Ten Years' Exile Part 6

A few days afterwards the prefect of Geneva wrote me a second letter, to require me, in the name of the minister of police, to deliver up the proof sheets of my book which were still in my hands; the minister knew exactly the number I had sent and kept, and his spies had done their duty well. In my answer, I gave him the satisfaction of admitting that he had been correctly informed; but I told him at the same time that this copy was not in Switzerland, and that I neither could nor would give it up. I added, however, that I would engage never to have it printed on the Continent, and I had no great merit in making this promise, for what Continental government would then have suffered the publication of any book forbidden, by the emperor?

A short time afterwards, the prefect of Geneva* was dismissed, and it was generally believed on my account; he was one of my friends, yet he had not deviated one iota from the orders he had received: although he was one of the most honorable and enlightened men in France, his principles led him to the scrupulous obedience of the government, whose servant he was; but no ambitious view, or personal calculation gave him the zeal required. It was another great source of chagrin to be, or to be regarded as being, the cause of the dismissal of such a man. He was generally regretted in his department, and from the moment it was believed that I was the cause of his disgrace, all who had any pretensions to places avoided my house as they would the most fatal contagion. There still remained to me, however at Geneva, more friends than any other provincial town in France could have offered me; for the inheritance of liberty has left in that city much generous feeling; but it is impossible to have an idea of the anxiety one feels, when one is afraid of compromising those who come to visit you. I made a point of getting the most exact information of all the relations of any lady before I invited her; for if she had only a cousin who wanted a place, or had one, it was demanding an act of Roman heroism to expect her to come and dine with me; At last, in the month of March 1811, a new prefect arrived from Paris. He was a man admirably well adapted to the reigning system: that is to say, having a very general acquaintance with facts, coupled with a total absence of principles in matters of government; calling every fixed rule mere abstraction, and placing his conscience in devotion to the reigning power. The first time I saw him, he told me that talents like mine were made to celebrate the emperor, who was a subject well worthy of the kind of enthusiasm which I had shown in Corinna. I gave him for answer, that persecuted as I was by the emperor, any thing like praise of him coming from me, would have the air of a pet.i.tion, and that I was persuaded that the emperor himself would find my eulogiums very ridiculous under such circ.u.mstances. He combatted this opinion very strongly: he returned to my house several times to beg me, in the name of my own interest, as he styled it, to write something in favor of the emperor, were it but a sheet of four pages; that would be sufficient, he a.s.sured me, to put an end to all the disagreeables I suffered. He repeated what he told me to every person of my acquaintance. Finally, one day he came to propose to me to celebrate in verse the birth of the king of Rome; I told him, laughing, that I had not a single idea on the subject, and that I should confine myself to wishes for his having a good nurse. This joke put an end to the prefect's negociations with me, upon the necessity of my writing in favor of the present government.

* M. de Barante, father of M. Prosper de Barante, member of the * Chamber of Peers.

A short time afterwards the physicians ordered my youngest son the baths of Aix, in Savoy, at twenty leagues from Coppet. I chose the early part of May to go there, a time of the year when the waters are quite deserted. I gave the prefect notice of this little journey, and went to shut myself up in a kind of village, where there was not at the time a single person of my acquaintance. I had hardly been there ten days, before a courier arrived from the prefect of Geneva to order me to return. The prefect of Mont-Blanc, in whose department I was, was also afraid lest I should leave Aix to go to England, as he said, to write against the emperor; and although London was not very near to Aix in Savoy, he sent his gendarmes every where about, to forbid my being furnished with post horses on the road. I am at present tempted to laugh at all this prefectorial activity against a poor thing like myself; but at that time the very sight of a gendarme was enough to make me die with fright. I was always alarmed lest from a banishment so rigorous the change might shortly be to a prison, which was to me more terrible than death itself. I knew that if I was once arrested, that if this eclat were once got over, the emperor would not allow himself again to be spoken to about me, even if any one had the courage to do so; which was not very probable at that court, where terror was the prevailing sentiment every minute of the day, and in the most trifling concerns of life.

On my return to Geneva, the prefect signified to me not only that he forbid me from going under any pretence to the countries united to France, but that he advised me not to travel in Switzerland, and never to go in any direction beyond two leagues from Coppet. I objected to him that being domiciliated in Switzerland, I did not clearly understand by what right a French authority could forbid me from travelling in a foreign country. The prefect no doubt thought me rather a simpleton to discuss at that moment a point of right, repeated his advice to me in a tone singularly approaching to an order. I confined myself my protest: but the very next day I learned that one of the most distinguished literati of Germany, M. Schlegel, who had for eight years been employed in the education of my sons, had received an order not only to leave Geneva, but to quit Coppet.

