Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud Part 10

This immense sum was ama.s.sed by him in the short period of four years, chiefly by bribes from foreign Courts, and by selling his protections in France.

But most of the other Bonapartes have made as great and as rapid fortunes as Lucien, and yet, instead of being generous, contented, or even philosophers, they are still profiting by every occasion to increase their ill-gotten treasures, and no distress was ever relieved, no talents encouraged, or virtues recompensed by them. The mind of their garrets lodges with them in their palaces, while Lucien seems to ascend as near as possible to a level with his circ.u.mstances. I have myself found him beneficent without ostentation.

Among his numerous pictures, I observed four that had formerly belonged to my father's, and afterwards to my own cabinet. I inquired how much he had paid for them, without giving the least hint that they had been my property, and were plundered from me by the nation. He had, indeed, paid their full value. In a fortnight after I had quitted him, these, with six other pictures, were deposited in my room, with a very polite note, begging my acceptance of them, and a.s.suring me that he had but the day before heard from his picture dealer that they had belonged to me. He added that he would never retake them, unless he received an a.s.surance from me that I parted with them without reluctance, and at the same time affixed their price. I returned them, as I knew they were desired by him for his collection, but he continued obstinate. I told him, therefore, that, as I was acquainted with his inclination to perform a generous action, I would, instead of payment for the pictures, indicate a person deserving his a.s.sistance. I mentioned the old d.u.c.h.esse de ------, who is seventy-four years of age and blind; and, after possessing in her youth an income of eight hundred thousand livres--is now, in her old age, almost dest.i.tute. He did for this worthy lady more than I expected; but happening, in his visits to relieve my friend, to cast his eye on the daughter of the landlady where she lodged, he found means to prevail on the simplicity of the poor girl, and seduced her. So much do I know personally of Lucien Bonaparte, who certainly is a composition of good and bad qualities, but which of them predominate I will not take upon me to decide. This I can affirm--Lucien is not the worst member of the Bonaparte family.

LETTER x.x.xI.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--As long as Austria ranks among independent nations, Bonaparte will take care not to offend or alarm the ambition and interest of Prussia by incorporating the Batavian Republic with the other provinces of his Empire. Until that period, the Dutch must continue (as they have been these last ten years) under the appellation of allies, oppressed like subjects and plundered like foes. Their mock sovereignty will continue to weigh heavier on them than real servitude does on their Belgic and Flemish neighbours, because Frederick the Great pointed out to his successors the Elbe and the Tegel as the natural borders of the Prussian monarchy, whenever the right bank of the Rhine should form the natural frontiers of the kingdom of France.

That during the present summer a project for a part.i.tion treaty of Holland has by the Cabinet of St. Cloud been laid before the Cabinet of Berlin is a fact, though disseminated only as a rumour by the secret agents of Talleyrand. Their object was on this, as on all previous occasions when any names, rights, or liberties of people were intended to be erased from among the annals of independence, to sound the ground, and to prepare by such rumours the mind of the public for another outrage and another overthrow. But Prussia, as well as France, knows the value of a military and commercial navy, and that to obtain it good harbours and navigable rivers are necessary, and therefore, as well as from principles of justice, perhaps, declined the acceptance of a plunder, which, though tempting, was contrary to the policy of the House of Brandenburgh.

According to a copy circulated among the members of our diplomatic corps, this part.i.tion treaty excluded Prussia from all the Batavian seaports except Delfzig, and those of the river Ems, but gave her extensive territories on the side of Guelderland, and a rich country in Friesland.

Had it been acceded to by the Court of Berlin, with the annexed condition of a defensive and offensive alliance with the Court of St. Cloud, the Prussian monarchy would, within half a century, have been swallowed up in the same gulf with the Batavian Commonwealth and the Republic of Poland; and by some future scheme of some future Bonaparte or Talleyrand, be divided in its turn, and serve as a pledge of reconciliation or inducement of connection between some future rulers of the French and Russian Empires.

