The memoirs of Count Lavallette

Preface to the first American Edition

The highly interesting Memoirs of Lavallelte which are contained in the following pages, will be found to equal, if they do not surpass, most of the numerous books of the same description which the events of the French Revolutions have elicited. Count Lavallette commences his auto-biography at a very early age. We have not thought it necessary to follow him through the period of his infancy and youth, but have adopted the following brief summary, which contains all that would interest the American reader previous to August, 1794.

Marie Chamans Lavallette was born at Paris in 1769, of respectable parents, and at 19 years of age resolved to enter the church ; but, disgusted by a year's attendance upon theological lectures, he obtained his father's permission to devote himself to the bar. The studies proper to a notary's office, however, proved still less attractive than those followed in the Sorbonne ; and while his companions were toiling through Justinian, the National Codes, the Parliamentary Decrees, and the Royal Statutes, young Lavallette obtained the run of his master's miscellaneous library, and amused himself with French history, Montesquieu, and political pamphlets. Some tumults in the Fauxboijrg St. Antoine, during the first outbreak of the Revolution, suppressed by military force, and accompanied with the customary proportion of shootings at the moment, and hangings afterwards, did not impress him with great respect for the

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existing government ; but the ferocious acts committed by the populace on the 14th of July, after the destruction of the Bastile, acted as a seasonable preventive of revolutionary contagion. He never could explain the murder of Messrs. Foulan and Berthier de Savigny, who were butchered under circumstances of atrocious barbarity on that memorable day. He went home " to read Montesquieu," and became a royalist. Obtaining the patronage of M. D'Ormesson, one of the presidents of the parliament, his disgust strengthened, and with it his zeal for the royal family. He held a post at the Tuileries, at the attack on the palace, on the lOth of August; but after the massacres at the commencement of the following month, he saw that there was no safety but in flight. He then enlisted, was in six weeks a corporal, and soon advanced to a second-lieutenancy in the 93d regiment, forming part of the Army of the Rhine. He served with great distinction during the whole campaign, and it is at the period of his return to Paris from this service that the following Memoir from his own pen commences.

The details of Count Lavallette's imprisonment and remarkable escape, will be found graphically detailed by himself; he relates in a few sentences the effect which was produced on the mind of his wife by her heroic devotion in saving his life — but we cannot refrain from inserting the annexed extract, translated from the " Revue de Paris," Vol. XII., No. 1., 7th March 1830, which contains a brief account of his eventful life. It was published a few days after his death.

" In 1822, letters of pardon, granted by Louis XVIII. restored him to his native country. M. Lavallette thus hoped to enjoy still some happy days ; but when he arrived in Paris, in the midst of the congratulations which poured in upon him on all sides, oxie voice remained silent, and that was his wife's ! From that decisive hour, when, with overpowering energy, she had arranged his escape, and remained an hostage in his place, she had not seen him. And now she looked upon him without emotion and without tears. She knew him not. The unfortunate lady had spent all her reason in saving him ! This last trial surpassed all the rest. M. Lavallette was overwhelmed by it. He wrote to the king : — ' Your majesty has restored to me possessions I valued more than life, but all your royal favour can never counterbalance my misfortune.'

*' His unfortunate situation pointed out to him the path he ought to follow. He gave up the world, and devoted himself to complete solitude, w^hich he only once left, to go to London in 1826, and support Sir Ptobert Wilson's election. His life was one continued scene of devotion. He repaid his wife with daily care and by pious and delicate attentions, ahnost as great as he had received from her, and when death overtook him, he expired tranquilly, for he left no debt behind him."

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TO THE READER.

I nevershould have determined to record, in writing, the events which have passed before my eyes, nor even those in which I have acted a part during eight and twenty years, had I not been involved in so conspicuous a manner in the catastrophe that put an end to the Imperial Government; but I thought it my duty to leave both to my family and my friends an indisputable testimony of my innocence and general conduct. It would, moreover, be but ill requiting the interest with which so many honourable persons have favoured me, to maintain a silence which my enemies might misuse to justify their persecutions.

My first intention was to describe only late events ; but having been for above twenty years attached to the Emperor Napoleon, it appeared to me that I ought not to pass over in silence one part, at least, of his glorious history. Could I look upon myself at liberty to deprive posterity of any circumstances connected with a hero who will never cease to engross attention? He has been exposed to the insults of his ungrateful contemporaries, and it is my duty to oppose truth to those insults. No exertion has been wanting on my side to avoid being led away by the deep affection I shall cherish to the end of my life for a man who has been my general, my sovereign, and my benefactor. It is not, however, his public actions, and still less the wars which have shed a lustre over his life, that I pretend to describe. He has still friends left among the generals who shared his toil and his glory : to them the noble task belongs. I shall paint the private man. Few persons have known him as well as I have ; and historians, gathering materials, may place full confidence in my recital. I shall mention no other facts than those of which I have been an eye-witness ; and I am much mistaken if my character will not prove a sufficient voucher for their truth. Still, I require much indulgence. I write far from my

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country,* in deep solitude, often depressed by misfortune, and deprived of the materials requisite for recalling facts, dates, and names. The impressions are, however, still vivid in my memory and in my heart- Many persons seeing my name on the title page of these Memoirs will perhaps expect to find in them an abundant feast of anecdote and scandal : they will be mistaken. During thirteen years I filled a delicate situation, thanks to which, I have discovered some painful secrets of the human heart; but I will not disgrace my character by publishing them. It is not with rubbish that durable monuments can be raised.

It is my resolution that this work do not appear during my life ; not that I wish to escape criticism, but because a feeling,which honourable minds alone can appreciate, makes it a duty in me to occupy the public attention no longer with myself. My unfortunate celebrity has been dearly bought, and I now want rest rather than pity.

* A great part of these Memoirs was written in Bavaria, during M. Lavallette's banishment, in liis various retreats on the borders of Lake Starenberg, at Lichstadt, and at Augsburg. It will, however, be observed, in reading the conclusion, that they were revised and finished at Paris, or rather in the country near Sevres.— (JVote of the Editor.)

MEMOIRS