CHAPTER XI
THE SECRETARY
Emperor, generals, and officials all streamed away to the review,
leaving me with a gentle-looking, large-eyed man in a black suit with
very white cambric ruffles, who introduced himself to me as Monsieur de
Meneval, private secretary to His Majesty.
'We must get some food, Monsieur de Laval,' said he. 'It is always
well, if you have anything to do with the Emperor, to get your food
whenever you have the chance. It may be many hours before he takes a
meal, and if you are in his presence you have to fast also. I assure
you that I have nearly fainted from hunger and from thirst.'
'But how does the Emperor manage himself?' I asked. This Monsieur de
Meneval had such a kindly human appearance that I already felt much at
my ease with him.
'Oh, he, he is a man of iron, Monsieur de Laval. We must not set our
watches by his. I have known him work for eighteen hours on end and
take nothing but a cup or two of coffee. He wears everybody out around
him. Even the soldiers cannot keep up with him. I assure you that I
look upon it as the very highest honour to have charge of his papers,
but there are times when it is very trying all the same. Sometimes it
is eleven o'clock at night. Monsieur de Laval, and I am writing to his
dictation with my head aching for want of sleep. It is dreadful work,
for he dictates as quickly as he can talk, and he never repeats
anything. "Now, Meneval," says he suddenly, "we shall stop here and
have a good night's rest." And then, just as I am congratulating
myself, he adds, "and we shall continue with the dictation at three
to-morrow morning." That is what he means by a good night's rest.'
'But has he no hours for his meals, Monsieur de Meneval?' I asked, as I
accompanied the unhappy secretary out of the tent.
'Oh, yes, he has hours, but he will not observe them. You see that it
is already long after dinner time, but he has gone to this review.
After the review something else will probably take up his attention, and
then something else, until suddenly in the evening it will occur to him
that he has had no dinner. "My dinner, Constant, this instant!" he will
cry, and poor Constant has to see that it is there.'
'But it must be unfit to eat by that time,' said I.
The secretary laughed in the discreet way of a man who has always been
obliged to control his emotions.
'This is the Imperial kitchen,' said he, indicating a large tent just
outside the headquarters. 'Here is Borel, the second cook, at the door.
How many pullets to-day, Borel?'
'Ah, Monsieur de Meneval, it is heartrending,' cried the cook. 'Behold
them!' and, drawing back the flap of the entrance, he showed us seven
dishes, each of them containing a cold fowl. 'The eighth is now on the
fire and done to a turn, but I hear that His Majesty has started for the
review, so we must put on a ninth.'
'That is how it is managed,' said my companion, as we turned from the
tent. 'I have known twenty-three fowls got ready for him before he
asked for his meal. That day he called for his dinner at eleven at
night. He cares little what he eats or drinks, but he will not be kept
waiting. Half a bottle of Chambertin, a red mullet, or a pullet a la
Marengo satisfy every need, but it is unwise to put pastry or cream upon
the table, because he is as likely as not to eat it before the fowl.
Ah, that is a curious sight, is it not?'
I had halted with an exclamation of astonishment. A groom was cantering
a very beautiful Arab horse down one of the lanes between the tents.
As it passed, a grenadier who was standing with a small pig under his
arm hurled it down under the feet of the horse. The pig squealed
vigorously and scuttled away, but the horse cantered on without changing
its step.
'What does that mean?' I asked.
'That is Jardin, the head groom, breaking in a charger for the Emperor's
use. They are first trained by having a cannon fired in their ears,
then they are struck suddenly by heavy objects, and finally they have
the test of the pig being thrown under their feet. The Emperor has not
a very firm seat, and he very often loses himself in a reverie when be
is riding, so it might not be very safe if the horse were not well
trained. Do you see that young man asleep at the door of a tent?'
'Yes, I see him.'
'You would not think that he is at the present moment serving the
Emperor?'
'It seems a very easy service.'
