Ten Years' Exile Part 5

On her return to Switzerland, where she spent two years in writing her reflections upon Germany, she was not long in perceiving the progress which the imperial tyranny was every day making, and the contagious rapidity with which the pa.s.sion for places, and the fear of disgrace, were spreading. No doubt several friends, both at Geneva and in France, preserved to her during her misfortunes, a courageous and unshaken fidelity; but, whoever had any connection with the government, or aspired to any employment, began to keep at a distance from her house, and to dissuade timid people from approaching it. My mother suffered a great deal from all these symptoms of servitude, which she detected with incomparable sagacity; but the more unhappy she was, the more she felt the desire of diverting from the persons who were about her, the miseries of her situation, and of diffusing around her that life and intellectual movement, which solitude seemed to exclude.

Her talent for declamation was the means of amus.e.m.e.nt which had the greatest influence over herself, at the same time that it varied the pleasures of her society. It was at this period, and while she was still laboring on her great work on Germany, that she composed and played at Coppet, the greater part of the little pieces which are collected in the 16th volume of her works*, under the t.i.tle of Dramatic Essays.

* Or the Second Volume of her OEuvres inedites.

Finally, at the beginning of summer, 1810, having finished the three volumes of Germany, she wished to go and superintend the printing of them, at 40 leagues distance from Paris, a distance which was still permitted to her, and where she might hope to see again those of her old friends, whose affections had not bent before the disgrace of the Emperor.

She went, therefore, to reside in the neighbourhood of Blois, in'

the old castle of Chaumont-sur-Loire, which had in former times been inhabited by the Cardinal d'Amboise, Diana of Poitiers, and Catherine de Medicis. The present proprietor of this romantic residence, M. Le Ray, with whom my parents were connected by the ties of friends.h.i.+p and business, was then in America. But just at the time we were occupying his chateau, he returned from the United States with his family, and though he was very urgent in wis.h.i.+ng us to remain in his house, the more he pressed us politely to do so, the more anxiety we felt, lest we should incommode him. M. de Salaberry relieved us from this embarra.s.sment with the greatest kindness, by placing at our disposal his house at Fosse. At this period my mother's narrative recommences.

Part The Second

CHAPTER 1.

Suppression of my Work on Germany.--Banishment from France.

Being unable to remain longer in the castle of Chaumont, the proprietors of which had returned from America, I went and fixed myself at a farm called Fosse, which a generous friend lent me.* The house was inhabited by a Vendean soldier, who certainly did not keep it in the nicest order, but who had a loyal good nature that made every thing easy, and an originality of character that was very amusing. Scarcely had we arrived, when an Italian musician, whom I had with me to give lessons to my daughter, began playing upon the guitar; my daughter accompanied upon the harp the sweet voice of my beautiful friend Madame Recamier; the peasants collected round the windows, astonished to see this colony of troubadours, which had come to enliven the solitude of their master. It was there I pa.s.sed my last days in France, with some friends, whose recollection lives in my heart. Certainly this intimate a.s.semblage, this solitary residence, this agreeable occupation with the fine arts did no harm to any one. We frequently sung a charming air composed by the Queen of Holland, and of which the burden is: 'Do what you ought, happen what may'. After dinner, we had imagined the idea of seating ourselves round a green table and writing letters to each other, instead of conversing. These varied and multiplied tetes-a-tete amused us so much, that we were impatient to get from table, where we were talking, in order to go and write to one another. When any strangers came in accidentally, we could not bear the interruption of our habits; and our penny post (it is thus we called it) always went its round. The inhabitants of the neighbouring town were somewhat astonished at these new manners, and looked upon them as pedantic, while there was nothing in this game, but a resource against the monotony of solitude. One day a gentleman of the neighbourhood who had never thought of any thing in his life but the chase, came to take my boys with him into the woods; he remained sometime seated at our active but silent table; Madame Recamier wrote a little note with her beautiful hand to this jolly sportsman, in order that he might not be too much a stranger to the circle in which he was placed. He excused himself from receiving it, a.s.suring us that he could never read writing by day-light: we laughed a little at the disappointment which the benevolent coquetry of our beautiful friend had met with, and thought that a billet from her hand would not have always had the same fate. Our life pa.s.sed in this manner, without any of us, if I may judge from myself, finding the time at all burdensome.

