Louis de Bourrienne
Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete
—[Joachim Murat (1771-1616), the son of an innkeeper, aide de camp to Napoleon in Italy, etc.; Marshal, 1804; Prince in 1806; Grand Admiral; Grand Duc de Berg et de Clesves, 1808; King of Naples, 1808. Shot by Bourbons 13th October 1815. Married Caroline Bonaparte (third sister of Napoleon) 20th January 1800.]—
It may reasonably be supposed that Madame Bonaparte, in endeavouring to win the friendship of Murat by aiding his promotion, had in view to gain one partisan more to oppose to the family and brothers of Bonaparte; and of this kind of support she had much need. Their jealous hatred was displayed on every occasion; and the amiable Josephine, whose only fault was being too much of the woman, was continually tormented by sad presentiments. Carried away by the easiness of her character, she did not perceive that the coquetry which enlisted for her so many defenders also supplied her implacable enemies with weapons to use against her.
In this state of things Josephine, who was well convinced that she had attached Murat to herself by the bonds of friendship and gratitude, and ardently desired to see him united to Bonaparte by a family connection, favoured with all her influence his marriage with Caroline. She was not ignorant that a close intimacy had already sprung up at Milan between Caroline and Murat, and she was the first to propose a marriage. Murat hesitated, and went to consult M. Collot, who was a good adviser in all things, and whose intimacy with Bonaparte had initiated him into all the secrets of the family. M. Collot advised Murat to lose no time, but to go to the First Consul and formally demand the hand of his sister. Murat followed his advice. Did he do well? It was to this step that he owed the throne of Naples. If he had abstained he would not have been shot at Pizzo. 'Sed ipsi Dei fata rumpere non possunt!'
However that might be, Bonaparte received, more in the manner of a sovereign than of a brother in arms, the proposal of Murat. He heard him with unmoved gravity, said that he would consider the matter, but gave no positive answer.
This affair was, as may be supposed, the subject of conversation in the evening in the salon of the Luxembourg. Madame Bonaparte employed all her powers of persuasion to obtain the First Consul's consent, and her efforts were seconded by Hortense, Eugène, and myself, "Murat," said he, among other things, "Murat is an innkeeper's son. In the elevated rank where glory and fortune have placed me, I never can mix his blood with mine! Besides, there is no hurry: I shall see by and by." We forcibly described to him the reciprocal affection of the two young people, and did not fail to bring to his observation Murat's devoted attachment to his person, his splendid courage and noble conduct in Egypt. "Yes," said he, with warmth, "I agree with you; Murat was superb at Aboukir." We did not allow so favourable a moment to pass by. We redoubled our entreaties, and at last he consented. When we were together in his cabinet in the evening, "Well, Bourrienne," said he to me, "you ought to be satisfied, and so am I, too, everything considered. Murat is suited to my sister, and then no one can say that I am proud, or seek grand alliances. If I had given my sister to a noble, all your Jacobins would have raised a cry of counter-revolution. Besides, I am very glad that my wife is interested in this marriage, and you may easily suppose the cause. Since it is determined on, I will hasten it forward; we have no time to lose. If I go to Italy I will take Murat with me. I must strike a decisive blow there. Adieu."
When I entered the First Consul's chamber at seven o'clock the next day he appeared even more satisfied than on the preceding evening with the resolution he had taken. I easily perceived that in spite of all his cunning, he had failed to discover the real motive which had induced Josephine to take so lively an interest respecting Murat's marriage with Caroline. Still Bonaparte's satisfaction plainly showed that his wife's eagerness for the marriage had removed all doubt in his mind of the falsity of the calumnious reports which had prevailed respecting her intimacy with Murat.
The marriage of Murat and Caroline was celebrated at the Luxembourg, but with great modesty. The First Consul did not yet think that his family affairs were affairs of state. But previously to the celebration a little comedy was enacted in which I was obliged to take a part, and I will relate how.
At the time of the marriage of Murat Bonaparte had not much money, and therefore only gave his sister a dowry of 30,000 francs. Still, thinking it necessary to make her a marriage present, and not possessing the means to purchase a suitable one, he took a diamond necklace which belonged to his wife and gave it to the bride. Josephine was not at all pleased with this robbery, and taxed her wits to discover some means of replacing her necklace.
