MEMOIRS OF COUNT BEUGNOT.*
Wu have to thank Miss Yonge for a book which, though some- what too long and unequal in merit, contains many passages of great interest, and introduces us to scenes of historical value before, during, and after the French Revolution. Count Beuguot, the autobiographer, began life as a lawyer, and had the offer of defending Madame Lainotte, the heroine of the Diamond Neck- lace. Under the Reign of Terror he was imprisoned first in the Conciergerio and then in La Force, daily expecting to be sent to the guillotine, and constantly saying farewell to those whom he might at any moment have to follow. Napoleon made Count. Beuguot a Prefect, and afterwards sent him to preside over the Grand Duchy of Berg ; while, after the abdication at Fon- tainebleau, the Count became one of the Ministers of Louis XVIII. There are one or two gaps in the story of his life which are probably to be attributed to the way in which this book has beep put together. Miss Yonge does not tell us what part she has taken in the translation, how much of the original work has been omitted, whether there was any reason for such omission, or when the original work appeared. We do not at all impeach her judg- ment, but we think she should have given us a little further infor- mation. In the absence of that, we may assume that the present volumes are taken from a French work published in 1866 by Count Albert Beuguot, grandson of the minister. No doubt to a near relation many passages in Count Beuguot's life must have possessed. a significance which will not be perceived by the general public. Even now, with the excisions which have apparently been made by Miss Yonge, some space is occupied by discussions upon the charter of 1814 that might very well have been omitted. The period which follows the fall of Napoleon is not generally interest- ing, except as showing the workings of reaction. It resembles the course of the Thames while the tide is ebbing, leaving bare the * Lefe and Adventures of Count Bettynoi, Minister of State under TiVapoWn 1. Edited from the Frond. by Charlotte M. Yonge, Author of The Heir of liedelyffe," etc 2 vols. Loudon : Burst and inseam 1871.
mud of political corruption and the banks upon which all pro- mising efforts were stranded.
The most remarkable feature of Count Beugnot's early life is his narrow escape from acquiring a perhaps unenviable notoriety. Circumstances brought him into connection with Madame Lamotte before she had anything to do with the Cardinal de Rohan. We are told frankly enough that at one time young Beugnot was fasci- nated by this adventuress, and that his father hurried him off from Bar-sur-Aube to Paris for fear of an imprudent marriage. When Madame Lamotte took up her quarters in Paris, and began that course of intriguing which led her in time to the Salpetriere, young Beugnot renewed his acquaintance with her, entertained her occasionally at a cafd, and went to her house to gratify his curiosity about Cagliostro. After this interview Beuguot came to the pru- dent resolve of holding himself aloof from the party of schemers, and he resisted all further attempt to draw him into close intimacy. One night, indeed, be happened to be at Madame Lamotte's house when she and two or three others came home in very high spirits. One of the party was a handsome woman whose face seemed familiar to Beugnot, though he could not remember where he had seen it, and it was not till afterwards that he discovered her to be the chief instrument in that trick on the Cardinal do Bohan which was played off at Versailles. This woman was Millie. d'Oliva, and her extraordinary likeness to the Queen haunted Beugnot as it had just before deceived the Cardinal. The confederates had that evening returned from Versailles after the Cardinal had knelt before Mdlle. d'Oliva and had taken a rose from her hand, in the fond belief that it was Marie Antoinette herself who was bestowing these marks of favour, Nor was this the only time when Beugnot was brought into close contact with the plot. Ho was on a visit to Clairvaux, and Madame Lamotte, who had given him a seat in her carriage, had called for him, and was stay- ing to supper, when the news came of the arrest of Cardinal de Rohan. The only cause assigned for an act which had astonished all Paris was something about a diamond necklace. Beugnot looked at Madame Lamotte, who had dropped her nap- kin, and sat pale and motionless. She soon made an effort, left the room, and started with Beugnot for Bar-sur-Aube. On the way, he advised her to make for the coast and cross the Channel ; as she refused this counsel, ho begged her to burn any papers she had which might compromise her or the Cardinal ; he stayed with her till three in the morning helping her to burn the Car- dinal's letters, and at four she was arrested. For some time Beugnot himself expected a similar fate ; but he had the courage to return to Paris, and devote himself to an important cause in which his native town was concerned. When at last he received a summons from the Lieutenant of Police, it was not for the pur- pose of sending him to the Bastille, but of requesting him to act as counsel for the accused woman. As he had been in danger already, he probably exercised a wise discretion in declining, and he had known too much of Madame Lamotte to be moved by any feelings of chivalry.
