Memoirs of Napoleon, vol 1 | Page 7

man who,
by alternately bribing and overthrowing the great monarchies, had soon
made himself master of the mainland. His admirers were unwilling to
admit the part played in his success by the jealousy of his foes of each
other's share in the booty, and they delighted to invest him with every
great quality which man could possess. His enemies were ready enough
to allow his military talents, but they wished to attribute the first
success of his not very deep policy to a marvellous duplicity,
apparently considered by them the more wicked as possessed by a

parvenu emperor, and far removed, in a moral point of view, from the
statecraft so allowable in an ancient monarchy. But for Napoleon
himself and his family and Court there was literally no limit to the
really marvellous inventions of his enemies. He might enter every
capital on the Continent, but there was some consolation in believing
that he himself was a monster of wickedness, and his Court but the
scene of one long protracted orgie.
There was enough against the Emperor in the Memoirs to make them
comfortable reading for his opponents, though very many of the old
calumnies were disposed of in them. They contained indeed the nearest
approximation to the truth which had yet appeared. Metternich, who
must have been a good judge, as no man was better acquainted with
what he himself calls the "age of Napoleon," says of the Memoirs: "If
you want something to read, both interesting and amusing, get the
Memoires de Bourrienne. These are the only authentic Memoirs of
Napoleon which have yet appeared. The style is not brilliant, but that
only makes them the mere trustworthy." Indeed, Metternich himself in
his own Memoirs often follows a good deal in the line of Bourrienne:
among many formal attacks, every now and then he lapses into half
involuntary and indirect praise of his great antagonist, especially where
he compares the men he had to deal with in aftertimes with his former
rapid and talented interlocutor. To some even among the Bonapartists,
Bourrienne was not altogether distasteful. Lucien Bonaparte, remarking
that the time in which Bourrienne treated with Napoleon as equal with
equal did not last long enough for the secretary, says he has taken a
little revenge in his Memoirs, just as a lover, after a break with his
mistress, reveals all her defects. But Lucien considers that Bourrienne
gives us a good enough idea of the young officer of the artillery, of the
great General, and of the First Consul. Of the Emperor, says Lucien, he
was too much in retirement to be able to judge equally well. But Lucien
was not a fair representative of the Bonapartists; indeed he had never
really thought well of his brother or of his actions since Lucien, the
former "Brutus" Bonaparte, had ceased to be the adviser of the Consul.
It was well for Lucien himself to amass a fortune from the presents of a
corrupt court, and to be made a Prince and Duke by the Pope, but he
was too sincere a republican not to disapprove of the imperial system.
The real Bonapartists were naturally and inevitably furious with the

Memoirs. They were not true, they were not the work of Bourrienne,
Bourrienne himself was a traitor, a purloiner of manuscripts, his
memory was as bad as his principles, he was not even entitled to the de
before his name. If the Memoirs were at all to be pardoned, it was
because his share was only really a few notes wrung from him by large
pecuniary offers at a time when he was pursued by his creditors, and
when his brain was already affected.
The Bonapartist attack on the Memoirs was delivered in full form, in
two volumes, 'Bourrienne et ses Erreurs, Volontaires et Involontaires'
(Paris, Heideloff, 1830), edited by the Comte d'Aure, the Ordonnateur
en Chef of the Egyptian expedition, and containing communications
from Joseph Bonaparte, Gourgaud, Stein, etc.'
--[In the notes in this present edition these volumes are referred to in
brief 'Erreurs'.]--
Part of the system of attack was to call in question the authenticity of
the Memoirs, and this was the more easy as Bourrienne, losing his
fortune, died in 1834 in a state of imbecility. But this plan is not
systematically followed, and the very reproaches addressed to the
writer of the Memoirs often show that it was believed they were really
written by Bourrienne. They undoubtedly contain plenty of faults. The
editor (Villemarest, it is said) probably had a large share in the work,
and Bourrienne must have forgotten or misplaced many dates and
occurrences. In such a work, undertaken so many years after the events,
it was inevitable that many errors should be made, and that many
statements should be at least