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Overview
One evening at the Tuileries Residence in Paris, Second Consul Jean-Jacques Cambacérès, a brilliant law scholar and close ally, listens as Napoleon struggles to determine what will be best for a country much weakened by ten years of wars and revolutions. Torn between his revolutionary ideals and his overwhelming longing for power, Napoleon Bonaparte declares that it can only be achieved by his taking the throne.
Bonaparte attempts to rally Cambacérès to his cause and maps out in great detail why France must become an empire, with him as its Emperor. The Republican hero desires only one thing: to forge his legend during his lifetime. France has arrived at a crossroads, and Bonaparte must break many barriers to fulfill his ambition. “An empire is a Republic that has been enthroned,” he declares. And so, through the night, French history is made. With historical erudition, d’Ormesson remarkably captures the man’s vertigo of triumph, which ultimately leads to his fall.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781628722970 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Arcade |
| Publication date: | 11/06/2013 |
| Sold by: | SIMON & SCHUSTER |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 128 |
| File size: | 463 KB |
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CHAPTER 1
The Conversation
(The action takes place in the Tuileries, where Bonaparte took up residence on the day after 18 Brumaire. Sometime around the beginning of the winter of 1803–1804, the First Consul was paid a visit by the Second Consul.)
Cambacérès
Citizen First Consul, I believe we have completed our business. With your permission I will now leave you, for I dine this evening with Talleyrand.
Bonaparte
At his home on the Rue du Bac? Or at the Hôtel Gallifet?
Cambacérès
Neither. At my home in the Hôtel Elbeuf.
Bonaparte
Are you comfortable there, at Elbeuf? I cannot help but notice that it is considerably smaller than the Hôtel Nouilles, where the Third Consul has taken up residence.
Cambacérès
You are well informed. Nouilles is located on Rue Saint-Honoré. Elbeuf faces the Carousel, or almost, and mere steps away from the Tuileries. Saints always find it to their advantage to be as close as possible to the object of their veneration.
Bonaparte
Saint you may be, though I've heard that one dines well in your company.
Cambacérès
I trust that isn't a reproach!
Bonaparte
Merely a statement of fact.
Cambacérès
You reassure me.
Bonaparte
A healthy appetite isn't your own only flaw, Citizen Second Consul. Merely the one that one can discuss with greatest ease.
Cambacérès
Good heavens, you do speak plainly! How are you going to keep your friends if you cannot focus on their good features? I have learned that the dinner table is the best place to influence men. Good politics go hand in hand with good food.
Bonaparte
At least in your case. I'm told that diplomatic pouches are being used not only for dispatches but for delicacies, often from enemy countries.
Cambacérès
I must say that nothing escapes those henchmen Fouché surrounds himself with.
Bonaparte
I have no need of Fouché to stay abreast of what goes on in Paris and in France. You would do well to consider that your partridges are roasted on one side and grilled on the other.
Cambacérès
What do you expect of me? You are the First Consul, I am but the Second. To each his strengths. You bring military victories. I serve memorable meals. A successful dinner party is my Marengo.
Bonaparte
Have you heard that phrase going around Paris? "If you want to eat badly, dine with Lebrun. If you want to eat well, choose Cambacérès."
Cambacérès "... and if you want to eat fast, dine with Bonaparte." Yes, I've heard it.
Bonaparte
That's quite true, I do eat quickly. When I win battles it is due to the legs of my soldiers. In politics, where one always has to prepare for an event by means of conversation, I tend to go straight to the point. As for dining, I eat little. My lunch is served at half past nine on a small mahogany server perched on a little pedestal encrusted with mother of pearl and covered with a napkin. This reminds me of the drum I use at war. The fare is quite simple: two fried eggs, a string-bean salad, two or three olives, and a wedge of parmesan soaked in Chambertin. I eat rapidly. When I'm alone, the meal lasts only a few minutes. I have other things to do and I hate wasting time.
Cambacérès
And you haven't. A junior lieutenant at sixteen, a lieutenant at twentytwo ...
Bonaparte
Six years to go from a junior to a full lieutenant. Yet my enemies accuse me of being a man in a hurry! Without Robespierre and the National Convention, without you, Cambacérès, and without those aligned with you, I would still be but a colonel in some obscure regiment. Perhaps that is where my impatience came into play.
Cambacérès
You caught up quickly: captain at twenty-three, commander at twenty-four, and general at twenty-five. First Consul of the Republic at thirty. The sun rises more slowly that you do. One would almost say you lacked for time.
Bonaparte
I always lack for time. Ah, Cambacérès! Where will we be in two years, in ten years, in twelve?
Cambacérès
You're young. I'm growing old. I'm a year older than Talleyrand, six older than Fouché, and sixteen older than you. I have just turned fifty. Like many of those around you — Junot, Duroc, Lannes, who would all die gladly for you — I have more than respect for who you are and something more than admiration for your genius. Something that perhaps resembles love.
Bonaparte
Love!
Cambacérès
Veneration, at least. I am your Second Consul. I have no ambition other than to spend what time I have left as your second-in-command. (He gets up.) I've said too much. I should leave you. Permit me the honor of offering you my farewell.
