NAPOLEON 

THE LAST PHASE 






By 



LORD ROSEBERY 




HARPER AND BROTHERS 

NEW YORK 6- LONDON 
1900 



/ 



^>f)836 



i-ilirary of Congress 

Two Copies Received 
NOV 2 1900 

C«>]rtght mcry 

FIRST COPY. 



1900 



FIRST COPY 


delivered t* 


DEC 29 1900 


OHULfi biviSiON 



Copyright, 1900, by Harper & Brothers. 

v^// rights reserved* 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Literature i 

II. Las Cases, Antommarchi, and Others .... 9 

III. Gourgaud 38 

IV. The Deportation 63 

V. Sir Hudson Lowe 73 

VI. The Question of Title 85 

VII. The Money Question 102 

VIII. The Question of Custody 109 

IX. Lord Bathurst 129 

X. The Dramatis Person^e 136 

XI. The Commissioners 150 

XII. The Emperor at Home 164 

XIII. The Conversations of Napoleon 180 

XIV. The Supreme Regrets 217 

XV. Napoleon and the Democracy 227 

XVI. The End 238 

Appendix 279 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 



CHAPTER I 

THE LITERATURE 



Will there ever be an adequate life of Napoleon? 
Hitherto it has been scarcely worth while to ask the 
question, as we have been too near the prejudices and 
passions of his time for any such book to be written. 
Nor are we as yet very remote, for it may be noted 
that our present sovereign was all but two years old 
when Napoleon died, and that there are still probably 
in existence people who have seen him. Moreover, 
the Second Empire revived and reproduced these feel- 
ings in almost their original force, and the reaction 
from the Second Empire prolonged them. So we are 
still, perhaps, not sufficiently outside Napoleon's 
historical sphere of influence for such a book to be 
written. 

Nor until recently did we possess anything like 
adequate materials. The pages and pages that fol- 
low Napoleon's name in library catalogues mainly 
represent compilations, or pamphlets, or lives con- 
scientiously constructed out of dubious or inade- 
quate materials, meagre bricks of scrannel straw. 
But now, under a government in France which opens 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

its records freely, and with the gradual publication i 
of [)rivate memoirs, more or less authentic, we are ) 
beginning perhaps to see a possible limit to possible ' 
disclosure. The publication of the suppressed cor- 
respondence removes a reproach from the official j 
publication, and fills its blanks. And the mania j 
for Napoleonic literature which has prevailed for j 
some years past, unaccompanied, strangely enough, ! 
by any sign of the revival of Bonapartism as a po- ; 
litical force, has had the effect of producing a great 
supply to meet a greedy demand — a supply, indeed, \ 
by no means always unquestionable or unmixed, i 
but at any rate out of the harvest of its abundance i 
furnishing some grains of genuine fact. ' 

The material, then, varied and massive as it is, \ 
seems to be ready for the hand of the destined work- : 
man, when he shall appear. And even he would 
seem not to be remote. In the great narrative of 
the relations of Napoleon and Alexander of Russia 
we wish to see his shadow projected. Is it too much ] 
to hope that M. ya.iadaL will crown the services that 
he has rendered to history in that priceless work by 
writing at least the civil life of Napoleon? Might | 
not he and M. Henri Houssaye, who has also done ; 
so much so well, jointly accomplish the whole? \ 

We speak of a partnership, as we do not conceive 
it to be possible for any one man to undertake the 
task. For the task of reading and sifting the ma- 
terials would be gigantic before a single word could ' 
be written. Nor, indeed, could any one man ade- i 
quately deal with Napoleon in his military and his 
civil capacities. For Napoleon, says Metternich, a ^ 
hostile judge, was born an administrator, a legislator, ; 
and a conqueror ; he might have added, a statesman. : 

2 






THE LITERATURE 

The conqueror of 1796-1812, and, it may be added, 
the defender of 1813 and 1814, would require a con 
summate master of the art of war to analyze and 
celebrate his qualities. Again, Napoleon the civilian 
would have to be treated, though not necessarily by 
different hands, as the statesman, the administrator, 
the legislator. Last of all, there comes the general 
survey of Napoleon as a man, one of the simplest 
character to his sworn admirers or sworn enemies, 
one of the most complicated to those who are neither. 

And for this last study the most fruitful material 
is furnished in the six years that he spent at St. Hele- 
na, when he not merely recorded and annotated his 
career, but afforded a dehnite and consecutive view 
of himself. " Now," as he said there himself, " thanks 
to my misfortune, one can see me nakedly as I am." 
What he dictated in the way of autobiography and 
commentary has never perhaps received its just meas- 
ure of attention. Some one has said somewhere 
that the memoirs he produced himself appear to be 
neglected because they are the primitive and author- 
itative documents, so far as he is concerned, of his 
life. People prefer to drink at any other source than 
the original; more especially do they esteem the 
memoirs of any who came, however momentarily, 
into contact with him. What the man himself thought 
or said of himself seems to most of those who read 
about Napoleon a matter of little moment. What 
they want to read is Bourrienne, or Remusat, or Con- 
stant, or the like. They may, no doubt, allege that 
Napoleon's own memoirs are not so spicy as those 
of some of his servants, and that they are by no means 
to be always relied upon as unbiased records of fact. 
Still they remain as the direct deliberate declarations 

3 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

of this prodigy as to his achievements, and they con- 
tain, moreover, commentaries on the great captains 
of the past — Caesar, Frederic, and Turenne — which 
cannot be without serious interest to the historian 
or the soldier. 

Nor must this indifference to truth count for too 
much in an estimate of Napoleon's character. Truth 
was in those days neither expected nor required in 
continental statesmanship — so little, indeed, that 
half a century afterwards Bismarck discovered it to 
be the surest means of deception. Napoleon's fiercest 
enemies, Metternich and Talleyrand, have now given 
us their memoirs. But we should be sorry to give 
a blind credence to these in any case where their per- 
sonal interest was involved. Napoleon at St. Helena 
was, as it were, making the best case for himself, 
just as he was in the habit of doing in his bulletins. 
His bulletins represented what Napoleon desired to 
be believed. So did the memoirs. They are a series 
of Napoleonic bulletins on the Napoleonic career, 
neither more nor less. 

But there is one distinction to be drawn. In writ- 
ing his bulletins, Napoleon had often an object in 
deceiving. At St. Helena his only practical aim was 
to further the interests of his dynasty and his son. 
So that where these are not directly concerned the 
memoirs may be considered as somewhat more re- 
liable than the bulletins. 

The literature of St. Helena is fast accumulating, 
and must be within a measurable distance of com- 
pletion. Eighty-four years have elapsed since a 
greedy public absorbed five editions of Warden's 
Letters in five months : seventy - eight since the 
booksellers were crowded with eager purchasers for 

4 



THE LITERATURE 

O'Meara's book. It is perhaps not too much to hope 
that his manuscript journal, which now sleeps in 
California, may soon be published in its entirety, 
for it is said to be full of vivid and original matter; 
while it might throw light on the discrepancies be- 
tween his Voice from St. Helena and his private 
communications to the English officials at the Ad- 
miralty and at Plantation House.'" Then we have 
had the voluminous batteries of Gourgaud, Montho- 
lon, and Las Cases (whose suppressed passages might 
also be safely produced, if, indeed, they exist, or ever 
existed) met by the ponderous defence of Forsyth 
and the more effective abstract of Seaton. We have 
had, too, the light artillery of Maitland and Glover, 
and Cockburn and Santini, and the madcap "Miss 
Bets3^," who became ]\Irs. Abell. We have the his- 
tories of St. Helena by Barnes and Masselin. And 
in l8i6, a former Governor, General Beatson, availed 
himself of the sudden interest in the island to launch 
on the public a massive quarto detailing its agri- 
cultural features with a minuteness which could 
scarcely be justified in the case of the Garden of Eden. 
We have the tragedy of Antommarchi, whatever 
that effort may be worth. Of late, too, the commis- 
saries have taken the field; Montchenu, Balmain, 
and Sturmer have all yielded their testimony. 
So has Mme. de Montholon. Napoleon, indeed, 
urged his companions to record his utterances in 
journals, and frequently alluded to the result. " Yes- 
terday evening," says Gourgaud, "the Emperor told 
me that I might turn my leisure to profit in writing 

* Since this was written, portions have been pubHshed in the 
"Century magazine, which make it abundantly clear that O'Meara 
§kimmed ofi a'l the valuable matter for the Voice, 

5 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

down his sayings: I would thus gain from 500 to 
1000 louis a day/' He was cognizant of the journal 
of Las Cases, w^iich was dictated to or copied by St. 
Denis, one of the servants, whom Napoleon would 
sometimes question as to its contents. O'Meara's 
journal was read to him. He took it for granted that 
they all kept journals, and he was right. For, ex- 
cept the faithful Bertrand and the wife who divided 
with the Emperor his affection, none of the actors 
in that dreary drama have held their peace. 

Lately, however, there have appeared two further 
contributions; and it may be considered that, while 
both are striking, one exceeds in interest all the pre- 
vious publications of St. Helena, from the light that 
it throws on Napoleon's character. Lady Malcolm's 
Diary of St. Helena gives a vivid account of the 
Emperor's conversations with Sir Pulteney, and an 
impartial account of Lowe, which seems to turn the 
balance finally against that hapless and distracted 
official. But the second publication is in some re- 
spects not merely the most remarkable book relating 
to Napoleon at St. Helena, but to Napoleon at any 
time. It is the private diary of Gourgaud written 
entirely for his own eye, though the editors seem to 
think that the latter part at any rate may have been 
prepared for the possible detection of Lowe. But the 
great bulk was obviously prepared for no one except 
Gourgaud, since it could please no one else, and 
scarcely Gourgaud. It embodies, we believe, the 
truth as it appeared to the writer from day to day. 
It throws a strange light on the author, but a still 
newer light on his master. But when we have read 
it we feel a doubt of all the other records, and a con- 
viction that this book is more nearly the unvar^ 

6 



THE LITERATURE 

nished truth than anything else that has been put 
forth. 

For there is one rule, to which we fear we can scarce- 
ly make an exception, which applies to all the Long- 
wood publications : they are none of them wholly 
reliable. If we did make an exception, it would cer- 
tainly be in favor of Gourgaud. And it may fur- 
ther be said that their veracity increases in propor- 
tion to the remoteness of their publication from the 
events to which they relate. Gourgaud, who is pub- 
lished in 1898, is more truthful than Montholon, who 
publishes in 1847; and Montholon, again, is more 
truthful than Las Cases, who publishes in 1823. 
Least of all, perhaps, to be depended on is O'Meara, 
who published in 1822. In all these books, except, 
perhaps, the latest, there are gross instances of mis- 
representation and fabrication. And yet to accuse 
all these authors of wanton unveracity would not be 
fair. It was rarely, if ever, wanton. Partly from 
idolatry of Napoleon, partly to keep up a dramatic 
representation of events at St. Helena, and so bring 
about his liberation, facts were omitted or distorted 
which in any way reflected on their idol or tended to 
mar the intended effects. There seems to have been 
something in the air of St. Helena that blighted ex- 
act truth; and he who collates the various narratives 
on any given point will find strange and hopeless 
contradictions. Truth probably lurks in Forsyth, 
but the crushing of the ore is a hideous task; and, 
for various other reasons, it is equally difficult to 
find in the more contemporary narratives. There is 
a strange mildew that rests on them all, as on the 
books and boots in the island. One has to weigh 
each particle of evidence and bear in mind the char- 

7 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

acter of the witness. Sometimes, indeed, we may be 
charged with having quoted from sources which we 
have described as tainted. We could scarcely quote 
from any others. But where the testimony seems of 
itself probable, and where no object but truth is per- 
ceptible in it, we have no choice but to cite from what 
documents there are. 

One striking circumstance remains to be noticed. 
Of the last three years of Napoleon's life we know 
scarcely anything. From the departure of Gour- 
gaud, in March, i8i8, to the end of May, 1821, we 
know practically nothing. We know what the Eng- 
lish outside reported. We have an authorized, but 
not very trustworthy, record from within. But, in 
reality, we know nothing, or next to nothing. 



CHAPTER II 
LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, AND OTHERS 

The book of Las Cases, which is the most massive, 
and perhaps the most notorious, is not without a cer- 
tain charm of its own. First pubhshed in eight vol- 
umes, it was subsequently compressed, and under the 
title of Mofwrial of St. Helena, adorned with the 
quaint and spirited designs of Charlet, has obtained 
a world-wide circulation. Las Cases is said, indeed, 
though no doubt with much exaggeration, to have 
realized from it no less a sum than eighty thousand 
pounds. It is alleged to have been written in daily 
entries, and to supply an exact report of Napoleon's 
conversation. Much, however, is declared by the 
author to have been lost, partly from want of time 
for transcription ; something, perhaps, from the vicis- 
situdes of his papers. What he narrates is told with 
spirit, and even eloquence, and when corroborated by 
other authority may be taken to be a faithful tran- 
script of the Emperor's talk as he wished it to be re- 
ported, or at any rate of his dictations. But, when 
uncorroborated, it is wholly unreliable. For, put- 
ting on one side the usual exaggerations about diet, 
restrictions, and so forth, and making full allowance 
for the author's being too dazzled by Napoleon (whom 
he sincerely adored) to see quite clearly, there is a fatal 
blot on his book. It is an arsenal of spurious docu- 

9 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

ments. How this has come about, whether from the 
fertile invention of Las Cases, or by the connivance 
and inspiration of Napoleon, it is not possible defi- 
nitely to pronounce. At any rate, four such fabri- 
cated letters are printed at length in Las Cases's book, 
and he must be held responsible for a fifth, which is 
nowhere printed, and which probably had but a tran- 
sient existence. 

The fabrication of the first of these has been clearly 
and categorically set forth by Count Murat in his 
excellent book, Murat, Lieutenant de V Empereur 
en Espag7ie. The charge is there established that 
Las Cases, in order to lay the blame of his hero's 
Spanish policy on Murat, inserted in his book a fabri- 
cated letter of the date of March 29, 1808. By whom 
the letter was composed does not appear. But that 
it is a fabrication is certain, and the responsibility 
for its production rests on Las Cases. Count Murat 
accumulates damning proofs. He points out the 
irresolution of the despatch, and the orders that the 
French armies should perpetually retreat before the 
Spaniards, as wholly alien to the Napoleonic char- 
acter. He points out the incessant inconsistencies 
with passages of authentic despatches written at the 
same time. On the 27th of March Napoleon had 
written to Murat to bid him make an imposing dis- 
play of force in Madrid. In the spurious despatch, 
dated the 29th, he disapproves of his being in Madrid 
at all. It is known, moreover, that the news of Mu- 
rat's occupation of Madrid did not reach the Emperor 
till the 30th. The despatch is not in the form with 
which Napoleon addressed Murat. The drafts, or 
minutes, of practically all Napoleon's despatches 
are in existence. There is no minute of this. Na- 

lo 



LAS CASES, ANTOMAIARCHI, ETC. 

poleon, in his other despatches, never alhides to this 
one. ]\Iurat never acknowledges its receipt. Mu- 
rat's minute register of letters received and sent con- 
tains no alhision to it. How, in any case, did it 
suddenly make its appearance at St. Helena? It 
seems useless to accumulate proofs that a more au- 
dacious fabrication has seldom been presented to the 
public. The editors of the imperial correspondence, 
indeed, blush as they print it, for ihey append a note 
stating that neither the draft, nor the original, nor 
an3" authentic copj", is discoverable. Savarj^, Beaus- 
set, and Thibaudeau blindl}^ accept the letter on the 
authority of Las Cases. ^leneval, who was at the 
time Napoleon's private sccretar3", anticipates the 
doubts of Count IMurat, and details some material 
circumstances which vitiate the letter, one of them 
being that, though the letter is dated from Paris, Na- 
poleon at that time was at St. Cloud. IVIeneval says 
that he cannot solve the nwstery, though his argu- 
ments all point irresistibh^ to fabrication; his only 
argument the other wa}" — a very dangerous one — 
is that no one but Napoleon could have composed 
it. The perplexit}" of Aleneval, when his confiden- 
tial position is considered, is extremel}" significant, 
if not conclusive. Thiers thinks that Napoleon 
wrote it, and wrote it on the professed date, but ad- 
mits that the letter was never sent. His reasons 
for this strange theory- cannot be examined here, but 
the3^ appear to be the mere result of a desperate ef- 
fort to prove the authenticity^ of the letter, in spite 
of overwhelming difficulties stated by himself. ]\Ion- 
tholon prints it among a number of other letters which 
he says were handed to him b^^ the Emperor. This 
casts doubt on the narrative of IVIontholon as welL 

II 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE j 

But the primary and original responsibility must ; 
rest with Las Cases. And it is a little unfortunate , 
that Las Cases piqued himself on his skill in com- 
position. He tells us that he drew up Napoleon's 
protest at Plymouth. He drew up innumerable 
protests of his own. "Once a correspondence es- 
tablished with Sir H. Lowe," he says, with ominous 
pleasantry, "1 did not remain idle.'' He rained ; 
documents on the governor. Deported to the Cape, ji 
he never stopped writing : the governor of that set- \ 
tlement, the ministers, the Prince Regent — all had 
to endure him. Returning to Europe, he bombards « 
every sovereign or minister that he can think of. ; 
Last of all, the patient reader who ploughs through ■ 
his eight volumes has ample reason to feel that Las j 
Cases would like nothing better than to pen a few \ 
Napoleonic despatches to keep himself in exercise. ' 
We should not, on this instance alone, definitely pro- ; 
nounce that Las Cases deliberately fabricated the j 
letter to Murat; for it might have been an academi- j 
cal exercise, or there might have been confusion ■ 
among his papers, or lapse of memory. There are 
strange freaks of this kind on record. ! 

But, unfortunately, this is by no means the only : 
effort or lapse of Las Cases in this direction. In the 
fifth part of his journal he gives in much the same ; 
way a letter from Napoleon to Bernadotte, dated \ 
August 8, i8il. It is entirely ignored by the editors I 
of the imperial correspondence. It is, however, in- j 
serted in the Lettres inedites de Napoleon I., but j 
"with every reserve," for the editors do not know its ; 
source. Had they known it, they would no doubt j 
have rejected it, as had the former editors. They | 

take it at second hand from Martel's CEuvres Litt4- ' 

i 

12 



LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, ETC. 

raires de Napoleon Bonaparte. Martel, who does not 
name his authority, evidently took it from Las Cases. 

Again, in his sixth volume. Las Cases generously 
produces from his occult and unfailing store another 
state document. This time it is a letter addressed 
by Napoleon to his brother, Louis, King of Holland, 
on April 3, 1808, from the palace of Marrac. It bears 
all the mint marks of the others. It is found for the 
first time in Las Cases's book. No draft of it is in 
existence, a fact which is in itself fatal. Unluckily, 
too. Napoleon did not arrive at Marrac till fourteen 
days after April 3. The editors of the Emperor's 
correspondence print it with this dry remark, and with 
an ominous reference to Las Cases as the sole au- 
thority. M. Rocquain, in his Napoleon et le Roi 
Louis (p. 166, note), unhesitatingly dismisses it as 
in the main, if not wholly, a fraud. We see no rea- 
son for accepting any part as genuine, nor, indeed, 
does M. Rocquain supply any. 

In his seventh volume, again, there is a fourth let- 
ter, of the authorship of which it may confidently be 
said, Aut Las Cases, aut Diabolus. It purports to 
be instructions for an anonymous plenipotentiary on 
a mission in Poland, and it is dated April 18, 18 1 2. 
This composition is absolutely ignored by the official 
editors of the imperial correspondence. It is, as usual, 
suddenly produced by Las Cases as a revelation of 
the real motives of the Russian expedition. The 
real motive of that disastrous war, it seems, was the 
reconstruction of the ancient kingdom of Poland. 
When we consider that at that juncture, when the 
revival was passionately sought by the Poles, eagerly 
desired by his own army, and by some of his most 
devoted servants, when it was vital to his strategy 

13 



.NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

and to his policy, when it was clearly dictated by the 
commonest gratitude and humanity towards Poland, 
Napoleon resolutely refused it, we may judge of the 
value and authenticity of this document. 

The fifth fabrication, which we are not privileged 
even to see, is the most remarkable, and the most im- 
pudent, of all. In a moment of disinterested friend- 
ship Las Cases drew from his manuscript hoards, to 
show to Warden, a letter from the Due d'Enghien to 
Napoleon which was written on the eve of his exe- 
cution, and which was suppressed by Talleyrand for 
fear Napoleon should be moved by it to spare him. 
Las Cases appears to have had a monopoly of this 
document, for no one except himself and those to 
whom he showed it ever had the singular good for- 
tune to see or even to hear of it. His own statement 
with regard to the Enghien affair is, perhaps, the most 
nebulous in his whole book, and he only makes a 
timid and transient allusion to the letter which he 
had shown so exultantly to Warden. Warden's lan- 
guage is so remarkable that it deserves quotation: 
" I saw a copy of this letter in possession of Count de 
Las Cases, which he calmly represented to me as one 
of the mass of documents formed or collected to authen- 
ticate and justify certain mysterious parts of the his- 
tory which he was occasionally employed in writing 
under the dictation of the hero of it." Let us follow 
up for a moment the subsequent history of the letter 
of the Due d'Enghien intercepted by Talleyrand and 
providentially preserved by Las Cases. In the Let- 
ters from the Cape, composed, inspired, or revised by 
Napoleon, this letter is mentioned, for the author had 
"frequent opportunities of cursorily running over 
manuscripts of the greatest interest relative to the 

14 



LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, ETC. 

memorable events of the last twent3^ years, a part 
of which was even written from the dictation of Na- 
poleon himself"; in other words. Napoleon, who is 
the author of the Letters, has access to manuscripts 
dictated by himself. "When the Due d'Enghien 
had arrived at Strasburg, he wrote a letter to Na- 
poleon, in which he stated 'that his rights to the 
crown were very distant; that for a length of time 
his family had lost their claims: and promised, if 
pardon was granted to him, to discover everything 
he knew of the plot of enemies of France, and to serve 
the First Consul faithfully. ' This letter was not pre- 
sented by Talleyrand to Napoleon until it was too 
late. The young prince was no more." The au- 
thor goes on to say that in the manuscript, which he 
had been privileged to see. Napoleon states that " per- 
haps, if this letter had been presented in time, the 
political advantages which would have accrued from 
his declarations and his services would have de- 
cided the First Consul to pardon him." This ex- 
tract is interesting as containing the only portion of 
the text of this remarkable document which has been 
preserved. Rumors of this precious letter appear to 
have been cautiously spread about Longwood, and 
to have excited the curiosity of that portion of the 
household which had not been admitted to the con- 
fidence of Las Cases. O'Meara appears especially to 
have distinguished himself by a pertinacious spirit 
of investigation. In January, 1817, he represents 
himself as asking the Emperor questions with regard 
to it. " I now asked if it were true that Talleyrand 
had retained a letter from the Due d'Enghien to him 
until two days after the Duke's execution? Napo- 
leon's reply was: 'It is true; the Duke had written a 

15 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 



letter, offering his services, and asking a command 
in the army from me, which that scelerato Talleyrand 
did not make known until two days after his execu- 
tion/ I observed that Talleyrand, by his culpable 
concealment of the letter, was virtually guilty of the i 
death of the Duke. ' Talleyrand, ' replied Napoleon, i 
' is a briccone, capable of any crime/ '' j 

Two months later, in March, O'Meara mentions to | 
Napoleon that a book has been published respecting | 
him, by Warden, which was exciting great interest. 1 
The book had not then arrived, but there were ex- \ 
tracts from it in the newspapers. Napoleon sits down ■ 
to read the newspapers, asks the explanation of a | 
few passages, and at once inquires what Warden had 
said of the affair of the Due d'Enghien, " I replied 
that he asserted that Talleyrand had detained a 
letter from the Duke for a considerable time after 
his execution, and that he attributed his death to 
Talleyrand. 'Di questo non c'e dubbio ' (of this there 
is no doubt), replied Napoleon. "' Later in the month \ 
Napoleon reiterates this statement to O'Meara. 
"When he (the Due d'Enghien) arrived at Stras- ! 
burg, he wrote a letter to me in which he offered j 
to discover everything if pardon were granted to i 
him, said that his family had lost their claims ^ 
for a long time, and concluded by offering his ser- 
vices to me. The letter was delivered to Talleyrand, 
who concealed it until after his execution." This 
seems succinct enough, but O'Meara wished to make 
assurance doubly sure. So in April he "asked Na- 
poleon again, as I was anxious to put the matter be- 
yond a doubt, whether, if Talleyrand had delivered 
the Due d'Enghien's letter in time to him, he would 
have pardoned the writer. He replied, 'It is prob- 

i6 



LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, ETC. 

able that I might, for in it he made an offer of his 
services; besides, he was the best of the family.' " 
It is noteworthy that, although Napoleon speaks more 
than once to Gourgaud about the Enghien affair, he 
never mentions the letter to that critical and incredu- 
lous officer. Finally, the whole bubble, blown as- 
siduously by Warden, O'Meara, and the Letters 
from the Cape, ignominiously bursts. The letter 
disappears, and with it the charge against Talley- 
rand. The -narrative is brought back to historical 
truth by placing on record the well-known note of 
the Due d'Enghien written on the report of his trial. 
Montholon has to engineer this remarkable meta- 
morphosis. It is, of course/ impossible to perform 
this task with success, but the hapless equerry ex- 
tracts himself from it with something less than grace 
or probability. He tells us that after O'Meara's de- 
parture the surgeon's journal was left with him, and 
that he was in the habit of reading it aloud to his 
master. The Emperor, he says, pointed out some 
errors in the manuscript. And it seems a pity that 
Montholon does not place on record what these er- 
rors were, for the only statement which is corrected 
is that thrice solemnly made by O'Meara on the au- 
thority of Napoleon himself. We must quote text- 
ually what is said about it: "M. O'Meara dit que 
M. de Talleyrand intercepta une lettre ecrite par le 
Due d'Enghien quelques heures avant le jugement. 
La verite est que le Due d'Enghien a ecrit sur le pro- 
ems verbal d'interrogatoire, avant de signer: ' Je fais 
avec instance la demande d'avoir une audience par- 
ticuliere du premier consul. Mon nom, mon rang, 
ma fagon de penser et I'horreur de ma situation, me 
font esperer qu'il ne refusera pas ma demande.'" 
B 17 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

This, of course, is what the Due d'Enghien did actu- 
ally write. Then Montholon proceeds, "Malheure- 
usement I'Empereur n'eut connaissance de ce fait 
qu'apres Texecution du jugement. L'intervention 
de M. de Talleyrand dans ce drame sanglant est deja 
assez grande sans qu'on lui prete un tort qu'il n'a 
pas eu." 

We regret to declare that we do not consider this 
contradiction as any more authentic than the letter 
from the Due d'Enghien, written at Strasburg, of- 
fering his services, and asking for a command of the 
army, which Talleyrand intercepted for fear it should 
melt Napoleon's heart. The fact and purport of that 
letter are clearly set forth by Warden, who saw the 
letter; by Las Cases, who showed it to him; by 
O'Meara, who twice asked Napoleon about it; by 
Napoleon himself, in the Letters from the Cape; 
and the main point of the story is not the appeal of 
the Duke, but the infamy of Talleyrand, who sup- 
pressed it. Warden published the first statement 
in i8i6; the Cape Letters appeared in 1817; 
O'Meara in 1822; Las Cases in 1824. At last, in 
1847, thirty years after the statement was first pub- 
lished, appears Montholon 's book. By this time 
the whole story has been hopelessly exploded. A 
host of elucidatory pamphlets have been published. 
What has not been published is the document itself, 
which, so assiduously advertised, has never seen 
the light. So Montholon has to make the best of a 
bad job, and get rid somehow of this abortive fiction. 
As we have said, he conjures up an episode in which 
he reads O'Meara's composition to the Emperor, 
when the Emperor corrects several errors. Montho- 
lon, however, only records one correction, which is 

18 



LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, ETC. 

not a correction at all, but an absolute denial of the 
whole story, and an explicit acquittal of Talleyrand. 
The statements in Warden's book, which form the 
text of Napoleon's remarks to O'Meara in March, 
1 817, and the categorical assertion in the Letters 
from the Cape, which were composed by Napoleon 
himself, Montholon does not, and cannot, touch. It 
is no doubt true that Napoleon did not see the last 
words which Enghien wrote before his execution 
took place. But these were not a letter written from 
Strasburg, nor were they an application for a post in 
the French army, nor were they intercepted by Tal- 
leyrand. It is noteworthy that, so far from the Due 
d' Enghien soliciting employment under Napoleon, 
we know from Savary that the Duke's fatal admis- 
sion at his trial was that he had asked to serve in 
the British army. We admire Montholon's loyal 
spirit, but we think he might have effected the re- 
treat from an impossible position with something 
more of skill, and veiled it with more probability. 

As to Talleyrand, his share in the Enghien affair, 
though no doubt obscure, is certainly not open to this 
particular charge. Strangely enough, and most 
unfortunately for Las Cases, Napoleon in his own 
hand left an express acquittal of Talleyrand. Me- 
neval transcribes from the autograph notes of Na- 
poleon on the history of Fleury de Chaboulon the 
following lines: "Prince Talleyrand behaved on 
this occasion as a faithful minister, and the Emperor 
has never had any reproach to make to him with re- 
gard to it." Talleyrand's complicity or connivance 
does not fall to be discussed here ; that is a very dif- 
ferent matter. But this note expressly contradicts 
the charge of perfidy which we are discussing, and 

19 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

which is the essence of the charge preferred by Las 
Cases. 

Finally, it is to be noted that on his death-bed the 
Emperor, provoked by an attack in an English re- 
view on Savary and Caulaincourt in connection with 
this incident, calls for his will, and inserts in it the 
following sentence: "I had the Due d'Enghien ar- 
rested and tried because it was necessary for the 
safety, interest, and honor of the French people, 
when the Comte d'Artois was, avowedly, maintain- 
ing sixty assassins in Paris. Under the same cir- 
cumstances, I should do the same again." This we 
believe to be the truth, though not perhaps the whole 
truth. 

We have, then, we confess, a profound distrust of 
this mass of illustrative documents collected by Las 
Cases. We cannot, indeed, call to mind a single 
letter (except the various protests) which is given 
by Las Cases, and which is genuine, except the fare- 
well letter of Napoleon to Las Cases himself. Strange- 
ly enough, such is the fatality attaching to letters 
in this collection, Gourgaud gives a totally different 
version even of this one ; yet Gourgaud read it under 
circumstances that would have stamped it on his 
memory. In this case, however, the version of Las 
Cases is supported by Lowe, and is no doubt the true 
one. 

Whence came all these documents? When and 
where was "the mass of documents formed or col- 
lected to justify certain mysterious parts of the his- 
tory" of the Emperor's reign? Are we to under- 
stand that Napoleon hurriedly culled them at the 
Elysee or Malmaison after Waterloo — a letter to 
Louis, a letter to Murat, a letter to Bernadotte — from 

20 



LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, ETC. 

his enormous correspondence? We know that the 
letters which he considered at that time of most im- 
portance he confided to his brother Joseph: they 
were bound in vohunes. How, then, did he come 
to have these sparse, but notable, despatches about 
him? Las Cases could only, if they were genuine, 
have obtained them from Napoleon, and Las Cases 
was not in the confidence of Napoleon till long after 
the Emperor was cut off from his papers. Whence, 
then, come these casket letters? Las Cases could 
tell us, but does not : and no one else can. The only 
hint we obtain is from Gourgaud, who, speaking of 
some false statement of Warden's, says that it is 
probably une partie du journal faux de Las Cases, 
from which we may conclude that Las Cases kept a 
spurious record for the information of curious stran- 
gers and the public, and that this was known at 
Longwood. 

And here we must say, with deep regret, that we 
wish we could feel certain that Napoleon was igno- 
rant of these fabrications. There would be perhaps, 
if we could shut our eyes to the evidence of the au- 
thorship of the Letters from the Cape, or if we chose 
to take that pamphlet as a sort of trial-balloon sent 
forth by the Emperor, but not intended to carry his 
authority, no absolutely direct or reliable evidence of 
corinection. Unfortunately, there is no doubt as to 
the authorship of the Letters from the Cape. Mon- 
tholon, moreover, gives the spurious letters to Murat 
in the midst of a narrative of Spanish affairs dictated 
by Napoleon. Napoleon is recorded as saying : " On 
the 29th of May I wrote to the Grand Duke of Berg," 
as follows. And then follows the spurious letter. 
If, then, we can implicitly trust Montholon, Napoleon 

21 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

declared the letter to be genuine. But we do not 
implicitly trust Montholon. We have, however, de- 
scribed the relations of Napoleon, as set forth by the 
chroniclers, to the imaginary Enghien letter. We 
can hardly, then, acquit Napoleon of having been 
cognizant of these documents. Las Cases, in his 
journal, constantly treats us to comet showers of as- 
terisks, which he assures us represent conversations 
with Napoleon of the utmost moment and mystery. 
Possibly mystifications may have been concocted at 
these dark interviews, and if Las Cases kept any rec- 
ord of what then passed, it would be well to publish it. 
Nor is it easy to understand that the idolater would 
venture to take such liberties without at least a sign 
from the idol. It must, moreover, be mentioned that 
an officer on board the Northumberland records that 
Napoleon was heard, in dictation to Las Cases, saying 
that he had received proofs of Enghien's innocence, 
and an application from Enghien for employment, 
after the Duke's execution. Thiers, again, following 
the less emphatic opinion of Meneval, positively de- 
clares that there can be no doubt, from the evidence 
of the style, that the letter to Murat was composed by 
the Emperor. This is a damning admission, if the 
authority of Thiers be accepted, for no one can now 
believe that that letter was written on the alleged date. 
On the other hand, Thiers is by no means infallible. 
Moreover, is it possible, to put things on the lowest 
ground, that Napoleon would associate himself with 
tricks so certain of discovery? Unless, indeed, what 
is not impossible, he allowed them to be launched, 
careless of the future, or of the verdict of history, in 
order to produce a momentary impression in his favor ; 
just as he is said in the days of his power to have 

22 



LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, ETC. 

published in the Moniteur fictitious despatches from 
his marshals. 

We offer no judgment: we care to go no further: 
our object is not to follow up the track further than 
to demonstrate the unreliability of Las Cases. And 
we think we have said enough to show that these va- 
rious fabrications lie like a bar sinister athwart the 
veracity of his massive volumes, and make it impos- 
sible to accept any of his statements, when he has any 
object in making them. 

This being so, it is not necessary to point out 
minor and less elaborate inaccuracies. Pasquier, 
for example, complains that Las Cases gives a wholly 
imaginary account of the interview which Pasquier 
had with Napoleon on becoming prefect of police. 
But the responsibility for this misstatement does not, 
probably, lie with Las Cases. He also signalizes 
two other misrepresentations of the same kind, but 
it is scarcely worth while to multiply instances. 

We have, however, a further, though very minor, 
objection to this author, in that he is a book-maker 
of an aggravated description. No sort of padding 
comes amiss to him. Nevertheless, the book is not 
without interest, and even value ; for there are many 
cases in which he has no interest to serve, and where 
he records at length habits and remarks of Napoleon 
which we find nowhere else, the genuineness of which 
must be decided by internal evidence or probability. 
Las Cases, too, is by far the most Boswellian of the 
biographers, the most minute, the most insensible to 
ridicule, and in that respect affords some amusement. 
Some, indeed, of his sublimer flights hover perilously 
near the other extreme; as, for example, when he 
feels an indescribable emotion on seeing Napoleon 

22> 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

rub his stomach. The Emperor has some cojffee for 
breakfast, which he enjoys. "Quelques moments 
plus tard il disait, en se frottant Testomac de la main, 
qu'il en sentait le bien la. II serait difficile de rendre 
mes sentiments a ces simples paroles." 

Again, Napoleon tells him that when speaking to 
Lowe he became so angry that he felt a vibration in 
the calf of his left leg, which is one of his portentous 
symptoms, and one which he had not felt for years. 

Again, Las Cases records, in the true Boswellian 
strain, that Napoleon had called him a simpleton, 
consoling him with the assurance that he always 
meant the epithet as a certificate of honesty. 

Again, Las Cases speaks with rapture of the ab- 
sence of all personal feeling in Napoleon. " He sees 
things so completely in the mass, and from so great 
a height, that men escape him. Never has one sur- 
prised him in any irritation against any of those of 
whom he has had most to complain.'' Were it pos- 
sible on other grounds to give complete credit to the 
narrative of Las Cases, this stupendous assertion 
would make us pause. 

The memoirs of Montholon are, like the author, 
eminently suave and gentlemanlike. O'Meara ac- 
cuses him, in private letters to the English staff, 
of being untruthful, and O'Meara should be a good 
judge. We do not doubt that where they bear upon 
the general strategy of Longwood they are unreliable, 
like all the publications within thirty years of Na- 
poleon's death, though it should be remembered that 
they appeared late, not till 1847. Nor are the dates 
given always exact; and this inaccuracy gives the 
impression that the entries may have been written 
up some time afterwards. It is sufficiently obvious, 

24 



LAS CASES. ANTOMMARCHI, ETC. 

indeed, that portions of the book are insertions long 
subsequent to the exile. But, on questions where 
the credit of Napoleon or his ill-treatment is not in- 
volved, they ma}^ be read with interest. Nor can we 
avoid commending the tone, which is due, no doubt, 
to the date of publication. A quarter of a century 
had cooled many passions and allayed many feuds. 
Gourgaud had ceased to rage, and had amicably co- 
operated with Montholon in the production of the 
Emperor's memoirs. Hence, Montholon has not a 
word against Gourgaud, or even reflecting on Gour- 
gaud, at a time when that fretful porcupine nmst 
have been making his life almost intolerable. In- 
deed, at the time of Gourgaud's challenge, there is 
simply a blank of ten days. Whether this judicious 
reticence is due to anguish of mind, or whether, what 
is not impossible, the whole transaction was what 
our ancestors would have called a flam, or whether, 
on consideration, the entries were cancelled, it is 
impossible now to say. We incline to the last hy- 
pothesis, and regret, now that Gourgaud's journal is 
published, that Montholon 's cannot, as a counter- 
blast, be given in its entirety. We know that he 
left in manuscript a great mass of notes of conversa- 
tion. One at least of these, the record of a mono- 
logue of Napoleon's on March lo, 1819, has been 
published, and exceeds in interest anything in Mon- 
tholon's book. It is greatly to be desired that these 
notes should be unreservedly given to the world 
Were this done, we might have a record not inferior 
in interest to that of Gourgaud. What we chiefly 
regret about the book as it stands are the obvious 
suppressions, due, no doubt, to blind veneration for 
Napoleon 's memory, and to solicitude for the politi- 

25 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

cal interests of Napoleon's nephew. It languishes, 
moreover, just when it would have been most fruit- 
ful — that is, after the departure of the other chroni- 
clers, Las Cases, O'Meara, and Gourgaud, when we 
have nothing else to depend upon, except the imag- 
inative excursions of Antommarchi. 

For, in the last days of all, we are left mainly to 
Antommarchi, and no one of the chroniclers is less . 
reliable. He was a young Corsican anatomist of 
some distinction, and arrived in St. Helena eighteen 
months before Napoleon's death. As a Corsican, 
selected by Cardinal Fesch, he should have been 
agreeable to the Emperor. But he was unlucky, for 
on several occasions he was absent when Napoleon 
wanted his aid. Moreover, his illustrious patient, 
who in any case did not love physicians, thought him 
too 3'oung and inexperienced. And, according to 
Montholon, Antommarchi treated the illness of Na- 
poleon as trifling, and even feigned. Yet Montholon 
speaks well of him, as "an excellent young man," 
and has no conceivable object for misrepresenting 
him. When, in March, 1821, Napoleon complains of 
feeling internal stabs, as of a pen-knife, caused by 
the hideous disease which had then almost killed 
him, Antommarchi laughs. Nothing, says Montho- 
lon, will make him believe, within seven weeks of the 
end, in the gravity, or even in the reality, of Napo- 
leon's condition. He is persuaded that the illness is 
only a political game, played with the intention of 
persuading the English government to bring the Em- 
peror back to Europe. He declares, with a smile of 
incredulity, on March 20th, that Napoleon's pulse is 
normal. On March 21st, however, he recognizes the 
seriousness of the situation, and declares that he sees 

26 



LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, ETC. 

undeniable signs of gastritis. Napoleon thereupon 
consents, with great reluctance, to take some lemon- 
ade with an emetic. Next day, therefore, a quarter 
of a grain of tartar emetic was administered in some 
lemonade. The patient was violently sick, and rolled 
on the earth in agony. What the agony must have 
been, when we remember the ulcers which were in- 
ternally devouring him, we can scarcely conceive. 
Antommarchi says that the effect is too strong, but 
that it is a necessary remedy. Napoleon, however, 
absolutely refuses any further medicine of the kind. 
Next day he ordered his servant to bring him a glass 
of lemonade ; but the young doctor was on the watch, 
and craftily inserted the same dose of his favorite 
remedy. Napoleon smelt something strange, and 
gave it to Montholon, who in ten minutes was horribly 
sick. The Emperor was naturally furious, called 
Antommarchi an assassin, and declared that he would 
never see him again. 

For some time past the young Corsican had been 
weary of his confinement and his attendance on one 
whom he considered an imaginary invalid. He spent 
much of his time in Jamestown, or outside the limits, 
to the disgust of the orderly who was forced to accom- 
pany him. Finally, in January, 1821, he signified 
to Sir Thomas Reade his intention of leaving the 
Emperor's service and the island. On January 31, 
1821, he wrote to Montholon that he desired to return 
to Europe, and that he felt with regret his inability 
to gain the Emperor's confidence. Napoleon at once 
gave his consent in a letter, which Montholon truly 
characterizes as bien dure. We quote the con- 
cluding paragraph : " During the fifteen months that 
you have spent on the island you have not made 

27 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

His Majesty feel any confidence in your moral char- 
acter; you can be of no use to him in his illness, and 
so there is no object in prolonging your stay here." 
In spite of this scathing sentence, Bertrand and Mon- 
tholon patched up a reconciliation, and on February 
6th Antommarchi was permitted to resume his ser- 
vice. On March 23d, as we have seen, there was an- 
other quarrel, and Montholon records that on March 
31st Napoleon refused to allow his name to be even 
mentioned. However, on April 3d he was allowed to 
be present at Dr. Arnott's visit. On April 8th, being 
again absent when summoned, he is formally told 
that the Emperor will never see him again. On April 
9th he went to Sir Hudson Lowe to request permission 
to return to Europe — twenty-six days before Napo- 
leon's death. Lowe said that he must refer the mat- 
ter to England, On April i6th Arnott insisted that 
Napoleon should once more receive Antommarchi. 
On April 17th Napoleon dictates a letter, which he in- 
sists on Antommarchi signing as a condition of re- 
maining, as the doctor had been accused of idle gossip 
and jests as to his master's habits. On April i8th he 
is once more allowed to accompany Arnott to the 
patient's room. On April 2 1st, however, the English 
doctors hold a consultation without him; and when 
Montholon wishes to summon him on April 29th, Na- 
poleon twice angrily refuses. For the first five days 
of May, the last five days of life, he is allowed to 
watch in the room adjacent to the sick-room. In the 
last agony, whenever he tries to moisten the lips of 
the dying man. Napoleon repels him and signs to 
Montholon. Finally, on May 5th Napoleon dies, and, 
alone of all his attendants, omits Antommarchi from 
his will. 

28 



LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, ETC. 

Why recall all this so minutely? For the simple 
reason that there is not a word of it in Antommarchi's 
book. That work, on the contrary, records nothing 
but the single-minded devotion of the physician, and 
the affectionate gratitude of the patient. For exam- 
ple, on the day on which Napoleon tw^ice refused to 
see him, he records that the patient reluctantly ac- 
cepted one of his remedies, and declared, "You can 
measure by my resignation the gratitude I feel for 
you." Napoleon, declares the doctor, added confi- 
dential directions about his funeral — that it was to 
be, failing Paris, at Ajaccio, and, failing Ajaccio, 
near the spring in St. Helena. On the 26th of March, 
when Napoleon would have none of him, Antom- 
marchi represents himself as persuading Napoleon 
to see Arnott. Montholon says that it was on the 
31st that Napoleon first consented that Arnott should 
be sent for, and adds, " As for Antommarchi, he per- 
sists in forbidding that his very name should be men- 
tioned. " Daily he records minute symptoms, and 
elaborate, affectionate conversations with his patient. 
But not a word of his being forbidden the door, or 
of his contemptuous dismissal, or of his efforts to 
leave the island. Yet the two volumes which con- 
tain his record of eighteen months would have suf- 
ficed to find room for this. It is not possible that Mon- 
tholon should be guilty of gratuitous falsehood with 
regard to him. Montholon is well disposed towards 
Antommarchi ; his statements are supported both by 
documentary evidence and by the testimony of Lowe. 
No; we must take the Antommarchian narrative for 
what it is worth, and that is very little. For our own 
part, we accept with great misgiving any of his un- 
corroborated statements. How, for example, can we 

29 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

credit that, in the midst of this period of distrust and | 
aversion. Napoleon should have harangued him in \ 
this fashion : " When I am dead, each of you will I 
have the sweet consolation of returning to Europe. ' 
You will see again, the one your relations, the other \ 
your friends, and I shall find my braves in the Ely- '[ 
sian Fields. Yes," he continued, raising his voice, 
" Kleber, Desaix, Bessieres, Duroc, Ney, Murat, Mas- , 
sena, Berthier, all will come to meet me: they will ! 
speak to me of what we have done together. I will I 
narrate to them the later events of my life. In seeing 
me they will become mad with enthusiasm and glory. 
We will talk of our wars to the Scipios, the Hanni- j 
bals, the Ca3sars, the Fredericks, etc.'' This fustian, ' 
of which Napoleon could scarcely have been guilty I 
before his delirium, is supposed to have been deliv- i 
ered to an audience of two, Antommarchi and Mon- i 
tholon — Antommarchi, w^ho was in disgrace, and i 
Montholon, who, though he hung on his master's j 
words, does not even mention so remarkable a speech, j 
We may safely aver that this is not what Napoleon ] 
said, but what Antommarchi considers that Napo- ' 
leon ought to have said. 

One service Antommarchi rendered, which almost 
outweighs his worthless and mendacious book. He | 
took a cast of Napoleon's face after his death. The 
original of this, now in England, represents the ex- 1 
quisite and early beauty of the countenance, when 
illness had transmuted passion into patience, and 
when death, with its last serene touch, had restored 
the regularity and refinement of youth. All who be- 
held the corpse were struck by this transformation. 
"How very beautiful!" was the exclamation of the 
Englishmen who beheld it. But Antommarchi had 

30 



LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHl, ETC. 

to fight even for the authenticity of his cast. The 
phrenologists fell on him and rent him. They de- 
clared that the skull had not the bumps, or the bony 
developments, requisite for a hero. Others averred 
|; that it was rather the face of the First Consul than of 
the Emperor, which is true. Others remembered that 
I Antommarchi had not produced the cast till late in 
[ 1830. We can only sum up our conclusions by de- 
claring that we believe in the cast, but that if it be not 
I more authentic than the book, we agree with the 
1. phrenologists. 

Warden's book consists of letters, addressed to the 
lady he afterwards married, vamped up by "a. lit- 
erary gentleman." It bears, in passages, too obvi- 
[lous marks of the handiwork of the literary gentle- 
' man, who puts into Warden's mouth meditations of 
; deplorable bathos. But in any case the book is of 
I little value, for a simple reason : Napoleon knew no 
I English, Warden knew no French; and their inter- 
j preter was Las Cases. But we cannot help wondering 
I who translated two of Warden's tactful remarks to 
I Napoleon. The latter had asked which was the more 
' popular in England, the army or the navy. War- 
I den replies in the noblest style, and ends, "Such a 
j: field as that of Waterloo can hardly find adequate 
■gratitude in the hearts of Englishmen!" To this 
!. Napoleon made no reply. On another occasion. War- 
den addressed the Emperor as follows : " The people 
of England appear to feel an interest in knowing 
your sentiments respecting the military character of 
I the Duke of Wellington. They have no doubt that 
! you would be just ; and perhaps they may indulge the 
I expectation that your justice might produce a eulo- 
gium of which the Duke of Wellington may be proud." 

31 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 



i 



Again Napoleon did not answer. But we incline to 
hope and believe that the strain of translating these 
two observations was not placed on an}^ interpreter, I 
but that they proceed from the fertile resources of the | 
"literary gentleman," who was not, however, equal | 
to inventing the reply, ! 

If any one, however, should be inclined to give 
credit to this narrative, he should examine the letter 
of Sir Thomas Reade (head of Lowe's staff at St. 
Helena), which sets down three-fourths of the book 
as untrue. Reade adds, we think correctly, that on 
certain specified points, such as the death of Captain 
Wright, and the execution of the Due d'Enghien, '. 
Las Cases was ordered to make explanations to War- 
den which could be published in Europe. 

Napoleon's reply to Warden was published in a 
little book called Letters from the Cape. These let- 
ters are addressed to a Lady C, who was, no doubt. 
Lady Clavering, a Frenchwoman who had married 
an English baronet, and who was a devoted adhe- 
rent of the Emperor's, as well as a very intimate 
friend of Las Cases. They were addressed to her, 
and dated from the Cape, in order to make the world 
believe that Las Cases, then at the Cape, had writ- 
ten them. The importance of this book arises from 
the fact that it is considered by the official editors 
of Napoleon's correspondence to be his composition, 
and they print it among his works. This is high au- 
thority, and is supported by the fact that a first proof 
of these letters is in existence, with numerous cor- 
rections and additions in Napoleon's autograph. 
But, apart from these proofs, it is abundantly clear, 
on the testimony both of Gourgaud and of Montho- 
lon, that the Emperor dictated these letters himself. 

32 



LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, ETC. 

