"Mémoires du

Hugh Viscount Ebrington, eldest son of Hugh first Earl Fortescue by Hester, daughter of the Right Hon. George Gren1783, passed through Eton and Brasenose ville (the prime minister), was born in College, Oxford, and entered Parliament as member for Barnstaple in 1804. having obtained a commission, he was appointed aide-de-camp to Sir Arthur Wellesley, but was prevented from joining him from Gibraltar under the escort of General Venega's Spanish army by its defeat at Almonacid. Before he could reach Sir

In 1809,

tion before him, untroubled by the fear | forgotten and now become extremely rare, either of the party whip or the local its existence has been recalled by a passage wire-pullers; and though he would, no in the recently published doubt, still usually vote with his lead- Chancelier Pasquier." Speaking of Napoers, he could, at any rate, safely vote leon's efforts in his latter years to saddle against them when he thought them Talleyrand with the blame of the Duke d'Enghien's execution the writer says (i. wrong. Under these conditions minis195), "Il l'en accusait à l'ile d'Elbe, en ters would have to convince where présence de je ne sais quel Anglais, qui l'a they now command; and the speeches consigné dans une relation de son voyage in debate, instead of being an empty dans l'ile." The "relation" referred to form, would actually be intended to may be read in the ensuing pages; of the persuade the audience to which they "je ne sais quel Anglais,' a very few were delivered. The "mechanical ma- words must now be said. jority" would disappear; and a government could not venture to bring in a bill which it knew very well was regarded with dislike and suspicion by a third of its supporters, if it also knew that those supporters could, if they pleased, give effect to their convictions at the ballot-box. A minister, challenged on some point of administration, would have to defend himself in earnest and vindicate his action successfully, instead of merely calling upon the whips to muster their forces for a party division. In one word, the House of Commons would be, in fact, a sovereign assembly, and become, what it is not now, the real, ruling element in the Constitution. But such a change is probably not one that could now be carried into effect. The electors have shown no disposition to tolerate any arrangements which would deprive them of their power to control and supervise their parliamentary delegates; nor, perhaps, if the question were seriously put to them, would they regard with approval an innovation which, while it tended to weaken the Cabinet and almost to paralyze the caucus, would make the Commons far stronger than either.

Arthur the vacant place on the staff was filled up. He first attracted notice in the the infliction of the sentence of the pillory House of Commons by his protest against

on the famous Lord Cochrane in 1814. Napoleon, as we shall see, was aware of this incident or had been told of it for the occasion. Later on Lord Ebrington became known as a leader in the Reform movement of 1830, being selected by Macaulay himself as the head of the independent Reformers in the Commons in September, 1831, when the ministry threatin the Lords (Lord Macaulay's Life and ened to resign in consequence of its defeat Letters, i. 193). In another passage Macaulay speaks of the effect which he had seen produced in the House "by very rude1 sentences stammered by such men as Lord Spencer and Lord Ebrington." As another instance of the moral ascendency which can be gained only by a man of acknowledged courage and uprightness, it may be mentioned that Lord Ebrington once dispersed single-handed a formidable mob of rioters in North Devon, throwing to the ground, without for a moment interrupting his address, a man who presumed to lay hands on him while exhorting them to return peaceably to their homes. For the

1 Of course this does not mean discourteous; the courtesy of both men was proverbial.

rest Lord Ebrington having absolutely no gift of speech played his part in silence, though the intimate friend and trusted counsellor of men so highly placed as Lord Althorp and Lord John Russell. He died

in 1861.

Enough has now been said to show that Napoleon's interlocutor was a man of perhaps more than ordinary force of character. But what probably made Napoleon specially anxious to create a favorable impression on him was his relationship to Lord Grenville, than whom the dethroned emperor had no enemy more resolute, nor any whom it might profit him more to conciliate. Be

that as it may, the memorandum of the

two conversations speaks for itself. It is here given exactly as it stands in the original manuscript, taken down at the earliest opportunity after the second interview; and though written evidently with extreme rapidity, unblotted by a single erasure. "The parts of it which are in French are, as nearly as I could recollect them at the time, the very words used by Napoleon," writes Lord Ebrington in his preface; "and the remainder may be relied on as the genuine substance of what he said to Had my memory been better, I might

me.

once a poor baker's son at Nancy, since named by Napoleon himself le Sage de la Grande Armée), a note to say that his Majesty the emperor will receive him at eight o'clock. J. W. F.]

