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Page 31
"At daybreak, the General having learned that some students from the St.
Genevieve side of the river were marching with two pieces of cannon to
succour the rebels, sent a detachment of dragoons in pursuit of them, who
seized the cannon and conducted them to the Tuileries. The enfeebled
Sections, however, still showed a front. They had barricaded the Section
of Grenelle, and placed their cannon in the principal streets. At nine
o'clock General Beruyer hastened to form his division in battle array in
the Place Vendome, marched with two eight-pounders to the Rue des Vieux-
Augustins, and pointed them in the direction of the Section Le Pelletier.
General Vachet, with a corps of 'tirailleurs', marched on his right,
ready to advance to the Place Victoire. General Brune marched to the
Perron, and planted two howitzers at the upper end of the Rue Vivienne.
General Duvigier, with his column of six hundred men, and two twelve-
pounders, advanced to the streets of St. Roch and Montmartre. The
Sections lost courage with the apprehension of seeing their retreat cut
off, and evacuated the post at the sight of our soldiers, forgetting the
honour of the French name which they had to support. The Section of
Brutus still caused some uneasiness. The wife of a representative had
been arrested there. General Duvigier was ordered to proceed along the
Boulevard as far as the Rue Poissonniere. General Beruyer took up a
position at the Place Victoire, and General Bonaparte occupied the Pont-
au-Change.
"The Section of Brutus was surrounded, and the troops advanced upon the
Place de Greve, where the crowd poured in from the Isle St. Louis, from
the Theatre Francais, and from the Palace. Everywhere the patriots had
regained their courage, while the poniards of the emigrants, armed
against us, had disappeared. The people universally admitted their
error.
"The next day the two Sections of Ls Pelletier and the Theatre Francais
were disarmed."
The result of this petty civil war brought Bonaparte forward; but the
party he defeated at that period never pardoned him for the past, and
that which he supported dreaded him in the future. Five years after he
will be found reviving the principles which he combated on the 5th of
October 1795. On being appointed, on the motion of Barras, Lieutenant-
General of the Army of the Interior, he established his headquarters in
the Rue Neuve des Capucines. The statement in the 'Manuscrit de Sainte
Helene, that after the 13th Brumaire he remained unemployed at Paris, is
therefore obviously erroneous. So far from this, he was incessantly
occupied with the policy of the nation, and with his own fortunes.
Bonaparte was in constant, almost daily, communication with every one
then in power, and knew how to profit by all he saw or heard.
To avoid returning to this 'Manuscrit de Sainte Helene', which at the
period of its appearance attracted more attention than it deserved, and
which was very generally attributed to Bonaparte, I shall here say a few
words respecting it. I shall briefly repeat what I said in a note when
my opinion was asked, under high authority, by a minister of Louis XVIII.
No reader intimately acquainted with public affairs can be deceived by
the pretended authenticity of this pamphlet. What does it contain?
Facts perverted and heaped together without method, and related in an
obscure, affected, and ridiculously sententious style. Besides what
appears in it, but which is badly placed there, it is impossible not to
remark the omission of what should necessarily be there, were Napoleon
the author. It is full of absurd and of insignificant gossip, of
thoughts Napoleon never had, expressions unknown to him, and affectations
far removed from his character. With some elevated ideas, more than one
style and an equivocal spirit can be seen in it. Professed coincidences
are put close to unpardonable anachronisms, and to the most absurd
revelations. It contains neither his thoughts, his style, his actions,
nor his life. Some truths are mimed up with an inconceivable mass of
falsehoods. Some forms of expression used by Bonaparte are occasionally
met with, but they are awkwardly introduced, and often with bad taste.
It has been reported that the pamphlet was written by M. Bertrand,
formerly an officer of the army of the Vistula, and a relation of the
Comte de Simeon, peer of France.
--['Manuscrit de Sainte Helene d'une maniere inconnue', London.
Murray; Bruxelles, De Mat, 20 Avril 1817. This work merits a note.
Metternich (vol, i. pp. 312-13) says, "At the time when it appeared
the manuscript of St. Helena made a great impression upon Europe.
This pamphlet was generally regarded as a precursor of the memoirs
which Napoleon was thought to be writing in his place of exile. The
report soon spread that the work was conceived and executed by
Madame de Stael. Madame de Stael, for her part, attributed it to
Benjamin Constant, from whom she was at this time separated by some
disagreement. Afterwards it came to be known that the author was
the Marquis Lullin de Chateauvieux, a man in society, whom no one
had suspected of being able to hold a pen: Jomini (tome i. p. 8
note) says. "It will be remarked that in the course of this work
[his life of Napoleon] the author has used some fifty pages of the
pretended 'Manuscrit de Sainte Helene'. Far from wishing to commit
a plagiarism, he considers he ought to render this homage to a
clever and original work, several false points of view in which,
however, he has combated. It would have been easy for him to
rewrite these pages in other terms, but they appeared to him to be
so well suited to the character of Napoleon that he has preferred to
preserve them." In the will of Napoleon occurs (see end of this
work): "I disavow the 'Manuscrit de Sainte Helene', and the other
works under the title of Maxims, Sentences, etc., which they have
been pleased to publish during the last six years. Such rules are
not those which have guided my life: This manuscript must not be
confused with the 'Memorial of Saint Helena'.]--
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