Who translated them into English, however, does 
not appear. If they were translated on the island, 
it was probably by Mme. Bertrand, for O'Meara does 
not seem to have been in the secret of them. " The 
Emperor,'' says Gourgaud, "tells me that he does 
not intend to reply to Warden, but that Las Cases, 
now at the Cape, will reply." Gourgaud bluntly 
answers that he himself has seen more than ten 
letters dictated by Napoleon to Bertrand for publi- 
cation. One, indeed, is on the table at the moment. 
The Emperor no longer denies the authorship, and 
Gourgaud is taken into his confidence with regard 
to their composition. The letters are given to him 
for correction and annotation. On August l6, 1817, 
he reads his observations on them to Napoleon, and 
many of them are adopted. On August 22d Mon- 
tholon and Gourgaud both record that Napoleon 
finished the evening by having read to him the fifth, 
sixth, seventh, and eighth letters in reply to Warden, 
Gourgaud also mentions that he is the reader, while 
Montholon notes that the Emperor bids Gourgaud 
embody them in a book. Gourgaud, for once courtier- 
like, or, at any rate, prudent, replies that this would 
be the work of a copyist, as there is so little to correct. 
The exiles do not admire them. The Montholons 
think that the Emperor in these letters puts ridicu- 
lous speeches into their mouths, and Mme. Montho- 
lon goes so far as to say that they are badly writ- 
ten, full of sottises and personalities. She is vexed 
that the name of her husband should be cited in 
them. It is all dirt, she says, and the more you 
stir it up the worse it will smell; and she believes 
that this pamphlet will occasion much hostile criti- 
cism. It is, indeed, only a pamphlet for contempo- 
C 2,?, 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

rary consumption, with statements in it intended to 
influence public opinion. It has no value except 
from its authorship and the statement made in it 
of the fabricated letter of the Due d'Enghien, the ex- 
istence of which the pamphlet explicitly asserts. 

O'Meara'S' Voice from St. Helena is perhaps the 
most popular of all the Longwood narratives, and 
few publications ever excited so great a sensation as 
that produced by' this worthless book. For worthless 
it undoubtedly is, in spite of its spirited flow and the 
vivid interest of the dialogue. No one can read the 
volumes of Forsyth, in which are printed the letters of 
O'Meara to Lowe, or the handy and readable treatise 
in which Mr. Seaton distils the essence of those vol- 
umes, and retain any confidence in O'Meara's facts. 
He may sometimes report conversations correctly, or 
he may not, but in any doubtful case it is impossible 
to accept his evidence. He was the confidential ser- 
vant of Napoleon ; unknown to Napoleon, he was the 
confidential agent of Lowe; and behind both their 
backs he was the confidential informant of the British 
government, for whom he wrote letters to be circu- 
lated to the cabinet. Testimony from such a source 
is obviously tainted. 

The book of Santini is a pure fabrication. It was 
written by Colonel Maceroni, an Anglo-Italian fol- 
lower of Murat's, who has left some readable mem- 
oirs. Santini, who had indeed little time for com- 
position, being Napoleon's tailor, hair -cutter, and 
game-keeper, has, however, his episode in the his- 
tory of the captivity. As he was waiting at dinner 
one night Napoleon burst forth at him: "What, 
brigand, you wished to kill the governor! you vil- 
lain ! If you have any such notions again, you will 

34 



LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, ETC. 

have to deal with me." And then the Emperor ex- 
plains to his guests that Santini, who had been of 
late on long solitary excursions with a double-bar- 
relled gun, had admitted to another Corsican that he 
intended one barrel for the governor, and the other 
for himself. It seemed quite natural to Santini. He 
wished to rid the world of a monster. " It needed all 
my imperial, all my pontifical authority," said Na- 
poleon, "to restrain him." Santini was deported 
from the island by Sir Hudson Lowe, and is said 
to have learned by heart Napoleon's great protest 
to the powers, and so first brought it to Europe. 
Maceroni declares that this Corsican factotum was 
seized on Dutch territory by a force of Prussian cav- 
alry and never seen again. This is, of course, a 
pure fiction. Santini was harassed enough without 
so awesome a fate. He was hunted and spied until 
he was allowed to live under surveillance. He finally 
returned to Paris, and ended his life, not unsuitably, 
as custodian of his master's tomb at the Invalides, 

The value of Lady Malcolm's book consists, as has 
been said already, in the vivid reports of Napoleon's 
conversation, which bear the impress of having been 
dictated, so to speak, red-hot, by the admiral, and in 
the picture it gives us of Lowe. Malcolm pleased the 
Emperor, though on one stormy occasion he did not 
escape being called a fool {Vamiral qui est un sot), 
and Lady Malcolm was supposed, in her turn, to be 
fascinated. Napoleon would talk to Malcolm three 
or four hours at a time; never, for reasons of etiquette, 
seated, or allowing a seat; both men standing or 
walking about, till at last they would lean against 
the furniture from fatigue. The raciness of Napo- 
leon's conversation, even in a translation, is notable. 

35 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

"I made Ossian the fashion," he exclaims. "The 
income-tax is a good tax, for every one grumbles at 
it, which shows that every one pays it." "Trifles 
are great things in France, reason nothing." He 
tells the story of the Dey of Algiers, who, on hearing 
that the French were fitting out an expedition to de- 
stroy the town, said that, if the king would send 
him half the money that the expedition would cost, 
he would burn down the town himself. It is scarcely 
necessary to say that Lowe disliked these visits for 
many reasons. He had quarrelled with Napoleon, 
therefore every one should quarrel with him. He 
could not see Napoleon, therefore no one should see 
him. It was now abundantly clear that the one 
supreme distinction at St. Helena was to obtain an 
interview with Napoleon; it was also clear that this 
annoyed the ruler of St. Helena, with whom no one 
endured an interview who could possibly avoid it. 
Moreover, who could tell what terrible things might 
not be said in conversation? Plans of escape might 
be concerted, messages might be transmitted, and, 
sin of sins, the governor might be criticised. So the 
person who had seen Napoleon was expected to hurry 
to the governor to report what had passed, with the 
certain reward of being suspected of having sup- 
pressed something material. An English lieuten- 
ant was sent away from the island because he de- 
layed for a few days to report to the governor a com- 
monplace remark made by the Bertrands, who had 
met him in a walk. Even the admiral could not be 
trusted. He soon ceased to be on speaking terms 
with the governor, but sedulously reported by letter 
his conversations with Napoleon. Sir Hudson's re- 
ply to the last report charged the admiral with sup- 
^ 36 



LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, ETC. 

pressing matters of consequence, and "the admiral 
now discovered that there was a system of spies 
on the island, and that every trifle was reported to 
the governor. With open, candid Englishmen," 
continues the ingenuous Lady Malcolm, "this is 
detestable, and must cause incalculable evil." An 
exchange of letters ensued between the two high 
dignitaries, of so inflammable a character that its 
destruction was suggested. A previous correspond- 
ence has, however, been preserved, eminently char- 
acteristic of Lowe, whose share in it is tart, narrow, 
and suspicious. No one who reads it can fail to 
understand why he was an unfit representative of 
Britain in so delicate and difficult a charge. 



CHAPTER III 
GOURGAUD 

But the one capital and supreme record of life at 
St. Helena is the private journal of Gourgaud, writ- 
ten, in the main at least, for his own eye and con- 
science alone, without flattery or even prejudice, al- 
most brutal in its raw realism. He alone of all the 
chroniclers strove to be accurate, and, on the whole, 
succeeded. For no man would willingly draw such 
a portrait of himself as Gourgaud has page by page 
delineated. He takes, indeed, the greatest pains to 
prove that no more captious, cantankerous, sullen, 
and impossible a being than himself has ever ex- 
isted. He watched his master like a jealous woman : 
as Napoleon himself remarked, "He loved me as 
a lover loves his mistress; he was impossible." 
Did Napoleon call Bertrand an excellent engineer, 
or Las Cases a devoted friend, or Montholon by the 
endearing expression of son, Gourgaud went off into 
a dumb, glowering, self -torturing rage, which he 
fuses into his journal ; and yet, by a strange hazard, 
writing sometimes with almost insane fury about 
his master, produces the most pleasing portrait of 
Napoleon that exists. The fact is, he was utterly 
out of place. On active service, on the field of battle, 
he would have been of the utmost service to his chief : 
a keen, intelligent, devoted aide-de-camp. But in the 

38 



GOURGAUD 

inaction of St. Helena his energy, deprived of its 
natural outlet, turned on himself, on his nerves, 
on his relations to others. The result is that he 
was never happy except when quarrelling or grum- 
bling. Napoleon himself was in much the same 
position. His fire without fuel, to use Mme. de 
Montholon's figure, consumed himself and those 
around him. But Napoleon had the command of 
what luxury and companionship there was : the 
others of the little colony had their wives and chil- 
dren. Gourgaud had nothing. 

Napoleon seems to have been aware that Gourgaud 
was not the man for the place. He had originally 
selected Planat, a man of simple and devoted char- 
acter, to accompany him. Maitland had noticed 
on the Bellerophon the tears stealing down Planat 's 
cheeks as he sat at breakfast the first day and con- 
templated his fallen master, and had formed a high 
opinion of him. Planat, indeed, at the moment of 
Napoleon's death, was preparing, with unshaken 
fidelity, to proceed to St. Helena to take the place of 
Montholon. But on his first nomination being com- 
municated to Gourgaud, there was such a scene of 
jealous fury that Gourgaud's name had to be sub- 
stituted. Gourgaud's wishes had thus been gratified ; 
he was almost alone with the Emperor, his only 
resource was the Emperor, yet every day his sulki- 
ness and susceptibility alienated the Emperor from 
him. We perceive in his own record constant hints 
from Napoleon that he had better go, which become 
broader and broader as time goes on. At last he 
departed, having first challenged Montholon. The 
Emperor intervened, and enveloped Montholon in 
his authority. Whether the duel was a comedy or 

d9 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

not, it is impossible to say. The editors of his jour- 
nal think that it was. Their case rests entirely on 
a document which they print in their preface from 
the original among Gourgaud's papers, a letter writ- 
ten by Montholon to Gourgaud a fortnight after the 
challenge, which shows that their relations w^ere then 
not unfriendly, and that the departure of Gourgaud 
was either planned or utilized by the Emperor for 
purposes of his own. "The Emperor thinks, my 
dear Gourgaud," writes Montholon, "that 3'ou are 
overacting your part. He fears that Sir H. Lowe 
may begin to open his eyes." We admit that if this 
letter were printed by Las Cases we should be in- 
clined to doubt it; as it is, we have no ground for 
questioning its authenticity. But how much of 
Gourgaud's departure was dramatic and strategical, 
and how much due to profound weariness and vex- 
ation of spirit, we cannot know : it was probably a 
compound. It is, however, noteworthy that two 
months before the ostentatious rupture Montholon 
records that the Emperor is determined to send Gour- 
gaud away in order to appeal to the Russian Em- 
peror. And, according to Montholon, as will ap- 
pear later, Gourgaud's departure is merely a Rus- 
sian mission. There is no mention or question of a 
quarrel. This, however, is an omission probably 
due to the editing of 1847. In fine, we believe the 
truth to be this : Gourgaud was weary of the life at 
St. Helena; Napoleon was weary of Gourgaud; so 
that Gourgaud's real and active jealousy of Mon- 
tholon was utilized by the Emperor as a means both 
of getting rid of Gourgaud and of communicating 
with Europe through an officer who could thoroughly 
explain the situation and policy of Longwood. 

40 



GOURGAUD 

The value of Gourgaud's journal does not lie in 
the portrayal of himself, but of his master. Inci- 
dentally, however, it is necessary to say much of 
Gourgaud as the foil who illustrates a new view of 
his chief's character. Without this inducement we 
should soon have had enough of the brilliant young 
officer, devoted to his master, with the unreasonable, 
petulant jealousy v/hich made his devotion intolera- 
ble, but, above all, profoundlj'^ bored. Bored with 
the island, bored with the confinement, bored with 
the isolation, bored with celibacy, bored with court 
life in a shanty involving all the burden without any 
of the splendor of a palace, bored with inaction, bored 
with himself for being bored. And so he is forced 
to sharpen his rusting energies with quarrels, sulky 
rage with the Emperor, fitful furies with Las Cases, 
and, when Las Cases is deported, animosity against 
Montholon, apparently because there is no one else 
to quarrel with; for Bertrand is a laborious and fu- 
tile peacemaker. The long moan of his life is Ennui. 
Ennui, Grand Ennui, Melancholic, are his perpet- 
ual entries. Here is a week's sample record : " Mardi 
25, Ennui, Ennui! Mercredi 26, idem. Jeudi 27, 
idem. Vendredi 28, idem. Samedi 29, idem. Di- 
manche 30, Grand Ennui." Again, " j'etouffe d'En- 
nui." We fear, indeed, that, so far as Gourgaud 
is concerned, the compendious word Ennui would 
make an adequate substitute for the 1200 octavo 
pages of his journal. Fortunately it is not Gourgaud 
who is in question. 

Let us confess that the more we see of him the bet- 
ter we like him. He first became familiar to us in 
warfare with Sir Walter Scott. Scott hinted that 
Gourgaud had acted a double part, and had been a 

41 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

sort of agent for the British government. Thereupon 
Gourgaud, not unnaturally, wished to fight Scott, 
and, denied the relief of pistols, betook himself to 
pamphlets. But to be a foe of Scott is to be the foe 
of Great Britain ; and Gourgaud passed among us as 
a sort of swashbuckler of dubious reputation. As to 
Scott's charges we say nothing, because we know 
nothing, nor were they adequately dealt with by 
Gourgaud. All that he says which is pertinent to 
Scott's charges is that never once while at Longwood 
did he speak to Sir H. Lowe, and that he defies any 
one to show a single line in his handwriting which is 
not instinct with the devotion he felt for Napoleon. 
In making this challenge he must have been con- 
scious that his own diary was in his own keeping, 
for it contains innumerable passages which would 
scarcely have stood his test. Moreover, he records 
in it more than one interview he had with Lowe while 
he was at Longwood. But where at St. Helena was 
truth to be found? "Jesting Pilate" might long 
have waited for any local indication from that island. 
It is alleged by Scott that "before leaving St. 
Helena he was very communicative both to Sir Hud- 
son Lowe and Sturmer, the Austrian commissioner, 
respecting the secret hopes and plans which were 
carrying on at Longwood. When he arrived in Brit- 
ain in the spring of l8l8 he was no less frank and 
open with the British government, informing them 
of the various proposals for escape which had been 
laid before Napoleon, the facilities and difficulties 
which attended them, and the reasons why he pre- 
ferred remaining on the island to making the at- 
tempt." Scott rests these statements on records in 
the State Paper Office, and on a report by Sturmer, 

42 



GOURGAUD 

which, with the adhesive dis ingenuousness of St. 
Helena, is not included in the French collection of 
Sturmer's reports, but which may be found, stripped 
of its date, in the gloomy recesses of Forsyth's ap- 
pendix. We do not pretend or wish to adjudicate 
on this matter, but we do not believe that Gour- 
gaud, an honorable and distinguished French gen- 
eral, long attached to the person of Napoleon, would 
wantonly reveal to Lowe, Bathurst, or Sturmer the 
real secrets of the Emperor's intimacy. We are 
rather inclined to believe that, either to obtain the 
confidence of these gentlemen, or to gratify his own 
sense of humor, or, most probable of all, to divert 
their suspicions from something else, he was mysti- 
fying them; and, perhaps, as Montholon says, over- 
playing his part. When we read in Balmain's re- 
ports, "His denunciations of his former master are 
beyond decency," or when he tells Balmain that he 
intended to shoot Napoleon on the battle-field of 
Waterloo, and cannot understand why he failed to do 
so, we seem to hear the warning voice of Montholon, 
"You are overacting your part." His candor was 
at least suspicious; ton de franchise suspect, says 
the Russian government in its memorial. We do 
not believe, for example, that it had been proposed 
to remove Napoleon in a trunk of dirty linen, or a 
beer-cask, or a sugar-box, or as a servant carrying 
a dish. Yet these, we are informed, were the revela- 
tions of Gourgaud. Across an abyss of eighty years 
we ssem to see him wink. So, too, as to the £lo,ooo 
which Napoleon is said to have received in Spanish 
doubloons. Such a parcel would be bulky and 
weighty ; the expenditure of such a coin would soon 
be traced : we know exactly the money left by Na- 

43 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

I 

poleon on his death, and there are no doubloons : : 

they were, we are convinced, coined by Gourgaud i 

for the consumption of Lowe. 

We think it very possible that the irritable officer \ 
did at St. Helena talk something at random, as Bal- > 
main says, in the madness of his jealous rage, and ^ 
that, as Montholon says, he overdid his part. But j 
we are convinced that he revealed nothing of the i 
slightest importance either now or afterwards in | 
London. Indeed, he was soon ordered out of Eng- 
land on account of his active devotion to the cause | 
of his master. j 

It must, however, be admitted that on one occasion ; 
at St. Helena he used language which, to say the 

least, is ambiguous. We give it as recorded by him- j 

self. He is speaking to Montchenu, the old French j 

Royalist commissioner. "You are talking," says ' 

Gourgaud, " to a chevalier of St. Louis; whatever at \ 

tachment I might still have felt (in 1814) for the Em- j 

peror, nothing could have made me fail in my duty ''. 

to the King and my gratitude to the Due de Berry. 1 

The proof of this is that my friend Lallemand thought ' 

me too much attached to this last prince to put me in i 

the secret of his conspiracy. After the departure of | 

the King and the dismissal of his household, I gave in ; 

my adhesion to the chief of the French nation. I \ 

should always have remained faithful to the King ' 

had he remained with the army, but I thought that | 

he abandoned us. On April 3d I was appointed by the : 

Emperor his first orderly officer, and that is why 1 am ; 
here." Men who use language of this kind cannot 
complain if they are misunderstood, or if they are 
held to be playing an ambiguous part. 

Gourgaud was, it should be remembered, esteemed 

44 J 

I' 



GOURGAUD 

by all who knew him, and did not have to live with 
him. But the curse of his 'temper was jealousy, 
which made him an imjiossible companion. It em- 
poisoned his life at St. Helena. Long after his de- 
parture from St. Helena the success of Segur's nar- 
rative of the Russian campaign maddened him, and 
drove him to publishing a waspish, unworthy criti- 
cism of it in a thick volume, which has by no means 
attained the enduring fame of the history which it 
professes to review. By others whom his jealousies 
did not touch he was highly esteemed. Lowe, for 
example, always considered and described him as a 
gallant and loyal soldier who followed his Emperor 
in adversity, without mixing himself up in vexa- 
tions and complaints. Jackson says the same thing. 
"He is a brave and distinguished officer," says 
Sturmer, " but no courtier " ; and this description 
sums him up exactly. He was so little of a courtier 
that the proceedings of courtiers irritate him. When 
Las Cases exclaims, on hearing some military nar- 
rative of Napoleon's, that it is finer than the Iliad, 
Gourgaud, like Burchell in the Vicar of Wakefield, 
says, audibly, " Fudge," or its equivalent. The nar- 
rative had been dictated to and put in form by Las 
Cases; so Gourgaud grimly remarks, "I can see 
Achilles well enough, but not Las Cases as Homer." 
He is so repelled by this sort of thing that Napoleon 
ceases to confide his compositions to him, and keeps 
them for the less formidable criticisms of Las Cases. 
He had seen the brilliant side of court life at the 
Tuileries when he had other things to think of than 
the relative favor of courtiers; now he sees nothing 
but the seamy side, and has nothing to think of but 
the confidence shown to others and the coldness to 

45 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 1 

himself. He becomes more and more sullen, and, ^ 
consequently, a less and less agreeable companion, ' 
Take, for example, this : Napoleon asks what time 
it is. "Ten o'clock, sire." "Ah! how long the i 
nights are!'' "And the days, sire?" At last Na- | 
poleon says frankly to him : " What right have you to * 
complain that I only see and dine with Montholon? I 
You are always gloomy, and do nothing but grumble. ] 
Be as gloomy as you please, so long as you do not I 
appear gloomy in my presence." And, though we ] 
cannot blame Gourgaud for being melancholy, we ; 
think Napoleon was right. In a society of four men, j 
one of whom, at any rate, might well be held to re- j 
quire the anxious treatment of a convalescent after i 
a terrible fall, there should have been a sustained ef- ] 
fort in the common interest to combat depression. \ 
Gourgaud made no such effort; he was the embodi- i 
ment of captious melancholy, yet he could not under- I 
stand why his bilious companionship was not eager- ■ 
ly sought. But to the blank hopelessness of St. 
Helena a Knight of Sorrowful Countenance was an j 
intolerable addition. And, indeed, on more than one ' 
occasion Gourgaud embarrassed his master by weep- i 
ing in conversation. Je pleure is not an unfre- ; 
quent entry. I 

Moreover, Gourgaud was not merely passively I 
gloomy; he became actively a bore. He began on \ 
every slight occasion to detail his services and his | 
claims, as a preface or an epilogue to a long recital of I 
his wrongs. Bertrand suffered much of this with ' 
exemplary patience; for Gourgaud's conception of 
conversation with Bertrand is embodied in this en- 
try: "He talks of his worries, and I of mine." But 
at last he told Gourgaud that no longer, even on this 

46 



GOURGAUD 

mutual principle, could he be wearied with Gour- 
gaud's complaints. One of Gourgaud's great achieve- 
ments was the having saved Napoleon's life at the 
battle of Brienne. He was supposed, by Warden at 
any rate, to have had his sword engraved with an 
account of this exploit. This was all very well ; but 
Napoleon heard too much of it, and so the following 
scene occurred : Gourgaud — " I never had engraved 
on my sword that I had saved your life, and yet I 
killed a hussar that was attacking Your Majesty." 
Napoleon — "I do not recollect it." Gourgaud — 
"This is too much! " and so poor Gourgaud storms. 
At last the Emperor puts a stop to this outburst of 
spleen by saying that Gourgaud is a brave young 
man, but that it is astonishing that with such good 
sense he should be such a baby. And Gourgaud had 
good sense. With regard to the disputes with Sir 
Hudson, his good sense is nothing less than porten- 
tous. With regard to one letter of complaint, he de- 
clares boldly that "the less one writes about eating 
and drinking the better, as these sordid details lend 
themselves to ridicule. " Again, speaking of the Em- 
peror, he says : " He is working at a reply to Lord 
Bathurst, but one cannot make a noble rejoinder out 
of the question of eatables." He protests against 
the waste of the servants at Longwood, and makes 
the remark, full of the truest sense and dignity : " In 
our position the best course is to accept the least." 

On the whole position he writes with wisdom, and 
a conviction of what was the proper attitude of Napo- 
leon. " The only law that the Emperor can follow, 
in my opinion, is neither to insult nor be friends 
with Hudson Lowe. It would be unworthy of His 
Majesty to be on cordial terms with that person. 

47 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

The Emperor's position is so frightful that the only 
method of maintaining his dignity is to appear re- 
signed, and to do nothing to obtain any change in 
the restrictions. We must endure everything with 
resignation. If His Majesty had all the island to 
himself, it would be nothing compared to what he 
has lost." Would that Napoleon had followed this 
counsel. 

The household at Longwood was not, and could 
not be, a happy family; but it might have been 
much happier than it was. It could not be happy, 
in the first place, of course, because of the prodigious 
vicissitude. But, secondlj^ a collection of Parisians | 
could not be cheerful, perched like crippled sea-birds 
on a tropical rock. St. Helena had been chosen 
because it was one of the remotest of islands; for 
that reason it was antipathetic to the whole lives \ 
and nature, and to every taste, of these brilliant peo- '.■ 
pie. There was no space, no society, no amusement. . 
There was a meagre shop, but even there they were ? 
refused credit by order of the governor. All things > 
considered, they bore this fate, so irksome to any ' 
one, so terrible to them, with fortitude and philosophy. ; 

The jealousies which haunt a court forbade them i 
to be a little less unhappy than they were. For I 
them, at this petty court, where neither fortune nor | 
places could be awarded, there was only one dignity, .] 
only one consolation — the notice of the Emperor, * 
which alone gave rank and consideration. Hence ^i 
anger, envy, and tears. Bertrand had soon remarked ;; 
them: "His Majesty," he said, in April, 1816, "is| 
the victim of intriguers. Longwood is made detest- | 
able by their disputes." As a rule, Bertrand com- | 
forts himself by declaring that the Emperor is just 'i 

48 ^: 



GOURGAUD 

at bottom, and that though intriguers sometimes get 
the upper hand for a moment, he always in the long- 
run returns to sound judgment. But jealousy be- 
gan with the very first night on the island. In Napo- 
leon's limited lodging he had room for only one com- 
panion, and he chose Las Cases — Las Cases, a mere 
acquaintance, as it were, of the eleventh hour. Las 
Cases at once became the enemy of the human race, 
so far as his colleagues were concerned. And so 
they hated him till he was removed, when they all 
fell on his neck and forgave him. 

Then Montholon and Gourgaud fell out, till Gour- 
gaud departed. Then, when two out of the four had 
gone, the other two seem to have remained in peace 
of some kind, but we may gather that the preference 
shown to Montholon was the source of some soreness 
to Bertrand. 

Another subject of discussion was money. They 
speculated about the Emperor's supposed hoards 
with the subtle suspicion of heirs in a miser's sick- 
room. He has given so much to one; it is untrue; 
he gives another a double allowance; he does not; 
how does another pay for dress or luxurj^? They 
torment themselves and each other with questions 
like these. The Emperor, with all the malice of a 
testator, encourages these surmises. I have no one, 
he says, to leave my monej^ to, but my companions. 
And this question of money has much to do with 
Gourgaud's furious jealousies. Lie is alwaj^s mount- 
ing on a pinnacle whence he declares that he will take 
nothing from the Emperor ; but he is alwaj^s descend- 
ing and accepting it. Through a whole volume 
there run the narrative and variations of his mother's 
pension. Gourgaud will not ask for one ; he does ask 
D 49 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

for one; he will not take it; he will take it; and so 
forth, until the reader is left wondering whether 
Gourgaud's mother, through all these susceptibili- 
ties and delicacies, constantly aroused and constant- 
ly overcome, ever secured anything at all. In any 
case, she and her pension became a nightmare to Na- 
poleon, who was irritated by so much filial solicitude 
for the mother whom his follower had left behind in 
France. Gourgaud did, indeed, air this devotion a 
little too often, and this irritated the Emperor. In 
the first place. Napoleon suspected, we think, and 
perhaps not unjustly, that the frequent mention of 
the mother and of her needy circumstances was meant 
as an appeal for his assistance, which he was willing 
to give, but not under pressure; so he gave it at last, 
irritably and ungraciously. Secondly, this good 
son caused some inconvenience by painting rose- 
color everything at St. Helena in order to cheer his 
parent. His letters of this deceptive character were 
read by Lowe, or by Bathurst, or both, and gave them 
the most sensible pleasure, as affording an authori- 
tative contradiction to Napoleon's complaints. Bath- 
urst and Lowe henceforward cherished a sort of affec- 
tion for Gourgaud. This fact, and these dutifully 
mendacious letters, could not be agreeable to Napo- 
leon. Thirdly, the Emperor could not bear that any 
one who was devoted to him should be devoted to 
any one else. He required a sole and absorbing alle- 
giance. Bertrand's wife and Gourgaud's mother 
offended him. "You are mad to love your mother 
so, " said Napoleon to Gourgaud. " How old is she?" 
"Sixty-seven, sire." "Well, you will never see her 
again ; she will be dead before you return to France. " 
Gourgaud weeps. 

50 



GOURGAUD 

But Napoleon's brutality was only a passing ex- 
pression of annoyance at a devotion which he con- 
sidered he should absorb. Napoleon made no secret 
of this; he avowed it to Montholon. "Every one/' 
he says, "has a dominant object of affection, and 
to those whom I like and honor with my confidence, 
I must be that object; I will share with nobody." 
On other occasions he was even more cynical: 
"Princes," he said, "only like those who are useful 
to them, and so long as they are useful." Again, he 
says to Gourgaud: "After all, I only care for peo- 
ple who are useful to me, and so long as they are use- 
ful." His followers were well aware of this princi- 
ple in Napoleon. Bertrand in a moment of irritation 
confides to Gourgaud the astonishing discovery that 
for some time past he has been aware that the Em- 
peror is an egotist. " He only," says Bertrand, " cares 
for those from whom he expects some service." An- 
other day he goes further. "The Emperor is what 
he is, my dear Gourgaud; we cannot change his 
character. It is because of that character that he 
has no friends, that he has so many enemies, and, 
indeed, that we are at St. Helena. And it is for the 
same reason that neither Drouot nor the others who 
were at Elba, except ourselves (Mme. Bertrand and 
himself), would follow him here." Bertrand was no 
doubt right in saying that Napoleon had no friends, 
for the friends of his youth were dead; and, in the 
days of his power, he had denied himself that solace 
and strength. " I have made courtiers; I have never 
pretended to make friends," he would say. His im- 
perial ideas of state and aloofness, indeed, made any 
idea of friendship impossible. Now the retribution 
had come; when he wanted friends, he found only 

51 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE J 

courtiers. Painfully and laboriously he endeavored ' 
to resume the forgotten art of making friends. It j 
was only fair, and in the nature of things, that he i 
should be but partially successful. \ 

It is not a pleasant trait in Napoleon that he should \ 
expect the blind renunciation of every human tie and i 
human interest that a Messiah alone may exact; 
that he should desire his followers to leave all and 
follow him. But much excuse must be made for an 
egotism which was the inevitable result of the pro- ] 
longed adulation of the world. ] 

And although Gourgaud had much to bear — | 
chiefly from the torture he inflicted on himself — : 
we gather from his own account that the balance is ; 
largely in his favor, and that he made his compan- ' 
ions suffer much more. Of all these, Napoleon, if he \ 
may be called a companion, had by far the most to ; 
endure. j 

For, as we have said, the real value of Gourgaud's 
book does not lie in the portraiture, interesting though | 
it be, of himself. What is profoundly interesting is \ 
the new and original view that it afforded of Napo- 
leon's own character, and the faithful notes of Napo- 
leon's conversation in its naked strength. We dwell i 
on Gourgaud, not for the sake of Gourgaud, but for ' 
the sake of Napoleon. Napoleon is the figure ; Gour- \ 
gaud is the foil. 

We all are apt to fancy that we thoroughly under- 
stand Napoleon's disposition : selfish, domineering, 
violent, and so forth. But in this book we see a new 
Napoleon, strange, and contrary to our ideas : a Na- 
poleon such as few but Rapp have hitherto presented 
to us. Rapp, indeed, the most independent and un- 
flattering of all Napoleon's generals, and who, as his 

52 



GOURGAUD 

aide de-camp, was constantly by his side, says of his 
master: "Many people describe Napoleon as a 
harsh, violent, passionate man. It is because they 
never knew him. Absorbed as he was in affairs, 
opposed in his plans, hampered in his projects, his 
humor was sometimes impatient and fluctuating. 
But he was so good and so generous that he was soon 
appeased, though the confidants of his cares, far 
from appeasing, would endeavor to excite his anger." 
The austere and upright Drouot constantly averred 
when at Elba that the Emperor's anger was only skin- 
deep. "I always found him," says his private sec- 
retary, "kind, patient, indulgent." Testimonies of 
this kind might be multiplied from more dubious 
sources. But Gourgaud was certainly one of the 
confidants described by Rapp. He unconsciously 
depicts himself as petulant, sulky, and captious to 
the last degree; while we see Napoleon gentle, pa- 
tient, good-tempered, trying to soothe his touchy and 
morbid attendant with something like the tenderness 
of a parent for a wayward child. Once, indeed, he 
calls Gourgaud a child. Gourgaud is furious. "Me 
a child ! I shall soon be thirty -four. I have eighteen 
years of service ; I have been in thirteen campaigns ; 
I have received three wounds! And then to be 
treated like this! Calling me a child is calling me 
a fool." All this he pours forth on the Emperor in 
an angry torrent. 

The Napoleon of our preconceptions would have 
ordered a subordinate who talked to him like this out 
of the room before he had finished a sentence. What 
does this Napoleon do? Let us hear Gourgaud him- 
self. "In short, I am very angry. The Emperor 
seeks to calm me; I remain silent; we pass to the 

53 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE | 

drawing-room. His Majesty wishes to play chess, 
but places the pieces all awry. He speaks to me ' 
gently: 'I know you have commanded troops and ; 
batteries, but you are, after all, very young. ' I only ; 
reply by a gloomy silence. " The insulting charge of 
youth is more than Gourgaud can bear. This is our ^ 
Gourgaud as we come to know him. But is this the • 
Napoleon that we have learned? Not menacing or i 
crushing his sullen and rebellious equerry, but trying 
to soothe, to assuage, to persuade. 

There was no one at St. Helena who had more to 
endure and more to try him than the Emperor, no ■ 
one whose life had been less trained to patience and I 
forbearance; but we rise from the study of Gour- ^ 
gaud's volumes with the conviction that few men j 
would have borne so patiently with so irritating an \ 
attendant. Sometimes he is so moved as to speak < 
openly of the disparity of their burdens. Gourgaud 
speaks of his "chagrin." The Emperor turns upon j 
him, with pathetic truth: "You speak of sorrow, j 
you ! And I ! What sorrows have I not had ! What j 
things to reproach myself with! You, at any rate, ■■ 
have nothing to regret." And again: "Do you ; 
suppose that when I wake at night I have not bad i 
moments — when I think of what I was, and what I ! 
am?" I 

On another occasion Napoleon proposes a remedy, | 
or a sedative, for Gourgaud's ill-humor — unique, j 
perhaps, among moral or intellectual prescriptions. ] 
He suggests that the general shall set himself to ■ 
translate the Annual Register into French: "You ; 
should translate the Annual Register; it would give | 
you an immense reputation." To which the hapless i 
Gourgaud replies: "Sire, this journal has no doubt j 

54 1 



GOURGAUD 

merits, but," and so deprecates the glorious task. 
This seems to us one of the few humorous incidents in 
the annals of the captivity. Sometimes the Emperor 
builds castles in the air to cheer his sulky follower. 
In England, "where we shall be in a year,'' he will 
find a bride in the city for Gourgaud with a fortune 
of, say, £30,000; he will visit the happy couple and 
enjoy fox-hunting. For the meditations of the Em- 
peror constantly turn to a suitable marriage for 
Gourgaud — sometimes English, sometimes French, 
sometimes Corsican, but always with an adequate 
dowry. 

The revelation of this book is, we repeat, the for- 
bearance and long-suffering of Napoleon. The in- 
stances of Gourgaud's petulance and insolence are 
innumerable. One day the Emperor orders him to 
copy a letter on the subject of his grievances, which 
was to be launched above the signature of Montho- 
lon. "I am not the copyist of M. de Montholon," 
replies Gourgaud. The Emperor truly says that he 
is wanting in respect, and he has the grace to ac- 
knowledge that he is uneasy all night. Then, when 
Las Cases goes, the Emperor writes him a letter too 
warm for Gourgaud's taste. Irritated by Gourgaud's 
criticism and sulks. Napoleon signs it votre devoue. 
Then Gourgaud breaks out. The Emperor invites 
him to play chess, and asks why he is so out of 
temper. "Sire, I have one great fault; I am too 
much attached to Your Majesty; I am not jealous, 
but I feel bound to say that this letter is not worthy 
of you. Good God! I see that my poor father was 
too honest a man. He brought me up in much too 
strict principles of honor and virtue. I know now 
that one should never tell the truth to sovereigns, 

55 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

and that flatterers and schemers are those who suc- 
ceed with them. Your Majesty will come to under- 
stand some day what a h3^pocrite is this man." 
Napoleon replies, half wearily, half pathetically, 
"What do you mean — that he betrays me? After 
all, Berthier, Marmont, and the rest on whom I have 
heaped benefits, have all done it. Mankind must be 
very bad to be as bad as I consider it." 

This vscene rankles, and leaves Gourgaud for a 
long time in so diabolical a mood that the Emperor 
is forced from mere weariness of these outbursts of 
temper to confine himself to his room. When Gour- 
gaud hears this, he immediately, by way of allaying 
the strain on their common life, challenges Mon- 
tholon. Things get worse and worse, until Gour- 
gaud remonstrates with the Emperor on the double 
allowance that he gives Montholon. Napoleon points 
out that Montholon has a wife and famil3^ which 
Gourgaud has not. Still Gourgaud grumbles. At 
last Napoleon loses patience, and sa3^s frankly that 
he prefers Montholon to Gourgaud. Then, indeed, 
there is an explosion. Gourgaud is choked with 
tears, says that all the generals who have distin- 
guished him must have been mistaken, and so forth. 
Not at all, replies the Emperor; they saw you on the 
field of battle, brave and active — they did not, he 
implies, see you as you are now. All that the reader 
can gather from Gourgaud's own record is that it is 
scarcely possible that Montholon should have been 
so disagreeable as not to be a preferable companion 
to Gourgaud. And so the incessant and wearisome 
scenes go on— the Emperor patient and friendly; 
the aide-de-camp fretful, sullen, even insulting. One 
day^ for example, he says : " Yes, sire, provided that 

56 



G U R G A U D 

history does not say that France was very great be- 
fore Napoleon, but partitioned after him." Even 
this taunt does not ruffle his master. Another time, 
after a tiresome wrangle, the Emperor tells him good- 
humoredly to go to bed and calm himself. To which 
Gourgaud replies that if he had not more philosophy- 
and strength of mind than Napoleon he would not be 
able to get through the night. A few weeks after this 
remarkable statement our diarist shows his philo.s- 
ophy and strength of mind by informing Bertrand 
that his patience is at an end, and that he must box 
]\Iontholon's ears. 

On another occasion Napoleon utters a few gloomy 
words. "I," he said, "though I have long years of 
life before me, am already dead. What a position ! " 
"Yes, sire," sa3\s Gourgaud, with patronizing can- 
dor, " it is indeed horrible. It would have been better 
to die before coming here. But as one is here, one 
should have the courage to support the situation. 
It would be so ignominious to die at St. Helena." 
The Emperor, in reph^ merely sends for Bertrand as 
a more agreeable companion. On yet another da\^ 
the Emperor groans, "What weariness! What a 
cross ! " Gourgaud is at once ready with his superior 
compassion. "It pains me — me, Gourgaud — to see 
the man who commanded Europe brought to this." 
But on this occasion he keeps his pity for his journal. 

This all seems incredible to us, with our precon- 
ceived opinion of Napoleon, and as our business is 
with him, we only make these quotations to show 
the incessant irritations and annoyances to which he 
was exposed on the part of his own friends, and the 
unexpected gentleness and patience with which he 
bore them. 

57 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

His companions, indeed, were not of very much 
comfort to him ; Bertrand was much absorbed by his 
wife ; Montholon was neither very able nor very trust- 
worthy ; Las Cases, who was an adroit and inteUigent 
talker, was a firebrand to the jealousies of the others ; 
Gourgaud was almost intolerable. Napoleon had to 
make the best of them, to soothe them, to cheer them, 
to pay visits to Mme. Bertrand, and to make pres- 
ents to Mme. de Montholon, to try and put Gour- 
gaud to some mathematical and historical work 
which would occupy his mind. Or else the Emperor 
tries almost humbly to put Gourgaud into a better 
humor. Six weeks before the final crisis he comes 
beside his sulky follower, and, as this last himself 
admits, exerts himself to make himself agreeable to 
Gourgaud. He pinches his ear — the well-known sign 
of his affection and good-humor. "Why are you 
so sad? What is the matter with you? Pluck up 
and be gay, Gorgo, Gorgotto; we will set about a 
book together, my son, Gorgo." "Gorgo, Gorgotto," 
does not record his reception of these advances. Next 
day, however, there is the same half-piteous appeal : 
"Gorgo, Gorgotto, my son." 

Sometimes, no doubt, Gourgaud records that the 
Emperor is, or appears to be, cold or in a bad temper. 
But this can generally be traced to some absorbing 
news, or to some behavior or to some allusion of the 
chronicler himself. Moreover, these occasions are 
rare, and we gather them only from Gourgaud 's ma- 
lign impressions, not from any proof of the Emper- 
or's anger. Once in these last days there is a mis- 
understanding, notable only as showing Gourgaud's 
anxiety to misunderstand. I shall die, says Napo- 
leon, and you will go away: "vous vous en irez" 

58 



GOURGAUD 

(you will go away.) The general thinks he hears 
" vous vous en rirez" (you will laugh at it), and 
sees a halcyon opportunity for righteous wrath. " Al- 
though Your Majesty is habitually harsh to me, this 
is too much. I trust you do not mean what you are 
saying." Then there is an explanation, and the 
ruffled plumes are momentarily smoothed. So pro- 
ceeds this one-sided, cat-and-dog life. Everything 
that Napoleon says and does is a grievance. When 
Las Cases has gone, the Montholons lurk behind 
everything; they are the root of all evil. Nothing 
can be more wearisome, more irritating, than this 
wrong-headed record. So the reader welcomes the 
inevitable catastrophe. After one of these scenes, 
in which, on Gourgaud's own showing, he is entirely 
in the wrong, he begs Bertrand to " organize his de- 
parture." But still he delays. Before he goes he 
must challenge Montholon, and Mme. de Mon- 
tholon is so near her confinement that he fears to 
agitate her. Within a week, however, of the request 
to Bertrand the child is born. That very day Gour- 
gaud declares to Bertrand that the moment has come 
to challenge Monlholon. Nine years has he been 
with the Emperor (here follows the inevitable record 
of his services), and he is to be sacrificed to the Mon- 
tholons. "Ah, marshal, the Emperor has been a 
great general, but what a hard heart ! ' ' Still he waits 
a week. Then he has an interview with Napoleon, 
and declares his deadly intentions. "Behold my 
hair, which I have not cut for months, nor will cut 
until I am revenged." The Emperor says that he is 
a brigand, nay, an assassin, if he menaces Montho- 
lon, but that Montholon w411 kill him. So much the 
better, says Gourgaud; it is better to die with honor 

59 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

than to live with shame. What do you want? asks 
Napoleon; to take precedence of Montholon, to see 
me twice a day — what is it? Gourgaud sullenly 
replies that a brigand and assassin can ask nothing. 
Then the Emperor apologizes and begs him to forget 
those expressions. Gourgaud is mollified, consents 
to refrain from a challenge, if Napoleon gives him a 
written order to that effect, but, in a confused narra- 
tive, explains that he is resolved on leaving St. Helena, 
The obscurity is probably due to the fact, which we 
have already discussed, that the motives for his de- 
parture were mixed. It was impossible for him to 
continue on his present footing ; he had become irk- 
some to the Emperor, and the Emperor a torture to 
him; and yet, though leaving on these terms, and 
for these causes, he was to be an agent for the Em- 
peror in Europe. We discern obscurely through the 
perplexed paragraphs that it is feared he may be 
suspected of being sent on a mission; that he must 
leave on grounds of ill -health, and with certificates 
of illness from O'Meara. Napoleon bids him farewell. 
"It is the last time we shall see each other." They 
are destined, however, to meet again. As Gourgaud 
does not receive the written order, he calls out Mon- 
tholon. With his usual unconsciousness of humor, 
he sends with the challenge a gun and six louis which 
he had borrowed of his enemy. Montholon replies 
that he has given his word of honor to his master 
not to fight under present circumstances. Then 
Gourgaud doubles back again. The strange creat- 
ure goes to Lowe, of all people, and asks his ad- 
vice. Lowe says that some will think that the 
general is leaving because he is bored, some because 
he has a mission. Thereupon Gourgaud begs to be 

60 



GOURGAUD 

treated with extreme rigor, and returns to Longwood 
to write a letter to Napoleon, asking leave to retire 
on the ground of illness. The Emperor grants per- 
mission, regretting, with imperturbable gravity, that 
the liver complaint, indigenous to the island (and 
with which, for obvious reasons, he was always de- 
termined to credit himself), should have made an- 
other victim. He receives Gourgaud once more. 
This last records, though, it may be presumed, very 
incompletely, what passes. The Emperor bids him 
see Princess Charlotte, on whose favor he reckoned. 
It may be noted, as a fair example of the difficulties 
that beset the seeker for truth in St. Helena, that 
Napoleon, when he is reported as saying this, had 
known for several days that she was dead. He 
prophetically sees Gourgaud commanding French 
artillery against the English. " Tell them in France 
that I hate those scoundrels, those wretches, as cor- 
dially as ever." (This was a gloss on the instruc- 
tions he had dictated the day before, when he de- 
clared : "1 have always highly esteemed the English 
people, and, in spite of the martyrdom imposed on 
me by their ministers, my esteem for them remains.") 
He gives the parting guest a friendly tap on the 
cheek. "Good-bye; we shall see each other in an- 
other world — embrace me." Gourgaud embraces 
him with tears, and so ends this strange, unhapp3^ 
connection. From another source w^e discover that 
the day before this farewell interview, the Emperor 
dictated to Montholon a long appeal to the Emperor 
of Russia, probablj" for the use of Gourgaud. To 
this document we shall return later. Napoleon also 
gave definite instructions to Gourgaud as to his 
course on arriving in Europe. The general was to 

6i 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

convey certain notes in the soles of his shoes : he was 
to take some of the Emperor's hair to Marie Louise. 
There is nothing striking or particularly confidential 
in this paper. What was secret was probably oral. 
But to return to St. Helena. There was, of course, 
the inevitable question of money — the usual offer and 
the usual refusal, the usual vagueness as to the ulti- 
mate result. Then Gourgaud goes forth among the 
Gentiles; stays with Jackson, dines with Lowe and 
the commissioners, abuses Napoleon, communicates 
cock-and-bull revelations, overacts his part. Mean- 
while, we learn from Montholon that he is all the 
time secretly communicating to Longwood the result 
of his conversations with Sturmer and Balmain. 
After a month of this sort of life he sails away, with 
the benedictions of his new friends, with letters of 
introduction from Montchenu,with a substantial loan 
from Lowe in his pocket, and with secret communi- 
cations from Napoleon in the soles of his boots. A 
characteristic ending to his tormented exile. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE DEPORTATION 

Were it possible, we would ignore all this litera- 
ture, as it is peculiarly painful for an Englishman to 
read. He must regret that his government ever un- 
dertook the custody of Napoleon, and he must regret 
still more that the duty should have been discharged 
in a spirit so ignoble and through agents so unfor- 
tunate. If St. Helena recalls painful memories to 
the French, much more poignant are those that it 
excites among ourselves. 

In these days we are not perhaps fair judges of 
the situation, as it presented itself to the British gov- 
ernment. Thej^ were at the head of a coalition which 
had twice succeeded in overthrowing Napoleon. It 
had cost Great Britain, according to the spacious 
figures of statistical dictionaries, more than eight 
hundred millions sterling to effect Napoleon's re- 
moval to Elba. His return had cost them millions 
more, besides a hideous shock to the nervous system 
of nations. What all this had cost in human life 
can never perhaps be fairly estimated ; not less than 
two millions of lives. The first main object, then, 
of the allies — a duty to their own people, who had 
sacrificed so much — was to make it absolutely cer- 
tain that Napoleon should nevermore escape. Our 
own view is that under no circumstances could Na- 

63 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

poleon have ever again conquered Europe; his en- i 

ergies were exhausted, and so was France for his j 

hfetime. But the alHes could not know this; they \ 

would have been censurable had they taken such a i; 

view into consideration, and in any case Napoleon, | 

well or ill, active or inactive, if at large, would have \ 

been a formidable rallying point for the revolution- \ 

ary forces of Europe. j 

We may, then, consider it as admitted and estab- I 

lished that Napoleon could never again be a free ] 

agent. It was hard for him, but he had been hard : 

on the w^orld. And in a sense it was the greatest \ 
compliment that could be paid him. 

Napoleon surrendered himself to Great Britain, I 
and the allies desired that Great Britain should be 

answerable for him. In what spirit did our gov- ! 

ernment accept this charge? "We wish," writes : 

Lord Liverpool, Prime Minister, to Lord Castlereagh, ] 

Foreign Secretary, — " We wish that the King of ! 

France would hang or shoot Bonaparte, as the best ] 

termination of the business.'' To make his case clear ! 

he put it thus to Eldon : Napoleon " must then re- ! 

vert either to his original character of a French sub- : 
ject, or he had no character at all, and headed his 

expedition as an outlaw and an outcast — hostis hu- I 

mani generis." The option, as it presented itself, i 

apparently, to Lord Liverpool at that time, was that j 

Napoleon might either be handed to Louis XVIII. as ' 

a subject to be treated as a rebel, or might be placed ' 

outside the pale of humanity and treated as vermin. ! 

Again he writes regretfully to Castlereagh that "if \ 

. . . the King of France does not feel himself suf- i 

ficiently strong to treat him as a rebel, we are ready ' 

to take upon ourselves the custody of his person." \ 

64 i 



THE DEPORTATION 

and so forth. Sir Walter Scott admits that in 1816 
a considerable party in Britain still considered that 
Napoleon should have been handed over to Louis 
XVIII. to be dealt with as a rebel subject. Fortu- 
nately, though no thanks to our ministers, we are 
spared the memory of their having handed over Na- 
poleon to the French government to be shot like 'Ney. 
We see, then, that there was not the slightest hope 
of our government behaving with any sort of mag- 
nanimity in the matter; though a British prince, 
the Duke of Sussex, in combination with Lord Hol- 
land, recorded his public protest against the course 
which was pursued. Napoleon, who had thought of 
Themistocles, and afterwards thought of Hannibal, 
had appealed, with not perhaps so much confidence 
as he professed, to the hospitality of Great Britain. 
He had hoped, under the name of Colonel Muiron, 
an early friend who had been killed by his side, 
while shielding his body, at Areola, and for whose 
memory he had a peculiar tenderness, to live as an 
English country gentleman. This, we think, though 
we say so with regret, was impossible. England was 
too near France for such a solution. The throne 
of the Bourbons, which had become, for some mys- 
terious reason, a pivot of our policy, could never 
have been safe, were it generally known that some 
score of miles from the French coast there was 
a middle-aged French colonel who had been Napo- 
leon. Not all the precautions that enclosed Danae 
could have prevented commiseration and solicitation 
to so potent a neighbor. Napoleon had been the 
genius of unrest in Europe; the tradition and asso- 
ciation would have remained with Colonel Muiron, 
however respectable and domesticated that officer 
E 65 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

might be. And Napoleon, indeed, blurted out the 
truth at St. Helena in the presence of his little circle. 
He had just received a letter stating that there was a 
great change of opinion in France. "Ah!" he ex- 
claims, "were we but in England." Moreover, he 
would have been the innocent object of all sorts of 
legal questions, which would have tormented the 
government. As it was. Admiral Lord Keith was 
chased round his own fleet through an entire day by 
a lawyer with a writ, on account of Napoleon. 