'I wish all our services were as easy, Monsieur de Laval. That is
Joseph Linden, whose foot is the exact size of the Emperor's. He wears
his new boots and shoes for three days before they are given to his
master. You can see by the gold buckles that he has a pair on at the
present moment. Ah, Monsieur de Caulaincourt, will you not join us at
dinner in my tent?'
A tall, handsome man, very elegantly dressed, came across and greeted
us. 'It is rare to find you at rest, Monsieur de Meneval. I have no
very light task myself as head of the household, but I think I have more
leisure than you. Have we time for dinner before the Emperor returns?'
'Yes, yes; here is the tent, and everything ready. We can see when the
Emperor returns, and be in the room before he can reach it. This is
camp fare, Monsieur de Laval, but no doubt you will excuse it.'
For my own part I had an excellent appetite for the cutlets and the
salad, but what I relished above all was to hear the talk of my
companions, for I was full of curiosity as to everything which concerned
this singular man, whose genius had elevated him so rapidly to the
highest position in the world. The head of his household discussed him
with an extraordinary frankness.
'What do they say of him in England, Monsieur de Laval?' he asked.
'Nothing very good.'
'So I have gathered from their papers. They drive the Emperor frantic,
and yet he will insist upon reading them. I am willing to lay a wager
that the very first thing which he does when he enters London will be to
send cavalry detachments to the various newspaper offices, and to
endeavour to seize the editors.'
'And the next?'
'The next,' said he, laughing, 'will be to issue a, long proclamation to
prove that we have conquered England entirely for the good of the
English, and very much against our own inclinations. And then, perhaps,
the Emperor will allow the English to understand that, if they
absolutely demand a Protestant for a ruler, it is possible that there
are a few little points in which he differs from Holy Church.'
'Too bad! Too bad!' cried de Meneval, looking amused and yet rather
frightened at his companion's audacity. 'No doubt for state reasons the
Emperor had to tamper a little with Mahomedanism, and I daresay he would
attend this Church of St. Paul's as readily as he did the Mosque at
Cairo; but it would not do for a ruler to be a bigot. After all, the
Emperor has to think for all.'
'He thinks too much,' said Caulaincourt, gravely. 'He thinks so much
that other people in France are getting out of the way of thinking at
all. You know what I mean, de Meneval, for you have seen it as much as
I have.'
'Yes, yes,' answered the secretary. 'He certainly does not encourage
originality among those who surround him. I have heard him say many a
time that he desired nothing but mediocrity, which was a poor
compliment, it must be confessed, to us who have the honour of serving
him.'
'A clever man at his Court shows his cleverness best by pretending to be
dull,' said Caulaincourt, with some bitterness.
'And yet there are many famous characters there,' I remarked.
'If so, it is only by concealing their characters that they remain
there. His ministers are clerks, his generals are superior
aides-de-camp. They are all agents. You have this wonderful man in the
middle, and all around you have so many mirrors which reflect different
sides of him. In one you see him as a financier, and you call it
Lebrun. In another you have him as a _gendarme_, and you name it Savary
or Fouche. In yet another he figures as a diplomatist, and is called
Talleyrand. You see different figures, but it is really the same man.
There is a Monsieur de Caulaincourt, for example, who arranges the
household; but he cannot dismiss a servant without permission. It is
still always the Emperor. And he plays upon us. We must confess, de
Meneval, that he plays upon us. In nothing else do I see so clearly his
wonderful cleverness. He will not let us be too friendly lest we
combine. He has set his Marshals against each other until there are
hardly two of them on speaking terms. Look how Davoust hates
Bernadotte, or Lannes and Bessieres, or Ney and Massena. It is all they
can do to keep their sabres in they sheaths when they meet. And then he
knows our weak points. Savary's thirst for money, Cambaceres's vanity,
Duroc's bluntness, Berthier's foolishness, Maret's insipidity,
Talleyrand's mania for speculation, they are all so many tools in his
hand. I do not know what my own greatest weakness may be, but I am sure
that he does, and that he uses his knowledge.'
