Memoirs of Napoleon - Volume 11 , livre ebook

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pubOne.info present you this new edition. The castle of Diernstein- Richard Coeur de Lion and Marshal Lannes, - The Emperor at the gates of Vienna- The Archduchess Maria Louisa- Facility of correspondence with England- Smuggling in Hamburg- Brown sugar and sand- Hearses filled with sugar and coffee- Embargo on the publication of news- Supervision of the 'Hamburg Correspondant'- Festival of Saint Napoleon- Ecclesiastical adulation- The King of Westphalia's journey through his States- Attempt to raise a loan- Jerome's present to me- The present returned- Bonaparte's unfounded suspicions.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	06 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819949084
Langue	English

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MEMOIRS OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, VOLUME 11.
By LOUIS ANTOINE FAUVELET DE BOURRIENNE
His Private Secretary
CHAPTER XIX.
1809.
The castle of Diernstein— Richard Coeur de Lion andMarshal Lannes, — The Emperor at the gates of Vienna— TheArchduchess Maria Louisa— Facility of correspondence with England—Smuggling in Hamburg— Brown sugar and sand— Hearses filled withsugar and coffee— Embargo on the publication of news— Supervisionof the 'Hamburg Correspondant'— Festival of Saint Napoleon—Ecclesiastical adulation— The King of Westphalia's journey throughhis States— Attempt to raise a loan— Jerome's present to me— Thepresent returned— Bonaparte's unfounded suspicions.
Rapp, who during the campaign of Vienna had resumedhis duties as aide de camp, related to me one of those observationsof Napoleon which, when his words are compared with the events thatfollowed them, seem to indicate a foresight into his futuredestiny. When within some days' march of Vienna the Emperorprocured a guide to explain to him every village and ruin which heobserved on the road. The guide pointed to an eminence on whichwere a few decayed vestiges of an old fortified castle. “Those, ”said the guide, “are the ruins of the castle of Diernstein. ”Napoleon suddenly stopped, and stood for some time silentlycontemplating the ruins, then turning to Lannes, who was with him,he raid, “See! yonder is the prison of Richard Coeur de Lion. He,like us, went to Syria and Palestine. But, my brave Lannes, theCoeur de Lion was not braver than you. He was more fortunate than Iat St. Jean d'Acre. A Duke of Austria sold him to an Emperor ofGermany, who imprisoned him in that castle. Those were the days ofbarbarism. How different from the civilisation of modern times!Europe has seen how I treated the Emperor of Austria, whom I mighthave made prisoner— and I would treat him so again. I claim nocredit for this. In the present age crowned heads must berespected. A conqueror imprisoned! ”
A few days after the Emperor was at the gates ofVienna, but on this occasion his access to the Austrian capital wasnot so easy as it had been rendered in 1805 by the ingenuity andcourage of Lannes and Murat. The Archduke Maximilian, who was shutup in the capital, wished to defend it, although the French armyalready occupied the principal suburbs. In vain were flags of trucesent one after the other to the Archduke. They were not onlydismissed unheard, but were even ill-treated, and one of them wasalmost killed by the populace. The city was then bombarded, andwould speedily have been destroyed but that the Emperor, beinginformed that one of the Archduchesses remained in Vienna onaccount of ill- health, ordered the firing to cease. By a singularcaprice of Napoleon's destiny this Archduchess was no other thanMaria Louisa. Vienna at length opened her gates to Napoleon, whofor some days took up his residence at Schoenbrunn.
The Emperor was engaged in so many projects at oncethat they could not all succeed. Thus, while he was triumphant inthe Hereditary States his Continental system was experiencingsevere checks. The trade with England on the coast of Oldenburg wascarped on as uninterruptedly as if in time of peace. Englishletters and newspapers arrived on the Continent, and those of theContinent found their way into Great Britain, as if France andEngland had been united by ties of the firmest friendship. Inshort, things were just in the same state as if the decree for theblockade of the British Isles had not existed. When thecustom-house officers succeeded in seizing contraband goods theywere again taken from them by main force. On the 2d of July aserious contest took place at Brinskham between the custom-houseofficers and a party of peasantry, in which the latter remainedmasters of eighteen wagons laden with English goods: many werewounded on both sides.
If, however, trade with England was carried onfreely along a vast extent of coast, it was different in the cityof Hamburg, where English goods were introduced only by fraud; andI verily believe that the art of smuggling and the schemes ofsmugglers were never before carried to such perfection. Above 6000persons of the lower orders went backwards and forwards, abouttwenty times a day, from Altona to Hamburg, and they carried ontheir contraband, trade by many ingenious stratagems, two of whichwere so curious that they are worth mentioning here.
