never make a hypocrite of me. Let us remain where we are." I have read in a work remarkable on many accounts that it was on the occasion of the Concordat of the 15th July 1801 that the First Consul abolished the republican calendar and re-established the Gregorian. This is an error. He did not make the calendar a religious affair. The Sénatus-consulte, which restored the use of the Gregorian calendar, to commence in the French Empire from the 11th Nivôse, year XIV. (1st January 1806), was adopted on the 22d Fructidor, year XIII. (9th September 1805), more than four years after the Concordat. The re-establishment of the ancient calendar had no other object than to bring us into harmony with the rest of Europe on a point so closely connected with daily transactions, which were much embar rassed by the decadary calendar.1 Bonaparte at length, however, consented to hear Mass, and St. Cloud was the place where this ancient usage was first re-established. He directed the ceremony to commence sooner than the hour announced in order that those who would only make a scoff at it might not arrive until the service was ended. Whenever the First Consul determined to hear Mass publicly on Sundays in the chapel of the Palace a small altar was prepared in a room near his cabinet of business. This room had been Anne of Austria's oratory. A small portable altar, placed on a platform one step high, restored it to its original destination. During the rest of the week this chapel was used as a bathing-room. On Sunday the door of communication was opened, and we heard Mass sitting in our cabinet of business. The number of persons there never exceeded three or four, and the First Consul seldom failed to transact some business during the ceremony, which never lasted longer than twelve minutes. Next day all the papers had the news that the First Consul had heard Mass in his apartments. In the same way Louis XVIII. has often heard it in his ! On the 19th of July 1801 a papal bull absolved Talley1 See the end of this volume. 1802. MARRIAGE OF TALLEYRAND. 453 rand from his vows. He immediately married Madame Grandt, and the affair obtained little notice at the time. This statement sufficiently proves how report has perverted the fact. It has been said that Bonaparte on becoming Emperor wished to restore that decorum which the Revolution had destroyed, and therefore resolved to put an end to the improper intimacy which subsisted between Talleyrand and Madame Grandt. It is alleged that the Minister at first refused to marry the lady, but that he at last found it necessary to obey the peremptory order of his master. This pretended resurrection of morality by Bonaparte is excessively ridiculous. The bull was not registered in the Council of State until the 19th of August 1802.1 I will end this chapter by a story somewhat foreign to 1 The First Consul had on several occasions urged M. de Talleyrand to return to holy orders. He pointed out to him that that course would be most becoming his age and high birth, and promised that he should be made a cardinal, thus raising him to a par with Richelieu, and giving additional lustre to his administration (Memoirs of the Duke of Rovigo, vol. i. p. 426). In a recently-published work, entitled, Echoes from Old Calcutta, the author, Dr. Busteed, gives an account of Madame Grandt which is obtained entirely from original sources. Married to a gentleman in the Civil Service before she was fifteen years of age, Madame Grandt was, within eighteen months of her marriage, the heroine of a crim. con. case against Sir Philip Francis, in which her husband laid the damages at 1,500,000 sicca rupees. The facts relating to this remarkable action are republished by Dr. Busteed from the notes of one of the judges who presided at the trial-Mr. Justice Hyde. Eventually judgment was pronounced for the plaintiff by the majority of the judges, with damages at 50,000 sicca rupees. After living for a short time under the protection of Francis, Madame Grandt went to Europe, and ultimately emerged from obscurity as the wife of Talleyrand. Her extraordinary beauty-which lasted till late in lifehas been perpetuated by a painting by Gerard, which hangs between the portraits of Madame Récamier and Prince de Talleyrand in the Musée at Versailles. The following is the description given of her by Francis to his second wife : "She was tall, most elegantly formed, with the stature of a nymph, a complexion of unequalled delicacy, and auburn hair of the most luxuriant profusion; fine blue eyes with black eyelashes and brows gave her countenance a most piquant singularity." And so Madame de Rémusat writes of her in later life in her recentlypublished Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 183 : "She was tall, and her figure had all the suppleness and grace so common to women born in the East. Her complexion was dazzling, her eyes of the brightest blue, and her slightly turned-up nose gave her, singularly enough, a look of Talleyrand himself. Her fine golden hair was of proverbial beauty." Another French writer says that she possessed "la plus belle chevelure