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Having sufficiently indicated to his allies and vassals the conduct which they were respectively to adopt, in case the war should break out, Napoleon, already weary of his splendid idleness, sent on the Abbé de Pradt to Warsaw, to prepare for his reception among the Poles, dismissed Maria Louisa on her return to Paris, and broke up the Court in which he had, for the last time, figured as "the King of Kings."
Cf. in "Madame de Remusat," I., 108, one of his confessions to Talleyrand: he crudely points out in himself the distance between natural instinct and studied courage. Here and elsewhere, we obtain a glimpse of the actor and even of the Italian buffoon; M. de Pradt called him "Jupiter Scapin."
The scene-shifter was the Abbé de Pradt, Archbishop of Malines, whom Napoleon sent as ambassador to Warsaw, with elaborate instructions as to the summoning of the Diet, the whipping-up of Polish enthusiasm, the revolutionizing of Russian Poland, and the style of the address to him.
He insisted that France should be perfectly free; and declared that as soon as the wishes of the country were understood, he and his Allies would support them, without seeking to favour any particular government. The Abbe de Pradt then declared, in a tone of conviction, that we were all Royalists, and that the sentiments of France concurred with ours.
'You know that the Duke of Wellington was to visit her this evening for the first time. I went in good time; she was not yet in the room: several others were also waiting such as the Abbé de Pradt, Benjamin Constant, La Fayette. They were conversing; I remained in one corner, as if listening to them.... At length Mme de Staël came in. "I am late," she said; "but it is not my fault.
The Provisional Government was not entirely pleased with Caulaincourt's presence in Paris, and a representation was made to the Russian Emperor on the subject. Alexander concurred in the opinion of the Provisional Government, which was expressed through the medium of the Abbe de Pradt. M. de Caulaincourt, therefore, at the wish of the Czar, returned to the Emperor, then at Fontainebleau.
It seems likely, however, that Kutusoff was only seeking to entrap the French into barren negotiations; he knew that an answer could not come from the banks of the Neva until winter began to steal over the northern steppes. Slowly the truth begins to dawn on Napoleon that Moscow is not the heart of Russia, as he had asserted to De Pradt that it was.
General satisfaction was expressed on the appointment of Marshal Macdonald to the post of Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour in lieu of M. de Pradt. M. de Chabrol resumed the Prefecture of the Seine, which, during the Hundred Days, had been occupied by M. de Bondi, M. de Mole was made Director-General of bridges and causeways.
De Pradt, p.73. Cf. Pelet de la Lozere, "Opinions de Napoleon au conseil d'etat," p. 15: "That will last as long as I do. After me, however, my son will deem himself fortunate if he has 40,000 francs a year." "Poor child," said he, regarding the King of Rome, "what an entanglement I shall leave to you!"
A billet from him was delivered to Alexander just before the final rush on Paris begun: it was in these words "You venture nothing, when you may safely venture everything venture once more." De Pradt, and many other of those statesmen whom Napoleon, in latter days, had disgraced or disobliged, were, ere this time, labouring diligently in the same service.
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