1802.
Bonaparte's principle as to the change of Ministers—Fouch�—His
influence with the First Consul—Fouch�'s dismissal—The departments
of Police and Justice united under Regnier—Madame Bonaparte's
regret for the dismissal of Fouch�—Family scenes—Madame Louis
Bonaparte's pregnancy—False and infamous reports to Josephine—
Legitimacy and a bastard—Raederer reproached by Josephine—Her
visit to Ruel—Long conversation with her—Assertion at St. Helena
respecting a great political fraud.
It is a principle particularly applicable to absolute governments that a prince should change his ministers as seldom as possible, and never except upon serious grounds. Bonaparte acted on this principle when First Consul, and also when he became Emperor. He often allowed unjust causes to influence him, but he never dismissed a Minister without cause; indeed, he more than once, without any reason, retained Ministers longer than he ought to have done in the situations in which he had placed them. Bonaparte's tenacity in this respect, in some instances, produced very opposite results. For instance, it afforded M. Gaudin' time to establish a degree of order in the administration of Finance which before his time had never existed; and on the other hand, it enabled M. Decres to reduce the Ministry of Marine to an unparalleled state of confusion.
Bonaparte saw nothing in men but helps and obstacles. On the 18th Brumaire Fouch� was a help. The First Consul feared that he would become an obstacle; it was necessary, therefore, to think of dismissing him. Bonaparte's most sincere friends had from the beginning been opposed to Fouch�'s having any share in the Government. But their disinterested advice produced no other result than their own disgrace, so influential a person had Fouch� become. How could it be otherwise? Fouch� was identified with the Republic by the death of the King, for which he had voted; with the Reign of Terror by his sanguinary missions to Lyons and Nevers; with the Consulate by his real though perhaps exaggerated services; with Bonaparte by the charm with which he might be said to have fascinated him; with Josephine by the enmity of the First Consul's brothers. Who would believe it? Fouch� ranked the enemies of the Revolution amongst his warmest partisans. They overwhelmed him with eulogy, to the disparagement even of the Head of the State, because the cunning Minister, practising an interested indulgence, set himself up as the protector of individuals belonging to classes which, when he was proconsul, he had attacked in the mass. Director of public opinion, and having in his hands the means at his pleasure of inspiring fear or of entangling by inducements, it was all in his favour that he had already directed this opinion. The machinery he set in motion was so calculated that the police was rather the police of Fouch� than that of the Minister of the General Police. Throughout Paris, and indeed throughout all France, Fouch� obtained credit for extraordinary ability; and the popular opinion was correct in this respect, namely, that no man ever displayed such ability in making it be supposed that he really possessed talent. Fouch�'s secret in this particular is the whole secret of the greater part of those persons who are called statesmen.
Be this as it may, the First Consul did not behold with pleasure the factitious influence of which Fouch� had possessed himself. For some time past, to the repugnance which at bottom he had felt towards Fouch�, were added other causes of discontent. In consequence of having been deceived by secret reports and correspondence Bonaparte began to shrug up his shoulders with an expression of regret when he received them, and said, "Would you believe, Bourrienne, that I have been imposed on by these things? All such denunciations are useless—scandalous. All the reports from prefects and the police, all the intercepted letters, are a tissue of absurdities and lies. I desire to have no more of them." He said so, but he still received them. However, Fouch�'s dismissal was resolved upon. But though Bonaparte wished to get rid of him, still, under the influence of the charm, he dared not proceed against him without the greatest caution. He first resolved upon the suppression of the office of Minister of Police in order to disguise the motive for the removal of the Minister. The First Consul told Fouch� that this suppression, which he spoke of as being yet remote, was calculated more than anything else to give strength to the Government, since it would afford a proof of the security and internal tranquillity of France. Overpowered by the arguments with which Bonaparte supported his proposition, Fouch� could urge no good reasons in opposition to it, but contented himself with recommending that the execution of the design, which was good in intention, should, however, be postponed for two years. Bonaparte appeared to listen favourably to Fouch�'s recommendation, who, as avaricious for money as Bonaparte of glory, consoled himself by thinking that for these two years the administration of the gaming tables would still be for him a Pactolus flowing with gold. For Fouch�, already the possessor of an immense fortune, always dreamed of increasing it, though he himself did not know how to enjoy it. With him the ambition of enlarging the bounds of his estate of Pont-Carre was not less felt than with the First Consul the ambition of extending the frontier of France.