* M. de Salaberry.

The opera of Cinderella was making a great noise at Paris; I wished to go and see it represented at a paltry provincial theatre at Blois. Coming out of the theatre on foot, the people of the place followed me in crowds from curiosity, more desirous of knowing me because I was an exile, than from any other motive. This kind of celebrity which I derived from misfortune, much more than from talent, displeased the minister of police, who wrote sometime after to the prefect of Loir and Cher, that I was surrounded by a court.

"Certainly," said I to the prefect* "it is not power at least which gives it me."

* M. de Corbigny, an amiable and intelligent man.

I had always the intention of repairing to England by the way of America; but I was anxious to terminate my work on Germany. The season was now advancing; we were already at the fifteenth of September, and I began to foresee that the difficulty of embarking my daughter with me would detain me another winter, in some town, I knew not where, at forty leagues from Paris. I was then desirous that it should be Vendome, where I knew several clever people, and where the communication with the capital was easy. After having formerly had one of the most brilliant establishments in Paris, I was now contented to antic.i.p.ate considerable pleasure from establis.h.i.+ng myself at Vendome; fate however denied me even this modest happiness.

On the 23d of September I corrected the last proof of Germany; after six years' labor, I felt the greatest delight in putting the word End to my three volumes. I made a list of one hundred persons to whom I wished to send copies, in different parts of France and Europe; I attached great importance to this book, which I thought well adapted to communicate new ideas to France; it appeared to me that a sentiment elevated without being hostile, had inspired it, and that people would find in it a language which was no longer spoken.

Furnished with a letter from my publisher, which a.s.sured me that the censors.h.i.+p had authorised the publication of my work, I believed that I had nothing to apprehend, and set out with my friends for an estate of M. Mathieu de Montmorency, at five leagues from Blois. The house belonging to this estate is situated in the middle of a forest; there I walked about with the man whom I most respect in the world, since I have lost my father. The fineness of the weather, the magnificence of the forest, the historical recollections which the place recalled, being the scene of the battle of Fretteval, fought between Philip Augustus and Richard Coeur-de-Lion, all contributed to fill my mind with the most quiet and delightful impressions. My worthy friend, who is only occupied in this world with rendering himself worthy of heaven, in this conversation, as in all those we have had together, paid no attention to affairs of the day, and only sought to do good to my soul. We resumed our journey the next day, and in these plains of the Vendomois, where you meet not with a single habitation, and which like the sea seem to present every where the same appearance, we contrived to lose ourselves completely. It was already midnight, and we knew not what road to take, in a country every where the same, and where fertility is as monotonous as sterility is elsewhere, when a young man on horseback, perceiving our embarra.s.sment, came and requested us to pa.s.s the night in the chateau of his parents.* We accepted his invitation, which was doing us a real service, and we found ourselves all of a sudden in the midst of the luxury of Asia, and the elegance of France. The masters of the house had spent a considerable time in India, and their chateau was adorned with every thing they had brought back from their travels. This residence excited my curiosity, and I found myself extremely comfortable in it. Next day M. de Montmorency gave me a note from my son which pressed me to return home, as my work had met with fresh difficulties from the censors.h.i.+p. My friends who were with me in the chateau conjured me to go; I had not the least suspicion of what they were concealing from me, and thinking there was nothing but what Augustus's letter mentioned,* whiled away the time in examining the Indian curiosities without any idea of what was in store for me. At last I got into the carriage, and my brave and intelligent Vendean whom his own dangers had never moved, squeezed my hand, with tears in his eyes: I guessed immediately that they were making a mystery to me of some new persecution, and M. de Montmorency, in reply to my interrogations, at last acquainted me that the minister of the police had sent his myrmidons to destroy the ten thousand copies which had been printed of my book, and that I had received an order to quit France within three days. My children and friends had wished me not to hear this news while I was among strangers; but they had taken every possible precaution to prevent the seizure of my ma.n.u.script, and they succeeded in saving it, some hours before I was required to deliver it up. This new blow affected me most severely, I had flattered myself with an honorable success by the publication of my book: if the censors had in the first instance refused to authorise its being printed, that would have appeared to me very simple; but after having submitted to all their observations, and made all the alterations required of me, to learn that my work was destroyed, and that I must separate my self from the friends who had supported my courage, all this made me shed tears. But I endeavored once more to get the better of my feelings, in order to determine what was best to be done in a crisis where the step I was about to take might have so much influence on the fortunes of my family. As we drew near my habitation, I gave my writing desk, which contained some further notes upon my book, to my youngest son; he jumped over a wall to get into the house by the garden. An English lady*, my excellent friend, came out to meet me and inform me of all that had happened. I observed at a distance some, gendarmes who were wandering round residence, but it did not appear that they were in search of me: they were no doubt in pursuit of some other unfortunates, conscripts, exiles, persons in surveillance, or, in short, of some of the numerous cla.s.ses of oppressed which the present government of France has created.

