
 my room, I showed him the Moniteur. Deep emotion was 
 visible in his features while he read it ; and when he had 
 done, he said to me with an air of consternation, after a few 
 moments' reflection, " Sir, I see but too clearly what they 
 want to come to : but I am old ; I wish to pass my last 
 days free from political storms, and my health is too weak 
 to bear the persecution that is about to spread on all sides. 
 Permit me, therefore, to deposit into other hands the bur- 
 dens I have taken upon me. My friend Tripier will easily 
 find a fellow lawyer that will help him with your defence. 
 I shall continue with my advice, but I do not feel strength 
 enough to appear before the court." 
 The old man appeared, in fact, so overcome, that I made 
 
 352 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 353 
 
 no comment on these observations. At that instant M. 
 Tripier entered the room ; and his colleague, after having 
 put the newspaper into his hands, repeated his resolution, 
 and was going to name some other lawyer to take his place, 
 when M. Tripier said coolly, " I want nobody ; I shall 
 defend my client alone. It is my duty, and no considera- 
 tion shall make me turn away from it : " and then our 
 conference began. 
 
 While I was thus debating for my life, my new-born child 
 was dpng in the arms of its poor mother. This misfortune 
 would, I feared, have most fatal consequences for her. I 
 reckoned upon that child to comfort her grief after I should 
 be dead. The motherly care it would require, and which 
 she would lavish on it with so much affection and tender- 
 ness, would, I expected, give still a zest to her life ; and it 
 was abruptly taken away from her in the space of a few 
 hours. This circumstance threw me into despair. The 
 following day, when Lacroix Frainville came in, the situa- 
 tion in which he found me made him suspect that the fear 
 of a sentence of death was the cause of my trouble ; and 
 he was going to offer me some commonplace comfortings, 
 when I acquainted him of the fresh blow that had shook 
 me. " My God ! " he cried, pressing me in his arms ; " this 
 is too much at one time. Pray forget the momentary 
 weakness that I showed yesterday. I will not leave you ; — 
 yes, I will defend you." And he nobly kept his word by 
 coming into court, and assisting his fellow counsel during 
 all the debates. 
 
 My greatest anxiety, however, was the situation of Madame 
 Lavalette. That son, the object of the wishes of all her 
 life, had been snatched away from her. I had required 
 of her not to come to the Conciergerie during her preg- 
 nancy. The dismal sight of a prison, and of the dungeon 
 in which I was confined, might have had a fatal effect upon 
 her. Through the same motive I had forbid them to bring 
 my son to me. All. that had been reported to me of 
 
 24 
 
; 354 MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA V ALETTE, 
 
 the passionate love of the mother for her child made me 
 tremble for her health. St. Roses only spoke to me of 
 ,her tears and her grief, but tried to make me easy as to 
 consequences. Now, what would be the result of the trial? 
 Five years' confinement was a severe punishment ; but still 
 I might see her, comfort her, keep in my hands the, manage- 
 ment of our mutilated fortune — in one word, offer her the 
 prospect of more happy times to come. But if death 
 awaited me, what would become of her in her misfortune ? 
 Through some fatality, too common in our revolution, her 
 family, not very numerous of itself, was dispersed, or had 
 disappeared. Her father was indeed returned from abroad ; 
 but he had brought with him a second wife, who had borne 
 him children. Although he was an excellent man, new 
 ties, new affections, and the distance at which he lived from 
 Paris, did not promise that he would be a very effectual 
 consolation for his daughter. My only hope rested on 
 Count Alexander de La Rochefoucault, who was related to 
 her by marriage, and who had given us for the last month 
 courageous proof of his affection. 
 
 While my mind was thus agitated, I was informed that 
 the trial would open on the 19th of November. The list 
 of the jury was laid before me on the i8th. Not one among 
 the thirty-six names was known to me. I had to choose 
 among them twelve men, whose conscience might be firm, 
 and whose minds enlightened enough to resist the corrup- 
 tion of party spirit and the threats of Government. The 
 list was composed of tradesmen,'lawyers, and two members of 
 the Council of State, — all men, the independence of whose 
 position, except that of the former, was not extremely 
 certain. I had several copies made of that list, and my 
 friends hastened ,-to make inquiries concerning them, and 
 to visit them. But it was Sunday, and consequently difficult 
 to meet them. The notes I received the next day were so 
 contradictory that I knew not whom to reject or admit. I 
 was, however, obliged to go up to court. Before I entered 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 355 
 
 4;he room where the jury was assembled, they made me wait 
 in the President's closet, where I found a verger of the 
 Criminal Court. He was a young man, whose eyes, fixed 
 .upon me with an appearance of great interest, seemed to 
 question me respecting the list I held in my hand. " Read 
 the list to me," he said, with emotion ; " your fate lies in 
 that paper. I can direct you better than any one." I did 
 as he bade me, and at each name I mentioned he cried — 
 " That one is doubtful ; this other shocking ; quickly erase 
 the name." He had scarcely heard twelve of them when 
 I was called to assist at the drawing of the jury. It was 
 an imposing scene. Thirty-six persons assembled, standing 
 in presence of the magistrates and the prisoner : twelve 
 were to decide his fate. My looks wandered over the 
 assembly. I sought for good-will, or at least for impar- 
 tiality, and methought I perceived a sort of sympathy 
 for me. The gravity of their countenance, their downcast 
 looks, the air of melancholy spread over their features, 
 infused a degree of tranquillity into my mind, that aug- 
 mented with each minute. I challenged the first names 
 that came out of the urn, because they had been so by 
 my kind verger ; but I accepted the thirteenth, M. Horon 
 •de Villefosse. The information my friend had given me 
 was favourable to him. He was an engineer, who had been 
 employed by the Emperor in the mines of the Hartz, in 
 Hanover. I had been assured he was a learned and sensible 
 man : he had been Master of Requests during my time. I 
 -congratulated myself, therefore, for having him for foreman 
 of my jury. To his name followed that of M. Jurien, now 
 Councillor of State, and, I believe, formerly an emigrant. I 
 accepted him with a secret reluctance, and with a sort of 
 foreboding that he would prove inimical. The sequel will 
 .show in how far I was mistaken. 
 
 My intention is not to retrace here all the particulars of 
 my trial. I cannot however pass over in silence some facts, 
 which are not explained by the perusal of the proceedings. 
 
3S6 MEMOmS OF CO UNT LA VALE TTE. 
 
 On the 20th of March, the two nephews of M. Ferrand were- 
 at the Post-office. One of the two accompanied Madame 
 Ferrand when she came to ask me for a permit for post- 
 horses. It was the first time in my hfe that I had seen this 
 young man ; and it was not he that came up as a witness 
 against me. The one who appeared had neither his stature,, 
 his features, his eye, nor the tone of his voice. I did not 
 know there were two brothers, and in my first astonishment 
 on finding myself in the presence of an utter stranger, I 
 made the observation aloud. The witness, however, posi- 
 tively affirmed that it was he who had accompanied his- 
 aunt. The President asked me what use I wished to make 
 of so serious a charge, which might have involved the 
 witness in a trial for perjury. My counsel, whom I con- 
 sulted, was at a loss what answer he should give me ; and 
 in all probability I should not have succeeded in eliciting 
 the truth. I nevertheless remain convinced that I was in 
 the right. What could have been the motive of that 
 change of individuals ? The eldest, who really accompanied 
 his aunt, was a Master of Requests ; could it have been 
 repugnant to his feelings to present himself as a witness 
 against me ? I have not seen either of these two gentlemea 
 since that time ; and when I returned to France, after five 
 years' banishment, it would have been impossible to throw 
 any light on so strange a circumstance. 
 
 The Advocate-General Hua was a man of very violent 
 opinions ; and I am not the only victim of the unjust 
 severity which he showed at that time, with several other 
 officers on the Crown side of the court. He had shown 
 himself my private enemy. The violence of his attacks, his 
 obstinate hatred of me, made him reject in a brutal manner 
 all that seemed to militate in my favour. The result of the 
 trial was advantageous to his personal interests : he is at 
 present a counsellor at the Court of Cassation. 
 
 The first day was spent in examinations ; the second was 
 devoted to the pleadings of my advocate, and of the King's. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 357 
 
 attorney. I stood in the presence of numerous spectators, 
 none of whom were my friends. However, the great 
 animosity which prevailed during the first day, and which 
 expressed itself more than once by groans, was afterwards 
 softened. The second day appeared to me much more 
 favourable. At last, towards six o'clock in the evening, the 
 jury were going to retire, when the manner of putting the 
 questions was discussed between the King's advocate and 
 mine. The latter wanted, them to be put in the following 
 manner : ist, Is the prisoner guilty of conspiracy ? 2nd, Is 
 he guilty of an usurpation of public authority ? It was clear 
 that I had had no share in the conspiracy, for that charge 
 had been abandoned from the beginning of the proceedings ; 
 and the jury would undoubtedly have acquitted me on the 
 first question. On the second I should certainly have been 
 •declared guilty. But by that means death was avoided. 
 By separating the plot from the usurpation of authority, the 
 jury would have saved me, as my crime was no longer a 
 felony, but a misdemeanour. That was, however, not the 
 -object of Government ; death was the result they demanded 
 from the jury, and the following were the infamous means 
 made use of to gain over the majority. It was secretly 
 observed to the jury : " That after a great act of justice (the 
 •condemnation of Marshal Ney), it is very important for the 
 King to do a great act of clemency. Good policy and the 
 interest of the monarch will have it so. Give, therefore, a 
 verdict against the prisoner. His life shall be spared, while 
 Justice will be satisfied, society avenged, and the King's 
 (bounty will shine in all its splendour." Thus the two 
 questions were joined in one, and delivered over to the 
 •conscience and timidity of the jury. I was brought back to 
 prison, where St. Roses, who had been in the court, came 
 to keep me company. My hopes had all vanished, but I 
 tried to prolong those of this excellent young man. After a 
 -very sad dinner, I prepared to play a game at chess, and I 
 ■won it, contrary to custom, for he was the better player. 
 
3S8 MEMOIRS OP COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 The more the hours advanced, the more his courage- 
 slackened ; and when at ten o'clock he was obliged ta 
 leave me, he burst into tears and could scarcely resolve ta 
 gOi I remained alone during two whole hours ; for it was 
 not till after midnight that I was called up to hear my 
 sentence pronounced. The verdict had been read during 
 my absence ; so that the gendarmes who received me at the 
 top of the staircase and accompanied me to the President's 
 closet observed the most dismal silence. I sat down, and 
 looking at them attentively, I read my fate in their faces. 
 " Well," said I to the brigadier, " I am condemned ? How 
 could an aide-de-camp of Bonaparte expect to be ac- 
 quitted ? " Without giving me any answer, he led me 
 before the judges. A deep silence, an absence of all motion, 
 prevailed in the extensive and dimly-lighted hall. The 
 benches were still filled with ladies. My eyes, wandering 
 around me, sought in vain a look of compassion and kind- 
 ness. One of the jurymen had his face covered with his- 
 handkerchief : it was M. Jurien. At last the President 
 ordered the Registrar to read the verdict of the jury. It 
 was as I expected ; but fearing, above all things, to see the 
 cross of the Legion of Honour torn from my breast, I had 
 taken care to lay it by, as well as the great ribbon and other' 
 insignia of the Orders of the Iron Crown and Holland. 
 The judges retired pro formd, for a few minutes, and on 
 their return the President repeated aloud the article of the- 
 Criminal Code by which I was sentenced to die. Fortunately, 
 the ceremony of tearing off the cross of the Legion of Honour 
 was omitted. This outrage could alone have destroyed the 
 tranquillity of my mind. The minute circumstances re- 
 corded by the public papers are correct : I shall therefore 
 not repeat them here. At half-past twelve I went down 
 again to my dungeon. In the passage that leads to it I met 
 the jailer, who questioned me with great indifference. I 
 answered : " All is over ! " The man started back as if he 
 had received a violent blow, and disappeared. I had re- 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 359 
 
 strained my feelings in presence of the public, but night 
 and solitude recalled to my memory the fatal words, " Pain 
 of Death ! " The agitation of mind began to show itself by 
 an effusion of violent indignation. I walked backwards and 
 forwards with long strides ; I appealed to all France against 
 the iniquity of my sentence. However, I grew calm by 
 degrees, and soon, in a deep sleep, I forgot my misfortune. 
 
 The next day I received authentic particulars of what had 
 passed the day before at the discussion of the jury. The 
 foreman had enforced the charges with inconceivable obsti- 
 nacy, and M. Jurien had confuted them with wonderful 
 strength of argument. The discussion lasted six hours with 
 a great deal of animosity, and such loud speeches that they 
 were heard very far from the room where the jurymen sat. 
 At last the foreman got the better, notwithstanding all the 
 efforts of M. Jurien : eight votes against four pronounced 
 me guilty. 
 
 I wished to die without appealing to the Court of Cassa-" 
 tion. I concluded that the forms had been undoubtedly too 
 well observed for me to hope that the verdict could be set 
 aside. Besides, why should I languish in agony during a 
 fortnight, or perhaps a month ? Why let myself be dragged 
 to the scaffold among the rabble in the streets, and perhaps 
 amidst the hootings of the royalists? But then, when I 
 thought of my wife and child, reason and coolness recovered 
 their sway, and this was the only fit of despair which I 
 experienced. 
 
 The first thing to be done was to communicate the dread- 
 ful news to Madame Lavalette. I wrote to an old friend, 
 Madame de Vandeuil, and to the Princess de Vaudemont. 
 They both went to her, and the mourning they had put 
 on acquainted her immediately with her misfortune. But 
 the Princess de Vaudemont, whose firm character was 
 capable of foreseeing everything, made my wife write a 
 letter to the Duke de Duras, First Gentleman of the Bed- 
 chamber, to obtain an audience of the King. It was very 
 
36o MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 doubtful whether it would be granted. The ladies of Labe- 
 doyfere and Ney had been refused. Nevertheless, contrary, 
 to all expectation, an hour afterwards she received per- 
 mission to go to the palace. " The King expects Madame 
 de Lavalette in his closet." Such was the answer sent to 
 her. She stepped in consequence into the Princess's coach 
 with my daughter, and alighted at the Tuileries at the 
 apartments of the First Gentleman of the Bedchamber. 
 The Duke de Duras took her by the hand, and led her, 
 amidst all the courtiers, to the King's closet. There she fell 
 at the feet of Louis XVIII., who said to her : " Madame, I 
 have received you immediately, to give you a proof of the 
 interest I feel for you." These were the only words he 
 uttered. She was raised, and went out of the chamber. 
 But the words of the King had been heard ; they circulated 
 as Madame de Lavalette passed ; and her grief, her beauty, 
 her noble and graceful demeanour, notwithstanding the 
 evident dejection under which she laboured, affected all who 
 saw her. They recollected that she was the daughter of 
 an emigrant, and nobody doubted but my pardon would 
 be granted, the King having once admitted her into his 
 presence. They were nevertheless mistaken. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 The next iday Madame Lavalette came to see me for the 
 first time during four months. Her pale, emaciated, and 
 dejected countenance made me shudder. Her voice was 
 scarcely audible, and during half an hour I could not draw 
 a single word out of her. She recovered, however, by 
 degrees, and acquainted me with the particulars of the 
 reception she had met with from the King. She came 
 alone, but Count Carvoisin came to fetch her and conduct 
 her home. Gratitude does not permit me to forget that 
 worthy friend. I had known M. de Carvoisin eight years 
 before at Surene, where we were country neighbours. He 
 had at that time with him a young niece, who afterwards 
 married the Count de Clermont Tonnerre. Though he had 
 not yet attained old age, he had already some of its in- 
 firmities. Subject to an asthmatic complaint from the time 
 of his infancy, he had left the army before the Revolution 
 broke out, and lived at present the life of a Christian 
 philosopher, far from the world he did not love. He was 
 ■solely occupied with the education of his young ward, and 
 with a charitable society of which he had urged the estab- 
 lishment, and which prospered through his benevolence. 
 We were far from sharing the same opinions on several 
 political questions ; but by yielding a little on both sides, 
 the greatest harmony had never ceased to reign between us. 
 I had lost sight of him since the Restoration ; but he 
 returned to me in my misfortune, and during the last and 
 most terrible month of my confinement he used to come 
 
 361 
 
362 MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 every day to see me, after having assisted at a mass he 
 ordered to be said every morning for my liberation. He 
 was, however, admirably moderate in his opinions. My 
 situation seemed to require from him that he should offer 
 me the comforts of religion. His conversation had a most 
 seducing charm : he gave to his words a devoutness, and an 
 openness of heart, that touched me ; but I was too sincere 
 not to acknowledge that there was no hope of our agreeing. 
 I explained to him, in the most simple manner, all that it 
 was impossible for me to admit, and he ceased his entreaties 
 without showing the least impatience or the slightest cold- 
 ness. 
 
 Now that Madame de Lavalette is about to fill a 
 prominent part in these Memoirs, I think fit to enter into 
 some particulars concerning her and our marriage. 
 
 Louise Emilie de Beauharnais was born in 1780. Her 
 father, Francis, Marquis de Beauharnais, had married his 
 first cousin; the daughter of the Countess Fanny de Beau- 
 harnais, who has acquired some celebrity in literature, 
 and sister to the Count de Beauharnais who died a Peer 
 of France, and whose daughter is now Grand-Duchess of 
 Baden. M. de Beauharnais was the head of his family. 
 His brother Alexander, who had married Mademoiselle 
 Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie, had two children, Eugene 
 and Hortense. My father-in-law had only one surviving 
 daughter. 
 
 At the convocation of the States-General, Alexander was 
 elected deputy of the nobility of Blaisois. The eldest 
 brother, Francis, was named supernumerary member of the 
 nobility of Paris, and only took his place in the Chamber 
 after the 6th October, 1789, in lieu of M. de Lally Tollendal, 
 who left France at that period. Alexander embraced the 
 cause of Liberty^ and was rewarded by the scaffold. Francis, 
 always voted with the right side, and in 1792 he rejoined 
 the Princes at Coblentz. Madame de Beauharnais soon 
 shared the fate of all the nobles who remained in France* 
 
WalterLCoUs.PKSc 
 
 COUNTESS LAVA LETT E. 
 
MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA VALE TTE. 363 
 
 She was put in prison, where she stayed more than two 
 years. Young Emilie was entrusted to the care of a 
 governess, or rather abandoned to the vulgar caprice of 
 some domestics who shared the movements and passions of 
 the mob. Born of emigrant parents, the poor child was 
 obliged to assist at the patriotic pjocessions which took 
 place every month on the Republican holidays. She often 
 said : " I was very ill-used on those occasions by my com- 
 panions, the young girls of the neighbourhood. They 
 could not forgive me my tall stature and genteel features, 
 which contrasted with those of the greatest part among 
 them. The daughter of an emigrant marquis and an im- 
 prisoned mother could scarcely share the honour of their 
 company. As for me, the exclusion had nothing disgraceful 
 in my eyes ; but my governess, though she had none of 
 the prejudices of my companions, took great care to con- 
 duct me to their assemblies for her own interest. The least 
 reluctance she would have shown for it might have exposed 
 her to be arrested." 
 
 At that terrible period of madness and fanaticism, private 
 life was subject to jealous and perpetual supervision. The 
 porter of a nobleman's house was obliged, for his individual 
 safety, to become a spy and an informer. The servants 
 were again the masters, or rather the tyrants, of those who 
 employed them. They were displeased that the daughter 
 of an emigrant was not bound in apprenticeship, and that 
 she maintained in her manners and occupations something 
 genteel and delicate. The two cousins of Emilie were both 
 apprentices — Hortense to her mother's mantua-maker ,- 
 Eugene to a joiner in the Faubourg St. Germain. The 
 9th Thermidor having overthrown tyranny, Madame de 
 Beauharnais got out of prison, and Emilie was sent with 
 her cousin to a boarding-school which Madame Campan 
 had established at St. Geirmain-en-Laye. There she con- 
 tinued her education, which had been interrupted during 
 two years. 
 
.364 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 General Bonaparte, to whom I was at that time aide-de- 
 camp, had sent me in 1796 to Paris, that I might follow 
 the motions of the two Councils and the Directory. I had 
 written to him the truth, with a frankness that made him 
 sensible how dangerous and how disgraceful it would be to 
 ■confirm, by his assent, the coup d'itat of the i8th Fructidor. 
 The Directory soon became acquainted with my opinions ; 
 and though they dared not punish me for them, they ex- 
 pressed so great a resentment, that General Bonaparte did 
 not think fit to take me with him to Paris, when he re- 
 turned from the Army of Italy. He left me at the Congress 
 of Rastadt ; and I rejoined him only three weeks before his 
 ■departure for the Egyptian expedition. All my comrades 
 had obtained advancement : the General wished to reward 
 me also ; but, not willing to expose himself to a refusal 
 from Government, he determined to bring about a marriage 
 between me and Mademoiselle Beauharnais. One day, 
 when I had accompanied him to the Treasury, to expedite 
 the sending off of the sums that were required at Toulon 
 for the fleet, he ordered his coachman to drive along the 
 new Boulevards, that he might have at his leisure a con- 
 versation with me. " I cannot make a major of you," he 
 said ; " I must therefore give you a wife : you shall marry 
 Emilie de Beauharnais. She is very handsome, and very 
 well educated. Do you know her?" "I have seen her 
 twice. But, General, I have no fortune. We are going to 
 Africa : I may be killed — what will become, in that case, of 
 my poor widow? Besides, I have no great liking for 
 marriage." " Men must marry to have children ; that is 
 the chief aim of life. Killed you certainly may be. Well, 
 in that case she will be the widow of one of my aides- 
 de-camp — of a defender of his country. She will have a 
 pension, and may again marry advantageously. Now, she 
 is the daughter of an emigrant that nobody will have : my 
 wife cannot introduce her into society. She, poor girl ! 
 deserves a better fate. Come, this business must be quickly 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 365 
 
 settled. Talk this morning with Madame Bonaparte about 
 it : the mother has already given her consent. The wedding 
 shall take place in eight days ; I will allow you a fortnight 
 for your honeymoon. You must then come and join us at 
 Toulon on the 29th." (It was then the 9th.) I could not 
 help laughing all the while he spoke : — at last I said : " I 
 will do whatever you please. But will the girl have me ? 
 I do not wish to force her inclinations." " She is tired of 
 her boarding-school, and she would be unhappy if she were 
 to go to her mother's. During your absence, she shall 
 live with her grandfather at Fontainebleau. You will not 
 be killed ; and you will find her when you come back. 
 Come, come ! the thing is settled. Tell the coachman to 
 drive home." 
 
 In the evening, I went to see Madame Bonaparte. She 
 knew what was going forward, and was kind enough to 
 show some satisfaction, and call me her nephew. " To- 
 morrow," she said, " we shall all go to St. Germain. I will 
 introduce you to my niece. You wiU be delighted with 
 her : she is a charming girl ! " 
 
 Accordingly, next day, the General, Madame Bonaparte, 
 Eugene, and I, went in an open carriage to St. Germain, 
 and stopped at Madame Campan's. The visit was a great 
 event at the boarding-school : all the young girls were at 
 the windows, in the parlours, or in the courtyard, for they 
 had obtained a holiday. We soon entered the gardens. 
 Among the forty young ladies, I sought anxiously her who 
 was to be my wife. Her cousin, Hortense, led her to us, 
 that she might salute the General, and embrace her aunt. 
 She was, in truth, the prettiest of them all. Her stature 
 was tall, and most gracefully elegant ; her features were 
 charming ; and the glow of her beautiful complexion was 
 heightened by her confusion. Her bashfulness was so 
 great that the General could not help laughing at her ; 
 but he went no farther. It was decided that we should 
 breakfast on the grass in the garden. In the meanwhile I 
 
366 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 felt extremely uneasy. Would she like me ? Would she 
 obey without reluctance ? This abrupt marriage, and this 
 speedy departure, grieved me. When we got up, and the 
 circle was broken, I begged Eugene to conduct his cousin 
 into a solitary walk. I joined them, and he left us. I then 
 entered on the delicate subject. I made no secret of my 
 birth, nor of my want of fortune ; and added : " I possess 
 nothing in the world but my sword and the good- will of the 
 General ; and I must leave you in a fortnight. Open your 
 heart to me. I feel myself disposed to love you with all my 
 soul ; but that is not sufficient. If this marriage does not 
 please you, repose a full confidence in me ; it will not be 
 difficult to find a pretext to break it off. I shall depart ; 
 you will not be tormented, for I will keep your secret." 
 
 While I was speaking, she kept her eyes fixed on the 
 ground ; her only answer was a smile, and she gave me 
 the nosegay she held in her hand. I embraced her. We 
 returned slowly to the company ; and eight days afterwards 
 we [went to the municipality. The following day, a poor 
 priest who had not taken the oaths married us in the small 
 convent of the Conception,' in the Rue St. Honord. This 
 was in some manner forbidden, but Emilie set a great 
 importance on that point : her piety was gentle and sincere. 
 
 A few days after our marriage I was obliged j to begin 
 secretly to prepare for my journey to Toulon, where the 
 General had already arrived. It was agreed that Emilie 
 should divide the time of my absence between her aunt and 
 her grandfather, who was then eighty-six years old, but who 
 preserved at that advanced age a sound understanding, an 
 amiable and leven temper, and who doted on his grand- 
 daughter, I left her without taking leave of her : for our 
 separation would have been too painful. I did not return 
 until eighteen months afterwards. My forebodings were 
 not fulfilled. Of the eight aides-de-camp of the General, 
 four perished. Julien and Sulkowski were murdered 
 ' This convent no longer exists. 
 
' MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 367 
 
 by the Arabs, Crosier was killed at the siege of St. John 
 of Acre, and Guibert at the battle of Aboukir. Duroc 
 and Eugene Beauharnais were severely wounded. Merlin 
 and I escaped. Glory and fortune were dearly bought with 
 General Bonaparte. 
 
 On my return to France, and a short time after the i8th 
 Brumaire, I received an order to go to Saxony, with full 
 power to negotiate a peace with Austria, in case she might 
 be inclined so to do in the midst of the war. I took 
 Madame de Lavalette with me. Since the year 1792 the 
 people of the North of Germany had not seen a French- 
 woman. They were convinced that they were all dissolute 
 persons, without education, and almost naked. Their as- 
 tonishrnent was great when they saw a young woman, 
 perfectly modest, extremely bashful, and dressed with a 
 •decorum and good taste that might have served as a model 
 to the most prudish of her sex. 
 