Josephine was aware that the celebrated jeweler Foncier possessed a magnificent collection of fine pearls which had belonged, as he said, to the late Queen, Marie Antoinette. Having ordered them to be brought to her to examine them, she thought there were sufficient to make a very fine necklace. But to make the purchase 250,000 francs were required, and how to get them was the difficulty. Madame Bonaparte had recourse to Berthier, who was then Minister of War. Berthier, after biting his nails according to his usual habit, set about the liquidation of the debts due for the hospital service in Italy with as much speed as possible; and as in those days the contractors whose claims were admitted overflowed with gratitude towards their patrons, through whom they obtained payment, the pearls soon passed from Foncier's shop to the casket of Madame Bonaparte.
The pearls being thus obtained, there was still another difficulty, which Madame Bonaparte did not at first think of. How was she to wear a necklace purchased without her husband's knowledge? Indeed it was the more difficult for her to do so as the First Consul knew very well that his wife had no money, and being, if I may be allowed the expression, something of the busybody, he knew, or believed he knew, all Josephine's jewels. The pearls were therefore condemned to remain more than a fortnight in Madame Bonaparte's casket without her daring to use them. What a punishment for a woman! At length her vanity overcame her prudence, and being unable to conceal the jewels any longer, she one day said to me, "Bourrienne, there is to be a large party here to-morrow, and I absolutely must wear my pearls. But you know he will grumble if he notices them. I beg, Bourrienne, that you will keep near me. If he asks me where I got my pearls I must tell him, without hesitation, that I have had them a long time."
Everything happened as Josephine feared and hoped.
Bonaparte, on seeing the pearls, did not fail to say to Madame, "What is it you have got there? How fine you are to-day! Where did you get these pearls? I think I never saw them before."—"Oh! 'mon Dieu'! you have seen them a dozen times! It is the necklace which the Cisalpine Republic gave me, and which I now wear in my hair."—"But I think—"—"Stay: ask Bourrienne, he will tell you."—"Well, Bourrienne, what do you say to it? Do you recollect the necklace?"—"Yes, General, I recollect very well seeing it before." This was not untrue, for Madame Bonaparte had previously shown me the pearls. Besides, she had received a pearl necklace from the Cisalpine Republic, but of incomparably less value than that purchased from Foncier. Josephine performed her part with charming dexterity, and I did not act amiss the character of accomplice assigned me in this little comedy. Bonaparte had no suspicions. When I saw the easy confidence with which Madame Bonaparte got through this scene, I could not help recollecting Suzanne's reflection on the readiness with which well-bred ladies can tell falsehoods without seeming to do so.
CHAPTER XXXI
1800.
Police on police—False information—Dexterity of Fouché—Police agents deceived—Money ill applied—Inutility of political police— Bonaparte's opinion—General considerations—My appointment to the Prefecture of police.
Before taking up his quarters in the Tuileries the First Consul organised his secret police, which was intended, at the same time, to be the rival or check upon Fouché's police. Duroc and Moncey were at first the Director of this police; afterwards Davoust and Junot. Madame Bonaparte called this business a vile system of espionage. My remarks on the inutility of the measure were made in vain. Bonaparte had the weakness at once to fear Fouché and to think him necessary. Fouché, whose talents at this trade are too well known to need my approbation, soon discovered this secret institution, and the names of all the subaltern agents employed by the chief agents. It is difficult to form an idea of the nonsense, absurdity, and falsehood contained in the bulletins drawn up by the noble and ignoble agents of the police. I do not mean to enter into details on this nauseating subject; and I shall only trespass on the reader's patience by relating, though it be in anticipation, one fact which concerns myself, and which will prove that spies and their wretched reports cannot be too much distrusted.
During the second year of the Consulate we were established at Malmaison. Junot had a very large sum at his disposal for the secret police of the capital. He gave 3000 francs of it to a wretched manufacturer of bulletins; the remainder was expended on the police of his stable and his table. In reading one of these daily bulletins I saw the following lines:
"M. de Bourrienne went last night to Paris. He entered an hotel of the Faubourg St. Germain, Rue de Varenne, and there, in the course of a very animated discussion, he gave it to be understood that the First Consul wished to make himself King."