MEMORANDUM.

PORTO FERRAJO,

Monday, Dec. 6, 1814.

I went by appointment at eight o'clock in the evening to the palace, and after waiting a few minutes, was shown into the room to Napoleon.

After some questions about myself, my family, etc., he asked eagerly about France, saying, "Dîtes-moi francheI said, ment, sont-ils contents ?" "Comme ça." He replied: "They cannot be; they have been too much humbled by the peace; they have had a king imposed upon them and imposed by England. Lord Wellington's appointment must be very galling to the army, as must the great attentions shown him by the king, as if to set his own private feelings up in opposition to those of the country; Si Lord Wellington fût venu à Paris comme voyageur, je me serais fait un plaisir de lui témoigner les égards dûs à son grand mérite; mais je n'aurois pas été content que vous le m'envoyassiez comme ambassadeur." The Bourbons were not calculated to be popular with a people like the French. Madame d'Augoulême, he had heard, was plain and awkward. "Il fallait pour l'ange de la paix du moins une femme present editor has been careful to leave the spirituelle ou jolie." The king and manuscript untouched. Two or three Monsieur were too much influenced by passages which, as reflecting on persons then living, were suppressed in the printed priests. The Duke d'Angoulême, he edition of 1823 are now inserted and aphad been told, was weak, "et le Duc pear in print for the first time. These have de Berri a fait dernièrement, à ce que been enclosed in brackets. One or two l'on dit, bien des sottises." Besides small foot-notes on matters which have fallen obscure have also been added; and with these it seems best that the editor's functions should end.

have added much more, but where I felt a doubt of its accuracy on any subject I suppressed that subject altogether." [As a matter of fact his memory was remarkably retentive and accurate.] "I have not altered the original MS. lest, in endeavoring to put what was written solely for my own satisfaction and amusement into a form better adapted for the press, I should take away anything from its authenticity." With such an example before him the

And now let us carry ourselves back to a December evening in 1814. A young Englishman, unknown except as the nephew of Lord Grenville, and thus kinsman of

William Pitt, has seized the opportunity given by the Peace of Paris, to go abroad, and has found himself at Elba. There he has received from General Drouot (Drouot,

they (the Bourbons) had been the instruments of making a peace on terms to which he (Napoleon) would never have consented; giving up Belgium, which the nation had been taught to consider as an integral part of the dominions of France, and would never quietly consent to be stripped of. "You had gained enough by the peace in securing the internal quiet of your empire at home, in the recognition of

your sovereignty in India, and in hav-| placed several of them about his court, ing the Bourbons, instead of me, upon but he was obliged to do it very cauthe throne. The best thing for En- tiously: "Car toutes les fois que je gland would perhaps have been the touchois cette corde les esprits frémispartition of France; but whilst you soient, comme un cheval à qui on serre left her amply the means of being for- trop les rênes." He felt that France midable, you have, by what you have wanted an aristocracy: “ Mais il fallait taken away, mortified the vanity of pour cela du temps, des souvenirs ratevery Frenchman, and produced feel- tachans à l'histoire. J'ai fait des ings of irritation, which if not em- princes, des ducs, et je leur ai donné de ployed in foreign contests, must break grands biens, mais je ne pouvois en out into revolution or civil war." He faire de vrais nobles," on account of spoke not from what he had heard the meanness of their connections. "Car je n'ai de nouvelles que des He meant, however, gradually to have gazettes, ou ce que m'en disent les intermarried them with the old nobilvoyageurs; mais je connois bien le ity, as he had done in some instances: caractère Français ; il n'est pas or- "Et si les vingt ans que je demandois gueilleux comme l'Anglais, mais il est pour la grandeur de la France m'eussent beaucoup plus glorieux; la vanité est été accordés, j'aurois toujours fait pour lui le principe de tout, et sa vanité beaucoup; mais le sort en a disposé le rend capable de tout entreprendre." autrement." The king, he thought, The army were naturally attached to ought to follow the same plan, instead him (Napoleon), " Puisque j'étois leur of advancing so much those who, for camarade. J'avois eu des succés avec the last twenty years, have been “eneux, et ils savoient que je les récom- terrés dans les greniers de Londres." pensois bien; mais ils sentent main- He knew that a king might have his tenant qu'ils ne sont rien. Il y a à friends like another man, and is natpresent en France 700,000 hommes qui urally desirous of rewarding those who ont porté les armes, et les dernières have shown an attachment to him; campagnes n'ont servi qu'à leur mon- "mais il faut agir selon les circontrer combien ils sont supérieurs à tous stances, et, après tout, Paris vaut bien leurs ennemis. Ils rendent justice à la une valeur de vos troupes, mais ils méprisent tout le reste."