Not only did the First Consul not like Fouch�, but it is perfectly true that at this time the police wearied and annoyed him. Several times he told me he looked on it as dangerous, especially for the possessor of power. In a Government without the liberty of the press he was quite right. The very services which the police had rendered to the First Consul were of a nature to alarm him, for whoever had conspired against the Directory in favour of the Consulate might also conspire against the Consulate in favour of any other Government. It is needless to say that I only allude to the political police, and not to the municipal police, which is indispensable for large towns, and which has the honourable mission of watching over the health and safety of the citizens.
Fouch�, as has been stated, had been Minister of Police since the 18th Brumaire. Everybody who was acquainted with, the First Consul's character was unable to explain the ascendency which he had suffered Fouch� to acquire over him, and of which Bonaparte himself was really impatient. He saw in Fouch� a centre around which all the interests of the Revolution concentrated themselves, and at this he felt indignant; but, subject to a species of magnetism, he could not break the charm which enthralled him. When he spoke of Fouch� in his absence his language was warm, bitter, and hostile. When Fouch� was present, Bonaparte's tone was softened, unless some public scene was to be acted like that which occurred after the attempt of the 3d Niv魋e.
The suppression of the Ministry of Police being determined on, Bonaparte did not choose to delay the execution of his design, as he had pretended to think necessary. On the evening of the 12th of September we went to Mortfontaine. We passed the next day, which was Monday, at that place, and it was there, far removed from Fouch�, and urged by the combined persuasions of Joseph and Lucien, that the First Consul signed the decree of suppression. The next morning we returned to Paris. Fouch� came to Malmaison, where we were, in the regular execution of his duties. The First Consul transacted business with him as usual without daring to tell him of his dismissal, and afterwards sent Cambac閞鑣 to inform him of it. After this act, respecting which he had hesitated so long, Bonaparte still endeavoured to modify his rigour. Having appointed Fouch� a Senator, he said in the letter which he wrote to the Senate to notify the appointment:
"Fouch�, as Minister of Police, in times of difficulty, has by his
talent, his activity, and his attachment to the Government done all
that circumstances required of him. Placed in the bosom of the
Senate, if events should again call for a Minister of Police the
Government cannot find one more worthy of its confidence."
From this moment the departments of Justice and Police united were confided to the hands of Regnier.' Bonaparte's aversion for Fouch� strangely blinded him with respect to the capabilities of his successor. Besides, how could the administration of justice, which rests on fixed, rigid, and unchangeable bases, proceed hand in hand with another administration placed on the quicksand of instantaneous decisions, and surrounded by stratagems and deceptions? Justice should never have anything to do with secret police, unless it be to condemn it.
—[M. Abrial, Minister of Justice, was called to the Senate at the
same time as Fouch�. Understanding that the assimilation of the two
men was more a disgrace to Abrial than the mere loss of the
Ministry, the First Consul said to M. Abrial: "In uniting the
Ministry of Police to that of Justice I could not retain you in the
Ministry, you are too upright a man to manage the police." Not a
flattering speech for Regnier.—Bourrienne.]—
What could be expected from Regnier, charged as he was with incompatible functions? What, under such circumstances, could have been expected even from a man gifted with great talents? Such was the exact history of Fouch�'s disgrace. No person was more afflicted at it than Madame Bonaparte, who only learned the news when it was announced to the public. Josephine, on all occasions, defended Fouch� against her husband's sallies. She believed that he was the only one of his Ministers who told him the truth. She had such a high opinion of the way in which Fouch� managed the police that the first time I was alone with her after our return from Mortfontaine she said to me, "My dear Bourrienne; speak openly to me; will Napoleon know all about the plots from the police of Moncey, Duroc, Junot, and of Davoust? You know better than I do that these are only wretched spies. Has not Savary also eventually got his police? How all this alarms me. They take away all my supports, and surround me only with enemies."—"To justify your regrets we should be sure that Fouch� has never been in agreement with Lucien in favour of the divorce."—"Oh, I do not believe that. Bonaparte does not like him, and he would have been certain to tell me of it when I spoke favourably to him of Fouch�. You will see that his brothers will end by bringing him into their plan."