'But how he must work!' I exclaimed.
'Ah, you may say so,' said de Meneval. 'What energy! Eighteen hours
out of twenty-four for weeks on end. He has presided over the
Legislative Council until they were fainting at their desks. As to me,
he will be the death of me, just as he wore out de Bourrienne; but I
will die at my post without a murmur, for if he is hard upon us he is
hard upon himself also.'
'He was the man for France,' said de Caulaincourt. 'He is the very
genius of system and of order, and of discipline. When one renumbers
the chaos in which our poor country found itself after the Revolution,
when no one would be governed and everyone wanted to govern someone
else, you will understand that only Napoleon could have saved us.
We were all longing for something fixed to secure ourselves to, and then
we came upon this iron pillar of a man. And what a man he was in those
days, Monsieur de Laval! You see him now when he has got all that he
can want. He is good-humoured and easy. But at that time he had got
nothing, but coveted everything. His glance frightened women.
He walked the streets like a wolf. People looked after him as he
passed. His face was quite different--it was craggy, hollow-cheeked,
with an oblique menacing gaze, and the jaws of a pike. Oh, yes, this
little Lieutenant Buonaparte from the Military School of Brienne was a
singular figure. "There is a man," said I, when I saw him, "who will
sit upon a throne or kneel upon a scaffold." And now look at him!'
'And that is ten years ago,' I exclaimed.
'Only ten years, and they have brought him from a barrack-room to the
Tuileries. But he was born for it. You could not keep him down.
De Bourrienne told me that when he was a little fellow at Brienne he had
the grand Imperial manner, and would praise or blame, glare or smile,
exactly as he does now. Have you seen his mother, Monsieur de Laval?
She is a tragedy queen, tall, stern, reserved, silent. There is the
spring from which he flowed.'
I could see in the gentle, spaniel-eyes of the secretary that he was
disturbed by the frankness of de Caulaincourt's remarks.
'You can tell that we do not live under a very terrible tyranny,
Monsieur de Laval,' said he, 'or we should hardly venture to discuss our
ruler so frankly. The fact is that we have said nothing which he would
not have listened to with pleasure and perhaps with approval. He has
his little frailties, or he would not be human, but take his qualities
as a ruler and I would ask you if there has ever been a man who has
justified the choice of a nation so completely. He works harder than
any of his subjects. He is a general beloved by his soldiers. He is a
master beloved by his servants. He never has a holiday, and he is
always ready for his work. There is not under the roof of the Tuileries
a more abstemious eater or drinker. He educated his brothers at his own
expense when he was a very poor man, and he has caused even his most
distant relatives to share in his prosperity. In a word, he is
economical, hard-working, and temperate. We read in the London papers
about this Prince of Wales, Monsieur de Laval, and I do not think that
he comes very well out of the comparison.'
I thought of the long record of Brighton scandals, London scandals,
Newmarket scandals, and I had to leave George undefended.
'As I understand it,' said I, 'it is not the Emperor's private life, but
his public ambition, that the English attack.'
'The fact is,' said de Caulaincourt, 'that the Emperor knows, and we all
know, that there is not room enough in the world for both France and
England. One or other must be supreme. If England were once crushed we
could then lay the foundations of a permanent peace. Italy is ours.
Austria we can crush again as we have crushed her before. Germany is
divided. Russia can expand to the south and east. America we can take
at our leisure, finding our pretext in Louisiana or in Canada. There is
a world empire waiting for us, and there is the only thing that stops
us.' He pointed out through the opening of the tent at the broad blue
Channel.
Far away, like snow-white gulls in the distance, were the sails of the
blockading fleet. I thought again of what I had seen the night before--
the lights of the ships upon the sea and the glow of the camp upon the
shore. The powers of the land and of the ocean were face to face whilst
a waiting world stood round to see what would come of it.
