Life and adventures of count Beugnot, ed. [and tr.] by C.M. Yonge

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Introduction

The author of these memoirs, Jean Claude Count Beugnot, was a minister under Napoleon L, then a member of the Government, a Deputy and Peer of France under the Restoration. He was born at Bar-sur-Aube on the 25th of July, 1761. The father, Edmund Beugnot, was an advocate and receiver for the royal property in that town. The son was destined for the bar, and was early sent to Paris to attend the sittings of the Parliament in his position as licentiate of law, not yet called to the bar.

The Memou's of Count Beugnot commence at this period of his life, when he was twenty-two years of age.

Contents

OF

THE FIRST VOLUME.

Chapter I. Page

The Countess Lamotte — ^Account of her Family — Her Arrival atBarsur-Aube — Her Marriage — Appearance in Paris — Her First Interview "with the Cardinal de Bohan — Hor Liaison with him — The Queen Marie Antoinette— M. B^ranger— Intrigues of Madame de Lamotte '1

Chapter II

My Vacation in Champagne — ^Visit of Madame Lamotte — M. de Latour — Conversation at Supper — Madame de Lamotto^s Belations with Society — ^Her Plate and Jewelry — Supposed Source of Madame de Lamotte's Opulence — Portrait of the Cardinal de Bohan— His Letters to Madame do Lamotte — My Career at the Bar — ^M. d'Ambray— MM. Seguier, d*Aguesseau, and Joly de Fleury — Course of the Lyceum — Pictui-e of France in 1785 — Cagliostro— Credulity of Madame de Latour . . . .28

Chapter III

Castle of Brienno — Clairvaux — Conversation with the Count de Dampierre — Jour de la St. Bernard— The Abbe Maury — The Diamond Necklace — My Advice to Madame de Lamotte — ^Letters of the Cardinal de Bohan — ^Arrest of Madame de Lamotte — Conduct of the Baron de Breteuil— Mile. d'Oliva — ^M. de Crosno — My Befusal to defend Madame do Lamotte — M. Doitot — Cagliostro and Serafina Feliciani— The Opposition Partj- . . 62

VI 11 CONTENTS.

Chapter IV. Tage

Eotuin to Bar-sur-Aube — Measures taken to Secure my Election as Deputy— The Electors — Tho Grand Bailli and his Costume — General Assembly of the Three Orders — ^M. le Vicomte de Laval — ^Lo Comte de Brienne — Jurisdiction of Chaumont — Dupont de Nemours — ^M. Guillaume — Nomination of Gompert-le-Chevaux — My Nomination to tho tats G6n6raux — ^Reception at Bar-sur-Aube — ^Insurrection of Paris — Capture of the Bastille — ^Brigandage^ — ^Decrees of August 4 93

Chapter V

Beminiscences of 1793 — Order for my Arrest — ^Reflections in tho Labyrinth, Jardin des Plantes — ^My Arrest — The Inspector and the Gendarme — ^The Conciergerie — Companions in my Dungeon — ^The Infirmary— The Doctor — ^Night in Prison — The Girondists — Duces, Fonfrdde, and Fauchet 132

Chapter VI

Execution of the Girondists — Tho Revolutionary Tribunal — ^Bailly — General Houchard — ^Madame Roland and the Revolution — Femmes de Monde in the Conciergerie — ^Egl§ — Lamourette — Death of Clavi^res — ^The Deputy Cassy — Conversation with the Advocate Lafeutrie— GFeneral La Marlidre — Strange Scene of Evocation 165

Chapter VII

The Advocate Lafeutrio — General La Marli^re — ^Aide-de-Camp of the Comte d'Estaing — Magic in Prison — ^Prisoners Condemned to Death — Suicides — Le Due du Ch&telet — Removal from tho Conciergerie — La Force — My Fellow-Prisoners — The Native Parisian — Chambre du Conseil — ^Deputies in Prison — Dupont do Nemours— Francoour, Director of the Orchestra of tho Opera — My Refusal of a Mission to Genoa 19'

