1830.] [ 705 ] 



MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE, DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN. 



Bouricnne's Memoirs of Napoleon, 4 vols. 

 Rvo Few persons could ever have had such 

 facilities for observing Napoleon as Bou- 

 rienne. He was his schoolfellow at Brienne, 

 his correspondent when apart, and in the 

 early period of the revolution, while neither 

 had any thing to do, roamed the streets of 

 Paris with him from cafe to cafe. At Leo- 

 ben, the very day in which preliminaries of 

 peace were signed, he joined the conqueror 

 of Italy no longer as a comrade and equal, 

 but as private secretary, in which capacity 

 he acted without interruption through suc- 

 ceeding events till the consular appointment 

 of Napoleon for life, enjoying, if not always 

 his open confidence, at least the most un- 

 bounded opportunities for observing his con- 

 duct and detecting his motives of action. 

 From that period his personal intercourse 

 with him ceased ; he saw Napoleon only 

 once more ; but held an office of political 

 importance at Hamburgh for the last five or 

 six years of the imperial power. 



But opportunity is not all that is requisite 

 for correct communications and just esti- 

 mates fairness, freedom from prejudice, ex- 

 emption from private bias, and moreover 

 competency of intelligence and soundness of 

 judgment, are equally essential. With want 

 of what is vaguely termed common honesty, 

 Bourienne is perhaps scarcely chargeable; but 

 that he is so with what amounts in effect to 

 the same thing, almost every page of his vo- 

 luminous performance will prove. He makes 

 frequent pretensions to ingenuousness, which, 

 by the way, the translator always writes in- 

 genious, probably as the more appropriate 

 word. The man manifestly thinks himself, 

 in all but military matters, a cleverer fellow 

 than his master ; and while writing himself 

 the agent of his manoeuvres and mendacities, 

 takes credit for repressing violence and inter- 

 cepting injustice, all in the tone of a man of 

 the purest sentiments and most unsullied 

 honour. While professing admiration, 

 scarcely is a fact produced which does not 

 tend to depreciate his friend and patron. 

 These facts we are not alluding merely to 

 political matters we do not question gene- 

 rally ; we have no doubt Napoleon was very 

 much of a charlatan, as many or most great 

 men have proved, the more closely they have 

 been scanned, and we are by all fair means 

 for reducing every man to his proper level : 

 but the attempt before us does not come 

 gracefully from one who, though suffering 

 from caprice or mistake, owed every thing to 

 him ; nor does it come acceptably from one 

 who knows the showing up of the old mas- 

 ter is the way to please the new one. Bou- 

 rienne manifestly . writes under the fear or 

 favour of the reigning dynasty. The im- 

 pression left by the perusal of Bourienne's 

 book, if we lose sight of the author and his 

 views, is one of loathing for Napoleon. Our 

 admiration of ability and vigour is swallowed 

 M.M. New Series VOL. IX. No. 54. 



up in disgust at the absence of honourable 

 feeling, and the quackery of the braggart. 

 We forget the talent in the trickery of the 

 man. This is too much. Moore has, with- 

 out doubt, sunk both Sheridan and Byron 

 considerably in the estimation of the world ; 

 but that is because he will tell all ; while 

 Bourienne will tell only the bad, or, if he re- 

 ports the good, does it with a twist. Sir 

 Walter Scott's life of Napoleon is the object 

 of Bourienne's especial vituperation ; it is 

 with him a mere romance, a lying chronicle, 

 prompted by national hatred and a calum- 

 nious spirit : when all the while the source 

 of this abuse is, that Scott gives Napoleon 

 credit where credit is due ; and upon the 

 whole leaves a more agreeable, and we doubt 

 not a juster impression, than is suitable to 

 his views. He contradicts him point blank 

 in scores of places, but generally on insigni- 

 ficant points, and certainly such as call not 

 for the vehemence and bitterness he displays 

 against him. Sir Walter's novels are hi- 

 stories, and his histories novels. "I have 

 been assured," he says, "that Marshal Mac- 

 donald having offered to introduce him to some 

 generals, who could have furnished him with 

 the most accurate information respecting 

 military events, the glory of which they had 

 shared, Sir W. replied, I thank you, but I 

 shall collect my information from popular 

 report." Alluding to the plague which broke 

 out with new virulence in the French army 

 after the siege of Jaffa, Sir Walter says rhe- 

 torically of course " Heaven sent this pesti- 

 lence among them to avenge the massacre 

 of Jaffa. This is double silliness, replies 

 Bourienne. In the first place, it would liavc 

 been letter for Heaven to have prevented the 

 massacre ; in the next, Kleber's division 

 caught the seeds of the malady atDamietta." 

 This reminds us of Count de Narbonne. 

 Some stupid prefect, in an address to Napo- 

 leon, said 4 God made Bonaparte, and rest- 

 ed.' It would have been well, remarked De 

 Narbonne, had he rested a little sooner. Nar- 

 bonne was not Vlien in the imperial service. 



Bourienne deals about his censures pretty 

 liberally. The Duke of Rovigo, in his esti- 

 mate, seems entitled to no credit at all. He 

 will neither refute his assertions, nor correct 

 his errors /or they are voluntary. 



It is too evident, he observes, that endowed with 

 a posthumous zeal, perhaps unexampled, he has 

 made his memoirs nothing else than a long pane- 

 gyric on every thing done by Bonaparte, many of 

 whose actions were, without doubt, grand, im- 

 mense, even generous, such as make a great show 

 in history; but he committed others from the 

 odium of which he cannot be absolved, and among 

 these I include, without hesitation, but not without 

 reflection, the death of Pichegru. On this, no more 

 than on other points, do I feel inclined to credit the 

 assertions made by Bonaparte at St. Helena. 



This is a fair specimen of the tone of the 

 whole work. 

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