Lastly, and we suspect that this weighed most 
with our rulers, he would have become the centre of 
much sympathy, and even admiration, in England 
itself. For Great Britain, though victorious, was by 
no means contented. When we recall her internal 
history from Waterloo till Napoleon's death, we can 
well understand that the presence within her United 
Kingdoms of the triumphant child of the revolution 
would not have been considered by the Tory ministry 
as a strength or support to their government. " You 
know enough," writes Liverpool to Castlereagh, "of 
the feelings of people in this country not to doubt 
that he would become an object of curiosity immedi- 
ately, and possibly of compassion in the course of a 
few months. ' ' The innumerable visitors who flocked 
to see him at Plymouth confirmed the prescience of 
our premier. There was indeed an extraordinary 
glamour about the fallen monarch, of which he him- 
self was quite aware. He said with confidence at 
St. Helena that had he gone to England he would 
have conquered the hearts of the English. He fas- 
cmated Maitland, who took him to England, as he 
had fascinated Ussher, who had conducted him to 
Elba. Maitland caused inquiries to be made after 

66 



THE DEPORTATION 

Napoleon had left the Bellerophon, as to the feelings 
of the crew, and received as the result: "Well, they 
may abuse that man as much as they please ; but if 
the people of England knew him as well as we do, 
they would not touch a hair of his head." When he 
left the Northumberland, the crew were much of the 
same opinion: "He is a fine fellow, who does not 
deserve his fate/' The crew which brought Mont- 
chenu held similar views. When he had left the 
Undaunted, which conveyed him to Elba, the boat- 
swain, on behalf of the ship's company, had wished 
him " long life and prosperity in the island of Elba, 
and better luck another time. " After two short meet- 
ings, both Hotham, the admiral, and Senhouse, the 
flag-captain, felt all their prejudices evaporate. " The 
admiral and myself," writes Senhouse, "have both 
discovered that our inveteracy has oozed out like the 
courage of Acres in The Rivals." There was a 
more sublime peril yet. ('Damn the fellow!" said 
Lord Keith, after seeing him, " if he had obtained an 
interview with His Royal Highness (the Prince Re- 
gent), in half an hour they would have been the 
best friends in England." Napoleon was ultimate- 
ly made aware of the danger that was apprehended 
from his living in England. A traveller had told 
him that the British government could not sufl"er 
him there lest the rioters should place him at their 
head. Another had told him that he had heard 
Lords Liverpool and Castlereagh say that their main 
reason for sending him to St. Helena was their fear 
of his caballing with the opposition. It is unnec- 
essary to expand. Napoleon in England would have 
been a danger to the governments both of France and 
of Britain. 

67 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

On the Continent of Europe he could only have lived 
in a fortress. In some countries he would have been a 
volcano; in others he could scarcely have escaped out- 
rage or assassination. In the United States he would 
have been outside the control of those powers which 
had the greatest interest in his restraint, and, in a 
region where a Burr had schemed for empire, a Na- 
poleon would have been at least a centre of disturb- 
ance. Indeed, he frankly admitted that had he lived 
there he would not have confined himself, like Joseph, 
to building and planting, but would have tried to 
found a state. Montholon avers that, as things 
were, the crown of Mexico was offered to Napoleon 
at St. Helena ; but this we take for what it is worth. 
Lender these circumstances, however, it was not un- 
natural to select St. Helena as a proper residence for 
Napoleon. The Congress at Vienna, in 1 814-15, had 
had their eye on the island as a possible prison for 
the sovereign of Elba. It was reputed to be a tropical 
paradise ; it was remote ; it possessed, said Lord Liv- 
erpool, a very fine residence, which Napoleon might 
inhabit — as he might, indeed, had not Lord Liver- 
pool sent instructions that he was on no account to 
do so. The Duke of Wellington, too, thought the 
climate charming, but then he had not to go there; 
and he viewed the future of Napoleon with a robust 
but not altruistic philosophy. There was, moreover, 
only one anchorage, and that very limited; vessels 
approaching the island could be descried from an 
incredible distance, and neutral vessels could be 
altogether excluded. 

The selection, we think, can fairly be justified, 
though it was a terrible shock to Napoleon and his 
attendants, who had hoped that at the worst their 

63 



THE DEPORTATION 

destination would be Dumbarton Castle or the Tower 
of London. No good Frenchman appears to be long 
happy outside France, and St. Helena seemed to be 
the end of the world. Napoleon himself said at first 
that he would not go alive. Eventually he recovered 
himself, and behaved with dignity and composure. 
From the very first he had much to bear. Savary 
and Lallemand were forbidden to accompany him, 
and their parting with him is described by stolid 
British witnesses as a scene of anguish. They, with 
others of his suite, were shipped to Malta, and there 
interned. He himself was handed over to Cockburn, 
who seems to have entered with relish into the spirit 
of his instructions. Napoleon was now to be known 
as General Bonaparte, and treated with the same 
honors "as a British general not in employ." He 
was soon made to feel that a British general not in 
employ was entitled to no peculiar consideration. A 
cabin twelve feet by nine was assigned to him. When 
he attempted to use the adjacent room as a private 
study, he was at once made to understand that it was 
common to all officers. " He received the communi- 
cation with submission and good-humor," When he 
appeared on the deck bare-headed, the British officers 
remained covered. Why, indeed, should they show 
courtesy to a half-pay officer? Napoleon, who had 
never been accustomed to sit at table more than twenty 
minutes, was wearied with the protracted English 
meal, and when he had taken his coffee went on deck, 
"rather uncivilly," thinks the admiral, and desires 
every one to remain. "I believe the general has 
never read Lord Chesterfield," he remarks. This 
delicate irony was not lost on Napoleon's little court, 
one of whom was quick to retort with pertinence and 

69 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE \ 

effect. She might have added that the admiral could ' 
not himself have read Lord Chesterfield with any ! 
great attention, as the practice of sitting over wine is 
one that that philosopher especially reprobates. " It 
is clear/' notes the admiral, "he is still inclined to j 
act the sovereign occasionally, but I cannot allow it.'' i 
Pursuing this course of discipline, he notes, a few j 
days later : " Idid not see much of General Buonaparte J 
throughout this day, as, owing to his appearing in- 
clined to try to assume again improper consequence, I 
was purposely more than usually distant with him." 
A lion-tamer, indeed! We were truly far removed 
from the days of the Black Prince and another captive 
sovereign of France. 

Even Montchenu, the French commissioner, whose 
views as to the proper treatment of Napoleon were of 
the austerest character, thinks that Cockburn be- 
haved somewhat too cavalierly to the captive. He 
quotes Napoleon as saying: "Let them put me in 
chains if they like, but let them at least treat me with 
the consideration that is due to me." 

Cockburn, from his vantage-point of native chiv- 
alry, considers the " nature " of Napoleon as " not 
very polished," but that he is as civil as his "nature 
seems capable of." So that the admiral, on Napo- 
leon's birthday, unbends so far as to drink his health, 
"which civility he seemed to appreciate." Later 
again, Sir George states, with a proper appreciation 
of their relative stations in life, " I am always ready 
to meet him half-way, when he appears to conduct 
himself with due modesty and consideration of his 
present situation." And at last, so decently did he 
comport himself that he earned from the admiral 
the tribute that " he has throughout shown far less 

70 



THE DEPORTATION 

impatience about the wind and the weather, and 
made less difficulties, than any of the rest of the 
party." 

And yet he and they had some cause for com- 
plaint. They were packed like herrings in a barrel. 
The Northumberland, it was said, had been arrested 
on her way back from India in order to convey Na- 
poleon; all the water on board, it was alleged, had 
also been to India, was discolored and tainted, as 
well as short in quantity. They had the gloomiest 
prospects to face in the future. A little fretfulness,. 
then, would not have been inexcusable, at any rate 
on the part of the two French ladies. But they ap- 
pear to have been fairly patient, and at any rate not 
to have attracted the particular censure of the fastidi- 
ous Cockburn, 

The admiral himself cannot have been entirely at 
his ease. His crew were in a state of scarcely sup- 
pressed mutiny. They refused to get up anchor at 
Portsmouth, until a large military force was brought 
on board to compel them. On the voyage their lan- 
guage and conduct were beyond description; they 
thought nothing of striking the midshipmen. A 
guard was placed outside the Emperor's cabin to pre- 
vent communication between the captive and the 
crew. Napoleon is said to have told Cockburn that 
he did not doubt that he could get many to join him. 
What between teaching manners to Napoleon and 
discipline to his crew. Sir George's position can 
scarcely have been a sinecure. 

Napoleon landed at St. Helena exactly three 
months after his surrender to Maitland. But he re- 
mained in charge of the admiral until a new governor 
should arrive, for the actual governor, Mr. Wilks, be- 

71 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

sides being the servant of the East India Company, 
was not, it may be presumed, considered equal to the 
novel and special functions attaching to his office, 
though Wellington thinks that it would have been 
better to keep him. So Cockburn continued in ofdce 
until April, 1816, when he was superseded by the 
arrival of Sir Hudson Lowe. 



CHAPTER V 

SIR HUDSON LOWE 

There are few names in history so unfortunate 
as Lowe's. Had he not been selected for the deUcate 
and invidious post of Governor of St. Helena during 
Napoleon's residence, he might have passed through 
and out of life with the same tranquil distinction as 
other officers of his service and standing. ( It was his 
luckless fate, however, to accept a position in which 
it was difficult to be successful, but impossible for 
him. He was, we conceive, a narrow, ignorant, irri- 
table man, without a vestige of tact or sympathy. 
"His manner," says the apologetic Forsyth, "was 
not prepossessing, even in the judgment of favorable 
friends." "His eye," said Napoleon, on first seeing 
him, "is that of a hyena caught in a trap." Lady 
Granville, who saw him two years after he had left 
St. Helena, said that he had the countenance of a 
devil. We are afraid we must add that he was not 
what we should call, in the best sense, a gentleman. 
But a government which had wished Napoleon to 
be hanged or shot was not likely to select any per- 
son of large or generous nature to watch over the re- 
mainder of his life ; nor, indeed, had they sought one, 
were they likely to secure one for such a post. Lowe, 
however, was a specially ill choice, for a reason ex- 
ternal to himself. He had commanded the Corsican 

73 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

Rangers, a regiment of Napoleon's subjects and fel- 
low-countrymen in arms against France, and, there- 
fore, from that sovereign's point of view, a regiment 
of rebels and deserters. This made him peculiarly 
obnoxious to the Corsican Emperor, who was not 
sparing of taunts on the subject. Nor was it any ad- 
vantage to him to have been driven from Capri by 
General Lamarque with, it was alleged, an inferior 
force. But not in any case, though we believe his 
intentions were good, and although he had just mar- 
ried a charming wife, whose tact should have guided 
him, could he ever have been a success. 

In saying this we do not rely on our own impres- 
sions alone. The verdict of history is almost uni- 
formly unfavorable. We have met with only two 
writers who give a favorable account of Lowe, be- 
sides his official defenders. One is Henry, a military 
surgeon quartered at St. Helena, a friend and guest 
of Lowe's, who gives, by the bye, an admirable de- 
scription of the reception of his regiment by Napoleon. 
Henry, throughout his two volumes, has a loyal and 
catholic devotion to all British governors, which does 
not exclude Lowe. He speaks of Sir Hudson as a 
much-maligned man, though he admits that his first 
impressions of the governor's appearance were un- 
favorable, and alludes to the hastiness of temper, 
uncourteousness of demeanor, and severity of meas- 
ures with which Lowe was credited. All these are 
counterbalanced in the author's mind by the talent 
which the governor " exerted in unravelling the intri- 
cate plotting constantly going on at Longwood, and 
the firmness in tearing it to pieces, with the unceas- 
ing vigilance, " and so forth. No one denies the vigi- 
lance, but we have no evidence of plots at Longwood 

74 



SIR HUDSON LOWE 

more dangerous than the smugghng of letters. The 
testimony, therefore, does not seem very valuable; 
but let it stand for what it is worth. The other au- 
thority is the anonymous author of a story called 
Edward Lascelles. Here the prejudices of the au- 
thor are overcome by the hospitality of the governor; 
and, in both cases, the charm of Lady Lowe seems 
to have been effectual. These, however, are slender 
bulwarks. On the other hand, we have Walter Scott, 
with strong prepossessions in favor of High Toryisrn 
and the Liverpool government. " It would require," 
says Scott, " a strong defence on the part of Sir Hud- 
son Lowe himself ... to induce us to consider him 
as the very rare and highly exalted species of char- 
acter to whom, as we have already stated, this im- 
portant charge ought to have been intrusted. " Even 
Lowe's own biographer, whose zeal on the governor's 
behalf cannot be questioned by those who have sur- 
vived the perusal of his book, is obliged to censure: 
on one occasion he says truly that one of Lowe's pro- 
ceedings was uncalled for and indiscreet ; on others, 
a similar opinion is not less manifest. Alison, an 
ardent supporter of the same political creed, says 
that Lowe " proved an unhappy selection. His man- 
ner was rigid and unaccommodating, and his temper 
of mind was not such as to soften the distress which 
the Emperor suffered during his detention." "Sir 
Hudson Lowe," said the Duke of Wellington, "was 
a very bad choice; he was a man wanting in educa- 
tion and judgment. He was a stupid man ; he knew 
nothing at all of the world, and, like all men who 
know nothing of the world, he was suspicious and 
jealous." This, from Wellington, was remarkable, 
for he was not a generous enemy, and he thought 

75 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

that Napoleon had nothing to complain of. But, 
after all, there are certain witnesses of high char- 
acter, well acquainted with Lowe, who were on the 
spot, whose testimony seems to us conclusive. We 
mean Sir Pulteney Malcolm (who was admiral on the 
station) and the foreign commissioners. Malcolm 
was in the same interest, was serving the same gov- 
ernment, and seems to have been heartily loyal to 
the governor. But that did not prevent the gover- 
nor's quarrelling with him. Malcolm found, as we 
have seen, that the island was pervaded by the gov- 
ernor's spies, that Lowe did not treat him as a gentle- 
man, that Lowe cross-questioned him about his con- 
versations with Napoleon in a spirit of unworthy sus- 
picion. They parted on the coolest terms, if on any 
terms at all. 

The commissioners were hostile to Napoleon, and 
anxious to be well with Lowe. But this was impos- 
sible. The Frenchman, Montchenu, was the most 
favorable, yet he writes : " I should not be surprised 
to hear shortly that his little head has succumbed 
under the enormous weight of the defence of an inac- 
cessible rock, protected by land and sea forces. . . . 
Ah ! What a man ! I am convinced that with every 
possible search one could not discover the like of 
him." 

Sturmer, the Austrian, says that it would have 
been impossible to make a worse choice. It would 
be difficult to find a man more awkward, extrava- 
gant, or disagreeable. " I know not by what fatality 
Sir Hudson Lowe always ends by quarrelling with 
everybody. Overwhelmed with the weight of his re- 
sponsibilities, he harasses and worries himself un- 
ceasingly, and feels a desire to worry everybody else." 

76 



SIR HUDSON LOWE 

Again he writes of Lowe : " He makes himself odious. 
The EngHsh dread him and fly from him, the French 
augh at him, the commissioners complain of him, 
md ever3^ one agrees that he is half crazy/' Bal- 
nain, the Russian, was a favored guest of Lowe's, 
md ended by marr3ang his step-daughter. But he 
never ceases railing against that luckless official. 
" The governor is not a tyrant, but he is troublesome 
and unreasonable beyond endurance." Elsewhere 
he says: "Lowe can get on with nobody, and sees 
everywhere nothing but treason and traitors. ' ' Lowe, 
indeed, did not love the commissioners, as represent- 
ing an authority other than his own. He would re- 
main silent when they spoke to him. He was incon- 
ceivably rude to them. But that in itself seems no 
proof of his fitness for his post. 

One of his freaks with regard to the commissioners 
is too quaint \o be omitted. He insisted on address- 
ing them in English. Montchenu, who did not 
understand a word of the language, complained. 
Whereupon Lowe, who wrote French with facility, 
offered to correspond in Latin, as the diplomatic 
language of the sixteenth century. 

"The duty of detaining Napoleon's person," said 

Scott, "... required a man of that extraordinary 

firmness of mind who should never yield for one 

'nstant his judgment to his feelings, and should be 

ble at once to detect and reply to all such false argu- 

nents as might be used to deter him from the down- 

ight and manful discharge of his office. But then, 

lere ought to have been combined with those rare 

ualities a calmness of temper almost equally rare, 

•Jid a generosity of mind which, confident in its own 

onor and integrit}^ could look with serenity and 

77 



I 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

compassion upon the daily and hourly effects of the 
maddening causes which tortured into a state of con- 
stant and unendurable irritability the extraordinary 
being subjected to their influence." This rather 
pompous and wordy definition does certainty not 
apply to Lowe. He was, in truth, tormented by a 
sort of monomania of plots and escapes; he was, if 
we may coin an English equivalent for a useful and 
untranslatable French word, meticulous almost to 
madness: he was tactless to a degree almost incred- 
ible. We believe that we can produce from the pages 
of his own ponderous biographer sufficient examples 
of his character and of his unfitness for a post of dis- 
crimination and delicacy. 

Montholon offers ]\Iontchenu a few beans to plant, 
both white and green. To the ordinar^^ mind this 
seems commonplace and utilitarian enough. But the 
governor's was not an ordinary mind. He scents a 
plot ; he suspects in these innocent vegetables an al- 
lusion to the white flag of the Bourbons and the green 
uniform usually worn b}^ Napoleon. He writes 
gravety to Bathurst : " Whether the haricots blancs 
and haricots verts bear any reference to the drapeau 
blanc of the Bourbons, and the habit vert of General 
Bonaparte himself, and the livery of his servants 
at Longwood, I am unable to sax; but the Marquis 
de Montchenu, it appears to me, would have acted 
with more propriety if he had declined receiving 
either, or limited himself to a demand for the white 
alone." "Sir H. Lowe," saj^s Forsyth, "thought 
the matter of some importance, and again alluded 
to it in another letter to Lord Bathurst." Even For- 
syth cuts a little joke. 

Take another example. A young Corsican priest 

78 



SIR HUDSON LOWE 

is sent out to the exile. He is, like all the rest, much 
and necessaril}' bored — all the more as, it is said, he 
can neither read nor write. So he determines to try 
and ride, and he is naturall}^ shj' about being seen 
making the experiment. But he wears a jacket 
something like Napoleon's, though the rest of the 
costume is totally unlike the Emperor's. All this is 
reported in great detail to the governor, and is called 
by Forsyth, " an apparent attempt to personate Na- 
poleon, and thus deceive the orderly officer. ... It 
was not an unimportant fact that Bonaparte did not 
leave his house that day at all." We do not know 
the exact stress laid on this incident by Lowe. Judg- 
ing from Forsyth's account, it was considerable. 
The fact that the experimental ride of a young priest 
should be construed into an attempt to personate 
the middle-aged and corpulent exile shows the effect 
which an abiding panic ma3" exercise on a mind in 
which suspicion has become monomania. 

Bertrand's children go to breakfast with Mont- 
chenu. The little boj^, on seeing a portrait of Louis 
XVII., asks: "Qui est ce gros ponf?" On being 
told, he adds, " C'est un grand coquin" ; while his 
sister Hortense displays a not unnatural aversion 
to the white cockade, the s^^mbol of the part}^ which 
had ruined her family and condemned her father to 
death. The artless prattle of these babes is cate- 
goricalh^ recorded b3^ the conscientious governor 
for the instruction of the secretary of state. 

Balmain records an observation of Lowe's in the 
same strain of exaggeration, which depicts the 
man. " Dr. O'^Ieara," says the governor, " has com- 
mitted unpardonable faults. He informed the peo- 
ple there" (at Longwood) "of what was going on 

79 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

in the town, in the country, on board the ships ; he 
went in search of news for them, and paid base court 
to them. Then he gave an Enghshman, on behalf 
of Napoleon, and secretly, a snuff-box! What in- 
famy! And is it not disgraceful of this grandissime 
Emperor thus to break the regulations?" This is 
not burlesque ; it is serious. 

The man seems to have become half crazy with his 
responsibility, and with the sense that he was an 
object of ridicule both to the French and to his col- 
leagues, while his captive remained the centre of ad- 
miration and interest, and, in the main, master of 
the situation. He prowled uneasily about Long- 
wood, as if unable to keep away, though Napoleon 
refused to receive him. They had, indeed, only six 
interviews in all, and those in the first three months 
of his terra of office. For nearly five years before 
Napoleon's death they never exchanged a word. 

With regard to this question of interviews, Napo- 
leon was rational enough. Lowe was antipathetic 
to him as a man and as his jailer. Consequently, 
Napoleon lost his temper outrageously when they 
met, a humiliation for which the Emperor suffered* 
afterwards, and which he was therefore anxious to 
avoid. Four days before their last terrible conver- 
sation of August l8, 1816, Napoleon sa3^s, with perfect 
good sense and right feeling, that he does not wish 
to see the governor, because when they meet he says 
things which compromise his character and dignity. 
On the 1 8th Lowe comes to Longwood. Napoleon 
escapes, but Lowe insists on seeing him, and the re- 
sult fully justifies Napoleon's apprehension andi 
self -distrust. As soon as it is over, Napoleon re- 
turns to his former frame of mind, and bitterly regrets 

80 



SIR HUDSON LOWE 

having received the governor, for the reasons he 
gave before, and determines to see him no more — a 
resohition to which he fortunately adhered. 

And yet, with all this mania of suspicion, it is curi- 
ous to note that Lowe was unable to watch over those 
of his own household. Balmain is convinced, and 
brings instances to prove, that all that passed at Gov- 
ernment House was promptly known at Longwood. 

We have said that Lowe was incredibly tactless. 
One of his first acts was to ask Napoleon to dinner. 
We give the actual note as an admirable illustration 
of Lowe's lack of propriety and common sense: 
"Should the arrangements of General Bonaparte 
admit it. Sir Hudson and Lady Lowe would feel grat- 
ified in the honor of his company to meet the countess 
at dinner on Monday next at six o'clock. They re- 
quest Count Bertrand will have the goodness to make 
known this invitation to him, and forward to them 
his reply." Bertrand did make the invitation known 
to "the Emperor, who merely remarked, "It is too 
silly; send no reply." The "countess" was Lady 
Loudon, wife of Lord Moira, governor - general of 
India. A man who could ask one who, the year 
before, had occupied the throne of France, "to meet 
the countess " at dinner, was not likely to fulfil, with 
success, functions of extreme delicacy. Sir Hud- 
son, however, regarded Napoleon as a British gen- 
eral not in employ, and thought it an amiable con- 
descension to invite him to take his dinner with " the 
countess." Moreover, to make his advances en- 
tirely acceptable, the governor addressed Napoleon 
by a title which he well knew that the Emperor con- 
sidered as an insult to France and to himself. With 
a spirit of hospitality, however, unquenched by 
F 8i 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

his rebuff. Sir Hudson, three months afterwards, 
asked Bertrand to invite the Emperor, on his behalf, 
to his party on the Prince Regent's birthday, but 
Bertrand dechned to give the message. Lady Lowe, 
however, had the good sense to say, gayly, "He 
would not come to my house, and I thought him per- 
fectly right." 

It is unnecessary, we think, to multiply these ex- 
amples, or to dilate further on the uncongenial sub- 
ject of Lowe's shortcomings and disabilities. Justice, 
however, requires us to notice that Napoleon was 
avenged on his enemy by the ill-fortune which pur- 
sued Sir Hudson. He was coldly approved by his 
government, but received little, in spite of constant 
solicitation. His rewards w^ere, indeed, slender and 
unsatisfying. George IV., at a levee, shook him 
warmly by the hand, and he was given the colonelcy 
of a regiment. Four years later he was made com- 
mander of the forces in Ceylon. This was all. Three 
years afterwards he returned to England in the hope 
of better things, visiting St. Helena on his way. He 
found Longwood already converted to the basest 
uses. The approach to it was through a large pig- 
sty: the billiard-room was a hay-loft: the room in 
which Napoleon died was converted into a stable. 
All trace of the garden at which the Emperor had 
toiled, and which had cheered and occupied his last 
moments, had vanished : it was now a potato-field. 
Whatever may have been Lowe's feelings at behold- 
ing this scene of desolation and disgrace, he was 
not destined to witness a more cheering prospect in 
England. He first waited on his old patron. Lord 
Bathurst, who advised him at once to return to Cey- 
lon. He then went to the Duke of Wellington and 

82 



SIR HUDSON LOWE 

asked for a promise of the reversion of the governor- 
ship of Ceylon. The duke rephed that he could 
make no promise till the vacancy arose, but added, 
ambiguously enough, that no motive of policy would 
prevent him from employing Sir Hudson wherever 
that officer's services could be useful. Sir Hudson 
then pressed for a pension, but the duke replied, un- 
ambiguously enough, that neither would Parliament 
ever grant one nor would Mr. Peel ever consent to 
propose one to the House of Commons. This was 
cold comfort from the duke for the man whom the 
duke professed to think hardly used. And after 
the expiry of his appointment in Ceylon he never re- 
ceived either employment or pension. We do not 
know what his deserts may have been, but we think 
that he was hardly used by his employers. 

When O'Meara's book came out. Sir Hudson had 
his opportunity. He determined to appeal to the 
law to vindicate his character. He at once retained 
Copley and Tindal, who bade him select the most 
libellous passages in the book for his affidavit in ap- 
plying for a criminal information. This was easier 
said than done, "from the peculiar art with which 
the book was composed." . . . "Truth and false- 
hood," continued Lowe, "were so artfully blended 
together in the book, that he found it extremely dif- 
ficult to deny them in an unqualified manner." He 
found it, indeed, so difficult that he took too long 
about it. O'Meara had published his book in July, 

1822. It was not till the latter end of Hilary term, 

1823, that Lowe's counsel appeared in court to move 
for the criminal information. The judges held that 
the application was made too late. He had to pay 
his own costs, and his character remained unvin- 

83 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

dicated. Nor did he attempt any further efforts to 
clear himself, but, in the words of his admiring 
biographer, "he wearied the government with appli- 
cations for redress, when he had, in fact, in his own 
hands the amplest means of vindicating his own 
character." These "ample means" apparently 
lurked in an enormous mass of papers, intrusted 
first to Sir Harris Nicolas, and then to Mr. Forsyth. 

But when at length the vindication appeared. Sir 
Hudson's ill-fortune did not, in our judgment, for- 
sake him. He himself had been dead nine years 
when the Captivity of Napoleon at St. Helena, by 
Forsyth, was published to clear his sore and neg- 
lected memory. It is in three massive volumes, and 
represents the indigestible digest of Sir Hudson 
Lowe's papers, extracted by that respectable author 
whom, in allusion to a former work. Brougham used 
to address as "My dearest Hortensius." But the 
result, it must be admitted, is a dull and trackless 
collection, though it embraces a period which one 
would have thought made dulness impossible. It 
is a dreary book, crowned by a barren index. We 
are willing to believe that the demerits of the work 
are due rather to the hero than the biographer. With 
that question we are not concerned. But as a de- 
fence of Lowe it is futile, because it is unreadable. 
Mr. Seaton, however, has, by quarrying in Mr. For- 
syth's materials, produced a much more spirited and 
available refutation of O'Meara. 

And, indeed, whatever the demerits of ForsjHh's 
book, it renders two services to the student. For it 
is a repository of original documents bearing on the 
story, and it conclusively exposes the bad faith and 
unveracity of O'Meara. 

84 



CHAPTER VI 

THE QUESTION OF TITLE 

A DISCUSSION of Lowe's character inevitably 
raises other questions : the nature of the grievances 
of which Napoleon complained, and the amount of 
responsibility for those grievances justly attaching 
to the governor. The grievances may be ranged 
under three heads : those relating to title, to finance, 
and to custody. Of these the question of title is by 
far the most important, for it was not merely the 
source of half the troubles of the captivity, but it op- 
erated as an almost absolute bar to intercourse, and 
as an absolute veto on what might have been an 
amicable discussion of other grievances. 

We have set forth at length the ill-advised note in 
which Lowe asked Napoleon to dinner. It was, in 
any case, a silly th'ng to do, but the governor must 
have known that there was one phrase in it which 
would certainly prevent Napoleon's noticing it, for 
in it he was styled " General Bonaparte." Napoleon 
regarded this as an affront. When he had first land- 
ed on the island Cockburn had sent him an invita- 
tion to a ball directed to "General Bonaparte." On 
receiving it through Bertrand, Napoleon had re- 
marked to the grand marshal : " Send this card to 
General Bonaparte; the last I heard of him was at 
the Pyramids and Mount Tabor." 

^3 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

But, as a rule, he did not treat this matter so hght- 
ly. It was not, he said, that he cared particularly for 
the title of Emperor, but that when his right to it was 
challenged, he was bound to maintain it. We cannot 
ourselves conceive on what ground it was disputed. 
He had been recogn zed as Emperor by every power 
in the world except Great Britain, and even she had 
recognized him as First Consul, and been willing to 
make peace with him both in Paris and at Chatillon. 
He had been anointed Emperor by the Pope himself : 
he had been twice solemnly crowned, once as Em- 
peror, and once as King. He had received every 
sanction which tradition or religion or diplomacy 
could give to the imperial title, and as a fact had been 
the most powerful emperor since Charlemagne. In 
France the titles he had given, the dukes and mar- 
shals and knights whom he had created, all were rec- 
ognized. The sovereign source of these was by im- 
plication necessarily recognized with them. The 
commissioners appointed to accompany Napoleon to 
Elba were especially enjoined to give him the title of 
Emperor and the honors due to that rank. Welling- 
ton himself used to send messages to Joseph — the 
mere transient nominee of Napoleon — as to "the 
King," It seems impossible, then, to surmise why, 
except for purposes of petty annoyance, our rulers 
refused to recognize Napoleon's admission to the 
caste of kings; for, as Consalvi remarked at Vienna 
in 1 814, " it is not to be supposed that the Pope went 
to Paris to consecrate and crown a man of straw/' 
But that refusal was the key-note of their policj^ ve- 
hement and insistent, and it affords an admirable ob- 
ject-lesson of the range and wisdom of that ministry. 
In the act which passed through Parliament "for 

86 



THE QUESTION OF TITLE 

more effectuall}^ detaining" him "in custody/' he 
is carefully called "Napoleon Buonaparte/' as if to 
deny that he had ever been French at all. This 
would be pitiable, were it not ridiculous, 

Cockburn had on shipboard, as we have seen, res- 
olutely inaugurated this solemn farce. And so soon 
as he landed he thus answered a note in which Ber- 
trand mentioned the Emperor : " Sir, I have the honor 
to acknowledge the receipt of your letter and note of 
yesterday's date, by which you oblige me officially 
to explain to you that I have no cognizance of any 
emperor being actuall3^ upon this island, or of any 
person possessing such dignity having (as stated by 
3^ou) come hither with me in the Northumberland. 
With regard to yourself, and the other officers of dis- 
tinction who have accompanied you here," and so 
he proceeds. Napoleon was one of these! Cock- 
burn complacently^ sends the correspondence to Bath- 
urst, with a note in which he speaks of "General 
Bonaparte (if by the term 'emperor' he meant to 
designate that person). " This is too much even for 
Forsyth. 

Lowe carried on this puerile affectation with scru- 
pulous fidelity. Hobhouse sent his book on the Hun- 
dred Days to Napoleon, writing inside it " Imperatori 
Napoleoni." This, though the inscription, after all, 
in strictness meant "To General Napoleon," the con- 
scientious Lowe sequestrated. And on this occasion 
he laid down a principle. He had allowed letters 
directed under the imperial title to reach Napoleon 
from his relations or his former subjects, "but this 
was from an English person." A Mr. Elphinstone, 
who was grateful for attentions paid to a wounded 
brother at Waterloo, sent him some chess-men from 

87 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

China. Lowe made difficulties about forwarding 
these because they bore N and a crown. We feel 
tempted to ask if Napoleon's linen, marked as it was 
with the objectionable cipher, was admitted to the 
honors of the island laundry. 

It would be easy to multiply instances of Lowe's 
childishness in this respect, but we will only add one 
more. Three weeks before his death the sick captive 
sent Coxe's Life of Marlborough, as a token of good- 
will, to the officers of the Tvv^entieth Regiment. Un- 
fortunately, the imperial title was written or stamped 
on the title-page, and the present, under the orders 
of the governor, was declined. In these days the 
Twentieth Regiment would perhaps not mind pos- 
sessing the Life of the greatest of English generals 
given by the greatest of the French. 

It is humiliating to be obliged to add that this pet- 
tiness survived even Napoleon himself. On the Em- 
peror's coffin-plate his followers desired to place the 
simple inscription "Napoleon," with the date and 
place of his birth and death. Sir Hudson refused to 
sanction this, unless " Bonaparte " were added. But 
the Emperor's suite felt themselves unable to agree 
to the style which their master had declined to ac- 
cept. So there was no name on the coffin. It seems 
incredible, but it is true. 

What are the grounds on which the British gov- 
ernment took up so unchivalrous and undignified an 
attitude? They are paraded by Scott with the same 
apologetic melancholy with which his own Caleb Bal- 
derstone sets forth the supper of the Master of Ravens- 
wood. They appear to be as follows : 

(i) "There could be no reason why Britain, in 
compassionate courtesy, should give to her prisoner 



THE QUESTION OF TITLE 

a title which she had refused to him de jure, even 
while he wielded the empire of France de facto." 

The sentence would be more accurately put thus, 
and then it seems to answer itself: "There could 
be no reason why Britain, when there was noth- 
ing to be got out of him in exchange, should give 
to her prisoner a title which she had been perfectly 
ready to acknowledge when there was something 
to be gained." For she had accredited Lords Yar- 
mouth and Lauderdale to negotiate with the Em- 
peror in 1806, while the imperial title and its repre- 
resentative are duly set forth in the protocols of 
the Congress of Chatillon to which both Napoleon and 
the Prince Regent sent plenipotentiaries, and when, 
but for the distrust or fatalism or madness of Napo- 
leon, a treaty would have been signed by both. 
There is, then, something of the ostrich in the re- 
fusal of Great Britain to recognize the style of Em- 
peror. And it seems, to say the least of it, in face 
of what occurred in 1806 and 18 14, a strong state- 
ment of Scott's to assert that "on no occasion what- 
soever, whether directly or by implication, had Great 
Britain recognized the title of her prisoner to be con- 
sidered as a sovereign prince.'' Are, then, pleni- 
potentiaries accredited to other than sovereign princes 
or republics, or are plenipotentiaries from any other 
source admitted to the congresses of nations? Are 
we to understand, then, that, when Yarmouth and 
Lauderdale went to Paris with their full powers, or 
when Castlereagh and Caulaincourt compared theirs 
at ChMillon, the British government did not "by 
implication," though not "directly," recognize Na- 
poleon as Emperor? With whom, then, were Yar- 
mouth and Lauderdale dealing in 1806, or Castle- 

89 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

reagh in 1814? It is declared, indeed, on good au- 
thority, that in the negotiations which led up to the 
peace of Amiens the British plenipotentiaries hinted 
their readiness to recognize the First Consul as King 
of France. Napoleon turned a deaf ear. Pasquier, 
a candid critic, points out that at Chatillon Britain, 
"which had so long and so perseveringly refused to 
recognize Napoleon as Emperor of the French, found 
herself the power most anxious to treat with him, 
as she would with a sovereign whose rights had been 
most incontestably recognized." 

Again, in what capacity, and to whom, was Sir Neil 
Campbell accredited to Elba? By the protocol of 
April 27, 1814, Britain had recognized the sovereignty 
of Elba. Who, then, was the sovereign? Was it 
" General Bonaparte " ? But Sir Neil officially signed 
documents in which he was called "S. M. I'Em- 
pereur Napoleon." 

It is true, however, that Britain, in view of the fact 
that the whole Continent had bowed before Napoleon, 
had some reason to feel a just pride in that she, at 
any rate, had never bent the knee, had never formally 
and directly acknowledged him as Emperor. This 
was a successful point in her policy, and had caused 
the keenest annoyance to Napoleon. But is it not 
also true that this very fact gave her a matchless 
opportunity of displaying a magnanimity which 
would have cost her nothing, and raised her still 
higher, by allowing, as an act of favor to a van- 
quished enemy, an honorary title which she had 
never conceded as a right to the triumphant sovereign 
of the West? 

But "the real cause lay a great deal deeper," says 
Scott. " Once acknowledged as Emperor, it followed, 

90 



THE QUESTION OF TITLE 

of course, that he was to be treated as such in every 
particular, and thus it would have become impossible 
to enforce such regulations as were absolutely de- 
manded for his safe custody." Shallow indeed must 
the government have been that deemed this reason 
"deep." For, to any such pretension on the part of 
Napoleon, it need only have opposed precedents, if, 
indeed, precedents were necessary, drawn from his 
own reign; though, in our judgment, it would have 
been true, as well as complimentary, to say that the 
circumstances were as unprecedented as the prisoner. 
Never before, indeed, has the peace and security of 
the universe itself required as its first and necessary 
condition the imprisonment of a single individual. 

But for a government which loved precedents it 
would have been sufficient to allege the case of King 
Ferdinand of Spain, interned at Valengay in the 
strictest custody. Napoleon might indeed have re- 
joined that he did not recognize Ferdinand as King, 
though he was so by the abdication of his father, by 
the acknowledgment of the Spaniards, and by hered- 
itary right. But Napoleon's rejoinder would only 
have assisted our government, who would have point- 
ed out that neither had they recognized him. 

There was, however, a higher precedent yet. There 
is a sovereign whose pretensions soar far above em- 
pire, who is as much above terrestrial thrones, dom- 
inations, and powers as these in their turn are above 
their subjects. The Pope asserts an authority short 
only, if it be short, of the Divine government of the 
world. He claims to be the vice-regent and repre- 
sentative of God on earth, the disposer and deposer of 
crowns. Napoleon boasted that he was an anointed 
sovereign; it was the Pope who anointed him. Yet 

91 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

this very superintendent and source of sovereignty 
was, without being deprived of his subHme character, 
put into captivity by Napoleon, not as Napoleon was 
confined, but almost as malefactors are imprisoned. 
There was no idle discussion then of "irreverence to 
the person of a crowned head," nor, on the other 
hand, of denial of the dignity of the papacy. The 
wearer of the triple crown was placed under lock and 
key by Napoleon because it suited his purpose, just 
as Napoleon was kept in custody for the convenience 
and security of the coalition. 

We think, then, that Napoleon had given convinc- 
ing proof that he did not hold that it was impossible 
to imprison a crowned head, or impossible to keep a 
crowned head in custody without sanctioning "his 
claim to the immunities belonging to that title," and 
that he could have opposed no argument on that 
point which even our government could not have 
controverted with ease. 

But, says Sir Walter, "if he was acknowledged 
as Emperor of France, of what country was Louis 
XVIII. king?" This, indeed, is Caleb's "hinder end 
of the mutton ham " with a vengeance. 

In the first place. Napoleon never at any time was 
styled Emperor of France, nor did he now wish to be 
called anything but the Emperor Napoleon. No one 
could deem that that title would affect the actual oc- 
cupant of the throne of France; there was no terri- 
torial designation implied; it might be as Emperor 
of Elba that the style was accorded. 

But, secondly, no more preposterous argument 
could be used by a British ministry. They repre- 
sented the only government that had really commit- 
ted the offence which they now pretended to appre- 

92 



THE QUESTION OF TITLE 

hend. For more than forty years their reigning 
sovereign had indeed styled himself King of France, 
though the fifteenth and sixteenth Louis had been 
occupying the actual throne and kingdom of France 
for three-fourths of the time. For thirty-three years 
of this period — till 1793 — there had been simultane- 
ously two kings of France, of whom the King of Brit- 
ain was the groundless aggressor and pretender. 
The British title of King of France had been dropped 
under Napoleon's consulate (when the union with 
Ireland necessitated a new style), possibly not with- 
out the desire of conciliating him. But the particu- 
lar objection stated by Scott in the text came with 
a particularly bad grace from the ministers of George 
III., or, indeed, from the ministers of any English sov- 
ereign since Edward III. All this is formal and trivial 
enough, but the whole argument concerns a formal 
triviality. 

It is strange that the antiquarian Scott should have 
forgotten all this. But it is, at any rate, fortunate for 
the British government that they did not use Scott's 
belated argument to Napoleon himself, who would 
have pounced like a hawk on so suicidal a contention. 
And he would further have reminded them that he 
had punctiliously reserved and accorded to Charles 
IV. full regal dignity, though he had placed his 
own brother Joseph on the throne of Spain. 

But Sir Walter (and we quote him because his rea- 
soning on this subject is the most pleasing and plau- 
sible) denies to Napoleon the title of Emperor, not 
merely in respect of France, but in respect of Elba. 
Napoleon's " breach of the Treaty of Paris was in 
essence a renunciation of the Empire of Elba; and 
the reassumption of that of France was so far from 

93 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

being admitted by the allies that he was declared an ^ 
outlaw by the Congress at Vienna." We know of no * 
renunciation in form or "in essence" of the title of f 
Emperor of Elba. When Napoleon landed at Frejus, j 
he was, we suppose, in strict form the Emperor of j 
Elba making war on the King of France. But, either 
way, this is a puerility unworthy of discussion. j 

I It is, however, true that the Congress of Vienna i 
had outlawed Napoleon. " In violating the conven- 
tion which had established him in the island of Elba, 1 
Bonaparte had destroyed the only title to which his , 
existence was attached. . . . The powers, therefore, i 
declare that Napoleon Bonaparte has placed himself i 
outside civil and social relations, and as the enemy ! 
and disturber of the tranquillity of the world has de- i 
livered himself h la vindicte publique. " Truly a 
compendious anathema. The curses of the mediaeval 
papacy, or of the Jewry which condemned Spinoza, 
were more detailed but not more effective. But, un- j 
luckily, the first breach in the convention, which es- i 
tablished him in the island of Elba, was not made by 
Napoleon, but by the other side. The main obvious 
necessity for Napoleon in the island of Elba, or else- 
where, was that he should live. With that object the 
signatories of that treaty had stipulated that he j 
should receive an income on the Great Book of France i 
of two millions of francs; that his family should re- 
ceive an income of two millions and a half of francs ; 
that his son should have as his inheritance the i 
Duchies of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla, and 
should at once assume the title of prince of those 
states. Not one of these stipulations, which were the 
compensation for his abdication, had been observed i 
when Napoleon left Elba. Neither he nor his relatives ' 

94 ! 



THE QUESTION OF TITLE 

had ever received a franc. The emperors of Russia 
and Austria, as well as Lord Castlereagh, urged on 
Talleyrand the execution of the treaty. They insisted 
on it as a question of honor and good faith. To them 
Talleyrand could only answer confusedly that there 
was danger in supplying what might be used as the 
means of intrigue. To his master he could only hint 
that the powers seemed to be in earnest, and that pos- 
sibly an arrangement might be made by which Brit- 
ain might be jockeyed into furnishing the funds. It 
is a tale of ignominy and broken faith, but neither 
lie with Napoleon. The application on his behalf for 
the payment of the subsidy when due was not even 
answered by the French government. Napoleon at 
St. Helena detailed no less than ten capital and ob- 
vious breaches of this treaty committed by the allies. 
So fanatical an opponent of the Emperor as Lafay- 
ette declares that it seemed a fixed policy of the Bour- 
bons to drive Napoleon to some act of despair. His 
family, says the marquis, were plundered. Not 
merely was the stipulated income not paid to him, 
but the ministry boasted of the breach of faith. His 
removal to St. Helena, as Lafayette, in spite of con- 
tradiction, insists, was demanded, and insidiously 
communicated to Napoleon as a plan on the point 
of execution. Projects for his assassination were 
favorably considered, though these, as beyond the 
provisions of the treaty, may be considered as out- 
side our present argument. For under this head the 
contention is simply this, that it was the allies, and 
not Napoleon, that broke the Treaty of Fontainebleau ; 
that, on the contrary, he himself observed the treaty 
until, on its non-fulfilment being flagrant, he quitted 
Elba and landed in France. In truth, he might well 

95 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

allege that, by the non-fulfilment of the treaty, he 
was starved out of Elba. We do not contend that 
this was his sole or even main motive in leaving Elba. 
We only set it up as against the contention of the 
allies that he was outlawed by breach of the treaty. 
Were it internationally correct that he should be out- 
lawed for the rupture of that treaty, all the other sig- 
natory sovereigns should have been outlawed too. 

And, after this decree of outlawry was promul- 
gated, the situation had materially changed in Napo- 
leon's favor; for France, by a plebiscite, had conse- 
crated what he had done. It is the fashion to sneer 
at plebiscites, and they are not always very reliable. 
But this was the only possible expression of French 
opinion, the only possible form of French ratifica- 
tion. The will of the nation condoned or approved 
his return, just as it allowed the Bourbons to pass 
away in silence, without an arm raised to prevent or 
to defend them. We could, perhaps, scarcely expect 
the coalition to take into consideration so trifling a 
matter as the will of the nation. But it is hard to 
see why the choice of the nation should be placed 
outside the pale of humanity, while the rejected of 
the nation and the deliberate violator of the Treaty 
of Fontainebleau should be replaced with great cir- 
cumstance on the throne. 

But, it may be said, if the British government in 
this matter was mean and petty, was not Napoleon 
meaner and pettier? Should he not have been above 
any such contention? What did it matter to him? 
His name and fame were secure. Would Lord Bacon 
repine at not being known as Viscount of St. Albans ? 
No man will ever think of asking, as Pitt said, whether 
Nelson was a baron, a viscount, or an earl. 

96 



THE QUESTION OF TITLE 

With tliis view we have much sympathy. We 
may at once admit that Napoleon had risen to an 
historical height far above the region of titles, and 
that the name of General Bonaparte — the young 
eagle that tore the very heart out of glory — is to our 
mind superior to the title of First Consul or of Em- 
peror. We may also remember that Charles V., on 
its being notified to him that the Diet had accepted 
his renunciation, said: "The name of Charles is 
now enough for me, who henceforward am nothing"; 
that he at once desired that in future he was to be 
addressed not as Emperor, but as a private person, 
had seals made for his use " without crown, eagle, 
fleece, or other device," and refused some flowers 
which had been sent to him because they were con- 
tained in a basket adorned with a crown. 

As against this we may point out that Napoleon 
was emphatically, as Napoleon III. said of himself, 
a parvenu Emperor. To Charles V., the heir of half 
the world, the descendant of a hundred kings, it 
could matter little what he was called after abdica- 
tion, for nothing could divest him of his blood or his 
birth. Moreover, Charles's wish was to be a monk; 
his gaze was fixed on heaven ; he had lost the whole 
world to gain his own soul. But to the second son 
of a Corsican lawyer with a large family and slender 
means the same remark does not apply, and the same 
reflection would not occur. The habits and feelings 
of sovereignty were more essential and precious to 
him, who had acquired them by gigantic effort, than 
to those who inherited them without question or 
trouble. He carried this idiosyncrasy to a degree 
which they would have thought absurd. The title 
of Emperor of Elba was in itself burlesque. The 
G 97 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

grand marshal in his hut at St. Helena transcends 
some of the characters who mum to Offenbach's 
music. Princes born in the purple would have seen 
this, and shrunk from the ridicule which such asso- 
ciations might cast on their sacred attributes of sub- 
stantial sovereignty. But to Napoleon the title of 
Emperor represented the crown and summit of his 
dazzling career, and he declined to drop it at the bid- 
ding of a foreign enemy. 

If this were all to be said for him it would be little. 
This, however, is but a small part of the argument. 
Napoleon took broader and higher ground. He con- 
sidered, and we think justly, that the denial of the 
title Emperor was a slight on the French nation, 
a contemptuous denial of their right to choose their 
own sovereign, an attempt to ignore many years 
of glorious French history, a resolve to obliterate the 
splendid decade of Napoleon's reign. If he were not 
Emperor, he said, no more was he General Bona- 
parte, for the French nation had the same right to 
make him sovereign that they had to make him gen- 
eral. If he had no right to the one title, he had no 
right to the other. We think that, in asserting the 
title as a question of the sovereign right and inde- 
pendence of the French people, he was standing on 
firm ground. 

But, in truth, his position is not firm ; it is impreg- 
nable. Scott devotes an ill-advised page to asking 
why Napoleon, who had wished to settle in England 
incognito, like Louis XVIII., who lived there as Count 
of Lille, did not condescend to live incognito at St. 
Helena. "It seems," says Sir Walter, contemptu- 
ously, "that Napoleon . . . considered this veiling 
of his dignity as too great a concession on his part 

98 



THE QUESTION OF TITLE 

to be granted to the governor of St. Helena." This 
is an amazing sentence, when we remember Scott's 
advantages : " the correspondence of Sir Hudson 
Lowe with His Majesty's government having been 
opened to our researches by the hberahty of Lord 
Bathurst, late secretary of state for the Colonial 
Department." The fact is, of course, that Napoleon, 
deliberately and formally, in September or October, 
i8i6 (when he referred to a similar offer made through 
Montholon to Cockburn eight months before), pro- 
posed to assume the name of Colonel Muiron, or of 
Baron Duroc. This was in reply to a note from Lowe 
to O'Meara, of October 3d, in which the governor says : 
" If he (Napoleon) wishes to assume a feigned name, 
why does he not propose one?" Napoleon took him 
at his word, and so put him eternally in the wrong. 
The negotiation was carried on through O'Meara, 
and lasted some weeks. Once or twice the high con- 
tracting parties appeared to be on the point of agree- 
ment, but we have no doubt that Sir Hudson wished 
to gain time to refer to his government. Lowe, ac- 
cording to Montholon, suggested the title of Count 
of Lyons, which Napoleon rejected. "I can," he 
said, " borrow the name of a friend, but I cannot dis- 
guise myself under a feudal title." This seems 
sensible enough, but he had a better reason still. 
This very title had been discussed on their first ar- 
rival at St. Helena, and Napoleon had appeared 
not averse to it, till Gourgaud had objected that it 
would be ridiculous, as the canons of Lyons Cathe- 
dral were counts of Lyons, and that the Emperor 
could not assume an ecclesiastical incognito. This 
was conclusive. Meanwhile, the governor was re- 
ferring the question home. We do not know in what 

99 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

terms, for it is characteristic of Forsyth's murky 
compilation that he only prints Bathurst's reply. 
That reply is, indeed, amazing. Napoleon had of- 
fered a simple and innocent means of getting rid of 
what was not merely a perpetual irritation, but an 
absolute barrier to communication, for the governor 
ignored all papers in which the imperial title oc- 
curred, and Napoleon ignored all others. "On the 
subject," says Bathurst, "of General Bonaparte's 
proposition I shall probably not give you any in- 
struction. It appears harsh to refuse it, and there 
may arise much embarrassment in formally accept- 
ing it," We cannot conjecture the nature of the em- 
barrassment apprehended by our colonial secretary. 
Forsyth, however, has been so fortunate, from the 
resources at his command, as to divine the minister's 
meaning. The assumption of an incognito is, it ap- 
pears, the privilege of monarchs, and not even thus 
indirectly could the British government concede to 
Napoleon the privilege of a monarch. This par- 
ticular privilege is shared by the travelling public, 
and even by the criminal population, who make 
most use of it. It would be as sagacious to refuse 
to a country squire the right to be addressed as " Sir " 
by his gamekeeper, because princes are so addressed, 
as to deny an assumed name to Napoleon because 
sovereigns and others use one when they travel in- 
cognito. So we are still in the dark, more especially 
as it was Lowe who invited Napoleon to avail him- 
self of this "privilege," But Napoleon had thus 
done his best; he could do no more; the blame and 
responsibility for all further embarrassment about 
title must remain not with him, not even with Lowe, 
but with the ministers of George IV. 