I have already spoken of Josephine's troubles, and of the bad conduct of Joseph, but more particularly of Lucien, towards her; I will therefore describe here, as connected with the disgrace of Fouch�, whom Madame Bonaparte regretted as a support, some scenes which occurred about this period at Malmaison. Having been the confidant of both parties, and an involuntary actor in those scenes, now that twenty-seven years have passed since they occurred what motive can induce me to disguise the truth in any respect?
Madame Louis Bonaparte was enceinte. Josephine, although she tenderly loved her children, did not seem to behold the approaching event which the situation of her daughter indicated with the interest natural to the heart of a mother. She had long been aware of the calumnious reports circulated respecting the supposed connection between Hortense and the First Consul, and that base accusation cost her many tears. Poor Josephine paid dearly for the splendour of her station! As I knew how devoid of foundation these atrocious reports were, I endeavoured to console her by telling her what was true, that I was exerting all my efforts to demonstrate their infamy and falsehood. Bonaparte, however, dazzled by the affection which was manifested towards him from all quarters, aggravated the sorrow of his wife by a silly vanity. He endeavoured to persuade her that these reports had their origin only in the wish of the public that he should have a child, so that these seeming consolations offered by self-love to Josephine's grief gave force to existing conjugal alarms, and the fear of divorce returned with all its horrors. Under the foolish illusion of his vanity Bonaparte imagined that France was desirous of being governed even by a bastard if supposed to be a child of his,—a singular mode truly of founding a new legitimacy!
Josephine, whose susceptibility appears to me even now excusable, well knew my sentiments on the subject of Bonaparte's founding a dynasty, and she had not forgotten my conduct when two years before the question had been agitated on the occasion of Louis XVIII.'s letters to the First Consul. I remember that one day, after the publication of the parallel of Caesar, Cromwell, and Bonaparte, Josephine having entered our cabinet without being announced, which she sometimes did when from the good humour exhibited at breakfast she reckoned upon its continuance, approached Bonaparte softly, seated herself on his knee, passed her hand gently through his hair and over his face, and thinking the moment favourable, said to him in a burst of tenderness, "I entreat of you, Bonaparte, do not make yourself a King! It is that wretch Lucien who urges you to it. Do not listen to him!" Bonaparte replied, without anger, and even smiling as he pronounced the last words, "You are mad, my poor Josephine. It is your old dowagers of the Faubourg St. Germain, your Rochefoucaulds, who tell you all these fables!... Come now, you interrupt me—leave me alone."
What Bonaparte said that day good-naturedly to his wife I have often heard him declare seriously. I have been present at five or six altercations on the subject. That there existed, too, an enmity connected with this question between the family of BEAUHARNAIS and the family of Bonaparte cannot be denied.
Fouch�, as I have stated, was in the interest of Josephine, and Lucien was the most bitter of her enemies. One day Raederer inveighed with so much violence against Fouch� in the presence of Madame Bonaparte that she replied with extreme warmth, "The real enemies of Bonaparte are those who feed him with notions of hereditary descent, of a dynasty, of divorce, and of marriage!" Josephine could not check this exclamation, as she knew that Roederer encouraged those ideas, which he spread abroad by Lucien's direction. I recollect one day when she had been to see us at our little house at Ruel: as I walked with her along the high road to her carriage, which she had sent forward, I acknowledged too unreservedly my fears on account of the ambition of Bonaparte, and of the perfidious advice of his brothers. "Madame," said I, "if we cannot succeed in dissuading the General from making himself a King, I dread the future for his sake. If ever he re-establishes royalty he will in all probability labour for the Bourbons, and enable them one day to re-ascend the throne which he shall erect. No one, doubtless, without passing for a fool, can pretend to say with certainty what series of chances and events such a proceeding will produce; but common sense alone is sufficient to convince any one that unfavourable chances must long be dreaded. The ancient system being re-established, the occupation of the throne will then be only a family question, and not a question of government between liberty and despotic power. Why should not France, if it ceases to be free, prefer the race of her ancient kings? You surely know it. You had not been married two years when, on returning from Italy, your husband told me that he aspired to royalty. Now he is Consul for life. Would he but resolve to stop there! He already possesses everything but an empty title. No sovereign in Europe has so much power as he has. I am sorry for it, Madame, but I really believe that, in spite of yourself, you will be made Queen or Empress."