 The admiration she obtained increased the more she was 
 inown. We passed the Carnival at Berlin. The whole 
 Court, and especially the Queen, loaded her with kindness 
 and attention. She was the means of destroying the 
 extravagant prejudices that were entertained against the 
 French ladies, and of rendering the Germans very fas- 
 tidious in respect to those that came after her. 
 
 My stay in Germany was no longer necessary after the 
 -victory of Hohenlinden. In consequence the First Consul 
 recalled me near his person ; and when he placed the 
 Imperial Crown on the head of Josephine, her niece was 
 named Dame d'Atours. Her functions were not easy to 
 fulfil. The Emperor, who wanted to govern his household 
 as he did his extensive empire, was far from obtaining the 
 same obedience there. He had ordered that the trades- 
 people who supplied the toilet of the Empress should only 
 be admitted into her presence one day in the week ; that 
 the Daitie d'Atours should assist at all die bargains, keep an 
 account of what was bought, and be answerable for all 
 
368 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 want of order. These rules soon displeased the Empress. 
 The Dame d'Atours remonstrated ; she fell into disgrace^ 
 and by degrees her functions were reduced to those of a 
 Dame du Palais. Fortunately for her, the Emperor was 
 not dissatisfied with her. But what she had been unabl& 
 to do, the Emperor could not do either ; and the lady of 
 honour, Madame de La Rochefoucault, could not avoid many 
 petty discussions that made her very uncomfortable. The 
 divorce of the Emperor, and his marriage with Maria 
 Louisa, restored Madame de Lavalette to her liberty. From 
 that time she appeared no more at the Tuileries ; so that 
 the catastrophe of 1814 found her prepared, and, excepting^ 
 the pain her gratitude for the Emperor made her feel on his 
 account, she accustomed herself without much trouble to 
 the obscure life she had led for the last three years. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 I NOW return to my dungeon. During the night that 
 followed my condemnation, I had written to two of my 
 friends, General Clarke and M. Pasquier. I imagined that 
 the former could not forget an important service he received 
 from me when he was disgraced by the Directory on the 
 1 8th Fructidor. "I have kept no secret from you (these 
 were the words of my letter) ; I have revealed everything 
 to my judges. See what you can do for me. Endeavour 
 at least to spare me the horrible agony of the scaffold. Let 
 me be shot by brave soldiers. In that manner, at least, 
 death will be almost a favour to me." I will not give here 
 literally his answer. I shall only mention the following 
 phrase : "You have nothing more to do than to recommend 
 your wife and child to the inexhaustible bounty of the 
 King." The sentence of my death was less painful to me 
 than the perusal of that letter. In my indignation I was 
 going to write to him all his cruelty made me feel. I how- 
 ever contented myself with the agreeable thought, that my 
 wife and child would never be found to implore the pity of 
 him who had deprived them of a father and a husband. I 
 was still full of the agitation into which the letter of the 
 Minister of War had thrown me, when my door was 
 mysteriously opened. A man approached, pressed my 
 hand, and, shpping a note into it, disappeared immediately. 
 It was M. Angles, the Prefect of Police. The note was 
 from M. Pasquier, and contained the following words : 
 " Ke^ up your spirits ; all is not lost. His Majesty 
 
 25 369 
 
370 MEMOIRS OF CO UNT LA VALE TTE. 
 
 is surrounded by several of your friends, and all that can 
 be attempted to soften him shall be done with courage. 
 Hope still." 
 
 Among the Peers who might interest themselves for me, 
 I was far from reckoning the Duke de Ragusa. We had 
 been for a long time united by the most cordial friendship ; 
 but his conduct towards the Emperor in 1814 had separated 
 us, and T broke off our connection. I, however, received 
 a letter from the Marshal, in which he mentioned : " I used 
 to go twice a week to the Tuileries ; now I shall go twice 
 a day. I will speak, I will solicit even till I grow trouble- 
 some. Whoever has any heart will join with me, and I 
 hope to obtain my greatest wish in the world." 
 
 These comfortings of courageous friendship could deceive 
 me no longer. I saw that I had been condemned, as Marshal 
 Ney was going to be, to serve as an example. He was, 
 by his reputation, the first on the military hierarchy ; while 
 I was in the eyes of the Court the most important man in 
 the civil order — the late Aide-de-Camp of General Bona- 
 parte, first cousin of Prince Eugene and the Queen of 
 Holland, whom they detested, Postmaster-General during 
 twelve years, and by that circumstance the depositary of a 
 great many secrets it would be good to stifle (such was at 
 least their opinion). My death was irrevocable. I therefore 
 sought resignation, to regard with a firm eye, and make my- 
 self familiar with all the details of that death I was shortly 
 to undergo. The turnkeys had frequently described to me 
 the last moments of most of the unfortunate men who had 
 left them for the Place de Grfeve. But I wanted to know all 
 that concerned what they call the toilet, A little before four 
 o'clock the culprit is brought into the registering room ; 
 scarcely has he crossed the low door that opens into that 
 chamber, when the executioner and his men appear ; they 
 make him sit down on a bench, take ofi" his coat, cut off his 
 hair and the collar of his shirt ; after which they tie his 
 hands behind his back. They lead him thus to the cart that 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. ZTi. 
 
 •stands waiting at the door. This moment is terrible. Those 
 who till then have shown the greatest courage and strength 
 ■of mind, fall into a complete dejection' and confusion ; but 
 the open air and the crowd of people generally revive them 
 on the way. Sometimes also the exhortations of the con- 
 fessor have their effect. I listened with attention, repeated 
 my questions, multiplied my observations, and asked every 
 day to hear the fearful description over again, sometimes by 
 one person and sometimes by another. There were some who 
 made it with reluctance ; but the oldest among the jailers 
 ■seemed to delight in it. 
 
 By that means I augmented my sufferings without reason. 
 I experienced a horror and a shuddering that agitated my 
 inmost frame. I walked in dismay up and down my room, 
 and my sleepless nights were terrible. However, by my 
 perseverance in recurring to the same idea I obtained at 
 last what I so much wished for : a tranquillity at which the 
 turnkeys were themselves surprised. At first, when listen- 
 ing to them, I used to grow pale ; I now could hear them 
 without emotion or reluctance. I had some time before 
 concealed in my straw mattress a table-knife that belonged 
 to me ; I lost all idea of making use of it. I found a sort 
 of glory in challenging death — in awaiting it as I would 
 have done on the field of battle. 
 
 The Minister of Justice, Count Barbe Marbise, was 
 -endeavouring to delay the judgment of the Court of Cassa- 
 tion as long as possible, in hopes that time would moderate 
 the feelings of the inhabitants of the palace ; for all my ene- 
 mies were there. The Princess de Vaudemont, through her 
 name of Montmorency, happened to be related to the most 
 -considerable persons of the Court. Almost all of them owed 
 to her their return to France, and the tranquiUity they had 
 •enjoyed under the Emperor ; for though the Emperor did 
 not like her, and mistrusted her, she had a great deal of 
 influence over Messieurs de Talleyrand and Fouche, and made 
 -use of it with courage and generosity. The King and his 
 
372 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 family had inherited the Emperor's dislike of her. Thejr 
 could not forgive her former connections with their two- 
 powerful Ministers. , However, at her house there had been 
 held some of the meetings which, in 1814, prepared the 
 downfall of the Empire : and though she only took in them 
 a very indirect and timid part, I had left off visiting her,, 
 after confessing openly the reasons of my conduct. But in 
 my misfortune I found her animated with all the courage- 
 ous devotion of a real friend. Through her M. de Riche- 
 lieu was perpetually assailed. A great number of persons,, 
 whose names I scarcely knew, made it a point of honour to 
 obtain my pardon. Madame de Vaudemont recalled to- 
 their memory my behaviour in Saxony towards the un- 
 fortunate French whom I had found there, and in France 
 during fourteen years. I had facilitated the return of a- 
 great many ; and as I never regarded them otherwise than 
 as unfortunate countrymen, I had frequently employed my 
 influence to be serviceable to them. Some of these kept it 
 in their memories. But party spirit ran too high, and in 
 particular the wound inflicted by the 20th of March was- 
 still too painful for the voice of generosity to be heard. 
 Had my courage failed during the thirty days that elapsed, 
 between the judgment of the Assize Court and that of the 
 Court of Cassation, I must have died or have gone mad. 
 Every morning I learned the measures that had been taken,, 
 and the obstacles that had been overcome, and every even- 
 ing I received the most desperate news : — the stubbornness 
 with which the Royal Family rejected all solicitations ; the 
 timidity and discouragement of M. de Richelieu ; and, 
 finally, the impossibility of softening the Monarch. From 
 time to time some courageous friends came to see me in my 
 prison, in spite of Government, who might have punished 
 them. 
 
 M. Pasquier, though a Secretary of State, and M. de Fre- 
 ville. Master of Requests, both told me to hope for the best ; 
 but I easily discovered, through their professions, a secret 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 373 
 
 •discouragement, over which they could not triumph in my 
 presence. " I could never have had the courage to come," 
 said M. de FreviUe, " if I had not reckoned on the success 
 ■of your friends." 
 
 But while he was talking, the tears rolled in his eyes, and 
 Tiis trembling hand, that pressed mine, destroyed the hope 
 his words were meant to convey. 
 
 It was during this interval that Marshal Ney was tried. 
 JEven before the trial came on, the number of his guards had 
 been considerably augmented. Day and night three sentries 
 were stationed under his window, which was also mine : one 
 gendarme, one National Guard on horseback, and one 
 grenadier of the Old Guard, or rather a disguised Life- 
 guard ; for they could not place confidence enough in the 
 soldiers of the old army. I was soon satisfied in regard to 
 that disguise by one of our relatives. Mademoiselle Du- 
 bourg, who had obtained permission to see me. She had 
 seen one of her cousins standing sentry, and in the uniform 
 of an old grenadier of the cavalry of the Guards. Every 
 evening the Marshal was conveyed in a coach to the Luxem- 
 bourg, and brought back to the Conciergerie next morning. 
 On the 7th of December he did not return. I questioned 
 the turnkey, who showed some confusion ; and, on insisting, 
 I learned that the Marshal had been executed. " Was it in 
 the Place de Grfeve, on the scaffold ? " " No ; he has been 
 .shot." " What a happy man he is ! " I joyfully exclaimed ; 
 and the poor turnkey, who did not understand what I 
 meant, thought I was run mad. 
 
 Time, however, passed on ; one of my counsel advised 
 jne not to wait for the judgment of the Court of Cassation, 
 hut to write to the King and invoke his clemency. I had 
 an invincible reluctance to take such a step. Besides, his 
 colleague was not of the same opinion. " It might be very 
 dangerous," he said, " or at best produce no effect at all. If 
 the King wishes to pardon him, he will wait for the judg- 
 ment of the- Court. If he is decided not to do it, he still 
 
374 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAV ALETTE. 
 
 will wait. It is therefore preferable not to alter anything 
 in the present progress of the business." 
 
 The Duchess of Placencia, a daughter of the Minister of 
 Justice, came one day to fetch Madame Lavalette, and con- 
 duct her to her father. The two ladies fell at the feet of 
 the venerable old man. His daughter was bathed in tears ; 
 she pressed his hands in hers, and solicited with a degree 
 of vehemence of which those who know her can alone have 
 an idea. While he listened to her the tears trickled in 
 silence down the cheeks of the minister, but she could not 
 obtain a single word of him. This was a bad omen. It was- 
 evident that he had but little hope. Finally, on the 20th of 
 December, the cause came on before the Supreme Court of 
 Judicature. Six motions for laying the verdict aside were 
 alleged in the writ of error ; but, notwithstanding the elo- 
 quent pleadings of M. Darrieux, the sentence was confirmed. 
 It was M. Baudus, one of my friends, who came to acquaint 
 me with the fatal news ; but he endeavoured to counteract 
 the impression it made on me by holding out hopes, 
 which in fact appeared so certain that I began to share 
 them. An hour after he was gone, M. de Carvoisin came 
 into my room. The terrible impression the judgment had 
 made on him was visible in his face : he still hoped ; but his 
 arguments were those of a prepossessed mind, who would 
 have found it easier to talk to me of resignation. 
 
 Three days were now all that were left to me ; and 
 in that short space of time means were to be found to- 
 approach the King. The Duke de Ragusa took that charge 
 upon himself. General Foy came in his name to fetch 
 Madame de Lavalette, and led her by roundabout passages to 
 the entrance of the Galerie de Diane, where she found the 
 Marshal, who offered his arm, and read to her the memorial 
 she was to present to the King. It was during mass. The 
 whole Court was at the chapel. The King was obliged to- 
 pass through that same gallery to return to his apartments. 
 Unfortunately, one of the vergers who was there knew my 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 375 
 
 wife ; and as it was against the custom for any one to stand 
 in the gallery without a special order, he thought it neces- 
 sary to acquaint the Marshal with that circumstance, and 
 beg he would lead Madame de Lavalette away. "This 
 lady shall remain," said the Marshal in a firm tone. The 
 verger went to acquaint an officer of the Palace of what had 
 happened, who repeated the warning in so positive a tone 
 that the Marshal might look upon it as an order : however, 
 he replied : " This lady, being here, shall remain ; I will 
 answer for everything." In the meanwhile the Court was 
 advancing. The King, who had been informed of the fact, 
 felt it was too late to send away an unfortunate woman, who 
 might perhaps cause some tumult by her resistance. He 
 therefore advanced ; and when he came facing Madame de 
 Lavalette she fell at his feet and presented her memorial. 
 The Monarch bowed to her, took the paper, and saying, 
 " Madame, I can do nothing but my duty," ' went on. My 
 wife held in her hand a second memorial for the Duchess of 
 Angouleme. The Duke de Ragusa, seeing her hesitate, 
 pressed her to go after the Princess and give it to her. She 
 was already advancing, when M. d'Agoult, Chevalier d'Hon- 
 neur, with his two arms extended and his hands open, 
 forced her to stop.^ 
 
 This observation of the King was very unlike the one he 
 had made a month before, when Madame de Lavalette was 
 admitted into his closet. He now talked of his duty when 
 his clemency was invoked. The word was appalling. Emilie 
 seemed at first not to feel its full force ; but my fate was 
 decided by it, and I quickly began to think what I should 
 do to deceive and keep my wife and child away during two 
 days. In regard to the former, that was no easy thing. Her 
 
 » By Appendix No. I. which contains an extract of a letter from the Duke 
 de Rajgusa on the subject, the reader will observe that this answer of the 
 King is here misrepresented. — Note of the Translator. 
 
 ' The Duke de Ragusa fell into long disgrace and was very ill-treated 
 for his courageous kindness on this occasion. I have been told that a 
 Prince, who is now no more, forgot himself so far in his passion as to say : 
 " He deserves to be sent to the galleys." — Note of the Author. 
 
376 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 courage augmented in proportion to my danger, and she 
 resolved to make a fresh appeal to the Duchess of Angou- 
 leme. The Princess lodged on the ground-floor of the 
 Tuileries, in the apartments previously occupied by the 
 King of Rome. Madame de Lavalette put off the black 
 dress she had worn the day before at the Palace, got out of 
 her sedan-chair in a neighbouring street, and presented her- 
 self at the Princess's door at the usual hour of admittance. 
 Her pale features, her swollen eyes, her slow step, soon told 
 the footman who she was. The door was immediately shut, 
 and an order given not to let any one in. Finding that 
 entrance was prohibited at this door, she hastened to seek it 
 at the grand vestibule ; but a footman ran before her to tell 
 of her arrival, and she was also repulsed there. Exhausted 
 with fatigue, she sat down on the stone steps leading to the 
 court-yard, and remained there a full hour, still in the 
 delusive hope that she would be admitted. She attracted 
 the notice of all who passed by, and especially all those who 
 went into the Palace ; but no one dared to show her the 
 least compassion. At last she resolved to leave the place 
 and return to my dungeon, where she arrived exhausted and 
 heart-broken. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 I FELT, however, that my hours were numbered : I had no 
 more than forty-eight left, for only three days are allowed 
 for convicts to apply for mercy. The Keeper of the Seals 
 ehose not to present his petition before the second day. The 
 King had already silenced the Duke de Richelieu on the 
 subject. All my friends were in despair. The turnkeys 
 themselves came no longer near me. Eberle, who was more 
 especially attached to my service, spoke no more to me. He 
 wandered about my room, apparently without knowing what 
 he did. It was on a Sunday evening. "They usually execute 
 criminals on a Friday ? " I said. " Sometimes on a Saturday," 
 he answered, stifling a sigh. " The execution generally takes 
 place at four o'clock ? " " Sometimes in the morning." Saying 
 these words, he went out and forgot to shut the door. A 
 female turnkey of the women's prison was just going by at 
 the time : seeing me alone, she rushed into the room, seized 
 the cross of the Legion of Honour I wore, kissed it with 
 transport, and ran away in tears. This enthusiastic action 
 •of a woman I had never seen but at a distance, and to whom 
 I had never spoken, told me at last my fate. My wife came 
 at six o'clock to dine with me. She brought with her a 
 relation. Mademoiselle Dubourg. When we were alone, she 
 said : " It appears but too certain that we have nothing to 
 hope ; we must therefore, my dear, take a resolution, and 
 this is what I propose to you. At eight o'clock you shall 
 ^o out dressed in my clothes, and accompanied by my cousin. 
 You shall step into my sedan-chair, which will carry you to 
 
37^ MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 the Rue des Saints-Peres, where you will find M. Baudus with 
 a cabriolet, who will conduct you to a retreat he has pre- 
 pared for you, and where you may await without danger a 
 favourable opportunity of leaving France." 
 
 I listened to her and looked at her in silence. Her manner 
 was calm, and her voice firm. She appeared so convinced 
 of the success of her plan, that it was some time before I 
 dared to reply. I looked, however, upon the whole as a mad 
 undertaking. I was at last obliged to tell her so ; but she 
 interrupted me at the first word by saying : " I will hear of 
 no objections. I die if you die. Do not therefore reject my 
 plan. I know it will succeed. I feel that God supports me ! " 
 It was in vain that I reminded her of the numerous turn- 
 keys with whom she was surrounded every evening when 
 she left me ; the jailer who handed her to her sedan-chair \ 
 the impossibility of my being sufficiently disguised to deceive 
 them ; and finally my invincible reluctance to leave her in. 
 the hands of the prison keepers. " What will they do," I said, 
 " when they discover that I am gone ? These brutes, in 
 their blind rage, will they not forget themselves and perhaps 
 strike you ? " I was going on, but I soon saw, by the pale- 
 ness of her countenance and the movements of convulsive 
 impatience that were beginning to agitate her, that I ought 
 to put an end to all objections. I remained silent for a few 
 minutes, at the end of which I continued thus : " Well,, 
 then, I shall do as you please ; but if you want to succeed,, 
 permit me to make at least one observation. The cabriolet 
 is too far off. I shall be scarcely gone when my flight will, 
 be discovered, and I shall most undoubtedly be stopped in 
 the chair, for near an hour is required to go to the Rue des. 
 Saints-P6res. I cannot escape on foot with your clothes." This- 
 reflection seemed to strike her. " Change," I added, " that 
 part of your plan. The whole of to-morrow is still at our 
 disposal : I promise to do to-morrow all you wish." " Well,, 
 you are in the right. I will have the cabriolet stationed, 
 near. Give me your word that you will obey me, for that 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 379 
 
 is our last resource." I took her hand and answered : " I 
 will do all you wish, and in the manner you wish it." This 
 promise made her easy, and we separated. 
 
 The more I reflected on her plan, the more impracticable 
 it appeared to me. She was full half an inch taller than I 
 am ; all the turnkeys were accustomed to see her ; her figure 
 was slender and flexible. It is true that my troubles had 
 made me much thinner ; but nevertheless the difference 
 between us was striking. On the other hand, I was so well 
 prepared to die ! I had in truth begun again during the 
 last two days to deliberate with myself whether I should not 
 use my hidden means of self-destruction. The toilet of the 
 executioner, the slow march from the Conciergerie to the 
 Grfeve, startled me ; but still my heart remained firm. And 
 all of a sudden I was obliged to turn my eyes from death,, 
 and direct my thoughts on the details of an escape, impos- 
 sible to be realised, and which to me appeared extravagant. 
 The burlesque was about to be mixed with the tragic part of 
 my story ; for I should certainly be retaken in woman's 
 clothes, and they would perhaps be cruel enough to expose 
 me to the public under that ridiculous disguise. But, on the 
 other side, how could I refuse ? Emilie appeared so happy 
 at her plan, so sure of its success ! It would be killing her 
 not to keep my word. 
 
 The following day, while I was still absorbed in these 
 dismal thoughts, she came. I learned from her that on 
 leaving me the evening before, she had gone to the Rue du 
 Bac, and had stepped out of her chair at a short distance 
 from the Hotel of the Minister of Foreign Affairs ; M. 
 Baudus having advised her to make one more endeavour 
 with that Minister. But ingenuity was required to come at 
 him. She had asked the porter which were the apartments 
 of M. Bresson, Treasurer of the Department ; and as he 
 lived in the first court, she stopped for a few minutes on the. 
 staircase, and then went into the second court and arrived at 
 the Minister's antechamber. She was told that his Excel- 
 
.380 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 lency was out. " I will wait," was her reply. The valet- 
 de-chambre, to whom she addressed herself, recognised her, 
 and went to complain to the porter, to whom orders had 
 heen given, since the morning, not to let her in ; for her 
 presence before the door of the Duchess of Angouleme had 
 put everybody on the alert. The porter came, much out of 
 humour, and among many reproaches he said to her, " You 
 put me in danger of losing my place." " I deceived you, — 
 there was no fault of yours. I am resolved to see the 
 Minister. If he is out, I will wait for him ; if he is at home 
 I will pass the night in this room. Violence alone shall drag 
 me out of it ; you may go and say so to your master." What 
 •could the Minister do ? He admitted her : Madame Lava- 
 lette explained to him in a clear and brief manner the whole 
 trial ; expressed with force how unjust my condemnation 
 was, and concluded with invoking his intercession with the 
 King. The Duke de Richelieu listened to her with down- 
 cast eyes. He seemed to pity her, but at last confessed that 
 the King had forbidden him to say a word more about the 
 business. " Then, Sir, save him yourself." " Madam," he 
 replied, " that would be a criminal act." " Cannot you at 
 least present a fresh memorial in my name ? " The Duke, 
 ■eagerly seizing the idea, answered : " I consent to that. 
 Send it me to-morrow by eight o'clock, and I give you 
 my word that it shall be delivered without delay to his 
 Majesty." ' 
 
 " I went," said Emilie, " immediately to your lawyer for 
 that memorial. M. de Richelieu has received it this morn- 
 ing, and it must be by this time in the hands of the King. 
 My plan shall nevertheless be executed to-night. To-morrow 
 it would certainly be too late, as we have received no 
 accounts from the Palace. I shall come and dine with you : 
 keep up your spirits, you will want them. As for me, I feel 
 I have courage for four-and- twenty hours, and not for a 
 
 ' All these particulars were given to me since by M. Baudus, to whom 
 the Minister communicated them. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 381" 
 
 moment longer," she added with a sigh, " for I am exhausted 
 with fatigue. She was right to count the hours. She was 
 scarcely gone when the jailer came in and said : " An editor 
 of the Quotidtenne has been with me to inquire whether it 
 was true that you had asked for four confessors, that he 
 might print it in his paper." — " Four — that's a great many ; 
 and what answer did you give him ? " — " The truth. That I 
 had not introduced a single one." (I guessed that this was 
 a covert warning.) " Well, wait a little ; by and by I 
 shall give you the address of a clergyman. This whole day 
 is my own." He made no reply, and went away shaking his 
 head ; a little while afterwards M. de Carvoisin arrived. He 
 threw himself into my arms and burst into tears ; I made 
 him sit down, and sought to soothe him ; my own tran- 
 quillity made him recover a little. "The vicar of St. 
 Sulpice," he said, " has just been at my home ; he will not 
 refuse to lend you his spiritual aid if you require it, because 
 you are one of his parishioners, but I beg you to spare him. 
 He has assisted Marshal Ney in his last moments, and he has 
 confessed to me that the scene affected him so much, he does 
 not feel the courage to go through another. He is never- 
 theless ready to come, if you insist upon it." " Thank him, 
 my friend — I have another clergyman in view ; I shall send 
 for him this evening, but not before." 
 
 The excellent man wished to enter into some particulars, 
 but he had not the power to do so. At that moment my 
 daughter was introduced with an old nun, the portress of 
 L'Abbaye aux Bois. Josephine wept in silence ; the nun 
 exclaimed : " What have I done, that God dooms me to 
 witness such horror ? " Her sighs, her sobs, her endless 
 invocations, annoyed me at last. I felt that I should lose 
 all my courage if I did not quickly put an end to the scene. 
 I therefore took M. de Carvoisin aside and said to him, 
 " Take leave of me and go away softly ; your grief distresses 
 me : — adieu ! do not forget me." I should have wished to 
 retain my daughter much longer ; but the sight rent my 
 
382 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 heart to pieces : I took her on my knee— her head fell on 
 my breast. I attempted to speak to her, but it was im- 
 possible for me to utter any words of comfort. At last I 
 placed her in a chair, and began to walk up and down the 
 room, panting in vain for breath. I was therefore obliged 
 to take a resolution with her also: "Go back to your 
 ■convent," I said ; " I shall see you again to-morrow, I 
 promise it you : my affair is in a better way than you 
 think. Do not speak to any person about it, but be sure I 
 shall see you to-morrow." She was scarcely gone when all 
 my strength left me. I burst into tears at the parting of 
 my only child, and I had a great deal to do to regain my 
 wonted courage. I succeeded, however, at last. 
 