Talleyrand must, indeed, have a very mean opinion of the capacity of the Prussian Ministers, or a high notion of his own influence over them, if he was serious in this overture. For my part, I am rather inclined to think that it was merely thrown out to discover whether Frederick William III. had entered into any engagement contrary to the interest of Napoleon the First; or to allure His Prussian Majesty into a negotiation which would suspend, or at least interfere with, those supposed to be then on the carpet with Austria, Russia, or perhaps even with England.

The late Batavian Government had, ever since the beginning of the present war with England, incurred the displeasure of Bonaparte. When it apprehended a rupture from the turn which the discussion respecting the occupation of Malta a.s.sumed, the Dutch Amba.s.sadors at St. Petersburg and Berlin were ordered to demand the interference of these two Cabinets for the preservation of the neutrality of Holland, which your country had promised to acknowledge, if respected by France. No sooner was Bonaparte informed of this step, than he marched troops into the heart of the Batavian Republic, and occupied its princ.i.p.al forts, ports, and a.r.s.enals.

When, some time afterwards, Count Markof received instructions from his Court, according to the desire of the Batavian Directory, and demanded, in consequence, an audience from Bonaparte, a map was laid before him, indicating the position of the French troops in Holland, and plans of the intended encampment of our army of England on the coast of Flanders and France; and he was asked whether he thought it probable that our Government would a.s.sent to a neutrality so injurious to its offensive operations against Great Britain.

"But," said the Russian Amba.s.sador, "the independence of Holland has been admitted by you in formal treaties."

"So has the cession of Malta by England," interrupted Bonaparte, with impatience.

"True," replied Markof, "but you are now at war with England for this point; while Holland, against which you have no complaint, has not only been invaded by your troops, but, contrary both to its inclination and interest, involved in a war with you, by which it has much to lose and nothing to gain."

"I have no account to render to anybody for my transactions, and I desire to hear nothing more on this subject," said Bonaparte, retiring furious, and leaving Markof to meditate on our Sovereign's singular principles of political justice and of 'jus pentium'.

From that period Bonaparte resolved on another change of the executive power of the Batavian Republic. But it was more easy to displace one set of men for another than to find proper ones to occupy a situation in which, if they do their duty as patriots, they must offend France; and if they are our tools, instead of the independent governors of their country, they must excite a discontent among their fellow citizens, disgracing themselves as individuals, and exposing themselves as chief magistrates to the fate of the De Witts, should ever fortune forsake our arms or desert Bonaparte.

No country has of late been less productive of great men than Holland.

The Van Tromps, the Russel, and the William III. all died without leaving any posterity behind them; and the race of Batavian heroes seems to have expired with them, as that of patriots with the De, Witts and Barneveldt. Since the beginning of the last century we read, indeed, of some able statesmen, as most, if not all, the former grand pensionaries have been; but the name of no warrior of any great eminence is recorded.

This scarcity, of native genius and valour has not a little contributed to the present humbled, disgraced, and oppressed state of wretched Batavia.

Admiral de Winter certainly neither wants courage nor genius, but his private character has a great resemblance to that of General Moreau.

Nature has destined him to obey, and not to govern. He may direct as ably and as valiantly the manoeuvres of a fleet as Moreau does those of an army, but neither the one nor the other at the head of his nation would render himself respected, his country flouris.h.i.+ng, or his countrymen happy and tranquil.

Destined from his youth for the navy, Admiral de Winter entered into the naval service of his country before he was fourteen, and was a second lieutenant when the Batavian patriots, in rebellion against the Stadtholder, were, in 1787, reduced to submission by the Duke of Brunswick, the commander of the Prussian army that invaded Holland. His parents and family being of the anti-Orange party, he emigrated to France, where he was made an officer in the legion of Batavian refugees.

