THE MAN NAPOLEON FEARED

Otago Witness, Issue 3823, 21 June 1927, Page 8

THE MAN NAPOLEON FEARED

By Sidney Dabk. At the height of his power there were two men whom Napoleon always feared; one was Charles Maurice de Talleyrand Perigord, aristocrat of the aristocrats, sometime Bishop of Autun, the Emperor’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, whom he created Prince of Benevento; the other, Joseph Fouche, son of a Breton seacaptain, Minister of Police under half-a-dozen regimes, arch-plotter, and, with it all, something of a' patriot, who died five years after Waterloo almost a millionaire and Due d’Otranto. During the Revolution, and in the early days of Napoleon’s rule, the ex-bishop and the sea-captain’s son were bitter enemies, and, indeed, Talleyrand once urged Napoleon to order Fouche’s execution. But in 1809, when the Emperor was in Spain, the enemies became friends, and when the news crossed the Pyrenees that they had been seen walking in Paris arm in arm Napoleon hurried back to his capital, fearing what might happen. Joseph Fouche was born in 1763. He was too sickly to follow his father’s robust calling, so he was sent to the Oratorians to be trained as a schoolmaster. Chance took him to Arras to teach, philosophy and mathematics, and there he met Robespierre. In 1789 he was the head of a college in his native city of Nantes, conspicuous for his revolutionary fervour, which secured his election as a deputy to the National Convention. He ,was present at the trial of Louis XVI, and voted for “ death without appeal and without delay,” and in the crazy period that followed he became one of the most vehement and violent of the agents of the Terror. He was in La Vendee in 1793, repressing the rebellion of the Chouans; and in the next year he was in Lyons with the infamous Collot D’Herbois, the ex actor, and Couthon, who was destined to die with Robespierre, guillotining, shooting, glutting the Rhone with corpses, proclaiming that the Republic “ must march to liberty over the bodies of the dead.” Of all the spluttering agents of the Terror, Fouche was the most vehement. The old pupil of the Oratarians, conspicuous for his love of the gentle Pascal, now scribbled over the gates of cemeteries, “ Death is an eternal sleep,” for Fouche always loved a fine-sounding phrase. Fouche was back in Paris in April, 1794, the month of Danton’s execution, doubtless, with the other Terrorists, wondering what his own fate was to be,

but boldly reporting: “The blood of criminals fertilises the soil of liberty and establishes power on sure foundations.” Two months after Danton’s death, Robespierre endeavoured to foist on France a religion of his own invention, and Fouche was still sufficiently earnest in his atheism openly to protest. “ You bore me with your Supreme Being,” he is reported to have said to Robespierre. For this he was expelled from the Jacobin Club bv the Dictator’s orders. And now as-

sured that Danton’s fate would be his, he plotted and schemed to bring about the alliance that brought Robespierre himself to the guillotine. It is, perhaps, rarely realised that Robespierre’s fall was effected bv the Men of the Mountain who disliked his coquetting with religion—by Barrere, the Anacreon of the Guillotine, Billaud, infamous for his beastly cruelty, Couthon, one of the three butchers of Lyons, and Tallien, with Fouche behind the scenes—much more than by the Moderates, whom, in the last weeks of his life and power, he had endeavoured to placate. The months that followed were, perhaps, the most anxious of Fouche’s troubled career. Robespierre’s death was the signal for reaction which the extremists among his enemies had not anticipated. The end of the Terror was the beginning of the end of the Revolution. Collot, Billaud. and Barrere were arrested in May, 1795, and in August Fouche was denounced by Boissy D’Anglas and only saved by the amnesty proclaimed with the constitution 'that established the Directoire in November. Fouche had a genius for making profitable friendships. Barras, the leading figure of the Directoire, and one of the many lovers of Josephine Beauharnais became his patron. Barras made Fouche an army contractor, a lucrative appointment from which he derived a considerable fortune, and, in 1799, he began his career as Minister of Police. Two months after the appointment, Napoleon achieved the famous coup d’etat of the 9th Brumaire which brought the Directoire to an end and made him First Consul. Fouche had employed those two months to considerable advantage from the point of view of himself and of his office. The Ministry of Police needed money, so the Minister contrived that brothels, and gambling-hells should be opened in various parts of Paris and should pay him a large percentage of their proceeds. Consequently, by November 9 he was a man to be reckoned with, and without his aid and the aid of the police, Napoleon, for • all of the reputation that he had won in Italy and Egypt, could hardly have succeeded in establishing his personal power. First under the Consulate, and then under the Empire,* Fouche was the master spy. He spied on Napoleon’s enemies, he spied on Napoleon’s family and his friends. In all the intrigues of Paris, no secret was hidden from the pensevering Joseph., Napoleon hated and feared him. So clever ; was the man that he was protected both by Josephine and by ! Napoleon’s family, although their mutual J hatred was one of the problems of the Emperor’s life. i In 1802 Napoleon tried to escape from • his Minister of Police by abolishing the ministry, but Fouche kept his army of

