Memoirs of Napoleon, vol 7 | Page 9

are the dreams of a visionary! What is nature? The thing is
vague and unmeaning. Men and passions are the subjects to write
about--there is something there for study. These fellows are good for
nothing under any government. I will, however, give them pensions,
because I ought to do so, as Head of the State. They occupy and amuse
the idle. I will make Lagrange a Senator--he has a head."
Although Bonaparte spoke so disdainfully of literary men it must not
be taken for granted that he treated them ill. On the contrary, all those
who visited at Malmaison were the objects of his attention, and even

flattery. M. Lemercier was one of those who came most frequently, and
whom Bonaparte received with the greatest pleasure. Bonaparte treated
M. Lemercier with great kindness; but he did not like him. His
character as a literary man and poet, joined to a polished frankness, and
a mild but inflexible spirit of republicanism, amply sufficed to explain
Bonaparte's dislike. He feared M. Lemercier and his pen; and, as
happened more than once, he played the part of a parasite by flattering
the writer. M. Lemercier was the only man I knew who refused the
cross of the Legion of Honour.
Bonaparte's general dislike of literary men was less the result of
prejudice than circumstances. In order to appreciate or even to read
literary works time is requsite, and time was so precious to him that he
would have wished, as one may say, to shorten a straight line. He liked
only those writers who directed their attention to positive and precise
things, which excluded all thoughts of government and censures on
administration. He looked with a jealous eye on political economists
and lawyers; in short, as all persons who in any way whatever meddled
with legislation and moral improvements. His hatred of discussions on
those subjects was strongly displayed on the occasion of the
classification of the Institute. Whilst he permitted the reassembling of a
literary class, to the number of forty, as formerly, he suppressed the
class of moral and political science. Such was his predilection for
things of immediate and certain utility that even in the sciences he
favoured only such as applied to terrestrial objects. He never treated
Lalande with so much distinction as Monge and Lagrange.
Astronomical discoveries could not add directly to his own greatness;
and, besides, he could never forgive Lalande for having wished to
include him in a dictionary of atheists precisely at the moment when he
was opening negotiations with the court of Rome.
Bonaparte wished to be the sole centre of a world which he believed he
was called to govern. With this view he never relaxed in his constant
endeavour to concentrate the whole powers of the State in the hands of
its Chief. His conduct upon the subject of the revival of public
instruction affords evidence of this fact. He wished to establish 6000
bursaries, to be paid by Government, and to be exclusively at his

disposal, so that thus possessing the monopoly of education, he could
have parcelled it out only to the children of those who were blindly
devoted to him. This was what the First Consul called the revival of
public instruction. During the period of my closest intimacy with him
he often spoke to me on this subject, and listened patiently to my
observations. I remember that one of his chief arguments was this:
"What is it that distinguishes men? Education--is it not? Well, if the
children of nobles be admitted into the academies, they will be as well
educated as the children of the revolution, who compose the strength of
my government. Ultimately they will enter into my regiments as
officers, and will naturally come in competition with those whom they
regard as the plunderers of their families. I do not wish that!"
My recollections have caused me to wander from the journey of the
First Consul and Madame Bonaparte to the seabord departments and
Belgium. I have, however, little to add to what I have already stated on
the subject. I merely remember that Bonaparte's military suite, and
Lauriston and Rapp in particular, when speaking to me about the
journey, could not conceal some marks of discontent on account of the
great respect which Bonaparte had shown the clergy, and particularly to
M. de Roquelaure, the Archbishop of Malines (or Mechlin). That
prelate, who was a shrewd man, and had the reputation of having been
in his youth more addicted to the habits of the world than to those of
the cloister, had become an ecclesiastical courtier. He went to Antwerp
to pay his homage to the First Consul, upon whom he heaped the most
extravagant praises. Afterwards, addressing Madame Bonaparte, he
told her that she was united