The Modern Regime Volume I Part 7

On the other hand, Spain submits to me and through her I hold Portugal.

Thus, from Amsterdam to Bordeaux, from Lisbon to Cadiz and Genoa, from Leghorn to Naples and to Tarentum, I can close every port to you; no treaty of commerce between us. Any treaty that I might grant to you would be trifling: for each million of merchandise that you would send into France a million of French merchandise would be exported;[12107]

in other words, you would be subject to an open or concealed continental blockade, which would cause you as much distress in peace as if you were at war." My eyes are nevertheless fixed on Egypt; "six thousand Frenchmen would now suffice to re-conquer it";[12108] forcibly, or otherwise, I shall return there; opportunities will not be lacking, and I shall be on the watch for them; "sooner or later she will belong to France, either through the dissolution of the Ottoman empire, or through some arrangement with the Porte."[12109] Evacuate Malta so that the Mediterranean may become a French lake; I must rule on sea as on land, and dispose of the Orient as of the Occident. In sum, "with my France, England must naturally end in becoming simply an appendix: nature has made her one of our islands, the same as Oleron or Corsica."[12110]

Naturally, with such a perspective before them, the English keep Malta and recommence the war. He has antic.i.p.ated such an occurrence, and his resolution is taken; at a glance, he perceives and measures the path this will open to him; with his usual clear-sightedness he has comprehended, and he announces that the English resistance "forces him to conquer Europe...." [12111]--"The First Consul is only thirty-three and has thus far destroyed only the second-cla.s.s governments. Who knows how much time he will require to again change the face of Europe and resurrect the Western Roman Empire?"

To subjugate the Continent in order to form a coalition against England, such, henceforth, are his means, which are as violent as the end in view, while the means, like the end, are given by his character. Too imperious and too impatient to wait or to manage others, he is incapable of yielding to their will except through constraint, and his collaborators are to him nothing more than subjects under the name of allies.--Later, at St. Helena, with his indestructible imaginative energy and power of illusion, he plays on the public with his humanitarian illusions.[12112] But, as he himself avows, the accomplishment of his retrospective dream required beforehand the entire submission of all Europe; a liberal sovereign and pacificator, "a crowned Washington, yes," he used to say, "but I could not reasonably attain this point, except through a universal dictatorship, which I aimed at."[12113] In vain does common sense demonstrate to him that such an enterprise inevitably rallies the Continent to the side of England, and that his means divert him from the end. In vain is it repeatedly represented to him that he needs one sure great ally on the Continent;[12114] that to obtain this he must conciliate Austria; that he must not drive her to despair, but rather win her over and compensate her on the side of the Orient; place her in permanent conflict with Russia, and attach her to the new French Empire by a community of vital interests. In vain does he, after Tilsit, make a bargain of this kind with Russia. This bargain cannot hold, because in this arrangement Napoleon, as usual with him, always encroaching, threatening, and attacking, wants to reduce Alexander to the role of a subordinate and a dupe.[12115] No clear-sighted witness can doubt this. In 1809, a diplomat writes: "The French system, which is now triumphant, is directed against the whole body of great states,"[12116] not alone against England, Prussia, and Austria, but against Russia, against every power capable of maintaining its independence; for, if she remains independent, she may become hostile, and as a precautionary step Napoleon crushes in her a probable enemy.

All the more so because this course once entered upon he cannot stop; at the same time his character and the situation in which he has placed himself impels him on while his past hurries him along to his future.[12117] At the moment of the rupture of the treaty of Amiens he is already so strong and so aggressive that his neighbors are obliged, for their own security, to form an alliance with England; this leads him to break down all the old monarchies that are still intact, to conquer Naples, to mutilate Austria the first time, to dismember and cut up Prussia, to mutilate Austria the second time, to manufacture kingdoms for his brothers at Naples, in Holland and in Westphalia.--At this same date, all the ports of his empire are closed against the English, which leads him to close against them all the ports of the Continent, to organize against them the continental blockade, to proclaim against them an European crusade, to prevent the neutrality of sovereigns like the Pope, of lukewarm subalterns like his brother Louis, of doubtful collaborators or inadequate, like the Braganzas of Portugal and the Bourbons of Spain, and therefore to get hold of Portugal, Spain, the Pontifical States, and Holland, and next of the Hanseatic towns and the duchy of Oldenburg, to extending along the entire coast, from the mouths of the Cattaro and Trieste to Hamburg and Dantzic, his cordon of military chiefs, prefects, and custom-houses, a sort of net of which he draws the meshes tighter and tighter every day, even stifling not alone his home consumer, but the producer and the merchant.[12118]--And all this sometimes by a simple decree, with no other alleged motive than his interest, his convenience, or his pleasure,[12119] brusquely and arbitrarily, in violation of international law, humanity, and hospitality. It would take volumes to describe his abuses of power, the tissue of brutalities and knaveries,[12120] the oppression of the ally and despoiling of the vanquished, the military brigandage exercised over populations in time of war, and by the systematic exactions practiced on them in times of peace.[12121]