spies going at his own expense, and, two years later, Napoleon, who was then Emperor, restored him to his office. Fouche remained a phrase-maker. “ Austerlitz,” he said to Napoleon, “ has shattered the old aristocracy. The Boulevard St. Germain no longer conspires.” And of the murder of the Due d’Enghien he said: “It is worse than a crime, it is a blunder”—an often-quoted epigram. I have referred to the hobnobbing with Talleyrand in 1809 which ' brought back Napoleon to Paris, and it was to buy at least a half-fidelity that Fouche was made Due d’Otranto.” In 1810 Fouche was again in disgrace, but not for long. In 1812 both he and Talleyrand showed that they were not without patriotic sentiment in urging Napoleon not to undertake the fatal expedition to Russia. It was megalomania that contrived Napoleon’s undoing. It has been well said that after Leipzig he had lost his intuitive genius for governing, and had become much more obstinate in- rejecting - advice. His. greatest blunder was to refuse to listen to Talleyrand. He can hardly- be criticsed for regarding Fouche with increased suspicion. In 1814 Fouche surpassed himself. He sold his master, made peace with Louis XVIII, and while Napoleon w 7 as in Elba he was still Minister of Police. He wrote an insolent letter to his exiled master, and with amazing effrontery rejoined him during the Hundred Days. But he was in constant communication with Louis XVHI at Ghent all the time that he was representing Napoleon in Paris, and it is said that he betrayed the Emperor’s military plans to the Duke of Wellington. Whether this is true or not, it is difficult to understand why Wellington should have done his best to persuade the Bourbon to retain the old regicide at his ministry. Fouche was hardly a person likely to appeal to the Iron Duke.

Louis XVIII received both Talleyrand and Fouche at St. Denis on his road back to Paris. Chateaubriand saw them coming together from the audience chamber, and bitterly remarked: “ See vice leaning on the arm of crime.” But Fouche had shot his bolt. He was included among the royal ministers, but he was dismissed after a few months for publishing a confidential report. ” You are dismissing me, you scoundrel,” he said to Tallevrand. “ Yes. you imbecile,” was the reply. His record was too much for the restored and generally incompetent Royalists. Talleyrand was an aristocrat and might be forgiven, but there could be no forgiveness for Fouche. He was made Ambassador to Saxony, but in 1816 he was condemned to death in his absence for participation in the death of louis XVI. Fouche was undisturbed. He stayed at Trieste, became an Austrian subject, and died a millionaire in 1820 Of Fouche’s complete wickedness there ca.n be no doubt, and there is no sort of evidence that his wickedness ever cost him anything more than an occasional fear that he might receive the punishment that he so richly deserved. But one never knows. He was only sixty-one when he died. a 7 ’d I'e looked eighty!—John o London’s Weeklv.