100 



THE QUESTION OF TITLE 

Lowe, by-the-bye, had made a characteristically 
tactless suggestion of his own to solve the difficulty. 
He proposed to give Napoleon "the title of Excel- 
lency, as due to a field marshal." This judicious 
effort having failed, he himself cut the Gordian knot, 
dropped the "General," substituted "Napoleon," 
and called the Emperor "Napoleon Bonaparte," 
as it were John Robinson. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE MONEY QUESTION 

We pass from the question of title, on which we 
have been compelled to dilate, because it was the 
root of all evil, to the question of finance, which, fort- 
unately — for it is the most squalid of the St. Helena 
questions — may be treated more briefly, as it is only 
incidental to others. The question of title has even 
its bearing on finance, for our government may have 
held that if Napoleon was to be treated as an abdi- 
cated monarch, he might be held to require an ex- 
pensive establishment. But the war had been costly, 
and the prisoner must be cheap. The most expen- 
sive luxury was Sir Hudson himself; his salary was 
£12,000 a year. Napoleon and his household, fifty- 
one persons in all, were to cost £8000. What more 
he required he might provide for himself. The real 
cost seems to have been £18,000 or £19,000 a year, 
though Lowe admits that Napoleon's own wants were 
very limited. But everything on the island was scarce 
and dear, "raised," as Lowe said, "to so extrava- 
gant a price," and Lowe pointed out that Bathurst's 
limit was impossible. The governor magnanimously 
raised the captive to an equality with himself. He 
fixed the allowance at £12,000, and eventually there 
was rather more latitude. It is only fair to say that 
Lowe was, in this matter, less ungenerous than 
Bathurst, his official chief. 

J02 



THE MONEY QUESTION 

But, in the mean time, much had happened. Lowe 
was ordered by Bathurst to cut down the expenses of 
these fifty-one people, in the dearest place in the 
world, where, by all testimony, every article, even of 
food, was three or four times as costly as elsewhere, 
to £8000 a year. He writes to Montholon as to the 
household consumption of wine and meat. Napo- 
leon seems to us to have treated the matter at this 
stage with perfect propriety. He said : " Let him do 
as he pleases, so long as he does not speak to me 
about it, but leaves me alone." Even Sir Walter 
Scott regrets that Lowe's strict sense of duty im- 
pelled him to speak to the Emperor about such mat- 
ters. "We could wish," he says, "that the gov- 
ernor had avoided entering upon the subject of the 
expenses of his detention with Napoleon in person." 
The Emperor put the point tersely enough. "// 
marchande ignominieusement notre existence," he 
said. And when Bertrand asks for a duplicate list 
of supplies to the Emperor, as a check on the ser- 
vants, his master reproves him. "Why take the 
English into our confidence about our household 
affairs? Europe has its glasses fixed on us; the 
governor will know it; the French nation will be 
altogether disgraced." At the same time Napoleon 
did not disdain, as he had not when on the throne 
disdained, to send for his steward and go into his 
accounts. He tried to make, and did make, some re- 
ductions, but he could not discuss these household 
details with his jailer. 

Then Lowe writes again, and Napoleon, visiting the 
table of his household, finds scarcely enough to eat. 
This rests only on the authority of Las Cases, but it 
is not improbable that the authorities of the kitchen 

103 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

may have made a practical demonstration against 
the new economies. However that may be. Napoleon 
orders his silver to be broken up and sold. Montho- 
lon pleads in vain, and partially disobeys. Three 
lots of silver are sold at a tariff fixed by Lowe. Mon- 
tholon has the Emperor's dinner served on common 
pottery. Napoleon is ashamed of himself — he can- 
not eat without disgust, and yet as a boy he always 
ate off such ware. "We are, after all, nothing but 
big babies." And his joy is almost infantine when 
Montholon next day confesses his disobedience, and 
restores uninjured the favorite pieces of plate. 

And, indeed, the last sale of silver had vanquished 
Lowe. He expressed lively regret, saj^s Montholon, 
and was evidently afraid of the blame that this scan- 
dal might bring on him. At any rate. Napoleon re- 
mained master of the field, and there was no more 
trouble about money. The whole proceeding was, 
of course, a comedy. Napoleon had no need to sell a 
single spoon. He had ample funds in Paris, and 
ample funds even at St. Helena. And yet we can- 
not blame him. He was fighting the British gov- 
ernment in this, matter, and we can scarcely hold 
that the government was in the right. He had no 
weapons to fight with, and all that he could do was 
in some way or other to appeal to the world at large. 
This he did by breaking up his plate. It was a fact 
that must be known to every inhabitant of the island ; 
it could not be suppressed by Lowe; thus it must 
soon be public property in Europe. Helpless as he 
was, he won the battle, and we cannot refrain from 
a kind of admiration, both at the result and at the 
meagreness of his means. Later on he attempted 
the same effect on a smaller scale. Fuel was short 

104 



THE MONEY QUESTION, 

at Longwood, and Napoleon ordered Noverraz, his 
servant, to break up his bed and burn it. This, we 
are told, produced a great effect among the "yam- 
stocks " ( for so were the inhabitants of St. He- 
lena nicknamed), "and the tyranny of the gov- 
ernor,'' Gourgaud gravely adds, "is at its last 
gasp." 

Theatrical strokes were, of course, by no means un- 
familiar to him. Like all great men, he was a man 
of high imagination, and this imagination made him 
keenly alive to scenic effect. While on the throne he 
had done much in this way, generally with success. 
He liked to date his victorious despatches from the 
palace of a vanquished monarch : he would fly into 
a histrionic passion before a scared circle of ambassa- 
dors : he would play the bosom friend with a brother 
emperor for weeks at a time. He studied his cos- 
tumes as carefully as any stage manager of these 
latter days. He would have placed in a particular 
part of the ranks veterans whose biographies had 
been supplied to him, and would delight them with 
the knowledge of their services. Metternich de- 
clares that the announcement of his victories was 
prepared with similar care. Rumors of defeat were 
sedulously spread; the ministers appeared uneasy 
and depressed ; then, in the midst of the general anxi- 
ety, the thunder of cannon announced a new triumph. 
And his effects were generally happy. During the 
Russian campaign there are two more dubious in- 
stances, one of which was at least open to criticism, 
the other of which certainly caused disgust. In the 
midst of the terrible anxieties of his stay at Moscow, 
with fire and famine around him, with winter and 
disaster menacing his retreat, he dictated and sent 

10.5 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

home an elaborate plan for the reorganization of the 
Theatre Frangaise. This, of course, was to impress 
his staff with the ease and detachment of his mind, 
and France with the conviction that the administra- 
tion of the empire was carried on from Moscow with 
the same universal and detailed energy as in Paris. 
Later on, when he had to avow overwhelming calam- 
ities, he ended the ghastly record of the twenty-ninth 
bulletin by the announcement that the health of the 
Emperor had never been better. He calculated that 
this sentence would display him as the semi-divinity 
superior to misfortune, and maintain France in the 
faith that, after all, his well-being was the one thing 
that signified : that armies might pass and perish so 
long as he survived. It was inspired, perhaps, by a 
recollection of the sovereign sanctity with which 
Louis XIV. had sought to encompass himself. It 
was, at any rate, the assertion of an overpowering in- 
dividuality. We have something of the same nature 
in our own annals, though widely differing in degree 
and in conception. It is said that the order for the 
famous signal of Trafalgar, " England expects every 
man to do his duty," ran at first, "Nelson expects 
every man to do his duty." The sense of individ- 
uality, sublime in the admiral before the supreme vic- 
tory, revolted mankind with the apparent selfishness 
of the general, who had led a nation to court and un- 
dergo disaster, in the very hour of catastrophe. And 
yet mankind, perhaps, was hardly just. The asser- 
tion of personality had been, in Napoleon's case, such 
a strength that he could not afford to dispense with it 
even when it seemed inopportune. And we must re- 
member that those who took part in the Russian cam- 
paign testify that the first question, the first anxiety 

1 06 



THE MONEY QUESTION 

of all, was, " How is the Emperor? Does he keep his 
health?" 

On this question of expense, O'Meara represents 
Napoleon as making remarks so characterized by his 
excellent common-sense that we may believe them 
to be authentic. " ?Iere, through a mistaken and 
scandalous parsimony, they (your ministers) have 
counteracted their own views, which were that as 
little as possible should be said of me, that I should 
be forgotten. But their ill-treatment, and that of this 
man, have made all Europe speak of me. , . . There 
are still millions in the world who are interested in 
me. Had your ministers acted wisely, they would 
have given a carte blanche for this house. This 
would have been making the best of a bad business, 
have silenced all complaints, and . . . would not 
have cost more than £16,000 or £17,000 a year." 

We might almost have forgiven the petty finance 
of the government, had it not in one single instance 
overreached itself. Napoleon had asked for some 
books, mainly to enable him to write his memoirs. 
The government supplied the books as "an indul- 
gence," we presume, not inconsistent " with the entire 
security of his person"; but they sent him in the 
bill, or rather a demand, for the sum. Napoleon or- 
dered Bertrand to refuse to pay this without a de- 
tailed account. So on his death the books were im- 
pounded by Lowe, and sold in London for a few 
hundred pounds, less than a quarter of what had 
been spent in procuring them. Their original cost 
had been fourteen hundred pounds, but Napoleon had 
added greatly to their value. Many of them, says 
Montholon, were covered with notes in the Emperor's 
handwriting; almost all bore traces of his study of 

107 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

them. Had this asset been preserved to the nation, 
we might have been inchned to shut our eyes as to its 
history and origin. The penny-unwise and pound- 
foohsh pohcy of the government lost both reputation 
and result. 



CHAPTER YIII 

THE QUESTION OF CUSTODY 

The last group of grievances related to the ques- 
tion of custody. The main object of the coalesced 
governments was, not unnaturally, that under no cir- 
cumstances should Napoleon escape from confine- 
ment and trouble the world again. So they chose 
the most remote island that they could think of, 
and converted it laboriously into a great fortress. 
Strangers could scarcely conceal their mirth as they 
saw Lowe adding sentry to sentry, and battery to 
battery, to render more inaccessible what was al- 
ready impregnable; although, before leaving Eng- 
land, he had avowed to Castlereagh that he saw no 
possible prospect of escape for Napoleon but by a 
mutiny of the garrison. Nevertheless, he increased 
the precautions at compound interest. Las Cases, in 
his intercepted letter to Lucien, described them with 
some humor, and declared that the posts established 
on the peaks were usually lost in the clouds. Mont- 
chenu, the French commissioner, declared that if a 
dog were seen to pass anywhere, at least one sentinel 
was placed on the spot. He is indeed copious on the 
subject, though he considered his interest and re- 
sponsibility in the matter second only to those of 
Lowe himself. He details with pathetic exactitude 
the precautions taken. The plain of Longwood, 

109 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

where Napoleon lived, is, he says, separated from the 
rest of the island by a frightful gully, which com- 
pletely surrounds it, and is only crossed by a narrow j 
tongue of land not twenty feet broad, so steep that if ten | 
thousand men were masters of the island, fifty could 
prevent their arriving at Longwood. One can only i 
arrive at Longwood by this pathway, and, in spite of I 
these difficulties, the Fifty-third Regiment, a park of !■ 
artillery, and a company of the Sixty-sixth are en- ] 
camped at the gate. Farther on, nearer the town, 
there is another post of twenty men, and the whole I 
enclosure is guarded, day and night, by little de- 
tachments in view of each other. At night the i 
chain of sentries is so close that they almost touch \ 
each other. Add to this a telegraph station on the j 
top of every hill, by which the governor receives \ 
news of his prisoner in one minute, or at most two, i 
wherever he may be. It is thus evident that escape j 
is impossible, and even if the governor were to permit 
it, the guardianship of the sea would prevent it. For, I 
from the signal stations, a vessel can generally be ;: 
descried at a distance of sixty miles. Whenever one ■ 
is perceived a signal cannon is fired. Two brigs-of- j 
war patrol round the island day and night ; a frigate \ 
is placed at the only two places where it is possible | 
to land. (No foreign vessel, it may be added, and | 
only a few privileged British vessels, such as men- ^ 
of-war, or ships bringing necessary provisions, ap- ] 
pear to have been allowed under any pretext to i 
communicate with the shore.) I 

Surely, then, the agonized apprehensions of the \ 
governor were misplaced; his custody might have j 
been less strict, and Napoleon might have been al- 
lowed to keep himself in health by riding over this , 

no 



THE QUESTION OF CUSTODY 

barren rock without the accompaniment of a British 
officer. A boyish practical joke of his, soon after 
reaching the island, and Cockburn's remark on it, 
make this more clear. Napoleon, Bertrand, and 
Gourgaud are out riding, followed by Captain Pop- 
pleton. Bertrand begs Poppleton not to follow so 
close; Napoleon sets off at a gallop with Gourgaud; 
they soon lose Poppleton, who, it appears, was not 
a dashing horseman. Poppleton, disconsolate, re- 
turns and reports to the admiral. Cockburn laughs 
at the affair as a boyish joke, une espi^glerie de 
sous-lieutenant, and says: "It is a good lesson for 
you, but as to danger of escape, there is none. My 
cruisers are so well posted round the island that the 
devil himself could not get out of it " — the same con- 
viction that Lowe had expressed to Castlereagh. 

Later on, when Napoleon was confined to the house 
by illness, the governor became alarmed. Was the 
prisoner in the house at all, or was he sliding down 
some steep ravine to a submarine boat? He deter- 
mined on a firm and unmistakable policy. He sent 
(August 29, 1819) a letter to ''Napoleon Bonaparte," 
giving that personage notice that the orderly officer 
must see him daily, come what may, and may use 
any means he may see fit to surmount any obstacle 
or opposition ; that any of Napoleon's suite who may 
resist the officer in obtaining this access would be at 
once removed from Longwood and held responsible 
for any results that might occur; and that if the of- 
ficer has not seen Napoleon by ten o'clock in the 
morning he is to enter the hall and force his way to 
Napoleon's room. Brave words, indeed! Napoleon 
replies through Montholon that there is no question 
for him of any choice between death and an igno- 

III 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

minious condition of life, and that he will welcome 
the first — implying, of course, what he had often said, 
that he would resist the officer by force. What hap- 
pens? On September 4th Lowe comes to withdraw his 
instructions. Forsyth omits, all mention of this in- 
cident, but Montholon gives the documents, which 
can scarcely be fabricated. And we know that there 
was no result except that the unhappy officer at 
Longwood is stimulated to fresh exertions, and leads 
a miserable life. To such straits is he reduced for a 
sight of the prisoner that he is recommended to be- 
take himself to the key-hole. Sometimes he is more 
fortunate, and sees a hat which may contain Napo- 
leon's head. Sometimes he peeps through a window 
and sees the prisoner in his bath. On one of these 
occasions Napoleon perceived him, and, issuing forth, 
advanced towards the captain's hiding-place in ap- 
palling nudity. But, as a rule, the existence of this 
hapless officer is one of what hunting men would call 
blank days. 

"April 3d. — Napoleon still keeps himself con- 
cealed. I have not been able to see him since the 
25th ult. . . . April 19th. — I again waited on Mon- 
tholon, and told him I could not see Napoleon. He 
appeared surprised, and said they had seen me. . . . 
I was nearly twelve hours on my legs this day en- 
deavoring to see Napoleon Bonaparte before I suc- 
ceeded, and I have experienced many such days since 
I have been stationed at Longwood. . . . 23d. — I 
believe that I saw Napoleon Bonaparte to-day in the 
act of stropping his razor in his dressing-room." 
Again the hapless Captain Nicholls reports : " I must 
here beg leave to state that in the execution of my 
duty yesterday I was upon my feet upwards of ten 

112 



THE QUESTION OF CUSTODY 

hours, endeavoring to procure a sight of Napoleon 
Bonaparte, either in his httle garden, or at one of his 
windows, but could not succeed; that during the 
whole of this time I was exposed to the observation 
and remarks of not only the French servants, but 
also to the gardeners and other persons employed 
about Longwood House; and that I have very fre- 
quently experienced days of this kind since I have 
been employed on this duty." 

To such a pitch had mismanagement reduced the 
peremptory governor and his ministerial chiefs. In- 
stead of " You must do this, and you must do that," 
his officer has to lead the life of a tout, and an un- 
successful tout, exposed to the derision of the garden- 
ers and household as well as the ironical survey of 
the invisible prisoner. Napoleon had won the day, 
mainly through the wooden clumsiness of his op- 
ponents. 

Were there any real attempts to get Napoleon away 
from St. Helena? We doubt it. On one occasion, 
after receiving despatches from Rio Janeiro, Lowe 
doubled, and even tripled, the sentries described by 
Montchenu! The French government had, indeed, 
discovered a "vast and complicated plan" to seize 
Pernambuco, where there were said to be two thou- 
sand exiles, and with this force to do something un- 
explained to remove Napoleon. A Colonel Latapie 
seems to have had the credit of this vast and com- 
plicated mare's nest. A "submarine vessel" — the 
constant bug-bear of British governments — capable 
of being at the bottom of the sea all day and of un- 
natural activity at night, was being constructed by 
" a smuggler of an uncommonly resolute character," 
called Johnstone, apparently a friend of O'Meara. 
H 113 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

But the structure of the vessel excited suspicion, and 
she was confiscated before completion by the British 
government. Our great Scottish master of fiction 
narrates all this without a vestige of a smile. An- 
other submarine vessel was being constructed on, 
it appears, the "Sommariva system," at Pernam- 
buco, whence most of these legends are launched. 

If Maceroni can be believed, which is at the least 
doubtful, O'Meara, on his return from St. Helena, 
made preparations on a large scale for the rescue of 
Napoleon. "The mighty powers of steam," says 
Maceroni, "were mustered to our assistance. Brit- 
ish officers volunteered to exchange out of their regi- 
ments in Europe in order to contrive being put on 
duty at St. Helena. But I cannot enter into par- 
ticulars." This, for obvious reasons, we regret. 
Maceroni, however, does inform us more specifically 
that this great enterprise split on the money diffi- 
culty, which resolved itself into a vicious circle. 
The mother of Napoleon was willing to hand over 
her whole fortune in return for the accomplished 
rescue of her son. O'Meara wanted money at once 
for the purposes of the scheme. The plan, he said, 
could not proceed without money : the money, she 
said, could only be given in payment for its success. 
So the conspiracy, if it ever existed, came to an end. 
The family of Bonaparte were by this time some- 
what wary as to projects of rescue, and the insepa- 
rable incident of a demand for cash. 

Forsyth happily preserves some of the indications 
of plots for escape which alarmed our government 
and their agent at St. Helena. Two silly and 
unintelligible anonymous letters addressed to some 
merchants in London ; another with " an obscure al- 

114 



THE QUESTION OF CUSTODY 

lusion to St. Helena, Cracow, and Philadelphia," ad- 
dressed to a gentleman at Cracow ; news of a fast-sail- 
ing vessel being equipped by a person named Car- 
penter in the Hudson River; these were the tidings 
that kept our government in an agony of precaution. 
But even Forsyth breaks down in the narrative of a 
ghostly vessel which harassed our government, and 
intimates that it must have been The Flying Dutch- 
man. And at last the shadow of tragedy comes to 
darken the farce; for, a few months before the end, 
Bathurst expresses the belief that Napoleon is medi- 
tating escape. The supreme escape was, indeed, im- 
minent, for death was at hand. 

On the other hand, Montholon's testimony on this 
subject is direct and simple enough. A ship captain 
offered, according to Montholon, on two occasions, to 
get Napoleon off in a boat. A million francs was the 
price — to be paid on the Emperor's reaching Ameri- 
can soil. Napoleon at once refused to entertain the 
proposal. And Montholon believes that under no 
circumstances would he have entertained it, even 
had a boat been able to reach the only possible 
point, and, what was also necessary, had the Em- 
peror been able to conceal himself all day in a ra- 
vine, and descend at night to the coast, with the 
risk of breaking his neck a hundred times in the 
process. 

Again, Las Cases has a plan, and Gourgaud thinks 
it practicable. Napoleon "discusses the chances of 
success, but distinctly declares that, were they all 
favorable, he would, none the less, refuse to have any- 
thing to do with a project of escape." 

Montholon, after this, makes an entry which is 
significant enough. "A plan of escape," he says, 

115 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

"is submitted to the Emperor. He listens without 
interest, and calls for the Historical Dictionary." 

Nor, as we have said, do w^e think that Napoleon 
ever entertained the idea of escaping in the garb of a 
waiter, or in a basket of dirty linen. The Russian 
government, in its memorial to the Congress of Aix- 
la-Chapelle in 1818, says that a feasible project of 
escape was laid before the Emperor. It was to have 
taken place on the evacuation of France by the allied 
armies. But the Emperor postponed it. This, how- 
ever, is given on the authority of Gourgaud, and is 
probably one of the fantastic legends with which 
that officer, after his departure from Longwood, 
loved to tickle the irritable credulity of Sir Hudson 
Lowe. 

Did he, indeed, wish to escape? On that point we 
have the strongest doubts. 

Whither, indeed, could he fly ? The United States 
of North America, his original choice of a destination, 
seemed the only possible refuge; and yet he firmly 
believed that he would soon be assassinated there by 
the emissaries of the restored government in France. 
To all proposals of escape he always made, according 
to Montholon, this reply: "I should not,'' he said, 
"be six months in America without being murdered 
by the assassins of the Comte d'Artois. Remember 
Elba — was not my assassination concerted there? 
But for that brave Corsican, who had accidentally 
been placed as quartermaster of gendarmerie at Bas- 
tia, and who warned me of the departure for Porto 
Ferrajo of the garde-du-corps, who afterwards con- 
fessed all to Drouot, I was a dead man. Besides, one 
must always obey one's destiny, for all is written 
above. Only my martyrdom can restore the crown to 

116 



THE QUESTION OF CUSTODY 

my dynasty. In America I shall only be murdered 
or forgotten. I prefer St. Helena." When another 
plan is presented to him, he again lays stress on the 
dynastic argument. "It is best for my son that I 
should remain here. If he lives, my martyrdom will 
restore his crown to him." 

For a man in middle life, corpulent and listless, 
to attempt, under any circumstances, to leave a lone- 
ly rock, garrisoned by a large military force and sur- 
rounded by vigilant cruisers, in order to reach, after 
a long and perilous passage by ocean, a country 
where he believed he would be murdered, seems pre- 
posterous. And yet these are the facts of the case. 
But in one respect they are understated, as they omit 
the most material fact of all. 

For Napoleon was no longer what he had been. 
He himself had laid down the law, tersely and in- 
imitably, for himself and others, on this subject. 
"Ordener is worn out," he had said at Austerlitz of 
one of his generals. " One has but a short time for 
war. I am good for another six years, and then I 
shall have to stop." Strangely enough, his judg- 
ment was exactly verified. Six years and a month 
from Austerlitz would have brought him to i8l2, to 
the Russian campaign, which, had he observed his 
own rule, he would have avoided. It is noteworthy 
that throughout l8l2, and notably at the battle of 
Borodino, when he was prostrate, those attached to 
his person, like Segur, observed a remarkable change 
in his health and energy. Segur, indeed, seems to 
attribute the morbid and feverish activity which 
drove him into that fatal expedition to constitutional 
disease. Some vivid scraps of the note-book of Duroc, 
his closest attendant and friend, relating to the begin- 

117 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

ning of this war, have been preserved, which confirm 
this view : " Aug. 7. — The Emperor in great physical 
pain ; he took opium prepared by Methivier. ' Duroc, 
one must march or die. An Emperor dies standing, 
and so does not die. . . . We must bring this fever of 
doubt to an end. ' " On his return the change was 
more marked. Chaptal, a scientific observer of his 
master, says that it was remarkable. Napoleon had 
become stout in 1809, and had then to some extent 
degenerated. But after Moscow Chaptal observed a 
much greater transformation. There was a notable 
failure in the sequence of his ideas. His conversa- 
tion consisted mainly of incoherent and imaginative 
bursts. There was no longer the same force of char- 
acter ; not the same passion or power of work. Rid- 
ing fatigued him. Somnolence and the pleasures of 
the table gained on him. It is true that, with his back 
to the wall, he fought an unrivalled campaign of de- 
fence and despair. But this was the last flash of the 
Conqueror. He did not, indeed, cease to be a great 
captain. He could still plan in the cabinet. But he 
was no longer so formidable or so active in the field. 
The matchless supremacy of his youth had passed 
away. 

At Elba, again, he physically degenerated. A ter- 
rible activity had become necessary to his life. The 
suppressed energy, the necessary change of habits, in- 
jured his health. He became enormously fat; this 
was the great change that struck his adherents on 
his return to the Tuileries in the following March. 
He indeed used this circumstance as an argument to 
prove his change of character in a manner that sug- 
gests a reminiscence of Shakespeare. Striking his 
stomach with both hands, " Is one ambitious when 

118 



THE QUESTION OF CUSTODY 

one is as fat as I am?" He had no longer that " lean 
and hungry look " that denotes the " dangerous " man 
who "thinks too much." It was, moreover, soon 
clear that his health was broken. His brother Lucien 
found him ill, wrote details which are not printed, 
and assured M. Thiers that his brother was suffering 
from a bladder complaint. Thiers had other evi- 
dence to the same effect, though he holds, and Hous- 
saye with him, that Napoleon's energy disproves the 
probability of serious ailment. Savary testifies that 
he could scarcely sit his horse on the battle-field. La- 
vallette, who saw him the night he left Paris for 
Flanders, says that he was then suffering severely 
from his chest. In any case, it was abundantly evi- 
dent that the Napoleon who returned in March, 1815, 
was very different from the Napoleon who had left in 
April, 1814. 

We will go so far as to risk an opinion that when 
he returned from Elba he had realized that his career 
as a conqueror was over. In Elba he had had leisure, 
for the first time since he attained power, to take stock, 
calmly and coldly, of his situation, and to remember 
his own maxim as to the limited period of life during 
which war can be carried on with success. We think, 
then, that he understood that his period of conquest 
was past. But this is not to say that his headstrong 
and imperious temperament could ever have been 
shaped into anything like a constitutional ruler, or 
that he could have restrained himself or his army into 
permanent pacification With his marshals he would, 
we think, have had no difficulty. But his pretorians 
would hardly have been so easy to satisfy. The lim- 
itation of his frontier, too, would have been a goad as 
well as an eyesore. Against these we balance the 

119 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

partial exhaustion of his people and of himself, facts 
to which he could scarcely have been permanently 
blind. 

During the Hundred Days, though he displayed 
what in another man would have been energy, he 
had ceased to be Napoleon. He was a changed, 
doomed man. " I cannot resist the conviction," says 
Pasquier, who was in constant contact with the men 
who surrounded him, " that his genius and his physi- 
cal powers were alike in a profound decline." He 
allowed himself to be bullied by his new legislature, 
and displayed a certain helplessness which was a 
new and ominous sign. We are told, on the author- 
ity of Sismondi, that his ministers, to their astonish- 
ment, would constantly find him asleep over a book. 
Another of the strange new features of that period 
was a tendency to hold endless conversations, which 
must have occupied much precious time, and which 
betrayed a secret perplexity, very strange to. him. 
Even on the eve of Waterloo, on the battle-field, to 
the amazement of Gerard and Grouchy, he wastes 
precious time in discoursing to them about politics 
in Paris, the Chamber and the Jacobins. This dis- 
cursiveness was partly due, says Mollien, to a lassi- 
tude which would overcome him after a few hours' 
work. When this novel sensation came over him he 
sought rest and distraction in talk. But the salient 
proof of the change lay in his dealings with Fouche. 
He had not the energy to deal with Fouche. His 
main regret in reviewing that period at St. Helena 
was that he had not hanged or shot Fouche. But 
during the Hundred Days — nay, from the moment he 
arrives in Paris to the moment he boards the Bellero- 
phon — he is fooled by Fouche, betrayed by Fouche, 

120 



THE QUESTION OF CUSTODY 

and probably delivered over to the British by Fouche. 
Napoleon suffers all this patiently, though not ig- 
norantly. He took a course, indeed, which combined 
the errors of all possible courses. He told Fouche 
that his intrigues were discovered, and kept Fouche 
as minister of police. 

At last he shakes off the dust of Paris, its Parlia- 
ment and its traitors, and joins his army. It might 
be thought that in the air of battle he would regain 
his strength. But it was not so. The strategy by 
which he silently and swiftly launched his army into 
Flanders was indeed a combination worthy of his best 
daj^s. But on his arrival at the scene of war, his 
vigilant vitality, once superhuman, had forsaken 
him. He, formerly so keen for exact news of the 
enemy, seemed scarcely to care to know or inquire 
the movements of the allied armies. He, once so 
electrically rapid, had ceased to value time. His ce- 
lerity of movement had been of the essence of his 
earlier victories. But on the morning of Ligny, and 
on the succeeding day, he lost many precious hours, 
and so, perhaps, the campaign. He himself ac- 
knowledges that, had he not been so tired, he should 
have been on horseback all the night before Waterloo ; 
though, as it was, he mounted his horse an hour after 
midnight and rode till dawn. 

Then comes the supreme battle. Napoleon appears 
to have watched it with some apathy, and, on seeing 
the catastrophe, to have calmly remarked, " // parait 
qu'ils sont meles," and walked his horse off the field. 

He flies to Paris, and there he is the same. He 
arrives at the Elysee at six o'clock in the morning on 
June 2ist. He is received on the steps by Caulain- 
court, whose tender and faithful arm supports him 

121 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

into the palace. The army, he says, had done won- 
ders, but had been seized by a panic. Ney, hke a 
madman, had sacrificed his cavahy. He himself is 
suffocated, exhausted; he throws himself into a hot 
bath, and convokes his ministers. Lavallette saw 
him that morning, and gives, in a few words, a 
ghastly, speaking picture of his appearance: "As 
soon as he saw me he came to me with a fearful epi- 
leptic laugh. 'Ah, my God! my God!' he said, 
raising his eyes to heaven, and paced two or three 
times round the room. This emotion was only tem- 
porary; he soon recovered his self-command, and 
asked what was happening at the Chambers. " He 
recognized afterwards that he should have gone that 
day, as it was urged on him, booted and muddy, to 
the Chambers, have harangued them, have tried the 
effect of his magnetic individuality, and, had they 
remained insensible, have entered their sitting in 
Cromwellian fashion. He should, too, he acknowl- 
edges, have had Fouche shot at once. Instead of 
this, he holds a council, from which Fouche, by his 
side, sends notes to rally the opposition in Parlia- 
ment. As the council proceeds, the results of the 
traitor's manipulation become manifest. There is 
distress, and there is despair. The loyal adherents, 
the princes of his house, implore the Emperor to 
show energy; Napoleon sits numb. His carriage 
stands horsed in the court-yard ready to take him to 
the Chambers ; it is sent away. In the face of treach- 
ery and opposition and intrigue he remains passive 
and resourceless. At last, at a second council, he 
mechanically signs his abdication, his antechambers 
empty at once, and his palace becomes a desert. 
But outside the soldiers and the multitude clamor 

J 22 



THE QUESTION OF CUSTODY 

for him; they adjure him not to desert them, but to 
organize and head a national resistance. A word 
from him, says his brother, would have put an end 
to his domestic foes. This is an exaggeration, for 
Lafayette had utilized the time which the Emperor 
had lost, and secured the National Guard. But the 
enthusiasm was formidable. It might have been the 
precursor of a successful revolution, had the Em- 
peror cared to utilize it in that way. At any rate, it 
alarms Fouche and his satellites ; they send the Em- 
peror a hint, and he at once retires from his capital 
and his friends, sending his own carriage empty 
through the crowd of his adherents, as if they were 
his enemies, and hurrjang off in another. 

He retreats to Malmaison, where he is practically 
a prisoner. He will not move ; he will not give an 
order ; he sits reading novels. He will arrange nei- 
ther for resistance nor for flight. One day decides 
both. He is induced to offer his services as general 
to the provisional government. The reply he re- 
ceives is a direction to leave the country. He obeys 
without a word, and leaves in a quarter of an hour. 

Arrived at Rochefort, he shows the same apathy, 
the same indecision, the same unconsciousness of 
the value of every moment. It seems clear that, had 
he acted with promptitude, he had reasonable chances 
of escaping to America. His brother Joseph had 
offered him one opportunity. Joseph, who bore a 
strong resemblance to the Emperor, proposed to 
change places with him, and let Napoleon embark 
in the American vessel in which he himself after- 
wards escaped. But Napoleon declared that any- 
thing in the nature of a disguise was beneath his 
dignity, though he had certainly not held this opin- 

123 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

ion on his way to Elba. Again he might have at- 
tempted flight in a neutral (Danish) ship, or in a 
chassemaree (a swift, masted, coasting vessel), or 
in a frigate. Some young naval officers offered 
themselves as the crew either of a chassemaree or a 
rowing-boat which should steal through the blockade. 
But the frigate offered the best chances of success, 
and Maitland, in his narrative, admits that these 
were not slight. There were at the lie d'Aix at that 
moment two French frigates, besides smaller vessels. 
One of the captains was doubtful, if not hostile ; but 
the other implored Napoleon to take the chance. He 
would attack the British ship, while the Emperor 
escaped in the other frigate. In former days the 
Emperor would not have hesitated to intrust Caesar 
and his fortunes to such a hazard. But now he 
seemed under some maleficent charm or blight. 
He dawdled about, summoned councils of his suite 
to ask their advice as to what he had better do, dis- 
played his every movement to the watchful enemy, 
did, in fact, everything that a few years before he 
would have despised any one for doing. At last he 
surrenders himself, helplessly, to the Bellerophon, 
where he sits dozing over Ossian on the deck. His 
suite confess to Maitland that much of his bodily 
activity and mental energy has disappeared. 

Once only in that voyage did his apathy forsake 
him. At dawn, one morning, when the ship was 
making Ushant, the watch, to their unspeakable 
surprise, saw the Emperor issue from his cabin and 
make his way, with some difficulty, to the poop. 
Arrived there, he asked the officer on duty if the 
coast were indeed Ushant, and then, taking a tele- 
scope, he gazed fixedly at the land. From seven 

124 



THE QUESTION OF CUSTODY 

till near noon he thus remained motionless. Neither 
the officers of the ship, nor his staff as they watched 
him, durst disturb that agony. At last, as the out- 
line faded from his sight, he turned his ghastly face, 
concealing it as best he could, and clutched at the 
arm of Bertrand, who supported him back to his 
cabin. It was his last sight of France, 

At St. Helena his lethargy becomes naturally more 
marked ; it amazes himself. He spends hours in his 
bed, and hours in his bath. He soon ceases to dress 
till late in the afternoon. He is surprised to find that 
he is happiest in bed, he for whom the whole day had 
once been all too short. 

And this is the man who, in the opinion of the 
British government and Sir Hudson Lowe, was 
likely to glide down an inaccessible rock, unper- 
ceived by ubiquitous sentries, and, in some unex- 
plained manner, pass vigilant vessels of war, in order 
once more to disturb the world. It is safe to say that, 
had he effected the impossible and escaped, he could 
never have seriously disturbed the world again, ex- 
cept as a tradition.* But it was impossible for him 
to escape. Even had he been allowed to range over 
the whole island, had all the sentries been removed, 
it was out of the question for him, in his physical 
condition, given a reasonable police and watchful 
cruisers, to leave the island without the connivance 
of the governor. Napoleon himself, though he some- 
times hoped to leave St. Helena, never, we are con- 

* Scott, indeed, disputes this view by telling an anecdote which 
had greatly amused Napoleon himself. A grenadier, who saw 
him as he landed at St. Helena, exclaimed : " They told us he was 
growing old ; he has forty good campaigns in his belly yet, damn 
him," 

125 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

vinced, even thought of escape, though Gourgaud 
records a jesting scheme for this purpose, launched 
by the Emperor, amid laughter, after dinner. He 
based such meagre hopes as he entertained on the 
opposition party in Parliament, or on Princess Char- 
lotte's succession to the crown. And so he desires 
Malcolm and Gourgaud to set forth all his grievances 
to that princess. 

Napoleon had the faculty, when he chose, of cre- 
ating a fool's paradise for himself. In the Russian 
campaign he had, for example, ordered his marshals 
to operate with armies which he knew had ceased to 
exist. When they remonstrated, he simply replied : 
"Why rob me of my calm?" When the allies in- 
vaded France he professed to rely greatly on the 
army of Marshal Macdonald. "Would you like," 
said the marshal to Beugnot, "to review my army? 
It will not take you long. It consists of myself and 
my chief of the staff. Our supplies are four straw 
chairs and a plank table." Again, during the cam- 
paign of 1814, the Emperor was detailing his plans 
to Marmont. Marmont was to do this and that with 
his corps of ten thousand men. At each repetition of 
this figure Marmont interrupted to say that he had 
only three. Yet Napoleon persisted to the end: 
"Marmont with his ten thousand men." But the 
strangest instance of this is detailed by Meneval, 
who tells us that when the Emperor added up num- 
bers of his soldiers he always added them up wrong, 
and always swelled the total. So at St. Helena he 
really, we think, brought himself to believe that he 
would be released when Lord Holland became prime 
minister, or when Princess Charlotte ascended the 
throne. He sometimes even professed to be per- 

126 



THE QUESTION OF CUSTODY 

suaded that the expense of his detention would in- 
duce the British government to agree to his hber- 
ation. Reports of the most amazing character were 
occasionally brought to Longwood, the invention, 
we should imagine, of the Jamestown gossips. 
O'Meara informs Napoleon one day, for example, 
that the Imperial Guard has retired into the Ce- 
vennes and that all France is in insurrection. All 
that we are told of the effect of this sensational 
news is that the Emperor plays reversi. Another 
day Montholon returns from Jamestown, where he 
has read the newspapers, and declares that all France 
demands the Emperor, that there is a universal rising..^ 
in his favor, and that Britain is at the last gasp. 
We doubt if he put the slightest faith in this sort of 
report. He had, we suspect, very little hope of any 
kind. But such hope as he had rested on Princess 
Charlotte and Lord Holland. Lord Holland, be- 
cause he, and, what was more important. Lady 
Holland, had enthusiastically espoused his cause; 
Princess Charlotte, partly because she was supposed 
to have expressed sympathy for him, partly, per- 
haps, because she had married Prince Leopold, 
who had wished to be his aide-de-camp. "That," 
said the Emperor, "is a lucky fellow not to have 
been named my aide-de-camp when he asked for it; 
for, had he been appointed, he would not now be on 
the steps of the English throne." 

There was, indeed, one source of peril, of which 
both Lowe and the French commissioner were well 
aware, against which it was difficult to guard — the 
personal fascination exercised by the captive. Mont- 
chenu constantly deplores this ominous fact. Every 
one, he says, leaves Napoleon's presence in a state 

127 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE I 

I 

of the greatest enthusiasm. "Were I you/' said the ' 

marquis to the governor, "I would not allow a single ' i 
stranger to visit Longwood, for they all leave it in 

a transport of devotion, which they take back with i 

them to Europe." "What is most astonishing," j 

says the Russian commissioner, " is the ascendancy ' 

that this man, dethroned, a prisoner, surrounded by ; 
guards and keepers, exercises on all who come near 
him. Everything at St. Helena bears the impress 
of his superiority. The French tremble at his aspect, 

and think themselves too happy to serve him. ■ . . j 

The English no longer approach him but with awe.v. i 

Even his guardians seek anxiously for a word or a j 

look from him. No one dares to treat him as an | 
equal." These alarming facts were coupled with 

the not less alarming good -nature of the captive, i 

He would go into a cottage, sit down and chat with j 

the people, who would receive "Sir Emperor" with . 

awful joy. He would talk to slaves and give them j 

money. He threatened, indeed, to become beloved. ' 

The governor was frightened out of his wits at this ] 

new and indefinable menace to the security of the < 
island, so he at once retrenched the boundaries so 
that no cottages could be within them. 



CHAPTER IX 

LORD BATHURST 

"Nothing," wrote the Russian commissioner to 
his government after near three years' experience 
at St. Helena, "can be more absurd, more impoHtic, 
less generous and less delicate than the conduct of 
the English to Napoleon." It would not be fair or 
just, however, to debit Lowe or Cockburn with the 
responsibility for these ignominies, or for the general 
principle of the Emperor's treatment. They were 
only the somewhat narrow and coarse agents of a 
sordid and brutal policy. It was the British min- 
istry which is answerable, jointly and severally, for 
the treatment of Napoleon; and which, strangely 
enough, is equally condemned by the partisans of 
Lowe. "Worst of all," says the governor's most 
efficient advocate, "... was the conduct of the 
British government, which, viewed in itself, was 
utterly undignified ; viewed from Sir Hudson Lowe's 
stand-point was unfair and treacherous." When, 
however, we remember who and what these ministers 
were, we cease to marvel. Vandal, in one of the most 
eloquent passages of his noble history, points out 
that the eventual victory of Great Britain over Na- 
poleon was the victory of persistency over genius. 
"The men who governed in London, flung by the 
illness of George III. into a chaos of difficulties, 
I 129 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

placed between a mad King and a discredited Regent, 
exposed to the virulent attacks of the opposition, to 
the revolt of injured interests, to the complaints of 
the City, face to face with a people without bread, and 
with an almost ruined commerce . . . sometimes 
despair of even maintaining Wellington at Lisbon. 
But in their extreme peril, none of them think of 
yielding — of asking, or even accepting, peace — or of 
sacrificing the British cause or British pride." Rare- 
ly, he continues, have men displayed more admira- 
ble proofs of cool and obstinate courage. "Yet, 
who are these men? Among them there is not a 
single minister of great renown, of a glorious past, 
of a superior intelligence. The successors of Pitt . . . 
have only inherited his constancy, his tenacity, his 
hatred. But, knowing that they bear the destinies 
of their country, and of the world, they derive from 
that consciousness a virtue of energy and patience 
which makes them equal to the greatest." Liver- 
pool, Eldon, Bathurst, Castlereagh, and Sidmouth 
were men whose names can scarcely be said to glow 
in history. They had, however, felt doggedly that 
they must fight it out to the bitter end; and, sup- 
ported throughout by the victories of their navy 
and the grim patience of their people, as well as, 
latterly, by military success, had pulled through and 
emerged victorious. But victory had not taught them 
magnanimity. • They had caught their great enemy : 
their first wish was to get somebody else to shoot 
him or hang him, failing which, they were deter- 
mined to lock him up like a pickpocket. All that 
they saw clearly was that he had cost them a great 
deal of trouble and a great deal of money, so that he 
must cost them as little more as possible. They were 

130 



LORD BATHURST 

honest men, acting up to their hghts ; we can only 
regret that the men were dull and the lights were 
dim. 

The minister charged with carrying out this policy 
was Lord Bathurst, secretary of state for the joint 
department of War and the Colonies. 

Who was Bathurst? 

It is difficult to say. He was, we know, grandson 
of that secular Lord Bathurst who, sixty years after 
his first elevation to the peerage, was created an earl, 
and who, in the last months of his life, in his ninety- 
first year, was the subject of a famous apostrophe by 
Burke. He was, we know, son of that second Lord 
Bathurst who was the least capable of chancellors. 
He himself was one of those strange children of our 
political system who fill the most dazzling offices 
with the most complete obscurity. He had presided 
over the Foreign Office. He was now, and was for a 
term of fifteen years, a secretary of state. Yet even 
our most microscopic biographical dictionary may 
be searched in vain for more than a dry recital of the 
offices that he filled, the date of his birth, and the 
date of his death. 

He was now in charge of Napoleon. He tersely 
instructed Lowe that the Emperor was to be treated, 
till further orders, as a prisoner of war, but that he 
was to be allowed "every indulgence which may be 
consistent with the entire security of his person." 
He then passed through Parliament an act of Dra- 
conian, but perhaps necessary, severity. Any British 
subject who should assist in Napoleon's escape, or, 
after his escape, assist him on the high seas, was to 
be punished with death without benefit of clergy. 
Lowe, by the bye, used to allude to this act in deli- 

131 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

cate raillery of the commissioners. " After all, I can- 
not hang you," he would say. Meanwhile Bathurst 
was tightening the screw. Eight thousand pounds 
w^as to be the limit of Napoleon's expenditure on 
table and household; he was to pay all his own 
followers and servants, and the household was at 
once to be reduced by the magical number of four; 
no names or degrees were specified, so that it was 
clearly an economy of four mouths that w^as aimed 
at. The remainder w^ere to be persuaded to leave 
him, as their residence in the island added greatly 
to the expense. It may be presumed, therefore, that 
the "indulgence, consistent," after all, "wdth the 
entire security of his person" — of intercourse with 
a few fellow-countrymen, and of the attendance of 
his old servants — was to be, if practicable, with- 
drawn. Lowe, moreover, was to draw the bonds 
more straitly than Cockburn, No communication 
was to reach Napoleon except through Lowe. The 
faculty accorded to Bertrand by the admiral of 
giving cards of admission which would enable visit- 
ors to Napoleon to pass the sentries was withdraw^n. 
A declaration was to be signed by all the French 
courtiers and servants of the Emperor that they 
would submit to all regulations imposed on their 
master, and so forth. He attached great importance 
to enclosing Napoleon in a sort of area railing which 
he despatched from England, and w^hich should add 
the final precaution to security. "We consider it," 
he writes, "a very essential point, particularly until 
the iron railing shall arrive, to ascertain, late in the 
evening and early in the morning, that he is safe." 
But it seems to have been found inexpedient to carry 
constraint too far. For the interest in the captive 

132 



LORD BATHURST 

was intense. Every scrap of news from St. Helena 
was eagerly devoured by the public. The craving 
for each fragment of intelligence was so great that 
it was scarcely possible to preserve from the avidity 
of the press the most private letters written from St. 
Helena. A lady who came from there in 1817 nar- 
rates how, on landing at Portsmouth, persons of all 
ranks seemed ready to tear the passengers in pieces 
for information about the captive. And, as soon as 
they reached the hotel, strangers brought portraits of 
Napoleon to have the likeness attested. Warden's 
worthless book was for the same reason extremely 
popular. Santini's not less worthless book was not 
less popular. It went through seven editions in a 
fortnight. So, at least, its author declares. 

Lord Holland, too, raised in the House of Lords a 
debate on the treatment of Napoleon. And from this 
time forth there reigns a blander tone in the regula- 
tions of Bathurst. His next letter to Lowe, written a 
month after the debate, is couched in a spirit that may 
almost be deemed urbane. " You may assure him of 
your disposition to make his situation more comfort- 
able by a supply of the publications of the day. . . . 
I think it right also to add that there exists ir this 
country no indisposition to allow him the gratifica- 
tions of the table — more especially of wine." And 
later on in the same year he expands the limit of even 
£12,000 a year, if that sum be inadequate for ''such 
an establishment as would be requisite for a general 
officer of distinction. " (Napoleon, it will be observed, 
has gradually risen from a "general not in employ" 
to "a. general officer of distinction.") 

Bathurst seems to have been in all respects as 
worthy of Lowe as Lowe of Bathurst, and to both 

^33 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

there was a common standard of tact and taste. 
Take the following specimen. Rats are the curse 
of St. Helena, and on this subject the secretary of 
state writes to the governor : " You will also receive 
a private letter from Mr. Goulburn on the great in- 
convenience to which he (Napoleon) is said to be 
exposed by the quantity of rats with which his house 
is infested. There is something so ludicrous in a 
fallen leader's complaint on such a subject, and is one 
so little in unison with the animal's alleged sagacity, 
that it is not a topic likely from choice to be brought 
forward as a grievance; but the number of these ani- 
mals may amount to be a real one; and though I 
have reason to believe that the increase is owing to 
the negligence of his servants, in which he is very 
willing to encourage them, yet it is fit on every account 
that the subject should be examined and a proper 
remedy applied." We cannot call to mind any com- 
plaint of Napoleon's on the subject, though his house 
was overrun with these disgusting vermin. But the 
graceful allusions of the secretary of state, which we 
have italicized, lose none of their point from this cir- 
cumstance; though he may be held to be going a 
little too far when he hints that the Emperor, always 
scrupulously dainty in such things, wilfully encour- 
aged the negligence of his servants in order to promote 
the increase of rats. 

When Napoleon is dying Bathurst touches a note 
which is almost sublime. " If he be really ill, " writes 
the secretary of state, " he may derive some consola- 
tion by knowing that the repeated accounts which 
have of late been transmitted of his declining health 
have not been received with indifference. You will, 
therefore, communicate to General Buonaparte the 

134 



LORD BATHURST 

great interest which His Majesty has taken in the 
recent accounts of his indisposition, and the anxiety 
which His Majesty feels to afford him every rehef 
of which his situation admits. You will assure Gen- 
eral Buonaparte that there is no alleviation which 
can be derived from additional medical assistance, 
nor any arrangement consistent with the safe cus- 
tody of his person at St. Helena (and His Majesty 
cannot now hold out any expectations of his removal) 
which His Majesty is not most anxious to afford," 
and so forth. The force of Bathurst could no further 
go. Fortimately, before this precious effusion was 
received at St. Helena, its prisoner was where the 
sympathy of George IV., strained through Bathurst, 
could not reach him. Scott thinks that it would have 
been a solace to him. Comment on such an opinion 
seems unnecessary. 

The whole correspondence, so far as we know it, 
is sordid and pitiful enough. Making all allowances 
for the cost and exhaustion of the war, and for the 
natural anxiety that the great disturber of peace 
should not escape, it appears to us, at the end of the 
century in which it passed, a humiliating compound 
of meanness and panic. But the responsibility for 
this ignominious episode, this policy of petty cheese- 
paring and petty police, must rest not with the in- 
struments, but with the principals; with the Liver- 
pools and Bathursts at home, not with the Cockburns 
and Lowes at St. Helena ; although the ministers, as 
we have seen, tried to dissociate themselves from the 
sinister reputation of Lowe by extending a conspicu- 
ously cold shoulder to him on his return. 



CHAPTER X 
THE DRAMATIS PERSONS 

The dramatis personae of this long tragedy are 
few in number, and some even of these, the Popple- 
tons and the like, flit like ghosts across the stage, 
without voice or substance. Of Poppleton, for ex- 
ample, whose name occurs so frequently, we only 
know that he was long the orderly officer at Longwood ; 
that he was not much of a horseman ; that he some- 
times dug potatoes; and that, on leaving, he sur- 
reptitiously accepted a snuff-box as a present from 
the Emperor, one of the greatest crimes in Lowe's 
long calendar. We have, indeed, occasional vivid 
glimpses, such as Napoleon's description of the ad- 
miral who succeeded Malcolm: He "reminds me of 
one of those drunken little Dutch skippers that I have 
seen in Holland, sitting at a table with a pipe in his 
mouth, a cheese and a bottle of Geneva before him." 
But there are other names which occur in every page 
of the various narratives, notably those of the Em- 
peror's little suite. Of the characters not already 
noticed the grand marshal. Count Bertrand, and his 
wife take, of course, the first place. 