CONTENTS. IX

Chapter VIII. Faqe

The First Victim from La Force — Ex-Comto de Ferri^res- SauveboBuf — Young Fashionables in La Force — Counsellor lieconteulx de la Noraye — Results of his Inconsiderate Denunciation — ^The Lesconteulx transferred to the £ydch6 — Illness of Madame Beugnot — ^L'Abbl de P^rigord — The Comte de Brienne — Condemnation of Madame Elizabeth — ^Increased Activity of the Eevolutionary Tribunal — The Tocsin — ^A Friend of Robespierre — ^Death of Robespierre— Restored to Liberty , . 228

Chapter IX

Tjf^ Annales Troyeuncs—'hl, Beugnot Prefect of La Seine Inferieure — Financial Minister of Westphalia — ^Appointed President of the Council of Regency of the Qrand-duohy of Berg — M. do Talleyrand — Diisseldorf — Miinster — Feudality — Le Colonat — Westphalia — ^La Marck — Nassau-Siegen — Portrait of Beumonvillo — ^Murat at Diisseldorf— M. Agard — Le Due de GktSta . . 256

Chapter X

Gift of the Grand-duchy of Berg to Napoleon liouis — Le Duo de Bassano — ^M. Maret — M. Rognault — Organisation of the Grand -ducal Government — Le Comto do Nesselrode — M. Fuschius — General Damas — Journey through the Grand-duchy — Secrets of German Diplomacy — Threatenings of War — Humiliation of Prussia — ^Major Schill — Battle of Essling — Le Due de Brunswick-Gels — ^Battle of Wagram .... 28G

Chapter XI

Administration of the Grand-duchy— M. do Somonyille — The Waters of Aix-la-Chapollo — The Court of Madame Mere — The King of IlolUud — La Princcsse Borgheso — ^Divorce of the Empress Josephine — Surprising Effect, in Germany, of Napoleon's Second Marriage — Introduction of the Civil Code into the Grand-duchy — M. Roederer — Studies in Political Economy — A Miracle . .311

X CONTENTS.

Chapter XII. Page

Arrival of the Emperor at Diisseldorf— Presentation of the Authorities — Eeview of the Troops — Council of Administration — A Stormy Sitting— Displeasure of the Emperor — ^Le Haras Sauvage — ^Unexpected Invitation to Dinner — ^Imperial Familiarity — Semi-official Conversation with the Emperor Napoleon I. — The Empress — Dinner at the Eesidence — Beception of the Emperor in Public — Bight and Left Panks of the Bhine .... 33o

LIFE AND ADVENTUEES

OF

COUNT BEUGNOT.

Chapter I

The Coimtess Lamotte— Aooount of her Family — Her arrival at BarHrar-Aube — Her Marriage — ^Appearance in Paris — Her First Interview with the Cardinal de Bohan — Her Liaison with him — ^The Queen Marie Antoinette «-M. B^ranger — Intrigaes of Madame de Lamotte.

* * * * At this time occurred an episode in my life which caused me most poignant anxiety, and certainly the greatest sorrow in the course of a career full of vexatious incidents. This arose from the arrival at Paris of the woman afterwards so unhappily celebrated under the name of the Countess de Lamotte.

I must go far back to explain how I became acquainted with her. Mention has elsewhere been made of the rather free style of society meeting in the house of Madame de Surmont at Bar-sur-Aube. One day in the autumn of 1762, it was announced there that two fugitive princesses had made their appearance at the Hotel de la Tete Rouge ; that is to say the most miserable hostel in a town where there is not a single decent one ; and we all had a laugh at the notion of princesses in such a place. By the next day, the mists that the princesses had difiused around themselves began to clear ; it was

TOL. I. B

•

discovered that they had escaped from the convent at Longchamps, and had made their way to Bar-sur-Aube as a central position from whence to direct their endeavours to recover some large possessions that had belonged to their family. This property consisted of the estates of Essoyes, Fontette, and Verpilli^res. One of these ladies was called Mademoiselle de Valois, the other Mademoiselle de Saint R6mi. This intelligence in some degree modified the first impressions of them. When I went home that evening I mentioned these particulars, and they aroused some recollections in the mind of my father. He remembered that some fifteen or twenty years before he had been obliged to go every year to Essoyes for the assessment of taxes, and when he passed through the parish of Fontette the priest never failed to make a levy on his purse for the poor little Saint R^mi children. There were three of these children left alone in a miserable hovel with a little hole towards the road ; and the neighbours conveyed to them by turns through this opening some broth or other simple fare. My father said he had himself seen this, and the priest \vould not open the door of the hovel for fear of shocking him by the sight of these children, naked, and growing up like savages, saying that his gift would help to clothe them.

