The Emperor liked Lacken; he had considerable repairs and embellishments made there, and through his efforts this palace became a charming place of abode.

This journey of Their Majesties lasted nearly three months. We did not return to Paris, or rather to Saint-Cloud, until some time in October. At Cologne and Coblentz the Emperor had received the visit of several German princes and princesses; but, as I could only know by hearsay what passed in these interviews, I had determined not to speak of them, when there fell into my hands a manuscript in which the author enters into all the details of which I could have no cognizance. This is how I found myself possessor of this curious journal.

It seems that one of the ladies of Her Majesty the Empress Josephine noted down daily everything interesting that happened in the interior of the palace and the imperial family. These souvenirs, among which occur many unflattering portraits, were brought to the Emperor's notice probably, as it was supposed at the time, by the indiscretion and unfaithfulness of a chambermaid.

Their Majesties were very severely, and to my mind very unjustly treated in the Memoirs of Madame
——. Hence the Emperor flew into a violent rage, and Madame received her dismissal. The day when His Majesty read these manuscripts in his bedroom at Saint-Cloud, his secretary, who was accustomed to carry all papers into His Majesty's cabinet, doubtless forgot a rather small paper book, which I found on the floor, near the Emperor's bath-tub. This paper book was nothing less than the Account of the Journey of the Empress to Aix-la-Chapelle, a relation which apparently formed part of the Memoirs of Madame ——. As we were just starting for Paris, and moreover as papers negligently forgotten and not missed did not seem to be of great importance, I threw them into the upper part of an armoire of a cabinet which was seldom opened, and concerned myself no further about them. It seems that nobody thought more of them than I did; for it was not until two years afterward that, in searching every corner of the bedchamber in search of some mislaid object, my eyes fell upon the dusty manuscript of Madame ——. The Emperor's thoughts were very remote at that time from the petty vexations of 1805, and I did not feel myself guilty of a great indiscretion in taking the manuscript home with me, and I hope nobody will be displeased at finding it annexed to my Memoirs. At the same time I protest here, in advance, against any interpretation which would tend to make me jointly responsible for the opinions of Madame ——. She belonged to the number of those persons who, belonging to the old regime, either individually or through their family ties, had thought they could accept or even solicit appointments in the Emperor's household, without renouncing their prejudices or their hatred for him. This hatred has led the author of the Journey into more than one unjust exaggeration concerning whatever relates to Their Majesties, and I have replied in several notes to things that to me seem inexact in her criticisms. In what refers to the German princes and some other personages, Madame——  impresses me as having been ingeniously truthful, although a little too jeering.

 DIARY OF THE JOURNEY TO MAYENCE

Paris, July 1, 1804.—I took my oath to-day at Saint-Cloud, as lady of the Empress's palace, at the same time when M. d'Aubusson took his as chamberlain. Madame de La Rochefoucauld was the only person who witnessed this ceremony, which took place in the blue salon in a rather gay manner. Josephine was very gracious about it; she had formerly met M. d'Aubusson in society, and she seemed to find it very pleasant to renew acquaintance with him by receiving his oath as Empress. She speaks of her elevation very frankly, very becomingly. She said to us with delightful artlessness that it was very unpleasant to her to remain seated when women who were formally her equals, or even her superiors, entered her apartments; that she was required to conform to this etiquette, but that she found it quite impossible. Madame de La Rochefoucauld, who had to be entreated for a long time before she would accept the place of lady of honor, and who yielded only through affection for Josephine, has given herself infinite pains to bring the whole faubourg Saint-Germain to this court. It was she who persuaded M. d'Aubusson. He had wished to enter the service as a colonel; he was rather surprised to receive an appointment as chamberlain instead of a regiment. All Paris occupies itself with the formation of the households of the Emperor and the Empress; every day one hears of some family of the old court which is going to form part of this one. The embarrassment with which people accost persons of their acquaintance is curious enough: uncertain whether they have received appointments, one does not like to boast of his own; but on learning theirs, one is enchanted; it is one weapon more for the sheaf they would like to form in opposition to the malicious pleasantries of the faubourg Saint-Germain.