During the campaign of 1793 and 1794, he so much distinguished himself under that competent judge of merit, Pichegru, that this commander obtained for him the commission of a general of brigade in the service of the French; which, after the conquest of Holland in January, 1795, was exchanged for the rank of a vice-admiral of the Batavian Republic. His exploits as commander of the Dutch fleet, during the battle of the 11th of October, 1797, with your fleet, under Lord Duncan, I have heard applauded even in your presence, when in your country. Too honest to be seduced, and too brave to be intimidated, he is said to have incurred Bonaparte's hatred by resisting both his offers and his threats, and declining to sell his own liberty as well as to betray the liberty of his fellow subjects. When, in 1800, Bonaparte proposed to him the presidency and consulate of the United States, for life, on condition that he should sign a treaty, which made him a va.s.sal of France, he refused, with dignity and with firmness, and preferred retirement to a supremacy so dishonestly acquired, and so dishonourably occupied.

General Daendels, another Batavian revolutionist of some notoriety, from an attorney became a lieutenant-colonel, and served as a spy under Dumouriez in the winter of 1792 and in the spring of 1793. Under Pichegru he was made a general, and exhibited those talents in the field which are said to have before been displayed in the forum. In June, 1795, he was made a lieutenant-general of the Batavian Republic, and he was the commander-in-chief of the Dutch troops combating in 1799 your army under the Duke of York. In this place he did not much distinguish himself, and the issue of the contest was entirely owing to our troops and to our generals.

After the Peace of Amiens, observing that Bonaparte intended to annihilate instead of establis.h.i.+ng universal liberty, Daendels gave in his resignation and retired to obscurity, not wis.h.i.+ng to be an instrument of tyranny, after having so long fought for freedom. Had he possessed the patriotism of a Brutus or a Cato, he would have bled or died for his cause and country sooner than have deserted them both; or had the ambition and love of glory of a Caesar held a place in his bosom, he would have attempted to be the chief of his country, and by generosity and clemency atone, if possible, for the loss of liberty. Upon the line of baseness,--the deserter is placed next to the traitor.

Dumonceau, another Batavian general of some publicity, is not by birth a citizen of the United States, but was born at Brussels in 1758, and was by profession a stonemason when, in 1789, he joined, as a volunteer, the Belgian insurgents. After their dispersion in 1790 he took refuge and served in France, and was made an officer in the corps of Belgians, formed after the declaration of war against Austria in 1792. Here he frequently distinguished himself, and was, therefore, advanced to the rank of a general; but the Dutch general officers being better paid than those of the French Republic, he was, with the permission of our Directory, received, in 1795, as a lieutenant-general of the Batavian Republic. He has often evinced bravery, but seldom great capacity. His natural talents are considered as but indifferent, and his education is worse.

These are the only three military characters who might, with any prospect of success, have tried to play the part of a Napoleon Bonaparte in Holland.

LETTER x.x.xII.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--Not to give umbrage to the Cabinet of Berlin, Bonaparte communicated to it the necessity he was under of altering the form of Government in Holland, and, if report be true, even condescended to ask advice concerning a chief magistrate for that country. The young Prince of Orange, brother-in-law of His Prussian Majesty, naturally presented himself; but, after some time, Talleyrand's agents discovered that great pecuniary sacrifices could not be expected from that quarter, and perhaps less submission to France experienced than from the former governors. An eye was then cast on the Elector of Bavaria, whose past patriotism, as well as that of his Ministers, was a full guarantee for future obedience.

Had he consented to such an arrangement, Austria might have aggrandized herself on the Inn, Prussia in Franconia, and France in Italy; and the present bone of contest would have been chiefly removed.

This intrigue, for it was nothing else, was carried on by the Cabinet of St. Cloud in March, 1804, about the time that Germany was invaded and the Duc d'Enghien seized. This explains to you the reason why the Russian note, delivered to the Diet of Ratisbon on the 8th of the following May, was left without any support, except the ineffectual one from the King of Sweden. How any Cabinet could be dupe enough to think Bonaparte serious, or the Elector of Bavaria so weak as to enter into his schemes, is difficult to be conceived, had not Europe witnessed still greater credulity on one side, and still greater effrontery on the other.