* (Note of the Editor.) Uneasy at not seeing my mother arrive, I took horse to go and meet her, in order to soften as much as was in my power, the news which she had to learn upon her return; but I lost myself like her, in the uniform plains of the Vendomois, and it was only in the middle of the night that a fortunate chance conducted me to the gate of the chateau where the rites of hospitality had been given to her. I caused M. de Montmorency to be awakened, and after having informed him of this new instance of the persecution which the imperial police directed against my mother, I set off again to finish putting her papers in safety, leaving to M. de Montmorency the charge of preparing her for the new blow with which she was threatened.

* Miss Randall.

The prefect of Loir and Cher came to require the delivery of my ma.n.u.script: I gave him, merely to gain time, a rough copy which remained with me, and with which he was satisfied. I have learned that he was extremely ill-treated a few months afterwards, to punish him for having shewn me some attention: and the chagrin he felt at having incurred the disgrace of the emperor, was, it is said, one of the causes of the illness which carried him off in the prime of life. Unfortunate country, where the circ.u.mstances are such, that a man of his understanding and talent should sink under the chagrin of disgrace!

I saw in the papers, that some American vessels had arrived in the ports of the Channel, and I determined to make use of my pa.s.sport for America, in the hope that it would be possible to touch at an English port. At all events I required some days to prepare for this voyage, and I was obliged to address myself to the minister of police to ask for that indulgence. It has been already seen that the custom of the French government is to order women, as well as soldiers, to depart within twenty-four hours. Here follows the minister's reply: it is curious to observe his style*.

* (Note of the Editor.) This is the same letter which was printed in the Preface to Germany,

"GENERAL POLICE.

MINISTER'S CABINET.

Paris, 3d October, 1810.

"I have received the letter, madam, which you did me the honor to write to me. Your son will have informed you that I saw no impropriety in your delaying your departure for seven or eight days: I hope they will be sufficient for the arrangements which you have yet to make, as I cannot grant you any more.

"You must not seek for the cause of the order which I have signified to you, in the silence which you have observed with regard to the emperor in your last work; that would be a great mistake; he could find no place there which was worthy of him; but your exile is a natural consequence of the line of conduct you have constantly pursued for several years past. It has appeared to me that the air of this country did not at all agree with you, and we are not yet reduced to seek for models in the nations whom you admire.

"Your last work is not at all French; it is by my orders that the impression has been seized. I regret the loss which it will occasion to the bookseller; but it is not possible for me to allow it to appear.