July 8, 1804.—Madame de La Rochefoucauld related a rather amusing adventure this morning. She had just made a call on Madame de Balby. The latter, enchanted to find a chance to throw a stone into her garden, said to her: "Madame de Bouilley has just gone away; I told her that people in society were mentioning her as a lady of the palace; but she denied it in a way that proved to me that they were in the wrong." Madame de La Rochefoucauld had with her at that very moment the letter in which Madame de Bouilley asks for this place; she replied: "I do not know why Madame de Bouilley denies it, for here is her application and her appointment."

July 14,1804.—What a fatiguing day! We were assembled at the château at eleven o'clock, to accompany the Empress to the church of the Invalides, to witness a distribution of the decorations of the Legion of Honor.

Seated in a tribune opposite the Emperor's throne, we saw him receive nineteen hundred chevaliers. This ceremony was interrupted for an instant by the arrival of a man of the people, wearing a simple jacket, who presented himself on the steps of the throne. Napoleon paused in surprise: some one questioned the man, who showed his brevet, and he received the accolade and his decoration. The cortege followed the same road on returning, passing through the grand alley of the Tuileries. It was the first time that Bonaparte has entered the garden in a carriage. On re-entering the apartments of the Empress, he approached the window; some children who were on the terrace, seeing him, shouted: Long live the Emperor! He drew back with very perceptible ill-humor, saying: "I am the worst-lodged sovereign in Europe; no one has ever thought of allowing the public to come so near his palace." I must confess that if I had arrived at the Tuileries in the way that Napoleon has, I should have thought it more suitable not to seem to find myself ill-lodged.

I do not know whether it was because this little spurt of ill-humor lasted; but, on entering the circle which we formed, he approached Madame de La Vallette, and kicking the bottom of her dress, he said: "Fie! Madame, what a dress! what trimming! It is in the very worst taste!'' Madame de La Vallette seemed a little disconcerted.

In the evening we went up to the balcony of the middle pavilion to hear the concert that was given in the garden. After some moments, the Emperor took a whim to see the statues of the Louvre by torchlight. M. Denon, who was there, received his orders; the footmen carried torches, we crossed the grand gallery, and went down into the halls of the antiques. In passing through them, Napoleon paused a long time before a bust of Alexander; there was a sort of affectation in his calling our attention to the fact that necessarily this head was bad, that it was too large, Alexander being much smaller than himself. He dwelt greatly on those words: much smaller. I was at a little distance, but I had heard him; having come nearer, he absolutely repeated the phrase; he seemed charmed to inform us that he was larger than Alexander. Ah! how small he seemed to me at that moment!

July 15, 1804.—This evening I was at a house where the Princess Dolgorouki came on leaving the drawing-room at the Tuileries. Some one asked her what she thought about it. "It is certainly a great power," she responded, " but it is not a court."

Paris, July —, 1804.—The Emperor starts tomorrow to go and see the flat-boats at Boulogne, and the Empress for Aix-la-Chapelle, where she will take the waters. I must accompany her.

Rheims, July —, 1804.—This morning, before leaving Saint-Cloud, the Empress crossed two halls to give an order to a person occupying a rather subaltern position in her household. M. d'Harville, her grand equerry, came up in a fright to represent to her that Her Majesty would totally compromise the dignity of the throne, and that she ought to give her orders through his lips. "Eh! sir," said Josephine, gayly, "this etiquette is perfect for princesses born on the throne and accustomed to the restraint which it imposes; but I, who have had the good luck to live so many years as a private person, think it well to give my orders sometimes without an interpreter." The grand equerry bowed, and we set out.

Sedan, July 30, 1804.—This morning I found Josephine very busily reading a large sheet of manuscript, and I was not a little surprised to see that she was learning her lesson. Whenever she travels, everything is fixed, foreseen in advance. It is known in what place she must be harangued by such or such an authority; here she must respond in such a manner; there in such another. All is regulated, even to the presents she must make. But it sometimes happens that her memory fails her; and then, if her response is not as suitable as that which had been prepared, it is at least always made with such courtesy and kindness that people are always satisfied.

Liege, August I, 1804.—I feared that we should never get here. The Emperor, without informing himself as to whether a projected road through the forest of Ardennes had been completed, had traced ours on the map; the relays were arranged according to his orders, and we were twenty times in danger of having our carriages smashed. In several places they were kept up with ropes. No one ever imagined making women travel like dragoon officers.