Accordingly, after 1808, these populations rise against him. He has so deeply injured them in their interests, and hurt their feelings to such an extent,[12122] he has so trodden them down, ransomed, and forced them into his service. He has destroyed, apart from French lives, so many Spanish, Italian, Austrian, Prussian, Swiss, Bavarian, Saxon, and Dutch lives, he has slain so many men as enemies, he has enlisted such numbers at home, and slain so many under his own banners as auxiliaries, that nations are still more hostile to him than sovereigns. Unquestionably, n.o.body can live together with such a character; his genius is too vast, too baneful, and all the more because it is so vast. War will last as long as he reigns; it is in vain to reduce him, to confine him at home, to drive him back within the ancient frontiers of France; no barrier will restrain him; no treaty will bind him; peace with him will never be other than a truce; he will use it simply to recover himself, and, as soon as he has done this, he will begin again;[12123] he is in his very essence anti-social. The mind of Europe in this respect is made up definitely and unshakably. One petty detail alone shows how unanimous and profound this conviction was. On the 7th of March the news reached Vienna that he had escaped from the island of Elba, without its being yet known where he would land. M. de Metternich[12124] brings the news to the Emperor of Austria before eight o'clock in the morning, who says to him, "Lose no time in finding the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Russia, and tell them that I am ready to order my army to march at once for France." At a quarter past eight M. de Metternich is with the Czar, and at half-past eight, with the King of Prussia; both of them reply instantly in the same manner. "At nine o'clock," says M. de Metternich, "I was back. At ten o'clock aids flew in every direction countermanding army orders.... Thus was war declared in less than an hour."

VI. Fundamental Defaults of his System.

Inward principle of his outward deportment.--He subordinates the State to him instead of subordinating himself to the State.--Effect of this.--His work merely a life-interest.

--It is ephemeral.--Injurious.--The number of lives it cost.

--The mutilation of France.--Vice of construction in his European edifice.--a.n.a.logous vice in his French edifice.

Other heads of states have similarly pa.s.sed their lives in doing violence to mankind; but it was for something that was likely to last, and for a national interest. What they deemed the public good was not a phantom of the brain, a chimerical poem due to a caprice of the imagination, to personal pa.s.sions, to their own peculiar ambition and pride. Outside of themselves and the coinage of their brain a real and substantial object of prime importance existed, namely, the State, the great body of society, the vast organism which lasts indefinitely through the long series of interlinked and responsible generations. If they drew blood from the pa.s.sing generation it was for the benefit of coming generations, to preserve them from civil war or from foreign domination.[12125] They have acted generally like able surgeons, if not through virtue, at least through dynastic sentiment and family traditions; having practiced from father to son, they had acquired the professional conscience; their first and only aim was the safety and health of their patient. It is for this reason that they have not recklessly undertaken extravagant, b.l.o.o.d.y, and over-risky operations; rarely have they given way to temptation through a desire to display their skill, through the need of dazzling and astonishing the world, through the novelty, keenness, and success of their saws and scalpels.

They felt that a longer and superior existence to their own was imposed upon them; they looked beyond them-selves as far as their sight would reach, and so took measures that the State after them might do without them, live on intact, remain independent, vigorous, and respected athwart the vicissitudes of European conflict and the uncertain problems of coming history. Such, under the ancient regime, was what were called reasons of state; these had prevailed in the councils of princes for eight hundred years; along with unavoidable failures and after temporary deviations, these had become for the time being and remained the preponderating motive. Undoubtedly they excused or authorized many breaches of faith, many outrages, and, to come to the word, many crimes; but, in the political order of things, especially in the management of external affairs, they furnished a governing and a salutary principle.

Under its constant influence thirty monarchs had labored, and it is thus that, province after province, they had solidly and enduringly built up France, by ways and means beyond the reach of individuals but available to the heads of States.