 At five o'clock Emilie came, accompanied by Josephine, 
 -whom I saw again with as much surprise as pleasure. " I 
 iDelieve," she said, " it is better to take our child with us. I 
 shall make her do with more docility what I want." She 
 •was dressed in a pelisse of merino richly lined with fiir, 
 which she was accustomed to put on over her light dress on 
 leaving a ball-room. She had taken in her reticule a black 
 •silk petticoat. "This is quite sufficient," she said, " to dis- 
 guise you completely." She then sent my daughter to the 
 window, and added in a low voice, " At seven o'clock pre- 
 cisely you must be ready ; all is well prepared. In going 
 out you will take hold of Josephine's arm. Take care to 
 walk very slowly ; and when you cross the large registering- 
 Toom, you will put on my gloves and cover your face with 
 my handkerchief. I had some thoughts of putting on a 
 veil, but unfortunately I have not been accustomed to wear 
 one when I come here ; it is therefore of no use to think of it. 
 Take great care, when you pass under the doorways, which 
 are very low, not to break the feathers of your bonnet, for 
 then all would be lost. I always find the turnkeys in the 
 registering-room, and the jailer generally hands me to my 
 chair, which constantly stands near the entrance door ; but 
 this time it will be in the yard, at the top of the grand 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 383 
 
 staircase. There you will be met after a short time by M. 
 Baudus, who will lead you to the cabriolet, and will acquaint 
 you with the place where you are to remain concealed. 
 Afterwards, let God's will be done, my dear. Do exactly all 
 I tell you. Remain calm. Give me your hand, I wish to 
 feel your pulse. Very well. Now feel mine. Does it 
 denote the slightest emotion ? " I could perceive that she 
 was in a high fever. " But above all things," she added, 
 '" let us not give way to our feelings, that would be our 
 Tuin." I gave her, however, my marriage-ring, on the 
 pretence that if I were stopped in my journey to the 
 frontiers, it would be advisable not to have anything about 
 me by which I might be known. She then called my 
 ■daughter and said to her, " Listen attentively, child, to what 
 I am going to say to you, for I shall make you repeat it. I 
 shall go away this evening at seven o'clock instead of eight ; 
 you must walk behind me, because you know that the doors 
 are narrow ; but when we enter the long registering-room, 
 take care to place yourself on my left hand. The jailer is 
 accustomed to offer me his arm on that side, and I do not 
 choose to take it. When we are out of the iron gate, and 
 ready to go up the outside staircase, then pass to my right- 
 hand, that those impertinent gendarmes of the guard-house 
 may not stare in my face as they always do. Have you 
 -understood me well ? " The child repeated the instructions 
 with wonderful exactness. She had scarcely finished when 
 St. Roses came to us. He had got introduced under the 
 pretence of accompanying Madame de Lavalette home ; 
 but his real aim was to see me once more, for he was not 
 in our confidence. His presence would have been a great 
 restraint upon us. I took him therefore aside, and said to 
 him, " Leave us now, my fi-iend. Emilie has as yet no idea 
 ■of her misfortune. We must let her continue in her igno- 
 rance. Come back at eight o'clock ; but do not come in if 
 the sedan-chair is no longer there. In that case, go im- 
 mediately to her house, for she will be there." 
 
384 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE, 
 
 I embraced him, and forced him out of the door. But 
 there soon came another visitor ; it was Colonel Briqueville^ 
 whose wounds had kept him at home for above two months. 
 He had not expected to see my wife, and he soon perceived 
 that his presence might be intrusive, though he was not yet 
 acquainted with the whole extent of my horrible situation. 
 So great was his emotion, that I was afraid it would become 
 contagious. " Leave us," I whispered to him : " this is the 
 last time I see her. One moment's weakness may kill her."' 
 At last we remained alone. I looked at Emilie ; I thought 
 of all the obstacles I should find in my way, and which 
 would overwhelm us. A fatal idea crossed my mind r 
 " Suppose," said I, " you were to go to the jailer and ofiFer 
 him one hundred thousand francs if he will shut his eyes 
 when I pass : he will perhaps consent, and we shall all be 
 saved." She looked at me for a moment in silence, and 
 then replied, " Well, I will go." She went out, and came 
 back after a few minutes. I already repented the step I 
 had made her take. I was sensible how useless, how im- 
 prudent it was. But when she returned, she said to me 
 calmly, " It is of no use. I drew from the jailer but a 
 few words, and these were sufficient to convince me of his 
 honesty, therefore let us think no more of it." 
 
 Dinner was at last brought up. Just as we were going 
 to sit down to table, an old nurse of ours, Madame Dutoit, 
 who had accompanied Josephine, came in very ill. Madame 
 de Lavalette had left her in the registering-room, intending 
 to send her after me when I should be gone ; but the heat 
 of the German stove and her emotion had made her so ill, 
 and she had so long insisted on seeing me once more, that 
 the turnkey let her in without the permission of the jailer. 
 Far from being useful to us, the poor woman only added to 
 our confusion. She might lose her presence of mind at the 
 sight of my disguise ; but what was to be done ? The first 
 object was to make her cease her moanings, and Emilie said 
 to her in a low but firm voice, " No childishness. Sit down 
 
MEMOIRS OF. COUNT LA VALETTE. 385 
 
 to table, but do not eat ; hold your tongue, and keep this 
 smelling-bottle to your nose. In less than an hour you will 
 be in the open air." 
 
 This meal, which to all appearance was to be the last of 
 my life, was terrible. The bits stopped in our throats ; not 
 a word was uttered by any of us, and in that situation we 
 were to pass almost an hour. Six and three-quarters struck 
 at last. " I only want five minutes, but I must speak to 
 Bonneville," said Madame de Lavalette. She pulled the 
 bell, and the valet-de-chambre came in ; she took him aside, 
 whispered a few words to him, and added aloud, " Take care 
 that the chairmen be at their posts, for I am coming. — 
 ■Now," she said to me, " it is time to dress." 
 
 A part of my room was divided off by a screen, and 
 formed a sort of dressing-closet. We stepped behind the 
 screen, and, while she was dressing me with charming 
 presence of mind and expedition, she said to me, " Do not 
 rforget to stoop when you go through the doors ; walk 
 slowly through the registering-room, like a person exhausted 
 •with fatigue." In less than three minutes my toilet was 
 ■complete. We went back to the room, and Emilie said to 
 her daughter, " What do you think of your father ? " A 
 smile of surprise and incredulity escaped the poor girl : . " I 
 am serious, my dear, what do you think of him ? " I then 
 turned round, and advanced a few steps : " He looks very 
 well," she answered ; and her head fell again, oppressed, on 
 her bosom. We all advanced in silence towards the door. 
 I said to Emilie, " The jailer comes in every evening after 
 you are gone. Place yourself behind the screen, and make 
 a little noise, as if you were moving some piece of furniture. 
 He will think it is I, and will go out again. By that means 
 I shall gain a few minutes, which are absolutely necessary 
 for me to get away." She understood me, and I pulled the 
 bell. " Adieu ! " she said, raising her eyes to heaven. I 
 pressed her arm with my trembling hand, and we exchanged 
 A look. If we had embraced, we had been ruined. The 
 
 26 
 
386 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 turnkey was heard ; Emilie flew behind the screen ; the 
 door opened ; I passed first, then my daughter, and lastly 
 Madame Dutoit. After having crossed the passage, I arrived 
 at the door of the registering-room. I was obliged, at the 
 same time, to raise my foot and to stoop lest the feathers of 
 my bonnet should catch at the top of the door. I succeeded ;, 
 but, on raising myself again, I found myself in the large 
 apartment, in the presence of five turnkeys, sitting, standing,, 
 and coming in my way. I put my handkerchief to my face,, 
 and was waiting for my daughter to place herself on my 
 left hand. The child, however, took my right hand ; and 
 the jailer, coming down the stairs of his apartment, which 
 was on the left hand, came up to me without hindrance, 
 and, putting his hand on my arm, said to me, "You are 
 going away early, Madame." He appeared much affected,, 
 and undoubtedly thought my wife had taken an everlasting 
 leave of her husband. It has been said, that my daughter 
 and I sobbed aloud : the fact is, we scarcely dared to sigh. 
 I at last reached the end of the room. A turnkey sits there 
 day and night, in a large armchair, and in a space so 
 narrow that he can keep his hands on the keys of two 
 doors, one of iron bars, and the other towards the outer 
 part, and which is called the first wicket. This man looked 
 at me without opening his doors, I passed my right hand 
 between the bars, to show him I wished to go out. There 
 my daughter did not mistake again, but took my right arm. 
 We had a few steps to ascend to come to the yard ; but at 
 the bottom of the staircase there is a guard-house of gen- 
 darmes. About twenty soldiers, headed by their officer, had 
 placed themselves a few paces from me to see Madame de 
 Lavalette pass. At last, I slowly reached the last step, and 
 went into the chair that stood a yard or two distant. But 
 no chairman, no servant was there. My daughter and the 
 old woman remained standing next to the vehicle, with a. 
 sentry at six paces from them, immovable, and his eyes 
 fixed on me. A violent degree of agitation began to mingle 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 387 
 
 with my. astonishment. My looks were directed towards 
 the sentry's musket, like those of a serpent towards its 
 prey. It almost seemed to me that I held that musket in 
 my grasp. At the first motion, at the first noise, I was 
 resolved to seize it. I felt as if I possessed the strength of 
 ten men ; and I would most certainly have killed whoever 
 had attempted to lay hands on me. This terrible situation 
 lasted about two minutes ; but they seemed to me as long 
 as a whole night. At last I heard Bonneville's voice saying 
 to me, " One of the chairmen was not punctual, but I have 
 found another." At the same instant, I felt myself raised. 
 The chair passed through the great court, and, on getting 
 out, turned to the right. We proceeded to the Quai des 
 Orffevres, facing the Rue de Harlay. There the chair 
 stopped ; and my friend Baudus, offering me his arm, said 
 aloud, "You know, Madame, you have a visit to pay to the 
 President." I got out, and he pointed to a cabriolet that 
 stood at some distance in that dark street. I jumped into 
 it, and the driver said to me, " Give me my whip." I 
 looked for it in vain ; — he had dropped it. " Never mind," 
 said my companion. A motion of the reins made the 
 horse start off in a quick trot. In passing by, I saw Jose- 
 phine on the Quai, her hands clasped, and fervently offering 
 up prayers to God. We crossed the Pont St. Michel, the 
 Rue de la Harpe, and we soon reached the Rue de Vau- 
 girard, behind the Odeon theatre. It was not till then 
 that I breathed at ease. In looking at the driver of the 
 cabriolet, how great was my astonishment to recognise 
 Count Chassenon, whom I was very far from expecting to 
 find there. " What ! " I said, " is it you ? "— " Yes ; and 
 you have behind you four double-barrelled pistols, well 
 loaded ; I hope you will make use of them." " No, indeed, 
 I will not compromise you." " Then I shall set you the 
 example, and woe to whoever shall attempt to stop your 
 flight ! " 
 We entered the new Boulevard at the corner of the Rue 
 
388 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 Plumet : there we stopped. I placed a white pocket- 
 handkerchief in the front of the cabriolet. This was the 
 signal agreed upon with M. Baudus. During the way I had 
 thrown off all the female attire with which I was disguised, 
 and put on a dicky great -coat with a round silver-laced hat. 
 M. Baudus soon joined us. I took leave of M. de Chassenon, 
 and modestly followed my new master. It was eight o'clock 
 in the evening ; it poured of rain ; the night was extremely 
 dark, and the solitude complete in that part of the Faubourg 
 St. Germain. I walked with difficulty. M. Baudus went 
 on more rapidly, and it was not without trouble that I could 
 keep up with him. I soon left one of my shoes in the mire, 
 but I was, nevertheless, obliged to get on. We saw gen- 
 darmes galloping along, who were undoubtedly in search of 
 me, and never imagined that I was so near them. Finally, 
 after one hour's walk, fatigued to death, with one shoe on 
 and one off, we arrived in the Rue de Grenelle, near the 
 Rue de Bac, where M. Baudus stopped for a moment. " I 
 am going," he said, " to enter a nobleman's hotel. While 
 I speak to the porter, get into the court. You will find 
 a staircase on your left hand. Go up to the highest story. 
 Go through a dark passage you will meet with to the right, 
 and at the bottom of which is a pile of wood. Stop there." 
 We then walked a few steps up the Rue du Bac, and I was 
 seized with a sort of giddiness when I saw him knock at 
 the door of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Duke de 
 Richelieu. M. Baudus went in first ; and, while he was 
 talking to the porter, who had thrust his head out of his 
 lodge, I passed rapidly by. " Where is that man going ? " 
 cried the porter. " It is my servant." I quickly went up 
 to the third floor, and reached the place that had been 
 described to me. I was scarcely there, when I heard the 
 rustling of a silk gown. I felt myself gently taken by the 
 arm, and pushed into an apartment, the door of which was 
 imrdediately shut upon me. I stepped on towards a lighted 
 fire, which cast around the room a very faint glimmering. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 389 
 
 Having placed my hands upon the stove to warm myself, 
 I found a candlestick and a bundle of matches. I guessed 
 that I might light a candle. I did so ; and I examined my 
 new abode. It was a middle-sized room, on the garret-floor. 
 The furniture consisted of a very clean bed, a chest of 
 drawers, two chairs, and a small German stove, of earthen- 
 ware. On the chest of drawers I found a paper, on which 
 the following words were written: — "Make no noise. 
 Never open your window but in the night, wear slippers of 
 list, and wait with patience." Next to this paper was a 
 bottle of excellent claret, several volumes of Molifere and 
 Kabelais, and a basket containing sponges, perfumed soap, 
 almond-paste, and all the little utensils of a gentleman's 
 dressing-box. The delicate attentions and the neat hand- 
 writing of the note made me guess that my hosts com- 
 bined with their most generous feelings elegant and refined 
 manners. But why was I in the Hotel of Foreign Affairs ? 
 I had never seen the Duke de Richelieu. M. Baudus was 
 indeed attached to that department, but in a very indirect 
 manner. I could not have inspired any interest in the 
 King. Besides, in that case, it would have been more 
 natural to pardon me. If I was there by the connivance of 
 the Minister, what reason could he have had to violate his 
 sacred duties, belie the loyalty he owed to his Sovereign, 
 associate himself with the party of Bonaparte, and protect 
 a criminal sentenced for a conspiracy ? 
 
CHAPTER XL. 
 
 I REMAINED lost in these reflections when the door slowly 
 opened and I found myself in the arms of M. Baudus. 
 After the first transports of joyful emotion were over, I 
 hastened to address to him the questions that perplexed 
 me, hut he interrupted me by saying : — " I comprehend 
 you ; but keep your curiosity within bounds : the truth 
 is, that the day before yesterday Madame de Lavalette sent 
 for me, and when the servants were gone and the door 
 shut, she said : ' I am resolved to save my husband, as his 
 pardon cannot be obtained ; but I do not know where to 
 conceal him. My relations and friends are unable to serve 
 me. I address myself to you with confidence. Procure 
 him only a hiding-place, and he shall be free to-morrow.' 
 This appeal was abrupt, and disconcerted me. You know 
 I mix very little in society. To conceal you in my lodgings 
 would have been impossible : I live in a furnished hotel, 
 where there are thirty persons besides myself. I men- 
 tioned this to Madame de Lavalette. ' Think about it 
 immediately,' she replied ; ' you must find for me what I 
 want.' At last, after a great deal of hesitation, I requested 
 two hours' time ; observing that I was connected with a 
 family who had suffered misfortune themselves, and who 
 entertained most admirable feelings of courage and devotion. 
 ' Go quickly, and acquaint them with my situation. I shall 
 owe my life to them, if they conceal my husband.' I 
 asked for some particulars. 'No, no,' she said ; 'you shall 
 know all when you come back ; but first run to your 
 
 390 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 391 
 
 friends.' I left her, and came hither. — Stop ; no im- 
 patience ! you are at M. Bresson's, the Treasurer for the 
 Department of Foreign Affairs.^ Let me go on. Madame 
 Bresson, since her husband's proscription, had made a vow, 
 in the excess of her gratitude towards those who had con- 
 cealed him, to save some person condemned for a political 
 crime, if ever Providence favoured her sufficiently for any 
 one to fall in her way. I therefore came to her and said, 
 that the time was come for the fulfilment of her vow, 
 and I acquainted her with your history and Madame de 
 Lavalette's resolution. ' Let him come ! ' she said, with 
 enthusiasm : ■' my husband is not at home ; but I need not 
 consult him for the performance of a good action. He 
 shares all my sentiments. I shall immediately prepare a 
 room, where the unfortunate man will be safe. Go and 
 acquaint Madame de Lavalette.' I went back to her, and 
 then she explained to me her plan. I listened to her in 
 silence : this was not a fit moment for objections. She 
 talked with so much confidence — she seemed so sure of 
 success, that I entered with ardour into all the details of 
 the enterprise ; — but I wanted a private cabriolet. With 
 Madame de Lavalette's permission, I went to M. de 
 Chassenon, whom I knew to be a man both devoted and 
 resolute. These are the means by which you came here, 
 for the success of which a sort of miracle was required ; for, 
 I must confess, I do not myself comprehend how it was 
 done. Now you must be sensible of how much importance 
 it is to your generous friends that nobody may ever know 
 they afforded you this retreat : the whole family would be 
 ruined. M. Bresson cannot do without his situation : he 
 
 " I had never seen M. Bresson but twice ; but I knew his history. 
 When a deputy in the National Convention, he spoke very strongly against 
 the trial and sentence of Louis XVI. He voted against death, and was 
 soon outlawed, and was obliged to fly. His wife and he found a retreat 
 amidst the mountains of the Vosges, in the house of an honest family, who, 
 notwithstanding they saw inevitable death before them if the unfortunate 
 couple were discovered, kept them, nevertheless, concealed during two 
 years with admirable fidelity. 
 
392 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAV ALETTE. 
 
 has a daughter and nephews to establish. Being a pubUcr 
 functionary, and lodged under the King's roof, honoured 
 with the trust of his minister, he knows full well all the 
 irregularity of his condupt. But, on the other hand, he 
 is convinced of your innocence ; — and what are all other 
 considerations when they are put in the scale with a man's- 
 life ? We shall now set about getting you away from hence 
 and beyond the frontiers, which will not be an easy matter ; 
 but the most important object is achieved, and Providence 
 will not leave the work imperfect." 
 
 M. Baudus then left me, and I remained alone during 
 two hours, scarcely daring to make any motion, or even 
 to breathe, buried in sad reflections on the situation of my 
 poor Emilie, who remained as a hostage in my dungeon. 
 At about eleven o'clock in the evening the door opened, 
 once more, and I saw a lady enter my lodgings. She was 
 dressed in the highest fashion, and her face was covered 
 with a veil ; she was accompanied by a young girl, who 
 appeared to be about fourteen years old. The lady threw 
 herself into my arms, while the child remained standing 
 bashfully, and in tears, next to her mother. In the midst 
 of the deep emotions that agitated us all, I could not help- 
 saying — "For Heaven's name! Madame, raise that veil^ 
 that I may see the features of the angelic person to whom. 
 I owe my life ! " " We are not acquainted," she replied, 
 raising her veil ; " but I feel happy in taking a part in the- 
 heroic action of Madame de Lavalette." In fact, I never 
 had seen Madame Bresson. She was at that time forty 
 years of age ; but her fine complexion and elegant figure 
 made her look ati least ten years younger. She placed on 
 the stove a sort of tureen. " That is your dinner," she 
 said ; " the two courses are in the same vessel : you will 
 make but sorry fare, but we are obliged to rob ourselves to- 
 feed you. I do not choose to tell our secret to any of 
 our servants ; they all sleep in this corridor, and the next 
 room is occupied by my nephew Stanislaus. So make no- 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 393 
 
 noise in the morning, but make your bed and sweep your 
 room yourself. The apartment you are in never having 
 been inhabited, the least sound might ruin us all." 
 
 She left me after an hour's conversation. M. Bresson 
 came afterwards : I had wept with the ladies, — his visit 
 made me rather merrier. I was no better acquainted with 
 him than with his wife. I had seen him once, fifteen years^ 
 before, at the time I went to Saxony ; — once more also, I 
 think, at my return ; and our acquaintance having ended by 
 my not pursuing the diplomatic career, we had not met 
 again. M. Bresson had very agreeable features, an elegant 
 and cultivated mind, and an energetic character, of which 
 he had more than once given the most striking proofs. It 
 was not his attachment to the Emperor that had persuaded 
 him to place himself in such a dangerous situation to serve 
 me, and I do not believe that he ever was very fond either 
 of Napoleon or his government : it was a deep feeling of 
 humanity, and a courageous protest against those political 
 condemnations of which he had been himself a victim. " I 
 just come," said he, " from the drawing-rooms of some of 
 our grand dignities. You cannot form an idea of the alarm 
 and consternation that fill the minds of every one. At the 
 Tuileries, nobody will go to bed to-night. They are con- 
 vinced that your escape is the result of a great plot that is 
 going to burst over them ; they see you already at the head 
 of the old army marching against the Tuileries, and all 
 Paris flying to arms. I should not be surprised if they stop 
 the march of the foreign troops who are already preparing 
 for their departure. They talk of shutting the barriers. 
 Think only of the terrible consequences of such a measure ! 
 The milk-women will not be able to get into town to- 
 morrow ! — there will be no milk for the old women's 
 breakfasts ! and I listening to all these lamentations, — I 
 who have you under lock and key ! " 
 
 He then examined with the most minute attention all 
 my modest furniture, and what they had brought me. The 
 
394 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 chest of drawers was filled with his linen and clothes. 
 " Open only half your shutters," he added, " and let no 
 more light in than just as much as you want to read ; if 
 you catch a cold, thrust your head when you cough into 
 this closet." I had asked for some beer, to quench the 
 thirst that tormented me for the last month. " You cannot 
 have any. We never drink beer, and some observation 
 might be made on the circumstance. I have not forgot the 
 history of M. de Montmorin, who was discovered, and died 
 on the scaffold, through having eaten a chicken, the bones 
 of which had been thrown at the corner of the door. A 
 neighbour, who knew that the woman who concealed him 
 was too poor to buy chicken, guessed that she had in her 
 house an outlaw, and informed against her. You shall have 
 as much sugar and refreshing syrups as you may wish, but 
 no beer." 
 
 I passed the first night of my liberty in walking up and 
 down, and breathing the fresh air through the half-opened 
 window. I could not see into the Rue du Bac, but I heard 
 everything distinctly, and the frequent passing of men on 
 horseback sometimes startled me. At last, in the morning, 
 fatigue got the better of my anxiety, and I fell asleep. Two 
 hours afterwards I was awakened by noise near me, and to 
 my great astonishment I saw in my room a little man, who 
 was putting the furniture in order, sweeping and rubbing 
 with great precaution. " Who are you ?" I asked. "Mon- 
 sieur's valet-de-chambre." " But it was agreed with your 
 master that nobody should come in my room." "They 
 have altered their minds, and if you please to get up, you 
 may step into my chamber while I put everything in order 
 here." 
 
 I got up, and he led me into another room facing the one 
 where I slept. When he was gone, I began to examine 
 the place I was in. It was much too well furnished for a 
 servant's room. The chimney was ornamented with a clock, 
 and china vases containing flowers ; the bed was elegant. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAV ALETTE. 395 
 
 I opened a closet at the head of the bed, and found several 
 articles of female attire. " What's the meaning of all this ? 
 Could the man be married, and his wife in the secret ? 
 How ! there are already a child and two servants entrusted 
 with my fate, and that in this house ! Is that very pru- 
 dent ? " These reflections troubled me so much that my 
 heart throbbed within me. I attempted to rise, but I fell 
 on the floor in a deep swoon. The servant came back in 
 about half an hour, and finding me insensible, he dragged 
 me to my bed, where he had great trouble to bring me 
 to myself. " Do all you can," he said, " to keep up your 
 spirits, for neither my master nor my mistress can come 
 hack until this evening. I shall come if I can. But, for 
 Heaven's sake ! do not fall sick, for how could we call in a 
 doctor ? " 
 
 I was but too sensible of the truth of all this good man 
 said to me, and added to myself, " Suppose I were to die, 
 what would they do with my body ? " I was soon diverted 
 from these painful reflections by the voice of a newsvender 
 who was crying something in the street. I could not well 
 distinguish what he said, but I thought I heard my own 
 mame. I ran to the window, but the man was already too 
 far for me to catch a word of what he uttered. I was 
 obliged to wait until another went by, and four hours 
 elapsed before the second came. This time it was a woman, 
 whose shrill, sharp voice brought distinctly to my ears the 
 words " Lavalette — householders — landlords." It was 
 -undoubtedly an ordinance proclaiming severe penalties on 
 those who would give me refuge (this did not make me 
 uneasy), but at the same time Oflfering rewards to those who 
 might denounce me. And who could know whether among 
 the servants of the house there might not be found one 
 whom the love of lucre might incite to such an act ? I 
 was very unjust : for Andre Joineau and his wife, whom 
 they called Montet, were old domestics, whose fidelity and 
 ■devotion were proof against all seduction. The woman, in 
 
396 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE, 
 
 particular, was a pretty Protestant, remarkable for the good 
 education she had received, and her elevated sentiments. 
 At last, about six o'clock in the evening, while I was still 
 without light, a lady came in and seated herself at the foot 
 of my bed : she inquired in a low voice how I was. I 
 endeavoured to tranquillise her, and repeated my thanks for 
 her kindness. " I am not Madame Bresson," she said ; " I 
 am her lady's-maid ; my mistress will certainly come home- 
 in an hour or two : but she has heard that you were not 
 very well, and she wished to have some account of your 
 health." " Here is another witness ! " said I to myself with 
 a sigh. " I pray to God that so many confidants may not 
 spoil the business ; but I have great fears." At last 
 Madame Bresson came. I spoke to her of the cries I had 
 heard in the street. " It is nothing," she replied ; " merely 
 the renewal of an old Police Ordinance of the year 1793^ 
 that makes everybody laugh, for the joy is incredible in 
 Paris. Madame de Lavalette is extolled to the skies. 
 Nothing can be more diverting than the observations of the 
 women among the lower classes, and particularly in the 
 markets. At the theatres, the slightest allusions are seized 
 with enthusiasm ; and if Government were to attempt to- 
 stifle these transports, — which, by the bye, are something 
 worse than disaffection, — ^their agents would no doubt be 
 murdered. So you may rest easy in that respect. As for 
 the confidants we have made around us, M. Bresson and- 
 myself have decided that it would be much safer to tell the 
 whole business to the two servants who sleep facing you. 
 Notwithstanding the greatest precautions, they might hav& 
 heard you, been alarmed at the unusual noise, and have 
 mentioned it to their comrades. It was much better to- 
 close their mouths by trusting them with our secret. They 
 are married, and have lived with us during the last twenty 
 years ; they are a very worthy couple, and would most 
 wiUingly expose their lives for us. We have moreover 
 resolved that Stanislaus should also be told, for he is your 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 397 
 
 ■next-door neighbour. I will bring him to you this even- 
 ing." She did so. He was a young man of twenty, very 
 well informed, and whose address was agreeable. We soon 
 iDCcame friends. He used to remain with me from eleven at 
 night till two in the morning. I taught him to play chess ; 
 and he brought me the journals and the news of Paris. 
 
CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 I MUST now return to the Conciergerie. I had scarcely 
 passed the outer door when the jailer entered my room, and, 
 as I had foreseen, retired when he heard a noise behind the 
 screen. But he returned about five minutes afterwards ; 
 and not seeing any one, though the same noise was once 
 more repeated, he took a fancy to remove one side of the 
 screen. At the sight of Madame Lavalette, he uttered a loud 
 exclamation and ran to the door. She caught hold of his 
 coat, and said to him, " Wait a minute ; let my husband get 
 off! " " You will ruin me, Madame," he said in a rage ; and,, 
 disengaging himself with so great an effort that he left a 
 piece of his coat in the hands of my wife, he went off calling 
 aloud, "The prisoner has escaped ! " With those words he 
 ran, tearing his hair, to the Prefect of Police. In an instant, 
 all the turnkeys and gendarmes were sent about in all 
 directions. Two of the former reached the sedan-chair, that 
 was leisurely advancing on the quay. They opened it, and 
 finding no one in it but my daughter, they left it. Soon, 
 however, the pursuit began in regular order ; and during 
 the whole night, the houses of my friends and acquaintances, 
 and even of all the persons with whom my late situation in 
 the world could have given me the least connection, were 
 rigorously examined. The next day the barriers were shut, 
 and the joy of the whole capital in witnessing the despair of 
 the police was inexpressible. Madame Lavalette, a little 
 easier after half an hour, began to get the better of her 
 agitation ; and she would have enjoyed her happiness, if 
 
 398 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 39(> 
 
 the brutal turnkeys, who had left her door open, had not 
 uttered against her the most horrible abuse, and assured her 
 it was impossible I should not be retaken in a very short 
 time. 
 
 The arrival of the Procureur-General Bellart put an end 
 to their abusive language. He sat himself gravely down to 
 examine her, and addressed reproaches to her that were 
 only ridiculous. By his order, she was treated with so much 
 severity, that, in the state of health in which she then was, 
 that usage became the chief cause of the disorder under 
 which she laboured during twelve years, but from which 
 she has at last recovered. They placed her in the chamber 
 of Marshal Ney, where there was no chimney, but a German 
 stove, the suffocating heat of which made her suffer a great 
 deal night and day. The window opened into the women's 
 yard. To hear the noisy cries of those wretches during the 
 whole day, and their vulgar and obscene language, was 
 agony to so delicate a female. No person could come near 
 her ; even her maid was excluded, and she was attended by 
 one of the female turnkeys. None of her letters could cross 
 the threshold of the prison, nor could any communication 
 from her friends reach her. She was for ever assailed with 
 a thousand different terrors, especially in the night, when 
 the sentries were relieved. She always imagined it was her 
 husband they were bringing back. During more than five- 
 and-twenty days and nights, she did not enjoy one moment's 
 sleep. I was far from thinking she could be so unhappy. I 
 had been told, with the view of comforting me, that she was 
 lodged in the apartments of the lady of the Prefect of Police, 
 treated with the greatest attention and respect, and that 
 she would soon obtain permission to return home. 
 
 My daughter had returned to her convent in an ecstasy of 
 joy, and agitated with so strong an emotion that she could 
 not explain in what manner she had contrived to save her 
 father. But when, next day, the whole business was ex- 
 plained, the Superior, who had just succeeded in obtaining 
 
400 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. ■ 
 
 the protection of the Duchess of Angoul^me for her house, 
 was seized with alarm : my daughter was ordered to hold 
 her tongue ; and the nuns and some of the boarders shrunk 
 away from her, as if she had had the plague. Will it be 
 believed when I add, that the parents of several of those 
 boarders declared to the Superior, that they would take 
 their children home if Josephine Lavalette remained in the 
 convent ? So that a virtuous, generous action, which ought 
 to have been presented as an example to be followed by 
 young persons, was through fear, personal interest, and 
 perhaps also by meaner passions, regarded as a sort of crime 
 and a cause of proscription. Six weeks afterwards, when 
 Madame de Lavalette was set at liberty, she hastened to 
 take her daughter from the convent. 
 
 I passed the first ten days very quietly in my retreat, 
 loaded with the most touching marks of friendship. My 
 kind protectors sought, above all, to ease my mind. As 
 long as I remained with them, I had, they said, no danger 
 to fear. I might stay whole months in my hiding-place, 
 without putting them to the least inconvenience. I was, 
 however, not of the same opinion. M. Baudus, who came 
 now and then to see me, could not dissemble that the 
 activity of the police had not relaxed in the least : they 
 were certain that I had not crossed the frontiers either at 
 Strasburg or at Metz. General Excelmans, who was an 
 outlaw, and had fled to Brussels, wrote to his wife, as a great 
 secret, as soon as he had heard the history of my flight, that 
 he had just supped with me. The anecdote was industriously 
 circulated, but the police were not deceived by it. It was in 
 Paris that they continued their searches. My friends were 
 watched with a strictness inspired by the hope of a con- 
 siderable reward. M. Berton de Vaux, then Secretary- 
 General of the Police, explained to M. Baudus the hidden 
 cause of so obstinate a persecution. The Ultra party 
 accused the Minister of having yielded to old connections 
 of friendship with me, and to the wish of making a merit of 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 401 
 
 my flight in the eyes of Louis Bonaparte and his whole 
 family, and thus insuring himself a title of gratitude for 
 some future contingency. These absurd charges might 
 ■come to the ears of the King ; and M. Decazes, fearing 
 above all things to lose his credit, and perhaps to fall 
 beneath the hatred to which he was exposed, augmented, 
 from day to day, the activity of his inquiries. It was there- 
 fore necessary for me to fly ; — but by what means ? It was 
 proposed that I should once more assume the garb of the 
 other sex, and go secretly to a sea-port, where smugglers 
 would undertake to convey me to England. I rejected that 
 plan as quite extravagant. Neither did it please Baudus. 
 A few days afterwards, he came and told me that a Russian 
 general offered to take charge of me ; that I should be con- 
 ducted to his inn during the night, and then concealed in 
 the back of his carriage. Thus I might pass the barrier 
 without any accident. But for that I first was to lay down 
 ■eight thousand francs to pay his debts, and then take upon 
 me all the expenses of the journey. The money was ready, 
 but the plan miscarried. The Russian wanted to know the 
 name of the outlaw ; and when he heard it, the fear of being 
 ■sent to Siberia, in case I were discovered, made him draw 
 back. After that, it was proposed that I should join a 
 battalion of Bavarian soldiers that were going to leave 
 France, by trusting my secret to the commander, who 
 "would undoubtedly be very glad to save a relation and 
 friend of Prince Eugene. This plan appeared unobjection- 
 able to me. I too. well knew the King of Bavaria to fear 
 that the officer would be punished ; and that excellent 
 Prince, to whom I mentioned the fact a few months 
 afterwards, said to me with emotion, " I would have 
 attached him to my person, if he had succeeded in saving 
 you ! " 
 
 But I was also obliged to abandon this project : the police, 
 having guessed that I might make resort to it, watched the 
 troop with so much vigilance, and the officers were so com- 
 
 27 
 
402 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 pletely circumvented, that it became quite impossible to have 
 any connection with them. At last, on the eighteenth day 
 after I had left prison, Baudus came to me with a yyifiaS. 
 countenance and embraced me, saying, "We shall at last 
 succeed. Some Englishmen have offered to serve you, and 
 I believe they possess the means of doing so." These are 
 the particulars of what had happened. The Princess de 
 Vaudemont, uneasy at knowing me to be still in Paris, 
 though she was not acquainted with the place of my con- 
 cealment, looked about for persons who might help me away. 
 She spoke of her anxiety to Madame de St. Aignan Caulain- 
 court, one of the cleverest women born in France, whose 
 kindness is inexhaustible, and whose courage is unbounded r 
 she proposed to the Princess to sound a young Englishmanr 
 Mr. Bruce, who used to visit both their houses. Bruce, 
 delighted at the idea of saving an unfortunate man who 
 had escaped the scaffold in so wonderful a manner, accepted 
 with enthusiasm the proposal of the ladies, and went 
 immediately to consult Sir Robert Wilson on the subject. 
 
 Sir Robert shared his young friend's enthusiasm. He 
 had failed in his attempt to save Marshal Ney, but he hoped 
 to take his revenge in my case. He made quite a military 
 expedition of the business ; and as Bruce was not in the 
 army, it became necessary to find one or two officers, 
 independent men, of liberal opinions, who might be dis- 
 posed to play off a good trick on the Government of the 
 Bourbons. The road to Belgium, by Valenciennes, was 
 specially assigned to the English army, and it was there- 
 fore chosen for my escape. They asked no more than two 
 days to finish their preparations. I received a very particular 
 instruction concerning my dress : no mustachios ; an English 
 wig ; my beard shaved very clean, after the manner of the 
 officers of that nation ; a great-coat with buttons of the 
 English Guards : the regimentals and hat were to be given 
 me at the instant of our departure. 
 
 We held council, and, as it occurs in most cases, our first 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. ^o^ 
 
 steps were wrong. It was looked upon as very necessary to 
 get my coat made by the tailor of an English regiment ; but 
 he would want my measure : my friend Stanislaus took it 
 with fine white paper ; and instead of the notches that the 
 tailors are accustomed to make, he wrote on it, " Length of 
 the forearm, breadth of the breast^'' &c., in a fine neat hand, 
 and carried it boldly to the tailor of the regiment of the 
 Guards. He quickly made the coat, however — not without 
 observing that the measure had not been taken by a tailor. 
 M. Bresson had been to buy me another great-coat at an old 
 clothes shop, and was naturally obliged to measure it on 
 himself. He was, however, tall and thin ; so that in less 
 than forty-eight hours I had two coats, neither of which 
 could be of any service to me. I had no boots, and all our 
 speculations were useless in contriving to procure me a pair. 
 I was forced to put on a pair belonging to M. Bresson : they 
 were at least two inches longer than my foot ; I could 
 scarcely walk in them, and we all laughed much at the 
 awkward figure I cut. 
 
 On the 9th of January, 1816, at eight o'clock in the 
 evening, I at last took leave of my kind friends. We were 
 all very much affected, and particularly myself, who was 
 leaving them with so little hope of ever seeing them again. 
 I did, however, meet them again. I write this at twenty 
 minutes' walk from a delightful country seat, on the right 
 bank of the Seine, which they inhabit the whole year 
 through. I see them every day : they are happy and 
 independent. Fedora, their only daughter, is married to 
 M. de Montjoyeux, an amiable young man. They have 
 two pretty children ; and Fedora is one of the cleverest, 
 handsomest, and most agreeable women I know. I take 
 some pleasure in thinking that the happiness this family 
 enjoy is partly the reward of their generous and courageous 
 conduct towards me. 
 
 After I had embraced them, Messieurs Bresson and Baudus 
 brought me to the corner of the Rue de Grenelle, where I 
 
404 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 found again the faithful Chassenon, with his cabriolet. In 
 going to my destination, we crossed the Place du Carrousel. 
 I could not help smiling when I passed so near the numerous 
 sentries stationed along the railings of the Tuileries, and 
 when I saw the place lighted up, and filled, as I had reason 
 to imagine, with people enraged at not being able to seize 
 me, while I was not more than fifty yards from them. 
 
 We stopped at a house in the Rue du Helder, near the 
 Boulevard : there I took leave of my friend Chassenon. As 
 I walked slowly up the stairs, I was surprised at meeting 
 Mademoiselle Dubourg. There would have been too much 
 danger in our appearing to know each other. I afterwards 
 learned that she was going to M. Dupuis, my Reporting 
 Judge, who lived on the second floor of the house ; so that 
 I was going to pass the night under the same roof with the 
 magistrate who had during my trial examined me twice at 
 length, and with great severity. This circumstance, however, 
 by no means troubled me. M. Dupuis was an honourable 
 man, to whom I had shown no reserve — who was convinced 
 of my innocence, and did not fear to declare it openly, with 
 an energy that might be hurtful to his fortune. 
 
 When I reached the first-floor, I saw before me a gentle- 
 man of tall stature and noble features — it was Sir Robert 
 Wilson. He introduced me to two persons who were 
 expecting me in the parlour ; in one of the two I re- 
 cognised Mr. Bruce, whom I had met sometimes during 
 the preceding winter at the Duchess of St. Leu's. Mr. 
 Hutchinson, to whom the apartments belonged, was a 
 Captain in the English Guards. He received me in a 
 friendly manner. We seated ourselves round a bowl of 
 punch. Our conversation turned on public affairs, and 
 we talked with as much ease and freedom as if we had 
 been together in London. These gentlemen did not appear 
 to entertain the least uneasiness in respect to our next day's 
 journey ; and at last, after sitting for about an hour. Sir 
 Robert and Mr. Bruce rose, and the former, shaking hands 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAV ALETTE. 405 
 
 with me, said : "Be up to-morrow by six o'clock, and be 
 very careful about your dress. You will find here the coat 
 of a Captain in the Guards, which you must put on. At 
 eight o'clock precisely I shall expect you at the door." "As 
 for me," said Bruce, " I am going to spend three days at the 
 country-seat of the Princess de la Moskowa ; for you will not 
 want me any longer. My wishes go along with you, and I 
 shall receive accounts from you by my friends." 
 
 When they were gone, Mr. Hutchinson offered me hi& 
 bed ; but I had no desire to sleep, and I laid myself down 
 on a sofa. While my host was lying in a profound sleep, I 
 looked about the apartments to find a corner where I might 
 conceal myself, in case the police should come and pay us a 
 visit ; but it was very scantily furnished, and consisted only 
 of two rooms and a closet. It would have been impossible 
 to elude, even for a quarter of an hour, the most superficial 
 search. I opened the window to ascertain the distance I was 
 from the street ; that distance was too considerable for me 
 to leap. I could not hope to save myself after my fall, and 
 still too near the ground for me to be killed at once. 
 Fortunately, I recollected the pistols M. de Chassenon had 
 given me. I took one of them in my hands and examined 
 it with care. I placed it under my pillow, and was as easy 
 after that, as if I had had in my possession the surest 
 talisman. I soon fell asleep ; but about one o'clock in the 
 morning I was awakened by a great noise and a very 
 animated conversation that was taking place at the carriage- 
 door of the house. By listening, I discovered that somebody 
 wanted to get in. I immediately awoke my companion, and 
 said, "I believe I am discovered. Some person wishes to get 
 into the house." Mr. Hutchinson went out of the apartment 
 in the calmest manner, and in about five minutes, which 
 appeared horribly long to me, he came back, saying, " It is 
 only a dispute between the portress and a French officer 
 who lives on the third floor. She is complaining that he 
 comes home too late. So let us go to sleep again without fear." 
 
4o6 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 At last, after having counted every hour of the night, I 
 heard six o'clock strike : I immediately set about my toilet, 
 and at eight o'clock precisely I found Sir Robert Wilson in 
 the street, dressed in his full regimentals, and seated in a 
 pretty gig. Mr. Hutchinson soon appeared also on horse- 
 back, and we set off. The weather was beautiful ; all the 
 shops were open, everybody in the streets, and by a singular 
 coincidence they were just at that moment putting up in the 
 Place de Grfeve the gibbet which, according to custom, is 
 used to execute in efHgy persons declared guilty in con- 
 tumacy. 
 
CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 We entered the Rue de Clichy which leads to the barrier 
 of the same name. As I had on the regimentals and 
 cap of the Guards, the English soldiers we met saluted 
 us in the military manner. Two oflScers we met on the 
 road appeared very much surprised at seeing with Sir 
 Robert one of their comrades with whom they were un- 
 acquainted ; but Mr. Hutchinson went up to them and 
 talked to them while we were approaching the barrier. To 
 the right and to the left were two guard-houses — the one 
 English, and the other French. The soldiers drew up 
 under arms. Fortunately the French were National 
 Guards, and it was not probable they could know me, as 
 they did not belong to my quarter of the town. We crossed 
 the barrier with a slow step ; and when we were out, I 
 thanked Sir Robert with as much gratitude as if we had 
 crossed the barriers of the kingdom. We went on thus to 
 the village of La Chapelle. There we were obliged to take 
 another horse, to be able to go to Compifegne. This horse 
 had been baited at a large inn. When we approached the 
 house, we perceived four gendarmes standing in front of the 
 door. ■ Sir Robert went up to them : they separated, that 
 we might pass ; and, to prevent them from paying attention 
 to us, Mr. Hutchinson began a conversation with them. 
 His inquiries were chiefly directed to the number of stables 
 and the quantity of forage and lodgings that were to be 
 found in the village : from all which they concluded that 
 English troops were expected, and one of them invited the 
 
4o8 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 
 
 English captain to accompany him to the Mayor. " Not 
 at present," he answered : " I am going forward to meet 
 the waggons, and in two hours I shall be back." The 
 conversation could not last very long with an Englishman 
 who knew but little of our language. But the horse was 
 quickly changed, and we had the satisfaction, on going 
 away, to exchange salutes with the gendarmes. I then 
 learned that the man who had brought us thus far 
 belonged to M. Auguste de St. Aignan. On the road we 
 met with several gendarmes in pursuit of malefactors, or 
 bearing military correspondence. They all fixed their eyes 
 on us without suspecting anything. I had accustomed 
 myself, on seeing them, to shut my eyes, but with the 
 precaution of placing my hand on my pistol, — ^fuUy 
 resolved, if I should be recognised and apprehended, to- 
 blow my brains out ; for it would have been too great a 
 stupidity to suffer myself to be brought back to Paris. 
 
 We arrived at last at Compiegne. At the entrance of 
 the suburb stood a non-commissioned English officer, who, 
 on seeing his general, turned to the right and marched with 
 gravity through several small streets, until he stopped at a 
 small house in a very lonely part of the town. There we 
 found an officer who received us very well, and we waited 
 for Sir Robert's carriage, which Mr. Wallis was to bring 
 from Paris for him. That officer had ordered post-horses 
 for General Wallis, brother-in-law to Sir Robert Wilson,, 
 who travelled under his name. Mr. Wallis arrived at 
 about six o'clock ; after having been followed a great part 
 of the way by the gendarmes. We had not an instant to 
 lose : the carriage advanced rapidly. We experienced a 
 great delay at Cond^, in getting through the town, but it 
 was during the night. At last, next morning, at seven 
 o'clock, we arrived at Valenciennes, the last French city 
 on that frontier. I was beginning to feel more easy, when 
 the postmaster told us to go and have our passports 
 examined by the captain of the gendarmerie. " You forgot^ 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 409- 
 
 I suppose, to read who we were," said Sir Robert calmly : 
 " let the captain come here, if he chooses to see us." The 
 postmaster felt how wrongly he had acted ; and taking our 
 passports, he went himself to get them signed. As it was- 
 very long before he came back, I began to be tormented 
 by a most horrible anxiety. Was I going to be wrecked 
 in the harbour? Suppose the officer of gendarmes were 
 to come himself to verify the signatures and to apprehend 
 me ? Fortunately the weather was very cold, it was 
 scarcely daylight, and the officer signed the passports 
 without rising from his bed. We got out of the gate. On 
 the glacis, an oflScer of the Preventive Service wanted to 
 see whether we were in order ; but having satisfied his 
 curiosity, we went on and stopped no more. We flew 
 along the beautiful Brussels road. From time to time I 
 looked through the back window, to see whether we were 
 not pursued. My impatience augmented with every turn 
 of the wheels. The postillions showed us at a distance 
 a large house, that was the Belgian Custom-house : I fixed 
 my eyes on that edifice, and it seemed to me as if it 
 remained always equally far off. I imagined that the 
 postillion did not get on : I was ashamed of my impatience, 
 but it was impossible for me to curb it. At last we reached 
 the frontier : we were on the Belgian territory : — I was 
 saved ! I pressed the hands of Sir Robert, and expressed 
 to him, with a deep emotion, the extent of my gratitude. 
 But he, keeping up his gravity, only smiled, without 
 answering me. About half an hour afterwards he turned 
 to me, and said in the most serious tone possible : " Now,, 
 pray tell me, my dear friend, why did you not like to be 
 guillotined ? " 1 stared at him with astonishment, and 
 made no reply. "Yes," he continued; "they say that 
 you had solicited, as a favour, that you might be shot ? "■ 
 " It is very true. When a man is guillotined, they put 
 him in a cart, with his hands bound behind his back • 
 and when he is on the scaffold, they tie him fast to a. 
 
410 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAV ALETTE. 
 
 plank, which they lower to let it slip thus under the 
 knife." " Ah ! I understand : you did not like to have 
 your throat cut like a calf." 
 
 We arrived at Mons at about three o'clock in the after- 
 noon, and we stopped at the best inn. While dinner was 
 preparing, I wrote a few letters, of which Sir Robert was 
 kind enough to take charge ; and after having gone with 
 me to buy some things I wanted, and having given me two 
 Jetters, one for the King of Prussia and the other for Mr. 
 Lamb, the English resident in Munich, we separated, — he 
 to return to Paris, and I to go farther into Germany and 
 try to reach Bavaria. 
 
CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 I REMAINED, however, the night at Mons. Next day I could 
 not go any farther than Namur. I travelled under the 
 name of a Colonel Losack, sent by the Duke of Welling- 
 ton on a mission to Munich and Vienna. I had purchased 
 at Mons a bad cabriolet ; I had no servant ; and the 
 weather was so severe, and my health so feeble, that I 
 ■could not travel above twenty leagues a day. It was very 
 dangerous for me to remain so long on the road. The 
 •description of my person had been sent everywhere about : 
 I might meet with Englishmen, and my passport, great- 
 coat, and buttons with the arms of England, would all 
 betray me, as I could not speak the language. I arrived, 
 however, without any accident, at Worms. I knew enough 
 German to serve my purpose, and I hastened to read the 
 papers. How great was my consternation when I read in 
 the Gazette that Madame de Lavalette remained in the 
 Conciergerie, and that Sir Robert Wilson and his two 
 friends had been apprehended ! 
 
 The General had brought with us to Mons a young 
 servant who could not speak French. When he returned, 
 the spies who were on the look-out for me, observed in the 
 yard of the hotel where he lived his coach covered with 
 mud. They inquired of the portress, who told them that 
 the General was just come home from a journey, on which 
 he had been absent only three days. The police suspected 
 him : the young servant was seduced by one of the spies, 
 ■who questioned him artfully, and he confessed that his 
 
412 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 master had been to Mons with an officer of the Guards, 
 who could not speak a word of English. The description 
 of my person given by the young man put the police on 
 the track ; but proofs were necessary. It was this ser- 
 vant who used to carry the correspondence of Sir Robert 
 Wilson to the English embassy. They promised him 
 money if he would bring his dispatches to the Prefect 
 of Police. He did not fail to do so. The first letter they 
 opened was directed to the Earl Grey.' The history of 
 our journey was related in it, with all its details. Having, 
 gained possession of this document, the police had the 
 three Englishmen apprehended. 
 
 The perusal of the journals grieved me beyond expression, 
 I took a resolution to go to Russia, to solicit from the 
 Emperor Alexander that my wife and friends might be set 
 at liberty ; and I flew to Manheim to get a letter from the 
 Grand-Duchess of Baden, first cousin to my wife. She was 
 out of town ; and from what I learned from my landlord^ 
 I should be forced to keep up a most severe incognito. 
 The Grand-Duke refused the passage through his territories^ 
 to the outlaws who came from France ; not so much,, 
 however, out of ill-will towards them, as for fear of com- 
 promising himself with the French Government. When 
 I left Manheim, I wrote nevertheless to the Grand-Duchess,, 
 and continued my journey, like a madman, through Wir- 
 temberg, where I was nearly arrested at Stuttgard. The 
 King who at that time occupied the throne would not 
 have failed to make me acquainted with his dungeons, 
 I succeeded at last in passing through Ulm, and found 
 myself in safety in the Bavarian territory. 
 
 When the King of Bavaria heard of my escape from the 
 Conciergerie, he said to Prince Eugene — "As for him, he 
 may come to me ; I will take care of him." 
 
 I went in consequence to Munich, and wrote a note to- 
 Baron d'Arnay, secretary to the Prince, to beg he would 
 ■ For this letter, see Appendix No. XII. 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAV ALETTE. 413 
 
 •come to see me. He came, but after having delivered my 
 note to the Prince, who dined that day with the King. 
 The news was communicated to his Majesty after dinner. 
 They reckoned no longer upon me, thinking me gone to 
 America. My arrival surprised the King, who did not 
 wish to have disagreeable discussions with France. After 
 a moment's reflection, he said, " He cannot remain here : 
 not even under a feigned name. That ferret, the Duke 
 ■d'Alberg, is at Munich, and would soon find him out. 
 Remain two days with him, and let him set off the third 
 f6r Frayssingen. He will be in safety there." That small 
 town is surrounded with woods, the cold was severe ; but 
 I felt so happy at being at liberty, that I could not bear to 
 remain in my room, and went out ten times a day to stroll 
 about in the forest, notwithstanding the snow and ice. My 
 strange manners surprised the inhabitants ; and a French 
 emigrant, who lived at Munich, came to my abode, soon 
 discovered who I was, and carried the news to the capital. 
 I was in consequence obliged to leave my retreat, and the 
 King was kind enough to send me to Starnberg, a wretched 
 village, situated near the lake of that name."^ I was uncom- 
 fortable there \ but spring was approaching. The forests 
 in that part of the country are beautiful, and of immense 
 extent : while the banks of the lake are lined with delight- 
 ful country seats. Prince Eugene used to come twice a week 
 to the house of a gamekeeper, two leagues from Munich, 
 where I went to meet him. He brought me newspapers 
 and books, and acquainted me with all that was going 
 forward. I thus reached the month of May ; but I was 
 again obliged to leave Starnberg. I had been recognised ; 
 and the Prince Royal, who learned that I resided in that 
 remote corner of the country, remonstrated with his father 
 on my stay in Bavaria, and the difficulties into which he 
 might get involved with France, in case they should learn 
 in Paris that he had given me a retreat. The King denied 
 ' See Appendix, No. XV. 
 