"You know, madam, that you would not have been permitted to quit Coppet but for the desire you had expressed to go to America. If my predecessor allowed you to reside in the department of Loir and Cher, you had no reason to look upon this license as any revocation of the arrangements which had been fixed with regard to you. At present you compel me to make them be strictly executed; for this you have no one to blame but yourself.

"I have signified to M. Corbigny* to look to the punctual execution of the order I have given him, as soon as the term I grant you is expired.

* Prefect of Loir and Cher.

"I regret extremely, madam, that you have forced me to begin my correspondence with you by an act of severity; it would have been much more agreeable to me to have only had to offer you the a.s.surance of the high consideration with which I have the honor to be, madam,

"Your most humble, and most obedient servant, Signed the DUKE of ROVIGO.

"P. S, I have reasons, madam, for mentioning to you that the ports of Lorient, La Roch.e.l.le, Bourdeaux, and Rochefort, are the only ones in which you can embark. I request you to let me know which of them you select*."

* This postscript is easily understood; its object was to prevent me from going to England.

The stale hypocrisy with which I was told that the air of this country did not agree with me, and the denial of the real cause of the suppression of my book, are worthy of remark. In fact, the minister of police had shown more frankness in expressing himself verbally respecting me: he asked, why I never named the emperor or the army in my work on Germany? On its being objected that the work being purely literary, I could not well have introduced such subjects, "Do you think," then replied the minister, "that we have made war for eighteen years in Germany, and that a person of such celebrity should print a book upon it, without saying a word about us? This book shall be destroyed, and the author deserves to be sent to Vincennes."

On receiving the letter of the minister of police, I paid no attention to any part but that pa.s.sage of it which interdicted me the ports of the Channel. I had already learned, that suspecting my intention of going to England, they would endeavour to prevent me.

This new mortification was really above my strength to bear; on quitting my native country, I must go to that of my adoption; in banis.h.i.+ng myself from the friends of my whole life, I required at least to find those friends of whatever is good and n.o.ble, with whom, without knowing them personally, the soul always sympathises.

I saw at once all that supported my imagination crumbling to pieces; for a moment longer I would have embarked on board any vessel bound for America, in the hope of her being captured on her pa.s.sage; but I was too much shaken to decide at once on so strong a resolution; and as the two alternatives of America and Coppet were the only ones that were left me, I determined on accepting the latter; for a profound sentiment always attracted me to Coppet, in spite of the disagreeables I was there subjected to.

My two sons both endeavoured to see the emperor at Fontainbleau, where he then was; they were told they would be arrested if they remained there; a fortiori, I was interdicted from going to it myself.

I was obliged to return into Switzerland from Blois, where I was, without approaching Paris nearer than forty leagues. The minister of police had given notice, in corsair terms, that at thirty-eight leagues I was a good prize. In this manner, when the emperor exercises the arbitrary power of banishment, neither the exiled persons, nor their friends, nor even their children, can reach his presence to plead the cause of the unfortunates who are thus torn from the objects of their affection and their habits; and these sentences of exile, which are now irrevocable, particularly where women are the objects, and which the emperor himself has rightly termed proscriptions, are p.r.o.nounced without the possibility of making any justification be heard, supposing always that the crime of having displeased the emperor admits of any.

Although the forty leagues were ordered me, I was necessitated to pa.s.s through Orleans, a very dull town, but inhabited by several very pious ladies, who had retired thither for an asylum. In walking about the town on foot, I stopped before the monument erected to the memory of Joan of Arc: certainly, thought I to myself, when she delivered France from the power of the English, that same France was much more free, much more France than it is at present. One feels a singular sensation in wandering through a town, where you neither know, nor are known to a soul. I felt a kind of bitter enjoyment in picturing to myself my isolated situation in its fullest extent, and in still looking at that France which I was about to quit, perhaps for ever, without speaking to a person, or being diverted from the impression which the country itself made upon me. Occasionally persons pa.s.sing stopped to look at me, from the circ.u.mstance I suppose of my countenance having, in spite of me, an expression of grief; but they soon went on again, as it is long since mankind have been accustomed to witness persons suffering.

