Memoirs of Napoleon, vol 14 | Page 9

and, still more, to cast herself away upon a
man who undoubtedly still possesses some power to please, but who is
no longer young, whose face is disfigured, and whose person,
altogether, has nothing agreeable in it?' 'But,' answered the Emperor,
----- is attached to me; and though he is not your friend, the postscript
sufficiently explains the motive of the confidence he places in you.' The
following words were, in fact, written at the bottom of the letter: 'I do
not think you ought to mention the truth to the Emperor, but make
whatever use of it you think proper.' I persisted, however, in
maintaining that the letter was a counterfeit; and the Emperor then said
to me, 'Go to Caulaincourt. He possesses a great many others in the
same handwriting. Let the comparison decide between your opinion
and mine.'
"I went to Caulaincourt, who said eagerly to me, 'I am sure the letter is
from -----, and I have not the least doubt of the truth of the particulars it
contains. The best thing the Emperor can do is to be comforted; there is
no help to be expected from that side.'
"So sad a discovery was very painful to the Emperor, for he was
sincerely attached to the Empress, and still hoped again to see his son,
whom he loved most tenderly.'
"Fouche had been far from wishing the return of the Emperor. He was
long tired of obeying, and had, besides, undertaken another plan, which
Napoleon's arrival had broken off. The Emperor, however, put him
again at the head of the police, because Savary was worn out in that
employment, and a skillful man was wanted there. Fouche accepted the
office, but without giving up his plan of deposing the Emperor, to put
in his place either his son or a Republic under a President. He had never
ceased to correspond with Prince Metternich, and, if he is to be
believed, he tried to persuade the Emperor to abdicate in favour of his
son. That was also my opinion; but; coming from such a quarter, the
advice was not without danger for the person to whom it was given.

Besides, that advice having been rejected, it: was the duty of the
Minister either to think no more of his plan or to resign his office.
Fouche, however, remained in the Cabinet; and continued his
correspondence. The Emperor, who placed but little confidence in him;
kept a careful eye upon him. One evening the Emperor: had a great deal
of company at the Elysee, he told me not to go home, because he
wished to speak to me. When everybody was gone the Emperor
stopped with Fouche in the apartment next to the one I was in. The
door remained half open. They walked up and down together talking
very calmly. I was therefore greatly astonished when, after a quarter of,
an hour, I heard the Emperor say to him' gravely, 'You are a traitor!
Why do you remain Minister of the Police if you wish to betray me? It
rests with me to have you hanged, and everybody would rejoice at your
death!' I did not hear Fouche's reply, but the conversation lasted above
half an hour longer, the parties all the time walking up and down.
When Fouche went away he bade me cheerfully, good-night, and said
that the Emperor had gone back to his apartments.
"The next day the Emperor spoke to me of the previous night's
conversation. 'I suspected,' he said, 'that the wretch was in
correspondence with Vienna. I have had a banker's clerk arrested on his
return from that city. He has acknowledged that he brought a letter for
Fouche from Metternich, and that the answer was to be sent at a fixed
time to Bale, where a man was to wait for the bearer on the bridge: I
sent for Fouche a few days ago, and kept him three hours long in my
garden, hoping that in the course of a friendly conversation he would
mention that letter to me, but he said nothing. At last, yesterday
evening, I myself opened the subject.' (Here the Emperor repeated to
me the words I had heard the night before, 'You are a traitor,' etc.) He
acknowledged, in fact, continued the Emperor, 'that he had received
such a letter, but that it was not signed and that he had looked upon it
as a mystification. He showed it me. Now that letter was evidently an
answer, in which the writer again declared that he would listen to
nothing more concerning the Emperor, but that, his person excepted, it
would be easy to agree to all the rest. I expected that the Emperor
would conclude his narrative by expressing his anger against Fouche,
but our