869 



BOURRIENNE, LOUIS ANTOINE. 



BOURRIENNE, LOUIS ANTOINE, 



870 



previously little claim. In poems of a higher poetical character, such 

 aa Gay's beautiful ballad of 'Black-eyed Susan,' Bourne's mode of 

 translation is very different, and is distinguished by a fidelity which, 

 to those who know the difficulty of approximating two languages so 

 dissimilar in structure, is as curious as it is admirable. But even here 

 he gives an occasional heightening touch ; for instance, in translating 

 the exquisite simile 



" So the sweet lark, high pois'd in air, 



Shuts close his pinions to his breast, 

 If chance his mate's shrill note he hear, 

 And drops at once into her nest," 



Bourne not only poises the lark, as Gay has done, but he gives the 

 vibrating motion of the wings, so characteristic of the lark when 

 singing : he has also transposed the second and third lines, in which 

 Gay has obviously inverted the natural order of thought for tho sake 

 of the rhymes : 



" Sic alto in ctelo, trcmulis sc librat ut alU, 



Si socitc accipiat forsan alauda Bonos, 

 Devolat cxtemplo, clausisquc ad pectora pcnnis, 

 In carte nidum pnecipitatur avis." 



Cowper has translated four of Bourne's Latin poems into English 

 ' Tho Jackdaw,' ' The 1'arrot,' ' The Cricket,' and the ' Glow-worm,' in 

 none of which, skilful as ho was, has he equalled his original. Cowper 

 in one of bin letters speaks of the good-nature and indolent habits of 

 Bourne, with whom he was well acquainted, and of whose poetry lie 

 was a warm admirer. 



The first edition of Bourne's ' Poematia' was in 1734, 8vo. To the 

 third edition, in 1743, an appendix was added of other translations 

 and poems, forming nearly one-half of tho whole collection, ' Poematia, 

 Latino partim reddita, partim scripta, h V. Bourne,' 12mo. There was 

 another edition in 17^0, 12mo. In 1772 a handsome volume in 4to 

 wag published by subscription, ' Miscellaneous Poems, consisting of 

 Originals and Translations, by Vincent Bourne, formerly of Trinity 

 College, Cambridge, and Usher of Westminster School." It contains a 

 few additional poems, and two letters, one to a young lady, and another 

 to his wife, written a short time before his death. There have also 

 been two or three subsequent editions. 



BOURRIENNE, LOUIS ANTOINE FAUVELET DE, the biogra- 

 pher of Napoleon Bonaparte, was born at Sens, in the department of 

 Yonne, in the province of Burgundy, on the 9th of July, 1769; the 

 son of M. Bourrienne, a wealthy ' rentier ' of that place, by a second 

 marriage. His father dying shortly after his birth, the care of his 

 education was left to his mother. At the age of nine he was entered 

 as a pupil at the military school of Brienne ; and here it was that his 

 acquaintance with Bonaparte began. As boys of almost exactly the 

 same age, Bonaparte and Bourrienne became fast friends. Of the two, 

 JSonrrienne seemed the more promising scholar; and in 1733, when 

 Bonaparte, then about to leave the school, took a prize for mathe- 

 matics, Bourrienne gained seven premiums for languages and other 

 accomplishments. In 1784 Bonaparte left the school at Brienne for 

 the higher military school at Paris ; and Bourrienne accompanied him 

 as far as Nogent-sur-Seine, where they bade each other adieu, he says, 

 with much affection, and promises of everlasting friendship. As Bour- 

 rienne also looked forward to service in the French artillery, it did 

 not then seem likely that they would be long separated ; but shortly 

 afterwards he unexpectedly found an obstacle to his entrance on this 

 career, arising out of the strictness of the regulation which required 

 that all who held commissions in the French army should exhibit 

 proofs of noble pedigree. He was obliged to give up the military 

 profession. Adopting diplomacy as an alternative, and having good 

 introductions, he was sent, in 1789, when in his twentieth year, to 

 Vienna, as clerk or ' attach^ ' to the Embassy of the Marquis de 

 Noailles, ambassador of Louis XVL at the court of the Austrian 

 Emperor Joseph. After being in Vienna a few months he went, by the 

 advice of the Marquis, to Leipsic, to increase his qualifications for 

 diplomatic service, by studying international law, and the English and 

 German languages. He remained at Leipsic two years ; and removed 

 thence to Warsaw, where, as a young Frenchman of good connections, 

 he was well received at the court of the Polish King Poniatowski. 

 While at Warsaw (1791) Bourrienne, in a temporary fit of literary 

 ambition, translated into French prose, under the title of ' L'Inconnu,' 

 the play of the German dramatist Kotzebue, of which ' The Stranger ' 

 is a famous English adaptation. The version was published in Paris 

 in 1792, on Bourrienne's return to that capital At Paris he again, 

 after eight years of separation, met Bonaparte, then a young artillery- 

 officer without prospects ; and the two young men walked about the 

 streets together, exchanging sympathies and purses, and witnessing 

 many of the strange scenes of the Revolution in particular the attack 

 on the Tuilcries on June 20, of which, and of Bonaparte's remarks on 

 it Bourrienne gives so vivid an account. [BONAPARTE, NAFOLKOW I.] 

