Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 1/Letter 105

To MRS. SNEYD EDGEWORTH.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, March 27.

I agree with you in thinking the MS. de Sainte-Helene a magnificent performance. My father was strongly of opinion that it was not written by Buonaparte himself, and he grounded this opinion chiefly upon the passages relative to the Duc d'Enghien: c'était plus qu'un crime, c'était une faute; no man, he thought, not even Nero, would, in writing for posterity say that he had committed a crime instead of a fault. But it may be observed that in the Buonaparte system of morality which runs through the book, nothing is considered what we call a crime, unless it be what he allows to be a fault. His proof that he did not murder Pichegru is, that it would have been useless. Le cachet de Buonaparte is as difficult to imitate as le cachet de Voltaire. I know of but three people in Europe who could have written it: Madame de Staël, Talleyrand, or M. Dumont. Madame de Staël, though she has the ability, could not have got so plainly and shortly through it. Talleyrand has l'esprit comme un démon, but he could not for the soul of him have refused himself a little more wit and wickedness. Dumont has not enough audacity of mind.