Book: Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Volume 6

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MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF ST. CLOUD


Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London


By Lewis Goldsmith



Volume 6



LETTER X.

PARIS, September, 1805.

My LORD:--I was lately invited to a tea-party by one of our rich
upstarts, who, from a scavenger, is, by the Revolution and by Bonaparte,
transformed into a Legislator, Commander of the Legion of Honour, and
possessor of wealth amounting to eighteen millions of livres. In this
house I saw for the first time the famous Madame Chevalier, the mistress,
and the indirect cause of the untimely end, of the unfortunate Paul the
First. She is very short, fat, and coarse. I do not know whether
prejudice, from what I have heard of her vile, greedy, and immoral
character, influenced my feelings, but she appeared to me a most artful,
vain, and disagreeable woman. She looked to be about thirty-six years of
age; and though she might when younger have been well made, it is
impossible that she could ever have been handsome. The features of her
face are far from being regular. Her mouth is large, her eyes hollow,
and her nose short. Her language is that of brothels, and her manners
correspond with her expressions. She is the daughter of a workman at a
silk manufactory at Lyons; she ceased to be a maid before she had
attained the age of a woman, and lived in a brothel in her native city,
kept by a Madame Thibault, where her husband first became acquainted with
her. She then had a tolerably good voice, was young and insinuating, and
he introduced her on the same stage where he was one of the inferior
dancers. Here in a short time she improved so much, that she was engaged
as a supernumerary; her salary in France as an actress was, however,
never above twelve hundred livres in the year--which was four hundred
livres more than her husband received.

He, with several other inferior and unprincipled actors and dancers,
quitted the stage in the beginning of the Revolution for the clubs; and
instead of diverting his audience, resolved to reform and regenerate his
nation. His name is found in the annals of the crimes perpetrated at
Lyons, by the side of that of a Fouche, a Collot d'Herbois, and other
wicked offsprings of rebellion. With all other terrorists, he was
imprisoned for some time after the death of Robespierre; as soon as
restored to liberty, he set out with his wife for Hamburg, where some
amateurs had constructed a French theatre.

It was in the autumn of 1795 when Madame Chevalier was first heard of in
the North of Europe, where her arrival occasioned a kind of theatrical
war between the French, American, and Hamburg Jacobins on one side, and
the English and emigrant loyalists on the other. Having no money to
continue her pretended journey to Sweden, she asked the manager of the
French theatre at Hamburg to allow her a benefit, and permission to play
on that night. She selected, of course, a part in which she could appear
to the most advantage, and was deservedly applauded. The very next
evening the Jacobin cabal called the manager upon the stage, and insisted
that Madame Chevalier should be given a regular engagement. He replied
that no place suitable to her talents was vacant, and that it would be
ungenerous to turn away for her sake another actress with whom the public
had hitherto declared their satisfaction. The Jacobins continued
inflexible, and here, as well as everywhere else, supported injustice by
violence. As the patriotism of the husband, more than the charms of the
wife, was known to have produced this indecent fracas, which for upwards
of a week interrupted the plays, all anti-Jacobins united to restore
order. In this they would, perhaps, have finally succeeded, had not the
bayonets of the Hamburg soldiers interfered, and forced this precious
piece of revolutionary furniture upon the manager and upon the stage.

After displaying her gratitude in her own way to each individual of the
Jacobin levy en masse in her favour, she was taken into keeping by a then
rich and married Hamburg merchant, who made her a present of a richly and
elegantly furnished house, and expended besides ten thousand louis d'or
on her, before he had a mortifying conviction that some other had
partaken of those favours for which he had so dearly paid. A countryman
of yours then showed himself with more noise than honour upon the scene,
and made his debut with a phaeton and four, which he presented to his
theatrical goddess, together with his own dear portrait, set round with
large and valuable diamonds. Madame Chevalier, however, soon afterwards
hearing that her English gallant had come over to Germany for economy,
and that his credit with his banker was nearly exhausted, had his
portrait changed for that of another and richer lover, preserving,
however, the diamonds; and she exposed this inconstancy even upon the
stage, by suspending, as if in triumph, the new portrait fastened on her
bosom. The Englishman, wishing to retrieve his phaeton and horses, which
he protested only to have lent his belle, found that she had put the
whole equipage into a kind of lottery, or raffle, to which all her
numerous friends had subscribed, and that an Altona Jew had won it.