My father's story was quite correct. The three children so miserably brought up were the Baron de Valois, who died captain of a frigate, the famous Countess de Lamotte, and Mademoiselle de Saint R6mi, who perhaps is still living as a canoness in some comer of Germany unknown to me. Thus, these last descendants of the Baron de R^mi, a natural son of Henry H., and recognised as such, had fallen into a state of misery approaching to starvation. My father had seen the head of this miserable family, and described

FAMILY OF 8AINT B^MI. 8

him as a man of powerful frame, living by hunting, by the spoils of the forest, on wild fruits, and even on cultivated ones obtained by theft. The members of the family of Saint R6mi had for two or three generations lived this heroic life, tolerated by the people out of fear, and by the authorities from the celebrity still clinging to a name which had long been famous. This last of the family had not lived long enough to induct his son into his own manner of life ; and the village of Fontette contained no Chiron to undertake the education of this new Achilles. He and his sisters fell, in common with other destitute persons, under the care of the priest of the parish. He, poor man, had provided for their subsistence in childhood in some sort of way, as we have seen ; but notwithstanding their miserable condition the children grew, their wants increased, and their resources at the utmost remained the same. In this difficulty, the priest implored the interest of La Luzerne, the bishop of Langres, and of the Marquise de Boulainvilliers, wife of the provost of Paris, who lived on an estate not far off. He explained the origin of these children, and was hardly believed. If there were doubts about their nobility, there could be none about their wretchedness. Their most pressing wants were provided for by these two charitable persons who had been consulted ; they were clothed; the boy was sent to school at Bar-sur-Seine, and the two girls were put into the Ursuline convent at Ligny, where the board of a young lady of rank at that time amounted to about five pounds per annum. Thus about the end of the eighteenth century, the last natural descendants of the Valois passed into a civihsed condition from one of almost savagery.

One thing alone had been preserved amid the wreck of this family ; its pedigree. The priest placed it in the hands of the Bishop of Langres, and he sent it for

Bl verification to Chdrin, who was then oflBcial genealogist to the Kmg.

I knew this official, on account of some distant relationship between us. His examination was most minute, and his opinion unimpeachable. He was profoundlyacquainted with the origin of all the great houses, and had he been allowed, would have banished as many nobles from the court as Bollandus did saints from the calendar. I was somewhat posted-up by him, and sometimes when I meet at the Tuileries men who, in all good faith, are proud of their birth, I whisper to myself, " Where are you, Ch^rin?" Anyhow, he examined this title of the Saint R^mis, and certified to their direct descent in the male line from the Baron of Saint R^mi, natural son of Henry the Second. The pedigree was not quite equal on the female side, for when the Saint R^mis took to the wild life of the ancients, they always married dairy-maids or servants. But that was of no great consequence, since from the beginning of the eighteenth centm*y, inferior marriages seemed to have been fashionable with great families, and at least they could not be reproached with having sold their dignity for riches obtained by doubtfiil means. They had remained so free from this taint, that there were no marriage settlements for the last three generations, but the certificates of the weddings were quite correct.*

Ch^rin's certificate was of such authority as to remove all doubts, and then the government came to the rescue. The King granted to the Baron de Valois a pension of 40Z., and free admission to the naval school. The girls, besides receiving 24?. each, were placed gratuitously in

* In the publio papers of April 10, 1867, might be seen—" Died, on Wednesday, at Tonrs, in his sixty-eighth year, M. Etienne Melohior de Valois de Saint B6xni, late Beoeiver of Stamps at Tonis, son of Charles n. de Valois de Saint Bfimi, Baron of Fontette and Essoyes, one of the last direct descendants of Henry 11. King of France."

