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If any incentive had been needed, this injunction of my noble mistress would have added to the zeal and fidelity with which I had determined to discharge my new duties. I hurried without delay to the office of Maret, secretary of state, who already knew me, and had shown his good-will for me. "Get ready at once," said he; "a courier will set out this evening or to-morrow morning."
Julien in Paris Duroc's mission Rupture of the armistice Surrender of three garrisons M. Otto in London Battle of Hohenlinden Madame Moreau and Madame Hulot Bonaparte's ill-treatment of the latter Congress of Luneville General Clarke M. Maret Peace between France and Austria Joseph Bonaparte's speculations in the funds M. de Talleyrand's advice Post-office regulation Cambaceres Importance of good dinners in the affairs of Government Steamboats and intriguers Death of Paul I. New thoughts of the reestablishment of Poland Duroc at St.
The First Consul then raised his eyes to Maret and said, "Hem! that is not bad!" and when the secretary-general was gone he said to me, "Maret is not deficient in cleverness: he made me a very good answer." On the 9th of February 1801, six weeks after the opening of the Congress of Luneville, peace was signed between Austria and France.
He was not destitute of some education. His character, one of the oddest in the world, came very near to lunacy: Constantly writing, always in motion in his room, riding for exercise every day, he was never able to start on any necessary of useful journey. . . . When, later, Bonaparte, then First Consul, gave him by special favour the administration of Piedmont, he put off his departure from day to day for six months; and then he only did start because his friend Maret himself put him into his carriage, with post-horses already harnessed to it. . . . When he left this post they found in his cabinet 900 letters which he had not opened.
"Sire, I affirm it to be true. It is a secret known only to three persons! It was betrayed to me to gain me over by an act of treachery but that is altogether another matter; the fact is sufficient." "And this fact is, that I shall find with my mother the millions that I need?" said the emperor. "Maret, if that is so, I shall have them this very day." "Your majesty believes so? Madame Letitia "
Davoust used to say, talking of Maret's devotion and of his own: "Had the Emperor said to us, `It is important in the interest of my policy that Paris should be destroyed without a single person leaving it or escaping, Maret I am sure would have kept the secret, but he could not have abstained from compromising himself by seeing that his family got clear of the city.
On the 20th the allied scouts brought to head-quarters a despatch written by Maret the day before to Caulaincourt which contained this damning sentence: "The Emperor's desires remain entirely vague on everything relating to the delivering up of the strongholds, Antwerp, Mayence, and Alessandria, if you should be obliged to consent to these cessions, as he has the intention, even after the ratification of the treaty, to take counsel from the military situation of affairs.
I speak in the name of all your marshals and generals, in the name of your army, in the name of all France: WE DEMAND PEACE; give it to us, then! "Well!" inquired Napoleon, when Maret had read the letter, "what do you think of this impudence?"
"Well," said Napoleon, who was just cutting a large splinter from the chair, "what new enemy is it?" "Sire," said Maret, shrugging his shoulders, "it is Louis XVIII." Napoleon started, and looked at his minister with a flash of anger. "What do you mean?" he asked, sternly. "Who is Louis XVIII.? Where is the country over which he rules?"
But Maret came too late, and Dumouriez on his journey to the coast was overtaken by instructions that Amsterdam, not London, was his destination. The news from Paris reached London on the evening of the 23rd, and the audience at the theatre insisted that the performance should be stopped. There was to be a drawing-room next day. The drawing-room was countermanded.
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