"" messe. In England the king may indulge private partiality in the appointment of his court officers, beThe conscription furnished annually cause there he is only a part of the three hundred thousand men, of which government. "Le Roi chez vous peut he never took above half. No class être malade, même un peu fou, et les was exempt; but the higher might get affaires n'en vont pas moins leur train, substitutes from the lower, for which puisque ça s'arrange entre le ministère they paid four thousand francs. The et le parlement;" but in France the common people will now feel that all sovereign is the source of everything, the soldiery must come from them, and importance is attached to his least without the same bounty or chance of actions. "Il est connu comme dans promotion as before. It had, however, un palais de cristal, où tous yeux sont been his system, to give every encour-tourné vers lui."

agement to such of the superior orders. He considered the House of Peers as were willing to serve, and for this as the great bulwark of the English purpose he had established corps of a higher description: "Car je sais que c'est dur pour un gentilhomme d'être mis au lit avec un soldat." He was always desirous of bringing forward the old families, and had many young men of the ancien régime in his army, who behaved very well. He had also

constitution, which he thought would be overturned if there were in the country materials for making such another assembly, equal in all respects to the present. "Mais en France je vous ferois quarante sénats tout aussi bons que celui qu'ils ont." On my observing that I thought he laid too much

him whether he had received anything from Russia. He said, "Non, je u'ai exigé d'elle que de fermer ses ports

stress on the peerage, he said that, in mentioning the House of Peers, he meant to include the Parliament in general, which he considered as represent-contre l'Angleterre." ing, by descent or by election, the heads I asked him what he thought of of the commercial as well as the landed the emperor (Alexander). He said: interest, which were what he called the "C'est un véritable Grec, on ne peut se aristocracy of a country. That this fier à lui; il a pourtant de l'instrucaristocracy had enabled the royal fam-tion et quelques idées libérales dont il a ily to get over that affair of the Duke été imbu par un philosophe, La Harpe, of York, which if it had occurred in qui l'a élevé. Mais il est si léger et si France would have been sufficient to faux, qu'on ne peut savoir si les sentishake, if not overturn, the throne. meus qu'il débite resultent vraiment de "But John Bull is steady and solid, ses pensées, ou d'une espèce de vanité and attached to ancient establishments, de se mettre en contraste avec sa posiand so different in character from the tion." He mentioned as an instance Frenchman, that there is no bringing an argument they had upon forms of the two countries fairly into compar- government, in which Alexander mainison."

tained a preference for elective monHe had read most of the pamphlets archy. His (Napoleon's) opinion was published in France since his abdica- quite contrary, for "Who is fit to be tion. "Il y en a qui m'appellent un so elected? Un César, un Alexandre traître, un lâche-mais ce n'est que la dont on ne trouve pas un par siècle; so vérité qui blesse - les François savent that the election must after all be a bien que je suis ni traître ni lache. Le matter of chance, et la succession vaut parti le plus sage pour les Bourbons sûrement mieux que les dez." During seroit de suivre à mon égard la même the fortnight they were at Tilsit, they règle que j'ai tenue par rapport à eux, dined together nearly every day: de ne pas souffrir qu'on en dise ni bien" Mais nous nous levions bientôt de ni mal."

table pour nous débarrasser du Roi de Speaking of the finances of France, Prusse qui nous ennuyoit. Vers les he said, "Tout ce que j'ai fait im- neuf heures, l'Empereur revenait chez primer sur ce sujet est de l'évangile." moi en frac prendre le thé, and reHis civil-list income was thirty million mained conversing very agreeably on francs, but the expenditure seldom ex-different subjects, for the most part ceeded eighteen million, and with that philosophical or political, sometimes he had finished two or three of the till two or three o'clock in the mornpalaces. His table cost one million ing." francs. His stable and chasse, includ- The Emperor Francis, he said, had ing seven hundred horses, two million. | more honesty but less capacity. “ "Je He had an excellent treasurer, whom me fierois à lui bien plutôt qu'à l'autre, he named, but I forget; "Et je ne et s'il me donnait sa parole de faire souffrais jamais de gaspillage." Be-telle ou telle chose, je serois persuadé sides this he had the disposal of the domaines extraordinaires, a fund of two hundred million, out of which he made presents, and rewarded those who distinguished themselves. To my quesThe king of Prussia he called "un tion, whence it came, he answered: caporal," without an idea beyond the "Des contributions de mes ennemis; dress of a soldier, "infiniment le plus l'Autriche pour deux paix m'a payé par bête des trois." The Archduke Charles articles secrets 300,000,000 francs; et was un esprit très médiocre," who le Prusse aussi énormément." I asked had, however, on some occasions shown himself not to be without military tal