As it happens, I never had opened my mouth, either respecting what Bonaparte had said to me before we went to Egypt or respecting his other frequent conversations with me of the same nature, during this period of his Consulship. I may here observe, too, that I never quitted, nor ever could quit Malmaison for a moment. At any time, by night or day, I was subject to be called for by the First Consul, and, as very often was the case, it so happened that on the night in question he had dictated to me notes and instructions until three o'clock in the morning.
Junot came every day to Malmaison at eleven o'clock in the morning. I called him that day into my cabinet, when I happened to be alone. "Have you not read your bulletin?" said I, "Yes, I have."—"Nay, that is impossible."—"Why?"—"Because, if you had, you would have suppressed an absurd story which relates to me."—"Ah!" he replied, "I am sorry on your account, but I can depend on my agent, and I will not alter a word of his report." I then told him all that had taken place on that night; but he was obstinate, and went away unconvinced.
Every morning I placed all the papers which the First Consul had to read on his table, and among the first was Junot's report. The First Consul entered and read it; on coming to the passage concerning me he began to smile.
"Have you read this bulletin?"—"Yes, General."—"What an ass that Junot is! It is a long time since I have known that."—"How he allows himself to be entrapped! Is he still here?"—"I believe so. I have just seen him, and made observations to him, all in good part, but he would hear nothing."—"Tell him to come here." When Junot appeared Bonaparte began—"Imbecile that you are! how could you send me such reports as these? Do you not read them? How shall I be sure that you will not compromise other persons equally unjustly? I want positive facts, not inventions. It is some time since your agent displeased me; dismiss him directly." Junot wanted to justify himself, but Bonaparte cut him short—"Enough!—It is settled!"
I related what had passed to Fouché, who told me that, wishing to amuse himself at Junot's expense, whose police agents only picked up what they heard related in coffeehouses, gaming-houses, and the Bourse, he had given currency to this absurd story, which Junot had credited and reported, as he did many other foolish tales. Fouché often caught the police of the Palace in the snares he laid for them, and thus increased his own credit.
This circumstance, and others of the same nature, induced the First Consul to attach less importance than at first he had to his secret police, which seldom reported anything but false and silly stories. That wretched police! During the time I was with him it embittered his life, and often exasperated him against his wife, his relations, and friends.
—[Bourrienne, it must be remembered, was a sufferer from the vigilance of this police.]—
Rapp, who was as frank as he was brave, tells us in his Memoirs (p. 233) that when Napoleon, during his retreat from Moscow, while before Smolenski, heard of the attempt of Mallet, he could not get over the adventure of the Police Minister, Savary, and the Prefect of Police, Pasquier. "Napoleon," says Rapp, "was not surprised that these wretches (he means the agents of the police) who crowd the salons and the taverns, who insinuate themselves everywhere and obstruct everything, should not have found out the plot, but he could not understand the weakness of the Duc de Rovigo. The very police which professed to divine everything had let themselves be taken by surprise." The police possessed no foresight or faculty of prevention. Every silly thing that transpired was reported either from malice or stupidity. What was heard was misunderstood or distorted in the recital, so that the only result of the plan was mischief and confusion.
The police as a political engine is a dangerous thing. It foments and encourages more false conspiracies than it discovers or defeats real ones. Napoleon has related "that M. de la Rochefoucauld formed at Paris a conspiracy in favour of the King, then at Mittau, the first act of which was to be the death of the Chief of the Government. The plot being discovered, a trusty person belonging to the police was ordered to join it and become one of the most active agents. He brought letters of recommendation from an old gentleman in Lorraine who had held a distinguished rank in the army of Condé." After this, what more can be wanted? A hundred examples could not better show the vileness of such a system. Napoleon, when fallen, himself thus disclosed the scandalous means employed by his Government.
Napoleon on one occasion, in the Isle of Elba, said to an officer who was conversing with him about France, "You believe, then, that the police agents foresee everything and know everything? They invent more than they discover. Mine, I believe, was better than that they have got now, and yet it was often only by mere chance, the imprudence of the parties implicated, or the treachery of some of them, that something was discovered after a week or fortnight's exertion." Napoleon, in directing this officer to transmit letters to him under the cover of a commercial correspondence, to quiet his apprehensions that the correspondence might be discovered, said, "Do you think, then, that all letters are opened at the post office? They would never be able to do so. I have often endeavoured to discover what the correspondence was that passed under mercantile forms, but I never succeeded. The post office, like the police, catches only fools."
Since I am on the subject of political police, that leprosy of modern society, perhaps I may be allowed to overstep the order of time, and advert to its state even in the present day.