From Beugnot's association with the story of the diamond neck- lace we may turn to the next great event in his life, his imprison- ment in the Conciergerie. Confined there at the same time as Bailly, Clavieres, and Madame Roland, he was the indignant witness of the brutal treatment received by the first, and was roused from sleep by the suicide of the second. There have been so many descriptions of the interior of the revolutionary prisons that we need not dwell on the details given us in the present volumes. Yet amidst the foul reek of the pestilential dungeons, the mixed despair and fury of the captives who knew there was but one means of exit, and the savage tyranny of the Sailors, there is a singular relief in the picture of the Parisian women who maintained all their elegance and refinement in the heart of the prison. We are shown how Madame Roland went before the tribunal, dressed with care in a white muslin with a black velvet sash, her beautiful hair streaming over her shoulders. Of the other ladies, Count Beugnot says, " They appeared in the morning to a coquettish demi-toilette, every detail of which was arranged with a freshness and grace that by no means suggested that they had passed the night on a pallet, and oftener still on fetid straw. I am convinced that at this time no promenade in Paris could produce an assemblage of women so elegantly appointed as the yard of the Con- ciergerie at noon ; it was like a flower-bed adorned with flowers, but fenced round with iron." Beugnot himself managed to keep up his spirits, in spite of the atmosphere of the prison, and the daily fear of finding his name in the list of the condetnned. He seems to have exercised some art in keeping quiet., and he tells us of others who might have escaped if they had been equally pru- dent. After a time lie was moved to La Force, where he could
see his wife every day at the window of the house opposite, in which she was lodging. The death of Robespierre restored him to liberty, and under the Consulate he became Prefect of Rouen. Six years spent in that capacity, five years passed as Imperial Commissioner in the Grand Duchy of Berg, and a subsequent service as Prefect of Lille, brought Beugnot to the Restoration. The caprices and the exacting disposition of Napoleon more than once interfered with the comfort of his servants, but on the whole Beugnot seems to have had good reason for preferring him to the Bourbons. Napoleon's own tribute to Count Beugnot which was uttered at St. Helena speaks well for the character of the man :—" Beugnot, when he was prefect, always told me the truth." And here the Emperor did not speak without seine means of judging. There was once a serious passage of arms between him and his commissioner on the subject of the accounts of the Grand Duchy. Napoleon raged and stormed, accused everybody of peculation, of conspiring to defraud him, of keep- ing things in disorder so as to cover something worse. Beugnot left the council firmly convinced that he was disgraced, and so incensed with the Emperor as to call him a devil. But when this saying was repeated to Napoleon, he said good-humouredly that Beugnot was right there,—" I kept him on hot coals all the morn- ing," and while Beugnot was expecting the news of his disgrace he received instead an invitation to dinner. As soon as lie entered the room, the Emperor went up to him, took him by the ear, and said, " Well, you great idiot, have you recovered your wits ?" Not long after this, the Emperor ordered Beugnot to examine a report made by Jean Bon St. Andre, who was then Prefect of Mayence, and the manner in which the examination was made is significant of Napo- leon's system. The report generally was so good that Beugnot was prepared to approve the whole of it, but Jean Bon dissuaded him. " Take care you do no such thing," he said. " The Emperor would conclude either that you have not thoroughly examined the business, or that we are playing into one another's hands, like thieves at a fair. Rather let us settle a few points of difference that we may debate with all our might in his presence, so as to fix his attention, and to give him a chance to say to him- self, and perhaps to us, Poor wretches that you are, what would become of you if I were not here to tell you what is right and make you keep to it ?' " Beugnot followed this advice, and did it with the more ease, that Jean Bon had purposely prepared some defects in his work to give his critic the pleasure of exposing them.
We have no doubt that at the time Count Beugnot was deeply im- pressed by his own audacity in venturing to sit down twice in Napo- leon's own chair, and still more by the recklessness of Joan Bon's suggestion, when they were in a boat on the Rhine with the Emperor, that a kick more or less would change the fate of the world. But the importance of such matters as these has passed away, and they are merely to be ranked among the curiosities of history. A similar place must be given to another singular incident connected with the entry of the Comte d'Artois into Paris iu 1814. Everybody has heard of the saying with which he is supposed to have greeted the applauding multitude, "Bien West change, it n'y a qu'un Fran- cais de plus." It appears from these memoirs that this happy phrase was invented ex post facto by Count Beugnot at the request of Talleyrand. An account of the reception had to be written for the Moniteur, and as Talleyrand himself had turned a graceful compliment to the Prince, it was necessary that there should have been a reply worthy of the occasion. After some unsuccessful attempts, Count Beugnot hit upon a sentence which satisfied Talleyrand, and which was at once accepted both by the public and by the Prince himself. One or two other scenes connected with the Restoration deserve to be mentioned, espe- cially the dialogue between Louis XVIII. and Talleyrand about the creation of a batch of peers, and the incident of the widow's house being burnt during the King's journey to Paris after the Hundred Days. In the first instance, the King's reluctance to create a batch of peers was overcome by the coolness with which Talleyrand entered into a trifling piece of Royal witticism. But the second case shows the King in a more contemptible light. While he was being told of the misery of the poor widow and the terror of her little children, he suddenly turned the conversation to a peculiar breed of rabbits which were to be had at the place where he was then stopping for dinner, and which he knew from experience of thirty-four years before to be the finest and tenderest in France. The burning cottage, the ruined widow and her terri- fied children, whose misery is brought before us in a few simple touches, could not for a moment compete with the rabbits.
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