414 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA V ALETTE. 
 
 my being in his states ; but at the same time he sent me an 
 order to retire to the farther end of the lake. By the advice 
 of Prince Eugene, I went and concealed myself in the house 
 of a gardener; four leagues farther still. " You will be more 
 comfortable there," said the Prince : " in about a fortnight, 
 I shall come to reside in the royal seat that is no more than 
 a league from your new abode. We shall be able to see each 
 other every day." He soon came there with his family, 
 and I used to go every morning to the castle, and did not 
 go home till the evening. The friendly reception I met 
 with from Princess Augusta, the kind attentions bestowed 
 on me by all the persons that surrounded her, contributed 
 greatly to alleviate my grief and restore my health. The 
 Prince said to me one day — " The King is accustomed 
 annually to spend one day in this place. When I went 
 yesterday to take his orders on the subject, he accepted my 
 invitation, but on condition that you would come and dine 
 with him." 
 
 I went. His Majesty received me with open arms. He 
 was accompanied by some officers of his household, and 
 among others by Count Charles von Reichberg, who told 
 us that he had left Paris eight days after my escape from 
 prison. Though the gendarmes had been present at his 
 departure, and had examined his passport with a great deal 
 of care, he was nevertheless stopped on the Boulevard, and 
 obliged, as well as his two travelling companions, to get out 
 of their carriage, that the descriptions of their persons might 
 be verified, and that it might be ascertained that I was not 
 among them. The King was very merry, and took a great 
 deal of pleasure at seeing me where I was, after having been 
 exposed to so many dangers. During the five hours that he 
 remained with the Prince, he never ceased loading me with 
 the most delicate attentions. The pains he perpetually took 
 to bring to my mind his former stay in Paris, when I had 
 the honour of paying my court to him ; the slight service I 
 had rendered to him in my quality of Postmaster-General, 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 415- 
 
 and the attachment with which the Emperor had honoured 
 me, were meant to show the persons who surrounded him 
 that I was under his especial protection, and that my mis- 
 fortunes augmented the interest he vouchsafed to express for 
 me. When he was ready to go, he came up to me, and, 
 pressing my hand, said, " Remain at peace in my country, 
 live among your friends, and reckon upon my attachment 
 and protection." 
 
 I soon obtained permission to settle in Munich under a 
 feigned name. I went every night to the theatre ; and when 
 the play was over, I finished the evening with the Prince, 
 who lived en famille ; but it was quickly known in Paris. 
 The Duke de Richelieu took it amiss, and a formal demand 
 was transmitted to Munich, to send me away from Bavaria. 
 Count d'Erlon, who lived in the outskirts of the city, was 
 comprehended in the sentence of proscription, though he did 
 not live there under his own name. The cabinet of Munich 
 replied to that of Paris that they knew nobody in Bavaria 
 who bore our names ; but, at the same time, the King pro- 
 ♦posed to us to take refuge in Silesia, where he possessed 
 several castles, as Duke of Deux-Ponts. The measure was 
 a dangerous one : could the King of Bavaria's protection 
 follow, and defend me at so great a distance, and in the 
 heart of a Prussian province ? Should I not be obliged to 
 go from thence to Russia, whither I felt they wanted to drive 
 me ? I answered by begging he would rather shut me up 
 in some prison in Bavaria. Fortunately, the diplomatic 
 correspondence relaxed by degrees on that subject ; Count 
 d'Erlon remained at his country-seat, and I escaped by going 
 to Eichstadt, in the principality of Prince Eugene, and after- 
 wards to Augsburg, to his sister, the Duchess of St. Leu. 
 I passed with her the last year of my banishment ; the 
 attentions and kindness she showed me might have made 
 me perhaps forget France if my dearest affections had not 
 made life intolerable far from my country. 
 
 Madame de Lavalette had got out of prison after six weeks' 
 
416 MEMOIRS OF COUNT LAVALETTE. 
 
 ill-usage. Deep melancholy and perpetual alarm inspired 
 lier with a great disgust for society, and threw her mind 
 into such a state that she was said to suffer from mental 
 •derangement. Though my daughter was at that time no 
 more than fifteen years old, her mother hastened to establish 
 lier, that she might enjoy the protection of a husband, when 
 the state of her own health would not permit her to keep a 
 watchful eye over her. She wrote to me : " I feel it is high 
 time to shelter my daughter from our misfortunes." She 
 fixed her choice on M. de Forget, the son of a gentleman of 
 Auvergne, whose name had been long respected. He had 
 Tjeen Auditor to the Council of State. I had observed in him 
 :a great deal of talent, and an excellent heart. I gave my 
 consent, and my daughter is now happy and honoured in 
 her province. 
 
 Finally, after six years of outlawry, the gates of France 
 were again opened for me. Before my departure, I obtained 
 an audience of the King of Bavaria. He pressed me in his 
 arms with emotion, and said : " I embrace M. Cossar — (that 
 was the name under which I went in Germany) — but I 
 require of M. de Lavalette to come and thank me within 
 two years. I am growing old : he must not tarry too long." 
 My political situation in France was very uncomfortable, 
 and the severity of the Government too great to have per- 
 mitted me to fulfil the engagement the King had made me 
 take, and which was so consonant to the wishes of my grate- 
 ful heart. Death has since snatched him from his subjects, 
 who adored him, and who never will forget him whom they 
 were wont to call " the good King." 
 
 I left Prince Eugene in the prime of his life, enjoying 
 •excellent health, in the most happy situation, beloved by 
 the King as if he had been his son, surrounded by a 
 numerous and charming family, loaded with all the gifts 
 ■of fortune, of whom he had nothing more to demand, his 
 name shining with bright and unsullied glory. He had 
 a fall from a sledge in 1816, in consequence of which a 
 
MEMOIRS OF COUNT LA VALETTE. 417 
 
 gathering took place, they say, in his head. The pain being 
 very slight, he neglected the necessary remedies. Seven or 
 eight weeks afterwards, the gathering appeared with symp- 
 toms which the physicians did not comprehend ; and he died 
 at the age of forty-four, leaving a disconsolate widow and 
 children, whose education was not yet finished, but also a 
 reputation for courage, wisdom, and generosity, that neither 
 France, Italy, nor Bavaria will ever forget. 
 
 When I came back to France, I was obliged to have my 
 letters of pardon registered. This ceremony, which might 
 have become painful to my feelings, was managed by the 
 magistrates at Colmar with a discretion for which I shall 
 always be thankful. The Advocate-General, M. Rossec, 
 only said, " He had been sentenced for conduct which, from 
 day to day, appears less serious." I came to Paris, where I 
 fixed my abode, and lived in retirement, forgotten by most 
 of my former friends, and also by the police, who might 
 have made my life very uncomfortable. 
 
 At last, the health of Madame de Lavalette recovered 
 sufficiently to permit me to take her home. A deep 
 melancholy throws her frequently into fits of abstractedness ; 
 but she is always equally mild, amiable, and good. We pass 
 the summer in a retired country-house, where she seems 
 to enjoy herself. I have preserved my independence, the 
 first of all mortal riches, without pension, salary, or 
 gratuity of any sort, after a long life, consecrated to the 
 service of my Country, offering up for her liberty prayers 
 that will perhaps never be fulfilled, and living with the 
 recollections of a great period and a great man. 
 
 28 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 Toulon, 28 Flor&.l, Year VI. 
 The General of Division, chief of the General Staff of the Army, 
 orders Citizen Lavalette, Captain, Aide-de-camp to the General-in 
 chief, to go on board the frigate Artemisa, and to sail with the 
 expedition. 
 
 Alex. Berthier 
 
 No. ir. 
 
 TO CITIZEN LAVALETTE, AIDE-DE-CAMP. 
 
 Head-quarters at Malta, 29 Prairial, Year VI. 
 
 The Artemisa, Citizen, has orders to anchor off the coast of 
 Albania, to give you the means of conferring with Ali Pacha. 
 
 You are to deliver to him the enclosed letter, the contents of 
 which only mention that he is to believe all you say to him, and 
 call an interpreter whom he can trust, so that you may hold a 
 private conversation with him. You are to give the said letter into 
 his own hands, and you will take care that he reads it himself. 
 
 Afterwards you are to tell him that having conquered Malta, and 
 being at present in those seas with thirty ships and fifty thousand 
 men, I shall of course enter into communication with him, and that 
 I wish to know whether I may rely upon him. 
 
 That I wish he would send to me by the frigate a man of note 
 in whom he places confidence. That considering the service he 
 has rendered to the Republic, his personal qualities; courage, and 
 
 419 
 
420 APPENDIX. 
 
 gallantry, if he trust me, and consents to second me, I am able to 
 increase considerably his glory and his fortune. 
 
 You are to make general inquiries respecting the political and 
 military situation of the different states of those regions. 
 
 You are to write down whatever Ali Pacha says to you, and 
 re-embark in the frigate to return and make me a report on the 
 result of your mission. 
 
 When you pass by Corfu you must see General Chabot, and tell 
 him to send us wood, and issue a proclamation to the inhabitants 
 of Corcyra and other islands, directing them to send to the squad- 
 ron wine, dried raisins, and other objects, for which they shall be 
 liberally paid. 
 
 Bonaparte. 
 
 No. III. 
 
 BONAPARTE, GENERAL-IN-CHIEF, TO CITIZEN LAVALETTE. 
 Head-quarters, Cairo, 22 Frimaire, Year VII. 
 
 You must set off on board the djerme La Venitienne, with Citizen 
 Beauchamp, to go to Alexandria. You must inspect the situation 
 of the fortifications, magazines, and of every ship of our squadron. 
 
 You must deliver the sabre you receive herewith to Rear-Admiral 
 Perde. 
 
 You must inspect the fort of Rosetta. 
 
 You must endeavour to get from Alexandria to Rosetta my 
 travelling carriage and the carriage I brought from Malta. At 
 Rosetta you will embark them on a djerme for Boulac. 
 
 You are not to come back until you have seen Citizen Beauchamp 
 under weigh. 
 
 Bonaparte. 
 
 No. IV. 
 
 BONAPARTE, GENERAL-IN-CHIEF, TO CITIZEN LAVALETTE. 
 
 Head-quarters, Cairo, 18 Nivose, Year VII. 
 I have received your letters of 28 and i Nivose : stay at Alexan- 
 dria until the caravella be gone, and set off immediately after. 
 
 General Bonaparte. 
 
APPENDIX. 421 
 
 No. V. 
 
 BONAPARTE, GENERAL-IN-CHIEF, TO CITIZEN LAVALETTE. 
 
 Head-quarters, Cairo, 18 Vend^miaire, Year VII. 
 
 You must set off this day, Citizen, on board the little Cisalpine, 
 taking with you the cange La Corcyre, and the canoe the Rhone. 
 
 You are to conduct the convoy bound to Salahieh to Mit-Kamas, 
 where it will be placed under the orders of General Murat, who is 
 to send it farther up. 
 
 You are then to continue your passage with the armed vessels, 
 and go to Mansoura ; there you will see General Dugua, and inquire 
 what news he may have received either from Damietta or from 
 Menzal^. You will go on to Damietta, take on board of the three 
 vessels all the troops they are able to carry, and go with them to 
 rejoin General Andreossi and newly man his flotilla. You will 
 follow that General on his reconnoitring trip to Peluse. 
 
 You will write to me from Mansoura and from Damietta ; and, 
 if there be any newly arrived vessels in the roads of Damietta, will 
 question them and send me a report. 
 
 Bonaparte. 
 
 No. VI. 
 
 REPORT ADDRESSED TO THE GENERAL-IN-CHIEF ON MY JOURNEY 
 TO PELUSE. 
 
 Cairo, 6 Brumaire. 
 
 I left Boulac on the evening of the i8th Venddmiaire, on board 
 of the cange La Corcyre, bound for Damietta, with the Cisalpine, 
 and the canoes the Rhone and the Seine. 
 
 I sent General Vial before Mit-et-Koli, at the moment that village 
 had been plundered for having murdered some Frenchmen. He 
 had with him two hundred and fifty men of the 13th and 25th half 
 brigade. No inhabitants were found in that village. The same 
 circumstance took place in regard to two others which had been 
 equally guilty. In returning to Damietta on the 23rd, the General 
 stopped at Farescout, surrounded the village, and required of the 
 chiefs that they should deliver up to him the arms of their in- 
 habitants. He obtained only eighteen muskets, and took two 
 sheiks as hostages, who were sent off to Cairo. Farescout is the 
 
422 APPENDIX. 
 
 village the inhabitants of which are the most devoted to Hassan 
 Toubar. It was there that the insurrection of the 24th Fructidor 
 was decided. 
 
 I left Damietta on the 24th, and passed the night at the tower 
 of Bogaz, the wind not having allowed me to go any farther. That 
 tower contains a garrison of twenty or thirty men. The wall that 
 has been raised round it shelters it against a surprise. But the 
 cannons that defend it are ill-placed, and the platforms are not in 
 a state to support them long. 
 
 On the 2Sth I went to Dibbd by land. The road from Bogaz to 
 the mouth of the lake is eight leagues in length, and the soil a firm 
 sand ; the heaviest artillery may pass over it without danger. 
 
 Dibbd consists of about thirty fishermen's huts. Several in- 
 habitants came to meet us, and brought us provisions. 
 
 Having the advantage of a fair wind, I arrived at Menzal^ in 
 twelve hours. This is a considerable place, gontaining about five 
 thousand inhabitants. However, not more than one-fifth of them 
 were there when I passed. Hassan Toubar was the owner of two 
 houses there : he had taken everything with him. We found 
 nothing in them but some cattle and wretched furniture. Though 
 the inhabitants trade on the lake, the boats are obliged to anchor 
 at half a league distance, the lake not being deep enough for them 
 to approach nearer to MenzaM, which, besides, is not built on the 
 shore. The anchoring place is unprotected, but possesses sweet 
 water, which is brought to a small distance from it by the emptying 
 of the canals of the Nile in the season of the inundation. 
 
 On the 27th, at six o'clock in the morning, I left MenzaM to join 
 General Andreossi, to whom I brought water and provisions. . I 
 found him on the 28th at the mouth of Aroum Farregge. 
 
 He had with him fifteen barks ; his troops consisted of a battalion 
 of the 25th, and a detachment of the 2nd light infantry. 
 
 On the 29th, at four o'clock in the morning, I set off for Peluse 
 with the General and a detachment of thirty men. 
 
 The distance from the mouth of Aroum Farregge to El Farameh 
 is three leagues. This ruined town presented nothing remarkable. 
 At three-quarters of a league from the sea we found an enormous 
 quantity of dust and bricks, which are supposed to have been the 
 fortress of Peluse. There is yet a wall standing, and some arches 
 that have been examined. The ruins of the town extend to about 
 three thousand paces. In all that space we found nothing but a 
 
APPENDIX. 423 
 
 few pillars of granite of large size, and a sort of tower partly in 
 ruins. 
 
 On our return we observed, at eighteen hundred toises from 
 Peluse, an edifice which is thought to be a ruined mosque. 
 Nothing," however, remains but the brick walls and a part of 
 the arched roof. We saw there several cannons unfit for use, 
 and granite balls. 
 
 On the 30th we left Aroum Farregge, and I separated from 
 General Andreossi near Tanis. 
 
 I found on my arrival at Damietta the train of artillery designed 
 for Salahieh. They were embarking it on the lake, and it was to 
 go off the following day for Sann. 
 
 General Dugua had arrived the preceding day at Damietta. He 
 told me that the government of that province was not yet organised, 
 but that he was going to look after it. 
 
 General Barras complained of the difiiculties he met with in the 
 discharge of his duty. The secretary they have given him is a 
 young man, who understands nothing about the business ; and the 
 state of his health will not allow him to do all himself. He was 
 unable to give me a very exact account of the property of Hassan 
 Toubar. As soon as he shall have made the necessary inquiries 
 on the subject, he will acquaint you with the result. 
 
 General Vial complains that he has not troops enough to guard 
 Mansoura. He has not two thousand able men under his com- 
 mand, and twenty thousand peasants aseemble every week in the 
 market-place of that town. 
 
 I accompanied General Murat on his expedition to , the 
 
 inhabitants of which had the day before massacred some dragoons 
 of the 14th, and stolen their horses. The village was surrounded 
 at ten o'clock at night ; and next morning the General sent into it 
 two companies of grenadiers, who slaughtered more than one 
 hundred peasants. In their houses were found two sheaths of 
 dragoons' sabres, and some helmets. 
 
 Lavalette. 
 
 No. VII. 
 
 BONAPARTE, GENERAL-IN-CHIEF, TO CITIZEN LAVALETTE. 
 Head-quarters at Cairo, 27 Nivose, Year VII. 
 You will please, Citizen, to come back to Cairo as soon as possible. 
 I have received your report. 
 
 Bonaparte. 
 
424 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. VIII. 
 
 BONAPARTE, GENERAL-IN-CHIEF, TO CITIZEN LAVALETTE. 
 Head-qiMTters at Cairo, 9 Pluviose, Year VII. 
 You will please, Citizen, to come to Cairo as soon as possible. 
 I want you for the new campaign that is about to commence. 
 
 Bonaparte. 
 
 No. IX. 
 
 BONAPARTE, GENERAL-IN-CHIEF, TO CITIZEN LAVALETTE; 
 Head-quarters at Cairo, 20 Pluviose, Year VII. 
 You must set off. Citizen, as soon as possible, to join me. You 
 need not wait for the departure of the caravella. At your arrival 
 at Cairo you must remain three days there, to gain a perfect know- 
 ledge of the situation of affairs ; and you must not depart until a 
 favourable opportunity offers. 
 
 Bonaparte. 
 
 No. X. 
 
 EXTRACT OF A LETTER OF THE DUKE DE RAGUSA TO 
 M. . 
 
 I had been intimately acquainted with Lavalette, but political 
 events had separated us. The cruel fate that threatened him 
 caused a renewal of my friendship for him. He wrote to me the 
 letter you have in your possession. I carried it to the King, who 
 read it from beginning to end. My prayers and solicitations were 
 without effect ; I obtained neither his pardon nor a commutation 
 of the sentence; it was even in vain that I hoped Louis XVIII. 
 would consent to Lavalette's last wish, and change the manner in 
 which he was to die. The King was inexorable. 
 
 I then went to Madame Lavalette to concert with her a petition 
 she was to present. She told me she had means of procuring her 
 husband's escape. I tried to persuade her not to make any use of 
 them as long as she had any hopes of another nature. The report 
 was brought to the Palace that she intended to come there, and 
 orders were given not to let her in. I took upon me to conduct 
 her, and gave her my arm. I chose to enter into the Saloon of 
 the Guards at a moment when the sentry turned his head another 
 way, and then I found myself all of a sudden, with her, in the 
 
APPENDIX. 42s 
 
 middle of the saloon. The Life-guard stopped us, and, without 
 faihng in any way in the respect he owed to me, executed his 
 orders in the most rigorous manner. The officer came and 
 delivered his soldier from the awkward situation in which he was, 
 and I persuaded M. de Bartillat — this was the name of the officer 
 — that, should he even risk a few days' arrest, he ought to lend his 
 aid to do a good action. So he allowed Madame Lavalette to 
 remain in the Saloon of the Guards. I had chosen to enter the 
 moment the King was hearing mass. I knew that if I had come 
 earlier the King would rather have gone that day without mass 
 than run the risk of meeting this poor woman ; but once in the 
 Chapel, he could not help coming back. M. de Glandevfes, major 
 of the Life-guards, came and told me that orders had been given 
 not to admit Madame Lavelette. "But," said I, "have you an 
 order to put her out of the apartment, now that she is in ? " He 
 answered, that he , had not. " In that case," I continued, " I 
 remain." The King came. Madame Lavalette threw herself at 
 his feet : he answered — " Your grief is very natural, Madame, and 
 I appreciate it, and share in it as I ought to do ; but I have duties 
 to fulfil which cannot be dispensed with ; " and he continued his 
 walk. Madame Lavalette threw herself also at the feet of the 
 •Duchess of Angoul^me, who avoided her, and went by without 
 saying a word. We went out. The next day was the Duchess of 
 Angoul^me's birthday, and the anniversary of her leaving the 
 Temple. We prepared ourselves to stand by when she should 
 pass. Measures were taken to insulate her, and sentries placed 
 up to the roof of the Tuileries to prevent our coming by a round- 
 about way. 
 
 From that moment I looked upon Lavalette as a lost man, and 
 I said so plainly to his wife, telling her that if she possessed, as 
 she had said, means of getting him away, she would do well to try 
 them. Her other friends endeavoured to keep up a delusion to 
 which she seemed but too well disposed. She said to me — " They 
 want to pardon him on the scaffold." " Do not believe that," I 
 answered ; " if he gets upon it, he is lost." I had, even in her 
 presence, a discussion with the Duke de Plaisance, who entertained 
 the same false idea. She believed me, and her husband escaped 
 the next day. This poor woman has often repeated — at first, 
 while she still possessed her reason, and afterwards, when she had 
 lost it — that I was the only person who had not deceived her. 
 
426 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. XI. 
 
 LETTER OF M. , AIDE-DE-CAMP OF THE DUKE DE 
 
 RAGUSA, TO M. . 
 
 The day after the Marshal had placed Madame de Lavalette in 
 the King's passage, he went early to the Palace, to discover what 
 was going forward. The most rigorous measures had been taken. 
 The passage was guarded — only one chance remained : the 
 antechamber of the Captain of the guard upon duty has a second 
 door, leading to the King's staircase, directly facing the apartment 
 of the Duchess of Angoulgme. To pass through that door was 
 the only manner of getting Madame Lavalette where she wished to 
 be ; but the Marshal stood too much in public view to be able to 
 accompany her. He gave the commission to one of his aides-de- 
 camp, with the necessary instructions. Madame Lavalette left her 
 home alone, and the aide-de-camp went with General Foy to meet 
 her sedan-chair that she left at the bottom of the Pont Royal, 
 where General Foy remained waiting for her while she went into 
 the Tuileries with the officer. The hour had been calculated so 
 as to make her arrive, towards the end of the mass, at the moment 
 that the Duchess of Angouleme should leave the Chapel. She 
 arrived at the apartments of the Captain of the guards, after whom 
 the officer asked, knowing very well that he was just then with the 
 King ; he would not, as he was afraid, enter into the saloon to 
 wait for him, but stopped in the antechamber, where he made 
 Madame Lavalette sit down. The door of the antechamber was 
 open ; he went into it in an unaffected manner ; and when he saw 
 the Duchess of Angouleme come down, he called out to Madame 
 Lavalette, " Come, cousin, and see the Duchess pass." Madame 
 Lavalette stood up ; but while they had been waiting, the officers 
 of the Life-guards had crossed the antechamber and recognised 
 Madame Lavalette ; so that when she came to the door, the door- 
 keeper rushed forward and locked it. The officer tried to turn 
 the key. " It is not permitted to pass." " Come, come ; people 
 every day stand in the staircase ; and my cousin, who is from the 
 country, has never seen the Royal Family ; so that I should be very 
 glad if she could seize this opportunity." " It is impossible : I 
 know who this lady is, and I have positive orders not to let her 
 pass." " Well, then, fifty louis, a good action, and the protection 
 of the Marshal." The doorkeeper was not to be bribed ; and 
 
APPENDIX. 427 
 
 during the conversation the Duchess of Angoul^me got into her 
 apartments. They were forced to go away. After having handed 
 Madame Lavalette back to her chair, the officer re-entered the 
 court of the Tuileries. A little while afterwards, a Life-guard 
 came to ask him whether Madame Lavalette was still in the 
 Palace. Louis XVIII. was to have gone out ; but he remained, 
 for fear of meeting Madame Lavalette. 
 
 No. XII. 
 
 LETTER OF SIR ROBERT WILSON TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 EARL GREY.' 
 
 MY DEAR LORD,'' 
 
 I am just returned from a journey of about three hundred and 
 fifty miles, the first half of which was undoubtedly the most 
 interesting I ever made. 
 
 The question was one of immediate life or death for my com- 
 panion, and of all that such responsibility, accompanied by the 
 most aggravating circumstances, might lead to for myself. 
 
 Acknowledged as the victim of breach of faith with my country, he 
 had claims to my personal efforts even at the foot of the scaffold ; 
 and to the most powerful claims on humanity he added a character 
 by which he had acquired to himself the general esteem of all 
 classes of society. 
 
 It was the fifth of this month ^ that, already acquainted with his 
 perilous position, I also learned that his persecutors had obtained 
 certain knowledge that he was still in Paris ; that they had dis- 
 covered the traces of their prey, and were multiplying their efforts 
 to ensure their bloody triumph : there was no longer any hope of 
 pardon. 
 
 The virtues of Madame Lavalette, and the interesting circum- 
 stances of her husband's first extraordinary escape, had only the 
 more enraged the monsters. 
 
 " This letter was intercepted by the French Police, at Paris, and laid the 
 first foundation to the charges against Sir Robert Wilson and his numerous 
 friends. — Nole of the French Editor. 
 
 ° The reader will please to observe that this letter must have been first 
 written in English, but appears here re-translated from the French ; so that it 
 may happen that some expressions are not in exact accordance with the 
 original — Note of the Translator. 
 
 3 January, 1816. 
 
428 APPENDIX. 
 
 It was for me to decide whether rage or vengeance should be 
 satisfied, — whether all the preceding efforts should be rendered 
 useless, — whether the cause of liberty and humanity attached to 
 his fate should be disgraced by his catastrophe, or whether criminal 
 hopes should be deceived, — whether England should escape from 
 the shame of again participating in murder, — and whether every 
 honest and independent man in Europe should have, at least for 
 once, an occasion for rejoicing in these times of mourning and 
 infamy. 
 
 I did not hesitate : if I had, I am sure you would have blamed 
 a weakness that would have made me unworthy of the opportunity 
 I then had of becoming the protector of the oppressed. I had 
 only one thought left — that of ensuring the success of the enter- 
 prise. The secret had been entrusted first to young Bruce, who 
 had been authorised to communicate it to me. His friendly zeal 
 in favour of Ney had rendered him too suspicious in the eyes of 
 the Court for his steps not to have been watched ; so that, 
 although he was disposed to dare and undertake everything, still 
 he was sensible that an active interference on his side might make 
 our plan miscarry. I was myself too fearful, watched as I knew 
 I was, to absent myself from the capital ; but one ofificer of the 
 Guards whom I consulted not having been able to get leave of 
 absence, and another officer whom I sounded not judging fit 
 that he should leave his post, I resolved not to hazard anything 
 more by these half confidences, and to take the execution on 
 myself. 
 