The Minister of Police, to give his prince a favourable idea of his activity, contrives great conspiracies, which he is pretty sure to discover in time, because he is their originator. The inferior agents, to find favour in the eyes of the Minister, contrive small plots. It would be difficult to mention a conspiracy which has been discovered, except when the police agents took part in it, or were its promoters. It is difficult to conceive how those agents can feed a little intrigue, the result at first, perhaps, of some petty ill-humour and discontent which, thanks to their skill, soon becomes a great affair. How many conspiracies have escaped the boasted activity and vigilance of the police when none of its agents were parties. I may instance Babeuf's conspiracy, the attempt at the camp at Grenelle, the 18th Brumaire, the infernal machine, Mallet, the 20th of March, the affair of Grenoble, and many others.
The political police, the result of the troubles of the Revolution, has survived them. The civil police for the security of property, health, and order, is only made a secondary object, and has been, therefore, neglected. There are times in which it is thought of more consequence to discover whether a citizen goes to mass or confession than to defeat the designs of a band of robbers. Such a state of things is unfortunate for a country; and the money expended on a system of superintendence over persons alleged to be suspected, in domestic inquisitions, in the corruption of the friends, relations, and servants of the man marked out for destruction might be much better employed. The espionage of opinion, created, as I have said, by the revolutionary troubles, is suspicious, restless, officious, inquisitorial, vexatious, and tyrannical. Indifferent to crimes and real offences, it is totally absorbed in the inquisition of thoughts. Who has not heard it said in company, to some one speaking warmly, "Be moderate, M——— is supposed to belong to the police." This police enthralled Bonaparte himself in its snares, and held him a long time under the influence of its power.
I have taken the liberty thus to speak of a scourge of society of which I have been a victim. What I here state may be relied on. I shall not speak of the week during which I had to discharge the functions of Prefect of Police, namely, from the 13th to the 20th of March, 1815. It may well be supposed that though I had not held in abhorrence the infamous system which I have described, the important nature of the circumstances and the short period of my administration must have prevented me from making complete use of the means placed at my disposal. The dictates of discretion, which I consider myself bound to obey, forbid me giving proofs of what I advance. What it was necessary to do I accomplished without employing violent or vexatious means; and I can take on myself to assert that no one has cause to complain of me. Were I to publish the list of the persons I had orders to arrest, those of them who are yet living would be astonished that the only knowledge they had of my being the Prefect of Police was from the Moniteur. I obtained by mild measures, by persuasion, and reasoning what I could never have got by violence. I am not divulging any secrets of office, but I believe I am rendering a service to the public in pointing out what I have often observed while an unwilling confidant in the shameful manoeuvres of that political institution.
The word ideologue was often in Bonaparte's mouth; and in using it he endeavoured to throw ridicule on those men whom he fancied to have a tendency towards the doctrine of indefinite perfectibility. He esteemed them for their morality, yet he looked on them as dreamers seeking for the type of a universal constitution, and considering the character of man in the abstract only. The ideologues, according to him, looked for power in institutions; and that he called metaphysics. He had no idea of power except in direct force. All benevolent men who speculate on the amelioration of human society were regarded by Bonaparte as dangerous, because their maxims and principles were diametrically opposed to the harsh and arbitrary system he had adopted. He said that their hearts were better than their heads, and, far from wandering with them in abstractions, he always said that men were only to be governed by fear and interest. The free expression of opinion through the press has been always regarded by those who are not led away by interest or power as useful to society. But Bonaparte held the liberty of the press in the greatest horror; and so violent was his passion when anything was urged in its favour that he seemed to labour under a nervous attack. Great man as he was, he was sorely afraid of little paragraphs.
—[Joseph Bonaparte fairly enough remarks on this that such writings had done great harm in those extraordinary times (Erreurs, tome i, p. 259). Metternich, writing in 1827 with distrust of the proceedings of Louis XVIII., quotes, with approval, Napoleon's sentiments on this point. "Napoleon, who could not have been wanting in the feeling of power, said to me, 'You see me master of France; well, I would not undertake to govern her for three months with liberty of the press. Louis XVIII., apparently thinking himself stronger than Napoleon, is not content with allowing the press its freedom, but has embodied its liberty in the charter" (Metternich, tome iv, p. 391.)]—
