FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140  
141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   >>   >|  
ith the rest, is quite significant, and we are justified in assuming that the Lady in Waiting has been taking liberties, and has been deservedly snubbed by His Imperial Majesty. It is perhaps necessary to pause here and remind the reader that on the authority of her son, and subsequently of her grandson, these memoirs were written entirely "without malice," and the sole object of writing them at all was that "the truth should be told." Very well then. Are we to believe the letters or the memoirs, because in the former she over and over again declares that "his comely manners were irresistible"; but in the memoirs with audacious bitterness she affirms "not only is he ill-mannered but brutal." Such effrontery is beyond criticism. She finds it "impossible to depict the disinterested loyalty with which she longed for the King's return," and describes the hero of her letters as a ruthless destroyer of all worth, and being brought so low, she is straitened by the demands of "truth" and "grows quite disheartened." It will be observed that it is always truth which is the abiding motive, it matters not whether it is letters or memoirs. She avows it is "truth" she writes. "The love of truth," says the editor in his preface, "gave her courage to persevere in her task for more than two years." That is, it took her more than two years to write the "truths" contained in the memoirs disavowing the "truths" so vehemently given in the letters; the former book pregnant with the bitterness of a writer without heart and principle, and with political and personal motives running through its pages like a canker, while the latter, radiant in luxuriant adulation, gapes at her memory with retributive justice. The renegade son served the renegade and ungrateful mother ill when he advised her to write what is a barefaced recantation of her former statements. Napoleon has said that "People are rarely drawn to you by favours conferred upon them." He had many examples of this truth, but none more striking than the above. Madame de Remusat and her husband were raised from poverty to affluence by Napoleon, and the memory of all the favours that were showered upon them by the man she declares she loved should have kept them from hate and disloyalty, and forbidden the writing of such unworthy vituperations against him. FOOTNOTES: [23] Madame de Remusat burnt her original memoirs during the Hundred Days, doubtless because she had in her min
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140  
141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
memoirs
 

letters

 

Madame

 

declares

 

Remusat

 
renegade
 
truths
 

memory

 
Napoleon
 

bitterness


favours

 

writing

 
served
 

justice

 
retributive
 

Waiting

 
ungrateful
 
recantation
 

assuming

 

barefaced


adulation

 

statements

 

advised

 

mother

 

writer

 

principle

 

political

 

pregnant

 

contained

 

disavowing


vehemently

 
personal
 

motives

 

canker

 

People

 
radiant
 

running

 
luxuriant
 

conferred

 
unworthy

vituperations
 

forbidden

 
disloyalty
 
FOOTNOTES
 

doubtless

 

Hundred

 
original
 

examples

 
justified
 

striking