On the left of the road leading from Hamburg toAltona there was a piece of ground where pits were dug for thepurpose of procuring sand used for building and for laying down inthe streets. At this time it was proposed to repair the greatstreet of Hamburg leading to the gate of Altona. The smugglersovernight filled the sandpit with brown sugar, and the little cartswhich usually conveyed the sand into Hamburg were filled with thesugar, care being taken to cover it with a layer of sand about aninch thick. This trick was carried on for a length of time, but noprogress was made in repairing the street. I complained greatly ofthe delay, even before I was aware of its cause, for the street ledto a country-house I had near Altona, whither I went daily. Theofficers of the customs at length perceived that the work did notproceed, and one fine morning the sugar-carts were stopped andseized. Another expedient was then to be devised.
Between Hamburg and Altona there was a little suburbsituated on the right bank of the Elbe. This suburb was inhabited,by sailors, labourers of the port, and landowners. The inhabitantswere interred in the cemetery of Hamburg. It was observed thatfuneral processions passed this way more frequently than usual. Thecustomhouse officers, amazed at the sudden mortality of the worthyinhabitants of the little suburb, insisted on searching one of thevehicles, and on opening the hearse it was found to be filled withsugar, coffee, vanilla, indigo, etc. It was necessary to abandonthis 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 manydespatches I received from headquarters during the campaign ofVienna directing me not only to watch the vigilant execution of thecustom-house laws, but to lay an embargo on a thing which alarmedhim more than the introduction of British merchandise, viz. thepublication of news. In conformity with these reiteratedinstructions I directed especial attention to the management of the'Correspondant'. The importance of this journal, with its 60, 000readers, may easily be perceived. I procured the insertion ofeverything I thought desirable: all the bulletins, proclamations,acts of the French Government, notes of the 'Moniteur', and thesemi-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 weightfrom its insertion in so widely circulated a paper. If by chancethere crept in some Austrian bulletin, extracted from the otherGerman papers published in the States of the Confederation of theRhine, there was always given with it a suitable antidote todestroy, or at least to mitigate, its ill effect. But this was notall. The King of Wurtemberg having reproached the 'Correspondant',in a letter to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, with publishingwhatever Austria wished should be made known, and being conductedin a spirit hostile to the good cause, I answered these unjustreproaches by making the Syndic censor prohibit the Hamburg papersfrom inserting any Austrian order of the day, any Archduke'sbulletins, any letter from Prague; in short, anything which shouldbe copied from the other German journals unless those articles hadbeen inserted in the French journals.
My recollections of the year 1809 at Hamburg carryme back to the celebration of Napoleon's fete, which was on the15th of August, for he had interpolated his patron saint in theImperial calendar at the date of his birth. The coincidence of thisfestival with the Assumption gave rise to adulatory rodomontades ofthe most absurd description. Certainly the Episcopal circularsunder the Empire would form a curious collection.
— [It will perhaps scarcely be believed thatthe following words were actually delivered from the pulpit: “Godin his mercy has chosen Napoleon to be his representative on earth.The Queen of Heaven has marked, by the most magnificent ofpresents, the anniversary of the day which witnessed his gloriousentrance into her domains. Heavenly Virgin! as a special testimonyof your love for the French, and your all-powerful influence withyour son, you have connected the first of your solemnities with thebirth of the great Napoleon. Heaven ordained that the hero shouldspring from your sepulchre. ”— Bourrienne. ] —
Could anything be more revolting than the sycophancyof those Churchmen who declared that “God chose Napoleon for hisrepresentative upon earth, and that God created Bonaparte, and thenrested; that he was more fortunate than Augustus, more virtuousthan Trajan; that he deserved altars and temples to be raised tohim! ” etc.
Some time after the Festival of St. Napoleon theKing of Westphalia made a journey through his States. Of allNapoleon's brothers the King of Westphalia was the one with whom Iwas least acquainted, and he, it is pretty well known, was the mostworthless of the family. His correspondence with me is limited totwo letters, one of which he wrote while he commanded the'Epervier', and another seven years after, dated 6th September1809. In this latter he said:
“I shall be in Hannover on the 10th. If you can makeit convenient to come there and spend a day with me it will give megreat pleasure. I shall then be able to smooth all obstacles to theloan I wish to contract in the Hanse Town. I flatter myself youwill do all in your power to forward that object, which at thepresent crisis is very important to my States. More than amplesecurity is offered, but