Honore de Balzac by An Historical Mystery_The Gondreville Mystery Page A

those
stars of tragic farces. But, before seeing them at work, it is advisable
to show the head of which they were the arms. When Bonaparte became
First Consul he found Fouche at the head of the police. The Revolution
had frankly and with good reason made the management of the police into
a special ministry. But after his return from Marengo, Bonaparte created
the prefecture of police, placed Dubois in charge of it, and called
Fouche to the Council of State, naming as his successor in the ministry
a conventional named Cochon, since known as Comte de Lapparent. Fouche,
who considered the ministry of police as by far the most important in a
government of broad ideas and fixed policy, saw disgrace or at any
rate distrust in the change. After Napoleon became aware of the immense
superiority of this great statesman, as evidenced in the affair of the
infernal machine and in the conspiracy with which we are now concerned,
he returned him to the ministry of police. Later still, becoming alarmed
at the powers Fouche displayed during his absence at the time of the
affair at Walcheren, the Emperor gave that ministry to the Duc de
Rovigo, and sent Fouche (Duc d'Otrante) as governor to the Illyrian
provinces,—an appointment which was in fact an exile.
    The singular genius of this man, Fouche, which had the power of
inspiring Napoleon with a sort of fear, did not reveal itself all at
once. This obscure conventional, one of the most extraordinary men
of our time, and the most misjudged, was moulded, as it were, by the
whirlwind of events. He raised himself under the Directory to the height
from which men of genius could see the future and judge the past, and
then, like certain commonplace actors who suddenly become admirable
through the light of some vivid perception, he gave proofs of his
dexterity during the rapid revolution of the 18th Brumaire. This man
with the pallid face, educated to monastic dissimulation, possessing
the secrets of the
montagnards
to whom he belonged, and those of the
royalists to whom he ended by belonging, had slowly and silently studied
the men, the events, and the interests on the political stage; he
penetrated Napoleon's secrets, he gave him useful counsel and precious
information. Satisfied with having proven his capacity and his
usefulness, Fouche was careful not to disclose himself completely. He
wished to remain at the head of affairs, but the Emperor's restless
uneasiness about him cost him his place.
    The ingratitude or rather the distrust shown by Napoleon after the
affair at Walcheren, gives the key-note to the character of a man who,
unfortunately for himself, was not a great
seigneur
, and whose conduct
was modelled on that of Talleyrand. At that time neither his former
colleagues nor his present ones had suspected the amplitude of his
genius, which was purely ministerial, essentially governmental, just
in its forecasts and incredibly sagacious. To-day, every impartial
historian perceives that Napoleon's inordinate self-love was among
the chief causes of his fall, a punishment which cruelly expiated his
wrong-doing. In the mind of that distrustful sovereign lurked a constant
jealousy for his own rising power, which influenced all his actions, and
caused his secret hatred for men of talent, the precious legacy of the
Revolution, with whom he might have made himself a cabinet capable of
being a true repository for his thoughts. Talleyrand and Fouche were not
the only ones who gave him umbrage. The misfortune of usurpers is that
those who have given them a crown are as much their enemies as those
from whom they snatch it. Napoleon's sovereignty was never convincingly
felt by those who were once his superiors or his equals, nor by those
who still held to the doctrine of rights; none of them regarded their
oath of allegiance to him as binding.
    Malin, an inferior man, incapable of comprehending Fouche's hidden
genius, or of distrusting his own perceptions, burned himself, like
a moth in a candle, by