Madame Bonaparte had allowed me to speak without interruption, but when I pronounced the words Queen and Empress she exclaimed, "My God! Bourrienne, such ambition is far from my thoughts. That I may always continue the wife of the First Consul is all I desire. Say to him all that you have said to me. Try and prevent him from making himself King."—"Madame," I replied, "times are greatly altered. The wisest men, the strongest minds, have resolutely and courageously opposed his tendency to the hereditary system. But advice is now useless. He would not listen to me. In all discussions on the subject he adheres inflexibly to the view he has taken. If he be seriously opposed his anger knows no bounds; his language is harsh and abrupt, his tone imperious, and his authority bears down all before him."—"Yet, Bourrienne, he has so much confidence in you that of you should try once more!"—"Madame, I assure you he will not listen to me. Besides, what could I add to the remarks I made upon his receiving the letters of Louis XVIII., when I fearlessly represented to him that being without children he would have no one to whom to bequeath the throne—that, doubtless, from the opinion which he entertained of his brothers, he could not desire to erect it for them?" Here Josephine again interrupted me by exclaiming, "My kind friend, when you spoke of children did he say anything to you? Did he talk of a divorce?"—"Not a word, Madame, I assure you."—"If they do not urge him to it, I do not believe he will resolve to do such a thing. You know how he likes Eug鑞e, and Eug鑞e behaves so well to him. How different is Lucien. It is that wretch Lucien, to whom Bonaparte listens too much, and of whom, however, he always speaks ill to me."—"I do not know, Madame, what Lucien says to his brother except when he chooses to tell me, because Lucien always avoids having a witness of his interviews with your husband, but I can assure you that for two years I have not heard the word 'divorce' from the General's mouth."—"I always reckon on you, my dear Bourrienne; to turn him away from it; as you did at that time."—"I do not believe he is thinking of it, but if it recurs to him, consider, Madame, that it will be now from very different motives: He is now entirely given up to the interests of his policy and his ambition, which dominate every other feeling in him. There will not now be any question of scandal, or of a trial before a court, but of an act of authority which complaisant laws will justify and which the Church perhaps will sanction."—"That's true. You are right. Good God! how unhappy I am."
—[When Bourrienne complains of not knowing what passed between
Lucien and Napoleon, we can turn to Lucien's account of Bourrienne,
apparently about this very time. "After a stormy interview with
Napoleon," says Lucien, "I at once went into the cabinet where
Bourrienne was working, and found that unbearable busybody of a
secretary, whose star had already paled more than once, which made
him more prying than ever, quite upset by the time the First Consul
had taken to come out of his bath. He must, or at least might, have
heard some noise, for enough had been made. Seeing that he wanted
to know the cause from me, I took up a newspaper to avoid being
bored by his conversation" (Iung's Lucien, tome ii. p.156)]—
Such was the nature of one of the conversations I had with Madame Bonaparte on a subject to which she often recurred. It may not perhaps be uninteresting to endeavour to compare with this what Napoleon said at St. Helena, speaking of his first wife. According to the Memorial Napoleon there stated that when Josephine was at last constrained to renounce all hope of having a child, she often let fall allusions to a great political fraud, and at length openly proposed it to him. I make no doubt Bonaparte made use of words to this effect, but I do not believe the assertion. I recollect one day that Bonaparte, on entering our cabinet, where I was already seated, exclaimed in a transport of joy impossible for me to describe, "Well, Bourrienne, my wife is at last enceinte!" I sincerely congratulated him, more, I own, out of courtesy than from any hope of seeing him made a father by Josephine, for I well remembered that Corvisart, who had given medicines to Madame Bonaparte, had nevertheless assured me that he expected no result from them. Medicine was really the only political fraud to which Josephine had recourse; and in her situation what other woman would not have done as much? Here, then, the husband and the wife are in contradiction, which is nothing uncommon. But on which side is truth? I have no hesitation in referring it to Josephine. There is indeed an immense difference between the statements of a women—trusting her fears and her hopes to the sole confidant of her family secrets, and the tardy declaration of a man who, after seeing the vast edifice of his ambition leveled with the dust, is only anxious, in his compulsory retreat, to preserve intact and spotless the other great edifice of his glory. Bonaparte should have recollected that Caesar did not like the idea of his wife being even suspected.