Now, this principle is lacking with their improvised successor. On the throne as in the camp, whether general, consul, or emperor, he remains the military adventurer, and cares only for his own advancement. Owing to the great defect in the education of both conscience and sentiments, instead of subordinating himself to the State, he subordinates the State to him; he does not look beyond his own brief physical existence to the nation which is to survive him. Consequently, he sacrifices the future to the present, and his work is not to be enduring. After him the deluge! Little does he care who utters this terrible phrase; and worse still, he earnestly wishes, from the bottom of his heart that everybody should utter it.

"My brother," said Joseph, in 1803,[12126] "desires that the necessity of his existence should be so strongly felt, and the benefit of this considered so great, that n.o.body could look beyond it without shuddering. He knows, and he feels it, that he reigns through this idea rather than through force or grat.i.tude. If to-morrow, or on any day, it could be said, 'Here is a tranquil, established order of things, here is a known successor; Bonaparte might die without fear of change or disturbance,' my brother would no longer think himself secure.... Such is the principle which governs him."

In vain do years glide by, never does he think of putting France in a way to subsist without him; on the contrary, he jeopardizes lasting acquisitions by exaggerated annexations, and it is evident from the very first day that the Empire will end with the Emperor. In 1805, the five per cents being at eighty francs, his Minister of the Finances, Gaudin, observes to him that this is a reasonable rate.[12127] "No complaint can now be made, since these funds are an annuity on Your Majesty's life."--"What do you mean by that?"--"I mean that the Empire has become so great as to be ungovernable without you."--"If my successor is a fool so much the worse for him!"--"Yes, but so much the worse for France!"

Two years later, M. de Metternich, by way of a political summing up, expresses his general opinion: "It is remarkable that Napoleon, constantly disturbing and modifying the relations of all Europe, has not yet taken a single step toward ensuring the maintenance of his successors."[12128] In 1809, adds the same diplomat:[12129] "His death will be the signal for a new and frightful upheaval; so many divided elements all tend to combine. Deposed sovereigns will be recalled by former subjects; new princes will have new crowns to defend. A veritable civil war will rage for half a century over the vast empire of the continent the day when the arms of iron which held the reins are turned into dust." In 1811, "everybody is convinced[12130] that on the disappearance of Napoleon, the master in whose hands all power is concentrated, the first inevitable consequence will be a revolution."

At home, in France, at this same date, his own servitors begin to comprehend that his empire is not merely a life-interest and will not last after he is gone, but that the Empire is ephemeral and will not last during his life; for he is constantly raising his edifice higher and higher, while all that his building gains in elevation it loses in stability. "The Emperor is crazy," said Decrees to Marmont,[12131]"completely crazy. He will ruin us all, numerous as we are, and all will end in some frightful catastrophe." In effect, he is pushing France on to the abyss, forcibly and by deceiving her, through a breach of trust which willfully, and by his fault, grows worse and worse just as his own interests, as he comprehends these, diverge from those of the public from year to year.

At the treaty of Luneville and before the rupture of the peace of Amiens,[12132] this variance was already considerable. It becomes manifest at the treaty of Presbourg and still more evident at the treaty of Tilsit. It is glaring in 1808, after the deposition of the Spanish Bourbons; it becomes scandalous and monstrous in 1812, when the war with Russia took place. Napoleon himself admits that this war is against the interests of France and yet he undertakes it.[12133] Later, at St.

Helena, he falls into a melting mood over "the French people whom he loved so dearly."[12134] The truth is, he loves it as a rider loves his horse; as he makes it rear and prance and show off its paces, when he flatters and caresses it; it is not for the advantage of the animal but for his own purposes, on account of its usefulness to him; to be spurred on until exhausted, to jump ditches growing wider and wider, and leap fences growing higher and higher; one ditch more, and still another fence, the last obstacle which seems to be the last, succeeded by others, while, in any event, the horse remains forcibly and for ever, what it already is, namely, a beast of burden and broken down.--For, on this Russian expedition, instead of frightful disasters, let us imagine a brilliant success, a victory at Smolensk equal to that of Friedland, a treaty of Moscow more advantageous than that of Tilsit, and the Czar brought to heel. As a result the Czar is probably strangled or dethroned, a patriotic insurrection will take place in Russia as in Spain, two lasting wars, at the two extremities of the Continent, against religious fanaticism, more irreconcilable than positive interests, and against a scattered barbarism more indomitable than a concentrated civilization. At best, a European empire secretly mined by European resistance; an exterior France forcibly superposed on the enslaved Continent;[12135] French residents and commanders at St. Petersburg and Riga as at Dantzic, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Barcelona, and Trieste. Every able-bodied Frenchman that can be employed from Cadiz to Moscow in maintaining and administering the conquest. All the able-bodied youth annually seized by the conscription, and, if they have escaped this, seized again by decrees.[12136] The entire male population thus devoted to works of constraint, nothing else in prospect for either the cultivated or the uncultivated, no military or civil career other than a prolonged guard duty, threatened and threatening, as soldier, customs-inspector, or gendarme, as prefect, sub-prefect, or commissioner of police, that is to say, as subaltern henchman and bully restraining subjects and raising contributions, confiscating and burning merchandise, seizing grumblers, and making the refractory toe the mark.[12137] In 1810, one hundred and sixty thousand of the refractory were already condemned by name, and, moreover, penalties were imposed on their families to the amount of one hundred and seventy millions of francs In 1811 and 1812 the roving columns which tracked fugitives gathered sixty thousand of them, and drove them along the coast from the Adour to the Niemen; on reaching the frontier, they were en-rolled in the grand army; but they desert the very first month, they and their chained companions, at the rate of four or five thousand a day.[12138]