Aix-la-Chapelle, August 7, 1804.—The Empress has established herself here in the house of one M. de Jacoby, lately purchased by the Emperor. It had been spoken of as a very agreeable habitation, and we were surprised on finding a wretched little house. The prefect wished to have Josephine come at once and install herself at the prefecture; but such is her perfect submission to Bonaparte's wishes that she would not do so without his orders. He is bent on favorizing the inhabitants of the reunited departments, desiring to attach them to France. It was this motive that induced him to buy M. de Jacoby's house and pay four times its value for it.

Aix-la-Chapelle, August—,1804,—This morning, on reading the Publicist newspaper, Josephine was rather disagreeably surprised at seeing, in the account of her journey, that some one had reported and printed her adieux to the wife of the mayor of Rheims, with whom she had lodged while in that city. It often happens that one carelessly says something which lacks common sense, without noticing it; but, if one encounters the same phrase in print, then reflection makes one appreciate just what it amounts to. I own that there is no need of it to judge of this one. On leaving Rheims, the Empress gave the mayor's wife a medallion of malachite, and said as she embraced her: "'Tis the color of hope." The fact is that hope had not the least thing to do in this case; it was a mere piece of stupidity. I was there; I heard and I remarked it; but I took good care not to remember it this morning. Josephine was in despair; she was certain, and that in perfectly good faith, that she had not said such a thing: it would have been cruel to contradict her. The private secretary proposed that she should deny using it in the journal; she thought of it for a moment; but whether she suddenly remembered it, or was afraid of doing something which Bonaparte might disapprove, she contented herself with writing to him that she had not uttered this stupidity; that her first impulse had been to contradict it, but she had been unwilling to do anything without his orders. A courier was despatched to Boulogne. 1

Aix-la-Chapelle, August 11, 1804.—Our life here is tiresome and monotonous. With the exception of a daily ride, which we take in an open carriage through the environs of the city, the remainder of the day is precisely like yesterday. Picard's troupe has come here and will remain as long as the Empress does. Every evening we go and yawn at the theatre; Picard's repertory is unimaginably fatiguing in the long run. To be sure it is clever, and has some very good comic scenes; but the subjects are always selected from the lowest ranks of life, one never emerges from the stage-coach or the rue Saint-Denis. For a day it is possible to be amused with the novelty of this tone; but one is presently fatigued at finding one's self so far from home.

August 11, 1804.—Not having gone to the theatre this evening, and some one having spoken of a plan of Paris in relief, the Empress wished to see it. The evening being very fine, why, she asked, should we not walk there? This was a novelty, and every one was in haste to start. M. d'Harville, who is always the chevalier of etiquette, was in despair. He intended to hazard his opinion, but we were already too far away. The fact is that he was quite right, as the sequel of this frolic has proved. The streets being almost empty in the evenings, we met hardly anybody in going; but while we were examining this plan, the rumor of our excursion got around; and when we came out, there were candles in all the windows, and the whole populace on our route. We must have formed a sufficiently amusing cortege; those gentlemen, with their hats under their arms and swords at their sides, who gave us their hands and aided us to pass through the crowd which pressed around us, and whose tatters presented a rather startling contrast with our feathers, our diamonds, and our long dresses. At last we reached the hotel of the prefecture; the Empress felt then that she had acted thoughtlessly, and she frankly acknowledged it.

August 13, 1804.—It was said this evening that the Emperor would soon arrive here: that will impart a little movement and variety to our habitual circle, which is perfectly monotonous. It is composed of Madame de La Rochefoucauld, a woman of very amiable disposition; four ladies of the palace, the grand equerry, two chamberlains, the chief equerry; M. Deschamps, the private secretary; the prefect and his family; two or three generals who have married German women, real caricatures. I must add one very amiable woman, Madame de Sémonville, wife of the French ambassador to Holland; by her first marriage she was Madame de Montholon. She has had two sons and two daughters: one is Madame de Spare; the other, who married General Joubert, became the wife of General Macdonald by a second marriage. This young and lovely woman is dying; she came here to take the waters; her mother, Madame de Sémonville, accompanied and takes care of her. I fear that it will be in vain. Hence we enjoy very little of Madame de Sémonville's society; she seldom leaves her daughter.

