terwards became. It was nothing new for Savary to despise the opinion of courtiers, and to rely on the Emperor's justice. Though he might at times be angry with the friends who spoke without disguise, he invariably returned to them with increased esteem and confidence. The explanation Savary had to make was well and calmly received. He shrugged up his shoulders in sheer pity at Dupont's conduct, making a sign of the cross at the same time, which was a sure indication of the contempt he felt for any one—“Let us rather suppose," said he, "his was an act of pure stupidity, otherwise no punishment would be too severe for his deserts; but as I will not permit any cowards to be about my person, I have directed that he should be required to give in his resignation."

The presence of the grand army was still demanded in Prussia-the contributions imposed were not yet paid. "If I can leave the army, said Napoleon, in Prussia, I shall have no war there; but if I withdraw it, must I have war? Now is the time to try the stability of the Treaty of Tilsit. If I can withdraw the army from Germany, I shall soon settle Spain." The meeting with the Emperor of Russia at Erfurt was, in consequence of these embarrassments, determined upon, which took place in October, and of which Savary, who was present, gives a very minute account. "But how this meeting," says he," came not to be followed by a lasting peace, I am quite unable to explain; there must," he thinks, "have been great duplicity, bad faith, want of courage, or voluntary ignorance, at least, in the cabinets; or, after so many interviews, and so many thousand opportunities for explanation, mankind would not have been visited by new calamities, for the sake of gratifying the self-love of some and the avidity of others. These are melancholy reflections; and it can no longer be said, that if justice and probity were banished from among men, they would find refuge in the hearts of kings." Stuff! "Which of the two sovereigns failed in his engagements, we may judge," says he, " by the event which ensued, and which would not otherwise have occurred-the war of Austria." While at Erfurt, Napoleon offered Savary the embassy to St. Petersburgh; and when he pleaded some inadequate excuses-"I perceive," replied the Emperor, "you are rather hurt at not having been the first ambassador appointed after the Peace of Tilsit." "Rather so," I good-humouredly replied, "although I actually exerted my endeavours to be recalled from St. Petersburgh. I felt anxious to know upon what footing I was to consider myself, and the appointment of M. de Caulaincourt was the only reply I received," &c. On presenting himself to Alexander, when quitting Erfurt, and recommending himself to his favour, the Emperor said "Where I have once bestowed my esteem, I never alter." "In the days of adversity," adds Savary, "I relied upon this assurance, and had cause to repent it."

Returning to Paris, Napoleon, after opening the session of the legislative body, lost not a moment in flying to Spain, accompanied still by Savary. Early in December, the French troops re-entered Madrid; but the Emperor went to Chamartin, where he was engaged in organizing a new administration, till the end of the month, when intelligence was brought of the English forces, under Moore, being at Salamanca; and he immediately commenced the pursuit. At Benavente he was overtaken by a courier; and upon reading the letters, proceeded at a moderate pace, very thoughtful, to Astorga, where he expressed his intention to commit the army to Soult, and return to Paris. The despatches he had received announced the unusual preparations of Austria. He still clung to the Emperor of Russia's adherence.

Savary again accompanied the Emperor to this new war, and was actively engaged throughout the campaign. Speaking of Ebersberg, which was burnt to ashes, and where all the wounded had been burned to death, and describing the wretched appearance of the place, he adds,—

"Can any thing be more dreadful than the sight of men, first burned to death, then trodden under the horses' feet, and crushed to atoms by the wheels of the guncarriages. The only outlet from the town by the gate where General Cohorn had lost so many men, was by walking through a heap of baked human flesh, which produced an insufferable stench. The evil was so great, that it became necessary

to procure spades, such as are used for clearing the mud from public roads, in order to remove and bury this fœtid mass.

"The Emperor came to see this horrid sight, and said to us, as he went over it, "It were well if all promoters of wars could behold such an appalling picture; they would then discover how many evils humanity has to suffer from their projects."""

Savary particularizes the events of this perilous campaign; but as nothing distinguishes him, and space presses, these must be omitted in our hasty sketch. The Emperor's activity was never more conspicuous. After the battle of Essling, speaking to Savary of Russia, he said—

"It was fortunate for me that I placed no dependence upon such allies. Could worse have happened to me had I not made peace with the Russians? What advantage do I derive from their alliance, if they are not in a condition to guarantee to me the permanence of peace in Germany? It is much more likely that they would have turned against me, had not some regard for character restrained them from so soon breaking their plighted faith. I must not give way to a vain illusion. They have all sworn my ruin, but have not the courage to compass it."

