STATE OF FRENCH MANUFACTURES.—ON PHYSIOGNOMY.
27th.—The Emperor went out about 2 o’clock; the weather was very fine. The season is sensibly different from that which we had on our arrival; the air is infinitely more pure. The Emperor was, however, very ill, and very low-spirited. He walked to the extremity of the wood, while we were waiting for the calash. We took our usual drive.
The conversation turned on the state of manufactures in France. The Emperor said he had raised them to a degree of prosperity hitherto unknown; and which was scarcely credited in Europe, or even in France. This was a subject of wonder to foreigners on their arrival. The Abbé de Montesquiou, he said, was constantly expressing his astonishment at this circumstance, the proofs of which he had in his own hands, when he became Minister of the Interior.
The Emperor was the first individual in France who said: Agriculture, first; industry, that is to say, manufactures, next; and, finally, trade, which must arise out of the superabundance of the two first. He also defined and put into practice, in a clear and connected way, the systems most conducive to the interests of our manufacturers and merchants. To him we were indebted for the cultivation of sugar, indigo, and cotton. He offered a reward of a million francs to the person who should discover a method of spinning flax like cotton; and he doubted not that this discovery would have been made. The fatality of circumstances alone prevented this grand idea from being carried into execution.
“The old aristocracy, those enemies to our prosperity,” said the Emperor, “exhausted all their wit in stupid jokes and frivolous caricatures on these subjects. But the English had no cause to laugh; they felt the blow, and have not yet recovered from it.”
A short time before dinner, the Emperor sent for me to attend him in his chamber. He was very unwell; he tried to converse, but he had not strength. He attributed his indisposition to his having drunk some bad wine, which had newly arrived. He said that Corvisart, Bertholet, and other physicians and chemists, had frequently said that if he experienced the least unpleasant flavour, on first tasting his wine, he must by no means swallow it.