Aix-la-Chapelle, August 14, 1804.—I remained alone quite a long time with Josephine this morning; she talked to me with a confidence which would have flattered me very much, if I had not seen daily that this abandon is natural and necessary to her. The estimate I have formed of her character is perhaps premature, since I have known her so short a time; however, I do not believe I am mistaken. She is exactly like a ten-year-old child. She has the good nature and the levity of one; she is quickly moved; weeps and then is consoled in a moment. One might say of her intelligence what Moliere said of a man's probity, "that he had just enough to prevent his being hanged." She has precisely what is needed to keep one from being a simpleton. Ignorant, like the generality of creoles, she has learned nothing or almost nothing except through conversation; but having passed her life in good society, she has acquired very good manners, grace, and that jargon which in society sometimes takes the place of wit. Social events are a canvas which she embroiders and arranges, and which supplies materials for her conversation. She has at least quarter of an hour of wit a day. What I find charming in her is that diffidence which, in her position, is a great merit. If she finds intelligence and judgment in any of the persons who surround her, she consults them with a candor and artlessness which are wholly delightful. Her temper is perfectly even and sweet; it is impossible not to love her. I fear that this need of opening her heart, of communicating all her ideas, all that passes between her and the Emperor, must deprive her of much of his confidence. She complains of not possessing it; she told me this morning that never in all the years she has spent with him, has she seen in him a single moment of unreserve; that if, at some moments, he shows a little confidence, it is only to excite that of the person to whom he is talking; but that he never reveals his entire thought. She says that he is very superstitious; that one day being with the army in Italy, he broke in his pocket the glass which covered her portrait and that he was in despair, convinced that it was a warning of her death; he had no repose until after the return of the courier whom he sent to reassure himself. 2

This conversation led Josephine to speak to me about the singular prediction which was made to her just as she was leaving Martinique. A sort of gypsy said to her: "You are going to France to be married; your marriage will not be happy; your husband will die in a tragic manner; you will incur great dangers yourself at that period; but you will come out triumphantly from them; you are destined to the most glorious condition, and without being a queen, you will be more than a queen." She added that being very young then, she paid very little attention to this prediction; that she only remembered it at the time when M. de Beauharnais was guillotined; that she spoke of it then to several ladies who like herself were imprisoned in the days of the Terror; but that at present she saw it accomplished in every point. It is a very singular chance which has brought about the coincidence between this prediction and her destiny.

August 15.—This morning, while driving, Josephine continued the conversation begun yesterday. I was alone with her in the carriage; she talked to me about M. de Talleyrand; she claims that he hates her, and without any motive but the injuries he has done her. Alas! it is too true that he who has offended never pardons. These words are written large in the history of the human heart. The offended person may forget it, but conscience never fails to remember. During Bonaparte's sojourn in Egypt, at a time when every one regarded him as ruined, M. de Talleyrand, who was always at the feet of power, had been in various circumstances very impolite to Madame Bonaparte. One day, especially, he was dining with her at the house of Barras; Madame Tallien was present; it is claimed that this woman, who was celebrated for her beauty, exercised at this time a great empire over Barras. M. de Talleyrand, placed near her and Madame Bonaparte, showed so much grace in the attentions with which he surrounded Madame Tallien, and so little politeness toward Madame Bonaparte, that the latter, who knew him to be the perfection of courtiers, concluded that General Bonaparte must be known to be dead for him to treat her so badly; because if he had thought he could ever return to France, he would have been afraid he might avenge the slights put upon his wife in his absence. This idea, uniting with wounded self-love, made her leave the table in tears. M. de Talleyrand, who has not forgotten this circumstance, and who fears lest Josephine may one day have the power and the wish to revenge herself for it, did all that lay in his power during the last three months that elapsed before the creation of the Empire, to induce Napoleon to divorce her, in order that he might marry the Princess Wilhelmine of Baden; he urged, with all possible skill, the support he would gain in the courts of Russia and Bavaria, with whom he would become allied by this marriage; and the need of consolidating his Empire by the hope of having children. The Emperor wavered a little; but he finally resisted, and Josephine has no more anxiety on that account. 3