The successor of your countryman was a Russian nobleman, succeeded in his
turn by a Polish Jew, who was ruined and discarded within three months.
She then became the property of the public, and, by her active industry,
during a stay of four years at Hamburg, she was enabled to remit to
France, before her departure for Russia, one million two hundred thousand
livres. Her popularity was, however, at that period, very much on the
decline, as she had stooped to the most indelicate means to collect
money, and to extort it from her friends and acquaintances. She had
always lists of subscriptions in her pocket; some with proposals to play
in her lotteries for trinkets unnecessary to her; others, to procure her,
by the assistance of subscribers, some trinkets which she wanted.

I suppose it to be no secret to you that the female agents of
Talleyrand's secret diplomacy are frequently more useful than those of
the other sex. I am told that Madame Rochechouart was that friend of our
Ministers who engaged Madame Chevalier in her Russian expedition, and who
instructed her how to act her parts well at St. Petersburg. I need not
repeat what is so well known, that, after this artful emissary had ruined
the domestic happiness of the Russian Monarch, she degraded him in his
political transactions, and became the indirect cause of his untimely
end, in procuring, for a bribe of fifty thousand roubles in money and
jewels, the recall of one of the principal conspirators against the
unfortunate Paul.

The wealth she plundered in the Russian capital, within the short period
of twenty months, amounted to much above one million of roubles. For
money she procured impunity for crime, and brought upon innocence the
punishment merited by guilt. The scaffolds of Russia were bleeding, and
the roads to Siberia crowded with the victims of the avarice of this
female demon, who often promised what she was unable to perform, and, to
silence complaint, added cruelty to fraud, and, after pocketing the
bribe, resorted to the executioner to remove those whom she had duped.
The shocking anecdote of the Sardinian secretary, whom she swindled out
of nearly a hundred thousand roubles, and on whom she afterwards
persuaded her Imperial lover to inflict capital punishment, is too recent
and too public to be unknown or forgotten. A Russian nobleman has
assured me that the number of unfortunate individuals whom her and her
husband's intrigues have caused to suffer capitally during 1800 and 1801
was forty-six; and that nearly three hundred persons besides, who could
not or would not pay their extortionate demands, were exiled to Siberia
during the same period of time.

You may, perhaps, think that a low woman who could produce such great and
terrible events, must be mistress of natural charms, as well as of
acquired accomplishments. As I have already stated, she can have no
pretensions to either, but she is extremely insinuating, sings tolerably
well, has a fresh and healthy look, and possesses an unusually good share
of cunning, presumption, and duplicity. Her husband, also, everywhere
took care to make her fashionable; and the vanity of the first of their
dupes increased the number of her admirers and engaged the vanity of
others in their turn to sacrifice themselves at her shrine.

The immorality of our age, also, often procured her popularity for what
deserved, and in better times would have encountered, the severest
reprobation. In 1797, an emigrant lodged at an inn at Hamburg where
another traveller was robbed of a large sum in ready money and jewels.
The unfortunate is always suspected; and in the visit made to his room by
the magistrates was found a key that opened the door of the apartment
where the theft had been committed. In vain did he represent that had he
been the thief he should not have kept an instrument which was, or might
be, construed into an argument of guilt; he was carried to prison, and,
though none of the property was discovered in his possession, would have
been condemned, had he not produced Madame Chevalier, who avowed that the
key opened the door of her bedroom, which the smith who had made it
confirmed, and swore that he had fabricated eight keys for the same
actress and for the same purpose.

At that time this woman lived in the same house with her husband, but
cohabited there with the husband of another woman. She had also places
of assignation with other gallants at private apartments, both in Hamburg
and at Altona. All these, her scandalous intrigues, were known even to
the common porters of these cities. The first time, after the affair of
the key had become public, she acted in a play where a key was mentioned,
and the audience immediately repeated, "The key! the key!" Far from
being ashamed, she appeared every night in pieces selected by her, where
there was mention of keys, and thus tired the jokes of the public. This
impudence might have been expected from her, but it was little to be
supposed that her barefaced vices should, as really was the case, augment
the crowd of suitors, and occasion even some duels, which latter she both
encouraged and rewarded.