I wished still to represent that in Switzerland the prefect of Geneva had no orders to give; but I was told, that if I liked better to receive this order through the French amba.s.sador, I might be gratified: that the amba.s.sador would address the landamann, and the landamann would apply to the canton of Vaud, who would immediately send M. Schlegel from my house. By making despotism go this roundabout, I might have gained ten days, but nothing more. I then wished to know why I was deprived of the society of M. Schlegel, my own friend, and that of my children. The prefect, who was accustomed, like the greater part of the emperor's agents, to couple very smooth words with very harsh acts, told me that it was from regard to me that the government banished M. Schlegel from my house as he made me an Anti-gallican. Much affected by this proof of the paternal care of the government, I asked what Mr. S. had ever done against France: the prefect objected to his literary opinions, and referred among other things to a pamphlet of his, in which, in a comparison between the Phedra of Euripides and that of Racine, he had given the preference to the former. How very delicate for a Corsican monarch to take in this manner act and cause (sic) for the slightest shades of French literature! But the real truth was, M.

Schlegel was banished because he was my friend, because his conversation animated my solitude, and because the system was now begun to be acted upon, which soon became evident, of making a prison of my soul, in tearing from me every enjoyment of intellect and friendship.

I resumed the resolution of leaving Switzerland, which the pain of quitting my friends and the ashes of my parents had made me so often give up; but there remained a very difficult problem to solve, and that was to find the means of departure. The French government threw so many difficulties in the way of a pa.s.sport for America, that I durst no longer think of that plan. Besides, I had reason to be afraid lest at the moment of my embarkation they should pretend to have discovered that I was going to England, and that the decree might be applied to me, which condemned to imprisonment all who attempted to go there without the authority of the government. It seemed to me, therefore, much preferable to go to Sweden, that honorable country, whose new chief already gave indications of the glorious conduct which he has since known how to sustain. But by what road to get to Sweden? The prefect had given me to understand in all ways, that wherever France commanded, I should be arrested, and how was I to reach the point where she did not command? I must necessarily pa.s.s through Russia, as the whole of Germany was under the French dominion. But to get to Russia, I must cross Bavaria and Austria. I could trust my self in the Tyrol, although it was united to a state of the confederation, on account of the courage which its unfortunate inhabitants had shewn. As to Austria, in spite of the fatal debas.e.m.e.nt into which she had sunk, I had sufficient confidence in her monarch to believe that he would not deliver me up; but I knew also that he could not defend me. After having sacrificed the ancient honor of his house, what strength remained to him of any kind? I spent my days, therefore, in studying the map of Europe to escape from it, as Napoleon studied it to make himself its master, and my campaign, as well as his, always had Russia for its field. This power was the last asylum of the oppressed; it was therefore that which the conqueror of Europe wished to overthrow.

CHAPTER 3.

Journey in Switzerland with M. de Montmorency.

Determined to go by the way of Russia, I required a pa.s.sport to enter it. But a fresh difficulty occurred; I must write to Petersburgh to obtain this pa.s.sport: such was the formality which circ.u.mstances rendered necessary; and although I was certain of meeting with no refusal from the known generous character of the emperor Alexander, I had reason to be afraid that in the ministerial offices it might be mentioned that I had asked for a pa.s.sport, and in that way get to the French amba.s.sador's ears, which would lead to my arrest, and prevent me from executing my project. It was necessary, therefore, to go first to Vienna, to ask for my pa.s.sport from thence, and there wait for it. The six weeks which would be required to send my letter and receive an answer, would be pa.s.sed under the protection of a ministry which had given the archd.u.c.h.ess of Austria to Bonaparte;-could I trust myself to it? It was clear, however, that by remaining as a hostage, under the hand of Napoleon, I not only renounced the exercise of my own talents, but I prevented my sons from following any public career; they could enter into no service, either for Bonaparte or against him; it was impossible to find an establishment for my daughter, as it was necessary either to separate myself from her, or to confine her to Coppet; and yet if I was arrested in my flight, there was an end of the fortune of my children, who would not have wished to separate themselves from my destiny.