1 The scandal concerning Mrs. Clarke.

qu'au moment de la donner, il aurait l'intention de s'y tenir; mais son esprit est bien borné, point d'énergie, point de caractère."

ent,

Speaking of the Russian campaign he in not removing Marmont from his said, that when he got to Moscow he command after the loss of his artillery considered the business as done; that at Laon, which he now believed to he was received with open arms by the have been treachery. He said that people on his march, and had innu- Augereau was a “mauvais sujet,” who, merable petitions from the peasants he thought, had made his terms a praying him to emancipate them from month before he declared himself. He the tyranny of the nobles; that he spoke well of Massena. "Il s'est, je found the town fully supplied with crois, bien comporté, comme aussi les everything and might perfectly have Maréchaux Soult et Davoust." I asked subsisted his army there through the if he was not surprised at Berthier winter, when in twenty-four hours it having been among the first to hail the was on fire in fifteen places, and the king's arrival. He answered with a country all round for twelve miles laid smile: "On m'a dit qu'il a fait quelques waste; "An event," said he, " on sottises de cette espèce; mais ce n'est which I could not calculate, as there is pas une tête forte. Je l'avois avancé not, I believe, a precedent for it in the plus qu'il ne méritoit, puis qu'il m'étoit history of the world. Mais parbleu, il utile pour la plume. D'ailleurs je vous faut avouer que cela a montré du carac-assure que c'est un bon diable, qui, s'il tère." me voyoit, seroit le premier à me téHe then talked over his last cam-moigner ses regrets de ce qu'il a fait, paign and ascribed his ruin entirely to les larmes aux yeux." Marmont, to whom he had given some of his best troops and the post of the greatest importance, as a person on whose devotion to him he could most depend: "For how could I expect to be betrayed by a man whom I had loaded with kindnesses from the time that he was fifteen years old? Had he stood firm I could have driven the Allies out of Paris; and the people there, as well as generally throughout France, would have risen in spite of the Senate if they had had a few troops to support them; mais même avec lui les alliés étoient trois contre un, et après sa désertion, avec l'incertitude dans laquelle il me mettait, il n'y avait plus d'espoir de succès. J'aurois pu être en ce moment en France, et prolonger peut-être pendant quelques années le combat, mais contre l'Europe les circonstances actuelles, de le terminer heureusement. J'ai bientôt pris réunie je ne pouvais me flatter, dans mon parti, pour éviter à la France une guerre civile, et je me regarde pour mort; car mourir, ou être ici, c'est la même chose.”

[He spoke of Talleyrand as the greatest of rascals, "un homme capable de tout," who had often urged him to have the Bourbons assassinated, or brought off by smugglers while they were in England, and would with as little scruple advise them now to destroy him. He had displaced him from the ministry for having privately extorted large sums from the kings of Wurtemberg and Bavaria, but continued occasionally to see him as he knew he enjoyed some consideration at Paris. It was he who first suggested the expedition to Spain by producing an invitation to him from the malcontents there, of which he urged him to take advantage. On my asking him if he were a man of any superior talents, he said certainly: "Mais que voulez-vous d'un homme dépourvu de tout principe, de toute honte, enfin d'un prêtre défroqué, d'un évêque marié et marié avec une putain ?"]

I took occasion to ask what he thought of the king of Spain. He said he was not without natural understanding, but ignorant and bigoted from the He spoke lightly of the talents of his faults of his education, which had been marshals, but having once raised them left entirely to priests. "D'ailleurs le it had been his system to maintain caractère le plus dissimulé que j'ai them. He had always been indulgent jamais vu." He considered Charles. respecting military errors, as he showed the Fourth to be honest and well