Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 - Patrick Fraser Tytler (good books to read in english txt) 📗

the owner's word, and had provided three beds and some provisions; for the captain told us, he could not provide ship room, and neither mattress nor provision of any kind.——Here we are then, in no very comfortable circumstances, yet thankful to escape from this miserable country. There are others in much greater misery than we. The Count de Lynch, Mayor of Bourdeaux, his brother, and another relation, the General commanding the national guard, and four or five French fugitives, have been sent on board here, by the Consul and the English Captain of the frigate; and they have neither clothes, nor beds, nor victuals: they leave their fortunes and their families behind them. "Alas! what a prospect," one of them exclaimed to-day; "this is the third fortune Bonaparte has lost to me." The unfortunate Dutchess d'Angouleme is now safe on board the English frigate. On leaving Bourdeaux, the Dutchess printed an address to the inhabitants, stating the reasons of her leaving them, to prevent the town from becoming a scene of blood and pillage. Alas! she knows not her own countrymen; they would not fight an hour to save her life: yet it is not because they do not love her—she is adored—the whole family are adored. The good among the nation wish for peace, but the troops are for war, and they are all-powerful. It is unjust to say that France ought to be allowed to remain under Napoleon, as she has desired his return: the army chiefly have desired it, and plotted it. They burn for pillage and for revenge on the allies, who had humbled their pride. If the allies are not prompt, he will again be master of his former territory. Something might even yet be done at Bourdeaux by an English army.

We are now in the mouth of the English channel, and in full hopes, that as our stock, of water and of patience is almost exhausted, the Captain will put us into the first English port. May God grant us soon the sight of an English inn, and an English post-chaise, and in a day we shall forget all our troubles.

end of the journal.

CHAPTER III.

STATE OP FRANCE UNDER NAPOLEON.

To trace, with accuracy, the effects of the revolution and of the military despotism of Napoleon on the kingdom of France, it would be necessary to attend to the following subjects:—the state of commerce—wealth of the nation, and division of this wealth—the state of agriculture—the condition of the towns and villages—of the noblesse and their property—the condition of the lower ranks, namely, the merchants, tradesmen, artificers, peasants, poor, and beggars—the state of private and public manners—the dress of the people—their amusements—the state of religion and morality—of criminal delinquency and the administration of justice.

But to treat all these different subjects, and to diverge into the necessary observations which they would naturally suggest, would form of itself a voluminous work. In order, however, to judge fairly of the state of France, and of the character of the people, we must select and make observations on a few of the most material points. In my Journal, which accompanies this, I have purposely said but little on the state of the people and their character, as I intended to finish my travels before I formed my opinion. I did not wish to be guilty of the same mistake with another traveller, who, coming to an inn in which he had a bad egg for breakfast, served by an ugly girl, immediately set down in his Journal, "In this country, the eggs are all bad, and the women all ugly." My readers are already aware of the opportunities I possessed of obtaining information. They are such as present themselves to almost every traveller in France; and they will not therefore be surprised if my remarks are somewhat common-place. They will recollect that our party disembarked at Dieppe, and travelled from one coast to the other by Rouen, Paris, Lyons and Aix. By travelling very slowly, never above 30 miles a-day, I had, perhaps a better opportunity than common of seeing the country, and of conversing with the inhabitants; and I have been more than commonly fortunate in forming acquaintance with a number of very well informed men in the town, which we selected as the place of our residence in the winter: This was Aix, in Provence. I have described it before in my Journal, and have only to add, that the head court for four departments is held there; that there is a College for the study of Law and Divinity, and that it is remarkable for possessing a society of men better informed, and of more liberal education, than most other towns in France.

The inhabitants of Provence have always been marked by excesses of affection or disaffection. They do nothing in moderation; "Les têtes chaudes de Provence," is an expression quite common in France. In the commencement of the revolution, the bands of Provençals, chiefly Marseillois, were the leaders in every outrage. And when the tyrant, Napoleon, had fallen from his power, they were among the first to cry "Vivent les Bourbons!" They would have torn him to pieces on his way to Frejus, had he not been at times disguised, and at other times well protected by the troops and police in the villages through which he passed. It will then easily be imagined that the English were received with open arms at Aix. They heaped on us kindnesses of every description, and our only difficulty was to limit our acquaintance. From among the most moderate and best informed of our friends at Aix, I attempted to collect a few traits and anecdotes of Napoleon, and with their assistance, I shall, in the first instance, attempt giving a sketch of his character. It would be tedious, as well as unnecessary, to detail all the circumstances of his life; for most of these are generally known. I shall therefore only mention such as we are not generally acquainted with.