 It was, however, necessary to find some persons of trust who 
 might facilitate the necessary dispositions, and our choice fell upon 
 EUister, of the fifth regiment of the Guards, and John Hutchinson, 
 as well on account of the confidence we placed in their honour, as 
 because we knew that they had been already, once before, engaged 
 in a business of the same nature; and, in fact, Ellister was the 
 person who had first undertaken to put our plan into execution if 
 he could have obtained a temporary leave of absence. 
 
 We decided that the fugitive should wear the regimentals of an 
 English officer, and that I should conduct him out of the barriers 
 in an English cabriolet, myself being in a military costume ; that 
 I should have a fresh horse ready at La Chapelle, from whence I 
 should go to Compifegne, where Ellister was to bring me my coach, 
 into which I should step v(^ith Lavalette, to reach Mons by way of 
 
APPENDIX. 429 
 
 Cambrai. On my solicitation and responsibility, I easily obtained 
 from Stuart passports for a General Wallis and a Colonel Losack, 
 names we chose because their initials corresponded with those of 
 the real names. These passes were duly signed by the Minister 
 for Foreign Affairs ; only, when they were presented for signature, 
 one of the secretaries asked Hutchinson, that brought them, who 
 was Colonel Losack ; upon which he immediately answered — " He 
 is the brother of the Admiral." This important part of our 
 negotiation being finished, EUister went to the police with Colonel 
 Losack's passport, and asked for post horses for my carriage ; and 
 at the same time, to prevent all suspicion, he took apartments and 
 a coach-house at the H6tel du Helder, in the name of Colonel 
 Losack. 
 
 Bruce fortunately learned that the brigade of his cousin. General 
 Brisbane, was at Compi&gne, and that his aide-de-camp was to 
 leave Paris on the 7th of the month, to go to Compi&gne with the 
 horses and baggage of the General, who was at that time in 
 England. We saw him at Bruce's, where we had appointed to meet 
 him ; and I told him that some very particular circumstances 
 obliged me to pass through Compifegne with a person who wished 
 not to be known, and that it would be necessary for us to remain 
 there an hour or two in some retired part of the town. He answered 
 obligingly, that his confidence in us was unreserved ; that his 
 existence depended on his situation ; but that he would not hesi- 
 tate in satisfying us, knowing that we took an interest in the matter. 
 I do confess that it went much against my inclination to implicate 
 such a person in the business ; but the cause was too important a 
 one for me to stop at such a consideration ; and I conceived a 
 hope that a day would come when I should have it in my power 
 to acknowledge that service either by myself or by my friends. 
 Bruce procured Lavalette's measure ; Hutchinson gave it to a tailor, 
 saying it was that of a quartermaster of his regiment, who wanted 
 immediately a great-coat, a waistcoat, and a pair of pantaloons. 
 The tailor observed that it was the measure of a lusty man, and 
 that it had not been taken by a tailor. His observations alarmed 
 me so much, that I thought fit to send Hutchinson back to him to 
 say, that the quartermaster not being able to wait for his clothes 
 until Saturday evening, they were to be carefully folded up in a 
 box, so that they might be sent after him. Hutchinson and 
 EUister took, besides, all the necessary measures to procure 
 
43° 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 horses, and went the day before to reconnoitre the barriers, 
 posts, &c. 
 
 All these preparations being made, and all the precautions taken 
 it was finally decided that Lavalette should go to Hutchinson's 
 lodgings on Sunday evening the 7th, at half-past nine pre- 
 cisely ; that I should be on Monday morning at half-past seven 
 at his door, in Bruce's cabriolet, with my servant, who was to 
 follow on my well-harnessed mare, as if I were going to pass an 
 inspection ; that Hutchinson should ride next to the cabriolet, 
 talking with us ; and that, in case any stoppage should occur, 
 Lavalette should get upon his horse, and I on my mare, that we 
 might be more at liberty and get on with speed. 
 
 I should certainly have preferred crossing the barriers on horse- 
 back, but we thought that our English mode of riding might 
 attract attention ; while the crossing them in full daylight, and in 
 an open cabriolet, would be showing so much assurance that no 
 suspicions would arise. At last, the hour fixe^ for our departure 
 drawing near, Hutchinson, EUister, Bruce, and I came to Hutchin- 
 son's apartments, under the pretence of taking a bowl of punch. 
 The moment came when we were to fix our eyes upon a man whose 
 fate hung on the plan we had formed to save him, and whose days 
 had already been counted by his enemies, — a man who was the 
 object of all the hatred and affection of the two opposite parties, 
 and who, if he were discovered, would occasion us all the sufferings 
 that enemies, or even friends deluded in their hopes, might heap 
 upon us under the form either of punishment or of reproach. 
 Bruce went on the staircase, and immediately Lavalette took him 
 by the hand, and we saw before us that interesting individual. He 
 was dressed in blue regimentals, and so well disguised that he 
 would not have been remarked even in an Englishman's apart- 
 ment. The friend who had brought him did not come in, but he 
 gave to Hutchinson, for the use of Lavalette, a two-barrelled 
 pistol that I have kept to this day. The latter appeared at first 
 much affected, but we did not leave him the leisure to express his 
 gratitude ; and, after a few moments, EUister and myself went 
 away, leaving him to the care of Bruce and Hutchinson. At 
 midnight, Bruce retired, and Lavalette laid himself down on a 
 bed that was prepared for him. In about half an hour, somebody 
 knocked at the house-door : Lavalette sprang from his bed, crying, 
 " We are undone ! " But Hutchinson soon discovered that it was 
 
APPENDIX. 431 
 
 a drunken French officer, who, in going to his apartment, had 
 made all that noise. You may well think that not one of us spent 
 a very tranquil night ; and, in fact, I was not without anxiety as 
 long as Lavalette remained in Paris — for I also thought of my 
 family. I had barely mentioned to Lady Wilson that I was 
 engaged in a plan to save one of the outlaws, and that I was 
 obliged to conceal his name and the arrangement that had been 
 taken. I did not think fit, in the first moment, to enter into any 
 further particulars with her, though I knew she would have been 
 able to keep the secret if it had been necessary, and would more- 
 over, I am sure, have given willingly all the aid in her .power. 
 She perhaps suspected the truth from my air of uneasiness ; but 
 I must say to her praise, that she did not say a single word that 
 could make me suppose she wished to dissuade me from the plan, 
 though she constantly suffered a great deal as the time drew near 
 when I was going to deliver myself up to the chapter of accidents, 
 having under my charge so precious a deposit. 
 
 I was at Hutchinson's door at half-past seven. I went upstairs 
 to call Lavalette, and within five minutes we were together on the 
 way to the Barri&re de Clichy. We met an officer who appeared 
 surprised at seeing a superior officer he did not know, but my 
 servant eluded his inquiries. I crossed the barrier at a slow pace ; 
 the gendarmes looked steadfastly at us ; but the act of presenting 
 arms gave Lavalette an opportunity of concealing his profile in the 
 bow he made. When we were passed, Lavalette pressed my leg 
 with his ; and when we had no more fear of being observed, I saw 
 his face glistening with pleasure at this first favour of fortune. 
 
 The road was covered with all sorts of people ; but whenever 
 we met any public conveyance, I began a very long conversation 
 in English ; and I remarked that the hat ornamented with a white 
 feather that Lavalette held in his hand attracted the attention 
 of travellers, and drew off their curiosity from our persons. 
 
 The features of Lavalette are so remarkable, and his face is so 
 well known to all the postillions and postmasters, that it required 
 the greatest caution lest he should be recognised. At La Chapelle 
 we changed our horses, and we had a moment's alarm at the sight 
 of four gendarmes hovering around us ; but Hutchinson, to whom 
 they addressed themselves, got rid of them by saying that we had 
 come to look out for quarters for an English division. We were 
 afterwards obliged to pass near other gendarmes, who had in their 
 
432 APPENDIX. 
 
 possession the description of Lavalette's person ; and it may be re- 
 marked by the bye that it had been distributed everywhere through- 
 out France. As we came near Compifegne, I remarked some white 
 hairs that showed themselves under his brown wig : and having 
 fortunately a pair of scissors about me, I dressed his hair by the 
 way. At the entrance of Compi^gne, we found the orderly com- 
 manded by Captain Fennell, who led us through the town to a 
 very well-chosen place, for we were not disturbed by the spectators 
 in the street. 
 
 Nobody saw us enter except some English soldiers and domestics 
 who served us while we were waiting for the carriage. Mr. Fennell 
 offered us a luncheon, which would not have detained us like Louis 
 XVI., but enabled us to spend very agreeably the time that began 
 to hang heavy on our hands, and which otherwise would have been 
 lost. At last, towards night, as it had been agreed, EUister came 
 with the carriage, which had been got out by the Barrifere St. Denis, 
 and had been followed by gendarmes to La Chapelle. Horses were 
 immediately ordered. 
 
 The postillion having come alone, I had the lamps of the coach 
 lighted, not only for safety, but also to show that we were without 
 uneasiness within. We left our friends, and entered the carriage 
 that was to be for us either a hearse or the chariot of fortune. We 
 were well armed, and prepared to resist in case we were attacked. 
 But I reckoned more upon presence of mind than upon force, if 
 any difficulties should arise. 
 
 We were frequently questioned at the different post-houses ; but 
 Colonel Losack ' always kept himself back, and I took care to cover 
 the door as much as possible. My servant and the postillion said 
 •at every stage that it was an English general ; and my carriage 
 being English produced a good effect. I must observe, that we 
 took only three horses and one postillion, for fear four horses might 
 make it appear as if we were in too great a hurry to get on : we 
 besides avoided by that means the eyes of the second postillion we 
 should have been obliged to take, ahd who would have been a spy 
 upon us. 
 
 We experienced no delay until Cambrai, where we lost three 
 
 hours at the gate by the obstinacy of the English sentry, who, not 
 
 having any order to call the gatekeeper, whose duty it is to let the 
 
 couriers in during the night, would listen neither to entreaties nor 
 
 • That was the name Lavalette had taken. 
 
APPENDIX. 433 
 
 to threats — a negligence which has already caused considerable 
 delay in the communications of Government, and might have 
 proved fatal to us. In passing through Valenciennes, we were 
 three times severely examined, and our passports were carried to 
 the commander of the gendarmerie ; we got off, however, and, 
 about five miles from thence, we had finally the happiness of cross- 
 ing the last barrier, and being examined for the last time. 
 
 I shall not attempt to paint the feelings of Lavalette. I shall 
 only say that from that moment his mind appeared quite calm. 
 He was not only saved, but triumphant. What seemed to gratify 
 him most was the idea that the effort dictated by his wife's 
 devoted affection had been finally crowned with success. 
 
 We did not stop till we arrived at Mons : there we dined, and 
 made arrangements for the farther journey of Lavalette. I wrote 
 several letters to facilitate to him the means of reaching his desti- 
 nation ; and having also provided all that was necessary for his 
 safety and satisfaction, I took leave of him, and returned to Paris, 
 where I arrived last night by the road of Maubeuge, Soissons, and 
 the Porte St. Martin. 
 
 My absence having lasted only sixty hours, my journey cannot 
 have been much remarked ; and up to the present moment I have 
 . no very bad consequences to fear from my undertaking. I do not 
 wish either to be put into prison, or lose my rank in life, but I had 
 made up my mind to both before I embarked in this enterprise ; 
 there is, however, no appearance that I shall have reason to regret 
 an attempt that has so completely succeeded. 
 
 I have had at times an idea of communicating confidentially to 
 the Duke of York what I had done, to avoid the suspicion of having 
 conspired clandestinely ; but I fear to compromise those whose 
 interests I am bound to defend, and therefore I only for the 
 moment acquaint you with what has happened, begging you 
 would send this letter to my brother at Arundel' after having 
 perused it, not having sufficient time to write separately to him, 
 and, in fact, being rather fearful of sending to his address a letter 
 on this subject. 
 
 You may well imagine that I have learned most interesting par- 
 ticulars ; but I must wait to communicate them until I can write 
 to you again by some safe opportunity. 
 
 I should be very glad if Lord Holland were to know what I 
 " In the county of Sussex. 
 29 
 
434 APPENDIX. 
 
 have done, for he is acquainted with Lavalette, and has taken 
 interest in his fate: I mentioned this to the latter, who learned 
 the fact with gratitude. 
 
 Lavalette will send to him his protest concerning the Conven- 
 tion, and will claim his protection as soon as Madame Lavalette 
 gets out of prison and is in safety. I hope I shall be able to get 
 the written opinion of Fouch^ on the subject, and the explanation 
 of his motives for signing the list of the outlawed : it seems that 
 he did it from a wish to save a great many others. 
 
 I have just heard that Soult is to be placed in the first list, and 
 that the Princes make the greatest efforts to ensure his con- 
 demnation and his execution : — this report coming from a person 
 who enjoys the confidence of Feltre, I shall put Soult upon his 
 guard. 
 
 I am for ever, my dear Lord, most sincerely, 
 (Signed) R. W. 
 
 It cannot but be extremely agreeable for me to know your 
 opinion. Let me know as soon as possible whether I ought to 
 write to the Duke, or beg Gordon to speak to him. 
 
 ■I am sorry I cannot make a fair copy of my letter, but I have 
 no time ; and you must pardon me if you are obliged to decipher 
 my scrawl, having just received a letter from Lord H. that will take 
 me a week to read. 
 
 R. W. 
 
 No. XI n. 
 
 EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM COUNT LAVALETTE TO M. 
 
 London, the . 
 
 The first public sitting for the election opened this morning. 
 There are three candidates for the Borough of Southwark — Sir 
 Robert Wilson and Mr. Calvert, the late members, and Mr. 
 Polhill, a candidate to be elected instead of one of them. Each 
 candidate wears his colours : Sir Robert has chosen blue Marie 
 Louise ; Mr. Calvert, sky blue ; and Mr. Polhill, orange or yellow. 
 It was agreed that I should be at Sir Robert's at half-past eight or 
 nine o'clock. We stepped into an elegant landau drawn by two 
 beautiful horses : Sir Robert and his eldest daughter, Jemima, 
 sat on the back seat ; the youngest and myself on the front one. 
 They were elegantly dressed, though with simplicity ; their father's 
 
APPENDIX. 435 
 
 colours shone on their bonnets and sashes. The two footmen, the 
 coachman, his whip and the horses, were all covered with those 
 ribands. All went well till we arrived at the entrance of the 
 Borough ; but there the crowd entirely filled up the broad street we 
 were going through, and we were soon stopped by an immense 
 number of people bearing the banners of Wilson, and music 
 playing. The horses were taken from the carriage, which was 
 dragged along by the people for nearly half a league, with cries of 
 "Hurrah — Wilson for ever .' " It was a tumult — a confusion 
 which the strongest heads could with difficulty have borne. In the 
 front of the people that dragged us along were placed the banners, 
 with deafening music, and behind them the carriages of several 
 Frenchmen, such as Messrs. de Stael, Francis and Alexander Deles- 
 sert, the lady of the latter, young Montebello, the son of Duvergier 
 de Haurranne, Daru, Montalevet, and, among others. Sir Robert was 
 standing at the bottom of the open landau, bowing to everybody, 
 offering his bare hand to the dirtiest hands I ever saw. Women 
 of the lowest classes stretched out their children to him, that he 
 might caress them ; while the windows, and even the roofs of the 
 houses, were literally covered with inhabitants, crying out as loud 
 as they could, and carrying, on the walls and before the shops, 
 large bills fastened to long sticks, with the following words : — 
 " Wilson, the frieTid of humanity / " " Wilson and Liberty / " 
 " Wilson and the Abolition of Slavery ! " " Wilson and the 
 Protestant Constitution I " " Wilson for ever! " We advanced 
 slowly. Sir Robert said : — " We shall soon arrive in the enemy's 
 country." In fact, a little while afterwards we passed before Mr. 
 Polhill's door. Yellow began to show itself on the windows, 
 coaches, handbills — but the crowd that accompanied us redoubled 
 their cries of " Wilson for ever! " Five minutes later, we saw Mr. 
 Polhill pass in a very elegant coach, but a ' shut one, and all 
 his followers covered with yellow ribands. The mixed cries of 
 " Wilson ! " " Polhill ! "—the hui-rahs, the hissings— the thick 
 crowd, made such a confusion, that I certainly thought we were 
 going to be overthrown, and crushed to death. I observed the 
 young ladies growing pale, but they felt so happy at being near 
 their father, that it renewed their courage ; and the emotion that 
 was visible in their handsome faces was the only thing that 
 betrayed the anxiety that tormented them. They did not make 
 a motion, nor utter a cry. I endeavoured to tranquillise the 
 
436 APPENDIX. 
 
 eldest, who sat facing me. " No, no 1 " she said, " I am 
 only afraid for the poor people that surround us." Generous 
 in their hostility, the two rivals bowed to one another as they 
 passed, and we arrived at last before the Hustings, situated in 
 a place where the street divides in two, and forms a small 
 square, scarcely wide enough for a battalion of six hundred men 
 to manceuvre, and where, however, more than four thousand 
 persons were assembled. We stepped out with difficulty before 
 the hustings, at the house of a wealthy tradesman, a zealous partisan 
 of Wilson's, and from a parlour on the first floor we distinctly saw 
 the whole sight of the election. What they call the Hustings is a 
 scaffolding large enough to hold two hundred people, and covered 
 with boards as a shelter from the rain, — something like what we 
 see in our public ceremonies on our quays and boulevards. Sir 
 Robert left us to get on the hustings. The High Bailiff, a magis- 
 trate delegated by the Lord Mayor or the Sheriff, opened the 
 meeting in presence of all the people, by declaring that the election 
 was about to take place. He read the writ, proclaimed the names 
 of the candidates, and made known the forms that were to be 
 observed in the election. Afterwards, according to custom, a 
 friend of the first candidate made a speech, in which he expatiated 
 on the titles of the candidate to the suffrages of the people, his 
 public conduct, his opinions in regard to Parliamentary Reform 
 and Catholic Emancipation. Then came the friend of Sir Robert. 
 The celebrity of his name, the splendour of his life, rendering it 
 unnecessary for the orator to enter into particulars, he bounded 
 himself with praising his parliamentary conduct, and explaining 
 to his hearers that the attempts made to expel him from the House 
 had been directed by a party that might endanger Liberty. After- 
 wards, the candidates, presenting themselves in person, were 
 received, — the two first, Sir Robert and Calvert, with a great deal 
 of favour ; while Mr. Polhill could never succeed in obtaining a 
 hearing. The hootings, hissings, and cries of all sorts perpetually 
 covered his voice. Wilson, at last, went up to him, took him 
 under his protection, and claimed silence from the mob. Mr. 
 Polhill seemed touched by this generous act of his rival, but he 
 did not reap any more assurance from it. He looked embarrassed ; 
 and some person who went near the foot of the hustings to listen 
 to what he said, assured me that the House of Commons would 
 not have gained an orator in him if he had been elected. At last. 
 
APPENDIX. 437 
 
 after three hours' speeches, to which the people listened with an 
 attention that proves how fond they are of political discussions, 
 the High Bailiff said that the election was about to take place, and 
 invited the electors to hold up their hands for the candidate they 
 preferred when they heard his name uttered. Mr. Polhill had 
 very few hands for him, the greatest part of the crowd being for 
 the two others. A great number of the electors' tickets were then 
 thrown among the people. The polling took place on the front 
 of the hustings, with books prepared to receive the votes of the 
 electors. Each voter came with his ticket, and put down the 
 name of one of the candidates : this operation lasted about two 
 hours. At four o'clock, the number of voters was counted and 
 proclaimed aloud, as also by means of a bill stuck up. The result 
 was, 175 for Sir Robert Wilson, 170 for Mr. Calvert, and 106 for 
 Mr. Polhill. The polling will continue to-morrow, and probably 
 the day after. The candidates will speak the whole morning, and 
 from two till four o'clock the books will be opened, and the votes 
 taken down : nevertheless, if during the space of an hour not one 
 voter appears, the book is dfefinitively closed, and the majority of 
 the voters decides the nomination. It is probable that Mr. 
 Polhill will give up the contest. 
 
 * * * ^: * *■ 
 
 No. XIV. 
 
 LETTER OF M. BALLOUCHEY, ADDRESSED TO COUNT 
 
 LAVALETTE. 
 
 i6th May, 1827. 
 M. LE COMTE, 
 
 I hasten to transmit you the information the Duchess of St. Leu 
 asked of you concerning the moneys received on account of her 
 august mother, the Empress Josephine, during the time that I had 
 the honour of being charged with her affairs, — that is to say, from 
 the I St of Messidor of the twelfth year (20th of June, 1804) until 
 the year 1809 inclusive ; and I add to that only the sums delivered 
 by M. Dum^nil during the eleventh year and the first nine months 
 of the twelfth. 
 
 The expenditure of the Empress's household, as well as that of 
 the estate of Malmaison, were each year fixed by the common 
 bitdget of their Majesties. That budget received the Emperor's 
 
438 APPENDIX. 
 
 approbation, who examined the accounts at the end of each year ; 
 and when any sum remained disposable out of those allowed for 
 the household of the Empress, instead of being delivered over 
 into the hands of her Majesty, they returned to the treasury of 
 the Crown. 
 
 The same thing took place in regard to the revenues of Mal- 
 maison : they were gathered by the treasurer of the Crown, and 
 entered in compensation of the sum allowed by the budget for the 
 expenses of the estate, so that the Empress never received any 
 portion of them. 
 
 On the common budget of their Majesties' household an annual 
 sum of 480,000 francs, payable monthly at the rate of 40,000 francs, 
 was allowed to the Empress, of which 30,000 francs were for her 
 toilet and personal expenses, and 10,000 for her cassette of pensions 
 and alms. This latter part being almost always insufficient to 
 meet the numerous charitable gifts bestowed by the Empress, her 
 Majesty was obliged to draw upon the 30,000 francs designed for 
 her toilet, for the overplus of the expenses of her cassette, as well 
 as the support she allowed to a great number of planters, &c., left 
 almost wholly to her charge, and whose children she paid for in 
 various boarding-schools, and, finally, the sums disposed of in 
 payment of objects of art and other things she purchased in the 
 course of the month, to distribute as presents of all sorts. The 
 remainder of the 30,000 francs not being sufficient to meet the 
 expenses of her Majesty's toilet, the result was an account of 
 arrears that was balanced from time to time by means of the 
 extraordinary sums of which the Emperor disposed by special 
 orders. 
 
 In consequence, the total sums received on account of her 
 Majesty the Empress Josephine, during the space of about seven 
 years, was 5,354,435 &• 44 c. ; to wit :— 
 
 By M. Dum^nU during the eleventh year and the first months of 
 the twelfth, according to an account of which I possessed a 
 duplicate certificate by M. Estfeve, then Treasurer of the fr. c. 
 Crown 960,84192 
 
 And by me, here undersigned, from the ist of Messidor of the 
 twelfth year (June 20, 1804) until the year 1809 inclusive, a 
 sum of 4,393, S93fr. 520. 
 That is :— 
 
 At the Treasury of the Crown for the use of the 
 Empress's toilet and wardrobe ; for expenses 
 
APPENDIX. 439 
 
 previous to her coming to the throne ; for 
 extraordinary expenses during her Majesty's 
 journeys, including gifts, presents, indemnities 
 allowed to different persons for travelling ; and, fr. c. 
 finally, for unforeseen expenses, &c., &c. . . 3,231,864 75 
 Do. for the cassette of provisions, and various 
 charities allowed by her Majesty in her dif- 
 ferent places of residence, as well as for various 
 charities distributed during her journeys in 
 France, and abroad 92S.307 12 
 
 Recii. at the Treasury of the Crown . . . . 4, 157, 171 87 
 Moreover, received at the Public Treasury, for 
 
 the dividends of her Majesty's five per cent. 
 
 stock, and at the Bank of France for more of 
 
 her Bank stock, 20i,626fr. 650. 
 Moreover, for different objects sold by order of 
 
 H.M. 34,79sfr. 236,42165 4.393.S93 Sa 
 
 S.3S4.43S 44 
 
 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 Received at the Treasury of the Crown by M. Dum^nil . . . . 960,841 92 
 Do. do. M. Ballouchey . . . . 4,157,171 87 
 
 Total sum received at the Treasury of the Crown for the 
 Empress Josephine during the space of about seven years.. 5,118,013 79 
 
 Moreover, received at the Public Treasury, the Bank of Firance, 
 and of sundries 236,421 65 
 
 Sum equal to the above S.3S4.43S 44 
 
 The uses to which the sums received during nearly seven years 
 on account of her Majesty, and amounting according to the 
 statement here above to 5,354,4356-. 44 c., have been applied, is 
 authenticated by accounts duly balanced, and which prove evi- 
 dently that the Empress laid nothing by. It is besides a known 
 fact, that the taste of her Majesty led hereto display still more 
 liberality, more generosity, than her means permitted. 
 
 It would be easy to convince oneself of the above-mentioned 
 result by consulting the papers of the Treasury, and by examining 
 the accounts, of which 1 have duplicates in my possession. 
 
 I could have wished, M. le Comte, to be able to give you more 
 ample information, so as to meet the wishes of the Duchess of St. 
 Leu, by recurring to the period of the marriage of her august 
 
440 APPENDIX. 
 
 mother ; but I do not possess the necessary documents to that 
 eifect. They would moreover have been of little use, the Empress 
 having, during that space of time, received much less money than 
 after her succession to the throne. 
 
 I have the honour to be most respectfully, M. le Comte, your 
 most humble and most obedient servant, 
 
 (Signed) Ballouchey. 
 
 No. XV. 
 
 FIRST LETTER OF COUNT LAV ALETTE TO THE DUCHESS OF 
 RAGUSA. 
 
 From the Banks of Lake Stamberg, 28th July, i8i6. 
 
