Let’s have another look at Hortense’s Memoirs. If you want to read the book it is available for free at the side bar in English and French. Use the widget on the sidebar to translate the text below into pretty much any language.
They bribe crowds. They bribe assassins. They vilify the innocent with what they themselves have been doing. The super wealthy can buy a lot of tricks if it means that they can continue to control a country and its resources. Those tricks however are very easy to spot now if we’ve been learning the patterns.
Hortense’s memoirs continues:
They were to seize several private mansions including that of the Duc de Rovigo. My house was next door.
Consequently, I was advised to leave home. Monsieur Alexandre de Girardin, a lieutenant-general attached to the Duc de Berry, who managed to reconcile his official duties and his personal friendship for me, called to inform me, both on my behalf and on that of the family he served, of the serious accusations which were being made against me.
It was openly said at court that I had pawned my diamonds and was distributing the funds thus obtained to win over the troops to the Imperial cause. On the contrary, instead of conspiring to provoke a change of dynasty I had no inclination to do anything of the kind, since my natural scruples would have prevented me from performing any hostile action toward a government to whom I was indebted for having been allowed to stay in France.
Even if there had been no such moral obligation I, with my ideas regarding personal responsibility, should not have felt justified in using my influence to provoke events whose consequences I was unable to foresee. Therefore, I could not believe I was in danger.
Nevertheless, when Monsieur Boutiaguine convinced me that I was looked on as Emperor Napoleon's agent in Paris, that I was no longer safe there, and when all those about me also urged me to escape, I finally made up my mind to leave home.
I did so one morning [March 11, 1815]. I wore a hat and coat belonging to Mademoiselle Cochelet, and the better to make it appear that I was she, I took the arm of her brother instead of that of Monsieur Devaux, an elderly man who acted as my equerry.
At the door and as we turned the corner of the rue Cerutti I put my head down to escape the glances of the police spies who were already stationed there. They looked at me curiously but made no attempt to follow us. I should have been extremely nervous. Not at all. The embarrassment of finding myself for the first time in my life walking about the streets alone with a man was more on my mind than any thought of danger.
Fortunately, it was raining, and our umbrella still further helped conceal my face. My guide was no less alarmed than I. He was particularly nervous on account of my dress trimmed with lace, which I had not had the time to change and which the coat did not completely conceal.
He was worried every step of the way, which seemed to me a long one, for fear of my being recognized. Finally, I reached the rue Duphot at the corner of the boulevard.
Without anyone catching sight of me I slipped up to the third floor and sought refuge with Madame Lefebvre, an old servant of my brother, who had accompanied my mother when she came from Martinique.
She eloquently expressed her joy at seeing me and at being able to be useful to me. In her apartment I suddenly found myself back again in a familiar setting, surrounded by family portraits and a quantity of little objects which had belonged to my brother and me when we were children and which Madame Lefebvre had preciously treasured ever since.
Her husband placed his room at my disposal. Having thus taken refuge in a profound isolation and being able to reflect at length on what was happening, I discovered I was chiefly annoyed by the role which malicious gossip was attributing to me.
People said that I went about among the troops, visiting the barracks and distributing money to the soldiers. This seemed so little like me that I decided to write to Monsieur d'Andre, chief of police, in order to refute these absurd rumors, of whose falseness he must be better aware than anyone else.
I added that no matter what the future might hold in store for me or for my children my character was such that I could never play any active part in public life, but could only passively submit to the course of events.
This letter was shown to the King. But as fear makes us suspicious and as the progress of the Emperor became constantly more and more swift, hostility toward me steadily increased. Meanwhile every morning the newspapers informed me that the decisive moment was approaching.
All eyes were fixed on the military leaders. Four thousand men had entered Soissons crying, "Long live the Emperor!" I heard later that for several months all sorts of conspiracies had been afoot. Even in the army officers were becoming discontented with the marshals and the new leaders.
Generals Lallemand and Lefebvre-Desnoettes had prepared a revolt quite independent of the Emperor's return. If he had not disembarked at Cannes when he did, the Bourbons would have been overthrown even without his arrival.
The landing of the Emperor merely turned popular feeling in a new direction. For instance, when he heard of it General Lefebvre-Desnoettes set out to join him at the head of his troops, declaring he was leading back the Old Guard to its former commander.
The two generals Lallemand [who were brothers] had also prepared to march on Paris and were only stopped a short distance from the capital by Colonel de Talhouet. The latter refused to order his regiment to take up arms against the King, and his action upset the plans of the leaders of the undertaking.
