Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

had Georges triumphed and I fallen. I cannot consider myself in safety in Paris unless surrounded by a numerous garrison; but I have two hundred thousand men under my orders, and fifteen hundred of these are sufficient to keep the Parisians in order. . . . . I have pretended to be asleep for the last month, as I wished to ascertain how far this evil spirit would carry them; but I would have these folks take care what they are about-my awakening will be that of the lion! I am aware that I am spoken against, not only in public but in private parties, and that even men in office, whose duty it is to support my government, either basely maintain silence or join the cry of those who traduce me.... In short, there is nothing left untried to set the capital against me!"

After this explosion against Paris, a deep silence prevailed in the Council; for the members felt themselves included in the reproaches launched against the public functionaries. At last one of them ventured to say, that he thought this statement of the ill-will of the Parisians exaggerated; and that possibly it was got up by the enemies of government in the view of leading it into extreme measures, which might still more essentially alienate the feelings of the population. Napoleon made a sign of incredulity, and repeated in a tone of excessive bitterness (colère concentrée), "Let them take care what they are about! The lion slumbers-but he is not dead!"

'The truth is, that Paris was then, as it always has been, the focus of opposition; and on this account Napoleon objected to deputations being sent up to him from the Departments to compliment him. He feared that these provincials might get inoculated with the bad spirit of the capital, and carry the virus back with them to the country. About this time there appeared in the Gazette de France an article with which he was supposed to have had something to do, upon the motives which induced Constantine to change the seat of government from Rome to Byzantium. The chief reason therein given is the bad disposition of the inhabitants of Rome-for ever ready to find fault with the existing government. This was a hint to the city of Paris, that it might cease to be the capital; and it was even said that Napoleon had serious thoughts of establishing himself at Rome.'-pp. 98-102.

We are not surprised that M. Pelet's book should not be popular in Paris.

Next comes the turn of the Generals :

""France," continued he, "is certainly under great obligations to her twenty generals of divisions, who have fought gallantly in the stations in which they were placed; but there is not a man of them all who has in him the proper stuff to make him the chief of an army, still less to be the chief of a government. In fact, since the times of Frederick and the Prince Eugene, Europe has not beheld one general in chief.” ”. pp. 60, 61.

[ocr errors]

Substantially true, we dare say :-but, shades of Murat, Ney, Massena, Moreau! and ye, Soults, Clausels, Grouchys, what say ye to it? They would probably answer, that Egypt, Aspern, Eylau, Moscow, Culm, Leipsig, Waterloo, and Fontainebleau, prove that their critic is not, himself, above criticism-that, though

his advances were bold and brilliant, his retreats (the highest test of military art) were miserable-and that if he won astonishing victories with some little assistance from his generals, he had suffered still more stupendous reverses which he owed altogether to himself.'

Our readers will admire the chronological accuracy which states that there has not been a great general since Frederick and Prince Eugene!

Still, notwithstanding all this palaver and bullying, the Council of State, the Senate, and other constituted authorities, delayed and hesitated about conferring on the great man the sovereign title:— their doubts, however, were soon determined by the following constitutional proceeding :

'Meetings were held at Joseph's house, where the most influential members of the Senate, and of the Legislative Assembly, who happened to be at Paris, were called together, and addressed in these words:" Make up your minds speedily-unless you wish your decision to be accelerated by the voice of the troops. The First Consul is setting out to visit the camps stationed between Brest and Hanover; and there can be no doubt that the soldiers will proclaim him Emperor-nor that the people will hail the award of the army. What can the great

bodies of the State do in such an event-but to sanction such election? Is it not wiser for you to get before the troops and the multitude? You are consulted to-day-to-morrow you may be passed by. It belongs especially to you, as revolutionists, to take the initiative on this occasion-for who can have a deeper interest than you in consolidating the authority of the First Consul, and shutting out the Bourbons effectually? The title of Hereditary Consul would never suit Napoleon, for it smacks of the Republic-that of EMPEROR is the only one worthy of him and of France."-p. 71.