In the meantime Bonaparte grew every day more discontented with the Batavian Directory, and more irritated against the members who composed it. Against his regulations for excluding the commerce and productions of your country, they resented with spirit instead of obeying them without murmur as was required. He is said to have discovered, after his own soldiers had forced the custom-house officers to obey his orders, that, while in their proclamations the directors publicly prohibited the introduction of British goods, some of them were secret insurers of this forbidden merchandise, introduced by fraud and by smuggling; and that while they officially wished for the success of the French arms and destruction of England, they withdrew by stealth what property they had in the French funds, to place it in the English. This refractory and, as Bonaparte called it, mercantile spirit, so enraged him, that he had already signed an order for arresting and transferring en ma.s.se his high allies, the Batavian directors, to his Temple, when the representations of Talleyrand moderated his fury, and caused the order to be recalled, which Fouche was ready to execute.

Had Jerome Bonaparte not offended his brother by his transatlantic marriage, he would long ago have been the Prince Stadtholder of Holland; but his disobedience was so far useful to the Cabinet of St. Cloud as it gave it an opportunity of intriguing with, or deluding, other Cabinets that might have any pretensions to interfere in the regulation of the Batavian Government. By the choice finally made, you may judge how difficult it was to find a suitable subject to represent it, and that this representation is intended only to be temporary.

Schimmelpenninck, the present grand pensionary of the Batavian Republic, was destined by his education for the bar, but by his natural parts to await in quiet obscurity the end of a dull existence. With some property, little information, and a tolerably good share of common sense, he might have lived and died respected, and even regretted, without any pretension, or perhaps even ambition, to s.h.i.+ne. The anti-Orange faction, to which his parents and family appertained, pushed him forward, and elected him, in 1795, a member of the First Batavian National Convention, where, according to the spirit of the times, his speeches were rather those of a demagogue than those of a Republican. Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity were the constant themes of his political declamations, infidelity his religious profession, and the examples of immorality, his social lessons; so rapid and dangerous are the strides with which seduction frequently advances on weak minds.

In 1800 he was appointed an Amba.s.sador to Napoleon Bonaparte and Charles Maurice Talleyrand. The latter used him as a stockbroker, and the former for anything he thought proper; and he was the humble and submissive valet of both. More ignorant than malicious, and a greater fool than a rogue, he was more laughed at and despised than trusted or abused.

His patience being equal to his phlegm, nothing either moved or confounded him; and he was, as Talleyrand remarked, "a model of an Amba.s.sador, according to which he and Bonaparte wished that all other independent Princes and States would choose their representatives to the French Government."

When our Minister and his Sovereign were discussing the difficulty of properly filling up the vacancy, of the Dutch Government, judged necessary by both, the former mentioned Schimmelpenninck with a smile; and serious as Bonaparte commonly is, he could not help laughing. "I should have been less astonished," said he, "had you proposed my Mameluke, Rostan."

This rebuke did not deter Talleyrand (who had settled his terms with Schimmelpenninck) from continuing to point out the advantage which France would derive from this nomination. "Because no man could easier be directed when in office, and no man easier turned out of office when disagreeable or unnecessary. Both as a Batavian plenipotentiary at Amiens, and as Batavian Amba.s.sador in England, he had proved himself as obedient and submissive to France as when in the same capacity at Paris."

By returning often to the charge, with these and other remarks, Talleyrand at last accustomed Bonaparte to the idea, which had once appeared so humiliating, of writing to a man so much inferior in everything, "Great and dear Friend!" and therefore said to the Minister:

"Well! let us then make him a grand pensionary and a loc.u.m tenens for five years; or until Jerome, when he repents, returns to his duty, and is pardoned."

"Is he, then, not to be a grand pensionary for life?" asked Talleyrand; "whether for one month or for life, he would be equally obedient to resign when, commanded; but the latter would be more popular in Holland, where they were tired of so many changes."

"Let them complain, if they dare," replied Bonaparte. "Schimmelpenninck is their chief magistrate only for five years, if so long; but you may add that they may reelect him."