Bertrand has one agreeable singularity — he wrote 
no book, and tells us nothing, which is in itself a 
pleasant contrast to the copious self-revelation of 
Gourgaud and Las Cases. He seems to have been 

136 



THE DRAMATIS PERSONS 

an excellent officer — Napoleon repeatedly said that 
he was the best engineer officer in existence, but this 
may possibly have been alleged for the purpose of 
teasing Gourgaud. He was, moreover, devoted to 
his master, but not less devoted to his wife. This 
double allegiance, which had already caused incon- 
venience at Elba, plunged him into constant diffi- 
culties with the Emperor, who resented it even on 
his death-bed. But Bertrand resisted his wife's en- 
treaties that he would not accompany the Emperor 
to St. Helena, stayed till the end, though not without 
thoughts of going, and remains, in his loyal silence, 
the most sympathetic figure of the Emperor's sur- 
roundings. For some reason or another he was an 
object of Lowe's special hatred. But Henry, the 
friend of Lowe, and almost every other impartial au- 
thority, commend him. Napoleon on his death-bed 
ordered Bertrand to be reconciled to Lowe, and a rec- 
onciliation accordingly took place after the Emperor's 
death. 

Mme. Bertrand was said to be an English Creole 
by birth ; on the English side a niece of Lord Dillon, 
and on the Creole side a connection of the Empress 
Josephine. Her English origin had indeed caused 
her to be suspected at Elba of English jsympathies, 
but of this not the slightest trace is discoverable. 
Her appearance seems to have possessed a singular 
charm. She was, says an English lady on the isl- 
and, "a most engaging, fascinating woman. She 
spoke our language with perfect fluency, but with a 
slight French accent. Her figure was extremely tall 
and commanding, but a slight, elegant bend took 
from her height, and added to her interesting appear- 
ance ; her eyes black, sparkling, soft, and animated ; 

137 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

her deportment that of a young queen, accustomed to 
command admiration, yet winning to preserve it." 
Her character was, however, Uable to tumults of Cre- 
ole passion, and on the announcement that Napoleon 
was to be sent to St. Helena she flung herself into his 
cabin, made a scene, and then attempted to drown 
herself. The result, and even the attempt, had, for- 
tunately, no element of tragedy. For while her body 
was half out of the cabin window, her husband re- 
strained her from within, while Savarj^, w^th whom 
she had a feud, was shouting in fits of laughter : 
"Let her go! let her go!'' Maitland had constant 
struggles with her while she was on board the Bel- 
lerophon, culminating in a scene when "the little 
self-possession that still remained gave way," and 
he called her "a very foolish woman," desiring her 
not to speak to him again. Nevertheless, when, a 
little later in the day, she left the ship, she came up 
to the captain " in a conciliatory and friendly manner 
that did her the highest honor," reminded him that 
he had called her a very foolish woman that morning, 
but asked him to shake hands, "as God knows," 
added the poor lady, "if we shall ever meet again." 
Maitland sums her up as a kind mother and affection- 
ate wife, with many excellent qualities, " though per- 
haps a little warm. " Forsyth says that she seems to 
have won the good-will and regard of all who knew 
her. One trait of humor is recorded of her. A child 
was born to her at St. Helena, whom she presented 
to the Emperor as the first French visitor that had 
entered Longwood without Lord Bathurst's permis- 
sion. Mme. de Montholon records that she lived 
through their long and weary captivity in com- 
plete harmony with this seductive creature. After 

138 • 



THE DRAMATIS PERSON^E 

Mme. de Montholon's departure she was left for 
two years without the society of a countrywoman, 
and she had to beg Lowe for the rehef of a httle com- 
pany. No one made greater sacrifices in order to 
accompany Napoleon and her husband than Mme. 
Bertrand. She was fond of luxury and of society ; 
she was accustomed to play a leading part in a splen- 
did court; she had, indeed, at Trieste, held a vice- 
regal court of her own; her exquisitely beautiful 
children were approaching an age when their edu- 
cation would have to be her first object ; but after the 
first paroxysm she went uncomplainingly to her 
tropical Siberia, and seems to have been a peace- 
maker in a community which, though small, afford- 
ed an unbounded field for that blessed calling. 

Of the personality of M. and Mme. de Montholon 
we catch but a faint view, though their names are 
written large in the chronicles of the captivity. Mon- 
tholon was of ancient family, and claimed, indeed, 
to be by inheritance an English or Irish peer. One 
of his ancestors, it is alleged, had saved the life of 
Richard Coeur de Lion, and had been created in con- 
sequence Earl of Lee and Baron O'Brien, titles 
which, it is alleged, were inherited by Montholon, 
but which diligent research fails to identify. How- 
ever that may be, he had been known to Napoleon 
ever since he was a child of ten years old, when, be- 
ing in Corsica with his mother and step-father, M. 
de Semonville, he had received mathematical lessons 
from the young Napoleon, then a captain of artillery. 
Afterwards he was at school with Lucien and Jerome, 
and with Eugene de Beauharnais. Hence he was, 
as may be supposed, closely identified with the 
career of Napoleon, and he was still further connected 

139 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

with the imperial interest through the marriage of his 
sister with the pure and chivahous Macdonald. It 
was the strange fate of Montholon to know Napoleon 
in the obscurity of his early days, to be associated 
with the magnificence of his empire, to follow him 
into exile, to watch by his death-bed with the tender- 
ness of a son, to live to assist in the fantastic attempt 
on Boulogne, and so to be partaker of the third Na- 
poleon's captivity for exactly the term of the captivity 
of the first. Six years of his life were spent in sharing 
the imprisonment of the first, and six years in shar- 
ing that of the third Napoleon. He lived to see the 
re-establishment of the empire, which Gourgaud 
missed by a few months ; but Gourgaud, character- 
istically enough, was in opposition to the prince 
president. 

Montholon was, happily, a blind devotee; hap- 
pily, for a blind devotee was required in the little 
court. After the departure of Las Cases, therefore, 
it was not difficult for Montholon to succeed to the 
vacant place, for the conjugal devotion of Ber- 
trand, and the moroseness of Gourgaud, disabled 
them from competition; and so Montholon became 
the most familiar and necessary of the Emperor's 
staff. But even he wished to go. Bathurst, in 
February, 1820, was writing caustically enough of 
Bertrand and Montholon : " They are both, in fact, 
upon the wing, but watching each other." Mon- 
tholon, at any rate, wished to accompany his wife 
when she left in 1819, and had his daily struggles 
with Napoleon, who besought him to remain. Nine 
weeks, indeed, before the Emperor's death we find 
him discussing with Lowe who should succeed Ber- 
trand and himself as attendants on the exile, and 

140 



THE DRAMATIS PERSONiE 

Planat, as we have seen, was almost starting to re- 
place him. Scott met him at Paris in 1826, and 
found him an " interesting person, by no means over- 
much prepossessed in favor of his late master, whom 
he judged impartially, though with affection." 

Of Albinie Helene de Vassal, Mme. de Montholon, 
but for the insane jealousy of Gourgaud, we should 
know nothing, or next to nothing, though she left 
behind her some vivid notes of her exile. We learn 
incidentally from Meneval that her marriage with 
Montholon encountered some difficulties, for she had 
two divorced husbands living. The Emperor for- 
bade the banns, but afterwards gave Montholon per- 
mission to marry "the niece of the President Se- 
guier." Montholon had tricked his sovereign, for 
his bride was the forbidden lady under another 
description. "A quiet, unassuming woman,'' says 
Maitland, "who gave no trouble, and seemed per- 
fectly satisfied, provided she were allowed to accom- 
pany her husband." She provided the music of 
the Emperor's drawing-room, singing Italian songs, 
with little voice, and strumming on the piano. 

Emmanuel, Marquis of Las Cases, had had a some- 
what checkered career. At an early age he entered 
the French navy and took part in the siege of Gib- 
raltar. Before he was twenty-one he had passed 
as a lieutenant, and soon afterwards was placed in 
command of a brig. Then came the Revolution, 
and the young officer was one of the first to emigrate. 
This was ultimately fortunate, for his recollections 
of Coblentz and of the Emigration had always a 
particular savor for Napoleon. From Coblentz he 
was despatched on a secret mission to Gustavus III. 
of Sweden. Then Las Cases drifted to England, 

141 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

formed a part of the disastrous expedition to Quibe- 
ron, and on his escape thence gave lessons in Lon- 
don, where he pubhshed a historical atlas, which 
proved remunerative. After the Eighteenth of Bru- 
maire he returned to France, served under Berna- 
dotte, and became a chamberlain and councillor of 
state. On Napoleon's first abdication he refused 
to adhere to the resolution of the council of state 
deposing the Emperor (although he accepted from 
Louis XVIII. a commission as captain in the French 
navy), and retired to England. During the Hun- 
dred Days he returned, of course, to Paris, and, 
after Waterloo, besought Napoleon to take him to 
St. Helena. Born three years before his master, 
Las Cases survived him twenty-one, dying in 1842. 

We give these facts in detail, because they explain 
the preference which causes such jealousy. Las Cases 
belonged to the old nobility, he had served in the navy 
before the Revolution, he had been involved in the 
Emigration, he had seen much of England, and was 
thus able to satisfy Napoleon's insatiable curiosity 
on phases of life with which he had had no personal 
contact. Moreover, Las Cases was a man of the 
world. He had fought, gambled, and travelled, had 
seen life in the hundred-sided character of a needy 
and ingenious exile, and had observed the empire 
and its court from a much more independent situa- 
tion than Napoleon's. Besides, he adored his mas- 
ter, had no secrets from him, regarded him as super- 
human and divine. We have seen, indeed, that he 
had no scruples in the Emperor's service. "Napo- 
leon is my God," he would say; or "I do not regret 
my exile, since it places me close to the noblest of 
created beings." He had even the complaisance to 

142 



THE DRAMATIS PERSONS 

be much shorter than the Emperor. There were, of 
course, drawbacks. He humihated his master by 
being violently sea-sick on a British man-of-war, in 
spite of a new naval uniform and of the great bound 
in rank which he had achieved after a quarter of a 
century spent on shore. Then, too, his colleagues 
hated him. Their usual name for him was "The 
Jesuit." His favor with Napoleon, though perfectly 
explicable to us from his experience and his contrast 
with the too domestic Bertrand, the less cultured 
Montholon, and the impracticable Gourgaud, was a 
constant irritation to them. Then, again, his de- 
parture is not easily explained. He might have re- 
turned, but would not, imbedding himself in vapid 
phrases which even now we cannot exactly interpret, 
but which we translate into a conviction that his col- 
leagues had rendered his life at Long wood impossi- 
ble. In spite of all, in spite of his unblushing fabri- 
cations, his want of veracity, the irrepressible sus- 
picion that he may, after all, have been only an 
enthusiastic Boswell seeking biographical material 
for publication, we confess to a sneaking kindness 
for the devoted, rhetorical little man ; and we cannot 
forget that he insisted on handing over to Napoleon 
four thousand pounds, which was probably his en- 
tire fortune. With him was his son, then a boy, who 
afterwards assaulted Sir Hudson Lowe in the streets 
of London, and tried to bring about a duel with the 
ex-governor. Nineteen years after Napoleon's death 
the young man returned to St. Helena with the expe- 
dition to fetch back the Emperor's remains, and 
became a senator under Napoleon III. 

Piontkowski remains a figure of mystery. He was 
a trooper in the Polish Lancers, who had followed 

143 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE | 

Napoleon to Elba, and had been given a commission 
in consequence of his fidelity. At a time when the 
British government would not allow Gourgaud to 
take with him his old servant, or Las Cases to be 
rejoined by his wife, they sent Piontkowski, unbid- 
den and unwelcome, to join the Emperor. If we may 
trust the others, Gourgaud found him out at once to 
be untruthful, and to have made false statements 
about his campaigns. Napoleon knew nothing of 
him, disliked him, and, not unnaturally, distrusted 
him. After his departure, indeed, Napoleon openly 
suspected him of being a spy; Las Cases disdain- 
fully mentions him as "the Pole." He vanished as 
suddenly as he came, nine months afterwards, with 
apparently plenty of money. We do not believe him 
to have been a spy, but his appearance and career 
at Longwood still require elucidation. 

"The young ladies born in that island are ex- 
tremely pretty," says a witness who lived at St. 
Helena during the Emperor's residence, and our vari- 
ous chronicles are full of them. There were the two 
Balcombes, Miss Wilks, Miss Robinson, who was 
known as "the Nymph," and Miss Kneips, who was 
known as "the Rosebud." 

With Miss Wilks Gourgaud was desperately in 
love. "There is a woman!" he exclaims during 
their first acquaintance. He lost his heart at once, 
and asked himself, "Alas! Why am I a prisoner?" 
It was no comfort to him to be assured by Bertrand 
that he was preferred to the other suitors, or by Na- 
poleon that he should be provided with a better mar- 
riage in France. He sees the ship that bears her 
away, and heaves a despairing "Adieu, Laure!" 

All testimony is unanimous that Gourgaud in this 

144 



THE DRAMATIS PERSONiE 

instance placed his affections well. "Miss Wilks 
was then in the first bloom of youth, and her whole 
demeanor, affability, and elegant, modest appear- 
ance conspired to render her the most charming and 
admirable young person I ever beheld, or have since 
met with, in all my peregrinations in Europe, Asia, 
and Africa for the space of thirty years." This is 
the high testimony of a lady who accompanied her 
on her first visit to Napoleon. The Emperor was 
scarcely less fascinated. He had long heard, he 
said, with a bow, of the elegance and beauty of Miss 
Wilks, but was now convinced that report had scarce- 
ly done her justice. 

She was the daughter of Colonel Wilks, the East 
Indian governor of the island. She eventually mar- 
ried General Sir John Buchan, and lived to be ninety- 
one. She only died in 1888, and used to tell how 
Napoleon, at parting, had given her a bracelet, and, 
when she had said she was sorry to leave the island, 
had replied: "Ah! Mademoiselle, I only wish I 
could change places with you." 

Napoleon gave fanciful names to people and to 
places. One quiet glen he had named the Valley 
of Silence, but, when he found that a pretty girl lived 
in it, he renamed it the Valley of the Nymph. The 
Nymph was a farmer's daughter, "a very pretty girl 
of about seventeen," named Marianne Robinson, 
whose sister had married a Captain Jordan of the 
Sixty -sixth Regiment, quartered at St. Helena. 
Warden devoted a page of his book to her, and states 
that the visits of Napoleon became so frequent to 
the little farm that the gossips of Jamestown warned 
the father, who afterwards forbade his daughter to 
appear when the Emperor called. This silly scan- 
I 145 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

dal Napoleon thought it worth his while to contra- 
dict in the Letters from the Cape, stating that he only 
once spoke to her, in broken English, without alight- 
ing from his horse, Mgntchenu, however, who had 
an eminently prurient mind, repeats the statement, 
and avers that Napoleon made her a declaration, 
that he talked much of her beauty, and thus aroused 
the jealousy of Miss Balcombe. Napoleon did, no 
doubt, visit the Nymph more than once, and Gour- 
gaud declares that she hinted to the Emperor that 
she was in the habit of taking early and solitary 
walks. But, so far from taking up the challenge, 
he rallies Gourgaud on having made a new conquest 
— an impeachment to which that gallant officer 
was always prepared to plead guilty. Finally the 
Nymph marries, and so puts an end to this vulgar 
gossip. Her husband is a merchant captain, a " M. 
Edouard" (Edwards), who has been attracted to 
her, according to the complacent belief of Longwood, 
by the reported admiration of the Emperor. "It is 
enough for me to have said that she is pretty," said 
the Emperor, " for this captain to fall in love with her 
and marry her." Napoleon also makes the mys- 
terious comment that the marriage proves that the 
English have more decision than the French, a re- 
mark which appears to indicate some hesitating as- 
pirations on the part of some member of the house- 
hold, probably Captain Piontkowski. She brings 
the husband to Longwood, when Napoleon says that 
she has the air of a nun, and that her husband re- 
sembles Eugene Beauharnais. Napoleon, as is his 
wont, asks him some crude and tactless questions; 
the mariner blushes, the Emperor pledges him in a 
toast, and, after an hour and a half of this sort of 

146 



THE DRAMATIS PERSONS 

thing, the couple take their leave. After a while 
Napoleon follows them, and insists on embracing, 
not the Nymph, but her husband, on the ground, 
says Mr. Robinson, that he is so like Joseph Bona- 
parte — probably a mistake for Eugene. And so, 
with this unexpected exit, the Nymph vanishes into 
space. 

Then there was another beauty, whom they called 
the "Rosebud." The editors of Gourgaud tell us 
that she was a Miss Kneips. She makes transient 
appearances, but we know nothing of her, or of some 
still more shadowy Miss Churchills, except that the 
large heart of Gourgaud found a nook for them all. 

Miss Betsy Balcombe, however, is the girl whose 
name occurs most frequently in the St. Helena rec- 
ords. Twenty-three years after the Emperor's death, 
under her married name of Mrs. Abell, she published 
her recollections of his exile. Her father, Mr. Bal- 
combe, was a sort of general purveyor, sometimes 
called by courtesy a banker; and the traditions of 
the island declared him to be a son of George IV. 
Napoleon lived at this gentleman's villa, while Long- 
wood was being prepared for his reception, and there 
made acquaintance w4th his two daughters. Betsy 
was about fifteen, and the younger of the two. They 
both talked French, but Betsy was the prettier, and 
the favorite, for she represented a type which was 
new to the Emperor, a high-spirited hoyden, who 
said and did whatever occurred to her on the spur 
of the moment. The pranks that she played she 
records in her book; they must certainly have been 
in the nature of a piquant novelty to Napoleon. 
She boxed his ears, she attacked him with his own 
sword. But the suite were not unnaturally disgust- 

147 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

ed at the familiarity with which she treated their 
master, and Napoleon himself wearied of her, de- 
nounced the whole family as canaille and as 
miserables. One flirtation kept the whole island 
alive — would Major Ferzen marry Betsy or not? 
Napoleon said, No, the major would not so degrade 
himself. Still, at rare intervals, she amused him 
to the last. The Emperor, a few weeks before she 
left, sent the sisters two plates of bonbons. Lowe 
ordered them to be returned. And, with this last 
characteristic memory of St. Helena and its ruler, 
the Balcombe family sailed from the island on the 
same ship with Gourgaud. 

But though the mosquitoes were harassing, the 
dominant population of St. Helena was the rats; 
more formidable than regiments, or cannon, or Lowe. 
On this subject there is an almost hysterical una- 
nimity. "The rats," says O'Meara, "are in num- 
bers almost incredible at Longwood, I have fre- 
quently seen them assemble like broods of chickens 
round the offal thrown out of the kitchen. The 
floors and wooden partitions that separated the rooms 
were perforated with holes in every direction. , . . 
It is difficult for any person, who has not actually 
heard it, to form an idea of the noise caused by these 
animals running up and down between the par- 
titions and galloping in flocks in the garrets.'* Fre- 
quently O'Meara has to defend himself against them 
with his boots and his bootjack. They run round 
the table while the Emperor is at dinner without 
taking heed of any one. As Napoleon takes his 
hat from the sideboard, a large rat springs out of 
it and runs between his legs. The curse of the isle, 
says Sturmer, is the rats; the curse of locusts was 

148 



THE DRAMATIS PERSONiE 

not to be mentioned beside it. The inhabitants are 
powerless against them. A slave sleeping in a pas- 
sage had part of his leg eaten off by them. So 
had one of the Emperor's horses. Bertrand, while 
asleep, was bitten seriously in the hand. The chil- 
dren had to be protected from them at night. Tri- 
fling, and indeed diverting, as this pest seemed to the 
distant Bathurst, it must have been an odious ad- 
dition to the petty miseries of Longwood. Nor was 
Bathurst alone in his merriment. Among the 
squalid caricatures with which the French press 
attempted to besmirch the memory of their fallen 
sovereign there are several devoted to this topic. 
Napoleon received by the population of St. Helena 
— the rats; Napoleon granting a constitution to 
the rats ; Napoleon sleeping at peace because guard- 
ed by a cat-sentry; and so forth. One need not 
dilate on these pleasantries. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE COMMISSIONERS 

In this dreary drama, as in most human trans- 
actions, the element of comedy is not absent, nor even 
the salt of farce. The comedy is supplied by Sir 
Hudson Lowe, his beans, and his counters. The 
farce is the career of the commissioners. 

By the treaty of August 2, 1815, it was provided, 
at the instance of Castlereagh, which he afterwards 
regretted, that Austria, Prussia, and Russia were " to 
appoint commissioners to proceed to and abide at the 
place which the government of His Britannic Majesty 
shall have assigned for the residence of Napoleon 
Buonaparte, and who, without being responsible for 
his custody, will assure themselves of his presence." 
And by the next article His Most Christian Majesty 
of France was to be invited by the signatory courts 
to send a similar functionary. Prussia, combining a 
judicious foresight with a wise economy, declined to 
avail herself of this privilege. But the other courts 
hastened to nominate their representatives. These 
had, it will be observed, one sole and single duty, 
" to assure themselves of his presence." It is suffi- 
cient to observe that none of them ever once saw him 
face to face, except one who beheld his corpse. 

The Russian once from the race-course thought he 
saw him standing on the steps of his house. On the 

150 



THE COMMISSIONERS 

same occasion the Austrian, concealed in a trench, 
perceived through a telescope a man in a three-cor- 
nered hat, whom he judged to be the Emperor. The 
Frenchman had the same telescopic glimpse, but, re- 
maining till Napoleon's death, was privileged to see 
his remains. That is the whole record of their mis- 
sion, "to assure themselves of his presence." 

They had, therefore, a large balance of time to 
spend in interviewing and abusing the governor, to 
whom they were a torment, as implying a rival au- 
thority, and who treated them accordingly. He 
characteristically assured the Austrian that he had 
searched through Puffendorf, Vattel, and Grotius in 
vain to find a parallel to their position, or, he might 
have added, to his own. But this in no degree com- 
forted those who wanted to see Napoleon, if only for 
a moment, and to whom that satisfaction was denied. 
They prowled round Longwood in vain, the Em- 
peror maliciously observing them from behind his 
Venetian blinds, and sometimes sending out his suite 
to pick up news from them. But this again was 
by no means what the commissioners came for. 

Once, indeed. Napoleon asked them, as private in- 
dividuals, to luncheon ; for he did not doubt that their 
curiosity would prevail over their etiquette and the 
constraint of the governor. The meal, indeed, would 
not have been a pleasant one, as he spent all the 
morning in preparing an elaborate appeal to them. 
But they never came. He waited till five o'clock, 
when an orderly brought a cavalier refusal from the 
Russian and the Austrian on the ground of les con- 
venances. Montchenu sent no reply, though this 
must have been the occasion on which he is supposed 
to have sent the heroic reply : " Tell your master that 

151 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

I am here to guard him, and not to dine with him." 
On no other occasion was the option open to IMont- 
chenii or the commissioners. It was their last and 
onh' chance. 

Montchenu, tlie French commissioner, took him- 
self the most seriously, and, therefore, in this absurd 
commission, was b}^ nnicli the most absurd. His ap- 
pointment is said to have been the revenge of Talley- 
rand for all that he had endured at the hands of Na- 
poleon. "It is my only revenge, but it is terrible," 
he said. " What torture for a man like Napoleon to 
be obliged to live with an ignorant and pedantic chat- 
terbox. I know him ; he cannot endure such a bore- 
dom; he will become ill, and die as before a slow 
fire." As we have seen, however, this subtle ven- 
geance failed in its object, for Montchenu never once 
succeeded in inflicting himself on the captive. In 
early life he had known the Emperor, when Napo- 
leon was a subaltern at Valence in a regiment of 
which ]\Iontchenu was lieutenant-colonel, and when 
both were rivals for the alTections of IMlle. de Saint 
Germain, who, however, preferred M. de IMontalivet, 
whom she married, to either. He seems to have re- 
tained this amorous complexion at St. Helena, and 
his conversation, as reported by Gourgaud, appears 
to consist entireh" of indecorous observations and 
immoral advice. He endeavored to "embrace Mrs. 
IMartin, ' ' whoever she maj' have been. He sent Lady 
Lowe a declaration of love in eight pages, which 
Lady Lowe offered to show Gourgaud. His fatuitj" 
was only equalled by his vanity. He boasted at large 
about his success with English ladies. Some four 
thousand he has known; he intimates that "the\' 
were not cruel. ' ' IMontchenu appeared to have pleas- 

15^ 



THE COMMISSIONERS 

ant recollections of Valence ; he questioned Gourgaud 
as to the later loves of Napoleon ; he showed the Em- 
peror little attentions, sent him newspapers, and the 
like. Napoleon's memories of Montchenu do not 
seem to have been so favorable. " I know this Mont- 
chenu," he says. " He is an old fool, a chatterbox, a 
carriage general who has never smelt powder. I will 
not see him." The worst of this description, says 
the Russian commissioner, is that it is accurate. 
Again, "Poor fool, i)oor old fool, old booby," Napo- 
leon calls him. And again, " He is one of those men 
who support the' ancient prejudice that Frenchmen 
are born mountebanks." Later on the Emperor 
threatens to kick the old marquis out of doors should 
he ai)pear at Longwood, not because he is the 
French commissioner,but because of some papers that 
he has signed. He is an object of ridicule to all. He 
had been the laughing-stock of Paris. One eminent 
compatriot described him as bavard insupportable, 
completenient mil. Even Lowe cuts jokes at him. 
From his willingness to accept, and his reluctance to 
extend hospitalit}^ he was known as M. de Monter- 
chez-nous. Henry, who attended him medically, had 
however, the laugh against himself. He had reck- 
oned up a long tale of fees : the marquis rewarded 
him with an obliging note. This nobleman was now 
past sixty. He had been a page of Louis XV. Hav- 
ing entered the army before the Revolution, and fol- 
lowed the princes into exile, he made at the restora- 
tion the same astonishing bound in military promo- 
tion that Las Cases had accomplished in the naval 
service. In December, 1 815, he was nominated as 
French commissioner at St. Helena, an appointment 
which had the negative advantage of securing him 

153 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

from his creditors. His positive duties "were to as- 
sure himself habitually by his own eyes of the exist- 
ence of Bonaparte/' His own eyes, as we have seen, 
never enabled him to do more than assure himself 
of the end of that existence. Nevertheless, he set off 
in a serious and indeed heroic spirit. He began his 
despatches from Teneriffe on the voyage out. " I have 
the honor to warn you," he says to his chief, "that I 
am quite decided never to separate myself from my 
prisoner so long as he lives. " He arrives on the anni- 
versary of Waterloo, lands precipitately, and de- 
mands at once to be conducted to Longwood, that he 
may send his government a certificate of the existence 
of Napoleon by the ship leaving next day. He is 
with difficulty appeased, but tells Lowe that it is essen- 
tial that he should be in a position to say that he has 
seen the captive. Two days afterwards (June 20th) 
the governor asks Count Bertrand if the Emperor 
will receive the commissioners. " Have they brought 
any letters for the Emperor from their sovereigns?" 
asks Bertrand. "No; they have come under the 
convention of August 2, 1815, to assure themselves 
of his presence." Bertrand will take the Emperor's 
orders. Have they got the convention? There is a 
terrible doubt. No one had thought of bringing a 
copy : no copy can be found ; and yet it is from this 
instrument that they derive their authority and their 
official existence. The commissioners are at their 
wits' end. At last, by a freak of fortune, after a 
search of three weeks, Sturmer finds in his trunk 
some loose sheets of the Journal des Debats, which 
he had brought in due course of packing, and which 
happened to contain the precious treaty. In this un- 
dignified form it was forwarded to Napoleon, who 

154 



THE COMMISSIONERS 

answers through Montholon on August 23d by a pro- 
test against it. Lowe communicates to the commis- 
sioners an extract from this letter, which amounted 
to a refusal to see them officially. In the mean time, 
says Lowe, " they are sick with their desire of seeing 
him." Soon they become mad with the same desire. 
Montchenu wants to break into the house with a com- 
pany of grenadiers. He is reminded that Napoleon 
has sworn to shoot the first man who enters his room 
without his leave. In the mean time he attempts the 
entry alone, and is repulsed by a sergeant. Event- 
ually he has to subside into an attitude of watchful- 
ness in ambush for the subordinate members of the 
French colony, in hopes of inveigling them to meals, 
and ultimately to gossip. In this last effort he to 
some extent succeeded, and he became on such terms 
with Gourgaud as to bid him a tender farewell, 
strictly enjoining him to make known to whom it 
might concern the terrible dreariness of life at St. 
Helena, and the consequent necessity that the com- 
missioner's salary should be not less than four 
thousand pounds a year. 

Montchenu was distinguished from the other com- 
missioners by the possession of a secretary, a dis- 
tinction which was not altogether an advantage. 
We have an impression that the secretary, M. de 
Gors, was intrusted with the duty of supervising 
his chief. At any rate, he reported upon him with 
startling candor. After, we presume, copying Mont- 
chenu's despatches, de Gors accompanies them with 
a scathing commentary. "1 am sorry to have to 
say it, on account of M. de Montchenu, but I am 
bound to declare that his criticisms on his colleagues 
are unfounded, and are too much colored by his own 

J55 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

personality. He should have been more just to 
M. de Balmain, the only one who has really taken 
to heart the common interests of the commission, 
to which by excess of zeal he has sacrificed his health 
and repose. M. de Montchenu should not have for- 
gotten that it is to Balmain that the mission owes 
any degree of interest that it possesses. But he 
has never been able to make up his mind to join Bal- 
main in a simple visit to the inhabitants of Long- 
wood. He has chattered a good deal, always 
blamed what he did not do himself, and has himself 
never done anything when the opportunity offered. 
He has occupied himself with disputes of precedence ; 
and things have now taken such a turn that the post 
of Longwood will not be captured without a thou- 
sand difficulties." 

It is unnecessary to add anything to the descrip- 
tion of Montchenu by Montchenu's secretary. We 
may pass to the commissioner who, in the secre- 
tary's opinion, shone so much in comparison with 
his own chief. 

The Count of Balmain, the Russian commissioner, 
was one of the Ramsays of Balmain, or, rather, of a 
branch settled in Russia for a century and a quarter. 
He began inauspiciously by proposing to bring a 
young Parisian seamstress with him in an unofficial 
capacity, but this scandal appears to have been 
averted by the horror of the other commissioners. 
Not that such a proceeding would have conspicu- 
ously jarred with the morals of St. Helena, for, if 
we may credit our French chroniclers, the naval 
chiefs there lived with mistresses; and the loves 
of Gourgaud himself, if we may judge from his in- 
nuendoes, were neither limited nor refined. 

156 



THE COMMISSIONERS 

Balmain seems to have been the commissioner 
of the coolest judgment and most agreeable man- 
ner; and Longwood, so to speak, set its cap at him, 
but without much success. Balmain, says Sturm- 
er, has acquired general esteem. He is extremely- 
modest, and extremely prudent, avoiding carefully 
anything that could give umbrage to the governor. 
He is, besides, accomplished, and writes well. Oblig- 
ing, amiable, and unpretentious, he is beloved by 
all who know him. He is thus a striking contrast 
with M. de Montchenu, for whom he has a scarcely 
veiled contempt. His instructions were not identi- 
cal with those of his colleagues, for he was thus en- 
joined: "Dans vos relations avec Bonaparte, vous 
garderez les menagements et la mesure qu'exige 
une situation aussi delicate, et les egards personnels 
qu'on lui doit !" — a sentence which is neither found 
nor implied in the instructions of the others. But 
what was infinitely more effective than the sentence 
was the fact that the italics represent a line drawn 
under those words by the Emperor Alexander him- 
self. So grave an emphasis was not lost on Bal- 
main, who declared that his Emperor desired him 
to use a courtesy and reserve in regard to Napoleon 
which compelled him to dissociate himself from some 
of Montchenu's more startling proceedings. But 
the underscoring by the Emperor does not seem to 
have long guided the policy of the Russian gov- 
ernment, for it presented to the Congress of Aix-la- 
Chapelle a memorial which might have been WTitten' 
by Bathurst himself and which embodied the un- 
dying rancor of Pozzo di Borgo. It demanded rig- 
orous treatment of Napoleon; more especially that 
he should be compelled to show himself twice a day, 

157 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

by force if necessary, to the commissioners and the 
governor. But all the thunders and all the menaces 
of all the powers of Europe failed to exact this sim- 
ple condition. Napoleon never showed himself, 
and remained master of the field. 

Balmain commenced his career at St. Helena by 
falling in love with Miss Bruck (or Brook), by whom 
he was refused : he ended it by marrying Miss John- 
son, the step-daughter of Sir Hudson, who seems 
afterwards to have amused the court of St. Peters- 
burg by her eccentricities and her accent. This 
courtship, which was carried on during his last two 
years at St. Helena, complicated his relations with 
the governor, for it hampered him in the expression 
of his opinions, though it did not prevent constant 
conflicts with that official. But it makes his testi- 
mony as to Lowe all the more valuable and impartial. 

With all his circumspection, however, Balmain 
does not escape the mist of unveracity that befogged 
St. Helena. On November 2, 1817, Montholon re- 
cords that the Emperor sends Gourgaud to pump (if 
so expressive a vulgarism be permitted) the commis- 
sioners, who have, he knows, received despatches 
from their governments. Gourgaud returns, ac- 
cording to Montholon's narrative, bringing an imma- 
terial falsehood, supposed to come from Sturmer, and 
the statement from Balmain that his Emperor has 
charged him with certain communications for Na- 
poleon. Gourgaud's record, it should be noted, in 
no respect confirms this. Montholon continues by 
narrating that for two days afterwards there are con- 
stant communications with the Russian. A paper 
of explanation is dictated by the Emperor. On De- 
cember 17th Montholon states that Napoleon is de- 

158 



THE COMMISSIONERS 

termined to send Gourgaud to Europe, for he is pos- 
sessed by recollections of Tilsit and Erfurt, and is, 
therefore, anxious to make overtures to the Emperor 
Alexander, " though there is nothing in the commu- 
nications of Balmain to warrant these hopes." On 
January ll, 1818, he has this entry: "An important 
communication from Count Balmain is transmitted 
through General Gourgaud. Dreams of a return to 
Europe, and of princely hospitality in Russia." We 
turn to Gourgaud, and find that on that day he tried, 
as the Emperor desired, to meet Balmain, but failed 
to do so. Neither there nor elsewhere does he hint 
at any communication such as is described by Mon- 
tholon. In vain, too, we search Balmain 's de- 
spatches, w^hich are, indeed, in a very different vein. 
What this communication, conveyed from some one 
through some one, neither of whom knew anything 
about it, purported to be, we also learn from Montho- 
lon. On February 10, 1818, he has a vague entry 
about hopes from the fraternal friendship of Alex- 
ander, and as to the acceptability of Gourgaud at 
the Russian court. Under these influences Napo- 
leon dictates an elaborate reply to the mysterious 
message, which had never been sent or received. In 
this paper he thanks the Emperor Alexander, as a 
brother, for the assurance received from him through 
Balmain, and for the hospitality offered by him in 
Russia, proceeds to answer three questions which 
the Emperor Alexander had ordered Balmain to put, 
as to the occupation of the duchy of Oldenburg in 
1812, as to the war with Russia, and as to the failure 
in the negotiations for a Russian marriage : and con- 
cludes by offering the Emperor Alexander his alli- 
ance should that sovereign throw over the Bourbons, 

159 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

and by declaring himself even willing to conclude a 
treaty of commerce with Britain should that be the 
necessary condition of a good understanding. This 
paper was doubtless given to Gourgaud for his guid- 
ance ; and it was, in all probability, substantially the 
same document as that which Bertrand attempted to 
hand to Balmain two months afterwards, and which 
Balmain declined to receive. 

What is the meaning of it all? It is clear that 
there was no communication from Balmain to Na- 
poleon. Putting aside the improbability of it, and 
the absolute silence of Balmain, the reputed author, 
as well as of Gourgaud, the reputed channel, the Em- 
peror Alexander was at that time in no mood for in- 
viting Napoleon to Russia, or asking him retrospec- 
tive historical questions. On the contrary, this w^s 
the year of the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, where 
the Russian government demanded more stringent 
custody for Napoleon. We may dismiss with abso- 
lute confidence the story of the communication. But 
why, then, did Napoleon found a state paper on a 
message which he never received, and answer ques- 
tions that were never asked? The explanation would 
appear to be this, Montholon tells us, two months 
before Gourgaud 's departure, that the Emperor is 
determined to send Gourgaud to Europe to appeal to 
the Emperor Alexander. It seems to us, then, that 
in view of Gourgaud 's departure, he wished to give 
this officer a paper, a kind of credential which could 
be shown; that he had faint hopes of winning the 
sympathy of the Russian Emperor, partly from the 
recollection of the ascendancy that he had once ex- 
ercised over Alexander, partly because he was no 
doubt aware that Balmain's instructions had a shade 

i6o 



THE COMMISSIONERS 

of favor in them, partly because he must have been 
aware that Alexander had no love for the Bourbons, 
and that circumstances might make it neceSwSary to 
make new arrangements for filling their unstable 
throne; that he, therefore, desired especially to clear 
himself on the points which had alienated Alexander 
from him; that the supposititious message from 
Alexander furnished a ground on which to base his 
explanations; that many who saw the paper would 
not know that this ground was fictitious; and that 
if the document, or its purport, ever reached Alex- 
ander, the message and the questions could be ex- 
plained away as misunderstood conversation. It is 
even possible, though by no means probable, that 
Balmain may have asked such questions of the suite 
out of pure curiosity. At any rate, if the paper ever 
reached Alexander at all, matters would have gone 
so far that this flaw would seem insignificant. 
Strange were the workings of that astute and un- 
scrupulous mind : we do not profess to follow them : 
we can only ascertain the facts, and speculate. For 
one thing. Napoleon, in those days, never liked to 
neglect a chance, even if it seemed remote. And the 
interests of his son, which were ever before him, 
must be kept in mind. It might some day be use- 
ful for the dynasty that an attempt should be made 
to clear away the misunderstanding with Russia. 
Meanwhile Balmain, innocent and honorable gentle- 
man as he appeared to have been, and as the tone of 
his despatches indicates, was going on his blameless 
way, unconscious of these wiles, and resolute, as 
would appear, only on one course — that of keeping 
Longwood and its intrigues at arm's length. 

On Balmain's departure, Montchenu (aware per- 
L i6i 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

haps of his secretary's preference for the Russian) 
summed up his character with vindictive severity. 
"You have no idea/' he writes, "of M. de Balmain's 
extravagances, of his ineptitude, of his weakness 
and eccentricity." And he proceeds to compare 
himself with his colleague. Often did Sir Hudson 
say to the other commissioners, "Ah, gentlemen, 
why do you not behave like the marquis?" — at least 
so the marquis complacently records. 

Bartholomew, Baron Sturmer, was the Austrian 
commissioner. He was only twenty-eight when he 
reached St. Helena, and he had not long been mar- 
ried to a pretty and agreeable Frenchwoman, who 
kept Las Cases, to his extreme indignation, at a 
distance, although he claimed that she had received 
the greatest kindnesses in Paris from Mme. de 
Las Cases and himself. His position was the most 
difficult of all, for his government constantly en- 
joined him to work harmoniously with Lowe, which 
was in effect impossible. 

Napoleon tried to open relations with the repre- 
sentative of his father-in-law. He once sent to ask 
if, in case of grave illness, he might intrust Sturmer 
with a message to the Austrian Emperor which 
should reach that monarch, and no one else. Sturm- 
er could only reply, helplessly, that he would ask 
his government for instructions, which, of course, 
never arrived. 

Sturmer was withdrawn in 1818, on the suggestion 
of the British government, made at the instance of 
Lowe. To Montchenu was awarded the cumulative 
sinecure of representing Austria as well as France. 
The marquis saw his opportunity. He at once de- 
manded of his government a commission as lieu- 

162 



THE COMMISSIONERS 

tenant-general, a high decoration, and five hundred 
pounds a year increase of salary from them, as well 
as a salary of twelve hundred pounds a year from 
the Austrian government. How these modest re- 
quests were received history may guess, but does 
not record. 

Whether from the diversity of their instructions, 
or the malignity of the climate, or the humors of 
their courts, the commissioners could scarcely be 
called a harmonious body. On only three points 
did they show any agreement. One was contempt 
for Sir Hudson Lowe, on which they were bitterly 
unanimous. Another was the dearness of St. Helena, 
and the consequent inadequacy of their salaries, 
on which they concurred to the pitch of enthusiasm. 
The third was the effect of their stay on their nerves. 
" Far from acclimatizing myself to this horrible rock, " 
writes Balmain, " I suffer constantly from my nerves ; 
my health is already ruined by the climate." Three 
months later fresh nerve attacks drive him to Brazil. 
But this is as nothing to the nerves of Sturmer. 
Sturmer for six or eight months before he left was 
seized with a sort of hysteria. He wept without 
knowing why, and laughed without knowing why. 
At last his nervous attacks became so violent that 
he had to be held by four men when the fit seized 
him, and could only be calmed by opium. The cli- 
mate, or Lowe, or both, were too much for the sys- 
tems of these unlucky diplomatists. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE EMPEROR AT HOME 

No picture of St. Helena at this time can be 
complete without at least a sketch of the central 
figure — all the more as it is the last of the many 
portraits of Napoleon that we can obtain. Of his 
physical appearance from the time of his passing 
into British hands there are various accounts, too 
long and minute to be inserted here. These, there- 
fore, or the most graphic of them, we relegate to an 
appendix. 

As to his habitation, Longwood itself was a collec- 
tion of huts which had been constructed as a cattle- 
shed. It was swept by an eternal wind ; it was shade- 
less, and it was damp. Lowe himself can say no 
good of it, and may have felt the strange play of for- 
tune by which he was allotted the one delightful resi- 
dence on the island with twelve thousand a year, 
while Napoleon was living in an old cow-house on 
eight. 

The lord of so many palaces, who had slept as a 
conqueror in so many palaces not his own, was now 
confined to two small rooms of equal size — about four- 
teen feet by twelve, and ten or eleven high. To this 
little measure had shrunk all his conquests, glories, 
triumphs, spoils. Each of these rooms was lit by 
two small windows looking towards the regimental 

164 



THE EMPEROR AT HOME 

camp. In one corner was the little camp-bed, with 
green silk curtains, which the Emperor had used at 
Marengo and Austerlitz. To hide the back door 
there was a screen, and between this screen and the 
fireplace an old sofa, on which Napoleon passed most 
of his day, though it was so covered with books that 
there was scarcely space for comfort. The walls 
were covered with brown nankeen, and amid the gen- 
eral squalor a magnificent wash-hand-stand with sil- 
ver ewers and basins displayed an incongenial splen- 
dor. But the ornaments of the room were other than 
this ; they were the salvage of the wreck of his family 
and his empire. There was, of course, a portrait (by 
Isabey) of Marie Louise, then living in careless beati- 
tude with Neipperg at Parma. There were the por- 
traits of the King of Rome, riding a lamb, and put- 
ting on a slipper, both by Thibault ; there was also a 
bust of the child. There was a miniature of Jose- 
phine. There hung also the alarm-clock of Frederick 
the Great taken from Potsdam, and the watch of the 
First Consul when in Italy, suspended by a chain of 
the plaited hair of Marie Louise. 

In the second room there were a writing table, some 
book-shelves, and another bed, on which the Emperor 
would rest in the day-time, or to which he would 
change from the other, when he was, as was gener- 
ally the case, restless and sleepless at night. 

O'Meara gives a graphic picture of Napoleon in his 
bedroom. He sat on the sofa, which was covered 
with a long white cloth. On this "reclined Napo- 
leon, clothed in his white morning gown, white loose 
trousers and stockings, all in one, a checkered red 
madras (handkerchief) upon his head, and his shirt 
collar open, without cravat. His air was melancholy 

J65 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

and troubled. Before him stood a little round table 
with some books, at the foot of which lay in confusion 
upon the carpet a heap of those he had already 
perused." 

His usual costume was, however, more formal than 
this. He wore a limiting uniform, a green coat with 
sporting buttons, and, when the cloth grew shabby, 
had it turned rather than wear English cloth. With 
these he wore white kerseymere breeches and stock- 
ings. He gave up wearing his uniform of the Chas- 
seurs of the Guard six weeks after he arrived in the 
island. He retained, however, the famous little 
cocked hat, but the tricolored cockade he laid aside 
with some ceremony two years after Waterloo, telling 
his valet to keep it as a relic, or in view of better days. 
These details are not wholly vapid, because he had 
method and meaning even in such trifles. Moreover, 
if we would picture to ourselves Napoleon in his final 
phase, we must know them. 

What was his manner of life? 

He breakfasted alone at eleven, dressed for the day 
about two, and dined, at first, at seven, though he 
afterwards changed the hour to four. Just before 
Gourgaud left there was a new arrangement; the 
mid-day breakfast was abolished ; there was dinner 
at three, and supper at ten ; then, a few days after- 
wards, dinner is to be at two — changes suspected by 
Gourgaud as intended to suit the health and con- 
venience of Mme. de Montholon, but which were 
probably devised to beguile the long weariness of the 
day, or to cheat the long wakefulness of the night. 
For he practically passed all his days in his hut, 
reading, writing, talking, but withal bored to death. 

The world saw nothing of this shabby interior: 

i66 



THE EMPEROR AT HOME 

what it did see was totally different, for Napoleon 
kept up, as part of his contention about title, the ut- 
most state consistent with his position. He drove 
out with six horses to his carriage, and an equerry 
in full uniform riding at each door. But the six 
horses, sometimes a source of danger from the sharp- 
ness of the turns and the pace at which he chose to 
be driven, were not a mere luxury. The roads at St. 
Helena were such that the ladies of his party, when 
they went out to dinner, or to a ball, had to be con- 
veyed in a Merovingian equipage drawn by several 
yoke of oxen. 

The etiquette was not less severe indoors. Gour- 
gaud and Bertrand and Montholon were kept stand- 
ing for hours, till they nearly dropped from fatigue. 
On one occasion Napoleon is annoyed by an irre- 
pressible yawn from Bertrand. The grand marshal 
excuses himself by stating that he has been standing 
more than three hours. Gourgaud, pale and almost 
ill with fatigue, would lean against the door. Antom- 
marchi, who, by-the-bj^e, had to put on a court dress 
when he visited his patient, had to stand in his pres- 
ence till he nearly fainted. On the other hand, if one 
of them was seated by the Emperor and rose when 
Mme. Bertrand or Mme. de Montholon entered the 
room, he was rebuked. The Emperor had always 
been keenly alive to this ritual. He discourses on it 
diffusely to Las Cases. He noticed at once in the Hun- 
dred Daj^s the advance of democracy when one of his 
ministers rose to leave him without permission. Even 
in the agony of Rochefort he observed a small breach 
of etiquette of the same kind. Indeed, when Gour- 
gaud mentions to him that in China the sovereign is 
worshipped as a god, he gravely replies that that is 

167 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

as it should be. At St. Helena the small court that 
remained was chivalrously sedulous to observe the 
strictest forms to their dethroned Emperor. None 
of them came to his room without being summoned. 
If they had something of importance to communicate, 
they asked for an audience. None uninvited joined 
him in a walk, and all in his presence remained bare- 
headed, until he became aware that the English were 
ordered to remain covered in speaking to him, when 
he desired his followers to do the same. None spoke 
to him first, unless when conversation was in flow. 
But Bertrand once or twice contradicted his master so 
abruptly that the Emperor at once remarked it, and 
observed that he would not have dared to behave so 
at the Tuileries. Bertrand, too, incurred the im- 
perial displeasure by not dining as grand marshal 
regularly at the imperial table, for sometimes his wife 
wished him to dine with her. Anything of this kind 
that savored of shortcoming and neglect seriously 
annoyed Napoleon. Little things that might have 
escaped his notice in the bustle of Paris weighed on 
him at St. Helena; they brought home to him, too, 
the change in his position. Then there was the 
question of the title. But Bertrand, though he might 
sometimes flag in observance, always sent out the 
letters on behalf of his master sealed with the seal 
and styled with the pomp of the grand marshal of 
the palace and of the Emperor, though there was little 
at St. Helena to recall either the one or the other. 
At dinner Napoleon was served with great state, on 
gold and silver plate, and waited on by his French 
servants in a rich livery of green and gold. Twelve 
English sailors, chosen from the squadron, were at 
first allotted to him, and dressed in the same costume, 

l68 



THE EMPEROR AT HOME 

but they disappeared with the Northumberland, to 
which ship they belonged; and Napoleon declined 
Lowe's offer to replace them with soldiers. A vacant 
place was reserved next him for the Empress, but this 
was sometimes given to some favored lady. There 
was a vast variety of dishes, of which the Emperor 
ate heartily; on an honored guest he would press 
particular dainties. As always, his dinner occupied 
but a short time. At the Tuileries it was an affair 
of twenty minutes; at St. Helena five minutes more 
was allowed to enable Bertrand to have his fill of 
bonbons. And in the earlier days at Longwood he 
would send at dessert for some volume of French 
tragedy, which he would read aloud. 

To many this petty pomp may seem absurd, but 
with the suite we cannot help feeling a melancholy 
sympathy, as we see these gallant gentlemen deter- 
mined to prove that, whatever Napoleon might be to 
others, to them he was always their sovereign. 

And we must here notice the strange composition 
of the party. Montholon, as we are informed by 
his biographer, was hereditary grand huntsman of 
France under the old dynasty — a post to which Louis 
XVIII. offered to restore him on the first Restoration. 
Las Cases was a Royalist emigrant. Gourgaud was 
the foster-brother of the Due de Berry, and was one 
of Louis XVIII. 's guard during the first Restora- 
tion. Of the four, Bertrand was the only one who 
could be described as free from all connection with 
royalism. 

The one pleasure of the captive's life was an arrival 
of books. Then he would shut himself up with them 
for daj^s together — bathing in them, revelling in them, 
feasting on them. But, indeed, he was always in- 

169 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

clined to remain in the house. He hated the signs 
of prison, the sentries, the orderly officer, the chance 
of meeting Lowe. By remaining at home, he tells 
Gourgaud, he preserves his dignity; there he is al- 
ways Emperor, and that is the only way in which he 
can live. So he tries to obtain exercise indoors. 
Lowe reports on one occasion that the Emperor had 
constructed a sort of hobby-horse made of cross- 
beams. He sat at one end of the beam, with a heavy 
weight at the other, and played a sort of see-saw. 
But these specifics would fail, and in his deprivation 
of exercise he would become ill, he would be touched 
with scurvy, his legs would swell, and he would de- 
rive a morbid satisfaction from the reflection that 
he was suffering from the governor's restrictions. 
Then, in the last year of his life, he determined to live 
again. He rode a little, but his main interest was 
in his garden. Surrounded by a gang of Chinese 
laborers, he would plan and swelter and dig; for to 
dig he was not ashamed. A great painter, says 
Montholon, would have found a worthy subject in 
the mighty conqueror wearing red slippers and a vast 
straw hat, with his spade in his hand, working away 
at dawn, directing the exertions of his impressed 
household, and, what Montholon confesses were more 
efficacious, the labors of the Chinese gardeners. 
Paul Delaroche painted a portrait of him in this cos- 
tume, resting from his labors with a somewhat flabby 
expression of countenance. So strenuously did he 
move earth to make a shelter that Lowe became 
alarmed. He feared that his sentinels might find 
their supervision limited ; he gave a solemn warning 
that the work should not proceed. He took credit to 
himself that he did not demolish it. Little or no heed 

170 



THE EMPEROR AT HOME 

seems to have been taken of this futile fussiness, for 
Lowe was now practically ignored. Napoleon threw 
himself into the operations with his usual ardor ; 
spent much time and money on them ; bought large 
trees and moved them, with the aid of the artillery 
regiment and some hundreds of Chinese. All this 
distracted him for a time, and gave him exercise. 