The Lallemand brothers were captured and General Lefebvre-Desnoettes managed to hide. This slight success encouraged the royalist party. A camp was formed at Melun, commanded by Monsieur le Duc de Berry. A royalist volunteer corps was organized, and men of all ages came to enlist.
From my window I could watch the boulevard and the sight was a curious one. Sometimes groups of volunteers marched past, the volunteers consisting of young enthusiasts and old supporters of the royal cause, the former arrogant and proud, the latter already dragging along under the weight of the equipment.
Both were equally inexperienced, both equally full of ardor and both shouting, "Long live the King!"
They would be followed by a cavalry regiment of the old army, whose horsemen sat motionless amid the turmoil, unmoved by the demonstrations in which the crowd sought to make them share.
They seemed to disdain these empty cheers, preoccupied by the thought of the man against whom they were about to fight rather than by that of the one whose cause they were to defend.
Meanwhile the crowd, as if it were at a play, waited eagerly for the outcome of all these events, but was well aware that it would shortly be acclaiming whichever of the two adversaries was victorious.
It happened that the apartment next to mine was occupied by one of the heads of the Chouans. All day unprepossessing looking men came to see him and seemed to be receiving money and taking orders.
An old woman who was in her room heard what they said and assured Madame Lefebvre that they were all connected with the police spy-service and that she had heard money and weapons being distributed.
This of course increased Madame Lefebvre's fears for my safety. She begged me not to show myself at the window, because opposite there lived a painter who held extremely royalist ideas, and upstairs was the family of a member of the King's bodyguard. Certain anonymous letters sent me to my home announced that two hundred Chouans were going to meet the Emperor disguised as deserting troops and that they were planning to murder him. I trembled; but how was I to warn him?
Monsieur Devaux came one evening to give me news of what was happening to my friends. All those who were known to be Bonapartists had already gone into hiding. The Duc de Vicence had sought refuge with an old cook, Monsieur de Flahaut at the house of Monsieur Alexandre de Girardin and Monsieur Lavallette in my house.
Surprised at the spot the latter had chosen as a hiding-place I was told that it had seemed a particularly safe spot since I had left. Moreover, he was taking all sorts of precautionary measures such as arranging a secret cupboard in the attic and wearing the wig of my steward by way of disguise.
This sometimes resulted in rather amusing scenes, which lightened the atmosphere of my home while I was away. The Duc d'Otrante, who was arrested, as he had expected, found an excuse to slip away from the police officers when they had already taken him into custody.
By means of a ladder he climbed the wall into my garden. Having in his nervousness forgotten the key of the little gate, he broke the lock with a stone and left the door open. The police were so surprised not to find any trace of him in his own house, in spite of their search, that it was rumored there were secret passages between it and mine.
The Duc d'Otrante has since told me that the night before he had come to ask me to facilitate his escape and talk about my brother, he had had a long talk with the Comte d'Artois.
The latter had begged him on behalf of the King to assume the post of chief of police with unlimited powers, but the Duke refused, saying it was too late, that it was no longer possible to save their dynasty.
This refusal was doubtless, as he suspected, the reason for his arrest. I wrote Madame Du Cayla to find out what was happening to Monsieur Sosthenes de La Rochefoucauld, who was liable to expose himself unduly on account of his great admiration for the royalist cause.
He was at Bordeaux with the Duchesse d’Angoulême, who displayed a strength of character worthy of her rank. One evening I was told that a mail-carrier, the father-in-law of Vincent Rousseau, my valet de chambre, had just arrived from Lyons where he had witnessed the Emperor's entry into the city.
An immense throng intoxicated with the joy of again catching sight of him had cheered him loudly. King Louis XVIII sent for this messenger and inquired if he had seen Bonaparte. The messenger replied quite frankly that he had seen him at Lyons surrounded by a crowd of people who kissed his uniform and whose enthusiasm was boundless.
He added, "I must say, Sire, that your nobility were far from brave. I saw your brother come back with two gendarmes. Everybody else had abandoned him."
The courtiers hastened to silence him, while the King, quite overcome, hid his face in his hands. The messenger having been dismissed, the chief of police sent for him and forbade him to tell what he had seen at Lyons or even to leave his home. But the messenger told everything to his daughter, who came to impart it to her husband.
Monsieur Lavallette forbade Vincent Rousseau to go to see his father-in-law, fearing that he and my other servants might be suspected if it was discovered they were in touch with a government dispatch-bearer.
During the few days I had spent in the house things began to seem very tedious to me, and in spite of my old servant's warnings I could not resist standing by the window to breathe a little fresh air.
The original French is available below:
