I recollect that immediately after the creation of the Legion of Honour, it being summer, the young men of Paris indulged in the whim of wearing a carnation in a button-hole, which at a distance had rather a deceptive effect. Bonaparte took this very seriously. He sent for Fouche, and desired him to arrest those who presumed thus to turn the new order into ridicule. Fouche merely replied that he would wait till the autumn; and the First Consul understood that trifles were often rendered matters of importance by being honoured with too much attention.
But though Bonaparte was piqued at the interest excited by the engravings of Madame de Genlis' romance he manifested no displeasure against that celebrated woman, who had been recommended to him by MM. de Fontanes and Fievee and who addressed several letters to him. As this sort of correspondence did not come within the routine of my business I did not see the letters; but I heard from Madame Bonaparte that they contained a prodigious number of proper names, and I have reason to believe that they contributed not a little to magnify, in the eyes of the First Consul, the importance of the Faubourg St. Germain, which, in spite of all his courage, was a scarecrow to him.
Bonaparte regarded the Faubourg St. Germain as representing the whole mass of Royalist opinion; and he saw clearly that the numerous erasures from the emigrant list had necessarily increased dissatisfaction among the Royalists, since the property of the emigrants had not been restored to its old possessors, even in those cases in which it had not been sold.
It was the fashion in a certain class to ridicule the unpolished manners of the great men of the Republic compared with the manners of the nobility of the old Court. The wives of certain generals had several times committed themselves by their awkwardness. In many circles there was an affectation of treating with contempt what are called the parvenus; those people who, to use M. de Talleyrand's expression, do not know how to walk upon a carpet. All this gave rise to complaints against the Faubourg St. Germain; while, on the other hand, Bonaparte's brothers spared no endeavours to irritate him against everything that was calculated to revive the recollection of the Bourbons.
Such were Bonaparte's feelings, and such was the state of society during the year 1802. The fear of the Bourbons must indeed have had a powerful influence on the First Consul before he could have been induced to take a step which may justly be regarded as the most inconsiderate of his whole life. After suffering seven months to elapse without answering the first letter of Louis XVIII., after at length answering his second letter in the tone of a King addressing a subject, he went so far as to write to Louis, proposing that he should renounce the throne of his ancestors in his, Bonaparte's, favour, and offering him as a reward for this renunciation a principality in Italy, or a considerable revenue for himself and his family.
--[Napoleon seems to have always known, as with Cromwell and the Stuarts, that if his dynasty failed the Bourbons must succeed him.
"I remember," says Metternich, "Napoleon said to me, 'Do you know why Louis XVIII. is not now sitting opposite to you? It is only because it is I who am sitting here. No other person could maintain his position; and if ever I disappear in consequence of a catastrophe no one but a Bourbon could sit here.'" (Metternich, tome i. p. 248). Farther, he said to Metternich, "The King overthrown, the Republic was master of the soil of France. It is that which I have replaced. The old throne of France is buried under its rubbish. I had to found a new one. The Bourbons could not reign over this creation. My strength lies in my fortune. I am new, like the Empire; there is, therefore, a perfect homogeneity between the Empire and myself."--"However," says Metternich, "I have often thought that Napoleon, by talking in this way, merely sought to study the opinion of others, or to confuse it, and the direct advance which he made to Louis XVIII., in 1804 seemed to confirm this suspicion. Speaking to me one day of this advance he said, 'Monsieur's reply was grand; it was full of fine traditions. There is something in legitimate rights which appeals to more than the mere mind. If Monsieur had consulted his mind only he would have arranged with me, and I should have made for him a magnificent future'" (Metternich, tome i, p. 276). According to Iung's Lucien (tome ii. p. 421), the letter written and signed by Napoleon, but never sent, another draft being substituted, is still in the French archives. Metternich speaks of Napoleon making a direct advance to Louis XVIII. in 1804. According to Colonel Iung (Lucien Bonaparte, tome ii. pp. 4211-426) the attempt was made through the King of Prussia in 1802, the final answer of Louis being made on the 28th February 1803, as given in the text, but with a postscript of his nephew in addition, "With the permission of the King, my uncle, I adhere with heart and soul to the contents of this note.
"(signed) LOUIS ANTOINE, Due d'Angouleme."