There is nothing new under the sun-the scenes which occurred in Paris in the year of our Lord 360, were re-enacted in 1804, and that city, again fallen under the dictation of a victorious soldiery, saw another Julian-an usurper and apostate-invested with the imperial purple* :--

'Nevertheless, the transition was the subject of conversation in every corner of Paris next day; and criticisms were by no means spared on the conduct of the leaders. Every one," cried the citizens," appears to have taken thought only of himself! These grandees of the State never dreamed of making stipulations, except for their own interests." -p. 80.

The Senate, particularly, made a bold push to become a House of Peers-but Napoleon was already master-He

'expressed in the Council of State, the highest displeasure at these pre

*See Gibbon, Dec. and Fall, ch. xxii. The whole life of Julian, and his ultimate fate, bear a strong resemblance to those of Buonaparte, as far as Moscow; but Julian did not abandon the companions of his victories and his reverses.

tensions

tensions which the Senate had presumed to set up. "These pretensions," he continued," of the Senate, are merely old recollections of the English Constitution; but no two things can be more dissimilar than France and England."'—pp. 74, 75.

and then—with that instinctive talent, that miraculous depth of information, and those sublime views of human nature for which he is so justly admired—he proceeds to explain the natural differences which must prevent the French constitution having anything like the English House of Lords :

"The Frenchman lives under a clear sky, drinks a brisk and joyous wine, and lives on food which keeps his senses in constant activity. The Englishman, on the contrary, dwells on a damp soil, under a sun which is almost cold, swills beer or porter, and consumes a quantity of butter and cheese (consomme beaucoup de laitages)."'—pp. 75, 76.

Prodigious!-we had heard before from some French philosophers, that our roast beef and porter had a considerable influence on our moral and political condition-but it was left for the logic of the Great Napoleon to discover that the French Senate could not be made hereditary, because the English drank milk and consumed butter and cheese! Can burlesque go beyond this? We are tempted to imitate Mr. Fox's celebrated apostrophe * and exclaim, O calumniated Hudibras, how grave and cogent was your logic! O tame and feeble Rabelais, with how timid a hand have you recorded the unfathomable rigmarole of the great Gargantua!"

We believe our readers will be satisfied with these extracts from this work-indeed, we have given them specimens of the principal topics, and to proceed further would only be a repetition of such trash as we honestly confess we did not think that Buonaparte could have uttered, or that any one who professes a regard for his memory would have ventured to record.

We have frequently, in the course of our perusal, been tempted to suspect that M. Pelet is not quite simpleton enough to believe that he is doing Napoleon any honour; and that the great admiration he verbally professes for the moral and administrative qualities of the Emperor, as exhibited in the Opinions, is merely introduced to render less unpalatable to the reigning party in France, the severe truth which his work reveals-how much of the genius they

The original apostrophe and its history deserve not to be forgotten. The late Lord Liverpool, when in the House of Commons, had talked of a march to Paris, and the conquest of France.-In allusion to this, Mr. Fox, in his letter to the electors of Westminster, 1793, exclaims-The conquest of France!!! O! calumniated crusaders, how rational and moderated were your projects! O much injured Louis XIV., upon what slight grounds have you been accused of restless and inordinate ambition! O! tame and feeble Cervantes, with what a timid pencil and faint colours have you painted the portrait of a disordered imagination!'"

Yet Lord Liverpool lived to see, under his own ministry, France twice conquered, and two marches to Paris.

profess

profess to admire was mere passion and presumption-how much of the glorious administration which they affect to regret, was on his side an insulting despotism, and on theirs a degrading slavery.