Should England be conquered, garrisons would have to be maintained there, and of soldiers equally zealous. Such is the dark future which this system opens to the French, even with the best of good luck. It turns out that the luck is bad, and at the end of 1812 the grand army is freezing in the snow; Napoleon's horse has let him tumble. Fortunately, the animal has simply foundered; "His Majesty's health was never better";[12139] nothing has happened to the rider; he gets up on his legs, and what concerns him at this moment is not the sufferings of his broken-down steed, but his own mishap; his reputation as a horseman is compromised; the effect on the public, the hooting of the audience, is what troubles him, the comedy of a perilous leap, announced with such a flourish of trumpets and ending in such a disgraceful fall. On reaching Warsaw[12140] he says to himself, ten times over:

"There is only a step from the sublime to the ridiculous."

The following year, at Dresden, he exposes still more foolishly, openly, and nakedly his master pa.s.sion, the motives which determine him, the immensity and ferocity of his pitiless pride.

"What do they want of me?" said he to M. de Metternich.[12141] "Do they want me to dishonor myself? Never! I can die, but never will I yield an inch of territory! Your sovereigns, born to the throne, may be beaten twenty times over and yet return to their capitals: I cannot do this, because I am a parvenu soldier. My domination will not survive the day when I shall have ceased to be strong, and, consequently, feared."

In effect, his despotism in France is founded on his European omnipotence; if he does not remain master of the Continent," he must settle with the corps legislatif.[12142] Rather than descend to an inferior position, rather than be a const.i.tutional monarch, controlled by parliamentary chambers, he plays double or quits, and will risk losing everything.

"I have seen your soldiers," says Metternich to him, "they are children.

When this army of boys is gone, what will you do then?"

At these words, which touch his heart, he grows pale, his features contract, and his rage overcomes him; like a wounded man who has made a false step and exposes himself, he says violently to Metternich:

"You are not a soldier You do not know the impulses of a soldier's breast! I have grown up on the battle-field, and a man like me does not give a d.a.m.n for the lives of a million men!"[12143]

His imperial pipe-dreams has devoured many more. Between 1804 and 1815 he has had slaughtered 1,700,000 Frenchmen, born within the boundaries of ancient France,[12144] to which must be added, probably, 2,000,000 men born outside of these limits, and slain for him, under the t.i.tle of allies, or slain by him under the t.i.tle of enemies. All that the poor, enthusiastic, and credulous Gauls have gained by entrusting their public welfare to him is two invasions; all that he bequeaths to them as a reward for their devotion, after this prodigious waste of their blood and the blood of others, is a France shorn of fifteen departments acquired by the republic, deprived of Savoy, of the left bank of the Rhine and of Belgium, despoiled of the northeast angle by which it completed its boundaries, fortified its most vulnerable point, and, using the words of Vauban, "made its field square," separated from 4,000,000 new Frenchmen which it had a.s.similated after twenty years of life in common, and, worse still, thrown back within the frontiers of 1789, alone, diminished in the midst of its aggrandized neighbors, suspected by all Europe, and lastingly surrounded by a threatening circle of distrust and rancor.

Such is the political work of Napoleon, the work of egoism served by genius. In his European structure as in his French structure this sovereign egoism has introduced a vice of construction. This fundamental vice is manifest at the outset in the European edifice, and, at the expiration of fifteen years, it brings about a sudden downfall: in the French edifice it is equally serious but not so apparent; only at the end of half a century, or even a whole century, is it to be made clearly visible; but its gradual and slow effects will be equally pernicious and they are no less sure.