It was not before Talleyrand had compared the pecuniary proposal made to his agents by foreign Princes with those of Schimmelpenninck to himself, that the latter obtained the preference. The exact amount of the purchase-money for the supreme magistracy in Holland is not well known to any but the contracting parties. Some pretended that the whole was paid down beforehand, being advanced by a society of merchants at Amsterdam, the friends or relatives of the grand pensionary; others, that it is to be paid by annual instalments of two millions of livres--for a certain number of years. Certain it is, that this high office was sold and bought; and that, had it been given for life, its value would have been proportionately enhanced; which was the reason that Talleyrand endeavoured to have it thus established.

Talleyrand well knew the precarious state of Schimmelpenninck's grandeur; that it not only depended upon the whim of Napoleon, but had long been intended as an hereditary sovereignty for Jerome. Another Dutchman asked him not to ruin his friend and his family for what he was well aware could never be called a sinecure place, and was so precarious in its tenure. "Foolish vanity," answered the Minister, "can never pay enough for the gratification of its desires. All the Schimmelpennincks in the world do not possess property enough to recompense me for the sovereign honours which I have procured for one of their name and family, were he deposed within twenty-four hours. What treasures can indemnify me for connecting such a name and such a personage with the great name of the First Emperor of the French?"

I have only twice in my life been in Schimmelpenninck's company, and I thought him both timid and reserved; but from what little he said, I could not possibly judge of his character and capacity. His portrait and its accompaniments have been presented to me; such as delivered to you by one of his countrymen, a Mr. M---- (formerly an Amba.s.sador also), who was both his schoolfellow and his comrade at the university. I shall add the following traits, in his own words as near as possible:

"More vain than ambitious, Schimmelpenninck from his youth, and, particularly, from his entrance into public life, tried every means to make a noise, but found none to make a reputation. He caressed in succession all the systems of the French Revolution, without adopting one for himself. All the Kings of faction received in their turns his homage and felicitations. It was impossible to mention to him a man of any notoriety, of whom he did not become immediately a partisan. The virtues or the vices, the merit or defects, of the individual were of no consideration; according to his judgment it was sufficient to be famous.

Yet with all the extravagances of a head filled with paradoxes, and of a heart spoiled by modern philosophy, added to a habit of licentiousness, he had no idea of becoming an instrument for the destruction of liberty in his own country, much less of becoming its tyrant, in submitting to be the slave of France. It was but lately that he took the fancy, after so long admiring all other great men of our age, to be at any rate one of their number, and of being admired as a great man in his turn. On this account many accuse him of hypocrisy, but no one deserves that appellation less, his vanity and exaltation never permitting him to dissimulate; and no presumption, therefore, was less disguised than his, to those who studied the man. Without acquired ability, without natural genius, or political capacity, dest.i.tute of discretion and address, as confident and obstinate as ignorant, he is only elevated to fall and to rise no more."

Madame Schimmelpenninck, I was informed, is as amiable and accomplished as her husband is awkward and deficient; though well acquainted with his infidelities and profligacy, she is too virtuous to listen to revenge, and too generous not to forgive. She is, besides, said to be a lady of uncommon abilities, and of greater information than she chooses to display. She has never been the wors.h.i.+pper of Bonaparte, or the friend of Talleyrand; she loved her country, and detested its tyrants. Had she been created a grand pensionary, she would certainly have swayed with more glory than her husband; and been hailed by contemporaries, as well as posterity, if not a heroine, at least a patriot,--a t.i.tle which in our times, though often prost.i.tuted, so few have any claim to, and which, therefore, is so much the more valuable.

When it was known at Paris that Schimmelpenninck had set out for his new sovereignty, no less than sixteen girls of the Palais Royal demanded pa.s.ses for Holland. Being questioned by Fouche as to their business in that country, they answered that they intended to visit their friend, the grand pensionary, in his new dominions. Fouche communicated to Talleyrand both their demands and their business, and asked his advice.

He replied: