Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume II

625

Tronchet was a lawyer of great celebrity, and was one of Louis Sixteenth's counsel. See ante, vol. i., p. 243. He died in 1806, and was buried in the Pantheon.

626

Bigot de Préameneu was born in Brittany about the year 1750. In 1808, he succeeded Portalis as minister of public worship, but was removed from office on the restoration of the Bourbons. He died at Paris in 1825.

627

Jacques de Maleville was born at Domme in 1741. In 1804-5, he published "Analyse raisonnée de la Discussion du Code Civile au Conseil-d'état." He was created a peer by Louis XVIII. in 1814, and died in 1825.

628

"At one time I intended to form a mass or a syndicate of all the unsold property of the emigrants, and on their return, to distribute it in certain proportions among them. But when I came to grant property to individuals, I soon found that I was creating too many wealthy men, and that they repaid my favours with insolence." – Napoleon, Las Cases, tom. iii., p. 213.

629

Fouché, tom. i., p. 226; Montgaillard, tom. v., p. 464.

630

"One of my grand objects was to render education accessible to every one. I caused every institution to be formed upon a plan which offered instruction to the public, either gratis, or at a rate so moderate, as not to be beyond the means of the peasant. The museums were thrown open to the canaille. My canaille would have become the best educated in the world. All my exertions were directed to illuminate the mass of the nation, instead of brutifying them by ignorance and superstition." – Napoleon, O'Meara, vol. ii., p. 385.

631

"At the time of my downfall, the state prisons contained two hundred and fifty individuals, and I found nine thousand in them, when I became consul." – Napoleon, Las Cases, tom. v., p. 56.

632

Gourgaud, tom. ii., p. 131.

633

Las Cases, tom. iii., p. 248; O'Meara, vol. i., p. 381.

634

"Mais enfin, que voulez vous? C'est une mode de destitution propre à ce pais-là!" – S. – "I told him, that whatever might be the mode of deposition practised in Russia, luckily the south of Europe was a stranger to such treacherous habits and attempts; but my arguments could not convince him; he gave vent to his passion in ejaculations, stampings of the foot, and short fits of rage. I never beheld so striking a scene." – Fouché, tom. i., p. 205.

635

The remains of Kleber were interred with great pomp, and a monument was raised to his memory. Buonaparte evinced sincere regret at the loss of this excellent officer, and caused a medal to be struck upon the occasion, with the words "General Kleber, born in 1753, assassinated at Cairo, the 14th of June, 1800;" and on the reverse, "Surnamed, from his stature and intrepidity, the French Hercules; he braved death a thousand times in the field, and fell under the dagger of an assassin." Kleber and Desaix were Napoleon's favourite lieutenants. "Both," he said, "possessed great and rare virtues, though their characters were very dissimilar. Kleber's was the talent of nature: Desaix's was entirely the result of education and assiduity: Kleber was an irreparable loss to France; he was a man of the brightest talents and the greatest bravery."

636

His body was embalmed and brought by the French savans from Egypt, to be deposited in the museum of natural history at Paris.

637

Montholon, tom. i., p. 78; Memoirs of the Duke of Rovigo, vol. i., p. 243; Las Cases, tom. i., p. 226.

638

Henry Dundas, created in 1802, Baron Duneira and Viscount Melville, died in May, 1811.

639

At an after period, the good King made the following acknowledgment of his mistake. When Lord Melville was out of power, his majesty did him the honour to visit him at Wimbledon, and partook of some refreshment. On that occasion the King took an opportunity to fill a glass of wine, and having made the company do the same, he gave as his toast, "The health of the courageous minister, who, against the opinion of many of his colleagues, and even the remonstrances of his king, had dared to conceive and carry through the Egyptian expedition." – S.

640

For a copy of the Convention, see Annual Register, vol. xliii., p. 221.

641

"Napoleon never ceased to repeat, that Egypt ought to have remained in the possession of the French, which, he said, would infallibly have been the case, had the country been defended by Kleber or Desaix." – Las Cases, tom. i., p. 230. – "However great was the displeasure of the first consul at what had taken place, not an expression of ill-humour escaped him against any one. He showed at all times a marked preference for those who formed a part of the army of Egypt, with the exception of a few officers who had made themselves conspicuous by their bad spirit and ingratitude; and the only revenge he took on these was to forget them altogether." – Duke of Rovigo, vol. i., p. 251.

642

General Law of Lauriston was born at Pondicherry in 1768. He died at Paris in 1828.

643

Montgaillard, tom. v., pp. 470, 476; Jomini, tom. xv., p. 17. "For six weeks," says Fouché, "the ministry was busily engaged in collecting and transcribing the registers in which the suffrages for the consulship for life were inscribed. Got up by a special committee, the report presented 3,568,185 votes in the affirmative, and only 9074 in the negative. On the 2d August, a senatus consultum, called organic, conferred the perpetual power on the First Consul Buonaparte; and on the 15th, the anniversary of his birth, solemn prayers were offered up to God for having, in his ineffable bounty, granted to France a man who had deigned to consent to bear the burden of supreme power for his whole life." – Tom. i., p. 236.

644

"Thrice happy Britain, from the kingdoms rent, To sit the Guardian of the Continent."

Addison. – S.

645

– "penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos."

Virgil. – S.

646

See Annual Register, vol. xliv., p. 608.

647

Jomini, tom. xv., p. 25; Annual Register, vol. xliv., p. 640.

648

Annual Register, vol. xliii., p. 273.