 I do not know how to express to you, my dear friend, all I 
 experienced at the sight and perusal of your letter. I had heard 
 that you were in this quarter,' but I could not believe it ; and a 
 letter from you was a thing I never expected. I am so far from all 
 civilisation, that a letter from a living being, from a friend, makes 
 a terrible impression on me. Since this morning, I have read it 
 ten times over, and the particulars it contains have made me weep 
 like a child. It is the only one that has given me any details on 
 the fatal period ; and you spread such charms over what you 
 describe, so much sincerity and naiveU, that in reading your 
 narrative, I once more felt all the sentiments that had agitated me 
 during that extraordinary denouement. 
 
 And so it is true that my poor Emilie ' is well : I had been told 
 so, but not as by you. I congratulate you both in your reconcilia- 
 tion. You are worthy of comprehending and loving her. It is 
 what most people in the world cannot do. They now know what 
 noble, devoted, courageous sentiments were concealed beneath 
 features so calm, so tranquil, so cold in appearance. Take all of 
 you good care of her, I pray you ; watch over her ; do not let 
 wretches torment her. She is a sacred being, the honour of her 
 sex ; and it were an everlasting shame if they were to make her 
 expiate by persecution her noble and generous conduct. As for me, 
 dear friend, I have passed five months in the deepest solitude, 
 with an energy of heart, and an elevation of soul, that I did not 
 know what to do with (I need not add that I was not discouraged), 
 but at the same time with a grief that threw me into convulsions. 
 
 ' The Duchess of Ragusa was then at Baden. 
 " Madame Lavalette. 
 
APPENDIX. 44* 
 
 And, nevertheless, I did not curse humanity ; for where is there a 
 man who has less to complain of it than I have ? Relations, friends, 
 servants, and even strangers, have all behaved perfectly well 
 toward me. In this country I should have nothing to do but to 
 mention my name to find friends ; and to the eternal shame of 
 those wretches, I might cross the Continent, their proclamation on 
 liiy breast, without meeting with an insult. This is my comfort. 
 But my poor heart is so pained, so horribly lacerated, that, to be 
 able to support my situation, I have need of courage, which will 
 finally be exhausted. I do, however, all I can to divert my melan- 
 choly. I live in a hole in the mountains, in the midst of the 
 waters. I have, as a companion, a good young man, a skilful 
 draughtsman, with whom I sketch a part of the day. I spend the 
 other part in going over the studies of my youth, and in the com- 
 pany of the giants of antiquity, who mocked adversity and sup- 
 ported misfortune in so noble and graceful a manner. I pray and 
 weep when I think of those I love, and of my poor country, so 
 fallen, so degraded, that I scarcely dare name her. I learn the 
 language of this country, for my companion does not know a word 
 of mine. I talk with the peasants, who bear cheerfully their situa- 
 tion. They are governed by a sovereign who is not praised in the 
 newspapers, but whose name is blessed in the cottages : they 
 know neither my person nor my misfortunes ; but they seem dis- 
 posed to love me because I have not the appearance of a bad man, 
 and because I am charitable to them. 
 
 The wretches who have used me so cruelly never suspected that 
 a woman so weak, so unfortunate, so oppressed, would be stronger 
 and more courageous than all of them together. I wish them no 
 ill : I am revenged by the contempt I feel for them ; but I cannot 
 think that they will succeed by following their bloody track. 
 
 s:« 5]: ^ ^ if- -if. 
 
 I say nothing of the friend I have here : ' a brother would have 
 been less good, less generous. I have seen him and his family 
 frequently for some time. They are angels of goodness. How 
 happy he is ! The sight of his bliss does me a great deal of good. 
 
 And so, you have seen my poor little Josephine. My God t 
 What will become of her ? I shudder when I think how unfortu- 
 nate she will perhaps one day be. Alas ! how agreeable it would 
 have been for me to complete her education ! When I think on 
 " Prince Eugene. 
 
442 APPENDIX. 
 
 all that, I thrust my head against the wall, and I do not know what 
 I might not be able to do to myself. Tell me, repeat to me with 
 a noble friend," who has been so kind to me, — repeat to me that I 
 shall see you all again, and shall enjoy your happiness, for mine 
 is gone for ever, and I have a forewarning that a little comer of 
 ground awaits me in a country churchyard. 
 
 Amiable Caroline ! ° So she is with you. May God bless you ! 
 She deserves a friend like you. Tell me where is her husband ? 
 Is it true that he directs his steps to the East ? Where is he going 
 to ? I am uneasy on his account, for he has one of the most noble 
 hearts I ever met with. You will meet again with our good friend 
 Mollein. Tell him that I love him, and that I think of him every 
 day, and a great part of each day. Remember me to his lovely 
 wife ; I wish her happiness. She is the last person I saw ; for it 
 was in coming from her home that I lost my liberty, and her soft 
 compassion has remained engraved in my heart. Remember me 
 also to Freville ; he has given me a proof of friendship of which I 
 keep a dear remembrance. Think on me, all of you, and you in 
 particular, my dear friend — you of whom I love so much the noble 
 disposition and courageous mind. I hope you love my dear Eng- 
 lish friends. Why did so noble an action draw on them so odious 
 a persecution ? What will become of them ? The misfortune of 
 Bruce will make me doubly unfortunate myself ! It costs dear to 
 act nobly ; Vice is luckier ! Adieu ! Adieu ! 
 
 P.S. If you are back at Emilie's fete, send her a flower in my 
 name. 
 
 No. XVI. 
 
 SECOND LETTER.— FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME. 
 
 From the Banks of Lake Starnberg, 14th August, 1816. 
 
 I shall not speak of the pleasure your letter gave me, dear 
 friend ; that would be ridiculous. You must however know, that 
 the day I received it, that is to say, the day before yesterday, I 
 read it twice in the morning, and twice again in the evening. It 
 appeared to me as if I heard you speak, and almost as if I saw you. 
 In the morning I went to read it under the cover of a thick wood 
 that surrounds my hermitage, and threatened by a storm, that would 
 not have driven me away if I had not feared that the rain would 
 
 ' The Queen Hortense. ° Madame Lallemand, the wife of the General. 
 
APPENDIX. 443 
 
 wet your dear writing. How sweet are the comforts of friendship 
 to the hearts of the unhappy ! Past sufferings vanish while read- 
 ing your letter ; futurity smiles on me ; and my misfortune itself 
 gets charms, by the idea that in any other situation I should not 
 have the same enjoyment. 
 
 A few days before the arrival of your letter, I experienced a 
 moment of very great happiness. My friend's father-in-law ' whom 
 you saw at the watering-place, came to dine with his son-in-law, 
 and brought his son with him. He had made it a condition that I 
 should be of the party. He spoke to me of you with such sincere, 
 such high praise, that I found him a hundred times more venerable 
 than he was. He repeated several times the same words. His 
 reception of me was perfect. He treated me with a degree of kind- 
 ness and delicacy it would be difficult for me to describe. I owe 
 this good fortune to his son-in-law and daughter, who are exceed- 
 ingly kind to me ; but let me hope that you also spoke to him of 
 me. The thought does me good. 
 
 You ask me for particulars on my manner of living : — ^here they 
 are. 
 
 I shall not speak of my first six months. My wound was deep ; 
 tut my mind was raised to a very high pitch. Now all my 
 ■delusions are destroyed. Cold reason, implacable truth says, 
 ■" Thou must die in a foreign land, far from the objects of thy love ; 
 thou must efface all the past from thy memory, or consume thyself 
 in grief by living on thy recollections." Dear friend, I struggle 
 ■against that terrible sentence. I wear out my life with labour, and 
 especially with reading. I have got only two works, but they 
 charm my solitude without fatiguing my imagination. These are 
 Condillac and Plutarch. The former is a man of excellent judg- 
 ment, vast erudition, and who speaks only to reason. His work 
 is a complete course of education. I find in him Locke raised to 
 perfection, with the elements of history and mathematics. On the 
 other hand, Plutarch fortifies my mind against the strokes of fate. 
 I learn in reading him, how one may fall into misfortune while ful- 
 filling all one's duties, and how, in that case, misfortune is prefer- 
 able to all the vain happiness of the world. A horrible truth ! 
 Three-quarters of the men whose history he wrote died violent 
 ■deaths ; it is the same in our modern and wretched history. 
 
 Do you recollect Mrs. Sullivan's old husband, that Englishman 
 " The old King of Bavaria. 
 
444 APPENDIX. 
 
 who was so sick and had such a beautiful collection of pictures ? 
 I went there one day with the Queen of Naples. We entered a 
 saloon where there were thirteen magnificent portraits. All the 
 persons they represented had perished either by the hand of the 
 executioner or by that of assassins, except Louis XI., who had so 
 many others killed. They were the Duke de Montmorency, Cinq- 
 Mars, and De Thou, Henry III, Henry IV., Don Carlos and his 
 unfortunate stepmother, who died poisoned by the detestable 
 Philip II., Coligny, and, finally, the Prince of Condd, assassinated 
 in so dastardly a manner on the field of battle. When one 
 witnesses such horrors, which have reigned for so long a time, 
 the heart is rent by a sort of despair. One curses civilisation, and 
 blushes at being a man. 
 
 I do, however, not always give way to such dismal thoughts : 
 I should be unworthy of my misfortune if it did not afford me 
 sweet comforts. I frequently think myself happy, not at having 
 escaped from the scaffold, but at having been saved by such 
 generous hands. Wife, child, friends, domestics, and even those 
 noble strangers — all have united, all have wrestled, all have 
 suffered, all have triumphed for me ! I have no right to complain 
 of men : never was an unfortunate one honoured by so much 
 devotion, so much courage ! I have lost nothing in the wreck, 
 and still my grief at times almost becomes despair. Alas ! my 
 friend, I was so happy ! — my recollections kill me : and when I 
 succeed in driving them away, or in subjugating them, the phantom 
 of my poor country torn to atoms, and so vilely betrayed, throws 
 me into a state of melancholy that makes me burst into tears. 
 
 Can it be possible, say, that we should be cast into the whirl- 
 pool of infamy, without being able to get out of it ? What ! so 
 many noble efforts, so bloody a struggle, so many triumphs — all 
 terminating in horrible disgrace ! No, no, dear friend ! I will 
 never see my country again 1 Never will I consent to cast down 
 my eyes to the cowardly outrages that are heaped on us-r-never t 
 But enough of that — for the expression of my indignation might be 
 hurtful to your feelings. 
 
 I am going to sketch for you, but I shall not send you anything 
 for some time. At present I only daub : — you may ask Louisa," 
 who has two of my paintings. Wait a little. 
 
 You ask where I live, and how .? I live retired, on the borders 
 ■ Mademoiselle Cochelet, who was at that time with Queen Hortense. 
 
APPENDIX. 445 
 
 of a lake that would be no disparagement to Switzerland, for it is 
 five leagues long by one broad. I occupy a chamber and a cabinet 
 in the lodging of the keeper of a pretty forsaken country seat. I 
 have before my eyes magnificent waters, beautiful wooded hills, 
 and high mountains topped with snow. For my walks, I have 
 fine woods, agreeably cut in lanes, and full of deer, which I leave 
 in peace. My hosts are honest peasants, who know how to cook 
 tolerably well the Spartan black broth ; and it is not witfiout 
 pleasure that I eat of their brown bread. I have no servant — his 
 presence might be dangerous. My companion is an honest artist, 
 without reputation, who knows not a word of my language, and 
 smokes the livelong day ; but I teach him French, and we under- 
 stand each other tolerably well. He wakes me every morning at 
 six o'clock : we sketch till nine. After the most frugal breakfast, 
 we set ourselves to work again till twelve o'clock ; and after dinner, 
 from two to five we work again. I afterwards devote two hours to 
 reading. At seven we walk till supper-time. I have taught him 
 to play chess : we play till ten o'clock, and then I lock myself up ; 
 but I do not go to bed until one in the morning. These night- 
 hours are sacred to the anguish of my heart, and to all my dismal 
 recollections. I write little — my mind is ill-disposed for that : you 
 will observe it too well by this letter. But I talk much to myself; 
 and I believe that if I had pleaded my cause as I do while walking 
 in my cell, I should indeed not have won it, but I should have 
 made the wretches blush that have used me so ill. At last, 
 fatigued with my long soliloquies, I read until sleep forces me to lie 
 down on one of the worst beds in Germany, and to suspend for a 
 few hours the recollection of my sufferings, and those occupations 
 by which I strive to divert them. 
 
 Adieu, adieu ! Why should your friend not write to me 'i We 
 are both unhappy ! Alas ! her ring has not destroyed the power 
 of the Genius of Evil — but that was not her fault. I love her much : 
 I should wish to know she is happy ; for, now that I have no hopes 
 of happiness for myself, that of my friends can alone do me good. 
 But, adieu, dear and excellent friend ! write often to me, and if 
 any letters annoy you, you will be indulgent. When you return to 
 Paris, promise me you will go and embrace my poor child at her 
 boarding-school ; but do not show this letter to Emilie, it would 
 make her uneasy. Tell her only that I am well and tranquil. 
 Adieu ! — once more adieu ! 
 
446 APPENDIX. 
 
 iSth August. 
 
 I thought this letter would go off to-morrow. The opportunity- 
 is delayed by which I was to send it to you, or rather to Louisa, 
 who will forward it into your hands. I send you a few words for 
 Emilie. See her often, comfort her, protect her if you can. You 
 see a great many strangers ; praise her to them ; so that, in case 
 she should be attacked, she may find some support in the good 
 sentiments of their sovereign. Embrace your brother for me : — 
 let me know whether he has many children. Alas ! dear friend, 
 you cannot imagine how the death of my child has afflicted me ! 
 I should be so happy if it were on its mother's breast ! Poor 
 Emilie, how dear I cost her ! Adieu. Try to write to me some- 
 times : the letters I receive from my friends are my only comfort ; 
 and that will last long, for I do not intend to change my manner 
 of living. The sight of men makes me tremble. 
 
 When you go home, you must do one thing on which I set 
 great importance — you must persuade Emilie to have her portrait 
 painted in oil colours by one of our first artists, such as Gerard or 
 Girodet. I have entreated her for it already these twelve years : 
 I had mine painted on purpose to set her the example. Her bad 
 health, and a little negligence, have till now made her forget her 
 promise : force her to keep it, I beseech you. Settle that business, 
 and tell her that she will do me a very great pleasure: I shall 
 write to her on the subject, but speak also to her. It will be easy 
 to do it without drawing public attention : I should prefer Gerard ; 
 he has been a little acquainted with me, and I should feel very 
 grateful if he would exert all his talent in it. 
 
 No. XVII. 
 
 INSTRUCTIONS FOR CITIZEN LAVALETTE ON HIS DEPARTURE 
 ON A MISSION TO SAXONY. 
 
 Paris, ISth Pluviose, 8th year of the Republic. 
 Citizen Lavalette shall write to the First Consul from the chief 
 places through which he will pass. He shall give information — 
 On the public spirit. 
 The coming-in of the taxes. 
 The conscripts. 
 The conduct of the civil and military agents. 
 
APPENDIX. 447 
 
 Citizen Lavalette shall seek in Saxony the best maps of Germany- 
 he can find.' He shall get all those that may have appeared since 
 that time. 
 
 He shall make inquiries into the situation of the Austrian armies. 
 in Italy, in Bavaria, in Suabia. 
 
 He shall write twice in each decade to the Minister of the Foreign 
 Department. 
 
 Independently of the diplomatic news, Citizen Lavalette shall 
 spare no expense to obtain all the information he can on the situa- 
 tion of the armies, the generals, the infantry, the cavalry, the field 
 artillery, and the siege artillery. 
 
 He shall give me all the information he will be able to collect 
 on the situation of Ulm, and the various towns of Bavaria and 
 Bohemia. 
 
 He shall direct particular attention to the Russian army, the 
 number of its regiments, and their position. He shall inquire 
 what is going forward in Poland. 
 
 He shall address all his military information to General Clarke. 
 
 When he lays out any money to get the required informations, 
 he shall send over an account, and the sum shall be reimbursed. 
 
 Bonaparte. 
 
 No. XVIII. 
 
 ABSTRACT OF THE GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS GIVEN TO M. 
 LAVALETTE ON HIS ABOVE-MENTIONED MISSION TO SAXONY. 
 
 2 Pluviose, 8th Year. 
 
 Political agents in foreign countries represent the vigilance and 
 force of the government that sends them. In that double point' of 
 view, their functions are graduated on a scale of activity which it 
 is important to unfold in a distinct and precise manner. 
 
 I. The political agent secretly observes and watches assiduously 
 over the Government near which he resides. The observations he 
 makes, the information he gets, are by him transmitted with exact- 
 ness to his own Government ; and it is by such means that that 
 Government sees by the eyes of its agent all that is useful to the 
 national interests, or hurtful to them. 
 
 ■ When I was in lUyria and Carinthia, they printed very fine maps not only 
 of the Hereditary States, but also of all Germany. 
 
448 APPENDIX. 
 
 2. The political agent manifests his watchfulness, and acquaints 
 the ministers of the Government that is the object of it, that such 
 a measure, or such an attempt, that they meditate, has not escaped 
 his sagacity; and that from the moment the first indication of 
 execution shall threaten to disturb in any degree the existing con- 
 nection between the two countries, he will find means to oppose 
 them with all the zeal and energy his duty may require. 
 
 3. The political agent enters directly and ostensibly into con- 
 nection with the Government near which he resides; but unless he 
 has already precise and especial instructions concerning the direct 
 object his communications have in view, he is satisfied with 
 notifying to that Government that he is disposed to discuss it, and 
 is going to take the orders of his Government. 
 
 4. Finally, the political agent has received the orders of his 
 Government ; in this case, he addresses declarations to the local 
 Government, and replies to them. He debates, discusses, transacts 
 — in one word, he negotiates. 
 
 Such is the scale of the various functions political agents have 
 to fulfil abroad. The Government of the Republic having given 
 their approbation to the unfolding of it, recommend its study to 
 the particular attention of each agent. They equally approve of 
 the following reflections, which, comprising the general rules of 
 conduct they are to follow, will acquaint them with the extent 
 of their responsibility, and with the means by which they may 
 fulfil it. 
 
 The first class of duties political agents have to fulfil is entirely 
 limited to the exercise of their vigilance. That vigilance sup- 
 poses that they have acquired, and that they use all their 
 endeavours to complete their exact knowledge of the interest 
 and natural rights of the country where they write, which com- 
 prises necessarily the whole extent of our commercial connections, 
 and the whole of our political connections. This knowledge is 
 extended and completed by the practice of a well-exercised agency. 
 For the obstacles which social intercourse raises to the activity 
 and amelioration of commercial connection, and the fetters which 
 intrigue, personal ambition, and the individual character of those 
 who govern, perpetually lay on the freedom of political con- 
 nections, are essential parts of political science, and can only 
 be well known to those whose business it is daily to wrestle with 
 them. 
 
APPENDIX. 449 
 
 In the first class of their duties the political agents are kept 
 back by no restrictions ; they are in the full and unlimited exercise 
 of their zeal. They try to discover all that is susceptible of being 
 known : they transmit to the Government of the Republic all 
 they have succeeded in discovering. 
 
 But when they enter into the second class of the duties of 
 their situation, prudence, which is one of the most important 
 qualities that situation requires, must accompany all their deter- 
 minations. They have, as yet, nothing to do, but to let the 
 ministers of the Government near which they reside see that 
 they have penetrated such or such indications of their views ; 
 that they follow them in their secret attempts ; that they are 
 in the track of their projects. However, they must not decide 
 without reflection on such a manifestation of their watchfulness, 
 for the natural effect must be to prevent or stop the progress 
 of these ministers ; and there are some cases in which it may 
 be more useful to let them go on ; to leave them a wider scope, so 
 as to pronounce themselves more clearly. It may happen also 
 that not being certain of repairing the ambition or the ill-will of 
 an enterprising minister, it may be more prudent to do as if one 
 did not perceive views which national dignity might wish to see 
 , retracted as soon as they are discovered. The skill of the agents 
 must in these cases consult the spirit of the mission which is 
 entrusted to them, and the honour of the Government they present. 
 Here their responsibility lies entirely in the exercise of their 
 discernment. 
 
 As to the third class of duties of political agents, it is easier to 
 seize its object than to perceive its guarantee. Here the political 
 agent puts himself in an ostensible connection with the ministers 
 of the local Government. He must perpetually bear in mind the 
 systems of national rights which are clearly traced by the existing 
 state of things, the received customs, the wording of treaties ; and, 
 if the question is to ameliorate the established connection, he 
 must seek his titles in the spirit of these treaties, and in the 
 general system of mutual interests of the two Governments. 
 
 But although, in the execution of this class of duties, the 
 political agent may see with one glance of his eye the road that 
 lies open before him, he must however call all his prudence to 
 his aid before he engages in it: as long as a political agent 
 observes, he has no connection but with his own Government ; 
 
 30 
 
4SO . APPENDIX. 
 
 when he lets his observations be perceived, he enters, in some 
 respect, into an indirect connection with the ministers, whom 
 he acquaints that they are the objects of his attention ; never- 
 theless, these ministers as yet see nothing but power, and can 
 derive no advantage from the knowledge they have of the manner 
 in which he fulfils the obligation of his situation ; but when the 
 political agent speaks ofScially, the ministers see in him the 
 Government of which he is the organ, and that thought must be 
 for him a perpetual motive of circumspection and discretion. 
 
 The first rule to be observed in that respect is, to presume 
 nothing ; never to act without interrogating ; to solicit precise 
 instructions, and to be well imbued with this principle, that 
 in a matter of positive discussion, whether it be in declaring or 
 in replying, the Government alone prepares and negotiates, while 
 the diplomatical agents are only its organs. 
 
 The diplomatical agents have no right either to choose, or to 
 allow, or to refuse, or to transact. They officially declare the 
 determination of the Government they represent. But if they are 
 organs without a will of their own, they must not be organs 
 without intelligence. When they expect the decision they are to 
 interpret, they must plead justice, and choose the most favourable 
 time and means to insure their success. Their responsibility 
 lies wholly in the care with which they keep within the bounds 
 of their instructions, the sagacity that teaches them their real 
 bounds, and the exactness with which they conform their conduct 
 to them. 
 
 In every instruction regarding a discussion of right, there 
 are degrees of demands or sacrifices which, after these instructions 
 have once been laid down by the Government that approved 
 of them, seem to leave, to the discernment of the agent 
 who is to act, a great latitude of power ; but in this he must 
 not be mistaken. The responsibility of an agent is not 
 determined by the maximum of sacrifices or the minimum 
 of demands contained in his instructions. The duty of his 
 mission consists essentially in acting in the best way pos- 
 sible : he must have continually the best way before his eyes, 
 to animate his zeal and encourage his endeavours ; and it is by 
 these endeavours alone, and not by the result of them, that 
 his conduct shall be judged. For, as prudence, discretion, and 
 skill, in their fullest extent, belong to the really important part 
 
APPENDIX. 451 
 
 of a diplomatical agent ; so also, justification and guarantee, to 
 their fullest extent, enter essentially into the means of his 
 responsibility. 
 
 M. Talleyrand. 
 
 No. XIX. 
 
 INSTRUCTIONS FOR CITIZEN LAVALETTE. 
 
 Since the beginning of the war there have existed no direct 
 connections between the Republic and the Government of Saxony. 
 The Elector entered the Coalition, in consequence of the general 
 feeling of anxiety and hatred which not one of the Governments of 
 the Empire could resist ; he quitted it by the sole act of drawing 
 back his quota, and by a declaration he published containing his 
 intention of remaining neutral. 
 
 From the period of the above-mentioned declaration, the 
 accession of that prince to the neutrality of the North of Germany 
 was acknowledged by the Government of the Republic ; but that 
 transaction took place by intermediate means. The act which 
 consecrated it was signed only by the Ministers of the King of 
 Prussia, as vouchers of the Conventions of Neutrality, and the 
 Plenipotentiary of the Republic. 
 
 However, towards the middle of the sixth year, the Executive 
 Directory wished to have a regular agent near the Elector of 
 Saxony. They named Citizen Helfflinger, who, having no pre- 
 decessor at Dresden, went himself through the necessary forms 
 with the Saxon Ministers. He was generally well received, and 
 the Elector expressed his satisfaction at having an agent of the 
 Republic near his person. 
 
 But Citizen Helfflinger, though acknowledged by the Ministers, 
 and treated by them with great consideration, displayed no public 
 character at Dresden. His mission was barely one of observation, 
 and the conversation he was authorised to hold with the Minister 
 of Foreign Affairs, giving opportunities rather to officious than to 
 official communications, served only to keep up the mutual good 
 disposition of the two Governments, and to preserve some trace of 
 the ancient friendship that connected the two countries. 
 
 That is the point of view under which Citizen Lavalette must 
 consider the mission that is entrusted to him. As an observer. 
 
452 APPENDIX. 
 
 his part his susceptible of great activity ; as a diplomatic agent, 
 his mission lies wholly in expectance. 
 
 The policy of the Court of Saxony is, under various aspects, like 
 the agency of the Ministers who reside there, an observation 
 policy : — how exterior and interior circumstances oblige us to 
 act with the greatest reserve, and the personal sentiments of the 
 Prince agree perfectly with those principles of prudence and 
 circumspection which circumstances prescribe him to follow. 
 
 The Saxon nation is, of all the nations of Germany, that which, 
 through its character, approaches to the wise and reflecting part 
 of the French nation. A constitution which in many points 
 resembles that of England, by classing and circumscribing the 
 prerogative of some classes, maintains the rights of all, and the 
 jealousy of Liberty always struggles with advantage against the 
 pretensions and encroachments of hereditary power. 
 
 This persevering struggle, which the grand impulsion given to 
 public opinion by the French Revolution has animated with a 
 double strength, necessarily obliges the Saxon Government to 
 use great prudence in all resolutions that might hurry it on to 
 an augmentation of expenses, or to political combinations of an 
 unknown tendency. Thence a constant attention to keep exterior 
 connections in bounds, and to avoid whatever might lead to 
 engagements. The Court of Saxony has no other wish but that 
 of remaining insulated in the midst of those movements that tend 
 to place all the states of Europe in a situation of mutual dis- 
 traction and enmity. Wholly occupied with her domestic adminis- 
 tration, and its preservation, she has succeeded in neutralising 
 her ambition as well as her territory. She would perhaps have 
 also succeeded, by a principle of interest and wisdom, in guarding 
 herself from anti-revolutionary impressions, if those impressions 
 were not attached to prejudices and passions that nothing can 
 cure. 
 
