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Lewis Goldsmith >> Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Volume 2
MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF ST. CLOUD
By Lewis Goldsmith
Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London
Volume 2
LETTER XII.
PARIS, August, 1805.
MY LORD:--Bonaparte has been as profuse in his disposal of the Imperial
diadem of Germany, as in his promises of the papal tiara of Rome. The
Houses of Austria and Brandenburgh, the Electors of Bavaria and Baden,
have by turns been cajoled into a belief of his exclusive support towards
obtaining it at the first vacancy. Those, however, who have paid
attention to his machinations, and studied his actions; who remember his
pedantic affectation of being considered a modern, or rather a second
Charlemagne; and who have traced his steps through the labyrinth of folly
and wickedness, of meanness and greatness, of art, corruption, and
policy, which have seated him on the present throne, can entertain little
doubt but that he is seriously bent on seizing and adding the sceptre of
Germany to the crowns of France and Italy.
During his stay last autumn at Mentz, all those German Electors who had
spirit and dignity enough to refuse to attend on him there in person were
obliged to send Extraordinary Ambassadors to wait on him, and to
compliment him on their part. Though hardly one corner of the veil that
covered the intrigues going forward there is yet lifted up, enough is
already seen to warn Europe and alarm the world. The secret treaties he
concluded there with most of the petty Princes of Germany, against the
Chief of the German Empire which not only entirely detached them from
their country and its legitimate Sovereign, but made their individual
interests hostile and totally opposite to that of the German
Commonwealth, transforming them also from independent Princes into
vassals of France, both directly increased has already gigantic power,
and indirectly encouraged him to extend it beyond what his most sanguine
expectation had induced him to hope. I do not make this assertion from a
mere supposition in consequence of ulterior occurrences. At a supper
with Madame Talleyrand last March, I heard her husband, in a gay,
unguarded, or perhaps premeditated moment, say, when mentioning his
proposed journey to Italy:
"I prepared myself to pass the Alps last October at Mentz. The first
ground-stone of the throne of Italy was, strange as it may seem, laid on
the banks of the Rhine: with such an extensive foundation, it must be
difficult to shake, and impossible to overturn it."
We were, in the whole, twenty-five persons at table when he spoke thus,
many of whom, he well knew, were intimately acquainted both with the
Austrian and Prussian Ambassadors, who by the bye, both on the next day
sent couriers to their respective Courts.
The French Revolution is neither seen in Germany in that dangerous light
which might naturally be expected from the sufferings in which it has
involved both Princes and subjects, nor are its future effects dreaded
from its past enormities. The cause of this impolitic and anti-patriotic
apathy is to be looked for in the palaces of Sovereigns, and not in the
dwellings of their people. There exists hardly a single German Prince
whose Ministers, courtiers and counsellors are not numbered, and have
long been notorious among the anti-social conspirators, the Illuminati:
most of them are knaves of abilities, who have usurped the easy direction
of ignorance, or forced themselves as guides on weakness or folly, which
bow to their charlatanism as if it was sublimity, and hail their
sophistry and imposture as inspiration.
Among Princes thus encompassed, the Elector of Bavaria must be allowed
the first place. A younger brother of a younger branch, and a colonel in
the service of Louis XVI., he neither acquired by education, nor
inherited from nature, any talent to reign, nor possessed any one quality
that fitted him for a higher situation than the head of a regiment or a
lady's drawing-room. He made himself justly suspected of a moral
corruption, as well as of a natural incapacity, when he announced his
approbation of the Revolution against his benefactor, the late King of
France, who, besides a regiment, had also given him a yearly pension of
one hundred thousand livres. Immediately after his unexpected accession
to the Electorate of Bavaria, he concluded a subsidiary treaty with your
country, and his troops were ordered to combat rebellion, under the
standard of Austrian loyalty. For some months it was believed that the
Elector wished by his conduct to obliterate the memory of the errors,
vices, and principles of the Duc de Deux-Ponts (his former title). But
placing all his confidence in a political adventurer and revolutionary
fanatic, Montgelas, without either consistency or firmness, without being
either bent upon information or anxious about popularity, he threw the
whole burden of State on the shoulders of this dangerous man, who soon
showed the world that his master, by his first treaties, intended only to
pocket your money without serving your cause or interest.
