He began asking me about my family, the allowance my father gave me, if I ran into debt, drank, played, etc.
He asked me if I had been in Spain, and if I was not imprisoned by the Inquisition. I told him that I had seen the abolition of the Inquisition voted, and of the injudicious manner in which it was done.
He mentioned Infantado, and said, "II n"a point de caractere."
Ferdinand he said was in the hands of the priests--afterwards he said, "Italy is a fine country; Spain too is a fine country--Andalusia and Seville particularly."
_F. R._ Yes, but uncultivated.
_N._ Agriculture is neglected because the land is in the hands of the Church.
_F. R._ And of the Grandees.
_N._ Yes, who have privileges contrary to the public prosperity.
_F. R._ Yet it would be difficult to remedy the evil.
_N._ It might be remedied by dividing property and abolishing hurtful privileges, as was done in France.
_F. R._ Yes, but the people must be industrious--even if the land was given to the people in Spain, they would not make use of it.
_N._ Ils succomberaient.
_F. R._ Yes, Sire.
He asked many questions about the Cortes, and when I told him that many of them made good speeches on abstract questions, but that they failed when any practical debate on finance or war took place, he said, "Oui, faute de l"habitude de gouverner." He asked if I had been at Cadiz at the time of the siege, and said the French failed there.
_F. R._ Cadiz must be very strong.
_N._ It is not Cadiz that is strong, it is the Isle of Leon--if we could have taken the Isle of Leon, we should have bombarded Cadiz, and we did partly, as it was.
_F. R._ Yet the Isle of Leon had been fortified with great care by General Graham.
_N._ Ha--it was he who fought a very brilliant action at Barrosa.
He wondered our officers should go into the Spanish and Portuguese service. I said our Government had sent them with a view of instructing their armies; he said that did well with the Portuguese, but the Spaniards would not submit to it. He was anxious to know if we supported South America, "for," he said, "you already are not well with the King of Spain."
Speaking of Lord Wellington, he said he had heard he was a large, strong man, _grand cha.s.seur_, and asked if he liked Paris. I said I should think not, and mentioned Lord Wellington having said that he should find himself much at a loss what to do in peace time, and I thought scarcely liked anything but war.
_N._ La guerre est un grand jeu, une belle occupation.
He wondered the English should have sent him to Paris--"On n"aime pas l"homme par qui on a ete battu. Je n"ai jamais envoye a Vienne un homme qui a a.s.siste a la prise de Vienne." He asked who was our Minister (Lord Burghersh) at Florence, and whether he was _honnete homme_, "for," he said, "you have two kinds of men in England, one of _intrigans_, the other of _hommes tres honnetes_."
Some time afterwards he said, "Dites moi franchement, votre Ministre a Florence est il un homme a se fier?"
He had seen something in the papers about sending him (Napoleon) to St. Helena, and he probably expected Lord Burghersh to kidnap him--he inquired also about his family and if it was one of consequence.
His great anxiety at present seems to be on the subject of France.
He inquired if I had seen at Florence many Englishmen who came from there, and when I mentioned Lord Holland, he asked if he thought things went well with the Bourbons, and when I answered in the negative he seemed delighted, and asked if Lord Holland thought they would be able to stay there. I said I really could not give an answer. He said he had heard that the King of France had taken no notice of those Englishmen who had treated him well in England--particularly Lord Buckingham; he said that was very wrong, for it showed a want of grat.i.tude. I told him I supposed the Bourbons were afraid to be thought to depend upon the English.
"No," he said, "the English in general are very well received." He asked sneeringly if the Army was much attached to the Bourbons.
Talking of the Congress, he said, "There will be no war; the Powers will disagree, but they will not go to war"--he said the Austrians, he heard, were already much disliked in Italy and even at Florence.
_F. R._ It is very odd, the Austrian government is hated wherever it has been established.
_N._ It is because they do everything with the baton--the Italians all hate to be given over to them.
_F. R._ But the Italians will never do anything for themselves--they are not united.
_N._ True.
Besides this he talked about the robbers between Rome and Florence, and when I said they had increased, he said, "Oh! to be sure; I always had them taken by the _gendarmerie_."
_F. R._ It is very odd that in England, where we execute so many, we do not prevent crimes.
_N._ It is because you have not a _gendarmerie_.
He inquired very particularly about the forms of the Viceregal Court in Ireland, the _Dames d"honneur_, pages, etc.; in some things he was strangely ignorant, as, for instance, asking if my father was a peer of Parliament.
He asked many questions three times over.
He spoke of the Regent"s conduct to the Princess as very impolitic, as it shocked the _bienseances_, by which his father had become so popular.
He said our war with America was a _guerre de vengeance_, for that the frontier could not possibly be of any importance.
He said, "You English ought to be very well satisfied with the end of the war."
_F. R._ Yes, but we were nearly ruined in the course of it.
_N._ Ha! le systeme continental, ha--and then he laughed very much.
He asked who was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland at present, but made no remark on my answer.
I asked him if he understood English; he said that at Paris he had had plenty of interpreters, but that he now began to read it a little.
Many English went to Elba about this time; the substance of their conversations is still in my recollection--April 2, 1815. He said that he considered the great superiority of England to France lay in her aristocracy, that the people were not better, but that the Parliament was composed of all the men of property and all the men of family in the country; this enabled the Government to resist the shock which the failure of the Duke of York"s expedition was liable to cause--in France it would have destroyed the Government. (This is an opinion rather tinged by the Revolution, but it is true that our House of Commons looks to final results.) They were strong, he said, by "les souvenirs attachants a l"histoire"; that on the contrary he could make eighty senates in France as good as the present; that he had intended to create a n.o.bility by marrying his generals, whom he accounted as quite insignificant, notwithstanding the t.i.tles he had given them, to the offspring of the old n.o.bility of France. He had reserved a fund from the contribution which he levied when he made treaties with Austria, Prussia, etc., in order to found these new families. "Did you get anything from Russia?"
_N._ No, I never asked anything from her but to shut her ports against England.
He wished, he said, to favour the re-establishment of the old families, but every time he touched that chord an alarm was raised, and the people trembled as a horse does when he is checked.
He told the story of the poisoning, and said there was some truth in it--he had wished to give opium to two soldiers who had got the plague and could not be carried away, rather than leave them to be murdered by the Turks, but the physician would not consent. He said that after talking the subject over very often he had changed his mind on the morality of the measure. He owned to shooting the Turks, and said they had broken their capitulation. He found great fault with the French Admiral who fought the battle of the Nile, and pointed out what he ought to have done, but he found most fault with the Admiral who fought--R. Calder--for not disabling his fleet, and said that if he could have got the Channel clear then, or at any other time, he would have invaded England.
He said the Emperor of Russia was clever and had "idees liberales,"
but was a veritable Grec. At Tilsit, the Emperor of Russia, King of Prussia, and N. used to dine together. They separated early--the King of Prussia went to bed, and the two Emperors met at each other"s quarters and talked, often on abstract subjects, till late in the night. The King of Prussia a mere corporal, and the Emperor of Austria very prejudiced--"d"ailleurs honnete homme."
Berthier quite a pen-and-ink man--but "bon diable qui servit le premier, a me temoigner ses regrets, les larmes aux yeux."
Metternich a man of the world, "courtisan des femmes," but too false to be a good statesman-"car en politique il ne faut pas etre _trop_ menteur."