Bonaparte
Remain with me a little while longer, Citizen Second Consul. I am not against speaking a little more openly with you, and no, not about delicacies such as foie gras, mauviettes de Pithiviers, and pâté de Toulouse.
Cambacérès
With great pleasure. My time is yours. What is on your mind?
Bonaparte
I would like to get your views, my dear colleague, on my current position.
Cambacérès
To be honest, Citizen First Consul, you have no reason to be concerned. Fouché, who by dint of his surveillance efforts knows not only everything about me but about all of our fellow citizens, must have informed you before you escaped his clutches. France adores you. The glory brought by the wars in Italy and Egypt have thrilled them and the Peace of Amiens has reassured them. For the first time in years, a sliver of happiness and hope has supplanted anguish. And those outside our borders bend our way — and fear you.
Bonaparte
Yes, yes, I know all this. The French love panache and have rediscovered a little of their merriment and carefree cheer. They have shown their devotion to me. And foreigners do treat me well. Yet to them nothing about our government seems stable. No one seems to know where they stand with France. I will tell you something. Nor do I.
Cambacérès
I'm not accustomed to hearing you sound so uncertain.
Bonaparte
It is the nations around us that feel uncertain. They are hesitating about allying themselves more closely with me. I sense their reticence. They don't know what dance-step to take with our odd form of governance.
Cambacérès
Truly?
Bonaparte
Truly. The ambiguities of the Consulate give them pause.
Cambacérès
Nonetheless they have no choice but to attest to the order and security that now reign in our country. How different from how things were four years ago, on the eve of Eighteen Brumaire!
Bonaparte
It was anarchy. Twenty-thousand criminals immersed Paris in fire and blood. And forty thousand Royalist Chouans were in control of the country in the West and intercepting communications between Paris and the sea.
Cambacérès
Admiral Bruix told me at the time that it took him a month to reach Brest to take up his command.
Bonaparte
In thirty of the country's departments, the Chouannerie was little more than a pretext for thievery. The right bank of the Garonne, Provence, the Languedoc, and the entire Rhone Valley was in the hands of highwaymen. Coaches were attacked, couriers robbed, homes looted. Pillagers were putting peasants' feet on red-hot grills to make them tell them where their money was stashed.
Cambacérès
I know several merchants, even two representatives on official business, who bought passports from these bands just to ensure safe passage from Paris to Marseille or to Aix-en Provence. No one went anywhere without an armed escort.
Bonaparte
The roads were impassable, public buildings were in shambles. It took Marseilles a full year to do the business it used to do in six months, and its old port was a wreck. In Lyon, there were fifteen-hundred boats instead of the normal eight thousand. In Paris, workshops hired a fraction as many workers as in 1789. It is indisputable that because of me, the present is better than the past. The future is what preoccupies me now.
Cambacérès
You have secured the future because you have done away with the past.
Bonaparte
Do not deceive yourself. I am at one with all of France's past, from Clovis to this National Convention — of which you were also a part, my dear Cambacérès — and several times have I saved it from foreign threat. I have fought against, and beaten, violence, hatred, excesses, divisions, factions. No more factions. I want them gone.
Cambacérès
You have planted the colors, starting the day after Eighteen Brumaire and right up to your arrival here in the Tuileries. You have put your wife in Marie-Antoinette's bedroom, and you have taken as your bedroom that of Louis the Sixteenth. Yet I understand that you find this a somewhat sad place.
Bonaparte
Grandeur is always sad.
Cambacérès
You found its walls covered in revolutionary graffiti and festooned in decorations dominated by the red cap. You called it "filth" and ordered that it be removed.
Bonaparte
Enough of the red heel and the red cap! Enough of Jacobins and the Royalists. I recognize no more parties and I see in France only the French. I have had enough of people taking sides. I am on the side of the French people, and I leave nothing to chance — neither the great issues nor the smallest details. I have taken the place of the Bourbons and now embody a sovereign people. I restore order to things, but I do not restore them for others. I restore them for myself. You remember, Cambacérès, the Constitution that Sieyès wanted to fob off on us after Eighteen Brumaire?
Cambacérès
Very clearly. At the top of the hierarchy would be the Grand Elector, a king without royal command, installed in Versailles, who would choose two consuls, one to manage exterior matters — the army, the navy, the colonies, war. The other would manage interior matters, meaning the police, justice, finance. Below them were the ministers, the procurators of public service. At their side was a College of Conservators, who would have designated a tribunal, charged with debating matters of law, as well as a legislative body that would have voted upon them.
Bonaparte
Perhaps you also remember that you were in favor of all that metaphysical nonsense.
Cambacérès
In favor? Permit me to say that that's simplifying it a little. I didn't hesitate to abandon the spirit of the assembly for the spirit of government and choose you over that metaphysical nonsense, as you put it.
Bonaparte
As for me, I would have rather have been up to my knees in blood than see all that become reality. When Sieyès proposed that I move into Versailles and assume the ridiculous title of Grand Elector, which translated as "weak-kneed king," I replied, "How is it, Citizen Sieyès, that you believe that a man of honor would agree to be a pig in the manure inside Versailles?"