[Footnote 1201: See my "Philosophy of Art" for texts and facts, Part II., ch. VI.--Other a.n.a.logies, which are too long for development here, may be found, especially in all that concerns the imagination and love. "He was disposed to accept the marvelous, presentiments, and even certain mysterious communications between beings.... I have seen him excited by the rustling of the wind, speak enthusiastically of the roar of the sea, and sometimes inclined to believe in nocturnal apparitions; in short, leaning to certain superst.i.tions." (Madame de Remusat, I., 102, and III., 164.)--Meneval (III., 114) notes his "crossing himself involuntarily on the occurrence of some great danger, on the discovery of some important fact." During the consulate, in the evening, in a circle of ladies, he sometimes improvised and declaimed tragic "tales,"

Italian fashion, quite worthy of the story-tellers of the XVth and XVIth centuries. (Bourrienne, VI., 387, gives one of his improvisations.

Cf. Madame de Remusat, I., 102.)--As to love, his letters to Josephine during the Italian campaign form one of the best examples of Italian pa.s.sion and "in most piquant contrast with the temperate and graceful elegance of his predecessor M. de Beauharnais." (Madame de Remusat, I., 143).--His other amours, simply physical, are too difficult to deal with; I have gathered some details orally on this subject which are almost from first hands and perfectly authentic. It is sufficient to cite one text already published: "According to Josephine, he had no moral principle whatever; did he not seduce his sisters one after the other? "--"I am not a man like other men, he said of himself, "and moral laws and those of propriety do not apply to me." (Madame de Remusat, I., 204, 206.)--Note again (II., 350) his proposals to Corvisart.--Such are everywhere the sentiments, customs, and morality of the great Italian personages of about the year 1500.]

[Footnote 1202: De Pradt, "Histoire de l'amba.s.sade dans le grand-d.u.c.h.e de Varsovie," p.96. "with the Emperor, desire springs out of his imagination; his idea becomes pa.s.sion the moment it comes into his head."]

[Footnote 1203: Bourrienne, II., 298.--De Segur, I., 426.]

[Footnote 1204: Bodin, "Recherches sur l'Anjou," II., 325.--"Souvenirs d'un nonagenaire," by Besnard.--Sainte-Beuve, "Causeries du Lundi,"

article on Volney.--Miot de Melito, I., 297. He wanted to adopt Louis's son, and make him King of Italy. Louis refused, alleging that this marked favor would give new life to the reports spread about at one time in relation to this child." Thereupon, Napoleon, exasperated, "seized Prince Louis by the waist and pushed him violently out of the room."--"

Memorial," Oct.10, 1816. Napoleon relates that at the last conference of Campo-Fermio, to put an end to the resistance of the Austrian plenipotentiary, he suddenly arose, seized a set of porcelain on a stand near him and dashed it to the floor, exclaiming, "Thus will I shatter your monarchy before a month is over!" (Bourrienne questions this story.)]

[Footnote 1205: Varnhagen von Ense, "Ausgewahlte Schriften," III., 77 (Public reception of July 22, 1810). Napoleon first speaks to the Austrian Amba.s.sador and next to the Russian Amba.s.sador with a constrained air, forcing himself to be polite, in which he cannot persist. "Treating with I do not know what unknown personage, he interrogated him, reprimanded him, threatened him, and kept him for a sufficiently long time in a state of painful dismay. Those who stood near by and who could not help feeling a dismayed, stated later that there had been nothing to provoke such fury, that the Emperor had only sought an opportunity to vent his ill-humor; that he did it purposely on some poor devil so as to inspire fear in others and to put down in advance any tendency to opposition. Cf. Beugnot, "Memoires," I., 380, 386, 387.--This mixture of anger and calculation likewise explains his conduct at Sainte Helena with Sir Hudson Lowe, his unbridled diatribes and insults bestowed on the governor like so many slaps in the face. (W.

Forsyth, "History of the Captivity of Napoleon at Saint Helena, from the letters and journals of Sir Hudson Lowe," III., 306.)]

[Footnote 1206: Madame de Remusat, II., 46.]

[Footnote 1207: "Les Cahiers de Coignat." 191. "At Posen, already, I saw him mount his horse in such a fury as to land on the other side and then give his groom a cut of the whip."]

[Footnote 1208: Madame de Remusat, I., 222.]