Although she has not much intelligence, she is not lacking in a certain sort of cleverness; she has known how to profit by the superstitious weakness of the Emperor, and she sometimes says to him: "They talk of thy star, but it is mine that influences thine; it was to me that a lofty destiny was predicted." This idea has probably contributed more than people think to the overthrow of M. de Talleyrand's schemes, and to tighten the bonds he wished to break. 4
 

Josephine has just told me a rather piquant anecdote. Madame de Staël wrote to Count Louis de Narbonne not long since. As she was sending her letter by a man whom she believed trusty, she expressed her whole mind; she was particularly sprightly concerning persons who have accepted places at court since the creation of the Empire. She added that she hoped that she would never be chagrined, in reading the journal, by seeing his name beside theirs. The man entrusted with this letter carried it to Fouché. The latter (after paying for this rascally transaction) read it, copied it, and having closed it up again with care, said to the man: "Fulfil your commission; get M. de Narbonne's answer, and bring it to me," which he did not fail to do. The Count replied in the same tone. They say that we were not spared in this response. I forgive him with all my heart; I am tempted to laugh myself at the bizarre ensemble that we present. This court is a veritable harlequin's dress; but if the costume has all the requisite motleys, harlequin has not all the graces of his state; 5 his awkwardness is in singular contrast with the great nobles by whom he is surrounded. I am sorry that one can set over against the Count's pleasantries his assiduity in the circles of Cambacérès and of all the ministers. Josephine claims that this letter, of which Napoleon is reminded by each obeisance of M. de Narbonne (and he makes a good many of them), deprives them of all their grace, and that he will never obtain anything. 6

August 16.—I perceive, by the redoublement of politeness in the persons who surround the Empress, how much I am daily losing in their esteem. At court, it is in this way that one must measure the degree of attachment one inspires. For some days I had been astonished to find that I had become the object of general attention; to tell the truth I did not know to what to attribute it, and in my innocence I might perhaps have laid it to my own merits. Who knows just how far self-love might have misled me? M. de ——, the most affected, the most insipid of all courtiers, past, present, and to come, undertook to enlighten my inexperience; he called on me this morning, ten times more reverentially than usual. He said to me that everybody had remarked Josephine's kindness toward me, our long conversations together, the attention with which she offered me every day at breakfast the dishes she found in front of her; that, for his part, he had been particularly pleased on remarking these distinctions; but that they had become a subject of jealousy to many persons. I laughed at the importance which he attached to all that, and I privately promised myself no longer to put to my own credit attentions which I owe only to the whim of the sovereign.

August 16.—To-day we have had a grand ceremony in the church, for the distribution of several decorations of the Legion of Honor. They had been sent to General Lorges, who desired that Josephine should give them herself. The clergy came to receive her at the door of the church. A throne was prepared for her in the choir, and everything had a solemn appearance. General Lorges made a speech, but he is more brave than eloquent; he knows how to fight better than he knows how to speak in public. He said to us in this discourse that he thought himself happy in seeing beauty on the throne and virtue beside it. If this is not his exact phrase, it is at least his thought. We could all feel aggrieved at this compliment, since to one he accorded virtue without beauty, and to the others beauty without virtue, but we all laughed a good deal over it when we came out. The Empress told us that she was very well content to have virtue for her lot, and asked to which one of us that of beauty had been awarded. Self-love stood ready to persuade each one that she had been intended, and we mutually took the credit of this compliment.

Aix-la-Chapelle, August 18, 1804.—Everything is in commotion in the palace; Bonaparte arrives to- morrow. It is extraordinary that in a situation like his, one should not be loved. 7 That would be so easy when one has only to will to make people happy in order to do so. But it seems that he does not often have this will; for from the first footman to the first officer of the crown, each one experiences a sort of terror at his approach. The court will become more brilliant; the ambassadors, not having been newly accredited since the metamorphosis of the consul into an emperor, will all arrive to present their letters. We shall remain here several days longer. We shall go to Cologne and Coblentz, and remain some days in each city, and from there to Mayence, where all the princes who are to form the Rhine confederation will assemble.