His unlucky suite had to delve, v/hether they liked 
or not. But this was, perhaps, a not unwelcome 
change of labor. For indoors their work was hard. 
Napoleon hated writing, and had almost lost the art, 
for what he did write was illegible. It is recorded 
that on his marriage he, with incredible difficulty, 
managed to write a short note to his father-in-law. 
With infinite pains his secretaries contrived to make 
it presentable. He could only dictate; and he dic- 
tated with a vengeance. On one occasion at Long- 
wood he is stated to have dictated for fourteen hours 
at a stretch, with only short intervals from time to 
time to read over what had been written. Short- 
hand was unknown to his household, so the opera- 
tion was severe; though Las Cases did invent for 
himself some sort of hieroglyphic system. More- 
over, he sometimes dictated all night. Gourgaud 
would be sent for at four in the morning to take the 
place of the exhausted Montholon. He would cheer 
his secretaries by telling them that they should have 
the copyright of what they wrote, which would bring 
them in vast sums. But this illusion did not quench 
their groans, and, indeed, in bitterer moments he 
told them that if they were under the impression 
that their work belonged to them, they made a great 
mistake. What was the result of all this dictation 
we do not know — some of it probably is yet unpub- 

171 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

lished. But there is a great bulk in print, and some 
material may have been utilized in other ways, as 
in the Letters from the Cape. Gourgaud, indeed, 
suspected the Emperor of several compositions — of 
the Manuscrit de Ste. Helene, for example, which 
he certainly did not write, and of an article in the 
Edinburgh Review, which was composed by Allen 
at Holland House, from information supplied by 
Cardinal Fesch and Louis Bonaparte. It is proba- 
ble that there was a good deal of dictated inspi- 
ration constantly proceeding from St. Helena to 
Europe; and Gourgaud blames the Emperor for 
producing so many pamphlets. Some of these 
manuscripts were buried in a corner of the garden, 
and did not, apparently, see the light. 

Besides gardening, riding, reading, and dictation, 
he had few distractions. At one time he took to 
buying lambs and making pets of them, but this in- 
nocent whim soon passed. Polo was played on the 
island, but not by him. Sport, strictly so called, 
was difficult and indifferent. Gourgaud, who was 
indefatigable, would sometimes shoot turtle-doves, 
sometimes a pheasant or a partridge, and sometimes 
a sow. Sir Hudson Lowe turned out some rabbits 
for Napoleon to shoot, but, with his unlucky inop- 
portuneness, chose the moment when the Emperor 
had been planting some young trees. However, 
the rats killed the rabbits, and so saved the trees; 
at any rate, the rabbits disappeared. Napoleon 
only began to shoot in his last days, and then per- 
formed feats which would make a sportsman weep. 
It had always been so. At Malmaison in old days 
he had kept a gun in his room and fired at Jose- 
phine's tame birds. And now he began, during his 

172 



THE EMPEROR AT HOME 

gardening enthusiasm, in defence of his enclosure, 
by shooting Mme. Bertrand's pet kids, to her 
infinite distress, and any other vagrant animals 
that strayed within his boundary. Finding a bul- 
lock there, he slew that beast also. Then he sent 
for some goats and shot them. This shooting, it 
need scarcely be said, caused uneasiness to the gov- 
ernor, and to Montchenu, his colleague, as well as 
a remote pang to Forsyth, his biographer. What 
would happen, asked Lowe, if Napoleon killed some 
one by mistake? Could Napoleon be tried and pun- 
ished for manslaughter? Such was the perturba- 
tion that these questions were actually submitted 
to the law officers of the crown. 

At first he rode, but the close attendance of an 
English officer was intolerable, and for four years 
he did not get on a horse. During this long repose 
he said comically of his horse that if ever there were 
a canon, it was he, for he lived well and never worked. 
He had never been nervous on horseback, he said, 
for he had never learned to ride. It may interest 
some to know that he considered the finest and best 
horse that ever he owned to be, not the famous 
Marengo, but one named Mourad Bey. 

He played at some games — billiards, in a careless 
fashion ; reversi, which he had been used to play as 
a child; and chess. At chess he was eminently 
unskilful, and it taxed all the courtliness of his suite 
to avoid defeating him, a simple trickery which he 
sometimes perceived. On the Northumberland he had 
played vingt-et-un, but prohibited it when he found 
that it produced gambling. At all games he liked 
to cheat, flagrantly and undisguisedly, as a joke ; but 
refused, of course, to take the money thus won, say- 

173 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

ing, with a laugh, "What simpletons you are! It 
is thus that young fellows of good family are 
ruined/' 

It was apparently a solace to him to read aloud, 
though he did not read remarkably well, and had 
no ear for the cadences of poetr}-. But one of the 
difficulties of those who like reading aloud is to find 
an appreciative audience, and so it was in the present 
case. Montholon tells us of one, at least, who slum- 
bered (we suspect Gourgaud at once), a circumstance 
which the Emperor did not forget. On another oc- 
casion Gourgaud remarks of a French play : " The 
Awakened Sleeper sends us to sleep." When the 
Emperor reads aloud his own memoirs the same 
genial companion criticises them with such severity 
that Napoleon declines to read them aloud any more. 
At one reading, however, (of Paul and Virginia), 
Gourgaud weeps outright, while Mme. de Montho- 
lon complains that recitals so harrowing disturb 
digestion. 

He was supposed to declaim like Talma, and pro- 
longed declamation of French tragedy in a warm 
climate may sometimes invite repose. Tragedy 
was his favorite reading, and Corneille his favorite 
author in that department of literature. There is 
on record a discourse on Corneille's tragedies, pro- 
nounced by the Emperor in the hazardous salons 
of the Kremlin. "Above all, I love tragedy," he 
said, " sublime and lofty, as Corneille wrote it. His 
great men are more true to life than those in his- 
tory, for one only sees them in the real crises, in the 
supreme moments; and one is not overloaded with 
the preparatory labor of detail and conjecture which 
historians, often erroneously, supply. So much the 

174 



THE EMPEROR AT HOME 

better for human glory, for there is much that is 
unworthy which should be omitted, much of doubt 
and vacillation: and all this should disappear in 
the representation of the hero. We should see him 
as a statue, in which the weakness and tremors of 
the flesh are no longer perceptible." Next to Cor- 
neille he seems to have loved Racine. But he was 
catholic in his tastes, and w^ould readily turn to Beau- 
marchais and the Arabian Nights, though these 
may have been concessions to the frailty of his au- 
dience. Like Pitt, his great adversary, he relished 
Gil Bias, but thought it a bad book for the young, as 
" Gil Bias sees only the dark side of human nature, 
and the youthful think that that is a true picture of 
the world, which it is not." He frequently read 
the Bible; sometimes, in translations. Homer and 
Virgil, iEschylus, or Euripides. From English lit- 
erature he would take Paradise Lost, Hume's 
History of England, and Clarissa Harlowe. With 
Ossian, to whatever literature that poet may belong, 
he would commune as with an old friend. For Vol- 
taire's Zaire he had a positive passion. He had 
once asked Mme. de Montholon to choose a trag- 
edy for the evening's entertainment : she had chosen 
Zaire and thereafter they had Zaire till they 
groaned in spirit at the very name. 

It might seem strange at first sight that we see lit- 
tle or no mention of Bossuet. For the great bishop 
had been the writer who, at the critical moment, had 
"touched his trembling ears." The Discourse of 
Universal History had awakened his mind as Lodi 
awoke his ambition. On the fortunate day when he 
happened on the discourse, and read of Caesar, Alex- 
ander, and the succession of empires, the veil of the 

175 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

temple, he tells us, was rent, and he beheld the move- . 
ments of the gods. From that time, in all his cam- j 
paigns, in Egypt, in Syria, in Germany, on his '; 
greatest days, that vision never quitted him. At j 
St. Helena it forsook him forever, and so we need ■ 
not marvel that he avoids Bossuet. 

He had always been a great reader, though he de- 
clared that in his public life he only read what was 
of direct use for his purposes. When he was a scholar 
at Brienne the frequency of his demands for books 
was the torment of the college librarian. When he 
was a lieutenant in garrison at Valence he read 
ravenously and indiscriminately everything he could 
lay his hands on. " When I was a lieutenant of ar- 
tillery," he said, before the collected princes at Erfurt, 
"I was for three years in garrison at Valence. I 
spent that time in reading and re-reading the library 
there." Later, we read of his tearing along to join 
his armies, his coach full of books and pamphlets, 
which would be flung out of the window when he had 
run through them. When he travelled with Jose- 
phine, all the newest books were put into the carriage 
for her to read to him. And though he declared that 
his reading was purely practical, he always had a 
travelling library of general literature, w4th which 
he took great pains. He had planned a portable col- 
lection of three thousand choice volumes which should 
be printed for him. But when he found it would take 
six years, and a quarter of a million sterling, to com- 
plete, he wisely abandoned the project. Even to 
Waterloo he was accompanied by a travelling library 
of eight hundred volumes in six cases — the Bible, 
Homer, Ossian, Bossuet, and all the seventy vol- 
umes of Voltaire. Three days after his final abdi- 

176 



THE EMPEROR AT HOME 

cation we find him writing for a library from Mal- 
maison, books on America, his chosen destination, 
books on himself and his campaigns, a collection of 
the Moniteur, the best dictionaries and encyclopae- 
dias. Now, in his solitude, he devoured them — his- 
tory, philosophy, st rategy , and memoirs. Of these 
last alone he read seventy-two volumes in twelve 
months. Nor was he by any means a passive reader ; 
he would scribble on margins, he would dictate notes 
or criticisms. But the reading aloud was almost 
entirely of works of imagination, and the selection 
does not inspire one with an3^ passionate wish to 
have been present. Nor, as we have seen, did the 
actual audience greatly appreciate the privilege. 

What strikes one most in his habits is the weari- 
ness and futility of it all. One is irresistibly re- 
minded of a caged animal walking restlessly and 
aimlessly up and down his confined den, and watch- 
ing the outside world with the fierce despair of his 
wild eye. If Gourgaud was bored to death, what 
must the Emperor have been ! 

He is, as a rule, calm and stoical. Sometimes, in- 
deed, he consoles himself with a sort of abstract 
grandeur; sometimes he gives a sublime groan. 
"Adversity was, wanting to my career," he says. 
He takes up one of the official j^ear-books of his 
reign. "It was a fine empire. I ruled eighty-three 
millions of human beings — more than half the popu- 
lation of Europe." He attempts to control his emo- 
tion, as he turns over the book, even to hum a tune, 
but is too visibly affected. Another time he sits in 
silence, his head resting on his hands. At last he 
rises. " After all, what a romance my life has been ! ' ' 
he exclaims, and walks out of the room. Nor does 
M 177 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

fame console him, for he doubts it. " All the institu- 
tions that I founded are being destroyed, such as 
the University and the Legion of Honor, and I shall 
soon be forgotten." And again: "History will 
scarcely mention me, for I was overthrown. Had I 
been able to maintain my dynasty, it had been differ- 
ent." Misgiving of the future, self-reproach for the 
past, the monotony of a suppressed life, these were 
the daily torments that corroded his soul. For six 
years he supped the bitterness of slow, remorseful, 
desolate death. 

Moreover, with his restless energy thrown back on 
himself, he was devoured by his inverted activities. 
He could not exist except in a stress of work. Work, 
he said, was his element; he was born and made for 
work. He had known, he would say, the limits of 
his powers of walking or of seeing, but had never been 
able to ascertain the limits of his power of work. His 
mind and body, says Chaptal, were incapable of fa- 
tigue. How was employment to be found at Long- 
wood for this formidable machine? The powers of 
brain and nerve and body which had grappled with 
the world now turned on him and rent him. To 
learn enough English to read in the newspapers what 
was going on in the Europe which he had controlled, 
to dictate memoirs giving his point of view of what 
interested him at the moment, to gossip about his 
custodians, to preserve order and harmony in his lit- 
tle household, these were the crumbs of existence 
which he was left to mumble. There is no parallel 
to his position. The world has usually made short 
work of its Caesars when it has done with them. 
Napoleon had sought death in battle, and by sui- 
cide, in vain. The constant efforts of assassination 

178 



THE EMPEROR AT HOME 

had been fruitless. The hope of our ministers that 
the French government would shoot or hang him had 
been disappointed. So Europe buckled itself to the 
unprecedented task of gagging and paralyzing an 
intelligence and a force which were too gigantic for 
the welfare and security of the world. That is the 
strange, unique, hideous problem which makes the 
records of St. Helena so profoundly painful and fas- 
cinating. 



CHAPTER XIII 
THE CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 

It is not wise to record every word that falls from 
a great man in retirement. The mind which is ac- 
customed to constant activity, and which is sudden- 
ly deprived of employment, is an engine without guid- 
ance; the tongue without a purpose is not always 
under control. The great man is apt to soliloquize 
aloud, and then the suppressed volume of passion, 
of resentment, of scorn, bursts all dams. Napoleon 
was aware of this danger. " You are right to check 
me. I always say more than I wish when I allow my- 
self to talk of subjects which so thrill with interest.'' 
There is not so much of this as might be expected 
in the conversation of Napoleon at St. Helena. He 
sometimes lashes himself into a rage over the gov- 
ernor, and the restrictions, and the rock itself, but as 
a rule he is calm and meditative, thinking aloud, 
\/ often with contradictory results. This detachment 
of mind had been noticed on his return from Elba by 
Lavallette. "Never did I see him more impertur- 
bably calm ; not a word of bitterness with any one ; 
no impatience ; listening to everything, and discuss- 
ing everything, with that rare sagacity and that 
elevation of mind which were so remarkable in him; 
avowing his faults with a touching ingenuousness, 
or discussing his position with a penetration which 
his enemies could not equal." 

i8o 



CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 

The recorded conversations of Napoleon present a 
certain difficuUj^ After the first two years of the 
Consulate he rarely unbuttoned himself in talk. And 
those with whom he may have done so most fre- 
quently, such as Duroc, or Berthier, or Bertrand, are 
mute. He was no doubt a great talker in public, but 
when he talked in public he said not what he thought, 
but what he wished to be considered as his ideas. 
At St. Helena we have a great mass of these disqui- 
sitions, for he was alwa3^s in the presence of diarists, 
and knew it. Las Cases and Montholon record noth- 
ing else. But all through his reign there are abun- 
dant notes of the clear, eloquent, pungent discourse 
which he affected in public. Villemain gives some 
admirable specimens on the authority of Narbonne. 
These are almost too elaborate to be exact. There 
is, however, scarcely one of the innumerable memoirs 
published on the Napoleonic era which does not at- 
tempt to give specimens of Napoleon's talk. 

But to get at the man, or what little is accessible of 
the man, we must go elsewhere. In our judgment, 
Roederer is the author who renders most faithfully the 
conversation of Napoleon. He gives us specimens 
of the earlier consular style when Napoleon was still 
a republican in manner and surroundings, when he 
was still a learner in civil government, before he eyed 
a crown ; specimens of his discourse at the council of 
state ; chats at the Malmaison or St. Cloud, and also 
long conversations of the later period, reported ver- 
batim, with life-like accuracy, so far as one can now 
judge. Read, for example, Roederer's report of his 
conversations with Napoleon in January and Feb- 
ruary, 1809, in 181 1, and especially in 1813. They 
form, in our judgment, the most vivid representa- 

181 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

tions of the Emperor that exist. Concise, frank, 
sometimes brutal, but always interesting — such seems 
to have been the real talk of Napoleon. The secret 
of the charm is that he can bring his whole mind in- 
stantaneously into play on a subject, and so he lights 
it up in a moment with reminiscence, historical paral- 
lel, native shrewdness, knowledge of mankind in 
general and of the men with whom he has had deal- 
ings in particular. 

It is not possible to give a digest of Napoleon's con- 
versation at St. Helena. It is set forth in a score of 
volumes of very unequal merit and trustworthiness ; 
it is not always easy to separate the wheat from the 
chaff. Some of these are filled with dictations by 
Napoleon, which have, of course, an interest and dis- 
tinction of their own, but which are not conversations. 
For talk, as revealing the man, we feel convinced 
that Gourgaud's is the most faithful transcript, and 
far superior to the other records. Montholon is not 
so reliable, or so intelligent. Las Cases pads and 
fabricates, O'Meara's book is a translation into 
English of conversations carried on in Italian. It is 
both spirited and interesting, but does not inspire 
any confidence. Gourgaud gives, we believe, an hon- 
est narrative and, wiping off the bilious hues of jeal- 
ousy and boredom, an accurate picture. His are, 
indeed, reminiscences of high interest. But what is 
really remarkable is the air of rough truth about all 
that he records. They are not full-dress reminis- 
cences; they are, as it were, the sketch of the mo- 
ment on the wristband and the thumbnail. Where 
he differs from Las Cases and Montholon we have 
no doubt which to believe. On state occasions they 
hasten to drape their hero in the toga or the dalmatic ; 



CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 

Gourgaud takes him as he is, in his bath, in his bed, 
with a Panama hat or a red Madras handkerchief 
round his head, in a bad temper or in a good. We 
will give two instances of what we mean — the execu- 
tions of Ney and Murat. 

Montholon records the Emperor as saying, on Feb- 
ruary 2ist, that "the death of Ney is a crime. The 
blood of Ney was sacred for France. His conduct in 
the Russian campaign was unequalled. It should 
have covered with a holy aegis the crime of high trea- 
son, if, indeed, Ney had really committed it. But 
Ney did not betray the King," and so forth. This 
expression of feeling is what the public would expect 
Napoleon to have uttered, though hardly on February 
2ist, as he did not receive the news of Ney's execu- 
tion till the middle of March. Gourgaud records no 
such language; he reports Napoleon as varying in 
his view. Once he says that they have assassinated ■ 
Ney; at another time he declares that he only got^ 
his deserts. "No one should break his word; I de- 
spise traitors." " Ney has dishonored himself." " He 
was precious on the field of battle, but too immoral 
and too stupid to succeed." Napoleon even goes so 
far as to say that he ought never to have made Ney a 
marshal of France; that he should have left him a 
general of division ; for he had, as Caffarelli had said 
of him, just the courage and honesty of a hussar. 
He says that in 1814 he was a mere traitor; that he 
behaved, as always, like a rascal. Contrast this 
with the Duchesse d'Angouleme's remorse on read- 
ing Segur's History of the Russian Campaign. 
"Had we known in 1815," she says, "what Ney did 
in Russia, he would never have been executed. " Con- 
trast this with Napoleon himself when in Russia, 

183 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

" What a man ! What a soldier ! Ney is lost ! I have 
three hundred millions in the cellars of the Tuileries. 
I would give them all to get him back. " We can only 
conclude from this cruel change that Napoleon never 
forgot or forgave the terrible interview with Ney at 
Fontainebleau in April, 1814, nor the vaunt of Ney 
in 1 81 5 to bring him back in a cage. He only sum- 
moned him to the army, indeed, at the last moment 
before Ligny. At the end there was, in truth, no love 
lost between the two heroes. 

Again there comes the news of the death of Murat. 
As in the case of Napoleon's discourse to Montholon 
about Ney's death, there is a strange particularity 
in this event, in that it is first announced to Napo- 
leon by three separate people. Las Cases reads him 
the news. "At these unexpected words the Em- 
peror seizes me by the arm, and cries, ' The Calabri- 
ans were more humane, more generous, than those 
who sent me here.' This was all. After a few mo- 
ments of silence, as he said no more, I continued 
reading." This, perhaps, is the authorized version, 
as it is that given in the Letters from the Cape. 

O'Meara also brought the first news. "He heard 
it with calmness, and immediately demanded if Mu- 
rat had perished on the field of battle. At first I 
hesitated to tell him that his brother-in-law had been 
executed like a criminal. On his repeating the ques- 
tion, I informed him of the manner in which Murat 
had been put to death, which he listened to without 
any change of countenance." 

Then Gourgaud brings the first tidings. "I an- 
nounce the fatal news to His Majesty, who keeps 
the same countenance, and remarks that Murat 
must have been mad to risk such an enterprise. I 

184 



CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 

say that it grieves me to think of a brave man hke 
Murat, who had so often faced death, dying by 
the hands of such people. The Emperor cries out 
that it is horrible. I urge that Ferdinand should 
not have allowed him to be killed. 'That is your 
way of thinking, young people, but one does not 
trifle with a throne. Could he be considered as a 
French general? He was one no longer. As a 
king? But he had never been recognized (by the 
Bourbons?) as one. Ferdinand had him shot, just 
as he has had a number of people hanged. ' " But 
Gourgaud watches him, as they read the newspa- 
pers to him, and says that he suffers. 

We cannot tell which of the three chroniclers really 
first reported the news to Napoleon, but we feel that 
Gourgaud's narrative is vivid and true. Long af- 
terwards Napoleon says to Gourgaud : " Murat only 
t^got what he deserved. But it is all my fault, for I 
should have left him a marshal, and never have 
made him King of Naples, or even Grand Duke of 
Berg." 

So in the few specimens that we propose to give 
of Napoleon's conversation at St. Helena we shall 
mainly confine ourselves to the notes taken by Gour- 
gaud. Napoleon, however, repeated himself con- 
stantly, and so we obtain corroborative versions of 
many sayings in all the chronicles of the exile. 

One of the chief topics was religion, and one of 
the books that Napoleon most loved to read aloud 
was the Bible. The reading was not always for the 
highest motive, for on one occasion he reads up the 
books of Samuel and Kings to see what is their tes- 
timony in favor of legitimate monarchy. But on 
other occasions the Bible is read with no such ob- 

185 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

ject; and he was, we are told, a great admirer of 
St. Paul. His thoughts, indeed, in this dark hour, 
turn much to questions of faith, not altogether to 
edification. We have, of course, often read anec- 
dotes in which he is represented as pointing to the 
firmament, and declaiming a vague deism. New- 
man, too, in a noble passage, has given from tra- 
dition the final judgment passed on Christianity by 
Napoleon at St. Helena, wherein Napoleon is re- 
ported to have compared the shadowy fame of Caesar 
and Alexander with the living force of Christ, and 
to have summed up with, " Can He be less than di- 
vine?'' But the real Napoleon talked in a very dif- 
ferent fashion. Gourgaud talks of the stars and 
their Creator in the way attributed to Napoleon, but 
the latter snubs him. Briefly, Napoleon's real lean- 
ing seems to be to Mahometanism ; his objection ^^ 
to Christianity is that it is not sufficiently ancient. ^ 
Had it existed, he says, since the beginning of the 
world, he could believe it. But it had not ; nor could 
it have sustained itself till now without the Cruci- 
fixion and the Crown of Thorns, for mankind is thus 
constituted. Nor can he accept that form of religion 
which would damn Socrates, Plato, and, he courte- 
ously adds, the English. Why, in any case, should 
punishment be eternal? Moreover, he declares that 
he was much disturbed by the arguments of the 
sheiks in Egypt, who contended that those who 
worshipped three deities must necessarily be pagans. 
Mahometanism, on the other hand, is more sim- 
ple, and, he characteristically adds, is superior to 
Christianity in that it conquered half the world in 
V ten years, while Christianity took three hundred 
years to est^bhgh itself. Another time he declares 

i86 



CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 

Mahometanism to be the most beautiful of all relig- 
ions. And once he even sa3^s, "We Mahometans." 

Although he prefers Mahometanism to Christian- 
ity, he prefers the Roman to the Anglican commun- 
ion, or, at any rate, the Roman to the Anglican ritual. 
He gives as the reason for his preference that in the 
Roman Church the people do not understand the 
prayers, and that it is not wise to try and make such 
matters too clear. And yet he thinks that the clergy 
should marry, though he should hesitate to confess 
himself to a married priest, who would repeat every- 
thing to his wife. He declares that he himself, hav- 
ing been anointed, is capable of confessing a peni- 
tent. He is not so favorable to the hierarchy as to the 
ritual of Rome. He is hostile to the papacy. Britain 
and northern Europe have wisely, he says, emanci- 
pated themselves from this yoke, for it is ridiculous 
that the chief of the state should not be chief of the 
church of the state. For this reason he regrets that 
Francis I. did not, as he nearly did, emancipate him- 
self and his people by adhering to the Reformation. 
He himself had regretted in old days, when wearied 
with his disastrous struggle against the papacy, that 
instead of concluding the concordat, he had not de- 
clared himself a Protestant. The nation would have 
followed him, and would have thus freed itself from 
the yoke of Rome. 

But, as he proceeds, he becomes more hostile to 
Christianity. "As for me," he breaks out on one 
occasion, "my opinion is formed that (the divine?) 
Christ never existed. He was put to death like any 
other fanatic who professed to be a prophet or a mevS- 
siah. There were constantly people of this kind. 
Then I look back from the New Testament to the Old. 

J87 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

I find one able man — Moses — but the Jews are cow- 
ardly and cruel." And he ends by returning to the 
Bible with a map and declaring that he will write 
the campaigns of Moses. 

So slight is his belief in the Saviour that he men- 
tions as an extraordinary fact that Pope Pius VIL 
did actually believe in Christ. 

As to man, he proclaims himself a materialist. 
Sometimes he thinks that man was created in some 
particular temperature of the air ; sometimes that he 
was produced from cla3% " as Herodotus narrates that 
Nile mud was transformed into rats," that he was 
warmed by the sun, and combined with electric fluids. 
"Sa3^ what you like, everything is matter, more or less 
organized. When out hunting I had the deer cut open 
and saw that their interior was the same as that of 
man. A man is only a more perfect being than a dog 
or a tree, and living better. The plant is the first link 
in a chain, of which man is the last. I know that 
this is all contrary to religion, but it is my opinion 
that we are all matter." Again: "What are elec- 
tricity, galvanism, magnetism? In these lies the 
great secret of nature. Galvanism works in silence. 
I think m3^self that man is the product of these fluids 
and of the atmosphere, that the brain pumps up these 
fluids and imparts life, and that the soul is composed 
of these fluids, which after death return into the atmos- 
phere, whence they are pumped into other brains." 

Again: "When we are dead, my dear Gourgaud, 
we are altogether dead." What is a soul ? Where is 
the soul of a sleeper or of a madman or of a babe? 

Another time he breaks out : " Were I obliged to 
have a religion, I would worship the sun — the source 
of all life — the real god of the earth." 

1 88 



CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 

The editors think that Napoleon talked in this way 
in a spirit of opposition to Gourgaud, who was a be- 
liever — more or less orthodox. He did, we think, often 
argue thus to bring out the strength of the orthodox 
position. But often he is only thinking aloud in the 
bitterness of his heart — as when he says that he can- 
not believe in a just God punishing and rewarding, for 
good people are always unfortunate and scoundrels 
are always lucky. " Look at Talleyrand ; he is sure 
to die in his bed. " 

Bertrand thinks, says Gourgaud, that the Em- 
peror "has religion," and we certainly think that 
Napoleon was more religious than these conversa- 
tions represent. But he had much leeway to make 
up. He was the child of that Revolution which ab- 
jured religion. And yet there was strength in him 
to perform the most courageous acts of his life, the 
restoration of the French Church, the conclusion of 
the concordat, and the compelling his scoffing com- 
panions at arms to follow him to church. 

Whatever may have been his motives, they must 
have been potent to make him break with the tradi- 
tions of his manhood. For religious faith and ob- 
servance which still lurked timidly in the civil life 
of France had disappeared from among its soldiers. 
"The French army at this time," says Count Laval- 
lette of the army of Egypt, "was remarkably free 
from any feeling of religion." 

And the same author tells a curious anecdote of 
a French officer who was with him on a boat which 
was nearly wrecked. The officer says the Lord's 
Prayer from beginning to end. When the danger 
is over he is much ashamed, and apologizes thus : 
" I am thirty-eight years old, and I have never uttered 

189 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

a prayer since I was six. I cannot understand how 
it came into my head just then, for I declare that at 
this moment it would be impossible for me to remem- 
ber a word of it." And this hostility to religion 
seems to have continued, in spite of concordats, to 
the end of Napoleon's reign ; for, as we are told on 
the same authority, when mass was celebrated in the 
Emperor's presence at the great function of the Champ 
de Mai during the Hundred Days, thirteen years after 
the concordat, every one turned their backs to the 
altar. 

His life of camps, his revolutionary associations, 
his conflict with the papacy, kept Napoleon aloof from 
the faith in which he was born. Talleyrand told 
Charles Greville that Louis XVIIL was surprised, 
on arriving in Paris, to find that the ante-library 
of his predecessor's cabinet consisted principally of 
books on theological subjects, and that these were his 
favorite study. Greville asked in reply if Talleyrand 
thought that Napoleon was a believer. " Je suis 
porte a croire qu'il etait croyant, mats il avait le gout 
de ces sujet.s," said Talleyrand. We can only offer 
the commentary that the religious faith of Napoleon 
was at least equal to that of his successor on the 
throne, or to that of his prince of Benevento. 

All that we can safely gather from his conversa- 
tion at St. Helena is that his mind turns greatly on 
these questions of religion. He ponders and strug- 
gles. A remark which he lets fall at St. Helena ex- 
plains probably his normal state of mind. " Only a 
fool," he says one day, " says that he will die without 
a confessor. There is so much that one does not 
know, that one cannot explain." And as he spoke of 
the mysteries of religion, we may speak of his frame 

190 



CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 

of mind with regard to them. " There is so much that 
one does not know, that one cannot explain." 

Besides this high and engrossing topic. Napoleon 
ranges over a hundred others, characteristic of the 
man, and interesting to us, besides his discursive 
reminiscences and his acute views of the future. 
These last, as recorded by Las Cases and Montholon, 
give one the idea rather of political programmes, 
destined for external consumption, than of his own 
inner thoughts. Some are professedly so. Montho- 
lon, as it were, suddenly produces from his port- 
folio a constitution dictated by Napoleon for the em- 
pire of France under his son. We do not know if it 
be authentic, but we observe that the editors of the 
Emperor's works coldly ignore it. We ourselves in- 
cline to the belief that it was composed in the seclu- 
sion of Ham with an eye to the Bonaparte restora- 
tion, which soon afterwards took place. The official 
editors print, however, Montholon 's record of the in- 
structions dictated by the dying man for his son on 
April 17, 1 82 1, which seems to be a genuine mani- 
festo. 

To us, of course, what he says of the English is 
of rare interest. He had all his life been waging war 
against Britain in some form or another, and yet he 
had always been strangely ignorant with regard to 
us. Metternich, who had been in England, noticed 
when Napoleon was on the throne, that as regards 
England he believed only what he chose to believe, 
and that these ideas were totally false. This is the 
more strange, for the cause of his victories lay largely 
in the care with which he studied his adversaries. 
And, throughout his reign, he had kept a keen ej^e 
on British journalism and British politics. His sen- 

191 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE ! 

sitiveness to the criticism of English newspapers, \ 
which, after all, was the only newspaper criticism i 
that he had to face, was no secret to his household. 
He insisted on every abusive phrase being translated 
to him, and was furious at the result. In spite of | 
this painful education he never at St. Helena touched ; 
on the English without betraying the strangest ig- 
norance of their character and habits of mind. " Had ; 
I," he says, "been allowed to go to London in 1815, i 
I should have been carried in triumph. All the popu- i 
lace would have been on my side, and my reasoning \ 
would have convinced the Greys and the Grenvilles." ! 
Even had he entered London as a conqueror, he j 
seems to have persuaded himself that the result would j 
have been the same. He told Las Cases that four j 
days after landing in England he would have ; 
been in London. "1 should have entered it, not as i 
a conqueror, but as a liberator. I should have been 1 
William III. over again, but more generous and more ' 
disinterested. The discipline of my army would have ' 
been perfect, and the troops would have behaved as 1 
if they were in Paris. No sacrifices, not even an ; 
indemnity, would have been exacted from the Eng- j 
lish. We should have presented ourselves, not as | 
conquerors, but as brothers who came to restore to t 
them their liberties and their rights, I should have 
bade the English work out their own regeneration 
themselves ; for, as they were our elders in polit- i 
ical legislation, we wished to have nothing to do with f 
it except to enjoy their happiness and prosperity; -. 
and I should have acted in good faith. So that in a 
few months the two nations, so long hostile, would 
have become identical by their principles, their max- 
ims, and their interests." It is scarcely necessary to 

192 1 



CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 

point out that he did not beHeve a word of this ridicu- 
lous rhodomontade, but that he should have launched 
it at all indicates an amazing ignorance of the people 
whom he proposed to assimilate. 

He liked to listen to the stories of Las Cases's resi- 
dence in England, the scandals of the court, and of 
Carlton House, where Las Cases had been presented. 
("And what the devil were you doing there?" the 
Emperor not unnaturally asked at this point. ) Other- 
wise he derived but little assistance from his suite in 
the elucidation of the British character. Gourgaud, 
for example, thought that the riots, of which so much 
was being said in England, were a political sect ; or, 
as his editors explain it, the advanced guard of the 
Whig party. 

What did he think of the English? Though he 
sometimes broke out against them, not unnaturally, 
he seems to have held them in a certain unspoken 
respect. "The British nation would be very incap- 
able of contending with us if we had only their na- 
tional spirit,'' he said on one occasion. When he is 
most bitter he quotes Paoli, the real author of the 
famous phrase, "They are a nation of shopkeepers." 
" Sono mercanti, as Paoli used to say." 

Sometimes he gibed, not unreasonably, at the na- 
tion which had been his most persistent enemy and 
which had accepted the invidious charge of his cus- 
tody. But once he paid them a noble tribute. He 
begins quaintly enough : " The English character is 
superior to ours. Conceive Romilly, one of the lead- 
ers of a great party, committing suicide at fifty be- 
cause he had lost his wife. They are in everything 
more practical than we are: they emigrate, they 
marry, they kill themselves, with less indecision 

N 193 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

than we display in going to the opera. They are 
also braver than we are. I think one can say that 
in courage they are to us what we are to the Rus- 
sians, what the Russians are to the Germans, what 
the Germans are to the Italians." And then he pro- 
ceeds: "Had I had an English army I should have 
conquered the universe, for I could have gone all over 
the world without demoralizing my troops. Had I 
been, in 1815, the choice of the English, as I was of 
the French, I might have lost the battle of Waterloo 
without losing a vote in the Legislature or a soldier 
from my ranks. I should have won the game. " Has 
there been, considering the speaker and the circum- 
stances, more signal praise of our national character? 
On two other occasions, when on the throne, he 
had, in confidential talk, paid rare compliments to 
Britain. To Auguste de Stael, who had declared 
that he could not serve under the French Govern- 
ment, for it had persecuted his mother. Napoleon 
said, "Then you must go to England, for after all 
there are only two nations, France and England ; the 
rest are nothing." Still more remarkable was his 
language to Foy. In the midst of the Peninsular 
War Foy came to Paris and had two or three inter- 
views with the Emperor. One day Napoleon said to 
him abruptly: "Tell me, are my soldiers fighting 
well?" "What do you mean. Sire? Of course . . ." 
" Yes, yes, I know. But are they afraid of the Eng- 
lish soldiers?" "Sire, they respect them, but do not 
fear them." "Well, you see, the English have al- 
ways beaten them : Cressy, Agincourt, Marlborough." 
" But, Sire, the battle of Fontenoy. " " Ah ! the bat- 
tle of Fontenoy. That is a day that made the mon- 
archy live forty years longer than it would otherwise. " 

194 



CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 

On another occasion, at St. Helena, when Napo- 
leon conceived Ladj?^ Malcolm to be saying that he 
hated England, he interrupted her with much ani- 
mation, saying she was mistaken, he did not hate 
the English ; on the contrary, he had always had the 
highest opinion of their character, "I have been 
deceived, and here I am on a vile rock in the midst 
of the ocean/' "I believe there are more honorable 
men in England, proportionately, than in any other 
country — but then there are some very bad; they 
are in extremes." Again: "The English are quite 
a different race from us ; they have something of the 
bulldog in them; they love blood. They are fero- 
cious, they fear death less than we do, have more 
philosophy, and live more from day to day." 

He thought well and justly of our blockades {les 
anglais bloquent tres hien), but ill, and with even 
more justice, of our diplomacy. He could not un- 
derstand, and posterity shares his bewilderment, 
why the British had derived so little benefit from 
their long struggle and their victory. He thinks 
that they must have been stung by the reproach 
of being a nation of shopkeepers, and have wished 
to show their magnanimity. " Probably for a thou- 
sand years such another opportunity of aggrandiz- 
ing England will not occur. In the position of affairs 
nothing could have been refused to you." It was 
ridiculous, he sa d, to leave Batavia to the Dutch, 
and Bourbon and Pondicherry to the French. He 
would not have given a farthing for either, had it 
not been for his hope of driving the English out of 
India. " Your ministers, too," he says, " should have 
stipulated for a commercial monopoly in the seas 
of India and China. You ought not to have allowed 

195 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

the French or any other nation to put their nose be- 
yond the Cape. ... At present the Enghsh can 
dictate to the world, more especially if they with- 
draw their troops from the Continent, relegate Wel- 
lington to his estates, and remain a purely maritime 
power. She can then do what she likes." "You 
want old Lord Chatham for a prime minister," he 
says another day. 

Again: "You English have imposed a contribu- 
tion on France of seven hundred millions of francs, 
but, after all, I imposed one of ten milliards on your 
country. While you raised yours by your bayonets, 
I raised mine through your Parliament." 

He set himself to learn English, and Las Cases to 
teach him. The lessons were pursued for three 
months, "sometimes with an admirable ardor — 
sometimes with a visible disgust," from January to 
April, 1816, and then ceased entirely. There had 
already been an abortive attempt on the voyage. 
Las Cases, who had himself since his return to France 
somewhat forgotten the spoken language, says that 
his illustrious pupil managed to some extent to un- 
derstand English as he read it, but that his pronun- 
ciation was so extraordinary as to constitute to sotne 
extent a new language. The longest specimen that 
we possess of Napoleon's English is thus phonet- 
ically given by Henry, who heard it, "Veech you 
tink de best town?" He wrote an English letter 
under an assumed name to Las Cases, which the 
facile courtier declares to have deceived him. We 
give it here as the only written English of Napo- 
leon's that we possess, and as a proof of the polite 
credulity of Las Cases. 

"Count Lascases. Since sixt wek, y learn the 

196 



CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 

english and y do not any progress. Sixt week do 
fourty and two day. If might have learn fivty word, 
for day, i could know it two thousands and two hun- 
dred. It is in the dictionary more of foorty thou- 
sand ; even he could most twenty ; hot much of tems. 
For know it or hundred and twenty week which do 
more two years. After this you shall agree that 
the study one tongue is a great labor who it must do 
into the young aged. 

" Longwood, this morning, the seven march thurs- 
day one thousand eight hundred sixteen after na- 
tivity the yors (sic) (lord) Jesus Christ." 

It was thus addressed: 

"Count Lascases, chambellan of the S.M., Long- 
wood; into his polac : very press." 

He read English history with interest, having 
read none since he left school. " I am reading Hume," 
he said one day. "These English are a ferocious 
race; what crimes there are in their history. Think 
of Henry VIII. marrying Lady Seymour the day 
after he had had Anne Bole3"n beheaded. We should 
never have done such a thing in our country. Nero 
never committed such crimes. And Queen Mary! 
Ahli^the Salic law is an excellent arrangement." 
Buf the most interesting resuk of this is that he dis- 
courses on the analogies between Cromwell and him- 
self. There is no doubt, he thinks, some resem- 
blance between the reign of Charles I. and the French 
Revolution, but there can be no real comparison 
between the position of Cromwell and himself. Na- 
poleon was thrice chosen by the free election of the 
people, and the French army had only waged war 
with strangers. Cromwell had one essential qual- 
ity, dissimulation; he had also great political tal- 

197 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

ents, and consummate judgment, for there was no 
action in his Hfe which could be criticised as being 
ill calculated. Was he a great general? Napoleon 
does not know enough of him to judge. 

On French history he makes one or two interesting 
and indeed startling remarks. St. Louis he consid- 
ered an "imbecile." To Lady Malcolm he said that 
Henry IV. was undoubtedly the greatest man that 
ever sat on the throne of France. But this judg- 
ment was only for external use : in his interior circle 
he spoke very differently. Henry IV., he declared, 
never did anything great. Voltaire made him the 
fashion by the Henriade, and then he was ex- 
alted in order to depreciate Louis XIV., who was 
hated. Napoleon laughed when he saw Henry de- 
scribed as the greatest captain of ancient or modern 
times. He was, no doubt, a good sort of man, brave, 
and would charge sword in hand; but, after all, an 
old graybeard pursuing women in the streets of Paris 
could only be an old fool. 

Louis XIV., in the opinion of the Emperor, was 
the greatest King that France had had. " There are 
only he and I. He had four hundred thousand men 
under arms, and a King of France who could collect 
such a host could be no ordinary man. Only he or 
I was able to raise such armies." Had he himself 
lived under the old monarchy, he thinks he would 
have risen to be a marshal. For, as it was, he had 
been remarked as a lieutenant : he would soon have 
become a colonel and been placed on the staff of a 
marshal, whom he would have guided, and under 
whom he would have distinguished himself. 

He utters one speculation on contemporary French 
history, which must not be taken too seriously, 

198 



CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 

"Would to God," he says, "that the King and the 
princes had remained (in March, 1815). The troops 
would have come over to me: the King and the 
princes would have been massacred; and so Louis 
XVIII. would not be on the throne." Sometimes 
in his wrath he flies out against France herself: 
"She has been violated, she is henceforth only a 
cowardly, dishonored country. She has only had 
her deserts, for instead of rallying to me, she deserted 
me." 

He talks freely of his family. And it is perhaps 
his frankness in this respect that chiefly distinguishes 
him from a sovereign born in the purple. No one 
can conceive the contemporary emperors, Alexander 
or Francis, conversing with their suites on the most 
intimate family matters. One might almost say 
that this is the note of distinction between the legiti- 
mate and the parvenu sovereign. At any rate, the 
Empress Catherine, who was born remote from the 
prospect of a throne, had this surprising candor. 

His family was, he says, among the first in Cor- 
sica, and he had still a great number of cousins in the 
island. He reckons them, indeed, at eighty. He 
was sure that a number of these were among the 
band of Corsicans who followed Murat in his mad 
and fatal attempt at Pizzo; though as a matter of 
fact the clan Bonaparte in Corsica would have noth- 
ing to do with Murat or his expedition. But he did 
not care to be considered a Corsican at all. In the 
first place, he was French : " I was born in 1769, when 
Corsica had been united to France " ; though his ene- 
mies accused him of having exchanged birthdays 
with Joseph, who was born in 1768, and so before 
the union. A tactless mayor of Lyons, under this 

199 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

belief, had innocently complimented him on having 
done so much for France, though not a Frenchman. 
But, secondly, putting his French nationality aside, 
he protested that he was rather Italian or Tuscan 
than Corsican. Two centuries ago his family lived 
in Tuscany. "I have one foot in Italy, and one in 
France." It is obvious to the candid reader that both 
feet were politically of use to him, for he reigned in 
France and Italy. His Corsican origin was of no 
use to him, and was, therefore, minimized. 

He makes some curious remarks about his de- 
scent. There was a tendency at one time to prove 
it from the Man in the Iron Mask. It came about 
in this way. The Governor of Pignerol, where the 
mysterious prisoner was confined, was named Bom- 
pars : he was said to have married his daughter to 
the captive (who was, in the belief of Napoleon, the 
brother of Louis XIV.), and smuggled them off to 
Corsica under the name of Bonaparte. " I had only 
to say the word," said the Emperor, "and this fable 
would have been believed." 

When he married Marie Louise, the Emperor Fran- 
cis became anxious as to his son-in-law's nobility of 
birth, and sent him a packet of papers establishing 
his descent from the Dukes of Florence. Napoleon 
returned them to Metternich with the remark that he 
had nothing to do with such tomfoolery ; that in any 
case the Dukes of Florence were inferior to the Em- 
perors of Germany; that he would not be inferior to 
his father-in-law, and that his nobility dated from 
Montenotte. 

Napoleon himself seems to incline to one illustri- 
ous connection, for he saj^s that the name of Bona- 
parte is the same as Bonarotti or Buenarotti. Did 

200 



CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 

he, then, beheve himself related to Michael Angelo? 
He regrets, too, that he did not allow an ancestor of 
his, Bonaventure or Boniface Bonaparte, to be can- 
onized. The Capucins, to which order the monk be- 
longed, were eager for the distinction, which would 
have cost a million francs. The Pope, when he came 
to Paris, spontaneously offered this compliment, 
which Napoleon was inclined to accept, as it would, 
he thought, conciliate the priesthood. But it was 
finally decided that it might afford matter for ridi- 
cule, so dangerous anywhere, so fatal in France. 

Napoleon seems to have no family secrets from his 
companions. His father died at Montpellier at the 
age of thirty-five, he says at one time, thirty-nine at 
another. Fie had been a man of pleasure all his life, 
extravagant, "wishing to play the great noble," but 
at the last he could not have enough monks and 
priests round him, so that at Montpellier they con- 
sidered him a saint. Napoleon's great -uncle, to 
some extent, restored the family fortunes, and died 
wealthy, so much so that Pauline thought it worth 
while to steal the purse from under his pillow as he 
was dying. The Emperor discusses quite calmly a 
common report that Paoli was his father, but gives 
a conclusive, but not very refined or decorous, rea- 
son for disbelieving it. Still Paoli took a semi-pa- 
ternal interest in him. "You, Bonaparte, are all 
Plutarch, you have nothing modern about you," the 
general said to him. And of him to others : " That 
young man bears the head of Caesar on the body of 
Alexander: there is the stuff of ten Scyllas in him." 
Both his father and mother were very handsome. 
She, during her pregnancy, followed the army of 
independence. The French generals took pity on 

201 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

her, and allowed her to come to her own house for her 
confinement. She availed herself of the permission, 
and was delivered of Napoleon. " So that I can say 
I was conceived when Corsica was independent, and 
born when Corsica was French." This last point 
was, of course, capital for him and for his dynasty. 

Here perhaps may be noted the singular connec- 
tion of Napoleon with Corsica. He was born there. 
He lived there till he was nine. With the first free- 
dom of manhood he returns there. Of the period be- 
tween January i, 1786, and June, 1793, he spends 
more than three years and two months in Corsica. 
Then he drifts away, never to see the island again, 
except for a moment on his return from Eg3"pt, and 
in outline from Elba. Nevertheless, Corsica follows 
him and profoundly influences his career. During 
his early j^ears on the island he had contracted a 
life-long feud, after the Corsican fashion, with Pozzo 
di Borgo. That vendetta was fateful, if not mortal. 
For to Pozzo di Borgo, more than to any other single 
man, is due the first overthrow of Napoleon. 

After her flight from Corsica and her arrival at 
Marseilles, the Emperor's mother was once more, he 
tells us, in a desperate plight. She and her daugh- 
ters had not a farthing to live upon. He himself was 
reduced to an assignat of five francs, and was on the 
verge of suicide, being indeed on the brink of the 
Seine for that purpose, when a friend lent him money 
and saved him. His mother had thirteen children, 
of whom he was the third. C'est une maitresse 
femme. 

He receives a letter from his mother, and, though 
he tore it up, is sufficiently moved by it to quote it 
to his companions. Its tenderness, indeed, might 

202 



CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 

well affect a son; for she wishes, old and blind as 
she is, to come to St. Helena. "I am very old," 
she writes, "to make a journey of tliree thousand 
leagues. I should die perhaps on the way, but, 
never mind, I should die nearer you." His nurse, 
who long survived him, and whom he remembered 
affectionately in his will, came to Paris for the coro- 
nation, where the Pope took so much notice of her 
that his mother was almost jealous. His foster- 
brother, her son, became captain of a vessel in the 
British navy. 

Even of his wives he is not chary of talking, nor 
is he sparing of the most intimate details about both. 
He wonders if he ever really loved anybody. If so, 
it w^s Josephine — a little. She indeed almost al- 
ways lied, but always cleverly, except with regard to 
her age. As to that she got into such a tangle that 
her statements could only be reconciled on the hy- 
pothesis that Eugene was twelve years old when he 
was born. She never asked anj^hing for herself or 
her children, but made mountains of debt. Her 
greatest defect was a vigilant and constant jealousy. 
However, she was not jealous of Marie Louise, though 
the latter was extremely susceptible as to her prede- 
cessor. When the Emperor tried to take his second 
wife to see his first, the former burst into tears, and 
she endeavored by every possible ruse and device to 
prevent his going there. 

Marie Louise, he declares, was innocence itself and 
really loved him. Had she not been influenced by 
that wretch (canaille) Mme. de Montebello, and by 
Corvisart. who was a scoundrel (miserable), she, 
too, would have followed him to Elba. " And then 
her father has placed that polisson Neipperg by 

203 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

her side." This is perhaps the only avowal which 
we have from Napoleon, who kept up appearances 
gallantly to the last, that he was aware of his wife's 
infidelity; though Lavallette informed him of it 
during the Hundred Days, and his suite were all gos- 
siping about the scandal. Still he always praises 
Marie Louise and gives, in sum, the following ac- 
count of her. She was never at ease with the French, 
remembering they had killed her aunt Marie An- 
toinette. She was always truthful and discreet, and 
courteous to all, even those whom she most detested. 
She was cleverer than her father, whom alone of her 
family she loved : she could not bear her stepmother. 
Different in this from Josephine, she was delighted 
when she received ten thousand francs to spend. 
One could have trusted her with any secret, and she 
had been enjoined at Vienna to obey Napoleon in 
everything. She was a charming child, a good 
woman, and had saved his life. And yet, all said 
and done, he loved Josephine better. Josephine was 
a true woman, she was his choice, they had risen 
together. He loved her person, her grace. "She 
would have followed me to Elba," he says, with 
oblique reproach. Had she had a child of his, he 
would never have left her. It would have been better 
so for her, and for France. For it was Austria that 
lost him. But for the Austrian marriage, he would 
never have made war on Russia. He declares that 
he has made up his mind, should Marie Louise die, 
not to marry again. Considering the circumstances 
in which he was placed, and the area of choice pre- 
sented to him at St. Helena, there is something half 
comic, half tragic, in the declaration. 

