Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I | Page 3

represent their countrymen as composed of rebels or cowards!
For my part, I think it the duty of a good Frenchman, to prove to all
Europe, that the king was not guilty of abandoning France:
That the insurrection of the 20th of March was not the work of a few
factious persons, who might have been repressed; but a grand national
act, against which the efforts and volitions of individuals would have
been vain:
That the royalists were not cowards, and all other Frenchmen traitors:
Lastly, that the return from the island of Elba was the terrible
consequence of the faults of ministers and the ultras, which called to
France the man of fate, as the conductor draws down the lightning from
heaven.
This sentiment naturally led me, to conclude these Memoirs by a
philosophical examination of the Hundred Days, and a refutation of the
reproaches daily bestowed on the men of the 20th of March: but
considerations, easy to divine, held my pen. It was my duty, to content
myself with placing a statement of the facts before the eyes of the grand

jury, the public, and leave it to decide. I know, that the question has
been determined in the fields of Waterloo; but a victory is not a judicial
sentence.
Whatever opinion the impartial reader may form of this work, I can
protest beforehand, that I have not allowed myself to be influenced by
any private consideration, by any feeling of hatred, affection, or
gratitude. I have followed no impulse but that of my conscience, and I
may say with Montaigne: "This is an honest book."
Too young to have participated in the errors or crimes of the revolution,
I began and ended my political career without blot, and without
reproach. The places, titles, and decorations, which the Emperor
deigned to bestow on me, were the reward of several acts of great
devotion to his service, and of twelve years of trials and sacrifices.
Never did I receive from him any favours or gifts: I entered his service
rich, I quitted it poor.
When Lyons opened to him its gates, I was free: I spontaneously
embraced his cause: it appeared to me, as to the immense number of
Frenchmen, that of liberty, honour, and our country. The laws of Solon
declared infamous those, who took no part in civil troubles. I followed
their maxims. If the misfortunes of the 20th of March must fall on the
heads of the guilty, these guilty, I repeat, will not be in the eye of
posterity, the Frenchmen who abandoned the royal standard, to return
to the ancient colours of their country; but those imprudent and
senseless men, who, by their threats, their acts of injustice, and their
outrages, compelled us to choose between insurrection and slavery,
between honour and infamy.
During the Hundred Days, there was no person to whom I did an ill
turn; frequently I had an opportunity of doing good, and seized it with
joy.
Since the return of the regal government, I have lived tranquil and
solitary; and, whether from forgetfulness, or from a sense of justice, I
escaped in 1815 the persecutions, which the partisans and servants of
Napoleon experienced.

This explanation, or this apology, appeared to me necessary: it is right
the reader should know, who it is that addresses him.
I could have wished, to abstain from speaking of the royal government
in the first part of this work: but it was impossible. It was necessary for
me, prominently to exhibit the errors and faults of the king's ministers
one by one, to render evident this truth, that they were the sole authors
of the 20th of March. When elsewhere, as here, I say the government, I
mean not to designate the King, but his ministers. In a constitutional
monarchy, in which the ministers are responsible, we cannot, and ought
not to confound them with the King. "It is from the King," said the
keeper of the seals, when he proposed to the deputies of the nation the
project of a law on the responsibility of ministers, "that every act of
equity, protection, and clemency, and every regular employment of
power, emanates: it is to the ministers alone, that abuses, injustice, and
misconduct, are to be imputed."

MEMOIRS,
&c. &c.

Until the close of the Spanish war, Napoleon, whether as the First
Consul of the Republic, or as the Chief of the Empire, had never ceased
to be the object of the love, the pride, and the confidence of the people.
But the multitude neither judge, nor can judge of the actions of their
rulers but from appearances which often mislead them in their
judgment; and the loyalty of the nation then became enfeebled. The
conduct of Napoleon was stigmatized as a series