August 19, 1804.—He has arrived, and espionage along with him; the vexations which ordinarily form his cortege have already banished all gaiety from our little circle. His return has apprised us that among a dozen persons who were appointed to accompany Josephine here, there is one who was entrusted with the part of spy. Napoleon knew on arriving that on such a day we had made an excursion, that on such another day we had breakfasted with Madame de Sémonville, in a wood in the environs of Aix-la-Chapelle. The informer (whom we know) thought she would make her recital more meritorious by attributing to General Lorges, who is young and has very agreeable manners, the fault of a poor old military man who, probably, having been a soldier longer than an officer, did not know that one should not sit down before the Empress, on the same sofa. Josephine was too kind to show him that he had done an unsuitable thing; she was afraid of humiliating him. This proof of her goodness of heart had been transformed into a guilty condescension in favor of a young man for whom she must have a great deal of indulgence and kindness, since he could feel himself so perfectly at ease with her. This was the conclusion it was intended that the Emperor should draw. Luckily, this circumstance, so unlikely to be remarked, had been so, and it was not difficult for Josephine to prove who was the guilty person: his age, his lack of experience of society, have effaced all the black with which this action had been painted. How can one help being astonished 8 that a man who has passed his life in camps, who has been nurtured and brought up by the Republic, should attach importance to these trifles! Ah! the love of power is doubtless natural to man; a child does, for the plaything which he disputes with his comrade, what sovereigns do, at a more advanced age, for the provinces they wish to arrest from each other. But how far it is from that noble pride which wishes to dominate its equals, to this code of etiquette which forms at present the dearest occupation of Napoleon! I was wondering this evening, as I looked at all these men standing up, and not daring to move a step outside the circle they formed, why it is that the powerful of all times and of all countries have attached the idea of respect to constrained attitudes. I think they find the sight of all these men bent incessantly in their presence sweet, because it is a continual reminder of their power over them.

August 20, 1804.—This morning Napoleon received all the constituted authorities of the city. They issued from this audience confounded, astonished to the last degree. "What a man!" said the mayor to me, "what a prodigy! what a universal genius! How is it that he knows this department, so distant from the capital, better than we do? Not a detail escapes him; he knows everything; he is acquainted with all the products of our industry." I smiled; I was greatly tempted to inform this honest man, who was going to retail his admiration throughout the city, that it would bear a good deal of abatement; that this perfect acquaintance which Napoleon displayed to them is a piece of charlatanism with which he subjugates the vulgar. He has had thoroughly exact statistics drawn up of France and its reunited departments. When he travels, he takes with him the manuscript books which relate to the countries he is to visit; 9 these he learns by heart an hour before the audience; then he appears, talks about everything with the air of a man whose mind embraces all the vast country that he governs, and leaves these good people rapt in admiration. An hour afterward, he no longer knows a word of what excited this admiration.

The prefect, M. Méchin, came to this audience with a certain assurance (rather common with him), not suspecting the ordeal he was about to undergo. Napoleon, who had just learned his lesson, asked him several questions to which he did not know how to answer; he was troubled, embarrassed. "Monsieur," said the Emperor to him, "when a man does not know a department better than this, he is unworthy to administer it." And he removed him from office. Such was the result of to-day's audience.

Aix-la-Chapelle, August 21.—I am often tempted to inform Napoleon, who asks so many questions about the usages of the old court, that grace and urbanity prevailed there; that in it women dared to converse with princes. Here, we are precisely like little girls who are going to be examined in catechism. Napoleon is very much offended if any one ventures to address a remark to him. 10 Half lying down on a sofa, he alone supplies the conversation; for nobody replies to him except by a yes or a no, sire, pronounced very timidly. He usually talks about the arts, such as music and painting; he frequently takes love for the subject of conversation, and God knows how he talks about it. 11 It does not belong to a woman to judge a general; hence, I shall not presume to speak of his military feats; but the spirit of the salon 12 is our province, and concerning that it is permissible to say that he has none at all.