We have now arrived at the term of Savary's military career. In June 1810, he succeeded Fouché as Minister of Police. Ouvrard had excited some suspicions; and the Emperor, distrusting Fouché, commanded Savary to arrest Ouvrard. This he dexterously accomplished. "I had never before," he observes, "been intrusted with such commissions, and it never happened again; or to speak more plainly, during a period of sixteen years, he only availed himself twice of my services on similar missions, although it was imagined that I was daily employed upon them." A few days after Ouvrard's arrest, the Emperor asked Savary if he had courage to undertake the duties of Minister of Police; to which he replied, he had resolution enough to devote his life to his service, but that such a business was quite foreign to his pursuits. Every thing is to be learnt in time, was the answer. Fouché was left in possession of the apartments full three weeks, during which he destroyed papers of all sorts, and left Savary in utter ignorance of every thing, and even of the names of the agents. The whole process of action was obliged to be worked out anew; and only by trick and subtilty, to which it must be allowed he showed a singular aptitude, could Savary discover the established sources of intelligence. The Emperor gave him some personal instructions-delivered to him, in short, the principles of his administration, which are worthy special note.

Savary seems to have quickly completed his official arrangements. He had his agents in every class and coterie of society-to the very labourers and artizans; and spread his nets over the provinces, in the large and small towns, and even in foreign countries. His labours were not, however, always exerted for mischief or politics; he had a scheme for registering servants, finding robberies were chiefly committed by this class-but it was defeated by the indolence of their employers; and many of his suggestions, for similar purposes, were rejected by the Council of State, who seem to have thought him too busy. The existing system of gensdarmerie is the fruit of his arrangements. Very early in his ministry, he was called upon to report on the state prisoners. Under this term of state prisoners were classed all those who were confined on the urgency of families to escape public disgrace, precisely on the principle of the old lettres de cachet. Another set consisted of such as had been brought before the Courts, but who, though implicated, could not be legally convicted-" accomplices," Savary says, "of certain predatory bands, plunderers of public chests and public conveyances, assuming, perhaps, the name of Royalists, or the acknowledged leaders of bad characters in a district." These detentions were grounded on the necessity of maintaining order and public tranquillity, but never on arbitrary grounds. A third class were detained for political crimes. This was supposed to be very numerous, but Savary says it did not exceed forty for the whole population of France, Belgium, Piedmont, Tuscany, and the Roman States. Among state prisoners also were included persons arrested in consequence of the civil war, and ringleaders in perilous enterprises, the greater part of whom, if brought before the tribunals, would have been assuredly condemn

ed; but Napoleon opposed," because time allayed all ferments, and would bring them to their senses.' Among them, too, were some whose sentence of death had been commuted for imprisonment; some too, curiously enough, who had been arrested for attempting, under the cloak of their spiritual profession, to sow disunion in families; some who had availed themselves of the confessional, to persuade young and weak women to separate from their husbands, on the ground of their having served the State, or purchased national domains; some who had refused to christen children born of marriages contracted during the Revolution; and others who had been guilty of seductions among their youthful catechists. These were not brought to trial, out of regard to public decency, and respect for the clergy. Altogether, these different classes of state prisoners, however, amounted to not more than between six and seven hundred, including some foreigners, Spaniards, who had sworn allegiance to Joseph, and betrayed him. A commission was appointed to visit all these persons; and on the report being read to the Privy Council, the Emperor in person took the opinions of all present, as to their discharge or retention.

Savary also gives an account of some ladies, who were said to have been exiled. Madame de Stael was not banished, he says, but was only ordered to a distance from the capital, in consequence of an intrigue, in which some rivals had involved her.

Madame Recamier, again, was not banished. Her husband's unsuccessful speculations compelled the family to retire to the country, and she chose to pass herself off as the victim of tyranny. The Emperor had given orders that, if she returned, she should no longer be allowed to collect about her a circle of discontented people; " and I owe it to candour," observes Savary, "to acknowledge, that I wrote to her to desire she would dismiss from her mind all thoughts of coming to Paris for the present;" and then adds a hint that he had done her a kindness, for she was contemplating a something, for which he appeals to her own consciousness, which would have involved her in trouble. Savary boasts of his influence among literary men-Esmenard, Chateaubriand, Etienne, Jay, Michaud, Tissot-some of whom he made academicians. But interesting as is the whole of his account of the police, from the singular naïveté especially with which he details the artifices employed -never glancing at its incompatibility with the principles of civil libertywe must quit the subject, to trace slightly the subsequent career of this very prominent person.*