Napoleon was born at Ajaccio, in Corsica, not, as is generally supposed, in August 1769, but in February 1768. He had a motive for thus falsifying even the date of his birth; he conceived that it would assist his ambitious views, if he could prove that he was born in a province of France, and it was not till 1769 that Corsica became entitled to that denomination. His reputed father was not a huissier (or bailiff) as is generally stated, but a greffier (or register of one of the courts of justice). His mother is a Genoese; she is a woman of very bad character; and it is currently reported that Napoleon was the son of General Paoli; and that Louis and Jerome were the sons of the Marquis de Marbeuf, governor of the island. The conduct of the Marquis to the family of Bonaparte, then in the utmost indigence, would sanction a belief in this account; he protected the whole family, but particularly the sons, and he caused Napoleon to be placed at the Military School of Brienne, where he supplied him with money. This money was never spent among his companions, but went to purchase mathematical books and instruments, and to assist him in erecting fortifications. The only times when he deigned to amuse himself with others was during the attacks of these fortifications, and immediately on these being finished, he would retire and shut himself up among his books and mathematical instruments. He was, when a boy, always morose, tyrannical and domineering. "[11]Il motrait dans ces jeux cet esprit de domination qu'il a depuis manifestée sur le grand theatre du monde; et celui qui devoit un jour epouvanter l'Europe a commencè par etre le maitre et l'effroi d'une troupe d'enfans[12]."

He left the military college with the rank of lieutenant of artillery, and bearing a character which was not likely to recommend him among good men. He had very early displayed principles of a most daring nature. In a conversation with the master of the academy, some discussion having taken place on the subject of the difficulty of governing a great nation, the young Corsican remarked, "that the greatest nations were as easily managed as a school of boys, but that kings always studied to make themselves beloved, and thus worked their own ruin." The infant despot of France was certainly determined that no such foolish humanity should dictate rules to his ambition. He was once in a private company, where a lady making some remarks on the character of Marshal Turenne, declared that she would have loved him had he not burned the Palatinate. "And of what consequence was that, Madame," said the young Napoleon, "provided it assisted his plans?" We may here trace the same unfeeling heart that ordered the explosion of the magazine of Grenelle, which, if his orders had been executed, must have laid Paris in ruins. Some of my readers may, perhaps, not have seen an authentic statement of this most horrid circumstance, I shall therefore give a translation of the letter of Maillard Lescourt, major of artillery, taken from the Journal des Debats of the 7th April: "I was employed, on the evening before the attack of Paris, in assembling the horses necessary for the removal of the artillery, and was assisted in this duty by the officers of the 'Direction Generale.' At nine at night a colonel gallopped up to the gate of the grating of St Dominique, where I was standing, and asked to speak to the Directeur d'Artillerie. On my being shewn to him, he immediately asked me if the powder magazine at Grenelle bad been evacuated? I replied that it had not, and that there was neither time nor horses for the purpose. Then, Sir, said he, it must be blown up. I turned pale, and trembled, not reflecting that there was no occasion to distress myself for an order which was not written, and with the bearer of which I was unacquainted. Do you hesitate? said the Colonel.—It immediately occurred to me, that the same order might be given to others, if I did not accept of it; I therefore calmly replied to him, that I should immediately set about it. Become master of this frightful secret, I entrusted it to no one." At Paris we met with persons of much respectability, who vouched for the truth of this statement.

There can be no doubt that this order was given by Napoleon, for at this time the other ruling authorities had left Paris. It is by no means inconsistent with the character of the man; never, in any instance, has he been known to value the lives of men, where either ambition or revenge instigated him. Beauchamp, in his history of the last campaign, gives the following anecdote;[13] "Sire, (lui disoit un general, en le felicitant sur la victoire de Montmirail), quel beau jour, si nous ne voyions autour de nous tant de villes et de pays devastès. Tant mieux, replique Napoleon, cela me donne des soldats!!"

The second capture of Rheims in that campaign was an object of little consequence to him, but he now determined it should suffer by fire and sword. From the heights he looked down on the town, then partly on fire, and smiling said, [14]"Eh bien, dans une heure les dames de Rheims auront grand peur." His resentment against the towns that declared for the Bourbons was beyond all bounds; The following account of the murder of the unfortunate De Goualt is taken from Beauchamp's interesting work:[15] "On le saisit, on le conduit à l'hotel de ville, devant une commission militaire, qui proçede à son jugement, on plutôt à sa condamnation. Une heure s'etait à peine ecoulee qu'un officier survient se fait ouvrir les portes, et demande