Two brothers, of the name of De S-----, were both in love with her, and
the eldest, as the richest, became her choice. Offended at his refusal
of too large a sum of money, she wrote to the younger De S-----, and
offered to accede to his proposals if, like a gentleman, he would avenge
the affront she had experienced from his brother. He consulted a friend,
who, to expose her infamy, advised him to send some confidential person
to inform her that he had killed his elder brother, and expected the
recompense on the same night. He went and was received with open arms,
and had just retired with her, when the elder brother, accompanied by his
friend, entered the room. Madame Chevalier, instead of upbraiding,
laughed, and the next day the public laughed with her, and applauded her
more than ever. She knew very well what she was doing. The stories of
the key and the duel produced for her more than four thousand louis d'or
by the number of new gallants they enticed. It was a kind of emulation
among all young men in the North who should be foremost to dishonour and
ruin himself with this infamous woman.

Madame Chevalier and her husband now live here in grand style, and have
their grand parties, grand teas, grand assemblies, and grand balls. Their
hotel, I am assured, is even visited by the Bonapartes and by the members
of the foreign diplomatic corps. In the house where I saw her, I
observed that Louis Bonaparte and two foreign Ambassadors spoke to her as
old acquaintances. Though rich, to the amount of ten millions of
livres--she, or rather her husband, keeps a gambling-house, and her
superannuated charms are still to be bought for money, at the disposal of
those amateurs who are fond of antiques. Both her husband and herself
are still members of our secret diplomacy, though she complains loudly
that, of the two millions of livres--promised her in 1799 by Bonaparte
and Talleyrand if she could succeed in persuading Paul I. to withdraw
from his alliance with England and Austria, only six hundred thousand
livres--has been paid her.

I cannot finish this letter without telling you that before our military
forces had reached the Rhine, our political incendiaries had already
taken the field, and were in full march towards the Austrian, Russian,
and Prussian capitals. The advanced guard of this dangerous corps
consists entirely of females, all gifted with beauty and parts as much
superior to those of Madame Chevalier as their instructions are better
digested. Bonaparte and Talleyrand have more than once regretted that
Madame Chevalier was not ordered to enter into the conspiracy against
Paul (whose inconsistency and violence they foresaw would make his reign
short), that she might have influenced the conspirators to fix upon a
successor more pliable and less scrupulous, and who would have suffered
the Cabinet of St. Cloud to dictate to the Cabinet of St. Petersburg.

I dined in company several times this last spring with two ladies who,
rumour said, have been destined for your P----- of W---- and D--- of
Y---ever since the Peace of Amiens. Talleyrand is well informed what
figures and what talents are requisite to make an impression on these
Princes, and has made his choice accordingly. These ladies have lately
disappeared, and when inquired after are stated to be in the country,
though I do not consider it improbable that they have already arrived at
headquarters. They are both rather fair and lusty, above the middle
size, and about twenty-five years of age. They speak, besides French,
the English and Italian languages. They are good drawers, good
musicians, good singers, and, if necessary, even good drinkers.




LETTER XI.

PARIS, September, 1805.

MY LORD:--Had the citizens of the United States been as submissive to the
taxation of your Government as to the vexations of our ruler, America
would, perhaps, have been less free and Europe more tranquil. After the
treaty of Amiens had Produced a general pacification, our Government was
seriously determined to reconquer from America a part of those treasures
its citizens had gained during the Revolutionary War, by a neutrality
which our policy and interest required, and which the liberality of your
Government endured. Hence the acquisition we made of New Orleans from
Spain, and hence the intrigues of our emissaries in that colony, and the
peremptory requisitions of provision for St. Domingo by our Minister and
generals. Had we been victorious in St. Domingo, most of our troops
there were destined for the American Continent, to invade, according to
circumstances, either the Spanish colonies on the terra firma or the
States of the American Commonwealth. The unforeseen rupture with your
country postponed a plan that is far from being laid aside.