 There exist, therefore, many reasons to believe that Saxony 
 will not abandon her system of inactivity, unless she be forced to 
 do so, and that she will resist with all her strength the instigation 
 of our enemies. She will be protected in this wise determination 
 by her position, the good state of her military force, and the 
 personal reputation of the Elector. 
 
 Nevertheless, as the obstinacy and petulance of the apostles 
 and ministers of the Coalition stop before no obstacles, Citizen 
 
APPENDIX. 453 
 
 Lavalette will find them constantly occupied in conspiring against 
 the system adopted by the Saxon Government. Their attempts 
 must everywhere be the object of the assiduous observation of 
 an agent of the Republic. They must be the principal tint of 
 the information that Citizen Lavalette must unceasingly seek to 
 acquire and carefully to transmit to Government. 
 
 By the intrigues that he will see going forward, and of which 
 he must study to discover the source, he will keep his eyes con- 
 stantly open on Russia and England. If he knows how to figure 
 to himself the real and just situation in which it is fit that Saxony, 
 for her own interest, should remain in respect to these two Powers, 
 he will perfectly feel how false and absurd is the policy that may 
 wish to place her in any other. 
 
 The Ministers of the Neutral Powers must also be the objects of 
 his watchfulness. The greatest part of them, departing from the 
 principles of their mission, by prepossessions of caste and personal 
 considerations of patronage and ambition, show themselves fre- 
 quently the officious advocates of a cause inimical to the interests 
 of the Government they represent. Their mistaken ideas, by 
 leading them perpetually out of the line of the real enemies of 
 their country with the one they reside in, will make Citizen 
 Lavalette fully understand (and help him in ruling his own 
 conduct) the system of real connections which ought to exist 
 between Saxony and the Governments that have not acceded to 
 the Coalition. That is the rule to which he will conduct the 
 inquiries he will constantly apply himself to make on the plans 
 and manner that will seem to deviate from them. 
 
 There exists in Saxony no able agent of any friendly Power 
 except Spain. Citizen Lavalette will receive from his predecessor, 
 on his connection with that Minister as on his personal connec- 
 tion with the foreign agents, and with those of the Electors, all 
 the information he will stand in need of. Citizen HelfHinger is 
 generally respected at Dresden. The notice and advice he will 
 be eager to give to his successor cannot but be extremely useful to 
 the success of the missions entrusted to him. 
 
 M. Talleyrand. 
 
454 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. XX. 
 
 Paris, 12 Nivose, of the gth Year of the French Republic, 
 One and Indivisible. 
 
 the minister of the foreign department to citizen 
 lavalette. 
 Citizen, 
 
 I hasten to acquaint you with the convention for a cessation of 
 arms that has been concluded between General Moreau and the 
 Archduke Charles. You will find the particulars of it in this day's 
 Moniteur, which I enclose. This new suspension of hostilities, 
 consented to before the gates of Vienna, before an army whose 
 march no army could stop, wiU be in the eyes of Europe a fresh 
 proof of the moderation of Government and its invariable disposi- 
 tion not to pursue the war in any other view than to obtain peace. 
 We may at least believe that Austria will yield to necessity, and 
 that the present truce will be converted into a definite peace. 
 
 I salute you. 
 
 M. Talleyrand. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abdication of Napoleoiv 327 
 
 Aboukir,, Turkish defeat, 192 
 
 Acyorte, 117 
 
 Ajacdo, Bonaparte at, 196 
 
 Alexander, Emperor, 240, 265 
 
 Alexandria, plague at, 168 
 
 Ali Pacha, 157 
 
 Andreossi, General, xxiii. , 421 
 
 Angouleme, Duchess of, 271, 376, 
 
 400, 42s 
 Areola, victory of, 107 
 Army, Revolutionary, 85 ; under 
 
 the Restoration, 278, 287 
 Aroum Farregge, 422 
 Arrest of Lavalette, 332 
 
 of Sir R. Wilson, 411 
 
 Arrighi, Duke of Fadua, 160 
 Artois, Count of, 258, 296, 29S 
 Augereau, 136, 138, 140, 145 
 , Austerlitr, battle of, 227 
 
 Bailly elected mayor, 10 
 Barb^-Marbise, Count, 371 
 Barras, 95, 99, 129, 132, 137, 200, 
 
 423 
 Barthelemi (Police Aga), 171 
 Barthelemy, 137 
 Basoche, La, 4 
 Bassano, Duke of, 293 
 Bastille, capture of, 6 
 Baudus, 374, 380,403 
 Bavaria, King of, 401, 412^ 416 
 , Lavalette's residence in, 
 
 413 
 Beauchamp, 167, 420 
 
 Beauharnais, Alexander, 71, 73, 
 
 loi, 362 
 , Emilie, see Lavalette, 
 
 Countess 
 , Eugene, 100, 144, 284, 
 
 416, 441 
 
 -, see Holland, Queen of. 
 
 and Josephine 
 
 Bellart, Procureur-General, 399 
 
 Bemadotte, 115, 142, 241 
 
 Berri, Duke of, 277 
 
 Berthier, Prince of Neufchatel, 14, 
 145, 20s, 254 
 
 Berthier de Savigny, murder of, 8 
 
 Bertrand, 56 
 
 Bessieres, 31 
 
 Bidon Julien, i6q 
 
 Blacas, 285, 288 
 
 BlUcher, 228 
 
 Boissy d'Anglas, 93 
 
 Bonaparte, Joseph, 259 
 
 , Louis, no, 212 
 
 » Lucien, 204 
 
 , Madame, 125 
 
 Bonaparte, Napoleon, defeats the 
 revolted Sections, 95; thanked 
 by the Convention, 99; marries 
 Josephine, 100 ; promotion, 100 ; 
 self-reliant character, 102 ; de- 
 parture for Italy, 103 ; reception 
 of Lavalette, 108 ; portrait by 
 Gros, III; treaty writh the Pope, 
 1 14 ; treaty of Leoben, 120 ; 
 attitude towards. the Directory, 
 131, 144; peace with Austria, 143; 
 
4S6 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 projected conquest of Egypt, 143 ; 
 treaty of Passeriano, 144 ; slightgd 
 by Augereau, 149 ; Rastadt Con- 
 gress, 150; capture of Malta, 
 155 ; administrative reform, 163 ; 
 naval disaster, 164; Syrian cam- 
 paign, 165, 173 ; siege of St. 
 John of Acre, 175 ; visits Naza- 
 retli, 181 ; accused of poisoning 
 the sick, 188 ; evacuation of 
 Syria, 188 ; visit to the Great 
 Pyramid, 192 ; return from 
 Egypt, 194; reception at Ajaccio, 
 196 ; landing at Fr^jus, 199 ; 
 interview with Directory, 200 ; 
 18th Brumaire, 201 ; attempted 
 assassination, 206 ; Consulate, 
 207 ; clemency to emigrants, 
 210 ; conspiracy to murder, 213 ; 
 becomes Emperor, 224 ; capacity 
 for government, 228 ; campaign 
 of 1809, 230; divorce of Jose- 
 phine, 230 ; marries Maria Louisa, 
 235 ; fatal fire during wedding 
 festivities, 236 ; birth of a son, 
 238; Russian campaign, 241 ; 
 renewal of hostilities, 250 ; return 
 from Russia, 250 ; defeat of 
 Leipsic, 252 ; fresh disasters, 
 256 ; capitulation of Paris, 264 ; 
 Josephine's attachment, 283 ; 
 Josephine's death, 284; plot for 
 a restoration, 290; return from 
 Elba, 29s ; arrival at Tuileries, 
 306 ; causes of his downfall, 311; 
 the Hundred Days, 311 ; cam- 
 paign of 1815, 313 ; infidelity of 
 Maria Louisa, 316 ; Fouch^'s 
 treachery, 319; Champ de Mai, 
 321 ; distribution of eagles, 323 ; 
 Waterloo, 323 ; return to Paris, 
 324 ; abdication, 327 ; projects 
 of escape, 329 ; oflftcial despatches 
 and diplomatic notes, 419, 446 
 
 Bonneville, 385 
 
 Botteau, 142 
 
 Boulay de la Meurthe, 260 
 
 Bourbon, Duke of, 79 
 
 Dynasty, 99 
 
 family traits, 284 
 
 Princes, 215 
 
 Bourmont, 315 
 
 Bournonville, 67, 202 
 Bourrienne, 299 
 Bresson, 391, 403 
 
 , Madame, 392 
 
 , Stanislaus, 396 
 
 Briqueville, 349 
 Brisbane, General, 429 
 Bruce, Mr., 402, 428 
 Brueys, Admiral, 1 54 
 Brumaire, i8th, 203 
 Brune, 113 
 
 Brunswick, Duke of, 52 
 Burnon villa, 211 
 
 Caffarelli, 178, 183 
 
 Cairo, French occupation of, 161 ; 
 
 rebellion at, 166 
 Cambac6:4s, 260, 301 
 Campaign, Rhine, 67 ; Italian, 103, 
 
 120; of 1809, 230; of 181S, 313 
 Carapan, Madame, 363 
 Carnot, Lazare, 129, 134, 137, 148, 
 
 308 
 Carteaux, 97 
 Carvoisin, 361, 381 
 Caulaincourt, 222 
 Chabot, 157, 420 
 Champ de Mai, 321 
 Charette, 103 
 
 Charles, Archduke, 112, 454 
 Chateau-Renaud, 177 
 Charter of 1814, 274, 286 
 Chassenon, 387, 404 
 Cisalpine Republic, 146 
 Clarke, Duke of Feltre, 72, 141, 
 
 260, 369, 434 
 Clermont-Tonnerre, 23 
 Cochelet, Mademoiselle, 444 
 Commissioners of the Convention, 
 
 69. 75 
 Comte, 286 
 Conciergerie, 336, 342 
 Congress at Rastadt, 149 
 Conspiracies against Bonaparte, 
 
 206, 213 
 Constituent Assembly, 1 1 
 Consulate established, 207 
 Convention, policy of the, 91 
 Coquebert, 68 
 Corbin, 75 
 
 Corsica revisited by Bonaparte, 196 
 Cossar, xxxi. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 457 
 
 Cretin, 193 
 Crossier, no 
 Custines, 63, 68, 84 
 
 D'Ambray, 303 
 
 D'Alberg, Duke, 413 
 
 Danican, 98 
 
 Darrieux, 374 
 
 Dastaneg, 193 
 
 D'Aubonne, 59 
 
 Davoust, 240 
 
 De Baitillat, 425 
 
 De Broglie, 33 
 
 Decazes, 345 
 
 De Fidiires, 349 
 
 De rorg;et, 416 
 
 De Freville, 372 
 
 Delmas, 73 
 
 De Loriol, 66 
 
 D'Entraigues, 127 
 
 Desaix, 68, 80, 83, 88, 162, 174 
 
 D'Erlon, Count, 415 
 
 Desgenettes, 186, 189 
 
 De Stael, Madame, 135, 297 
 
 De Tourzel, Madame, 53 
 
 De Vaudemont, Princess, 371 
 
 De Verdike, 37, 50 
 
 De Villefosse, Horon, 355 
 
 D'Hilliers, 56, 71, 81, 94, 103, io6 
 
 Dieudonn^, 79 
 
 Directory instituted, 100 ; its in- 
 herent weakness, 126 ; Bourbon 
 plot, 127 ; events of l8th Fructi- 
 dor, 137 ; disobeyed by Bona- 
 parte, 144 ; l8tfa Brumaire, 203 ; 
 disliked by the nation, 200 ; 
 satirical sketch, xx. 
 
 Djezzar Pacha, 165 
 
 Dommanget, 2 
 
 D'Ormesson de Moiseau, 19 
 
 Dream, terrible, xxviii. 
 
 Dubois d'Angers, 322 
 
 Dubourg, Mademoiselle, 377, 404 
 
 Dugua, General, 174, 423 
 
 Dumouriez, 67 
 
 Dunoyer, 286 
 
 Dupuis, 346, 404 
 
 Duras, Duke of, 360 
 
 Duroc, 109 
 
 Dutoit, Madame, 384 
 
 Eastern expedition, 154 
 
 Education, pre-revolutionary, 2 
 Election for Southwark, 434 
 Egypt, condition of, 162 ; expedi- 
 tion to, 143 
 Egyptian justice, 171 
 Eighteenth Brumaire, 203 
 Eighteenth Fructidor, 137 
 El Mahade, igi 
 Ellister, 428 
 Emigrants, aristocratic, 26, 58, 105, 
 
 210, 275, 277 
 Emperor — see Bonaparte 
 Empire, French, founded, 225 
 Enghien, Duke of, 217, 221 
 England, policy of, 328, 338 
 Erlon, Count, 277 
 Eugene, Prince — see Beauhamais, 
 
 Eugene 
 Excelmans, 291, 400 
 Execution of Louis XVI., 64 
 
 Favras, Marquis of, 23, 286 
 
 Feltre, Duke of — see Clarke 
 
 Fennell, Captain, 432 
 
 Ferme-generale, 5 
 
 Ferrand, 279, 300 
 
 Fersen, 150 
 
 Fire at Austrian Embassy, 236 
 
 Flahaut, 292 
 
 Fouch4 Duke of Otranto, 207, 214, 
 
 231, 294, 307, 318, 329 
 Foulon, murder of, 8 
 Foy, 374 
 
 France, condition of, in 1814, 272 
 FrencThwomen, German opinion of, 
 
 367 
 Frotte, Count, 104 
 Fructidor, i8th, 137 
 
 Galley-slaves, French, 343 
 Gantheaume, 195 
 Geneva, Bonaparte's visit to, 148 
 Genoa, disturbances at, 123 
 Georges, conspirator, 213, 223 
 German opinion of Frenchwomen, 
 
 367 
 Gohier, 204 
 
 Gouvion St. Cyr, 79, 84 
 Grey, Earl, Sir R. Wilson's letter 
 
 to, 427 
 Guidal, 244 
 Guillotine, a travelling, 78 
 
458 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Hassan Toubar, 422 
 
 Helfffinger, 451 
 
 Henry, Prince, 212 
 
 Hoche, 80, 104 
 
 Holland, Lord, 433 
 
 Holland, Queen of, 285, Z96, 328, 
 
 415, 442 
 Hompesch, 146 
 Hortense, Queen — see Holland, 
 
 Queen of 
 Houchard, 63, 69 
 Hua, Advocate-general, 356 
 Hullin, 245 
 Hutchinson, Captain, xxxi., 404, 
 
 428 
 
 Ibrahim Bey, 163, 165, 173, 180 
 Infernal machine, 213 
 Italian campaign, 103, 120 
 
 Jaffa, town stormed, 175 ; plague 
 at, 188 
 
 Jaubert, 183, 254 
 
 Jena, battle of, 228 
 
 Josephine, married to Bonaparte, 
 100 ; mutual attachment, in; 
 divorced, 230 ; at Malmaison, 
 283 ; death, 284 ; household ex- 
 penses, 437 
 
 Joubert, 114, 120 
 
 Jourdan of Avignon, 51 
 
 Journalists, servility of, 320 
 
 Junot, 108, 114, 155, 180 
 
 KiLMAINE, 147 
 King of Bavaria — see Bavaria 
 Kleber, General, xxiii., 68, 82, 181, 
 I8S 
 
 Labedoy^re, 332, 337, 340 
 Laborde, 246 
 
 Lacroix Frainville, 345, 352 
 Lafayette, chief of National Guard, 
 
 10; at Versailles, 12; flight and 
 
 imprisonment, 40 
 Lafont, execution of, 98 
 Lahorie, 74, 85, 127, 244, 248 
 Lallemand, 292 
 Lallemand, Madame, 442 
 La Reveill4re Lepaux, 133 
 La Rochefoucault, Count, 345, 
 
 348. 3S4 
 
 La Ronde, 59 
 
 Larry, 188 
 
 Laudremont, 74 
 
 Lavalette, Count, parentage and 
 education, l, xvii. ; studies law, 2 ; 
 joins National Guard, 4 ; aver- 
 sion to cruelty, 8 ; employed by 
 the King's librarian, 19 ; royalist 
 sympathies, 21 ; attack on the 
 Tuileries, 44 ; events of Septem- 
 ber 2, 53 ; his sense of honour, 
 XXV. ; enlists in the army, 56 ; 
 reviews his own character, 57 ; 
 adventure at Vermanton, 58 ; 
 ordered to the Rhine, 64 ; arrival 
 at Worms, 66 ; opening of cam- 
 paign, 1794, 79 ; hardships of 
 war, 87 ; behaviour under fire, 88; 
 return to Paris, 89; 13th Vend^- 
 miaire, 97 ; Vendean war, 104 ; 
 Italian campaign, 107 ; appointed 
 aide-de-camp, 108 ; sent to the 
 Tyrol, 114 ; adventure at Lienz, 
 117; mission to Genoa, 124; 
 sent to Paris, 128 ; interview 
 with Carnot, 129 ; meeting with 
 Madame de Stael, 136 ; l8th 
 Fructidor, 137 ; return to the 
 army, 140; Rastadt Congress, 149; 
 marriage, xxii., 154, 362; visits 
 Corfu, 156 ; plague at Alexandria, 
 170 ; Syrian campaign, 173 ; 
 visits Nazareth, 182; voy^e to 
 France, 195 ; iSth Brumaire, 
 201 ; mission to Saxony, 208, 
 446 ; visits Berlin, 210 ; ap- 
 pointed Postmaster-general, 214 ; 
 Imperial postal service, 227 ; 
 capitulation of Paris, 263 ; retire- 
 ment from office, 265 ; hidden 
 treasure, 281 ; restoration plot, 
 292 ; visit to the Post-office, 300 ; 
 a significant letter, 316 ; Water- 
 loo, battle of, 324 ; counsels abdi- 
 cation, 326 ; letter to the Ministry, 
 332 ; arrest, 332 ; judicial pro- 
 ceedings, 334, 346 ; a judge's 
 anecdote, 335 ; sent to the Con- 
 ciergerie, 336 ; prison life, 338, 
 348 ; a prison spy, 343 ; visited 
 by his daughter, 350 ; death of 
 his infant son, 353 ; choosing a 
 
INDEX. 
 
 459 
 
 jury. 354 ; 'rial and sentence, 
 358; visited by his wife, 361 ; 
 a terrible dream, xxviii. ; thoughts 
 of suicide, 371 ; preliminaries of 
 evasion, 377 ; escape, 377 ; finds a 
 hiding-place, 388 ; public opinion, 
 393 ) vigilance of the police, 400 ; 
 schemes for quitting Paris, 401 ; 
 protected by English friends, 
 402 ; a night alarm, 405 ; journey 
 to Belgium, 407 ; crosses the 
 frontier, 409 ; reaches Bavaria, 
 412 ; life in exile, 413, 443 ; a 
 royal pardon, xxxii., 416 ; re- 
 turns to France, 417 ; Sir R. 
 Wilson's letter, 427 ; visit to Lon- 
 don, 434 ; letters to Duchess of 
 Ragusa, 440 ; death, xxxiv. 
 
 Lavalette, Countess, marriage, 1 54, 
 363 ; early life, 362 ; death of 
 her infant, 353 ; implores royal 
 clemency, 359, 374, 424; visits 
 her husband in prison, 361 ; resi- 
 dence in Germany, 367 ; at Jose- 
 phine's court, 368 ; contrives her 
 husband's escape, 377 ; her im- 
 prisonment, 399 ; released, 415 ; 
 mental derangement, 417 ; estim- 
 able character, 440 
 
 Lavalette, Mademoiselle, 350, 399, 
 416, 441 
 
 Lebrun, 207 
 
 Lefebvre Desnouettes, 295 
 
 Legislative Assembly, 31 
 
 Lehrbach, 153 
 
 Le Marrois, no 
 
 Lienz, adventure at, 117 
 
 Lorraine and Alsatia, 82 
 
 Losack, Colonel, 429 
 
 Louis XVI., XV.; weakness of 
 character, II, 21, 30; personal 
 appearance, 22 ; the flight to 
 Varennes, 28; events of loth 
 August, 44 ; imprisonment, 50 ; 
 execution, 64 
 
 Louis XVIII., 265, 270, 300, 360, 
 42s 
 
 Macdonald, 202, 299 
 Mallet's plot, 243, 248 
 Malta, secret mission to, 143 ; 
 Knights of, 146 ; capture of, 155 
 
 Mandar, 42 
 
 Mantua, capitulation of, 1 14 
 Maria Louisa, 238, 260, 316, 340 
 Marie Antoinette, 17, 22, 344 
 Marmont, Duke of Ragusa, 109, 
 
 168, 263, 370, 424 
 Marseillaise Hymn, 87 
 Massacres of 2nd September, 53 
 Mass^na, 115, 197 
 Mecklenburgh, Princess of, 212 
 Menou, 94 
 
 Mentz, siege of, 70, 81 
 Metternich, 150 
 Michaud, 76, 169 
 Military discipline, 62 
 Mole, 308 
 Monge, 143 
 Montigny, 104 
 Mourad Bey, 162, 191 
 Moreau, 81, 128, 202, 242, 454 
 Montereau, battle of, 258 
 Montesquieu, 33, 61 
 Murat, 108, 154, 206, 242, 293, 423 
 Murder of French emissaries, 152 
 
 Napoleon — see Bonaparte 
 National Guard, 10, 26, 34, 253 
 National property, 276 
 Nazareth, Bonaparte at, 181 
 Necker, 5, 148 
 Nelson, 156, 161 
 
 Ney, Marshal, 288, 338, 352, 373 
 Nile, battle of the, 161 
 Nobility, French, 16 
 Nobility — see Emigrants 
 
 O'Hagarty, 349 
 Orleans, Duke of, 5, 27 
 Otranto, Duke of — see Fouche 
 
 Padua, Duke of, 160 
 
 Paris, capitulation of, 263 
 
 Pasquier, 264, 369, 372 
 
 Paul, Emperor of Russia, 224 
 
 Peluse, Lavalette's journey to, 421 
 
 Petion, 38 
 
 Pichegru, 76, 80, 93, 127, 217, 222 
 
 Pitt, William, 226 
 
 Pius VI., 114 
 
 Plague at Alexandria, 168 
 
 Plague in Syria, 186 
 
 Plaisance, Duke of, 425 
 
 Polignac, Messrs., 223, 258 
 
460 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Postal service, Imperial, 227 
 Post-office under Lavalette, xxv., 
 
 300, 30s 
 Pousseilgues, 143, 146 
 Prison discipline, 338 
 Prussia, Queen of, 211, 367 
 Pyramids visited by Bonaparte, 192 
 
 Queen of Holland— j«e Holland 
 Queen — see Marie Antoinette 
 
 Ragowski, 49 
 
 Ragusa, Duchess of, 440 
 
 Ragusa, Duke of — see Marmont 
 
 Rastadt, Congress at, 149 
 
 Regnier, 164, 174 
 
 Restoration, 269, 331 
 
 Revolution, French, premonitory 
 tumults, 3 ; States-General con- 
 voked, 4 ; capture of the Bastille, 
 6 ; Constituent Assembly, 11; 
 march to Versailles, 12 ; flight to 
 Varennes, 28 ; interference by 
 the Powers, 32 ; declaration of 
 war, 33 ; mob at the Tuileries, 
 35 ; Federation of July 14th, 38 ; 
 events of August loth, 43 ; the 
 Girondins, 51 ; September mas- 
 sacres, 54; execution of the 
 King, 64 ; popular distress, 89 ; 
 social eccentricities, 90 ; Conven- 
 tion described, 91 ; Directory 
 established, 100 ; weakness of 
 the Directory, 126 ; Bourbon 
 plot, 127 ; 18th Fructidor, 137 ; 
 18th Brumaire, 203 
 
 Revolutionary Army, 85 
 
 Rewbell, 133 
 
 Rhine campaign, 67, 82 
 
 Richelieu, Duke of, 352, 380 
 
 Robespierre, 33 
 
 Roederer, 45, 203 
 
 Ross, Major, 62 
 
 Rovigo, Duke of — see Savary 
 
 Royalists, insolence of, 288 
 
 Russian campaign, 241 
 
 Sacken, Marshal, 285 
 St. Domingo, expedition to, 225 
 St. John of Acre, siege of, 175 
 St. Just, harsh conduct of, 77 
 St. Leu, Duchess of — see Holland, 
 Queen of 
 
 St. Roses, Tascher de, 349 
 
 Salahieh, battle at, 164 
 
 Santerre, 54 
 
 Savary, 245, 258 
 
 Saxony, Elector of, 210 
 
 Saxony, French emigrants in, 372 ; 
 
 Lavalette's mission to, 208, 446 
 Schneider, the Rhenish Marat, 78 
 Schwartzenberg, Prince, 236 
 Sebastiani, 256, 300 /^ 
 
 Serrurier, 115 
 Si^yes, 204 
 
 Smith, Sir Sidney, 176, 194 
 Soult, Duke of Dalmatia, 290, 434 
 Standley, Captain, 175 
 States-General convoked, 4 
 Sulkowski, no, 166 
 Swiss guards, 5, 47 
 Switzerland, Bonaparte in, 148 
 Syrian campaign, 165, 173, 190 
 
 Talleyrand, 134, 167, 206, 257, 
 
 271, 447 
 Thibaudeau, Count, 294, 325 
 Toussaint Louverture, 226 
 Treaty of Basil, 81 ; of Leoben, 120 ; 
 
 of Passeriano, 144 ; of Tilsit, 240 
 Treilhard and Bonnier, 152 
 Tripier, xxvii., 345, 350 
 Tuileries attacked, 44 
 Tyrol, expedition to, 1 14 
 
 Vandeuil, 349 
 Varennes, flight to, 28 
 Vaudemont, Princess, 331 
 Vendue, civil war in, 103, 291 
 Vend^miaire, 13th, 91 
 Venetian states, 122 
 Venture, 183 
 Versailles, march to, 12 
 Vial, General, 421, 423 
 Villemanzy, 75 
 Vitrolles, 303 
 Von Reichberg, Count, 414 
 
 Wallis, Mr., 408 
 
 Waterloo, battle of, 323 
 
 Westermann, 49 
 
 Wilson, Sir Robert, 189, 402, 404, 
 
 411,427,434 
 Wurmser, 76, 107 
 
 Zayonjeck, 117