Cambacérès
That shook everyone up. You rid yourself of Sieyès and of Barras, who seemed all-powerful, and you recruited me, who gave myself to you.
Bonaparte
I like you, Cambacérès. That's the reason you are Second Consul. You are wise, pragmatic, and prudent. Perhaps too pragmatic and too prudent. Above all you are an excellent administrator. Military men are excellent at slashing and burning. Administrators determine the success of an enterprise.
Cambacérès
I owe you everything. I serve you scrupulously and loyally.
Bonaparte
You have never disappointed me. So now I will match your loyalty and speak to you with an open heart. In addition to your appetite for food, you have another small fault that would cost you more with someone other than me.
Cambacérès
Another small fault?
Bonaparte
Don't play dumb, Cambacérès. Not only are you not married ...
Cambacérès
You would wish that I were?
Bonaparte
If it meant being marrying some silly goose like that imbecile Talleyrand has done, assuredly not. But let us look straight at the matter: you don't like women. The other day when you arrived late to the Counsel of State and kept me waiting, you offered the excuse that a woman had made you late. I put you on notice. "Next time, you will tell this woman to take her cane and hat and be gone."
Cambacérès
Citizen First Consul, no scandal has ever besmirched my private life, and public order was never disturbed on my account. I have never compromised my dignity and most certainly not yours.
Bonaparte
That is not important. You have been cautious. Your prudence has nonetheless not prevented Talleyrand from grouping all of us consuls in a formula which he amuses Paris by calling, "Hic, Haec, Hoc."
Cambacérès
Monsieur de Talleyrand is perhaps recalling his Church Latin.
Bonaparte
Hic is the masculine demonstrative and has a certain emphasis. That's me. Haec, the feminine demonstrative, is vaguely pejorative in tone. That's you. Hoc, the neutral demonstrative, which is completely insulting, is poor Lebrun. I say this in the spirit of friendship, Cambacérès. Don't be too Haec.
Cambacérès
General, I will speak with the same frankness with which you are showing me. When I was young I visited the girls just as all the boys did, but I took no great pleasure there and never stayed for long. As soon as I was finished, I said, "Adieu, messieurs!" and left.
Bonaparte
My dear friend, I have as much reason to be cautious about women as you do, and neither Madame de Staël nor Madame Récamier will change my mind about them. But I wish for you to avoid being called "Tante Turlurette" by street urchins.
Cambacérès
"Tante Turlurette!" Is that what you think?
Bonaparte
Well, what do you expect? You run the risk. It's all the more vexing because as regards the territories, the Concordat, the Code civil, and the Légion d'honneur, you have been extremely useful to me.
Cambacérès
If I have served you well, I have fulfilled my destiny.
Bonaparte
Almost nothing was left after twenty years of mediocrity and ten years of disorder. I want to create great things, things that will endure. I dreamed of a republican knighthood, to recognize exactly the kind of distinction treated disdainfully by the monarchy and dragged through the mud by the Jacobins. That is why I instituted the Légion d'honneur. I wanted a body of laws worthy of Moses, of Solomon, and of Justinian. That is why I imposed the Civil Code, drafted, thanks to you, in a style capable of making poets and novelists pale with envy.
Cambacérès
How impatient you were during those interminable debates — on marriage, divorce, succession, natural children, capital punishment. You always wanted to move more quickly. I was always keen for your sake to find the simplest, most brief, and clearest formulation: "All those condemned to death will have their head removed ..."
Bonaparte
Setting up the Concordat was your finest moment. The role of the Church is a matter of great national importance. You know well, Cambacérès, that for me the religion is not about the mystery of incarnation but a means to social order. No society can function without morality, and there is no morality without religion. Only religion can give the state strong and lasting support. A society without religion is like a ship without a compass. I was a Mohamedan in Egypt and I would be a Buddhist in India. I am a Catholic here because most here are Catholics. I place no faith in metaphysical nonsense, and thumb my nose at holy men, dervishes, and fakirs. Aside from Talleyrand, who is different and who keeps the future in mind, I have never used bishops in my governments. Priests are as chatty as women: no state secret is safe under their robes. Yet religion is still as necessary to the state as are police and the army. Bells and the cannons are the two great voices of men, competing with thunder, that great voice of nature. I made the cannons speak in Egypt, and in Italy I mourned the silence of the bells in our campaigns. Hence I signed the Concordat. I reopened the churches.
Cambacérès
What caused me most concern was that great ceremonial cross which the pope's nuncio, Cardinal Caprara, never parts with. A cardinal and his cross in the streets of Paris in Year IX of the Republic! We had to hide one from the other at the back of a coach.
Bonaparte
My dear Cambacérès, I could say of you what Voltaire and Robespierre said of the Supreme Being: if you didn't exist it would be necessary to invent you. The Te Deum at Notre Dame on Easter Sunday did not come out of nowhere. The Jacobins were furious. Even the Army balked.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Coversation"
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Copyright © 2013 Jean D'Ormesson.
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