It was in the midst of all these perplexities, that a friend of twenty years standing, M. Mathieu de Montmorency proposed to come and see me, as he had already done several times since my exile.

It is true that I was written to from Paris, that the Emperor had expressed his displeasure against everyone who should go to Coppet, and especially against M. de Montmorency, if he again went there.

But I confess I made light of these expressions of the Emperor, which he throws out sometimes to terrify people, and struggled very feebly with M. de Montmorency, who generously sought to tranquillize me by his letters. I was wrong, no doubt; but who could have persuaded themselves that an old friend of a banished woman would have it charged to him as a crime, his going to spend a few days with her. The life of M. de Montmorency, entirely consecrated to works of piety, or to family affections, estranged him so completely from all politics, that unless it would even go the length of banishing the saints, it seemed to me impossible that the government would attack such a man. I asked myself likewise, cui bono; a question I have always put to myself whenever any action of Napoleon was in discussion. I know that he will, without hesitation, do all the evil which can be of use to him for the least thing; but I do not always conjecture the lengths to which his prodigious egotism extends in all directions, towards the infinitely little, as well as the infinitely great.

Although the prefect had made me be told that he recommended me not to travel in Switzerland, I paid no attention to an advice which could not be made a formal order. I went to meet M. de Montmorency at Orbd, and from thence I proposed to him, as the object of a promenade in Switzerland, to return by way of Fribourg, to see the establishment of female Trappists, at a short distance front that of the men in Val-Sainte.

We reached the convent in the midst of a severe shower, after having been obliged to come nearly a mile on foot. As we were flattering ourselves with being admitted, the Procureur of la Trappe, who has the direction of the female convent, told us that n.o.body could be received there. I tried, however, to ring the bell at the gate of the cloister; a nun appeared behind the latticed opening through which the portress may speak to strangers.

"What do you want?" said she to me, in a voice without modulation as we might suppose that of a ghost. "I should wish to see the interior of your convent."--"That is impossible."--"But I am very wet, and want to dry myself."--She immediately touched a spring which opened the door of an outer apartment, in which I was allowed to rest myself; but no living creature appeared. I had hardly been seated a few minutes, when becoming impatient at being unable to penetrate into the interior of the house, I rung again; the same person again appeared, and I asked her if no females were ever admitted into the convent; she answered that it was only in cases when any one had the intention of becoming a nun. "But," said I to her, "how can I know if I wish to remain in your house, if I am not permitted to examine it."--"Oh, that is quite useless," replied she, "I am very sure that you have no vocation for our state," and with these words immediately shut her wicket. I know not by what signs this nun had satisfied herself of my worldly dispositions; it is possible that a quick manner of speaking, so different from theirs, is sufficient to make them distinguish travellers, who are merely curious. The hour of vespers approaching, I could go into the church to hear the nuns sing; they were behind a black plose grating, through which nothing could be seen. You only heard the noise of their wooden shoes, and of the wooden benches as they raised them to sit down. Their singing had nothing of sensibility in it, and I thought I could remark both by their manner of praying, and in the conversation which I had afterwards with the father Trappist, who directed them, that it was not religious enthusiasm, such as we conceive it, but severe and grave habits which could support such a kind of life. The tenderness of piety would even exhaust the strength; a sort of ruggedness of soul is necessary to so rude an existence.

The new Father Abbe of the Trappists, settled in the vallies of the Canton of Fribourg, has added to the austerities of the order. One can have no idea of the minute degrees of suffering imposed upon the monks; they go so far as even to forbid them, when they have been standing for some hours in succession, from leaning against the wall, or wiping the perspiration from their forehead; in short every moment of their life is filled with suffering, as the people of the world fills theirs with enjoyment. They rarely live to be old, and those to whom this lot falls, regard it as a punishment from heaven.