MADEMOISELLE DE SAINT RfiMI. 5

the Abbey of Longchamps, near Paris. The patrons of the family and the director of the king's household had the same views. They hoped that the Baron de Valois would make no objection to take the vows of the order of St. John of Malta. His sisters might be gently persuaded to embrace a religious life, even if it were necessary to hold out the prospect of an abbey for the eldest. Thus would be honourably extinguished a family which could not be more publicly produced without exposing the King to the obligation of furnishing them with a fortune proportionable to their birth. The legitimate Valois were already far enough ofif ; why should an illegitimate branch be raised up? Money is wanted so much for other purposes.

The plan was wise, and would have succeeded, had not the elder Mademoiselle de Saint R^mi been armed by nature with more weapons than were necessary to upset it The brother had reached the rank of lieutenant in the navy, and the sisters had passed six years at Longchamps, when one fine morning these young ladies made their escape from the convent in search of adventures, with a very light bundle under their arms, and just thirty shillings in their pockets. They intended to go to Bar-sur-Seine, but mistook their way and got into a barge that took them to Nogent; they there found a cheap conveyance that awaited travellers as they left the barge to take them to Bar-sur-Aube, and adopted this means of proceeding. Of their thirty shillings, twenty had been spent on the road ; so that they descended at the Tete Rouge, at Bar-sur-Aube, with a crown piece each in their pockets, and their whole wardrobe one change of linen. Madame de Lamotte explained to me how it was that she determined on so sudden a departure. The Abbess who had always previously been obsequious to her, had for some time past become importunate in her exhortations to her to •come to a decision ; that is to say, to embrace a religious life. The order of St. Bernard was proposed as the most agreeable and ofifering the most speedy chance of an abbey ; but a religious life had not the smallest attraction for Madame de Lamotte, and besides, she suspected from the persistence of the Abbess, that some more important interest was involved in the desire to make her take the veil, and she interpreted this interest as a dread of the claim she might raise to the family property.

In the miserable hovel where she had found shelter at Fontette, she had conceived great notions of these claims ; and these ideas had gained strength from the care afterwards taken of her. The moment for flight was ill chosen, for she had no money; but in her last conversation with her, the Abbess had gone so far as to threaten her. She had no chance but submission or flight; and regardless of consequences she took the latter course. She had no difficulty in persuading her sister, for she had long been used to think for both.

Behold her happily arrived in port ! that is to say, at the Tete Rouge Inn, at Bar-sur-Aube, and possessed of five shillings remaining from the expenses of the journey. She had prepared letters to her protectors, and while awaiting their answers, was living on the credit gained by her good looks and high connections, when she received a visit from Madame de Surmont. We had had much trouble in persuading this lady to take this step ; but at last we managed to convince her that her position in the town required her to undertake the patronage of young ladies of quality, fugitives, perhaps persecuted, and shamefriUy deserted by the nobility. We had touched a chord in her heart ; she paid a visit to the ladies at the TSte Rouge, and they showed themselves very sensible of

MADAME D£ LAMOTTE. 7

the &your, and greatly delighted to see her. Madame de SttrmoDt returned enchanted with her visit; she had been quite captivated by Mademoiselle de Lamotte, who had proved that she was able to captivat.e others also. She was inclined to take the girls into her house, if her husband approved ; and kept on expatiating on the indifference of the nobility in a case in which the interests of relatives of the King were involved. Her husband as usual reluctantly yielded; and the Demoiselles de Saint R^mi were installed in the house. This was the object we desired to obtain.

Madame de Lamotte was not strictly beautiful; she was of medium height, but slight and well formed ; her blue eyes, which were surmounted by black arched eyebrows, were full of expression ; her face was rather long, the mouth wide, but with beautiful teeth, and like many people of that style, she had an enchanting smile. Her hand was pretty, and her feet very small, her complexion remarkably fair. By a curious freak, nature, when forming her throat, had stopped when half was done ; and that half made one long for the rest. She was destitute of any sort of information, but she had a great deal of intelligence, and was very quick and penetrating. She braved the laws of social order, with which she had been at war from her birth, and did not pay much more attention to those of morality. She might be heard making game of both, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and as if she had no notion of their existence. Thus, was composed a being formidable to a dose observer, but captivating to the generality of those who looked from a greater distance.