Whatever may have been M. Pelet's motive, he has done no inconsiderable service to historical truth, by the incidental lights which he has thrown on some portions of Buonaparte's character, which had been hitherto imperfectly understood. Nor can we but express our thanks to Captain Hall for having introduced the work to more general notice. It has been, for obvious reasons, little spoken of in France; one party did not relish the eulogistic terms in which it treats of the Emperor; the other was mortified at the substantial injury done to his reputation; and the whole nation disliked the crude exhibition of the base materials of the colossal idol before which it had so servilely bowed down. The translation, from which we have (with an occasional correction) made our extracts, is exceedingly well done in point of style and idiom, but there are several strange inaccuracies in the For example

version.

I have no desire that such a legislative body shall be got up, as shall require nothing at my hands.'-p. 188.

This is the direct reverse of the original meaning

'Je veux qu'on me fasse un corps legislatif qui n'exige rien de moi.' ~p. 151.

When talking of founding a university, Buonaparte says

Il faut que ce corps ait des priviléges; que les chefs, par exemple, soint senateurs nés, &c.'-p. 162.

This is translated

This body must have privileges-for example, they ought to be senators by birth.'-p. 200.

Here are two errors; it was not meant that the whole body, but the heads only, should be senators—and ‘senateurs nés' does not mean senators by birth, but, on the contrary, senators ex officio-as for example, under the old regime the archbishop of Paris was said to be conseiller né du Parlement de Paris.'

Again; with his usual hankering after despotism, Buonaparte says of the parochial clergy:

'Il faut reduire autant que possible le nombre des curés inamovibles, et multiplier les desservants, qu'on peut changer à volonté.'-p. 297. This is rendered-

'We must reduce, as much as possible, the number of perpetual curates, and multiply that of incumbents who may be removed at pleasure.'-p. 242.

But the converse is the true translation. The curés, in France, are what we commonly call incumbents, and the desservants are analogous to our curates.

We are sure that Captain Hall will thank us for pointing out

these

these errors-quas incuria fudit-because they affect the meaning of the respective passages; and with these and a few more such exceptions, we can speak with entire approbation of his share in this work. To M. Pelet we have a still greater obligation. He has done more, as far as he has gone, to correct the world's mistake in' Buonaparte than we could have expected; and, whether he meant to do so or not, has put an end for ever to all the balderdash with which we have been deluged about the height, and the depth, and the compass of Buonaparte's administrative talents-his liberal ideas-his reasoning powers-and his universal information! In reply to such stuff we may now conclusively refer to these rigmarole Opinions in the Council of State'-ex ore tuo judicabo te!

ART. VIII.-1. Lettres sur l'Amerique du Nord. Par Michel Chevalier. 2 tomes 8vo. Paris. 1836.

2. A Residence in France, with an Excursion up the Rhine, and a Second Visit to Switzerland. By J. Fenimore Cooper, Esq. Paris. 1836.

THE frequent references which these two works contain to the

countries of their respective authors have induced us to bring them under notice in conjunction. Highly as we appreciate the descriptive powers of the American novelist, even under his guidance we should hardly have thought it worth our while to follow the track of the myriad tourists who have preceded him on the beaten roads of Europe, if we could not derive an interest from the expositions of American feeling and opinion, called forth by the scenes he visits and the incidents he records.

The work of M. Chevalier, on the other hand, is in great measure a lecture to his countrymen on an American text, in which, with a freedom from national prejudices, which we consider quite as consistent with real patriotism as the anti-British zeal of Mr. Cooper, he couples much incidental chastisement of French vanity with ample matter for reflection and suggestion for improvement. We have heard that M. Chevalier was, if he be not still, a St. Simonian. Those, perhaps, who are intimate with the tenets of that sect may trace, in the political speculations of his volumes, some symptoms of his connection with it. We are not, however, assailed in the perusal by any of the mere mystic or blasphemous raving in which its doctrines are usually embodied; and judging M. Chevalier by his works, even were it his pleasure to walk the streets of Paris or Philadelphia with a beard and red jacket, we should be equally thankful for the information contained in his volumes, and for the lessons which all nations, and

more

« VorigeDoorgaan »