Such an establishment would be barbarous if any one was compelled to enter it, or if there was the least concealment of what they suffer there. But on the contrary, they distribute to whoever wishes to read it, a printed statement, in which the rigors of the order are rather exaggerated than softened; and yet there are novices who are willing to take the vows, and those who are received never run away, although they might do it without the least difficulty. The whole rests, as it appears to me, upon the powerful idea of death; the inst.i.tutions and amus.e.m.e.nts of society are destined in the world to turn our thoughts entirely upon life; but when the contemplation of death gets a certain hold of the human heart, joined to a firm belief in the immortality of the soul, there are no bounds to the disgust which it may take to every thing which forms a subject of interest in the world; and a state of suffering appearing the road to a future life, such minds follow it with avidity, like the traveller, who willingly fatigues himself, in order to get sooner over the road which leads him to the object of his wishes. But what equally astonished and grieved me, was to see children brought up with this severity: their poor locks shaved off, their young countenances already furrowed, that deathly dress with which they were covered before they knew any thing of life, before they had voluntarily renounced it, all this made my soul revolt against the parents who had placed them there. When such a state is not the adoption of a free and determined choice on the part of the person who professes it, it inspires as much horror as it at first created respect. The monk with whom I conversed, spoke of nothing but death; all his ideas came from that subject, or connected themselves with it; death is the sovereign monarch of this residence. As we talked of the temptations of the world, I expressed to the father Trappist my admiration of his conduct in thus sacrificing all, to withdraw himself from their influence. "We are cowards" said he to me, "who have retired into a fortress, because we feel we want the courage to meet our enemy in the open field." This reply was equally modest and ingenious*.

A few days after we had visited these places, the French government ordered the seizure of the father Abbe, M. de L'Estrange; the confiscation of the property of the order, and the dismissal of the fathers from Switzerland.

* (Note of the Editor.)I accompanied my mother in the excursion here related. Struck with the wild beauty of the place, and interested by the spiritual conversation of the Trappist who had attended us, I besought him to grant me hospitality until the following day, as I proposed going over the mountain on foot, in order to see the great convent of the Val-Sainte, and rejoining my mother and M. de Montmorency at Fribourg. This monk, with whom I continued to converse, had not much difficulty in discovering that I hated the imperial government, and I could guess that he fully partic.i.p.ated in that sentiment. Afterwards, after thanking him for his kindness, I entirely lost sight of him, nor did I imagine, that he had preserved the least recollection of me.

Five years afterwards, in the first months of the Restoration, I was not a little surprised at receiving a letter from this same Trappist.

He had no doubt, he said, that now the legitimate monarch was restored to his throne, I must have a number of friends at court, and he requested me to employ their influence in procuring to his order the restoration of the property which it possessed in France.

This letter was signed "Father A .... priest and procureur of La Trappe," and he added, as a postscript, "If a twenty-three years'

emigration' and four campaigns in a regiment of horse-cha.s.seurs in the army of Conde, give me any claims to the royal favor, I beg you will make use of them."

I could not help laughing, both at the idea which this good monk had of my influence at court, and at the use of it which he required from a protestant. I sent his letter to M. de Montmorency, whose influence was much greater than mine, and I have reason to believe that the pet.i.tion was granted.

In other respects, these Trappists were not, in the deep vales of the Canton of Fribourg, such strangers to politics as their residence and their habit would lead one to believe.

I have since learned that they served as a medium for the correspondence of the French clergy with the pope, then a prisoner at Savonne. Certainly, although this does not at all excuse the rigor with which they were treated by Bonaparte, it gives a sufficient explanation of it.

(End of editor's note.)

I know not of what M. de L'Estrange was accused; but it is scarcely probable that such a man should have meddled with the affairs of the world, much less the monks, who never quitted their solitude.

The Swiss government caused search to be made every where for M. de L'Estrange, and I hope for its honor, that it took care not to find him. However, the unfortunate magistrates of countries which are called allies of France, are very often employed to arrest persons designated to them, ignorant whether they are delivering innocent or guilty victims to the great Leviathan, which thinks proper to swallow them up. The property of the Trappists was seized, that is to say, their tomb, for they hardly possessed any thing else, and the order was dispersed. It is said, that a Trappist at Genoa had mounted the pulpit to retract the oath of allegiance which he had taken to the emperor, declaring that since the captivity of the pope, he considered every priest as released from this oath. At his coming out from performing this act of repentance, he was, report also says, tried by a military commission, and shot. One would think that he was sufficiently punished, without rendering the whole order responsible for his conduct.