 In the same year Bourrienne was sent to Stutgardt as secretary to the 

 embassy there ; but he had hardly assumed office, when tho execution 

 of Lonis XVI. (January 21, 1793) and the downfall of the French 

 monarchy broke up the embassies. Having been in official employ- 

 ment under the late king, he did not venture to return ; but remained 

 many. Suspected there of attachment to the cause of the revo- 



lution, he was imprisoned for some months by the Saxon police; and 

 on his release, went to Leipsic, where he married (1794) a lady with 

 whom he had become acquainted during his former residence in that 

 place. In 1795, Robespierre and the Terrorists having in the mean- 

 time fallen, he returned with his wife to Paris, where they found 

 Bonaparte out of employment, and scarcely better off than he had 

 been three years before. Suddenly the 13th Vendemiaire (October 4, 

 1795) came to lift the young artillery-officer, then only twenty-six years 

 old, into reputation and power. From that moment, as Bourrienne 

 and his wife thought, Bonaparte became colder towards them ; and, 

 when Bourrienne was arrested iiot long after (February, 1796) as an 

 emigrant Royalist who had returned to France without leave, Bona- 

 parte, as they fancied, did not show such alacrity in bebalf of his old 

 friend as he might have done. Still it was by Bonaparte's influence 

 that Bourrienne was set at liberty ; and a letter of thanks sent by 

 Bourrienne to Bonaparte in Italy during the splendid campaign of 

 1796, was the means of drawing their relations closer than ever. Bona- 

 parte, as general of the Directory in Italy, had immense business on 

 his hands, and he wanted a private secretary in whom he could rely. 

 He fixed on Bourrienne as a proper man ; and, accordingly, from the 

 close of the year 1796 when he joined Bonaparte in the catnp by 

 express invitation, till the year 1802, when Bonaparte, all the inter- 

 vening toils of his Egyptian war, &c., being over, was seated firmly in 

 the supreme government of France, he was continually by his side, an 

 his amanuensis and confidential secretary, knowing all his most private 

 affairs. When Bonaparte, as First Consul, occupied the Tuileries, 

 Bourrienue had apartments close to his ; and it WKS even proposed to 

 hang a bell in his room, by means of which Bonaparte could summon 

 him at any hour of the night an indignity however to which he would 

 not submit. In 1802, the failure in very scandalous circumstances of 

 the house of Coulon, army-contractors, with which Bourrienne was 

 implicated to a greater extent than he ought to have been, caused his 

 dismissal from the private secretaryship. He and his wife continued 

 nevertheless to see Bonaparte and Josephine, and to be intimately 

 cognisant of all that was going on. In 1805, the Emperor sent him 

 to Hamburg, as charge" d'affaires of France for the circle of Lower 

 Saxony. As Napoleon was then enforcing his continental system 

 against English commerce, this was a delicate and difficult mission. 

 Bourrienue, according to his own account, discharged it with exemplary 

 moderation and probity ; but Napoleon did not think so, and, having 

 received complaints, amounting to charges of peculation and extortion, 

 against Bourrienue, he appointed a Commissioner to inquire and report. 

 The result was that Bourrienne was recalled and ordered to refund one 

 million of francs to the imperial treasury. This was in December, 

 1810 ; and from that time Bourrienne was in the position of a ruined and 

 disgraced man. Ill 1814, indeed, he says, Napoleon again made over- 

 tures to him, and wished to send him to Switzerland as minister, with 

 the title of Duke ; but as the allies were then on the point of invading 

 France, he refused the honour. Accordingly, on the emperor's fall 

 and banishment to Elba, Bourrienue was in the position rather of one 

 of his enemies than of one of his partisans. Talleyrand, the master of 

 the situation for the moment, made him postmaster-general; but 

 Louis XVIII. dismissed him from that office to make way for another. 

 Bourrienne, therefore, was without employment till March 1815, when, 

 in the excitement caused by Napoleon's escape from Elba and arrival 

 in France, the king called him to the prefecture of police. His efforts 

 in this post were of no avail ; Napoleon marched to Paris in triumph ; 

 and Bourrienne, who was among those exempted by him from the 

 general indemnity, fled after Louis XVIII. into Belgium. Here he 

 remained during the Hundred Days. Returning to Paris after the 

 battle of Waterloo and Napoleon's exile to St. Helena had assured the 

 Bourbon dynasty, he was made councillor and minister of state by 

 Louis, and was elected deputy to the Representative Chamber for his 

 native department of Yonne. He was re-elected in 1821, and again in 

 1828, when Charles X. was on the throne. >He had some reputation 

 in the Chamber for his knowledge in financial matters. But, whatever 

 were his talents in this line, they did not extend to the management 

 of his private affairs. Always extravagant, and always deep in specu- 

 lations, he had become so embarrassed, that, in 1828, he was obliged 

 to give his creditors the slip and take refuge in Belgium. Hero, 

 supported by the bounty of the Duchesse de Brancas, at Foutaine- 



de Villemarest, he sent the work by instalments to Paris, where it 

 was published in ten -volumes in the course of 1829-30. As the work 

 had been long expected, it made an immense sensation. It was 

 quickly translated into all languages, and provoked not a few rejoinders 

 from persons who accused him of misrepresentations of facts, or of 

 ingratitude to Napoleon. He did not long survive this, the greatest 

 achievement of his life. Chagrin, it is said, at the revolution of 1830 

 unsettled his reason ; and, having been removed to an hospital for the 

 insane near Caen in Normandy, he died there on the 7th of February 

 1834, in the sixty-fifth year of his age. 



Bourrienne's ' Memoirs of Napoleon ' are too well known to require 

 criticism. Not in all points trustworthy, and writing somewhat iu the 

 spirit of a discharged valet, he is yet, on the whole, the best of Napo- 

 leon's many BoswelLi Neither morally nor intellectually does tho 