To his little son he makes one bitter allusion, 

204 



CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 

Gourgaud, on the 15th of August, the imperial fes- 
tival, presents the Emperor with a bouquet as if from 
the King of Rome. " Bah! " says Napoleon rudely, 
"the King of Rome thinks no more of me than he 
does of you." But that his thoughts were always 
with the boy his will and, indeed, his conversations 
sufficiently prove. It was his intention, he says, to 
have given the Kingdom of all Italy, with Rome as 
the capital, to his second son, had he had one. 

Caroline, who married Murat, was considered, he 
tells us, in childhood to be the dunce and Cinderella 
of the family. But she developed favorably, and be- 
came a capable and handsome woman. He cannot, 
however, disguise his fury with her second marriage. 
He can scarcely believe it — after twenty years of 
marriage, within fifteen months of the violent death 
of her husband, with children grown up, that she 
should marry again, publicly, and where, of all 
places? — at Vienna. If the news be true, it will have 
astonished him more than anything that ever hap- 
pened. Human nature is indeed strange. And then 
explodes his inmost thought: "Ah! la coquine, la 
coquine, V amour la toujours conduite." 

We have seen that he considered Louis XIV. the 
greatest of French sovereigns, and this news of Caro- 
line's marriage produces the strangest of analogies 
between them. Readers of St. Simon will recollect 
the vivid description he gives of the day when Louis 
XIV. received the tidings that his cherished son, the 
Due du Maine, had, on a signal occasion, behaved 
with something less than conspicuous courage. 
How the King, then at Marly, perceives a scullion 
pocketing a biscuit : how his suppressed fury breaks 
out and wreaks itself on the relatively innocent ob- 

205 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

ject : how he rushes up before the astonished court 
and breaks his stick on the servant's back : how the 
man flies, and the King stands swearing at him, and 
impotently brandishing the stump of his cane. The 
courtiers cannot beheve their eyes, and the King re- 
tires to conceal his agitation. So, on hearing of 
CaroHne's nuptials, Napoleon sits down to dinner 
bursting with uncontrollable wrath. He declares that 
the pastry is gritty, and his anger, expending itself 
on the cook, passes all restraint. Rarely, says Gour- 
gaud — never, says Montholon — has the Emperor been 
seen in such a rage. He orders that the man shall 
be beaten and dismissed. The scene is grotesque 
and painful enough, but it is Caroline, not the cook, 
that is the cause. 

It was not, we may surmise, his sister's marriage 
alone that provoked this explosion. The news had 
probably brought back to him that day, in 1814, when 
he received the news that Murat had betrayed him 
and turned his arms against France. The Em- 
peror's feeling for Murat then was a bitter contempt 
for the "barber," as he called him, whom he had 
raised to be a king. His anger he reserved for his 
sister, who, as he knew, governed and directed her 
husband. His language about her, too, was such, 
as reported by Barras (who is, however, a question- 
able witness in matters relating to Napoleon), that a 
French editor, by no means squeamish, is unable to 
print it. In any case, whether indelicate or not, we 
may be sure that it was forcible, and that on this day 
of petulance the misalliance of Caroline brought to 
his mind a darker tragedy and a direr wrath. 

Of his brothers he says little that is worth record- 
ing, in view of other and fuller revelations elsewhere. 

206 



CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 

He declares compendiously that they have done him 
much harm. He made a great mistake, he says, 
in making Joseph a king, especially in Spain, where 
a firm and military sovereign was required — whereas 
Joseph thought of nothing but gallantry at Madrid. 
Joseph, in his great brother's opinion, was not a sol- 
dier, though he fancied himself one, nor was he even 
brave. It may here be mentioned that as Napoleon's 
appearance deteriorated at St. Helena it strikingly 
resembled that of Joseph. Las Cases declares that 
on at least one occasion he could have sworn that 
it was Joseph and not Napoleon whom he saw. With 
regard to Louis and Lucien, their mania for publish- 
ing indifferent verses, and dedicating them to the 
Pope, is a constant perplexity to him. Of both poet- 
asters he remarks at different times : " // faut avoir 
le diable au corps." Lucien, says Napoleon, wished, 
after Brumaire, to marry the Queen of Etruria, and 
threatened if this were refused to marry a woman of 
bad character — a menace which he carried out. He 
was, in his brother's judgment, useless during the 
Hundred Days ; but aspired after Waterloo to the dic- 
tatorship. He pointed out that his relations to the 
Republican party would make him acceptable to 
them, and that he would give the military command 
to the Emperor. Napoleon, without answering this 
strange rhapsody, turned to Carnot, who declared 
unhesitatingly that he could speak on behalf of the 
Republicans, not one of whom would prefer Lucien's 
dictatorship to the Emperor's. Eliza, the member of 
his family who most resembled him in character and 
talents, and whom, perhaps for that reason, he dis- 
liked, he scarcely mentions; nor does he say much 
of the exquisite and voluptuous Pauline. And in- 

207 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE ' 

i 

deed from the world at large the fainilj^ has scarcelj' 
received sufiicient attention. For it was an aston- ] 
ishing race. Born and reared in povert3' and ob- i 
sciirit^^ it assumed a divine right with eas}^ grace, f 
No Bourbons or Hapsburgs were so imbued with , 
their ro3"al prerogatives as these princes of an hour. 
Joseph believed firmly- that he would easil}^ have i 
established himself as King of Spain if Napoleon * 
would only have withdrawn his troops. Louis had | 
the same conviction with regard to Holland. Mu- I 
rat and Caroline were not less fatuous at Naples. \ 
Jerome promptlj' established the state and etiquette ,! 
of a pettj^ Louis XIV. Not less remarkable was j 
their tenacity of character. An unfriendl}'' com- ,j 
mentator is forced to admit that their qualities or 
defects were all out of the common. The women 
even approached greatness. Caroline and Eliza i 
had striking qualities. And all, brothers and sisters, ' 
had something of the inflexibilit}^ of their mighty 
head, and the fullest possible measure of his self- 
confidence. Thej" frequentlj^ defied him. Some i 
did not scruple to abandon him. The two governing 1 
sisters tried to cut themselves adrift from his fortunes, 
and make terms as independent sovereigns with the [ 
enenty. Lucien believed that he could more than | 
fill the place of Napoleon. In this astounding race, 
says Pasquier, the most binding engagements and 
the most sacred affections melted away at the first 
aspect of a political combination, ! 
His confidences do not end with his family, for he : 
likes to talk of his loves. He has had, as he counts I 
on his fingers, seven mistresses in his life: C'est j 
beaiicoup. But, after all, it is not much when we i 
remember that a learned and competent historian 

208 



CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 

is devoting three thick volumes to this side of Na- 
poleon's character. Of the most famous. Mme. 
Walewska, to whom at one time he seems to have 
been sincerely attached (though he thought all Po- 
lish women addicted to intrigue), he speaks with 
great detachment. She was obtained for him, he 
declares, by Talleyrand. He avers to Gourgaud, 
when vexed with the general, that when they started 
for St. Helena he would have given her to Gourgaud 
as a wife, but not now, such was the change of his 
sentiments. He hears with complacency that she 
has married M. d'Ornano. "She is rich and must 
have saved, and I settled a great deal on the two chil- 
dren." "Your Majesty," says the tactless ecjuer- 
ry, "paid Mme. Walewska ten thousand francs a 
month." The Emperor blushes, and asks him how 
he knows this. "Lord!" says Gourgaud, "as if I 
were not too close to Your Majesty not to know that 
sort of thing: your household knew ever3'thing." 
On another occasion Napoleon declares that one of 
his main grievances against Murat was that King 
Joachim had sequestrated, in 1814, the Neapolitan 
estates of Mme. Walewska. 

He speaks with candor of his relations with Mile. 
Georges and Mme. Grassini, with Mme. Duchatel, 
Mme. Gallieno, and a Alme. Pellaprat. Of another 
lady, whose name Gourgaud does not record, but 
who is sufficiently described to be recognized as 
Mme. Foures, he vSays, "She was seventeen, and I 
was commander-in-chief!" He was supposed when 
Emperor to disdain female society: he admits the 
fact and explains it. He declares that he was nat- 
urally susceptible, and feared to be dominated by 
women. Consequently he had avoided them, but 
O 209 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

in this, he confesses, he made a great blunder. 
Were he again on the throne he should make a 
point of spending two hours a day in conversation 
with ladies, from whom he should learn much. 
He had endeavored during the Hundred Days, in- 
deed, to repair the fault of his former indifference. 
But whatever he may have been in France, he is 
diffuse on this topic at St. Helena. When he finds 
himself engaged in a gloomy retrospect, he turns 
the conversation by saying, "Let us talk about 
women," and then, like a good Frenchman, he dis- 
cusses the subject with a zest worthy of Henry the 
Fourth. During one dinner, for example, the con- 
versation turns entirely on the question w^hether fat 
women are more admirable than thin. He discourses 
on his preference for fair women over dark. Time 
has to be killed. 

Naturally, he likes most to talk of his battles — of 
which he counts no less than sixty — and speaks of 
them with simple candor. "War," he says, "is a 
strange art. I have fought sixty battles, and I as- 
sure you that I have learned nothing from all of 
them that I did not know in the first. Look at Caesar ; 
he fights in the first battle as in the last." 

He takes full responsibility for the Russian cam- 
paign. "I was master; all blame rests on me" 
(though he cannot bring himself to make the same 
admission with regard to Waterloo). When he knew 
at Dresden that he would not have the support of 
Sweden or Turkey, he should not have proceeded 
with the expedition. But even then, had he not re- 
mained in Moscow, he would have been successful. 
That was his great fault. "I ought to have only 
remained there a fortnight. After arriving there I 

210 



CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 

should have crushed what remained of Kutusow's 
army, marched on Malo -Jaroslavetz, Toula, and 
Kaluga, proposing to the Russians to retire without 
destroying anything." 

He constantly repeats that his marriage with 
Marie Louise was the cause of the war with Russia, 
for it made him feel sure of the support of Austria. 
Prussia, too, was, as usual, he says, pining for ag- 
grandizement, and so he reckoned with confidence 
on these two powers, though he had no other allies. 
But " I was in too great a hurry. I should have re- 
mained a year on the Niemen and in Prussia, and 
then devoured Prussia." It is strange, indeed, to ob- 
serve how heartily, as if by a foreboding, he hates 
Prussia. He bitterly regrets that at Tilsit he did 
not dispose of the King and proclaim that the house 
of Hohenzollern had ceased to reign. He is confi- 
dent that Alexander would not have opposed such a 
course, provided Napoleon did not himself annex the 
kingdom. A petty Hohenzollern prince on his staff 
had, he tells us, asked for the Prussian throne, and 
Napoleon would have been disposed to give it him 
had he been descended from the great Frederick (who, 
by-the-bye, was childless). But his family was a 
branch which had separated three centuries ago 
from the royal stock. And then, says the Emperor, 
with less verisimilitude, I was overpersuaded by the 
King of Prussia. 

He made, he admits, a fatal mistake in not send- 
ing Ferdinand back to Spain after the Russian cam- 
paign, for that would have restored to him one hun- 
dred and eighty thousand good soldiers. The Span- 
ish blunder began, he confesses, from his having 
said to himself, on watching the quarrels of the 

211 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

Spanish Bourbons: "Let us get rid of them, and 
there will be no more Bourbons left. " He apparently 
counted the Sicilian Bourbons for nothing. 

Still it is to Austria, in his judgment, that he owes 
his fall. Without Essling he would have destroyed 
the Austrian monarchy, but Essling cost him too 
dear Austria is, he thinks, the real enemy of France, 
and he regrets having spared her. At one moment 
he had thoughts of causing a revolution there; at 
another, of carving her into three kingdoms — Aus- 
tria, Hungary, and Bohemia. 

What, does he think, was his most brilliant vic- 
tory? Austerlitz? Perhaps, he answers. But he 
has a leaning for Borodino; it was superb; it was 
fought so far from home. At Austerlitz was the 
best army, and at Wagram the largest army, that he 
had ever commanded in battle. After Austerlitz the 
quality of his army declined. He recurs with con- 
stant pride to the strategy of Eckmiihl : " that superb 
manoeuvre, the finest that I ever executed," where, 
with fifty thousand men, he defeated a hundred and 
twenty thousand. Had he slept the previous night, 
he could never have won that victory. As it was, he 
had to kick Lannes awake. A commander-in-chief 
should never sleep; it is then that he should work. 
That is why he used a carriage to avoid unnecessary 
fatigue in the day-time. Joseph lost the battle of 
Vittoria by his somnolence. 

A great general, he says, is rarely found. Of all 
the generals produced by the Revolution, Desaix 
and Hoche are the only ones, he thinks, who had the 
makings of one. The campaign of Dumouriez in 
Champagne was extremely fine and bold : he was 
the only man produced out of the nobility. Kleber, 

212 



CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 

says Napoleon, oddly enough, had the qualities and 
defects of a tall man. Turenne is the greatest of 
French generals; he is the only one who became 
bolder with old age. " He does exactly what I should 
have done in his place. . . . Had he come to me at 
Wagram, he would at once have understood the 
position. So would Conde, but not Caesar or Han- 
nibal. Had I had a man like Turenne to second me 
in my campaigns, I should have been master of the 
world ; but I had nobody. When I was absent my 
lieutenants were always beaten. . . . Conde was 
a general by intuition, Turenne by experience. I 
think much more highly of Turenne than of Fred- 
erick. In the place of that sovereign he would have 
done much more, and would not have committed 
Frederick's mistakes. Frederick, indeed, did not 
thoroughly understand artillery." 

" I count mj^self for half in the battles I have won, 
and it is much even to name the general in connection 
with a victory, for it is, after all, the army that wins 
it." And yet he sets great store by officers. "A 
perfect army," he says, on another occasion, "would 
be that in which each officer knew what to do accord- 
ing to circumstances; the best army is that which 
is nearest to this." 

In his judgment of hostile generals, when in ac- 
tive life, he had been politic. A trustworthy as- 
sociate of his in those days records that Napoleon 
often said that Alvinzy was the best general that 
he had ever had opposed to him in Italy, and for that 
reason he had never mentioned Alvinzy in his bul- 
letins, whereas he constantly commended Beaulieu, 
Wiirmser, or the Archduke Charles, whom he did 
not fear. It seems probable that he afterwards en- 

213 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

tertained a higher opinion of the archduke. He 
dechned, as we have seen, to confide his opinion 
of Welhngton to Warden, and at St. Helena he could 
not be fair to the duke. But, when on the throne, 
he had coupled Wellington's name with his own in a 
strange connection. It was because Wellington had 
devastated the country in his retreat on Lisbon. 
"Only Wellington and I are capable of executing 
such measures.'' And he adds, with perversity, that 
he regards the ravaging of the Palatinate as the 
greatest act of Louvois. 

He regretted Elba. "This day year I was at El- 
ba/' he says, gloomily. Had the stipulated income 
been paid, he would have kept open house for the 
learned men of Europe, for whom he would have 
formed a centre. He would have built a palace 
for them, and led a country-house life surrounded 
by men of mark. He would, too, have enriched the 
island by throwing open its little ports. Lucien, 
who seems not to have thoroughly understood his 
brother, wished to have the minerals of the island 
for nothing. 

But Bertrand confided to Gourgaud that St. He- 
lena was better than Elba; that, at any rate, they 
were more unhappy at Elba. It was terrible to leave 
the most splendid throne in the world for a tiny island 
where one was not even sure of a good reception; 
and for four months they were deeply depressed. 
Here the greatness of the fall was less sensible ; they 
had become accustomed to it. Napoleon on this 
point declared conflicting opinions. Sometimes he 
regrets Elba: often he abuses St. Helena, but on 
one occasion he launches into praise of it, at any 
rate as a residence for his suite. " We are very happy 

214 



CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 

here ; we can ride, we have a good table, we can go 
away whenever we hke, we are well received every- 
where, and covered with glory," records the unhappy 
Gourgaud, at whom this discourse was aimed. 

In speaking of Elba, the Emperor gives one cu- 
rious detail. When he left Fontainebleau, in 1814, 
he had little hope of returning. The first hope that 
he conceived arose from his perceiving that no of- 
ficers' wives were invited to the banquets at the 
Hotel de Ville. 

One of his favorite topics, in treating which he re- 
veals the practical character of his mind, is that of 
private budgets. He is always discussing them. At 
one time it s the budget of a man of two hundred 
thousand francs a year. The imaginary person is 
French, of course; for a Dutchman, he declares, in 
a tone of approbation, would with such an income 
only spend thirty thousand francs a year. Another 
time he reckons up the expenditure of a man with 
five hundred thousand francs a year. This is the 
fortune he would himself prefer ; to live in the country 
with five hundred thousand or six hundred thousand 
francs a year, and with a little house in Paris like 
the one that he had in the Rue Chantereine. But 
he could live very comfortably on twelve francs a day. 
He would dine for thirty sous; he would frequent 
reading-rooms and libraries, and go to the play in the 
pit. His room would cost him a louis a month. But 
suddenly he remembers that he must have a servant, 
for he can no longer dress himself, and so he raises 
his figure and says that one could be very happy 
with twenty francs a day — it is only a question of 
limiting one's wants. He would amuse himself 
greatly, living only with people of a similar fortune. 

215 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

The most comical result of this habit, or game of cal- 
culation, appears when he re-reads Clarissa Harlowe. 
He cannot wade through it, though he devoured it at 
eighteen, and so forth. But what really perplexes 
him is the personal expenditure of Lovelace. "He 
has only two thousand a year : I made out his budget 
at once." 

In the same practical spirit of detail, when waiting 
for a moment in Montholon's sitting-room, he hastily 
values the furniture piece by piece, and appraises it 
at thirty napoleons at most. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE SUPREME REGRETS 

He seems to concentrate the main regrets of his 
soHtude on three capital points : that he could not 
have died at some supreme moment of his career; 
that he left Egypt and gave up his Eastern ambi- 
tions; and, of course, Waterloo. As to the first, he 
discusses the right moment with his suite. "For 
the sake of history, I should have died at Moscow, 
Dresden, or Waterloo. '' Again : " I should have died 
after my entry into Moscow ; " or " I should have died 
at La Moskowa." Gourgaud thinks either Moscow 
or Waterloo, and only leans to the latter date as in- 
cluding the return from Elba. Las Cases protests 
against Moscow, as omitting so much. 

On another occasion Napoleon again leans to Mos- 
cow. Had a cannon-ball from the Kremlin killed 
him, his greatness would have endured, because his 
institutions and his dynasty would, he declares, have 
survived in France. As it is, he will be almost noth- 
ing to posterity, unless his son should come to mount 
the throne. "Had I died at Moscow," he says on 
another occasion, "I should have left behind me a 
reputation as a conqueror without a parallel in his- 
tory. A ball ought to have put an end to me there." 

Again: "To die at Borodino would have been to 
die like Alexander; to be killed at Waterloo woulcj 

^17 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

have been a good death; perhaps Dresden would 
have been better ; but, no, better at Waterloo. The 
love of the people, their regret." 

The greatest moment in his life, he thinks, was his 
stay at Dresden in 1812, when every sovereign in 
Europe, except the Sultan, the Russian Emperor, and 
the King of Great Britain, was at his feet. What was 
his happiest? To O'Meara he says the march from " 
Cannes to Paris. But on another occasion he asks 
his suite to guess. Gourgaud guesses the occasion 
of his (second) marriage. Mme. Montholon thinks 
his nomination as First Consul. Bertrand, the birth 
of the King of Rome. Napoleon answers: "Yes, 
I was happy as First Consul, at the marriage, at 
the birth of the King of Rome, mais alors je n'etais 
pas assez d' aplomb. Perhaps it was at Tilsit: I 
had gone through vicissitudes and anxieties, at 
Eylau among others, and I had come out victorious, 
with emperors and kings paying court to me. Per- 
haps I was happiest after my victories in Italy : what 
enthusiasm, what cries of 'Long live the Liberator 
of Italy ' — and all at twenty-five. From that time I 
saw what I might become. I already saw the world 
beneath me, as if I were being carried through the 
air." 

Then he is sorry that he ever left Egypt. He re- 
grets the career that Asia offered to him; he would 
rather have been Emperor of the East than Emperor 
of the West, for in the former case he would have 
been still on the throne. His later dreams, as well 
as his earlier, turn to the Orient. At the first glimpse 
of St. Helena from the ship he says, criticising the 
aspect of the place, that he should have done better 
to remain in Egypt, for he would now be Emperor of 

218 



THE SUPREME REGRETS 

the entire East. That empire, he declares, would 
have suited him; for the desert had always had a 
particular attraction for him, and his own name Na- 
poleon means, he saj^s, "lion of the desert." "Ara- 
bia awaits a man. With the French in reserve, and 
the Arabs as auxiliaries, I should have seized Judea ; 
I should have been master of the East.'' "Had I 
taken Acre, I should have gone to India. I should 
have assumed the turban at Aleppo, and have headed 
an army of two hundred thousand men. The East," 
he goes on repeating, "only awaits a man." "Had 
I," he says another time, "been able to make allies 
of the Mamelukes, I should have been master of the 
East. Arabia awaits a man. " 

It was not, however, because of Arabia or Judea 
that Napoleon regretted Eg3^pt. He reveals his se- 
cret aim in a laconic sentence. "France, mistress of 
Egypt, would be mistress of India." And again: 
" The master of Egypt is the master of India." And 
again: "Egypt once in possession of the French, 
farewell India to the British. This was one of the 
grand projects I aimed at." He would have con- 
structed two canals — one from the Red Sea to the 
Nile at Cairo, the other from the Red Sea to the Med- 
iterranean. He would have extended the dominion 
of Egypt to the south, and would have enlisted the 
blacks of Sennaar and Darfur. With sixty or seven- 
ty thousand of these, and thirty thousand picked 
Frenchmen, he would have marched in three col- 
umns on the Euphrates, and, after making a long 
halt there, would have proceeded to conquer India. 
On arriving in India, he would have allied himself 
with the Mahrattas, and had hopes, apparently, of 
seducing the sepoy troops. The British, he declares, 

219 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 



were much afraid of this scheme of his. " Gorgotto, '< 
I have been reading three volumes on India. What 
rascals the English are! If I had been able to get | 
to India from Egypt with the nucleus of an army, I < 
should have driven them from India. The East only 
wants a man. The master of Egypt is the master of I 
India. But now we shall see what will come to them 'i 
from Russia. The Russians, already in Persia, have I 
not far to go to reach India." And then he repeats | 
his constant preoccupation. "Russia is the power f 
that marches the most surely, and with the greatest | 
strides, towards universal dominion, ... for now ] 
there is no France and, therefore, no equilibrium." * 
He had been, in effect. Emperor of the West, and ] 
Montholon tells Gourgaud that, from his instructions | 
as ambassador, he inferred that Napoleon meant to 'i 
be crowned by that title. The Confederation of the ; 
Rhine was being influenced in this direction, and at j 
Erfurt, it is said, the matter would have been settled, ; 
had not Alexander demanded Constantinople as a i 
counterbalance. At St. Helena, however, his re- j 
grets are not for that position, but for the empire of ' 
the East. And the reason is twofold: as ruler of i 
the East he would have struck a great blow at the [ 
British, and would have emulated Alexander the ; 
Great. For here let us note that his real hero and i 
model is Alexander. It is not merely his campaigns j 
that Napoleon admires, for these one cannot, he says, : 
well conceive, but his statesmanship. In his thirty- , 
fourth year he leaves an immense and well-estab- ! 
lished empire. He had, too, the art of making friends j 
of the peoples that he conquered. It was a great act i 
of policy to go to the temple of Ammon, for it was ; 
thus that he conquered Egypt. "So I, had I re- ' 

220 



THE SUPREME REGRETS 

mained in Egypt, should probably have founded an 
empire like Alexander, by going on a pilgrimage to 
Mecca." Even as he leaves France in the Bellero- 
phon he says to Captain Maitland : " Had it not been 
for you English I should have been Emperor of the 
East; but wherever there is water to float a ship, w^e 
are sure to find you in our way." 

Nor did his admiration for Alexander the Great, 
his passion for the East, his aims on India, ever for- 
sake him, until he had lost his empire on the plains 
of Russia and Germany. Not long before he passed 
the Niemen, in the midst of a conversation with Nar- 
bonne, he broke off, with a sudden flash in his eyes : 
"After all," he exclaimed, as if under the inspiration 
of a vision, "this long journey is the way to India. 
Alexander had to make as long a march as that 
from Moscow to India in order to gain the Ganges. 
I have always said so to myself since the siege of 
Acre. Without the English filibuster and the French 
emigrant who directed the Turkish artillery, and 
who, with the plague, made me raise the siege, I 
would have conquered half Asia, and come back 
upon Europe to seek the thrones of France and Italy. 
I must now do just the reverse, and from the extrem- 
ity of Europe invade Asia in order to attack Eng- 
land. You are aware of the missions of Gardanne 
and Jaubert to Persia; there has been no outward 
result ; but I have all the maps and statistics of pop- 
ulation for a march from Erivan and Tiflis to India. 
That would be a campaign less formidable, perhaps, 
than that which awaits us in the next three months. 
. , . Suppose Moscow taken, Russia crushed, the 
Czar reconciled or assassinated in some palace plot, 
succeeded, perhaps, by a new and dependent dynasty. 

221 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

Would it not then be possible for a great French army, 
with auxiliaries from Tiflis, to attain the Ganges? 
Once touched by a French sword, the scaffolding of 
mercantile power in India would fall to the ground. 
It would be a gigantic expedition, I admit, but prac- 
ticable in this nineteenth century." Who will main- 
tain, who reads this, that absolute powder had not had 
its usual effect, and that Napoleon had preserved, 
in 1812, the balance and sanity of his judgment? 

The third great subject of regret is, of course, Wa- 
terloo, over which we sometimes seem to hear him 
gnash his teeth. "Ah! if it were to begin again!" 
he exclaims. He cannot understand how he lost it. 
Perhaps the rain of the 17th? Had he had Suchet 
at the head of Grouchy's army, had he had Andre- f 
ossi in Soult's place, could Bessieres or Lannes have ] 
commanded the Guard, had he given the command ' 
of the Guard to Lobau, had Murat headed the caval- f 
ry, had Clausel or Lamarque been at the War Office, ' 
all might have been different. Should he have waited ) 
a fortnight longer? He would then have had the . 
twelve thousand men employed in La Vendee. But ,1 
who could tell that La Vendee would be so soon paci- t 
fied? Should he have attacked at all? Should he | 
not have concentrated all his troops under Paris, and j 
awaited events? Perhaps then the allies would not j 
have attacked him. It is noteworthy, he says, that \ 
all their proclamations are dated after Waterloo. He j 
should not, he thinks, have employed Ney or Van- j 
damme. More than once he says he lost it because 
of the fault of an officer who gave Guyot the order to | 
charge with the Horse Grenadiers, for had they been \ 
kept in reserve they would have retrieved the day ; but 
Montholon declares that there is no doubt that the Em- ; 

222 ! 



THE SUPREME REGRETS 

peror gave the order himself. He had not been able 
to see the battle well. But the men of 1815 were not 
the men of 1792; the generals had become timid. 
He is too apt, indeed, to blame his generals, such as 
Ney and Vandamme. Gourgaud begs him to be 
more lenient; he replies, " One must speak the truth." 
He goes so far as to declare that the whole glory of 
the victory belongs to the Prince of Orange. Without 
him the British army would have been annihilated, 
and Blucher hurled back beyond the Rhine. This is 
a good instance of his occasional petulance. He ex- 
hausts himself in reasons for his defeat, but begins 
at last to perceive that some part of the result may 
have been due to the character of the enemy. "The 
English won by the excellence of their discipline," 
he admits; then wanders on to other reasons. But 
this may be taken to be his summing up : "It was a 
fatality, for, in spite of all, I should have won that 
battle. . . . Poor France, to be beaten by those 
scoundrels ! But 'tis true there had already been 
Cressy and Agincourt." A thought w^hich, as we 
have seen, had long been present to his mind. 

Then, what should he have done after Waterloo? 
There is only one point on which he is always clear 
and constant — that he should have had Fouche 
hanged or shot at once. He had the military com- 
mission all ready to try him; it was that which had 
tried the Due d'Enghien, men who ran the danger of 
being hanged themselves. But beyond that it is all 
darkness. Sometimes he thinks he should have shot 
Soult, but when, or why, does not clearly appear. He 
w^ould, he says at other times, have beheaded Lafay- 
ette, Lajuinais, and a dozen, sometimes even a hun- 
dred, others. Gourgaud and he often discuss this 

223 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

interesting point. On one occasion Napoleon alludes 
to the plan of convoking at the Tuileries the council 
of state, the six thousand men of the Imperial 
Guard in Paris, the faithful part of the National 
Guard, and the federes, haranguing them, and 
marching on the Chambers, which he would have 
adjourned or dissolved. He thinks he could thus 
have gained a respite of a fortnight, in which he 
would have fortified the right bank of the Seine and 
collected one hundred thousand men. Gourgaud 
gloomily replies that in the state of public opinion 
this would not have been practicable, and hints 
at a "Decius," who with a pistol shot would have 
killed the Emperor. Las Cases also felt that this 
course would have been futile, and have damned 
the Emperor in history. Gourgaud's own plan was 
different. He thinks that the Emperor should have 
gone straight from Waterloo to the Chambers, ex- 
horted them to union, and made them feel that all de- 
pended on it. In reply. Napoleon thinks aloud. He 
had been three days without eating, and he was worn 
out. Had he gone to the Chambers, it would have 
been no use simply to harangue ; he must have gone 
like a Cromwell, and thrown a certain number of 
deputies into the river. By this he means, as he ex- 
plains more in detail, that he would have demanded 
the purification of the Chamber, and have hanged 
seven or eight deputies, with Fouche, of course, at 
their head. But to do this he must have thrown him- 
self into the arms of the Jacobins : it would have been 
anarchy. Putting that on one side, he doubted of 
success; he would have disappeared in bloodshed 
and abhorrence. Another time he says, frankly, he 
had not the courage to do it. Could one at such a 

224 



THE SUPREME REGRETS 

moment revolutionize the populace and raise the guil- 
lotine? In 1793 it was the only way, but not then. 
And, indeed, he would not have succeeded, for he had 
too many enemies — it would have been a horrible risk, 
much blood, and little result. He preferred, there- 
fore, to abdicate in favor of his son, and make it clear 
to the nation that the allies were the enemies, not of 
himself alone, but of France. So he said to the 
Chambers: "Well, gentlemen, you think me an ob- 
stacle to peace? Very well, then, get out of the 
scrape without me." 

Gougaud is not satisfied; he presses the Emperor, 
and says that his mere presence would have electri- 
fied the deputies, and so forth. 

Napoleon replies, with a sepulchral truth, " Ah ! 
tnon cher, j'etais battu." " As long as I was feared," 
he continues, "great was the awe I inspired; but not 
having the rights of legitimate sovereignty, when I 
had to ask for help, when, in short, I was defeated, 
I had nothing to hope. No. I only reproach myself 
for not having put an end to Fouche, and he but 
just escaped." Then he returns again. "Yes, I 
ought to have gone to the Chambers, but I was tired 
out, and I could not anticipate that they would turn 
against me so quickly, for I arrived at eight o'clock, 
and at noon they were in insurrection ; they took me 
by surprise." He passes his hand over his face, and 
continues in a hollow voice : " After all, I am only a 
man. But I ought to have put myself at the head of 
the army, which was in favor of my son, and, what- 
ever happened, it would have been better than St. 
Helena. 

"Then again, the allies would have declared that 
they were only warring against me, and the army 
P 225 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

would have come to believe it. History will perhaps 
reproach me for having succumbed too easily. There 
was a little pique on my part. I offered at Malmaison 
to place myself once more at the head of the army, 
but the government would not have it, so I left them 
to themselves. 

" The fact is that I came back too soon from Elba, 
but I thought the Congress was dissolved. No doubt 
I ought to have declared myself dictator, or have 
formed a council of dictatorship under Carnot, and 
not to have called the Chambers together ; but I hoped 
that the allies would feel confidence in me when they 
heard of my convoking a parliament; and that the 
Chambers would give me resources that, as dictator, 
I could not obtain. But they did nothing for me; 
they were injurious before Waterloo, and abandoned 
me after it. In any case, it was a mistake to trouble 
myself about a constitution, as, had I been victorious, 
I should soon have sent the Chambers to the right- 
about. I was wrong, too, to quarrel with Talley- 
rand. But this sort of talk puts me out of temper. 
Let us go into the drawing-room and talk of our early 
loves." 



CHAPTER XV 

NAPOLEON AND THE DEMOCRACY 

One point is clear in all these discussions on Water- 
loo and its sequel : so clear, and yet so unnoticed, that 
it seems worth a short digression. Whatever Na- 
poleon may occasionally say in retrospect, with 
regard to placing himself at the head of a popular 
and revolutionary movement after Waterloo, we are 
convinced that he was only deluding himself, or toy- 
ing with his audience. "The recollections of my 
youth deterred me," he said with truth at St. Helena. 
He had seen too much of the Revolution to face 
any such contingency. He had been the friend of 
Robespierre, or rather of Robespierre's brother, but 
after having reigned over France as a sovereign he 
entertained, it is clear, the profoundest repugnance 
to anything resembling revolution, or even disorder. 
No eye-witness of the Terror was affected by a more 
profound reaction than Napoleon. It had left him 
with a horror for excess, and a passion for order. 
He could have uttered with absolute truth the proud 
words which his dynastic successor uttered with 
more imperfect fulfilment: "Pour I'ordre, j'en re- 
ponds." 

This was no secret to his intimates. He feared 
the people, said Chaptal ; the least discontent or dis- 
turbance, the slightest rising affected him more than 

227 



NAI^OLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

the loss of a battle. He was perpetually vigilant on 
this point. He would send for his ministers and 
say that there was not enough work, that the artisans 
would lend an ear to agitators, and that he feared an 
insurrection from loss of bread more than a battle 
against two hundred thousand men. He would then 
order stuffs and furniture, and he would advance 
money to the principal manufacturers. One of these 
crises cost him in this way more than two millions 
sterling. When I hear people, writes Mme. de Re- 
musat, saying how easy it is to govern by force, I 
think of the Emperor ; of how he used to harp on the 
difficulties arising from the use of force against citi- 
zens ; of how, when his ministers advised any strong 
measure, he would ask, " Will you guarantee that the 
people will not rise against it?" He would take pleas- 
ure in talking of the emotions of battle, but would 
turn pale at the narration of the excesses of a re- 
volted people. The Revolution had, indeed, set her 
seal on him; he had never forgotten it. He repre- 
sented and embodied it, but was always silently con- 
tending against it. And he knew it to be a hopeless 
battle. "I, and I alone, stand betw^een society and 
the Revolution," he would say; "I can govern as I 
like. But my son will have to be a Liberal." And 
he was right, for in the ten months during which he 
was absent at Elba the Revolution reared its head 
once more. It was always present to him, not as 
his source or inspiration, but as a nameless terror to 
be averted at any cost. He was, indeed, the child 
of the Revolution, but a child whose one object was 
parricide. 

He dreaded the idea of firing upon the people ; he 
preserved a life-long regret for his action in the Yen- 

22S 



NAPOLEON AND THE DEMOCRACY 

demiaire outbreak, which he feared the people would 
never forget : he was prepared, as we have seen, at 
almost any cost to avert and buy off the material 
discontent of the people. But his hatred of the Rev- 
olution and its methods went far beyond such dem- 
onstrations as these, considerable though they be. 
For he would not touch the Revolution, even to save 
his crown or himself. Hostility to the Revolution 
could not go beyond this. He had seen, and seen with 
bitter outspoken contempt, Louis XVL bow to the 
multitude from the balcony of the Tuileries with the 
cap of liberty on his head. Not to preserve his lib- 
erty or his dynasty would Napoleon for a moment 
assume that cap. 

After Waterloo the multitude {canaille, as Na- 
poleon generally called them at St. Helena) thronged 
round his palace and begged him to lead them; for 
they considered him the only barrier against feudal- 
ism, against the resumption of the confiscated prop- 
erty, and against foreign domination. "What do 
these people owe me?" Napoleon, as he hears them, 
breaks out with sudden candor. " I found them poor ; 
I leave them poor.'' Montholon preserves for us 
one of these scenes. " Two regiments and a vast mul- 
titude from the Faubourg St. Antoine come to de- 
mand that he shall lead them against the enemy. 
One of their spokesmen alludes to the Eighteenth of 
Brumaire. Napoleon replies that circumstances are 
changed, that what was then the summary expres- 
sion of the unanimous wish of the people would now 
require an ocean of French blood, and that he would 
shed none on behalf of a personal cause. " And when 
the multitude is dispersed he explains himself more 
fully to Montholon. " Were I," he said, " to put into 

229 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

action the brute force of the masses, I should no 
doubt save Paris, and assure the crown to myself 
without having recourse to the horrors of civil war, 
but I should also risk a deluge of French blood. 
What power would be sufficient to dominate the 
passions, the hatred, the vengeance, that would be 
aroused? No! I cannot forget that I was brought 
from Cannes to Paris amid sanguinar3^ cries of ' Down 
with the priests ! Down wath the nobles ! ' I prefer 
the regrets of France to her crown." During that 
famous march the passion of the people, stirred by 
the brief government of the Bourbons, had made the 
deepest impression on him. Had he consented to 
associate himself with their fury at the suspected 
attempt to resume the land and privileges which were 
lost in the Revolution, he could, he was convinced, 
have arrived in Paris at the head of two millions of 
peasants. But he would not be the king of the mob : 
his whole being, he declared, revolted at the thought. 
Once, indeed, at Longwood he abandoned himself 
for a moment to a different dream. "Were I to re- 
turn,'' he said, "I should found my empire on the 
Jacobins. Jacobinism is the volcano which threat- 
ens all social order. Its eruption w^ould be easily 
produced in Prussia, and by the overthrow of the throne 
of Berlin I should have given an immense impetus 
to the power of France. Prussia has always been since 
the time of Frederick, and will always be, the greatest 
obstacle to my projects for France. Once the red cap 
of liberty supreme at Berlin, all the power of Prussia 
would be at my disposal. I would use it as a club to 
smash Russia and Austria. I should resume the 
natural frontier of France, the Alps and the Rhine ; 
and, having effected that, I should set about the 

230 



NAPOLEON AND THE DEMOCRACY 

great work of founding the French empire. By my 
arms and by the force of Jacobinism, by avaihng my- 
self of every favorable circumstance and conjuncture 
of events, I should convert Europe into a federation 
of small sovereigns, over which the French Emperor 
should be paramount. I should fix its limits at the 
Niemen : Alexander should only be the Czar of 
Asiatic Russia. Austria would be only one of three 
kingdoms — Hungary and Bohemia being the other 
two — into which I should divide the empire of Maria 
Theresa. Then Europe would be protected from Rus- 
sia, and Great Britain would become a second-rate 
power. Only thus can peace be secured for Europe." 
Montholon records this strange rhapsody, and de- 
clares that it was spoken on March lo, 1819, two 
years before the Emperor's death. It is very unlike 
his other estimates of Prussia, or his real views as 
to Jacobinism. We may take it to be a sort of medi- 
tation as to the possibilities of an alternative policy. 
Possibly, indeed, he may have come to the convic- 
tion, after the experience of the Hundred Days, that 
were he ever again to find himself in France, there 
was no other way of maintaining himself. He had, 
however, made an allusion of the same kind to Met- 
ternich in their famous interview at Dresden. "It 
may be that I shall succumb, but if so, I shall drag 
down with me all other crowns and the whole struc- 
ture of society itself." |\ I 

And Talleyrand, with his cold instinct of judg- 
ment, had seen at the very outset of the Hundred 
Days that the one chance for Nap/oleon was to nation- 
alize the war. His army would not suffice him; 
he must rely on the party from which he sprang, on 
the ruins of which he had raised himself, and which 

231 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

he had so long oppressed. Nor was Alexander in- 
sensible to the danger. He pointed out to Lord 
Clancarty that it was necessary to detach the Jacobins 
from Napoleon, though that would not seem to have 
been an easy task for a Russian Emperor. Still it is 
well to note that the clearest and best-informed 
among the assembled princes at Vienna realized 
that the one chance for Napoleon was to become 
again what he had been at the outset of his career — 
the Revolution incarnate. 

Lavaliette tells us the truth in one pregnant sen- 
tence — the eleven months of the reign of Louis XVIIL 
had thrown France back into 1 792. Even during that 
short period discontent had crystallized into conspi- 
racies. But their object was to place Louis Philippe 
as a constitutional monarch on the throne, not to 
bring back the banished despot. On his return the 
Etnperor was alarmed. He found that the face of 
Paris was changed — respect and regard for him had 
visibly waned. Had he realized at Elba, he said, the 
change which had taken place in France, he would 
have remained on his island. He would send for 
Lavaliette — sometimes two or three times a day — 
and would discuss the new situation for hours. Even 
had he returned victorious, he would, saj^s Laval- 
iette, have had to face great danger from internal 
troubles. Indeed, it was soon evident that what the 
country desired was less the return of the Emperor 
than the departure of the Bourbons. When these 
had gone, enthusiasm promptly cooled. Napoleon, 
with characteristic perception, had seen this at once. 
To a minister who congratulated him on the miracle 
by which he, almost alone, had reconquered France, 
he replied, "Bah! the time for compliments is past; 

232 



NAPOLEON AND THE DEMOCRACY 

they let me come as they let the others go," One 
instance will perhaps suffice. Napoleon had re- 
sumed his former title of Emperor by the Grace of 
God and the Constitutions of the Empire. This was 
distasteful to the new spirit, and the council of state 
replied by proclaiming the sovereignty of the people, 
a decree not less distasteful to the Emperor, but which 
he could not resent. He had to put up with slights, 
and a peremptory insolence from his Chambers. 
Nevertheless, he faced this new situation with im- 
perturbable calm. He felt, no doubt, that in case 
of victory he could easily put things right. But in 
case of defeat? There he saw the new spirit would 
overwhelm him, unless he could summon a mightier 
power still to outbid it, and proclaim a new revolu- 
tion. Why, then, did he not accept the last alter- 
native? Why did he not put himself at the head 
of an uprising of revolutionary France? Once, no 
doubt, in earlier days, the personal leadership of a 
revolution would have been a dazzling object of de- 
sire. The First Consul would not have hesitated. 
But the Emperor saw clearly, we think, that there 
would in that case have been no question of a dy-" 
nasty, that the dictatorsliip would have been a per- 
sonal one, that he would have been Sylla or Marius, 
not Augustus or Charlemagne. It will be observed 
that, in his remark to Montholon, cited above, he 
says, "I should secure the crown to myself"; there 
is no mention of, or illusion as to, a succession. Such 
a position seemed degrading after that which he had 
filled: and, as we have seen, everything connected 
with revolution was odious to him. It was, conse- 
quently, impossible for him to become the prophet 
or general of a new Revolution after Waterloo. Had 

233 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

he known what awaited him — St. Helena, its sordid 
miseries, its petty jailers, its wearisome and hopeless 
years of living death — he might possibly have over- 
come his repugnance. But all this he could not fore- 
see; and no less would have moved him; so he pre- 
ferred to fold his arms and watch the inevitable ca- 
tastrophe of the rhetoricians; to fold his arms and 
await events. Better, he thought, the life of an Amer- 
ican farmer than the presidency of a committee of 
public safety. 

Between Napoleon and the Chambers there reigned 
from the first a scarcely disguised hostility. Ap- 
pearances were to some limited extent maintained. 
But both parties were playing a part, with little, if 
any, disguise; and neither was the dupe of the 
other. The Chambers were willing to use Napoleon 
as a consummate general to resist invasion and the 
return of the Bourbons, hoping to be able to subor- 
dinate or get rid of him when the victory was won. 
"As soon as he is gone to the army," said Fouche, 
"we shall be masters of the situation. I wish him 
to gain one or two battles. But he will lose the third, 
and then it will be our turn." This was the com- 
placent calculation of the Chambers. But they were 
in the position of the mortal in the fairy tale who 
summons a genie which he cannot control. Napo- 
leon, on the other hand, submitted to the Chambers, 
as a pledge to the world of his reformed character, 
and with the hope of obtaining supplies through 
them, but with the fixed intention of getting rid of 
them, if he should be victorious. After Ligny he 
stated categorically his intention of returning to 
Paris and resuming absolute power when he had 
defeated the English. Each party was perfectly 

234 



NAPOLEON AND THE DEMOCRACY 

aware of the policy of the other. There were no 
doubts and no illusions. It seems certain that the 
temper of the Parliament was such that manj^ of its 
members hoped that their arms might be defeated, 
and were able to rejoice over Waterloo. And it was 
Napoleon's consciousness of the hostility of the Cham- 
bers that compelled his return to Paris after the dis- 
aster. He has been blamed for not remaining on 
the frontier and endeavoring to rally his shattered 
troops. But of what avail would this have been if 
behind him his own Parliament were deposing and 
disavowing him? Yet no one can doubt that these 
woidd have been the first acts of the Chambers 
on hearing of his defeat. Outlawed by all Europe, 
and by his own country, he could hardly have con- 
tinued to struggle, even with much greater military 
forces than any that he could have collected. 

This digression leads inevitably to another. The 
relations of the Emperor and his Parliament are clear 
and patent. What is more difficult to understand is 
that, in spite of this last sombre struggle between 
constitutionalism and Napoleon, his name should 
have been cherished as a watchword for some thirty 
3^ears by the Liberals of the Continent. For with l^ 
liberty and its aspirations he had no sympathy; /^ 
he relegated them to those whom he contemptuous- 
ly termed idealogues. Order, justice, force, sj^mme- 
try, these were his administrative ideals, tempered 
always by the personal equation. The legend of 
his liberalism can only be explained by the fact 
that, the constitution-mongers of 1815 having dis- 
appeared on the return of the Bourbons in a storm 
of contempt, this episode of the Hundred Days was 
forgotten. All that was remembered was the fact 

235 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

that Napoleon was the child of the Revolution, who 
had humbled and mutilated the old djmasties of 
Europe without regard to antiquitj^ or jjrescription, 
or title. To the people he stood for the Revolution, 
and to the armj^ for glor^^ No one remembered, or 
at any rate cared to recall, that he had knowingly 
ceded his throne and 3'ielded himself a prisoner rather 
than place himself at the head of a popular insurrec- 
tion. 

But had it been remembered, it would have been 
held to be expiated b}- the mart3Tdom of St. Helena. 
Napoleon was quite aware of the advantage that his 
memory and cause would derive from his imprison- 
ment. His death in lonely captivit3^ cancelled all 
his errors and all his shortcomings. His memorj^ 
purged of all recollection of his iron rule, of his insa- ' 
tiable demands on the blood and resources of France, '' 
of the two invasions of her territor}^ which he had ' 
brought about, became a tradition and a miracle. 
The peasantry of France had always been, next to 
the arm}', his main support, for ihey had considered 
him their sure bulwark against an}' return of feudal 
rights or feudal lords, against any restitution of the 
estates confiscated during the Revolution. The peas- 
antr}' then were the jealous guardians of his fame. 
Among them long lingered the tradition of his super- 
natural achievements. Beranger, it has been re- 
marked, was able to condense the popular conception 
in the narrative of an old peasant woman who does 
not mention a single one of his victories. 

" Long, long," sa3's the poet in that exquisite piece, 
"will the3^ talk of his glor3^ under the thatched roof; 
in fifty years the humble dwelling will know no other 
histor3\" And he goes on to give the key-note in a 

23^ 



NAPOLEON AND THE DEMOCRACY 

couplet. "Children, through this village I saw him 
ride, followed by kings." 

It is too much to say, perhaps, that Napoleon re- 
ceived the honors of apotheosis, but short of that 
point it is difficult to exaggerate. He received, at 
any rate, the most singular and sublime honor that 
has ever been awarded to humanity. For he was 
known in France not as General, or Consul, or Em- 
peror, or even by his name, but simply as " The 
Man" {V Homme). His son was "the Son of the 
Man "; he himself was always " The Man." He was, 
in fact, the Man of the popular imagination, and it 
was thus that Liberals swore by him. His intense 
individuality, even more than his horror of anarchy, 
had made him an absolute ruler. But as the product 
of the Revolution, as the humbler of kings, a glamour 
of liberty grew round his name. He had gratified 
the passion for equality by founding the fourth dy- 
nasty, though sprung from nothing ; he had kept out 
the Bourbons ; he had, above all, crushed and abased 
the chiefs of that Holy Alliance which weighed so 
heavily on Europe, which endeavored to tread out 
the last embers of the French Revolution, and which 
represented an embodied hostility to freedom. So 
regarded, it is not wonderful that the image of 
Napoleon became the idol of Continental Liberalism. 
Later on, again, it was stamped on a more definite 
plan. Authoritative democracy, or, in other words, 
democratic dictatorship, the idea which produced the 
Second Empire in France, which is still alive there, 
and which, in various forms, has found favor else- 
where, is the political legacy, perhaps the final mes- 
sage, of Napoleon. 

237 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE END 

It is unnecessary to dwell further on these last 
scenes or glimpses of the great drama of Napoleon's 
life. It is strange, however, to note that, in spite of 
the atmosphere of vigilance in which he lived, the 
end was unexpected. His death came suddenly. 
This we gather from the scanty record of Arnott; 
for Antommarchi we put, for reasons already ex- 
plained, entirely on one side. Arnott was evidently 
unaware of his patient's grave condition. Though 
he was called in on April ist, only thirty-five days 
before Napoleon's death, he did not then, or for some 
time afterwards, suspect the gravity of the illness. 
Indeed, it was not till April 27th or 28th, a bare week 
before the end, that he realized that the malady was 
mortal. Nor had the governor or the British gov- 
ernment any suspicion that the end was near. 

For the last nine days of his life he was constantly 
delirious. On the morning of May 5th he uttered some 
incoherent words, among which Montholon fancied 
that he distinguished, "France . . . armee . . . 
tete d' armee."'' As the patient uttered these words 

* Antommarchi, characteristically enough, states that three 
hours afterwards he heard Napoleon say "ti:te . . arm/e" and that 
these were his last words. Montholon expressly states that An- 
tommarchi was not in the room at two o'clock when Napoleon said 

238 



THE END 

he sprang from the bed, dragging Montholon, who 
endeavored to restrain him, on the floor. It was the 
last effort of that formidable energy. He was with 
difficulty replaced in bed by Montholon and Archam- 
bault, and then lay quietly till near six o'clock in 
the evening, when he yielded his last breath. A 
great storm was raging outside, which shook the 
frail huts of the soldiers as with an earthquake, tore 
up the trees that the Emperor had planted, and up- 
rooted the willow under which he was accustomed 
to repose. Within, the faithful Marchand was cov- 
ering the corpse with the cloak which the young 
conqueror had worn at Marengo. 