The sister. Mademoiselle de Saint R6mi, was a large handsome girl ; very fair, very insipid, very dull ; with just enough instinct to perceive that she was a great lady, but always ready to descend from her position.

The exterior of the Baron de Valois was ordinary, and his mind not enlarged ; but he was a sensible man, and an attentive oflBcer. He was fond of his profession, and devoted himself to it without permitting the remembrances and hopes, nursed by his sister, to distract him from it.

He died during the course of her trial, and not without some suspicion that he could not bear to await the conclusion of it. Such was the family that met their end amid crime and disgrace, while attempts had been made to render their lives pleasant and honourable.

The Saint R^mi young ladies brought movement and life into the society of Madame de Surmont. The young people who formed a part of it, soon perceived that these ladies had much in common with the princesses of romance, and were not a bit more cruel. After due consideration, they would have been persuaded to condescend if some rich citizens, sincerely attached to them, had aspired to the honour of their hands. The recovery of the immense property of the family was retarded by delays, the termination of which could not be foreseen. Meanwhile, all they had to subsist on was the pension of twenty-four pounds a year, a sum on which it was impossible to live, and they feared that Madame de Surmont might grow weary of the daily sacrifices imposed on her by her imprudent patronage.

The day after their arrival at her house, she had lent the girls, in their pressing need, two white dresses, without the least expectation that they would wear them long, since the good lady's figure was a stout one. What was her surprise to see next morning that these dresses became them beautifully ! The fact was, the girls had spent the night in cutting them down and altering them. They used the same licence in everything, and Madame de Surmont began to find that

A BRAVE SPIRIT. 9

the easy condescensions of the princesses carried them too far.

It was intended that the Saint Rdini young ladies, should not at the outside, pass more than a week at Madame de Surmont's; they remained there a year. Time passed as it does in a little country town ; in quarrels and reconciliations, in trifling gossip and solemn talk, in contriving and frustrating frightful intrigues, things that never pass the walls of the city, if it has any. The genius of the elder Mademoiselle de St. R^mi found, nevertheless, scope for its development in this narrow circle. She was playing a prelude while waiting for her part. She had taken possession of the mind of M. de Surmont, and by the help of the blind attachment conceived for her by this good man, many of the aspersions she cast on all comers, and Madame de Surmont in particular, were counterbalanced. The poor hostess has often told me that the most unhappy year of her life was that which she spent in the society of that demon.

I had seen little of her when she came to Bar-sur-Aube, but enough to be fascinated like the rest. Without being aware of the danger, I admired this brave spirit that was checked by nothing, and contrasted so curiously with the timid and narrow character of the other ladies in the town. Besides, she knew how to assume, on occasion, the soilness and even the weakness of her sex. She had youth, beautiful eyes, and her smile went to the heart. This was more than was requisite to make me her vassal. I was inexhaustible in her praise. The year that the Demoiselles de Saint R6mi came to live at Bar-sur-Aube, my father for the first time in his life, hastened my departure for Paris, for he had a deadly horror of the unheard-of honour of uniting his blood to the remains of that of Valois.

My correspondents kept me informed of the Ufe that these ladies passed, and of their amiable tricks. I learned that at last the elder Saint R^mi had particularly distinguished M. de Lamotte, nephew of M. de Surmont. They told me that at last this lofty spirit had foimd its master ; but I was a little surprised at the quarter where it had gone in search of him.

M. de Lamotte was an ugly man, but well made, expert in aU bodily exercises, and notwithstanding his plainness, his face had a sweet and amiable expression. What spirit he had — and he was not without it — ^had hitherto been directed towards inferior adventures. He was of noble blood, and the third of his name who had served in the gendarmes. His father, a knight of Saint Louis, and a quarter-master general of the army, had been killed at the battle of Minden. Destitute of any sort of fortune, he had talents enough to plunge himself in debt, and only lived on his wits and on a pension of fifteen pounds which M. de Surmont, his uncle, was obliged to allow him in order to keep him in the corps.