You may, perhaps, think that since we sold Louisiana we have no footing
in America that can threaten the peace or independence of the United
States; but may not the same dictates that procured us at Madrid the
acquisition of New Orleans, also make us masters of Spanish Florida? And
do you believe it improbable that the present disagreement between
America and Spain is kept up by our intrigues and by our future views?
Would not a word from us settle in an instant at Madrid the differences
as well as the frontiers of the contending parties in America? And does
it not seem to be the regular and systematic plan of our Government to
provoke the retaliation of the Americans, and to show our disregard of
their privilege of neutrality and rights of independence; and that we
insult them only because we despise them, and despise them only because
we do not apprehend their resentment.

I have heard the late American Minister here assert that the American
vessels captured by our cruisers and condemned by our tribunals, only
during the last war, amounted to about five hundred; and their cargoes
(all American property) to one hundred and fifty millions of
livres--L6,000,000. Some few days ago I saw a printed list, presented by
the American consul to our Minister of the Marine Department, claiming
one hundred and twelve American ships captured in the West Indies and on
the coast of America within these last two years, the cargoes of which
have all been confiscated, and most of the crews still continue prisoners
at Martinico, Gaudeloupe, or Cayenne. Besides these, sixty-six American
ships, after being plundered in part of their cargoes at sea by our
privateers, had been released; and their claims for property thus lost,
or damage thus done, amounting to one million three hundred thousand
livres.

You must have read the proclamations of our governors in the West Indies,
and therefore remember that one dated at Guadeloupe, and another dated at
the City of San Domingo, both declare, without farther ceremony, all
American and other neutral ships and cargoes good and lawful prizes, when
coming from or destined to any port in the Island of St. Domingo, because
Bonaparte's subjects there were in a state of rebellion. What would
these philosophers who, twelve years ago, wrote so many libels against
your Ministers for their pretended system of famine, have said, had they,
instead of prohibiting the carrying of ammunition and provisions to the
ports of France, thus extended their orders without discrimination or
distinction? How would the neutral Americans, and the neutral Danes, and
their then allies, philosophers, and Jacobins of all colours and classes,
have complained and declaimed against the tyrants of the seas; against
the enemies of humanity, liberty, and equality. Have not the negroes
now, as much as our Jacobins had in 1793, a right to call upon all those
tender-hearted schemers, dupes, or impostors, to interest humanity in
their favour? But, as far as I know, no friends of liberty have yet
written a line in favour of these oppressed and injured men, whose former
slavery was never doubtful, and who, therefore, had more reason to rise
against their tyrants, and to attempt to shake off their yoke, than our
French insurgents, who, free before, have never since they revolted
against lawful authority enjoyed an hour's freedom. But the Emperor
Jacques the First has no propagators, no emissaries, no learned savans
and no secret agents to preach insurrection in other States, while
defending his own usurpation; besides, his treasury is not in the most
brilliant and flourishing situation, and the crew of our white
revolutionists are less attached to liberty than to cash.

Our Ambassador to the United States, General Turreaux, is far from being
contented with our friend, the President Jefferson, whose patriotic
notions have not yet soared to the level of our patriotic transactions.
He refused both to prevent the marriage of Jerome Bonaparte with a female
American citizen, and to detain her after her marriage when her husband
returned to Europe. To our continual representation against the
liberties which the American newspapers take with our Government, with
our Emperor, with our Imperial Family, and with our Imperial Ministers,
the answer has always been, "Prosecute the libeller, and as soon as he is
convicted he will be punished." This tardy and negative justice is so
opposite to our expeditious and summary mode of proceeding, of punishing
first and trying afterwards, that it must be both humiliating and
offensive. In return, when the Americans have complained to Turreaux
against the piracy of our privateers, he has sent them here to seek
redress, where they also will, to their cost, discover that in civil
cases our justice has not the same rapid march as when it is a question
of arresting or transporting suspected persons, or of tormenting,
shooting, or guillotining a pretended spy, or supposed conspirator.

Had the peace of Europe continued, Bernadotte was the person selected by
Bonaparte and Talleyrand as our representative in America; because we
then intended to strike, and not to negotiate. But during the present
embroiled state of Europe, an intriguer was more necessary there than
either a warrior or a politician. A man who has passed through all the
mire of our own Revolution, who has been in the secrets, and an
accomplice of all our factions, is, undoubtedly, a useful instrument
where factions are to be created and directed, where wealth is designed
for pillage, and a State for overthrow. General Turreaux is, therefore,
in his place, and at his proper post, as our Ambassador in America.

