No. 69
I trust I may hear you have been rational in your sorrow.—As a matter of fact he had heard the opposite, for the following day (May 15th) he writes to his brother Jerome: “Napoleon died in three days at the Hague; I know not if the King has advised you of it. This event gives me the more pain insomuch as his father and mother are not rational, and are giving themselves up to all the transports of their grief.” To Fouché he writes three days later: “I have been very much afflicted by the misfortune which has befallen me. I had hoped for a more brilliant destiny for that poor child;” and on May 20th, “I have felt the loss of the little Napoleon very acutely. I would have wished that his father and mother should have received from their temperament as much courage as I for knowing how to bear all the ills of life. But they are younger, and have reflected less on the frailty of our worldly possessions.” It is typical of Napoleon that the only man to whom, as far as we know, he unbosomed his sorrow should be one of his early friends, even though that friend should be the false and faithless Fouché, who requited his confidence later by vile and baseless allegations respecting the parentage of this very child. In one respect only did Napoleon resemble David in his supposititious sin, which was, that when the child was dead, he had neither time nor temperament to waste in futile regrets. As he said on another occasion, if his wife had died during the Austerlitz Campaign it would not have delayed his operations a quarter of an hour. But he considers practical succour to the living as the most fitting memorial to the dead, and writes on June 4th to De Champagny: “Twenty years ago a malady called croup showed itself in the north of Europe. Some years ago it spread into France. I require you to offer a prize of £500 (12,000 francs), to be given to the doctor who writes the best essay on this malady and its mode of treatment.” Commenting on this letter Bignon (vol. vi. p. 262) adds, “It is, however, fortunate when, on the eve of battles, warlike princes are pondering over ways of preserving the population of their states.”