At fifty leagues from the Swiss frontier, France is bristled with citadels, houses of detention, and towns serving as prisons; and every where you see nothing but individuals deprived of their liberty by the will of one man, conscripts of misfortune, all chained at a distance from the places where they would have wished to live. At Dijon, some Spanish prisoners, who had refused to take the oath, regularly came every day to the market place to feel the sun at noon, as they then regarded him rather as their countryman; they wrapt themselves up in a mantle, frequently in rags, but which they knew how to wear with grace, and they gloried in their misery, as it arose from their boldness; they hugged themselves in their sufferings, as a.s.sociating them with the misfortunes of their intrepid country.

They were sometimes seen going into a coffee house, solely to read the newspaper, in order to penetrate the fate of their friends through the lies of their enemies; their countenances were then immoveable, but not without expression, exhibiting strength under the command of their will. Farther on, at Auxonne, was the residence of the English prisoners, who had the day before saved from fire, one of the houses of the town where they were kept confined. At Besancon, there were more Spaniards. Among the French exiles to be met with in every part of France, an angelic creature inhabited the citadel of Besancon, in order not to quit her father. For a long period, and amidst every sort of danger, Mademoiselle de Saint Simon shared the fortunes of him who had given her birth.

At the entrance of Switzerland, on the top of the mountains which separate it from France, you see the castle of Joux, in which prisoners of state are detained, whose names frequently never reach the ear of their relations. In this prison Toussaint Louverture actually perished of cold; he deserved his fate on account of his cruelty, but the emperor had the least right to inflict it upon him, as he had engaged to guarantee to him his life and liberty. I pa.s.sed a day at the foot of this castle, during very dreadful weather, and I could not help thinking of this negro transported all at once into the Alps, and to whom this residence was the h.e.l.l of ice; I thought of the more n.o.ble beings, who had been shut up there, of those who were still groaning in it, and I said to myself also that if I was there, I should never quit it with life. It is impossible to convey an idea to the small number of free nations which remain upon the earth, of that absence of all security, the habitual state of the human creatures who live under the empire of Napoleon. In other despotic governments there are laws, and customs, and a religion, which the sovereign never infringes, however absolute he may be; but in France, and in Europe France, as every thing is new, the past can be no guarantee, and every thing may be feared as well as hoped according as you serve, or not, the interests of the man who dares to propose himself, as the sole object of the existence of the whole human race.

CHAPTER 2.

Return to Coppet.--Different persecutions.

In returning to Coppet, dragging my wing like the pigeon in Lafontaine, I saw the rainbow rise over my father's house; I dared take my part in this token of the covenant; there had been nothing in my sorrowful journey to prevent me from aspiring to it. I was then almost resigned to living in this chateau, renouncing the idea of ever publis.h.i.+ng more on any subject; but it was at least necessary, in making the sacrifice of talents, which I flattered myself with possessing, to find happiness in my affections, and this is the manner in which my private life was arranged, after having stript me of my literary existence.

The first order received by the prefect of Geneva, was to intimate to my two sons, that they were interdicted going into France without a new permission of the police. This was to punish them for having wished to speak to Bonaparte in favor of their mother. Thus the morality of the present government is to loosen family ties, in order to subst.i.tute in all cases the emperor's will. Several generals have been mentioned as declaring, that if Napoleon ordered them to throw their wives and children into the river, they would not hesitate to obey him. The translation of this is, that they prefer the money which the emperor gives them, to the family which they have from nature. There are many instances of this way of thinking, but there are few who would have impudence enough to give utterance to it. I felt a mortal grief at seeing for the first time my situation bear upon my sons, scarcely entered into life. We feel ourselves very firm in our own conduct, when it is founded on sincere conviction; but when others begin to suffer on our account, it is almost impossible to keep from reproaching ourselves. Both my sons, however, most generously diverted this feeling from me, and we supported each other mutually by the recollection of my father.