We regained Vevay by the mountains, and I proposed to M. de Montmorency to proceed as far as the entrance of the Valais, which I had never seen. We stopped at Bex, the last Swiss village, for the Valais was already united to France. A Portuguese brigade had left Geneva to go and occupy the Valais: singular state of Europe, to have a Portuguese garrison at Geneva going to take possession of a part of Switzerland in the name of France! I had a curiosity to see the Cretins of the Valais, of whom I had so often heard. This miserable degradation of man affords ample subject for reflection; but it is excessively painful to see the human countenance thus become an object of horror and repugnance. I remarked, however, in several of these poor creatures, a degree of vivacity bordering on astonishment, produced on them by external objects. As they never recognize what they have already seen, they feel each time fresh surprize, and the spectacle of the world, with all its details, is thus for ever new to them; it is, perhaps, the compensation for their sad state, for certainly there is one. It is some years since a Cretin, having committed a.s.sa.s.sination, was condemned to death: as he was led to the scaffold, he took it into his head, seeing himself surrounded with a crowd of people, that he was accompanied in this manner to do him honor, and he laughed, held himself erect, and put his dress in order, with the idea of rendering himself more worthy of the fete. Was it right to punish such a being for the crime which his arm had committed?

There is at three leagues from Bex, a famous cascade, where the water falls from a very lofty mountain. I proposed to my friends to go and see it, and we returned before dinner. It is true that this cascade was upon the territory of the Valais, consequently then upon the French territory, and I forgot that I was not allowed more of that than the small s.p.a.ce of ground which separates Coppet from Geneva. When I returned home, the prefect not only blamed me for having presumed to travel in Switzerland, but made it the greatest proof of his indulgence to keep silence on the crime I had committed, in setting my foot on the territory of the French empire.

I might have said, in the words of Lafontaine's fable:

*Je tondu de ce pre la largeur de ma langue

(I grazed of this meadow the breadth of my tongue.) But I confessed with great simplicity the fault I had committed in going to see this Swiss cascade, without dreaming that it was in France.

CHAPTER 4.

Exile of M. de Montmorency and Madame Recamier--New persecutions.

This continual chicanery upon my most trifling actions, rendered my life odious to me, and I could not divert myself by occupation; for the recollection of the fate of my last work, and the certainty of never being able to publish any thing in future, operated as a complete damper to my mind, which requires emulation to be capable of labor. Notwithstanding, I could not yet resolve to quit for ever the borders of France, the abode of my father, and the friends who remained faithful to me. Every day I thought of departing, and every day I found in my own mind some reason for remaining, until the last blow was aimed at my soul; G.o.d knows what I have suffered from it.

M. de Montmorency came to pa.s.s several days with me at Coppet, and the wickedness of detail in the master of so great an empire is so well calculated, that by the return of the courier who announced his arrival at Coppet, my friend received his letter of exile. The emperor would not have been satisfied if this order had not been signified to him at my house, and if there had not been in the letter itself of the minister of police, a word to signify that I was the cause of this exile. M. de Montmorency endeavoured, in every possible way, to soften the news to me, but, I tell it to Bonaparte, that he may applaud himself on the success of his scheme, I shrieked with agony on learning the calamity which I had drawn on the head of my generous friend; and never was my heart, tried as it had been for so many years, nearer to despair. I knew not how to lull the rending thoughts which succeeded each other in my bosom, and had recourse to opium to suspend for some hours the anguish which I felt. M. do Montmorency, calm and religious, invited me to follow his example; the consciousness of the devotedness to me which he had condescended to show, supported him: but for me, I reproached myself for the bitter consequences of this devotedness, which now separated him from his family and friends. I prayed to the Almighty without ceasing, but grief would not quit its hold of me for a moment, and life became a burden to me.

While I was in this state, I received a letter from Madame Recamier, that beautiful person who has received the admiration of the whole of Europe, and who has never abandoned an unfortunate friend. She informed me, that on her road to the waters of Aix in Savoy, to which she was proceeding, she intended stopping at my house, and would be there in two days. I trembled lest the lot of M. de Montmorency should also become hers. However improbable it was, I was ordained to fear every thing from hatred so barbarous and minute, and I therefore sent a courier to meet Madame Recamier, to beseech her not to come to Coppet. To know that she who had never failed to console me with the most amiable attention was only a few leagues distant from me; to know that she was there, so near to my habitation, and that I was not allowed to see her again, perhaps for the last time! all this I was obliged to bear. I conjured her not to stop at Coppet; she would not yield to my entreaties; she could not pa.s.s under my windows without remaining some hours with me, and it was with convulsions of tears that I saw her enter this chateau, in which her arrival had always been a fete. She left me the next day, and repaired instantly to one of her relations at fifty leagues distance from Switzerland. It was in vain; the fatal blow of exile smote her also; she had had the intention of seeing me, and that was enough; for the generous compa.s.sion which had inspired her, she must be punished. The reverses of fortune which she had met with made the destruction of her natural establishment extremely painful to her.

