Memoirs of Napoleon, vol 11 | Page 5

the purpose of procuring sand
used for building and for laying down in the streets. At this time it was
proposed to repair the great street of Hamburg leading to the gate of
Altona. The smugglers overnight filled the sandpit with brown sugar,
and the little carts which usually conveyed the sand into Hamburg were
filled with the sugar, care being taken to cover it with a layer of sand
about an inch thick. This trick was carried on for a length of time, but
no progress was made in repairing the street. I complained greatly of
the delay, even before I was aware of its cause, for the street led to a
country-house I had near Altona, whither I went daily. The officers of
the customs at length perceived that the work did not proceed, and one
fine morning the sugar-carts were stopped and seized. Another
expedient was then to be devised.
Between Hamburg and Altona there was a little suburb situated on the
right bank of the Elbe. This suburb was inhabited, by sailors, labourers
of the port, and landowners. The inhabitants were interred in the
cemetery of Hamburg. It was observed that funeral processions passed
this way more frequently than usual. The customhouse officers, amazed
at the sudden mortality of the worthy inhabitants of the little suburb,
insisted on searching one of the vehicles, and on opening the hearse it
was found to be filled with sugar, coffee, vanilla, indigo, etc. It was
necessary to abandon this expedient, but others were soon discovered.
Bonaparte was sensitive, in an extraordinary degree, to all that was said

and thought of him, and Heaven knows how many despatches I
received from headquarters during the campaign of Vienna directing
me not only to watch the vigilant execution of the custom-house laws,
but to lay an embargo on a thing which alarmed him more than the
introduction of British merchandise, viz. the publication of news. In
conformity with these reiterated instructions I directed especial
attention to the management of the 'Correspondant'. The importance of
this journal, with its 60,000 readers, may easily be perceived. I
procured the insertion of everything I thought desirable: all the
bulletins, proclamations, acts of the French Government, notes of the
'Moniteur', and the semi-official articles of the French journals: these
were all given 'in extenso'. On the other hand, I often suppressed
adverse news, which, though well known, would have received
additional weight from its insertion in so widely circulated a paper. If
by chance there crept in some Austrian bulletin, extracted from the
other German papers published in the States of the Confederation of the
Rhine, there was always given with it a suitable antidote to destroy, or
at least to mitigate, its ill effect. But this was not all. The King of
Wurtemberg having reproached the 'Correspondant', in a letter to the
Minister for Foreign Affairs, with publishing whatever Austria wished
should be made known, and being conducted in a spirit hostile to the
good cause, I answered these unjust reproaches by making the Syndic
censor prohibit the Hamburg papers from inserting any Austrian order
of the day, any Archduke's bulletins, any letter from Prague; in short,
anything which should be copied from the other German journals
unless those articles had been inserted in the French journals.
My recollections of the year 1809 at Hamburg carry me back to the
celebration of Napoleon's fete, which was on the 15th of August, for he
had interpolated his patron saint in the Imperial calendar at the date of
his birth. The coincidence of this festival with the Assumption gave rise
to adulatory rodomontades of the most absurd description. Certainly the
Episcopal circulars under the Empire would form a curious collection.
--[It will perhaps scarcely be believed that the following words were
actually delivered from the pulpit: "God in his mercy has chosen
Napoleon to be his representative on earth. The Queen of Heaven has

marked, by the most magnificent of presents, the anniversary of the day
which witnessed his glorious entrance into her domains. Heavenly
Virgin! as a special testimony of your love for the French, and your
all-powerful influence with your son, you have connected the first of
your solemnities with the birth of the great Napoleon. Heaven ordained
that the hero should spring from your sepulchre."--Bourrienne.]--
Could anything be more revolting than the sycophancy of those
Churchmen who declared that "God chose Napoleon for his
representative upon earth, and that God created Bonaparte, and then
rested; that he was more fortunate than Augustus, more virtuous than
Trajan; that he deserved altars and temples to be raised to him!" etc.
Some time after the Festival of St. Napoleon the King of Westphalia
made a journey through his States. Of all Napoleon's brothers the King
of Westphalia was the