This Montgelas is, on account of his cunning and long standing among
them, worshipped by the gang of German Illuminati as an idol rather than
revered as an apostle. He is their Baal, before whom they hope to oblige
all nations upon earth to prostrate themselves as soon as infidelity has
entirely banished Christianity; for the Illuminati do not expect to reign
till the last Christian is buried under the rubbish of the last altar of
Christ. It is not the fault of Montgelas if such an event has not
already occurred in the Electorate of Bavaria.
Within six months after the Treaty of Lundville, Montgelas began in that
country his political and religious innovations. The nobility and the
clergy were equally attacked; the privileges of the former were invaded,
and the property of the latter confiscated; and had not his zeal carried
him too far, so as to alarm our new nobles, our new men of property, and
new Christians, it is very probable that atheism would have already,
without opposition, reared its head in the midst of Germany, and
proclaimed there the rights of man, and the code of liberty and equality.
The inhabitants of Bavaria are, as you know, all Roman Catholics, and the
most superstitious and ignorant Catholics of Germany. The step is but
short from superstition to infidelity; and ignorance has furnished in
France more sectaries of atheism than perversity. The Illuminati,
brothers and friends of Montgelas, have not been idle in that country.
Their writings have perverted those who had no opportunity to hear their
speeches, or to witness their example; and I am assured by Count von
Beust, who travelled in Bavaria last year, that their progress among the
lower classes is astonishing, considering the short period these
emissaries have laboured. To any one looking on the map of the
Continent, and acquainted with the spirit of our times, this impious
focus of illumination must be ominous.
Among the members of the foreign diplomatic corps, there exists not the
least doubt but that this Montgelas, as well as Bonaparte's Minister at
Munich, Otto, was acquainted with the treacherous part Mehde de la Touche
played against your Minister, Drake; and that it was planned between him
and Talleyrand as the surest means to break off all political connections
between your country and Bavaria. Mr. Drake was personally liked by the
Elector, and was not inattentive either to the plans and views of
Montgelas or to the intrigues of Otto. They were, therefore, both doubly
interested to remove such a troublesome witness.
M. de Montgelas is now a grand officer of Bonaparte's Legion of Honour,
and he is one of the few foreigners nominated the most worthy of such a
distinction. In France he would have been an acquisition either to the
factions of a Murat, of a Brissot, or of a Robespierre; and the Goddess
of Reason, as well as the God of the Theophilanthropists, might have been
sure of counting him among their adorers. At the clubs of the Jacobins
or Cordeliers, in the fraternal societies, or in a revolutionary
tribunal; in the Committee of Public Safety, or in the council chamber of
the Directory, he would equally have made himself notorious and been
equally in his place. A stoic sans-culotte under Du Clots, a stanch
republican under Robespierre, he would now have been the most pliant and
brilliant courtier of Bonaparte.
LETTER XIII.
PARIS, August, 1805.
MY LORD:--No Queen of France ever saw so many foreign Princes and
Princesses in her drawing-rooms as the first Empress of the French did
last year at Mentz; and no Sovereign was ever before so well paid, or
accepted with less difficulty donations and presents for her gracious
protection. Madame Napoleon herself, on her return to this capital last
October, boasted that she was ten millions of livres--richer in diamonds;
two millions of livres richer in pearls, and three million of livres
richer in plate and china, than in the June before, when she quitted it.
She acknowledged that she left behind her some creditors and some money
at Aix-la-Chapelle; but at Mentz she did not want to borrow, nor had she
time to gamble. The gallant ultra Romans provided everything, even to
the utmost extent of her wishes; and she, on her part, could not but
honour those with her company as much as possible, particularly as they
required nothing else for their civilities. Such was the Empress's
expression to her lady in waiting, the handsome Madame Seran, with whom
no confidence, no tale, no story, and no scandal expires; and who was in
a great hurry to inform, the same evening, the tea-party at Madame de
Beauvais's of this good news, complaining at the same time of not having
had the least share in this rich harvest.
