The old monarchy, unless it actually felt itself so self-dependent as to be indebted to no one, was bound to regard itself as under obligation to Chateaubriand, not only because, as an officer in Condé's army, he had fought and suffered in its cause, not only because, under Napoleon, he had stopped midway in his career and defied the mighty potentate by sending in his resignation after the execution of the Duke of Enghien, but also because, in 1814, even before Napoleon's abdication at Versailles, he had influenced public opinion in favour of the Bourbons by means of a pamphlet which Louis XVIII himself declared to have been as useful to him as a hundred thousand soldiers.
The pamphlet in question, _Buonaparte et les Bourbons_, is perhaps the most passionate, most vindictive, most venomous, and most artificially enthusiastic party work written by Chateaubriand. It is an insane shriek of hatred of the fallen Napoleon, who is stripped of every fragment of his glory, and a hurrah of hollow enthusiasm for sunken-chested Louis XVIII, who is deified. In no other work does Chateaubriand display so much vindictive stupidity. He goes so far as to deny Bonaparte's ability as a general. He describes him as an incompetent officer, who could do nothing but command his troops to go forward, and who gained his victories simply by the excellence of these troops and not by his conduct of them, as a commander who never ensured and never knew when to make a retreat, and who, far from improving the art of war, led it back to its infancy again.[9] The Marquise de Seiglière in Sandeau's famous comedy does not talk greater nonsense about Napoleon.
Louis XVIII, on the other hand, is called a prince famed for his sagacity. We are told that, of all the rulers possible for France at the moment, he is the one most suited to the position of the country and the _spirit of the century_, whilst Bonaparte is the one of all others least fit to reign.
This is what we find in the official pamphlet. But how differently Chateaubriand thinks and speaks in his Memoirs! In them he does justice to Bonaparte's military skill; he says of him that "he invented war in the grand style;" and he has also suddenly discovered that the winning of one battle after another is no inconsiderable part of the duty of a general. Because they flatter his own vanity, he relates various anecdotes which show how Napoleon, unbiassed by his (Chateaubriand's) hatred, displayed his appreciation of him. After Chateaubriand had turned against him, Napoleon demanded to be informed by the Academy, why a prize had not been awarded to the _Génie du Christianisme_. And when (at Fontainebleau) he had read with perfect calmness the offensive pamphlet described above, he merely remarked: "_This_ is correct; _that_ is not correct. I do not blame Chateaubriand. He was my enemy in my day of prosperity; but those miscreants," &c, &c. Apropos of this, Chateaubriand makes the amusing and surprising remark: "My admiration of Bonaparte (this time without the _u_) has always been great and sincere." He is undoubtedly telling the truth. He admired and envied Napoleon. He measured himself with him and felt the disadvantage of having such a contemporary.