At the present day, there is a risk of not being understood when speaking of the gendarmes, in which M. de Lamotte served. The corps preserved the ancient standard of the gendarmes so renowned in former times, when an armed man and horse were a real power. Up to the year 1787 (when it was abolished), it was the first cavalry regiment of France. The simple troopers held the rank of oflBcers, and as such, obtained the cross of Saint Louis. But it was the reftige of the poor nobility, and likewise received citizens who could not make way in other corps of the army. The force maintained the most brilliant reputation for bravery; but, as the private troopers did much the same duties as the soldiers of any other regiment, there was but little respect paid to them individually. The very junior sub-lieutenant of infantry considered himself above a gendarme. M. de Lamotte

MARRIAQE OF MADEMOISELLE SAINT SAML 11

might have been an exception, because his name recommended him for promotion, had his conduct been good ; but of all the means of success, good conduct was that of which he was least capable.

In the coui-se of the same month I heard that the marriage of the elder Saint Remi with M. de Lamotte was not a mere joke, then that the marriage was determined on, and moreover with the consent of the Bishop of Langres, and at last that the wedding was celebrated. Each of these pieces of news as it arrived redoubled my surprise, and it reached its height when I learnt that the very next month Madame de Lamotte had given birth to twin boys, who only survived a few days. The last circumstance reduced to the class of very common events a marriage that up to that time had appeared so strange. All was explained, even to the approval of the Bishop of Langres, which was on the prelate's side only a forced consent.

Madame de Surmont had been deceived to the end by her nephew and Mademoiselle de Saint R6mi ; and as soon as she knew of the insult they had offered to her house, she forbade the former to come thither, and sent off the latter. They took refuge with Madame Latour, a sister of M. de Lamotte, who herself having very little to live on could not long support her two visitors.

Mademoiselle de Saint R6mi had given two years of her pension for fifty pounds, and with these did her best to take her share of the display required by the nuptial ceremony. M. de Lamotte sold for the same purpose, for twenty-four pounds in ready money, a horse and carriage that he had bought on credit at Luneville. Thus did they commence house-keeping.

After the children were born and they had time to review their position, it was evident that it was one of great difficulty. There was no course that Madame de

Lamotte could adopt but to run the risk of a journey to Paris, the receptacle of all the wealth and all the misery of France. They had no money and very little credit, but had the good fortune to manage to borrow fifty pounds from my father, who had not forgotten the poor children of Fontette, to whom he had given a few crowns as alms, and besides, he rather gloried in a few such acts of generosity. He liked Mademoiselle de Saint R^mi as soon as he was sure she would never be his daughter-in-law. He had beheld her marriage with such perfect satisfaction, that he would have been glad to have defrayed the whole expenses.

I have already spoken ill of Madame de Lamotte, and shall have more to say ; but I wish to be entirely just. Her gratitude towards my father was perfect; and she never spoke of him and of the service he had rendered to her without emotion. In her brief moments of wealth, she not only returned the sum that had been lent to her, but my father was even twice obliged to return to her a box intended, as she said, for payment of interest, and worth nearly as much as the capital.

The sum total of the loan was justly, that is to say equally, divided between Monsieur and Madame de Lamotte. The husband took twenty-five pounds, and went to Fontette to engage in proceedings for recovering possession of the property of the house of Saint R^mi, and Madame de Lamotte went to Paris with a like sum to utilise her husband's discoveries. On her arrival she stopped in the Rue de la Verricia, at the H6tel de Reims, a kind of inn, of about as good reputation as the T6te Rouge, at Bar-sur-Aube.

From that place I received one morning a note from Madame de Lamotte to tell me of her arrival, and informing me that she had brought a letter from my father and wished to deliver it the same day. I had more than

SEABCH FOB TITLES 13

•

one reason for haste, and went to her immediately. By her permission I then read my father's letter, which contained an expression of real interest in Madame de Lamotte. My father wished me to consider carefully whether her claim was well-founded, and, if it was, to do all in my power to assist her. He added, that the lady was very amiable (I had / known it before he did); that she was aware of the unfortunate position in which she had placed herself, and it would be inhuman to desert her. He told me nothing about the charity that had prompted him to a loan of fifty pounds.