Nowhere, indeed, were bribery and corruption carried to a greater extent,
or practised with more effrontery, than at Mentz. Madame Napoleon had as
much her fixed price for every favourable word she spoke, as Talleyrand
had for every line he wrote. Even the attendants of the former, and the
clerks of the latter, demanded, or rather extorted, douceurs from the
exhausted and almost ruined German petitioners; who in the end were
rewarded for all their meanness and for all their expenses with promises
at best; as the new plan of supplementary indemnities was, on the very
day proposed for its final arrangement, postponed by the desire of the
Emperor of the French, until further orders. This provoking delay could
no more be foreseen by the Empress than by the Minister, who, in return
for their presents and money almost overpowered the German Princes with
his protestations of regret at their disappointments. Nor was Madame
Bonaparte less sorry or less civil. She sent her chamberlain, Daubusson
la Feuillad, with regular compliments of condolence to every Prince who
had enjoyed her protection. They returned to their homes, therefore, if
not wealthier, at least happier; flattered by assurances and
condescensions, confiding in hope as in certainties. Within three
months, however, it is supposed that they would willingly have disposed
both of promises and expectations at a loss of fifty per cent.
By the cupidity and selfishness of these and other German Princes, and
their want of patriotism, Talleyrand was become perfectly acquainted with
the value and production of every principality, bishopric, county, abbey,
barony, convent, and even village in the German Empire; and though most
national property in France was disposed of at one or two years'
purchase, he required five years' purchase-money for all the estates and
lands on the other side of the Rhine, of which, under the name of
indemnities, he stripped the lawful owners to gratify the ambition or
avidity of intruders. This high price has cooled the claims of the
bidders, and the plan of the supplementary indemnities is still
suspended, and probably will continue so until our Minister lowers his
terms. A combination is supposed to have been entered into by the chief
demanders of indemnities, by which they have bound themselves to resist
all farther extortions. They do not, however, know the man they have to
deal with; he will, perhaps, find out some to lay claim to their own
private and hereditary property whom he will produce and support, and who
certainly will have the same right to pillage them as they had to the
spoils of others.
It was reported in our fashionable circles last autumn, and smiled at by
Talleyrand, that he promised the Comtesse de L------ an abbey, and the
Baroness de S-----z a convent, for certain personal favours, and that he
offered a bishopric to the Princesse of Hon----- the same terms, but this
lady answered that "she would think of his offers after he had put her
husband in possession of the bishopric." It is not necessary to observe
that both the Countess and the Baroness are yet waiting to enjoy his
liberal donations, and to be indemnified for their prostitution.
Napoleon Bonaparte was attacked by a fit of jealousy at Mentz. The young
nephew of the Elector Arch-Chancellor, Comte de L----ge, was very
assiduous about the Empress, who, herself, at first mistook the motive.
Her confidential secretary, Deschamps, however, afterwards informed her
that this nobleman wanted to purchase the place of a coadjutor to his
uncle, so as to be certain of succeeding him. He obtained, therefore,
several private audiences, no doubt to regulate the price, when Napoleon
put a stop to this secret negotiation by having the Count carried by
gendarmes, with great politeness, to the other side of the Rhine. When
convinced of his error, Bonaparte asked his wife what sum had been
promised for her protection, and immediately gave her an order on his
Minister of the Treasury (Marbois) for the amount. This was an act of
justice, and a reparation worthy of a good and tender husband; but when,
the very next day, he recalled this order, threw it into the fire before
her eyes, and confined her for six hours in her bedroom; because she was
not dressed in time to take a walk with him on the ramparts, one is apt
to believe that military despotism has erased from his bosom all
connubial affection, and that a momentary effusion of kindness and
generosity can but little alleviate the frequent pangs caused by repeated
insults and oppression. Fortunately, Madame Napoleon's disposition is
proof against rudeness as well as against brutality. If what her friend
and consoler, Madame Delucay, reports of her is not exaggerated, her
tranquillity is not much disturbed nor her happiness affected by these
explosions of passionate authority, and she prefers admiring, in
undisturbed solitude, her diamond box to the most beautiful prospects in
the most agreeable company; and she inspects with more pleasure in
confinement, her rich wardrobe, her beautiful china, and her heavy plate,
than she would find satisfaction, surrounded with crowds, in
comtemplating Nature, even in its utmost perfection. "The paradise of
Madame Napoleon," says her friend, "must be of metal, and lighted by the
lustre of brilliants, else she would decline it for a hell and accept
Lucifer himself for a spouse, provided gold flowed in his infernal
domains, though she were even to be scorched by its heat."