Separated from all her friends, she has pa.s.sed whole months in a little provincial town, a prey to the extremes of every feeling of insipid and melancholy solitude. %Such was the lot to which I was the cause of condemning the most brilliant female of her time; and thus regardless did the chief of the French, that people so renowned for their gallantry, show himself towards the most beautiful woman in Paris. In one day he smote virtue and distinguished birth in M.

de Montmorency; beauty in Madame Recamier, and if I dare say it, the reputation of high talents in myself. Perhaps he also flattered himself with attacking the memory of my father in his daughter, in order that it might be truly said that in this world, under his reign, the dead and the living, piety, beauty, wit, and celebrity, all were as nothing. Persons made themselves culpable by being found wanting in the delicate shades of flattery towards him, in refusing to abandon any one who had been visited by his disgrace. He recognises but two cla.s.ses of human creatures, those who serve him, and those, who without injuring, wish to have an existence independent of him. He is unwilling that in the whole universe, from the details of housekeeping to the direction of empires, a single will should act without reference to his.

"Madam de Stael," said the prefect of Geneva, "has contrived to make herself a very pleasant life at Coppet; her friends and foreigners come to see her: the emperor will not allow that." And why did he torment me in this manner? that I might print an eulogium upon him: and of what consequence was this eulogium to him, among the millions of phrases which fear and hope were constantly offering at his shrine? Bonaparte once said: "If I had the choice, either of doing a n.o.ble action myself, or of inducing my adversary to do a mean one, I would not hesitate to prefer the debas.e.m.e.nt of my enemy." In this sentence you have the explanation of the particular pains which he took to torment my existence. He knew that I was attached to my friends, to France, to my works, to my tastes, to society; in taking from me every thing which composed my happiness, his wish was to trouble me sufficiently to make me write some piece of insipid flattery, in the hope that it would obtain me my recall. In refusing to lend myself to his wishes, I ought to say it, I have not had the merit of making a sacrifice; the emperor wished me to commit a meanness, but a meanness entirely useless; for at a time when success was in a manner deified, the ridicule would not have been complete, if I had succeeded in returning to Paris, by whatever means I had effected it. To satisfy our master, whose skill in degrading whatever remains of lofty mind is unquestionable, it was necessary that I should dishonor myself in order to obtain my return to France,--that he should turn into mockery my zeal in praise of him, who had never ceased to persecute me,--and that this zeal should not be of the least service to me. I have denied him this truly refined satisfaction; it is all the merit I have had in the long contest which has subsisted between his omnipotence and my weakness.

M. de Montmorency's family, in despair at his exile, were anxious, as was natural, that he should separate himself from the sad cause of this calamity, and I saw that friend depart without knowing if he would ever again honor with his presence my residence on this earth.

On the 31st of August, 1811, I broke the first and last of the ties which bound me to my native country; I broke them, at least so far as regards human connections, which can no longer exist between us; but I never lift my eyes towards heaven without thinking of my excellent friend, and I venture to believe also, that in his prayers he answers me. Beyond this, fate has denied me all other correspondence with him.

When the exile of my two friends became known, I was a.s.sailed by a whole host of chagrins of every kind; but a great misfortune renders us in a manner insensible to fresh troubles. It was reported that the minister of police had declared that he would have a soldier's guard mounted at the bottom of the avenue of Coppet, to arrest whoever came to see me. The prefect of Geneva, who was instructed, by order of the emperor he said, to annul me (that was his expression), never missed an opportunity of insinuating, or even declaring publicly, that no one who had any thing either to hope or fear from the government ought to venture near me. M. de Saint-Priest, formerly minister of Louis XVI. and the colleague of my father, honored me with his affection; his daughters who dreaded, and with reason, that he might be sent from Geneva, united their entreaties with mine that he would abstain from visiting me.

Notwithstanding, in the middle of winter, at the age of seventy-eight, he was banished not only from Geneva, but from Switzerland; for it is fully admitted, as has been seen in my own case, that the emperor can banish from Switzerland as well as from France; and when any objections are made to the French agents, on the score of being in a foreign country, whose independence is recognised, they shrug up their shoulders, as if you were wearying them with Metaphysical quibbles. And really it is a perfect quibble to wish to distinguish in Europe anything but prefect-kings, and prefects receiving their orders directly from the emperor of France.