[Footnote 1209: Especially the letters addressed to Cardinal Consalvi and to the Prefet of Montenotte (I am indebted to M. d'Haussonville for this information).--Besides, he is lavish of the same expressions in conversation. On a tour through Normandy, he sends for the bishop of Seez and thus publicly addresses him: "Instead of merging the parties, you distinguish between const.i.tutionalists and non-const.i.tutionalists.

Miserable fool! You are a poor subject,--hand in your resignation at once!"--To the grand-vicars he says, "Which of you governs your bishop--who is at best a fool?"--As M. Legallois is pointed out to him, who had of late been absent. "f.u.c.k, where were you then?" "With my family." "With a bishop who is merely a d.a.m.ned fool, why are you so often away, etc.?" (D'Haussonville,VI., 176, and Roederer, vol. III.)]

[Footnote 1210: Madame de Remusat--I., 101; II., 338.]

[Footnote 1211: Ibid., I., 224.--M. de Meneval, I., 112, 347; III., 120: "On account of the extraordinary event of his marriage, he sent a handwritten letter to his future father-in-law (the Emperor of Austria).

It was a grand affair for him. Finally, after a great effort, he succeeded in penning a letter that was readable."--Meneval, nevertheless, was obliged "to correct the defective letters without letting the corrections be too plainly seen."]

[Footnote 1212: For example, at Bayonne and at Warsaw (De Pradt); the outrageous and never-to-be forgotten scene which, on his return from Spain, occurred with Talleyrand--("Souvenirs", by PASQUIER Etienne-Dennis, duc, Chancelier de France. Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.

I., 357);--The gratuitous insult of M. de Metternich, in 1813, the last word of their interview ("Souvenirs du feu duc de Broglie,"

I., 230).--Cf. his not less gratuitous and hazardous confidential communications to Miot de Melito, in 1797, and his five conversations with Sir Hudson Lowe, immediately recorded by a witness, Major Gorrequer. (W. Forsyth, I.,147, 161, 200.)]

[Footnote 1213: De Pradt, preface X]

[Footnote 1214: Pelet de la Lozere, p. 7.--Mollien, "Memoires," II., 222.--"Souvenirs du feu duc de Broglie," I., 66, 69.]

[Footnote 1215: "Madame de Remusat," I., 121: I have it from Corvisart that the pulsations of his arteries are fewer than is usual with men.

He never experienced what is commonly called giddiness." With him, the nervous apparatus is perfect in all its functions, incomparable for receiving, recording, registering, combining, and reflecting, but other organs suffer a reaction and are very sensitive." (De Segur, VI., 15 and 16, note of Drs. Yvan and Mestivier, his physicians.) "To preserve the equilibrium it was necessary with him that the skin should always fulfill its functions; as soon as the tissues were affected by any moral or atmospheric cause.... irritation, cough, ischuria." Hence his need of frequent prolonged and very hot baths. "The spasm was generally shared by the stomach and the bladder. If in the stomach, he had a nervous cough which exhausted his moral and physical energies." Such was the case between the eve of the battle of Moscow and the morning after his entry into Moscow: "a constant dry cough, difficult and intermittent breathing; the pulse sluggish, weak, and irregular; the urine thick and sedimentary, drop by drop and painful; the lower part of the legs and the feet extremely oedematous." Already, in 1806, at Warsaw, "after violent convulsions in the stomach," he declared to the Count de Loban, "that he bore within him the germs of a premature death, and that he would die of the same disease as his father's." (De Segur, VI., 82.) After the victory of Dresden, having eaten a ragout containing garlic, he is seized with such violent gripings as to make him think he was poisoned, and he makes a retrograde movement, which causes the loss of Vandamme's division, and, consequently, the ruin of 1813. "Souvenirs", by Pasquier, Etienne-Dennis, duc, chancelier de France. Librarie Plon, Paris 1893, (narrative of Daru, an eye-witness.)--This susceptibility of the nerves and stomach is hereditary with him and shows itself in early youth. "One day, at Brienne, obliged to drop on his knees, as a punishment, on the sill of the refectory, he is seized with sudden vomiting and a violent nervous attack." De Segur, I., 71.--It is well known that he died of a cancer in the stomach, like his father Charles Bonaparte. His grandfather Joseph Bonaparte, his uncle Fesch, his brother Lucien, and his sister Caroline died of the same, or of an a.n.a.logous disease.]

[Footnote 1216: Meneval, I., 269. Constant, "Memoires," V., 62. De Segur, VI., 114, 117.]