So inefficient were Savary's efforts to serve the Emperor in his extremity, that it would answer no purpose to trace them-it must suffice to observe, that he was not allowed to take leave of him at Fontainbleau. From Orleans, whither he had accompanied the Empress and Joseph, he returned to Paris, and through Czernicheff solicited Alexander's protection, who commanded him not to stir from Paris. He was thus a prisoner, though with all Paris for his prison. Receiving afterwards an order to quit the capital, he withdrew to his estate, and busied himself in agricultural pursuits. His potatoes failed, and he sent for a considerable supply from Paris, which drew on him a visit from the police, and a charge, he says, of buying up provisions for starving the city of Paris. Soon after this visitation, a communication was made to him of a plot to assassinate him, and he returned to Paris to baffle the conspirators. There he discovered indications of the impending revolution, but its ramifications he learnt only after the return from Elba. He was himself altogether a stranger to it.

The very day of the Emperor's return, while he was at dinner, upon some communication being made, he asked for the Minister of Police; and some hesitation ensuing, he called out for Savary by name. He was at hand, and took his directions-every body expecting, of course, his appointment was fixed. An interview followed, in which Savary resolutely refused the office;

* "Once in a letter," observes Savary," the Emperor said, there were two arbitrary powers in France over and above what there ought to be-HIS OWN POWER AND MINE."

which seems to have relieved the Emperor, who told him, he must then take charge of the gensdarmerie, for he was compelled to give the portfolio of the police to Fouché, "against whom," said he, "you have always proved my best safeguard." Savary assures us, that the Emperor publicly declared he was indebted to no one for his return-he had no other party in France than the Moniteur, which had warned him of the moment at which it behoved him to quit the island of Elba-alluding, probably, to the reports of the intention to carry him off from the island to St. Helena, which he was resolved to baffle.

Savary was not with the army at Waterloo; but he was one of those who faithfully adhered to the Emperor, and proposed to accompany him wherever his destinies led him. He went with him on board the Bellerophon; but was compelled to separate, when removed to the Northumberland. Lallemand and himself were conducted to Malta, where, without any decent pretence, they were thrown into prison, and confined till the following Spring, and then turned adrift, to shift for themselves. They embarked in a vessel which was to touch at Smyrna and Constantinople. At Smyrna Savary met with an acquaintance, who introduced him to an Englishman of Liverpool; and when the Englishman left, he was received by a French family, who kept him concealed for six months. Lallemand went to America. Savary continued at Smyrna about a twelvemonth, till he learned from the papers he had been sentenced to death par contumace, and letters arrived urging him to fly. He threw himself, accordingly, into the first vessel that sailed, and was landed at Trieste, where he was instantly seized, and carried to Gratz, and, to his surprise, there set at liberty. By great good luck, the Emperor of Austria, with Metternich was passing through Gratz. With Metternich he obtained an audience, who expressed his regret at the privations he had suffered, and engaged to procure him permission to withdraw to Smyrna again. This permission was finally granted by Richelieu. He was visited by his wife and eldest daughter, and being furnished by her with money, he returned to Smyrna, from which, in April 1819, he found himself again compelled to remove by the vexatious interference of the French Ambassador at Constantinople. Harassed in this way, he finally took the resolution to face the danger, return to Paris, and demand a trial. He was accordingly brought before a court martial, acquitted, and suffered to go at large, and live where he pleased.

Such has been the career of Savary, a very distinguished person in a very eventful period. He was closely in contact with Napoleon, and had opportunities, perhaps, beyond any other man, of observing and estimating the chief agents of his government. He has liberally poured forth his observations and complaints, and scrupled little at expressing his judgments; furnishing thus a profusion of materials for the speculator and historian. But no book that ever was published required a more vigilant eye. Between the statements of facts and the deductions of reasoning, the reader will readily distinguish. He may as readily guard against taking without examination estimates of character; for such estimates depend for their value upon the individual who makes them, who may be incompetent, or malicious, or prejudiced; but in the details of facts he can less secure himself from delusion, for he cannot always supply omissions, nor always measure exaggerations; and Savary certainly leaves an impression upon us, that in matters which concern himself, and the Emperor especially, he is often making a colourable story, and seldom leaves a plain tale to work its own effects. But reason enough though there be to question closely, enough remains, and to a great extent, to make these memoirs indispensable for completing a full and faithful measure of the great agents of Napoleon's power, and through them of Napoleon himself-a man whose energies and faculties were developed beyond those of any other on record, and who has yet to be judged-free from prejudice and passion,-and weighed in the scales of equity and sound

reason.

INDEX

TO THE

TWENTY-THIRD VOLUME.