If there is any difference between the soi-disant allied countries and the French provinces, it is that the first are rather worse treated. There remains in France a certain recollection of having been called the great nation, which sometimes obliges the emperor to be measured in his proceedings; it was so at least, but every day even that becomes less necessary. The motive a.s.signed for the banishment of M. de Saint-Priest was, that he had not induced his sons to abandon the service of Russia. His sons had, during the emigration, met with the most generous reception in Russia; they had there been promoted, their intrepid courage had there been properly rewarded; they were covered with wounds, they were distinguished among the first for their military talents; the eldest was now more than thirty years of age. How was it possible for a father to ask that the existence of his sons, thus established, should be sacrificed to the honor of coming to place themselves en surveillance on the French territory? for that was the enviable lot which was reserved for them. It was a source of melancholy satisfaction to me, that I had not seen M. de Saint-Priest for four months previous to his banishment; had it not been for that, no one would have doubted that it was I who had infected him with the contagion of my disgrace.

Not only Frenchmen, but foreigners, were apprised that they must not go to my house. The prefect kept upon the watch to prevent even old friends from seeing me. One day, among others, he deprived me, by his official vigilance, of the society of a German gentleman, whose conversation was extremely agreeable to me, and I could not help telling him, on this occasion, that he might have spared himself this extraordinary degree of persecution. "How!" replied he, "it was to do you a service that I acted in this manner; I made your friend sensible that he would compromise you by going to see you." I could not refrain from a smile at this ingenious argument. "Yes,"

continued he with the most perfect gravity, "the emperor, seeing you preferred to himself, would be displeased with you for it." "So that" I replied, "the emperor expects that my private friends, and shortly, perhaps, my own children, should forsake me to please him; that seems to me rather too much. Besides, I do not well see how a person in my situation can be compromised; and what you say reminds me of a revolutionist who was applied to, in the times of terror, to use his endeavours to save one of his friends from the scaffold. I am afraid, said he, that my speaking in his favor would only injure him." The prefect smiled at my quotation, but continued that train of reasoning, which, backed as it is with four hundred thousand bayonets, always appears the soundest. A man at Geneva said to me, "Do not you think that the prefect declares his opinion with a great deal of frankness?" "Yes," I replied, "he says with sincerity that he is devoted to the man of power; he says with courage that he is of the strongest side; I am not exactly sensible of the merit of such an avowal."

Several independent ladies at Geneva continued to show me marks of the greatest kindness, of which I shall always retain a deep recollection. But even to the clerks in the custom houses, regarded themselves as in a state of diplomacy with me; and from prefects to sub-prefects, and from the cousins of one and the other, a profound terror would have seized them all, if I had not spared them, as much as was in my power, the anxiety of paying or not paying a visit.

Every courier brought reports of other friends of mine being exiled from Paris, for having kept up connections with me; it became a matter of strict duty for me to avoid seeing a single Frenchman of the least note; and very often I was even apprehensive of injuring persons in the country where I was living, whose courageous friendship never failed itself towards me. I felt two opposite sensations, and both, I believe, equally natural; melancholy at being forsaken, and cruel anxiety for those who showed attachment to me. It is difficult to conceive a situation in life more painful at every moment; for the s.p.a.ce of nearly two years that I endured it, I may say truly that I never once saw the day return without a feeling of desolation at having to support the existence which that day renewed. But why should not you leave it then? will be said, and was said incessantly to me from all quarters. A man whom I ought not to name*, but who I trust knows how much I esteem the elevation of his character and conduct, said to me: "If you remain, he will treat you as Elizabeth did Mary Stuart:--nineteen years of misery, and the catastrophe at last." Another person, witty but unguarded in his expressions, wrote to me, that it was dishonorable to remain after so much ill-treatment. I had no need of these recommendations to wish, pa.s.sionately wish, to depart; from the moment that I could no longer see my friends, that I was only a burden to my children's existence, was it not time to determine? The prefect, however, repeated in every possible way, that if I went off, I should be seized; that at Vienna, as well as at Berlin, I should be reclaimed; and that I could not make the least preparation for departure without his being informed of it; for he knew, he said, every thing that pa.s.sed in my house. In that respect he was a boaster, and, as the event has proved, exhibited mere fatuity in matters of espionnage. But who would not have been terrified at the tone of a.s.surance with which he told all my friends that I could not move a step without being seized by the gendarmes!

* Count Elzearn de Sabran.