LETTER XIV.
LETTER XIV.
PARIS, August, 1805.
MY LORD:--I believe that I have mentioned to you, when in England, that I
was an old acquaintance of Madame Napoleon, and a visitor at the house of
her first husband. When introduced to her after some years' absence,
during which fortune had treated us very differently, she received me
with more civility than I was prepared to expect, and would, perhaps,
have spoken to me more than she did, had not a look of her husband
silenced her. Madame Louis Bonaparte was still more condescending, and
recalled to my memory what I had not forgotten how often she had been
seated, when a child, on my lap, and played on my knees with her doll.
Thus they behaved to me when I saw them for the first time in their
present elevation; I found them afterwards, in their drawing-rooms or at
their routs and parties, more shy and distant. This change did not much
surprise me, as I hardly knew any one that had the slightest pretension
to their acquaintance who had not troubled them for employment or
borrowed their money, at the same time that they complained of their
neglect and their breach of promises. I continued, however, as much as
etiquette and decency required, assiduous, but never familiar: if they
addressed me, I answered with respect, but not with servility; if not, I
bowed in silence when they passed. They might easily perceive that I did
not intend to become an intruder, nor to make the remembrance of what was
past an apology or a reason for applying for present favours. A lady, on
intimate terms with Madame Napoleon, and once our common friend, informed
me, shortly after the untimely end of the lamented Duc d' Enghien, that
she had been asked whether she knew anything that could be done for me,
or whether I would not be flattered by obtaining a place in the
Legislative Body or in the Tribunate? I answered as I thought, that were
I fit for a public life nothing could be more agreeable or suit me
better; but, having hitherto declined all employments that might restrain
that independence to which I had accustomed myself from my youth, I was
now too old to enter upon a new career. I added that, though the
Revolution had reduced my circumstances, it had not entirely ruined me. I
was still independent, because my means were the boundaries of my wants.
A week after this conversation General Murat, the governor of this
capital, and Bonaparte's favourite-brother-in-law, invited me to a
conversation in a note delivered to me by an aide-de-camp, who told me
that he was ordered to wait for my company, or, which was the same, he
had orders not to lose sight of me, as I was his prisoner. Having
nothing with which to reproach myself, and all my written remarks being
deposited with a friend, whom none of the Imperial functionaries could
suspect, I entered a hackney coach without any fear or apprehension; and
we drove to the governor's hotel.
From the manner in which Murat addressed me, I was soon convinced that if
I had been accused of any error or indiscretion, the accusation could not
be very grave in his eyes. He entered with me into his closet and
inquired whether I had any enemies at the police office. I told him not
to my knowledge.
"Is the Police Minister and Senator, Fouche, your friend?" continued he.
"Fouche," said I, "has bought an estate that formerly belonged to me; may
he enjoy it with the same peace of mind as I have lost it. I have never
spoken to him in my life."
"Have you not complained at Madame de la Force's of the execution of the
ci-devant Duc d'Enghien, and agreed with the other members of her coterie
to put on mourning for him?"
"I have never been at the house of that lady since the death of the
Prince, nor more than once in my life."
"Where did you pass the evening last Saturday?"--"At the hotel, and in
the assembly of Princesse Louis Bonaparte."
"Did she see you?"
"I believe that she did, because she returned my salute."
"You have known Her Imperial Highness a long time?"
"From her infancy."
"Well, I congratulate you. You have in her a generous protectress. But
for her you would now have been on the way to Cayenne. Here you see the
list of persons condemned yesterday, upon the report of Fouche, to
transportation. Your name is at the head of them. You were not only
accused of being an agent of the Bourbons, but of having intrigued to
become a member of the Legislature, or the Tribunate, that you might have
so much the better opportunity to serve them. Fortunately for you, the
Emperor remembered that the Princesse Louis had demanded such a favour
for you, and he informed her of the character of her protege. This
brought forward your innocence, because it was discovered that, instead
of asking for, you had declined the offer she had made you through the
Empress. Write the Princess a letter of thanks. You have, indeed, had a
narrow escape, but it has been so far useful to you, that Government is
now aware of your having some secret enemy in power, who is not delicate
about the means of injuring you."
