CHAPTER XXXIV.

1805

Difficulties of my situation at Hamburg--Toil and responsibility--

Supervision of the emigrants--Foreign Ministers--Journals--Packet

from Strasburg--Bonaparte fond of narrating Giulio, an extempore

recitation of a story composed by the Emperor.

The brief detail I have given in the two or three preceding chapters

of the events which occurred previously to and during the campaign of

Austerlitz, with the letters of Duroc and Bernadotte, may afford the

reader some idea of my situation during the early part of my residence

in Hamburg. Events succeeded each other with such incredible rapidity

as to render my labour excessive. My occupations were different, but

not less laborious, than those which I formerly performed when near the

Emperor; and, besides, I was now loaded with a responsibility which did

not attach to me as the private secretary of General Bonaparte and the

First Consul. I had, in fact, to maintain a constant watch over the

emigrants in Altona, which was no easy matter--to correspond daily with

the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Police--to confer

with the foreign Ministers accredited at Hamburg--to maintain active

relations with the commanders of the French army--to interrogate my

secret agents, and keep a strict surveillance over their proceedings;

it was, besides, necessary to be unceasingly on the watch for scurrilous

articles against Napoleon in the Hamburg 'Corespondent'. I shall

frequently have occasion to speak of all these things, and especially

of the most marked emigrants, in a manner less irregular, because what I

have hitherto said may, in some sort, be considered merely as a summary

of all the facts relating to the occurrences which daily passed before

my eyes.

In the midst of these multifarious and weighty occupations I received a

packet with the Strasburg postmark at the time the Empress was in that

city. This packet had not the usual form of a diplomatic despatch,

and the superscription announced that it came from the residence of

Josephine. My readers, I venture to presume, will not experience less

gratification than I did on a perusal of its contents, which will be

found at the end of this chapter; but before satisfying the curiosity

to which I have perhaps given birth, I may here relate that one of the

peculiarities of Bonaparte was a fondness of extempore narration; and

it appears he had not discontinued the practice even after he became

Emperor.

In fact, Bonaparte, during the first year after his elevation to the

Imperial throne, usually passed those evenings in the apartments of the

Empress which he could steal from public business. Throwing himself on a

sofa, he would remain absorbed in gloomy silence, which no one dared to

interrupt. Sometimes, however, on the contrary, he would give the reins

to his vivid imagination and his love of the marvelous, or, to speak

more correctly, his desire to produce effect, which was perhaps one of

his strongest passions, and would relate little romances, which were

always of a fearful description and in unison with the natural turn

of his ideas. During those recitals the ladies-in-waiting were always

present, to one of whom I am indebted for the following story, which she

had written nearly in the words of Napoleon. "Never," said this lady in

her letter to me, "did the Emperor appear more extraordinary. Led away

by the subject, he paced the salon with hasty strides; the intonations

of his voice varied according to the characters of the personages he

brought on the scene; he seemed to multiply himself in order to play

the different parts, and no person needed to feign the terror which he

really inspired, and which he loved to see depicted in the countenances

of those who surrounded him." In this tale I have made no alterations,

as can be attested by those who, to my knowledge, have a copy of it. It

is curious to compare the impassioned portions of it with the style of

Napoleon in some of the letters addressed to Josephine.