The son of a valet of the late Duc de Bouillon, Turreaux called himself
before the Revolution Chevalier de Grambonville, and was, in fact, a
'chevalier d'industrie' (a swindler), who supported himself by gambling
and cheating. An associate of Beurnonville, Barras, and other vile
characters, he with them joined the colours of rebellion, and served
under the former in 1792, in the army of the Moselle, first as a
volunteer, and afterwards as an aide-de-camp. In a speech at the Jacobin
Club at Quesnoy, on the 20th of November, 1792, he made a motion--"That,
throughout the whole republican army, all hats should be prohibited, and
red caps substituted in their place; and that, not only portable
guillotines, but portable Jacobin clubs, should accompany the soldiers of
Liberty and Equality."

A cousin of his was a member of the National Convention, and one of those
called Mountaineers, or sturdy partisans of Marat and Robespierre. It
was to the influence of this cousin, that he was indebted, first for a
commission as an adjutant-general, and afterwards for his promotion to a
general of brigade. In 1793, he was ordered to march, under the command
of Santerre, to La Vendee, where he shared in the defeat of the
republicans at Vihiers. At the engagement near Roches d'Erigne he
commanded, for the first time, a separate column, and the capacity and
abilities which he displayed on that occasion were such as might have
been expected from a man who had passed the first thirty years of his
life in brothels and gambling-houses. So pleasant were his dispositions,
that almost the whole army narrowly escaped having been thrown and pushed
into the River Loire. The battle of Doux was the only one in which he
had a share where the republicans were not routed; but some few days
afterwards, near Coron, all the troops under him were cut to pieces, and
he was himself wounded.

The confidence of his friends, the Jacobins, increased, however, in
proportion to his disasters, and he was, in 1794, after the superior
number of the republican soldiers had forced the remnants of the
Royalists to evacuate what was properly called La Vendee, appointed a
commander-in-chief. He had now an opportunity to display his infamy and
barbarity. Having established his headquarters at Mantes, where he was
safe, amidst the massacres of women and children ordered by his friend
Carriere, he commanded the republican army to enter La Vendee in twelve
columns, preceded by fire and sword; and within four weeks, one of the
most populous departments of France, to the extent and circumference of
sixty leagues, was laid waste-not a house, not a cottage, not a tree was
spared, all was reduced to ashes; and the unfortunate inhabitants, who
had not perished amid the ruin of their dwellings, were shot or stabbed;
while attempting to save themselves from the common conflagration. On
the 22d of January, 1794, he wrote to the Committee of Public Safety of
the National Convention: "Citizen Representatives!--A country of sixty
leagues extent, I have the happiness to inform you, is now a perfect
desert; not a dwelling, not a bush, but is reduced to ashes; and of one
hundred and eighty thousand worthless inhabitants, not a soul breathes
any longer. Men and women, old men and children, have all experienced
the national vengeance, and are no more. It was a pleasure to a true
republican to see upon the bayonets of each of our brave republicans the
children of traitors, or their, heads. According to the lowest
calculation, I have despatched, within three months, two hundred thousand
individuals of both sexes, and of all ages. Vive la Republique!!!" In
the works of Prudhomme and our republican writers, are inserted hundreds
of letters, still more cruelly extravagant, from this ci-devant friend of
Liberty and Equality, and at present faithful subject, and grand officer
of the Legion of Honour, of His Imperial Majesty Napoleon the First.

After the death of Robespierre, Turreaux, then a governor at Belleisle,
was arrested as a terrorist, and shut up at Du Plessis until the general
amnesty released him in 1795. During his imprisonment he amused himself
with writing memoirs of the war of La Vendee, in which he tried to prove
that all his barbarities had been perpetrated for the sake of humanity,
and to save the lives of republicans. He had also the modesty to
announce that, as a military work, his production would be equally
interesting as those of a Folard and Guibert. These memoirs, however,
proved nothing but that he was equally ignorant and wicked, presumptuous
and ferocious.

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