In quitting General Murat, I could not help deploring the fate of a
despot, even while I abhorred his unnatural power. The curses, the
complaints, and reproaches for all the crimes, all the violence, all the
oppression perpetrated in his name, are entirely thrown upon him, while
his situation and occupation do not admit the seeing and hearing
everything and everybody himself. He is often forced, therefore, to
judge according to the report of an impostor; to sanction with his name
the hatred, malignity, or vengeance of culpable individuals; and to
sacrifice innocence to gratify the vile passions of his vilest slave. I
have not so bad an opinion of Bonaparte as to think him capable of
wilfully condemning any person to death or transportation, of whose
innocence he was convinced, provided that person stood not in the way of
his interest and ambition; but suspicion and tyranny are inseparable
companions, and injustice their common progeny. The unfortunate beings
on the long list General Murat showed me were, I dare say, most of them
as innocent as myself, and all certainly condemned unheard. But suppose,
even, that they had been indiscreet enough to put on mourning for a
Prince of the blood of their former Kings, did their imprudence deserve
the same punishment as the deed of the robber, the forger, or the
housebreaker? and, indeed, it was more severe than what our laws inflict
on such criminals, who are only condemned to transportation for some few
years, after a public trial and conviction; while the exile of these
unconvicted, untried, and most probably innocent persons is continued for
life, on charges as unknown to themselves as their destiny and residence
remain to their families and friends. Happy England! where no one is
condemned unheard, and no one dares attempt to make the laws subservient
to his passions or caprice.
As to Fouche's enmity, at which General Murat so plainly hinted, I had
long apprehended it from what others, in similar circumstances with
myself, had suffered. He has, since the Revolution, bought no less, than
sixteen national estates, seven of the former proprietors of which have
suddenly disappeared since his Ministry, probably in the manner he
intended to remove me. This man is one of the most immoral characters
the Revolution has dragged forward from obscurity. It is more difficult
to mention a crime that he has not perpetrated than to discover a good or
just action that he ever performed. He is so notorious a villain that
even the infamous National Convention expelled him from its bosom, and
since his Ministry no man has been found base enough, in my debased
country, to extenuate, much less to defend, his past enormities. In a
nation so greatly corrupted and immoral, this alone is more than negative
evidence.
As a friar before the Revolution he has avowed, in his correspondence
with the National Convention, that he never believed in a God; and as one
of the first public functionaries of a Republic he has officially denied
the existence of virtue. He is, therefore, as unmoved by tears as by
reproaches, and as inaccessible to remorse as hardened against
repentance. With him interest and bribes are everything, and honour and
honesty nothing. The supplicant or the pleader who appears before him
with no other support than the justice of his cause is fortunate indeed
if, after being cast, he is not also confined or ruined, and perhaps
both; while a line from one of the Bonapartes, or a purse of gold,
changes black to white, guilt to innocence, removes the scaffold waiting
for the assassin, and extinguishes the faggots lighted for the parricide.
His authority is so extensive that on the least signal, with one blow,
from the extremities of France to her centre, it crushes the cot and the
palace; and his decisions, against which there is no appeal, are so
destructive that they never leave any traces behind them, and Bonaparte,
Bonaparte alone, can prevent or arrest their effect.
Though a traitor to his former benefactor, the ex-Director Barras, he
possesses now the unlimited confidence of Napoleon Bonaparte, and, as far
as is known, has not yet done anything to forfeit it,--if private acts of
cruelty cannot, in the agent of a tyrant, be called breach of trust or
infidelity. He shares with Talleyrand the fraternity of the vigilant,
immoral, and tormenting secret police; and with Real, and Dubois, the
prefect of police, the reproduction, or rather the invention, of new
tortures and improved racks; the oubliettes, which are wells or pits dug
under the Temple and most other prisons, are the works of his own
infernal genius. They are covered with trap-doors, and any person whom
the rack has mutilated, or not obliged to speak out; whose return to
society is thought dangerous, or whose discretion is suspected; who has
been imprisoned by mistake, or discovered to be innocent; who is
disagreeable to the Bonapartes, their favourites, or the mistresses of
their favourites; who has displeased Fouche, or offended some other
placeman; any who have refused to part with their property for the
recovery of their liberty, are all precipitated into these artificial
abysses there to be forgotten; or worse, to be starved to death, if they
have not been fortunate enough to break their necks and be killed by the
fall.