August 22, 1804.—It must be that this need of adulating power is very general, since not even priests are exempt from it. This morning we were shown what are called the grand relics: they were sent as a present to Charlemagne by the Empress Irene, and have been preserved since that time in an iron press contrived in a wall. This press is opened every seven years, to show the relics to the people, a circumstance which attracts a very considerable multitude from all the surrounding region. Each time that the relics are replaced in the press, the door is walled up, and not opened again for seven years. Josephine had a wish to see them, and although the seven years had not elapsed, the wall was demolished. Among these relics, a little silver-gilt casket attracted particular attention. The priests who showed us this treasure piqued our curiosity by saying that the most ancient tradition attached a great happiness to the possibility of opening this coffer, but that so far nobody had been able to do it. Josephine, whose curiosity was keenly excited, took it in her fingers and it opened almost at once. There were no external traces of a lock, but there must have been some secret for opening the interior spring. I am persuaded that the priests who showed us the relics knew the secret, and that they contrived this little pleasure for the Empress. However it may be, this circumstance has been regarded as very extraordinary; they have laid great stress on it to Josephine, who, although sufficiently amused by this surprise, does not attach more importance to it than it deserves. For the rest, curiosity has not been very well satisfied; for nothing was found in the box but a few little scraps of stuff which may be regarded as relics if one chooses, but the authenticity of which is not certified.

I have come back home saddened by this employment of my morning. I do not like to encounter courtiers or ambitious men among the clergy; I cannot even understand how there can be any. I find something so noble, so elevated in their prerogatives, that my imagination likes to disengage them from all our weaknesses. Detached from all the passions which disturb and rule humanity, placed as intermediaries between man and the Divinity, they are entrusted with the sweet employment of consoling the unfortunate, and of showing them, athwart the storms of life, a harbor where at last they will find repose. Can the world offer a dignity equal to this privilege which is reserved to them, of penetrating into the asylum of misfortune; of soothing there the anguish of the dying and again surrounding him with hope; of taking from death that which is most appalling in it,—the dread of nothingness? No, a priest cannot barter these beautiful prerogatives for money, or for what the world calls honors.

August 23, 1804.—On opening my journal, my eyes fastened on the page I wrote yesterday; I could not help smiling as I compared what I said of the simplicity, the sanctity, the dignity of the priesthood, with the conversation I heard this evening between M. de Pradt, the Emperor's first chaplain, and a general. They both wore the same decoration,—the cross of honor. I wondered how the man of God, the minister of peace, had merited the same recompense as the warrior charged with sending death to the enemies of his country. Their sovereigns ought to recall the lesson taught by Alexander on the distinction between recompenses: a man very adroitly darted some grains of millet through a needle in his presence; he ordered that a bushel of millet should be given him, wishing to proportion the recompense to the utility of the talent. This art of rewarding with discernment is not very common at present. We see Talma better paid than a general. He has more than sixty thousand francs, both from the theatre and from Bonaparte. I leave the comedian and return to M. de Pradt. While listening to his brilliant, philosophic conversation this evening, I was reminded of the piquant question once addressed to him by a very witty man who found himself in his company at a dinner of twenty-five persons, and who asked him: "Monseigneur, do you believe in God?"

August 24.—The Emperor plays whist nearly every evening with Josephine and Madame de La Rochefoucauld; the fourth person is chosen from persons who come to the drawing-room. This evening the Duc d'Aremberg was to be the fourth; the Emperor found it rather stimulating to play with a blind man. I was about to sit down at the tiresome loto table, when the first chamberlain came to tell me that Napoleon had designated me for his whist. I replied that I had but one difficulty, which was that I had never learned the game. M. de Rémusat went to carry my response, to which the Emperor, who does not know what an impossibility is, said: "It is all the same." This was an order; I complied with it. Madame de La Rochefoucauld, whose place I occupied, gave me some advice, and besides, excepting the Duc d'Aremberg, who has the memory of a blind man, and who never forgets a single card named to him, I played pretty nearly as well as the Empress and the Emperor. The game was not long. The Duc d'Aremberg usually has a man beside him who arranges his cards; his play is designated to him by means of a little board adapted to the table; by passing his hand over this board, he knows his cards by the pegs in relief which are placed by the man whom he calls his marker. He plays very well and even with astonishing quickness, if one thinks of all the labor required to make him know his cards.

But, not daring to have himself accompanied to the palace by his marker, who is a sort of valet de chambre, the man's place was taken by the Duchesse d'Aremberg, and his play was very much retarded; hence the Emperor, who likes to play quickly, and whose curiosity was satisfied, left the table after the first rubber.
 

August 25.—Corneille was right when he said:

He who can do what he wills, wills more than he ought.