blonde qui ait peut-être jamais existé." Like many other reigning beauties, however, she was credited with dullness. The Robinson Crusoe incident (when Sir George Robinson was asked about "his man Friday")-" Vous avez du être bien content le jour où vous avez trouvé Vendredi "—which is usually cited in evidence of the preceding transactions, but which personally concerns myself. On the 20th of July 1801 the First Consul, proprio motu, named me a Councillor of State extraordinary Madame Bonaparte kindly condescended to have an elegant but somewhat ideal costume made for me. It pleased the First Consul, however, and he had a similar one made for himself. He wore it a short time and then left it off Never had Bonaparte since his elevation shown himself so amiable as on this occasion. the prevailing belief, did not actually happen. "It was guessed at," said Talleyrand, "and that was enough; the blunder was ascribed to her without compunc tion." The real hero of the incident is supposed to have been a French abbe But it matters not who it was, for the fact is undeniable that the lady's understanding was not equal to her beauty; and as the story is an excellent one i will doubtless always be associated with the name of the Princesse de Talleyrari née Catherine Noel Worlée, sometime Madame Grandt (The Academy). But M. de Talleyrand vindicated his choice, saying, "A clever wife ofte compromises her husband; a stupid one only compromises herself" (Historica Characters, p. 122, Bulwer, Lord Dalling). 1802. 455 CHAPTER XLI. 1802. Last chapter on Egypt-Admiral Gantheaume-Way to please BonaparteGeneral Menou's flattery and his reward-Davoust-Bonaparte regrets giving the command to Menou, who is defeated by Abercromby-M. Otto's negotiation in London-Preliminaries of peace. FOR the last time in these Memoirs I shall return to the affairs of Egypt-to that episode which embraces so short a space of time and holds so high a place in the life of Bonaparte. Of all his conquests he set the highest value on Egypt, because it spread the glory of his name throughout the East. Accordingly he left nothing unattempted for the preservation of that colony. In a letter to General Kléber he said, "You are as able as I am to understand how important is the possession of Egypt to France. The Turkish Empire, in which the symptoms of decay are everywhere discernible, is at present falling to pieces, and the evil of the evacuation of Egypt by France would now be the greater, as we should soon see that fine province pass into the possession of some other European power." The selection of Gantheaume, however, to carry assistance to Kléber was not judicious. Gantheaume had brought the First Consul back from Egypt, and though the success of the passage could only be attributed to Bonaparte's own plan, his determined character, and superior judgment, yet he preserved towards Gantheaume that favourable disposition which is naturally felt for one who has shared a great danger with us, and upon whom the responsibility may be said to have been imposed. This confidence in mediocrity, dictated by an honourable feeling, did not obtain a suitable return. Gantheaume, by his indecision and creeping about in the Mediterranean, had already failed to execute a commission entrusted to him. The First Consul, upon finding he did not leave Brest after he had been ordered to the Mediterranean, repeatedly said to me, "What the devil is Gantheaume about?" With one of the daily reports sent to the First Consul he received the following quatrain, which made him laugh heartily: "Vaisseaux lestés, tête sans lest, Ainsi part l'Amiral Gantheaume; "With ballast on board, but none in his brain, On a voyage from Brest to Bertheaume, And then from Bertheaume-to Brest back again!" Gantheaume's hesitation, his frequent tergiversations, his arrival at Toulon, his tardy departure, and his return to that port on the 19th of February 1801, only ten days prior to Admiral Keith's appearance with Sir Ralph Abercromby off Alexandria, completely foiled all the plans which Bonaparte had conceived of conveying succour and reinforcements to a colony on the brink of destruction. Bonaparte was then dreaming that many French families would carry back civilisation, science, and art to that country which was their cradle. But it could not be concealed that his departure from Egypt in 1799 had prepared the way for the loss of that country, which was hastened by Kléber's death and the choice of Menou as his successor. A sure way of paying court to the First Consul and gaining his favour was to eulogise his views about Egypt, and to appear zealous for maintaining the possession of that country. By these means it was that Menou gained his confidence. In the first year of the occupation of that country he laid before him his dreams respecting Africa, He spoke of the negroes of Senegal, Mozambique, Mehedie, Marabout, and other barbarous countries which were all at once to assume a new aspect, and become civilised, in consequence of the French possession of Egypt. To Menou's adulation is to be attributed the favourable reception given |