This line contains a moral axiom of great verity. M. de Sémonville is a victim offered to-day by politics in holocaust to the Dutch. This action is revoltingly unjust; M. de Talleyrand had required of M. de Sémonville some measure which displeased the Hollanders. Bonaparte, who wants to keep on good terms with them, would not avow that his ambassador had only acted in accordance with the orders of M. de Talleyrand, because he would then have to sacrifice him, and (although he detests him), as he thinks him more useful than M. de Sémonville, he sacrifices the latter. Perhaps they think they can excuse this action by telling us that the ideas of justice, considered in connection with a private person, are not applicable to sovereigns; I think, on the contrary, that as their actions belong to posterity, which will judge them apart from the prestige which dazzles us, they ought always to take morality and justice for their guides.

Yesterday, at the reception of ambassadors, when Bonaparte was near M. de Sémonville, he turned his back, being unwilling to speak to him; and when the latter asked the single favor of being allowed to explain himself in an audience, it was refused him. They knew all he would say; he was justified in advance; but that is precisely why he was not received. They could not say to him: "You were right; M. de Talleyrand was wrong, and yet it is you who will pay for him;" as this is what the Emperor had decided on in his superior wisdom, he will neither see nor listen to him. Is it true, then, that the abuse of power is always linked with power, as the effect is to the cause?

Aix-la-Chapelle, August 26.—I saw M. de Sémonville this morning: he told me that M. de Talleyrand, in talking with him yesterday, tried very adroitly to persuade him that he ought to give orders at the Hague to have all his papers burned. "Take care," he said to him, "the Emperor is a petty Nero. 13 He will perhaps send 14 to seize your papers, and that may be very disagreeable. Madame de Spare, your stepdaughter, is at the Hague; write and tell her to burn everything promptly; it is more essential than you may think." This counsel, given in a friendly and interested tone, might have been followed by a dolt; but M. de Talleyrand was dealing with a man as shrewd as himself. M. de Sémonville perfectly recognized his object, which was to destroy all the documents that would justify him. Instead of writing to Madame de Spare to burn his papers, he had just despatched one of his stepsons, M. de Montholon, in search of them. He will wait until he is supplied with all his proofs; but I doubt much that they will produce any other effect than that of making Bonaparte very cross if he ever consents to look at them, which I do not believe he will. 15

This evening I was placed beside Madame Lannes 16 in the salon.

This was the first time that I had seen her; she has arrived from Portugal with her husband, who was ambassador there. I found her charming. The Emperor, in going around the drawing-room, said to her in that extraordinary tone he uses with all women: "They say you lived on fine terms with the Prince-regent of Portugal." Madame Lannes replied very suitably that the Prince had always treated her husband and herself with much kindness. She returned to my side, saying to me: "I do not know what fatality always places me under the Emperor's eyes when he is in a bad humor; because I do not think he means to say disagreeable things to me; and yet that often happens." The poor woman almost had tears in her eyes. This unbefitting sarcasm was all the more out of place because her conduct is generally eulogized; but, this evening, Napoleon was unchained against all women; he told us we "had no patriotism, no national spirit; that we ought to blush to wear muslins; that Englishwomen set us an example by wearing nothing but stuffs of their own country; that this craze for English muslins is all the more extraordinary since we have in France linen-cambrics which could replace them and would make much prettier dresses; that for his part he should always love that stuff preferably to any other, because, in his youth, his first sweetheart had a frock of it." At that expression, first sweetheart, I could hardly avoid laughing, all the more because my eyes met those of Madame de La Rochefoucauld, who was dying with desire to do the same. It is extraordinary that Bonaparte should have such common manners. 17 When he wishes to be dignified, he is insolent and disdainful) and if he has a moment of gaiety, he becomes the most vulgar of men. His brother-in-law Murat, born in a class far beneath his own, and who received no manner of education, has formed himself in the school of society in an astonishing manner. I was at Dijon several years ago, at the time when he went to review an army corps which had been assembled there. I dined with him at the house of General Canclaux, who was in command at Dijon; and then he had altogether the appearance of a soldier in an officer's uniform. I saw him again recently, and I was astonished to find his manners very polished, and even rather agreeable. But Napoleon is too proud ever to acquire anything in point of manners, he has too much respect for himself ever to think of self-examination, and too much contempt for the human species to think for a single moment that any one can be better than he.