The governor and his staff were waiting below to 
hear the last news. On learning the event Lowe spoke 
a few manly and fitting words. But the inevitable 
wrangling soon broke out again over the corpse. 
Lowe insisted on an immediate autopsy, which the 
French strenuously resisted. He also declined to 
allow the removal of the remains to France. Here, 
he had no choice. The unexpected arrival of the 
dead Napoleon in Europe would have been second 
only in embarrassment to the arrival of the living. 
Lastly, as we have seen, he insisted that the name 
"Bonaparte" should be appended if "Napoleon," 
as was proposed, were engraved on the coffin. Com- 
ment on this is superfluous. 

During the next morning the body lay in state, and 
Montchenu obtained his only view of the captive. 
Four days afterwards the funeral took place with 
such simple pomp as the island could afford. The 

"tete d'arm/e." The point is of little importance except as showing 
to the very last the difficulty of ascertaining the exact truth at 
Longwood. 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE - 

coffin, on which lay the sword and the mantle of 
Marengo, was borne by British soldiers to a car \ 
drawn by four of the Emperor's horses, and thence j 
again by relays of British soldiers to a spot which ! 
he had himself chosen, should burial in France be ; 
refused. It was in a garden at the bottom of a deep i 
ravine. There, under the shade of two willows, by I 
the side of a spring which had supplied the Emperor | 
with water to drink, had the grave been dug. The j 
inmates of Longwood followed as chief mourners. <i 
Then came Lowe, Montchenu, and the officials, civil, | 
naval, and military, of the island. As the body was ^| 
lowered into the earth there were salvoes of mus- \ 
ketry and cannon. 3 

Nineteen years afterwards a French frigate, under 1 
the command of the Prince of Joinville, anchored at \ 
Jamestown. It had come for the purpose of con- , 
veying back to France the Emperor's remains. They i 
had been surrendered in the hope expressed by the 
British government that the last traces of national ; 
animosity would be buried in the tomb of Napoleon. ': 
But before the vessel had returned with her precious ■ 
burden the two countries were on the very brink of ? 
war. In the Belle-Poule there returned on this last ) 
pious pilgrimage to St. Helena Bertrand and Gour- i 
gaud, the young Las Cases, and Arthur Bertrand \ 
("the first French visitor who entered St. Helena] 
without Lord Bathurst's permission"). There, too, 
were Marchand, the most faithful and trusted of the ' 
Emperor's attendants, Noverraz, Pierron, and Ar- j 
chambault, as well as St. Denis, who, disguised under 
the name of Ali, had acted as second Mameluke with i 
Rustan, and whom Napoleon had often used as an ] 
amanuensis at St. Helena. Together these sombre j 

240 ■ 



THE END 

and devoted survivors visited the scene of their ex- 
ile, and amid the shame and embarrassment of the 
British authorities, witnessed the degradation of 
Longwood into a stable. Together they surrounded 
their master's grave at midnight on October 15, 1840 
(the twenty-fifth anniversary of his arrival at St. 
Helena), and when, after ten hours' strenuous labor, 
the coffin was disinterred, they beheld once more 
the features of the Emperor, unaltered and unim- 
paired. Together they followed the corpse in a pro- 
cession which savored less of a funeral than a triumph 
to Paris. It was then that the dead conqueror made 
the most majestic of his entrances into his capital. 
On a bitter December morning the King of the French, 
surrounded by the princes and ministers and splen- 
dors of France, sat in silent state under the dome 
of the Invalides, awaiting the arrival of the corpse. 
Suddenly a chamberlain appearing at the door an- 
nounced, in a clear and resonant voice, "I'Empe- 
reur," as if it were the living sovereign, and the vast 
and illustrious assembly rose with a common emo- 
tion as the body was borne slowly in. The spec- 
tators could not restrain their tears as they realized 
the pathos and significance of the scene. Behind 
the coffin walked the surviving exiles of St. Helena ; 
it was the undisputed privilege of Bertrand to lay 
his master's sword upon the pall. 

One point in the Emperor's last illness should be 
noticed once for all. The policy of Longwood, ac- 
tively supported by O'Meara, was to declare that 
there was a deadly liver complaint, indigenous to the 
island, to which Napoleon was a victim, and which 
could, of course, only be cured by his removal. We 
think that the Emperor himself, who combined a 
Q 241 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

shrewd interest with a rooted disbehef in the art of 
medicine, knew better. He would, for example, put 
his hand on the pit of his stomach, and say, with a 
groan, " Oh, nwn pylore ! mon pylore !" He, how- 
ever, as we have seen, gravely condoled with Gour- 
gaud, who was in the best of health, on being an- 
other victim of this insular malady. Within two 
months of his own death he wrote to Pauline that 
the " liver complaint with which he has been afflicted 
for six years, and which is endemic and mortal at 
St. Helena, has made alarming progress during the 
last six months." Within a month of his death he 
made the same complaint to Arnott. Montholon, 
on his return to Europe, in spite of the post-mortem 
examination, still gallantly maintained the theory of 
a liver complaint. But Napoleon's liver was found 
to be quite sound; he died of the cancer in the 
stomach which had killed his father. 

His last days, before the agony began, were tragi- 
cal enough, as we gather from the jejune chronicles 
of Montholon. Even these records do not give the 
impression of having been written from day to day, 
but retrospectively, perhaps from notes. Bertrand, 
in a letter to King Joseph, says that after August, 
1820, the Emperor remained almost always in his 
chair, and in his dressing-gown, able to read and 
talk, but not to work or dictate. He and his suite 
would sometimes build castles in the air of a new 
life in America, but he well knew that he was djang. 
He devoted much time to his will, and was extremely 
anxious that the collection of letters from European 
sovereigns to himself, as well as a few that Mme. 
de Stagl had written to him from Italy, should be 
published. On this point he was strenuous and in- 

242 



THE END 

sistent. He believed them to be in the hands of 
Joseph. But they had been stolen, and had been 
offered to and refused b}^ Murray the publisher. 
The Russian government had intervened and pur- 
chased, for a large sum, the letters of Alexander: 
the fate of the others is not known. He would still 
read aloud, and would still discuss the past. But it 
is strange how little we know of it all, and we infer 
that Napoleon's suite were as much in the dark as 
the rest of the world with regard to their master's 
approaching end. Otherwise, they would surely 
have recorded with pious care these remarkable mo- 
ments. 

It is these last moments that we chiefly grudge to 
oblivion. Otherwise, one may well ask : what is the 
use of recalling these sere records of the captivity of 
St, Helena? They can scarcely be called history; 
they are not, unhappily, romance; they can hardly 
be held to possess any healthy attraction. They 
only narrate, with obtrusive inaccuracy, an episode 
which no one has any interest in remembering, and 
which all would fain forget. Why, then, collate 
these morbid, sordid, insincere chronicles? Does 
not history tell us that there is nothing so melan- 
choly as the aspect of great men in retirement, from 
Nebuchadnezzar in his meadow to Napoleon on his 
rock? 

The first answer to this question is incidental 
and personal. To the present writer Lord Beacons- 
field once explained why he wrote Count Alarcos, a 
drama nearly, if not quite, forgotten. It was pro- 
duced, he said, not in the hope of composing a great 
tragedy, but of laying a literary ghost. The story 
haunted him, and would, he felt, haunt him until he 

243 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

should have put it into shape. And so it is with this 
Httle book. It cannot help embod3^ing a tragedy, 
but it was written to lay a literary ghost, dormant 
for years, only quickened into activity by the analy- 
sis of Gourgaud's last journals, and by stimulating 
leisure. 

Secondly, it is an episode on which History has 
yet to record her final judgment. Nor is it clear that 
she is yet in a position to do so. The actors, indeed, 
have long passed away ; the blood heated by twenty 
years of warfare is now cold enough; on the one 
side the faint inextinguishable hopes, on the other 
the apprehensions and the suspicions, all are dead. 
And yet — the subject still seems warm. It is doubt- 
ful if one side is yet cool enough to own any error ; it 
is doubtful if the other side has wholly forgiven. 
Nations have silent, stubborn memories. The fires 
of Smithfield have left in England embers that still 
smoulder. Ireland has remembered much which it 
would be for her own happiness to forget. The 
Scots are still Jacobites at heart. 

Again, we have more chance of seeing the man 
Napoleon at St. Helena than at any other period of 
his career. In the first years of the consulate the 
man was revealed, but then he was undeveloped. 
On the throne he ceased to be human. At Elba he 
had no present existence ; he was always in the past 
or the future. 

And, again, what was published about him during 
his life, and for long after his death, has little value. 
A sure test of great men of action is the absence of 
lukewarmness with regard to them. They are de- 
tested or adored. The idolatry and hatred which Na- 
poleon inspired survived him too long to allow of the 

244 



THE END 

play of reason. No one seemed able then, or for long 
afterwards, to put on a pair of smoked glasses and 
gaze dispassionately at this dazzling luminary. Nor 
is it easy now. One has to sift evidence and passion, 
and make allowance for it all. His correspondence, 
especiall}^ that part which was suppressed, furnishes, 
of course, the great picture of his manifold activities 
and methods. This is, however, but a small frac- 
tion of the literature which concerns him. Of books 
and memoirs about Napoleon there is indeed no end. 
Of reliable books, which give a sure, or even remotely 
impartial, picture of the man, there are remarkably 
few. 

Some judicious observers, who knew Napoleon well, 
wrote their real impressions, but wrote them very se- 
cretly, and the result is only now oozing out. Of these 
witnesses we incline to put Chaptal first. He was for 
some time Napoleon's confidential minister, and he 
analyzes his character with the dispassionate science 
of an eminent chemist. Pasquier we are inclined to 
place next, as being on the whole unfavorably fair. 
With him we should perhaps bracket Segur, whose 
memoirs, which include the classical history of the 
Russian expedition, give a brilliant portrait, the work 
of an admirer, but by no means a blind admirer. 
We should put it as a pendant to that of Pasquier, 
and say that it is favorably fair. And the beauty of 
the style, the exquisite eloquence of some of the pas- 
sages, would lure on the sternest and sourest critics 
of the hero. Lavallette, though he does not tell us 
much, and though the Duke of Wellington, on the 
slightest grounds, stigmatized him as a liar, seems 
sufficiently reliable, on the partial side. Roederer, 
from among a number of massive volumes contain- 

245 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

ing his unreadable works, yields some pure gold, 
priceless notes of Napoleonic conversation. Mme. de 
Remusat, with heavy deductions, leaves something 
of value. But we can never forget that she burned 
her real, contemporary memoirs in 1815, and that 
those now published were composed three years af- 
terwards, during the bitterest reaction of the Restora- 
tion, when it was considered indecent to allude to 
the Emperor, much less pronounce his name, in polite 
society. Moreover, she was the close friend of Talley- 
rand, Napoleon's unremitting enemy; was lady-in- 
waiting to Josephine, whose wrongs she resented; 
and, worst of all, was a woman who could not forgive 
Napoleon's clumsiness and deficiencies as a lady's 
man. On a lower scale we may mention Meneval 
and Beausset. On a lower still there is Constant, 
Constant (the valet, not Benjamin) gives many de- 
tails of interest, though the memoirs which bear his 
name were probably written by another hand from 
his notes. To him, in despite of the proverb, his 
master was a hero. We place some confidence in 
Miot de Melito, and in the dry humor of Beugnot. 
Nor do we desire to disparage the authors, some of 
them conspicuous, whom we do not name; we only 
desire to indicate those who seem most worthy of 
confidence. Scores of memoirs throw here and there 
a flash of light on the man. But the light is usually 
accidental, as the writers are generally idolaters or 
enemies. To Marbot and Thiebault we owe the most 
vivid snap-shots of Napoleon. The extraordinary 
life-like scene of Napoleon at the masked ball mop- 
ping his hot head with a wet handkerchief, and mur- 
muring, " Oh ! que c'est bon, que c'est hon ! " is re- 
corded by Marbot. The fleeting vision of Napoleon 

246 



THE END 

galloping homewards through Spain alone with an 
aide-de-camp, whose horse the Emperor is flogging 
with a postilion's whip, is the little masterpiece of 
Thiebault. We wish we felt sure of the conscientious 
accuracy of either author. 

At length, in this final phase, we have some chance 
of seeing something of the man. The artifice and 
drapery still encompass him, but not always; and 
through the perplexed and adulatory narratives there 
come glimpses of light. From one there even comes 
illumination. Had Gourgaud remained till the end, 
it is scarcely too much to say that we should have 
known from him more of the naked Napoleon than 
from all the existing library of Napoleonic literature. 
But Gougaud leaves before we most require him. 
The remaining records tell us little or nothing of that 
period when there may have been in all probability 
most to be learned — at that supreme opportunity for 
self -revelation when the vanities and passions of life 
were paling before the infinite shadow of death. It 
was then that, left alone with history and with eter- 
nity, the man, as apart from the warrior and states- 
man, might possibly, but not probably, have re- 
vealed himself, and confessed himself, and spoken 
what truth was in him. Indeed, the declaration 
about the Due d'Enghien's death, made five weeks 
before his own, shows that the dying man did assert 
himself with passionate impatience to clear others 
and to tell the truth. 

But, even without the last revelations, which he 
may have made, but which we have not got, it is 
to St. Helena that the world must look for the final 
glimpse of this great human problem. For a problem 
he is, and must ever remain. Mankind will always 

247 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

delight to scrutinize something that indefinitely 
raises its conception of its own powers and possibil- 
ities. For this reason it loves balloons and flying 
machines, apparatus that moves below earth or sea^ 
the men who accomplish physical or intellectual feats 
which enlarge the scope of human achievement. For 
this reason also it seeks, but eternally in vain, to 
penetrate the secret of this prodigious human being. 
In spite of all this delving, mining, and analysis, 
what secret there is will probably evade discovery. 
Partly, it may be argued, because it is so complex. 
Partly, it may be contended, because there is none : 
there are only the play and procession of destiny. 

As to the complexity of the problem, as to the va- 
riety of the man, there can be no doubt. But the 
study, even if illusory, will always remain absorbing. 
There will always be alchemists, and always investi- 
gators of Napoleon's character. Nor can this be con- 
sidered surprising. He is so multifarious, luminous, 
and brilliant that he gives light from a thousand 
facets. Sometimes he invents, sometimes he talks 
something perilously like nonsense; sometimes he 
is petty, theatrical, or outrageous, but in the main, 
where you get at the man himself, he is intensely 
human and profoundly interesting. Study, then, of 
Napoleon's utterances, apart from any attempt to 
discover the secret of his prodigious exploits, cannot 
be considered as lost time : whether it be pursued 
with the view of imitating, or avoiding, or simply 
of learning, it can scarcely fail to be stimulating. 
His career, partly perhaps because it is not scientifi- 
cally divided into acts or phases, gives rise to a num- 
ber of questions, all obvious and pertinent, but sel- 
dom admitting of a direct or satisfactory reply. 

248 



THE END 

What was his conception of hfe? What was his fixed 
object? Had he any such dehberate conception or 
object ? Was he always sane ? Was he in any degree 
a charlatan? Was he simply a lucky fatalist of vast 
natural powers? Or was his success due to the most 
remarkable combination of intellect and energy that 
stands on exact record? 

To all these questions, and scores of others, manj^ 
capable men will be ready with a prompt reply. But 
the more the student examines the subject, the less 
ready will he be with an answer. He may at last ar- 
rive at his own hypothesis, but it will not be a con- 
fident one; and he will find, without surprise, that his 
fellows, equally laborious and equally conscientious, 
will all supplj^ excellent solutions, totally at variance 
with his own and with each other. 

By the philosopher, and still more by the philoso- 
pher who believes in the divine guidance of human 
affairs, the true relation of Napoleon to the world's 
history will be reduced to a very simple conception : 
that he was launched into the world as a great natural 
or supernatural force, as a scourge and a scavenger, 
to effect a vast operation, partly positive, but mainly 
negative; and that when he has accomplished that 
work he is w^ithdrawn as swiftly as he came. Caesar, 
Attila, Tamerlane, and Mahomet are forces of this 
kind ; the last a much more potent and abiding fac- 
tor in the universe than Napoleon ; another proof, if 
proof were needed, of how small is the permanent 
effect of warfare alone on the history of mankind. 
These men make great epochs; they embody vast 
transitions; they perplex and appall their contem- 
poraries; but when viewed at a distance, they are 
seen to be periodical and necessary incidents of the 

249 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

world's movement. The details of their career, their 
morals, their methods, are then judged, interesting 
though they may be, to be merely subordinate details. 

Scavenger is a coarse word, yet it accurately rep- 
resents Napoleon's first function as ruler. The vol- 
cano of the French Revolution had burned itself 
out. He had to clear away the cold lava ; the rubbish 
of past destruction; the cinders and the scoriae; the 
fungus of corruption which had overgrown all, and 
was for the moment the only visible result. What 
he often said of the crown of France is absolutely true 
of its government. 'T found it in the gutter, and 
I picked it up on my sword's point." The gutter 
government he replaced by a new administrative 
machine, trim, pervading, and efficient; efficient, 
that is to say, so long as the engineer was a man 
of extraordinary energy and genius. 

Then he is a scourge. He purges the floor of 
Europe with fire. As the sword and spirit of the 
Revolution, though in all the pomp of the purple, he 
visits the ancient monarchies, and compels them to 
set their houses in order. True, after his fall, they 
relapse. But it is only for a space, and reform, if not 
revolt, is soon busy among them. Had it not been for 
Napoleon this could not have happened ; for, when he 
assumed the government, Europe seemed at last to 
have stemmed the Revolution. 

We do not discuss his military greatness; that is 
universally acknowledged. It would, moreover, re- 
quire an expert and a volume to discuss it with 
authority. To the civilian eye he seems, at his best, 
the greatest of all soldiers. His rapidity of move- 
ment and apprehension, his power of inspiring his 
armies to perform extraordinary feats, his knowledge 

250 



THE END 

of detail combined with his gigantic grasp, his pro- 
digious triumphs, make cool judgment difficult. 
Later on, even civilians may see faults — the grand 
army, for example, becoming, before it struck a blow, 
little more than a mob, without discipline and without 
provisions, for want of practical foresight and com- 
missariat. There is a disposition, too — perhaps a 
growing one — to attribute a larger share of credit to 
his lieutenants for some of his great victories; to 
Desaix, for instance, at Marengo ; to Davoust for Jena, 
But, let what will be subtracted, there remains an 
irreducible maximum of fame and exploit. After 
all, the mass of mankind can only judge of results. 
And, though there may be no one achievement equal 
to Caesar's victory at Alesia, the military genius of 
Napoleon in its results is unsurpassed. 

We do not, of course, imply that the negative and 
warrior work of Napoleon, immense though it was, 
represents anything like his whole career. He was a 
great administrator. He controlled every wheel and 
spring, large or small, of his vast machinery of gov- 
ernment. It was, as it were, his plaything. He 
was his own War Office, his own Foreign Office, his 
own Admiralty, his own ministry of every kind. His 
minister of police, when he was Fouche, had no 
doubt a department of some independence; but then 
Napoleon had half a dozen police agencies of his own. 
His financial management, by which he sustained 
a vast empire with power and splendor, but with 
rigid economy, and without a debt, is a marvel and 
a mystery. In all the offices of state he knew every- 
thing, guided everything, inspired everything. He 
himself aptly enough compared his mind to a cup- 
board of pigeon-holes; to deal with any subject Iiq 

251 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

opened the pigeon-hole relating to it and closed the 
others; when he wished to sleep he closed them ail. 
Moreover, his inexhaustible memory made him fa- 
miliar with all the men and all the details, as well as 
with all the machinery, of government, Daru, one 
of Napoleon's most efficient ministers, told Lamarque 
a curious story which illustrates the Emperor's un- 
flagging vigilance of administration. One day, in 
the Eylau campaign, Daru left the Emperor, say- 
ing that he had to open his letters. "What letters 
can you receive," asked the Emperor, derisively, "in 
this Arab camp, where we live on the country as we 
march?" "Your Majesty shall see," replied Daru, 
and in a short time returned, followed by half a dozen 
secretaries laden with papers. Napoleon opened the 
first at hazard ; it contained a demand from the hos- 
pital at Mayence for a hundred syringes. "What! 
Do you provide syringes for the hospital at Ma- 
yence?" "Yes, and Your Majesty pays for them." 
The Emperor spent four hours opening and reading 
all the letters; he continued to do so for eight suc- 
cessive days; then he said: "For the first time I 
understand the mechanism of an army." On his 
return to Paris after Tilsit he pursued the same course 
with all the other ministers successively. After this 
process, which lasted six weeks, he carried a similar 
investigation into the ranks of the subordinates. 
What a force in itself was this quick yet laborious ap- 
prehension, this detailed probing of his vast admin- 
istration! The inherent defect of such an execu- 
tive was that no less an energy or intellect could 
have kept it going for a week. So completely did 
it depend on the master that it was paralyzed by the 
least severance from him. The conspiracy of Mal- 

252 



THE END 

let, in 1812, and the conduct of affairs by the council 
of regency, in 1814, are eminent instances of this. 

Then he was a great legislator. The positive and 
permanent part of his work is, of course, the Code. 
Wars end, and conquests shrink — so much so, that 
Napoleon, after all, left France less than he found it. 
Indeed, the only trace of his reign now visible on the 
face of Europe is the Bernadotte dynasty in Sweden, 
which was not the direct result of conquest, or, 
indeed, the direct work of Napoleon. All that of 
this kind he planned and fashioned passed away 
with him. But the Code remains, and profoundly af- 
fects the character of the nation, as well as of the 
other races to which it has been extended. Few en- 
actments, for example, have had a more potent effect 
in moulding the social and political life of a commu- 
nity than the provision of the Code for the compul- 
sory division of property. It checks population, it 
enforces equality, it constitutes the most powerful 
and conservative of landed interests. 

To achieve such work required a puissant organi- 
zation, and, indeed, his physical constitution was 
not less remarkable than his intellectual mechanism. 
His digestion endured for a life-time, without resent- 
ment, hearty meals devoured in a few moments at 
odd times. His first tooth was extracted at St. He- 
lena, and then, it appears, unnecessarily. But this 
operation was the only one that he ever underwent. 
It appeared in other ways that his exceptional mind 
was lodged in an exceptional body. In his prime, 
before his passion for hot baths had weakened him, 
he was incapable of fatigue. He fought Alvinzy 
once for five consecutive days without taking off his 
boots or closing his eyes; when he had beaten the 

253 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE ! 

Austrian he slept for thirty-six hours. On arriving I 
at the Tuileries after his breathless journey from \ 
Valladolid, when he had only paused for a few hours ' 
at Bayonne, he insisted on at once inspecting, with- 
out an instant's delay, the entire palace, and the 
Louvre, where new constructions were proceeding, i 
He would post from Poland to Paris, summon a coun- 
cil at once, and preside at it with his usual vigor and { 
acuteness. And his councils were no joke. They | 
would last eight or ten hours. Once, at two o'clock 
in the morning, the councillors were all worn out ; the j 
Minister of Marine was fast asleep; Napoleon still | 
urged them to further deliberation: "Come, gentle- I 
men, pull yourselves together ; it is only two o'clock ; * 
we must earn the money that the nation gives us," | 
Throughout these sittings his mind was always ac- | 
five and predominant. Never did a council separate 
without being the wiser, either from what he taught j 
or from the close investigation which he insisted , 
upon. He would work for eighteen hours at a stretch, ' 
sometinies at one subject, sometimes at a variety. < 
Never, says Roederer, have I seen his mind weary; i 
never have I seen his mind without its spring ; not in 
strain of body, or wrath, or the most violent exercise. 
Sometimes he carried physical force to an extreme 
point. He kicked Volney in the stomach for saying /^ : 
that France wanted the Bourbons, and the philoso- i 
pher was carried away senseless. On another occa- 
sion he knocked down his chief justice and bela- 
bored him with his fists. He is said to have attacked ;/ j 
Berthier with the tongs. These were the rare erup- 2^ 
tions of a nervous system occasionally yielding to ^ ] 
continuous strain. Nor was the primitive Corsican i-^^ 
altogether smothered under the robe of empire. . 

■254 ! 



THE END 

Again, there were reactions. Witness that strange 
scene at the httle mansion of Diiben, where he sits for 
two days on a sofa, heedless of the despatches which 
are massed on his table calling for a reply, engaged 
in vacantly tracing capital letters on sheets of paper, 
in a prostration of doubt whether he shall march on 
Leipsic or Berlin. Witness the apathy at Malmaison 
after Waterloo. 

One other positive result, which is in truth scarcely 
less substantial than the Code, may be laid to his 
account. He has left behind the memory of a period 
of splendor and dominion, which, even if it does not 
keep the imagination of his people in a perpetual 
glow, remains a symbol, as monumental and visible 
as the tomb in the Invalides, to stimulate the nation- 
al ambition. The terrible sacrifices which he ex- 
acted are forgotten, and, if they be remembered, com- 
pare not unfavorably (on paper, at all events) with 
those entailed by the modern system, even in time 
of peace, without foreign supremacy or the empire 
of the West to be placed to the credit side. And so 
they may obliterate the eagles and the initials if they 
will ; it avails nothing. France, in chill moments of 
disaster, or of even of mere material and commercial 
well-being, will turn and warm herself at the glories 
of Napoleon. The atmosphere is still imbued with 
the light and heat of the imperial era, with the blaze 
of his victories, and with the lustre of those years 
when Europe was the anvil for the hammer of France, 

The details of method and morals are, in cases 
like Napoleon's, as we have said, subordinate mat- 
ters — subordinate, that is, for History, which only 
concerns itself with his effect and result. But, none 
the less, they are profoundly interesting for mankind. 

255 ' 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 



They will not, indeed, enable us to discover his se- 
cret. We study them as we would the least facts 
concerning a supernatural visitant, a good or bad 
spirit, something alien to ourselves, and yet linked ; 
to ourselves by the bond of humanity — not merely 
human shape and human utterance, but human fail- ■ 
ing and human depravity. 

What, after all, is the story? fi 

Into a career of a score of years he crowded his own ! 
dazzling career, his conquests, his triumphant as- ' 
sault on the Old World. In that brief space we see ^ 
the lean, hungry conqueror swell into the sovereign, \ 
and then into the sovereign of sovereigns. Then | 
comes the catastrophe. He loses the balance of his \ 

V judgment and becomes a curse to his own country, i 
\/and to all others. He cannot be still himself, or give l 

V mankind an instant of repose. His neighbors' land- > 

V marks become playthings to him ; he cannot leave * 

V them alone ; he manipulates them for the mere love ^ 
of moving them. His island enemy is on his nerves ; 
he sees her everywhere; he strikes at her blindly ' 
and wildly. And so he produces universal unrest, I 
universal hostility, the universal sense of his incom- • 
patibility with all established society. But he pur- 
sues his path as if possessed, as if driven by the in- 
ward sting of some burning devil. He has ceased - 

M to be sane. The intellect and energy are still there, ! 
but, as it were, in caricature; they have become 
monstrosities. Body and mind are affected by the ; 
prolonged strain to be more than mortal. Then there "] 
is the inevitable collapse; and at St. Helena we are J 
watching, with curious compassion, the reaction and ! 
decline. 
The truth we take to be this. The mind of man j 

256 i 



THE END 

has not in it sufficient ballast to enable it to exercise, 
or endure for long, supreme uncontrolled power. 
Or, to put it in other words, the human frame is un- 
equal to anything approaching omnipotence. All 
history, from the Caesars onward, teaches us this. 
Strong as was the intellect of Napoleon, it formed no 
exception to the rule. 

For in the first period of his consulate he was an 
almost ideal ruler. He was firm, sagacious, far- 
seeing, energetic, just. He was, moreover, what 
is not of less importance, ready and anxious to learn. 
/ He was, indeed, conscious of extreme ignorance on 
the civil side of his administration. But he was 
never ashamed to ask the meaning of the simplest 
word or the most elementary procedure; and he 
never asked twice. He thus acquired and assimi- 
lated all necessary information with extraordinary 
rapidity. But when he had learned all that his 
councillors could teach him, he realized his immeas- 
urable superiority to all men with whom he had been 
brought into contact. He arrived at the conclusion — 
probably a just one — that his genius was as unfailing 
and supreme in the art of statesmanship as in the 
art of war, and that he was as much the first ruler 
as the first captain of the world. That discovery, 
or conviction, backed by the forces and resources 
of France, inspired him with an ambition, at first 
vague, but growing as it was fed ; at last immeasur- 
able and impossible. Nothing seemed impracticable, 
nothing illusory. Why should it? He had never 
failed, except, perhaps, at Acre. He beheld around 
him incapable monarchs, incapable generals, inca- 
pable ministers, the languid barriers of a crum- 
bling society. There seemed nothing in the world to 
R 257 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

check a second Alexander, even one more reckless 
and enterprising than he whose career had inspired 
his own boyish dreams. 

Had he proceeded more slowly, had he taken time to 
realize and consolidate. his acquisitions, it is difficult 
to limit the extent to which his views might have 
been realized. But the edifice of his empire was so 
prodigiously successful that he would not pause, 
even a moment, to allow the cement to harden. And, 
as he piled structure on structure, it became evident 
that he had ceased to consider its base. That base 
was France, capable of heroic effort and endurance, 
of all, indeed, but the impossible. The limit at last 
was reached. Great as were her resources, she could 
no longer supply the reckless demands of her ruler. 
In 1 812 he left three hundred thousand Frenchmen 
amid the snows of Russia. In 18 13 he summoned 
one million three hundred thousand more under 
arms. And these were only the culminating fig- 
ures of a long series of overdrafts, anticipations of 
the annual conscription, terrible drains on the popu- 
lation of France proper — a population of some thirty 
millions. 

He, no doubt, had convinced himself, with that 
faculty of self-persuasion which is at once the weak- 
ness and the strength of extraordinary minds, that 
he had in reality enlarged his foundation ; that it had 
increased in exact proportion to the increase of his 
dominions ; that the Germans and Italians and Dutch- 
men and Spaniards who served under his banners 
formed a solid accretion to it; that his empire rested 
on a homogeneous mass of eighty millions of equally 
loyal subjects. He seemed to consider that each an- 
nexation, however procured, added as many valid 

258 



THE END 

instruments of his policy as it did human beings to 
his reahn. It added, as a rule, nothing but veiled 
discontent and expectant revolt. Frederick the 
Great was wont, it is true, to compel the prisoners 
whom he captured in battle to serve in his ranks. 
But he was under no illusions as to the zeal and 
fidelity of these reluctant recruits. Napoleon, how- 
ever, considered, or professed to consider, that the 
populations that he had conquered could be relied 
upon as subjects and soldiers. This strange hallu- 

Y cination indicated the loss of his judgment, and, 
more than any other cause, brought about his fall. 

Whom God wishes to destroy, says the adage. He 
first deprives of sanity. And so we see Napoleon, 

y with incredible self-delusion, want of insight, or both, 
preparing his own destruction by dealing with men 
as if they were checkers, and moving them about 
the board according to his own momentary whim, 
without a thought of their passions, or character, or 
traditions; in a word, by ignoring human nature. 
Take, for one example, the singular apportionment 
of souls, in a despatch of February 15, 181 0: "I ap- 
prove of this report with the following modifications : 
I. Only to take from the Italian Tyrol two hundred 
and eighty thousand souls, a population equal to 
that of Bayreuth and Ratisbon. 2. That Bavaria 
should only give up for the Kingdom of Wurtem- 
burg and the Duchies of Baden and Darmstadt a 
population of one hundred and fifty thousand souls. 
So that, instead of one hundred and eighty -eight 
thousand souls, Bavaria should gain two hundred 
and forty thousand or two hundred and fifty thou- 
sand. Out of the one hundred and fifty thousand 
souls ceded by Bavaria, I think one must give one 

259 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

hundred and ten thousand to Wurtemburg, twenty- 
five thousand to Baden, and fifteen thousand to 
Darmstadt." It is only fair to add that the congress 
of his enemies at Vienna proceeded, with flattering 
imitation, on the same principles. 

But the exasperation of the transferred and re- 
transferred souls was not the only result of this mania 
for cutting and carving. It produced a moral effect 
which was disastrous to the new empire. The 
founder of such a dynasty should have attempted 
to convince the world of the stability of his arrange- 
ments. He himself, however, spared no exertion to 
prove the contrary. Moving boundaries, shifting 
realms, giving and taking back, changing, revising, 
and reversing, he seemed to have set before himself the 
object of demonstrating that his foundations were 
never fixed, that nothing in his structure was defi- 
nite or permanent. It was the suicide of system. 
His bitterest enemies could hardly have hoped to 
suggest that conquests so dazzling were transient 
and insecure, had he not taken such infinite pains 
to prove it himself. 

Austria and Prussia he had conquered ; Spain and 
Italy he had annexed; he reckoned these, therefore, 
as submissive auxiliaries. Russia he had both 
defeated and cajoled ; so all was at his feet. He never 
seems to have given a thought to the storm of undying 
hatred, rancor, and revenge that was chafing and 
raging below. 

He added a Spanish contingent to his grand army, 
when the Spaniards were cutting the throat of every 
Frenchman whom they could find. He added a 
Prussian contingent, when he must have known, had 
he been sane, that no Prussians could ever forgive 

260 



THE END 

him the humihations which he had heaped upon 
their country. He added an Austrian contingent 
at a time when a much less clear-sighted observer 
must have been aware that it was merely a corps 
of hostile observation. 
N^ Supreme power, then, destroyed the balance of his 
V judgment and common-sense, and so brought about 
his fall. But it was not the only cause. There was 
another factor. He was deeply imbued with the 
passion of warfare. It is difficult to realize the full 
strength of this fascination, for, though all soldiers 
^ feel the fever of the field, it is rarely given in all the 
countless generations of the world to experience it 
in its full strength, as one who enjoys, as absolute 
ruler, the sole direction, responsibility, and hazard 
of great wars. But if common men love to risk 
chances in the lottery or with the dice, on the race- 
course or the stock exchange, if there they can find 
the sting of excitement, war is the gambling of the 
gods. The haunting risk of disaster; the unspeak- 
able elation of victory; the gigantic vicissitude of 
triumph and defeat; the tumult and frenzy and 
divine sweat; the very scorn of humanity and all 
that touches it, life and property and happiness, 
the anguish of the dying, the horror of the dead — 
all these sublimated passions not merely seem to 
raise man for a moment beyond his fellows, but 
constitute a strain which human nerves are not able 
long to endure. And Napoleon's character was pro- 
foundly affected by the gambling of warfare. The 
star of his destiny, which bulked so largely in his 
mind, was but the luck of the gambler on a vast 
scale. He had indeed his full measure of the gross 
and petty superstition which ordinarily accompa- 

261 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

nies the vice. And so, even in his most desperate 
straits, he cannot brin^ himself to close the account 
and sign a peace; for he always cherishes the gam- 
bler's hope that fortune, or the star of destiny, or 
whatever it be called, may yet produce another trans- 
formation, and restore all his losses by a sudden 
stroke. 

Generals, as a rule, are, fortunately, controlled 
by governments in matters of policy. But when 
the supreme captain is also the supreme ruler, there 
is nothing to restrain him from the awful hazard: 
he stakes once too often, and ruins his country, 
having already lost himself. Charles XIL was 
often in the mind and on the lips of Napoleon during 
the Russian campaign. 

Of scarcely any sovereign warrior but Frederick 
can it be said that he sheathed the sword at the right 
time, and voluntarily kept it in the scabbard. But 
his case was peculiar. He had had terrible lessons, 

V He had been within an ace of ruin and suicide. No 

V conqueror had ever seen so much of the horrors of 
defeat. There are not many examples in history 
of annihilation so complete as that of Kunersdorf: 
there are few indeed of triumphant resuscitation after 
such a disaster. And when Frederick had recovered 
the material waste and loss of his long war, his 
blood had cooled; he had the good fortune to have 
passed, and, what was more important, to know 
that he had passed, that season of war in the life 
of man which Napoleon defined. So he consolidated 
his conquests and died in peace. 

Napoleon sometimes spoke lightly of him as a 
general when at St. Helena. We doubt, however, 
if he thought lightly of Frederick as a man. Fred- 

265 



THE END 

erick had been his immediate prototype. Had 
Frederick never Hved, Napoleon might have had a 
different career. And indeed, as it was, he might 
have learned other lessons from the Prussian king; 
for Frederick, though inferior to Napoleon in all 
else, in force and scope and scale, was his superior 
in two respects. Had Napoleon possessed the astute ^ 
moderation and the desperate tenacity of Frederick, - 
the destinies of France and of Europe would have 
taken a different turn. 

We hold, then, that the Emperor had lost the 
balance of his faculties long before he finally fell. 
But this is not to say that he was mad; except, 
perhaps, in the sense of Juvenal's bitter apostrophe 
to Hannibal. Sanity is a relative term. Napoleon 
at his outset was phenomenally sane. His cool, 
calculating shrewdness and his intense common- 
sense were at least in proportion to his vast, but 
still bounded, ambition. From such singular sanity 
to the limits of insanity there is an immeasurable 
distance. Napoleon's impaired sanity was superior 
to the judgment of the vast majority of mankind ; but 
— here lay the fatal change — it had ceased to bear 
any proportion to, or exercise any control over, his 
ambition. When that check was removed he was 
a lost man. 

At what precise period the overbalancing of this 
great intellect took place it is of course impossible 
to say, for the process was of necessity gradual and 
almost imperceptible. Some may incline to think 
that it was apparent even before he became Em- 
V peror; that the lawless abduction and wanton ex- 
ecution of Enghien may mark the beginning. That 
proceeding, no doubt, denotes not merely a criminal 

263 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

lawlessness, but an irritability, a want of decency 
and control, a recklessness of cause and effect which 
were new in Napoleon. Some may surmise that 
there is a visible alteration after Wagram. That 
period seems too late; though he was then standing 
on a pinnacle, from which he saw all the kingdoms 
of the earth spread out before him — a pinnacle, lofty 
and sublime, but with a foothold both giddy and 
insecure. Any attempt, however, to fix exact dates 
for a psychological change would need a volume 
in itself. It is sufficient for our purpose to point 
out that the alteration did occur, and that the 
Napoleon of 1810, for example, was a very different 
being to the Napoleon of 1801. The Napoleon who 
declared at one time that all the countries of Europe 
should keep their archives in Paris, and at an- 
other that the French empire would become the 
mother country of all sovereignties, that all the kings 
of the earth should have palaces of residence in Paris, 
and attend in state the coronations of the French 
Emperors; the Napoleon who refused to make peace 
in 1813 and 1814, had obviously lost the balance of 
'/^his reason. So obvious was this that, in the last 
days of his first reign, there was a conspiracy in 
Paris to dethrone him on the ground of insanity. 
It is easy, too, to pronounce with absolute certainty 
that the loss of balance and soundness had occurred 
at Bayonne in 1808, and on the Niemen in 1812. 
He had then ceased to calculate coolly, and to see 
any bounds — moral, physical, or international — 
to any freak of ambition which might occur to him. 
In the Russian campaign there is visible a feverish, 
reckless desire to strain his fortune to the utmost, 
to push his luck, as gamblers say, and to test, as it 

264 



THE END 

were, the extreme limits of his destiny. He himself 
said of the Treaty of Leoben that he had played at 
vingt-et-un and stopped at twenty. Later in life he 
demanded twenty-one at every coup. 

And in another way this overbalanced, overween- 
ing individuality contributed to his fall. He had no 
check or assistance from advice, for his ministers 
were ciphers. It is not too much to say that the 
blind idolatry of Bassano had much to do with the 
imperial catastrophe. Great responsibility, too, is 
attributed to the compliance and deference of Ber- 
thier. Napoleon was apparently safe from all rivalry. 
But yet he could not endure that there should be ap- 
proved merit or commanding ability near him to share 
the lustre of his government. That government, 
indeed, was so conducted as to render it impossible 
for men of independent ability to serve under it. For 
such an administration mediocrity was a necessity, 
and high capacity an embarrassing superfluity. Had 
he died suddenly, he would have left behind him a 
vast number of trained subordinates and a few 
brilliant malecontents. In itself this fact sufficiently 
proves the weakness of his government, without tak- 
ing into account its morbid centralization. His 
system, putting his impracticable ambition on one 
side, must have brought the empire to ruin at his 
death, unless he had been able, which for a man of his 
temperament was in the last degree improbable, to 
make a complete change, and fashion a new system 
which would give ability fair play and which might 
exist without himself. Some young men of promise, 
such as Mole and Pasquier, he did indeed train, but he 
secured none of their devotion. It is probable that 
they perceived that as they rose in the hierarchy they 

265 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

would lose his patronage, and that brilliancy could not, 
in the long run, be otherwise than distasteful to him. 
It is strange that jealousy, if jealousy it were, should 
enter into the composition of so rare a supremacy. 

One feature of this attitude was that he was always 
on his guard, says one who knew him well, against 
the ambition of his generals. That and popular dis- 
content were what he most feared. So he kept his 
generals at arm's length, blamed them easily, com- 
mended them parsimoniously. It was only the dead, 
vsuch as Desaix and Kleber, whom he praised with 
warmth. Thus, except two or three who had known 
him in his youth, they approached him with fear and 
trembling. And even these early friends loved him 
in spite of themselves. Lannes would deplore, be- 
tween smiles and tears, in Napoleon's presence, his 
unhappy passion for cette catin, and the Emperor 
would laugh at his rueful tirades, being sure of his 
Lannes. The awe of the others was not ill-founded. 
Take, for example, this authentic incident. One day 
at a levee Napoleon sees St. Cyr, one of his ablest 
lieutenants. He goes up to him and says, placidly : 
"General, you come from Naples?" "Yes, Sire, 
after giving up the command to General Perignon, 
whom you had sent to replace me." "You have, no 
doubt, received the permission of the Minister of 
War?" "No, Sire, but I had nothing more to do at 
Naples." "If, within two hours, you are not on the 
road to Naples, I will have you shot on the plain of 
Grenelle before noon," replied Napoleon, in the same 
tranquil tone. He rewarded them with titles and 
appanages, but not with credit. Indeed, "he would 
have no glory but his own, he only believed in his 
own talents." 

266 



I 



THE END 

Stendhal, who was a man of genius, and whose 
opinions are, therefore, worth noting, thinks that one 
of the two main causes of the fall of the Emperor 
•^ was this taste for mediocrity. The mediocrity for 
which Mirabeau is said to have prayed. Napoleon 
avowedly loved. For of this preference he made no 
secret. What he wanted was instruments and not 
ministers. What he feared and disliked was not so 
much the competition as the ambition and criticism 
of superior ability. Two men of eminent parts were 
long in his employment and necessary to his em- 
pire. When he discovered that they were consid- 
ered indispensable to him, his vigilant egotism took 
alarm, and he got rid of them. It is difficult in all 
history to cite a personage more infamous and more 
loathsome than Fouche. But he was a master of 
those vile arts which despotism requires in a minister 
of police. He was, in truth, a pestilent instrument 
which it was equally dangerous to utilize or to neg- 
lect. Napoleon did both, a course which combined 
both disadvantages. Talleyrand, cynical and igno- 
ble as he was in many respects, stands on a higher 
level, and may find some excuse, not merely in the 
laxity and exigencies of a revolutionary epoch, but 
in a cool foresight which gives color to the plea that, 
while doing his best for himself, he was doing the 
best for France. That question does not concern 
us. But, in spite of indolence, and in spite of cor- 

V ruption, he was a consummate foreign minister and 

V an unrivalled diplomatist. Up to the time of the 
Spanish imbroglio he was Napoleon's close confi- 
dant, as he had been one of the earliest associates 
of his fortunes. Napoleon charged him with ad- 
vising the policy with regard to Spain and then de- 

267 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

nouncing it. Talleyrand denied the charge. We 
are inclined to think that both were right. Talley- 
rand, as we learn from his intimate friend, Mme. 
de Remusat, openly declared, and had no doubt ad- 
vised the Emperor, that "a Bourbon was an incon- 
venient neighbor to Napoleon, and it was doubtful 
whether such a neighbor could be tolerated." But 
he entirely disapproved of Napoleon's proceedings. 
In a word, he probably gave the impulsion and in- 
spired the idea, while Napoleon found the methods. 
Possibly something of the same kind occurred with 
regard to the Enghien affair. The fact, however, 
that we have to deal with is the rupture, not its cause. 
For we are persuaded that, had Napoleon been able 
to retain and work with Talleyrand, his fall would 
not have taken place. He quarrelled with both Tal- 
leyrand and Fouche, and was never able to replace 
them. 

His relations to both these officials throw an in- 
instructive light on the cynical side of his character. 
He grossly and publicly insulted Talleyrand on more 
than one occasion, outrages in essence and style so 
intolerable that no man could forgive them. Yet 
Napoleon in his troubles sent for Talleyrand, and 
began talking to him confidentially about politics. 
In the midst of their conversation, Talleyrand calmly 
remarks, "But, by-the-bj^e, I thought we had quar- 
relled." Napoleon dismisses the remark with a 
"Bah!" Talleyrand, however, had then been long 
in close relations with Russia, and was not to be won 
back. Fouche, too, was dismissed with disgrace. 
He openly hated Napoleon, and passed his exile in 
intriguing against him. Napoleon was ignorant 
neither of the hatred nor the intrigues. But in 1815, 

268 



THE END 

as we have seen, he whistles him back, and intrusts 
him with one of the most dehcate and important of- 
fices at his disposal, the one which gives the best 
opportunity for betrayal. 

Many other causes for his overthrow have been 
alleged, but, in our judgment, they are ancillary to 
those that we have cited. And, as a rule, they are, 
strictly considered, rather effects than causes ; it was 
the causes of his overthrow which produced these 
disastrous errors. His faults of policy were, no 
doubt, in his later reign, numerous and obvious 
enough. But they were not, as is often popularly 
stated, th^ causes which effected his ruin, but rather 
the effects and outcome of the causes which pro- 
duced his ruin. And this much more must be 
said in fairness for them, that, viewing them from 
their political aspect, and putting aside all moral 
tests, they were grand and not wholly extravagant 
errors. Life was too short for his plans. The sense 
of this made him impatient and violent in his pro- 
ceedings. And so his methods were often petty — 
not so his policy. His gigantic commercial struggle 
with England was an impossible effort, but it was one 
which distinguished economists have, on a smaller 
scale, often since endeavored to repeat. Nor is it 
easy to see, in the absence of an efficient fleet, what 
other weapon was available with which to attack 
his world-wide enemy. Again, the Spanish ex- 
pedition was a blunder in method but not neces- 
sarily in policy. Louis XIV. had carried out the 
same policy with conspicuous success. And Napo- 
leon could not foresee that a people which had 
long supported dynasties so contemptible would 
rise like one man against his own. Again, the 

269 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

Russian expedition was a blunder, but Russia was 
the fatal leak in his continental system, and he 
might well refuse to believe that the Russia, which 
had succumbed after Friedland, would burn her 
ancient capital and her secular shrines rather than 
again submit. Again, the contest with the Pope 
was a blunder, so grave that some thinkers believe 
that it mainly contributed to his fall. But it was 
the blunder of the Holy Roman Emperor and most 
Catholic King, Charles V., who had aspired to add 
the sacred crowns of the papacy to his own diadem, 
and accumulate in his own person all the preroga- 
tives, secular and divine, of supreme authority. 
Napoleon's methods towards the Holy See were 
brutal, but Charles sacked Rome. 

We have no doubt that Napoleon, after bringing 
Russia into his system, and crippling or crushing 
Great Britain, aspired vaguely to becoming in some 
way Lord Paramount of Europe. We question, 
however, whether the idea ever assumed actual 
shape, except in regard to the West, or was ever 
more than a dream of dominion. He must have 
known that he could not bequeath so personal a 
power to his son, but he probably thought that a 
mere remnant of his empire would be a rich inherit- 
ance for his posterity. For himself, he would have 
outstripped those dead rivals who looked back on him 
from the page of history, and lured him on ; his only 
rivals, on whom his inner eye was always emulously 
fixed. And he would have bequeathed a name 
before which all others would pale, and all future 
generations yield unquestioned homage. 

There is one question which English people ask 
about great men, which one cannot put with regard 

270 



THE END 

to Napoleon without a sense of incongruity which 
approaches the grotesque. Was Napoleon a good 
man? The irresistible smile with which we greet 
the question proves, we think, not the proved in- 
iquity, but the exceptional position of this unique per- 
sonality. Ordinary measures and tests do not ap- 
pear to apply to him. We seem to be trying to span 
a mountain with a tape. In such a creature we ex- 
pect prodigious virtues and prodigious vices, all 
be3^ond our standard. We scarcely remember to 
have seen this question seriously asked with regard 
to Napoleon, though Metternich touches on it in a 
fashion; it seems childish, discordant, superfluous. 
But asked nakedly in the ordinary sense, without 
reference to the circumstances of the time, it can 
admit but of one prompt reply. He was not, of 
course, good in the sense that Wilberforce or St. 
Francis was good. Nor was he one of the virtuous 
rulers: he was not a Washington or an Antonine. 
Somewhere or another he has said that he could 
not have achieved what he did had he been religious, 
and this is undoubtedly true. In England his name 
was a synonym for the author of all evil. He was, 
indeed, in our national judgment, a devil seven times 
worse than the others. But then we knew nothing 
at all about him. He, had he been himself asked 
the question and understood it, would at once have 
discriminated between the public and the private 
man. He would have said that private morality 
had nothing to do with statecraft, and that state- 
craft, if it had a morality at all, had a morality of 
its own. His own morals, he would have said, and 
indeed thought, were extremely creditable to so alto- 
gether exceptional a being. To use a common vul- 

271 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST IPHASE 

garism, he was not, we think, so black as he is 
painted. The tone of his age, the accepted and 
special latitude accorded to monarchs in the eigh- 
teenth century, the circumstances and temptations of 
his position must be taken into account. Men must 
judge men not absolutely but relatively, as they 
would themselves be judged. Circumstance, epoch, 
environment, training, temptation, must all be taken 
into account if you would test the virtues of man- 
kind. An abstinent man when starving will choke 
himself with a meal from which a glutton would 
shrink. A temperate man in extreme weakness 
will swallow without injury draughts of brandy 
which would drown a drunkard. And so with Na- 
poleon. His lot was not cast in a monastery or 
in a pulpit. He came from Corsica a little pagan, 
viewing the world as his oyster. He was reared in 
the life of camps and in the terrors of revolution. 
He was raised to rule a nation, which, in the horrors 
of a great convulsion, had formally renounced and 
practically abjured Christianity. He had to fight 
for his own hand against the whole world. It was 
breathless work which gave little time for reflection. 
What he said of religion we have seen. What 
he thought of religion we do not know. He grasped, 
no doubt, its political force. He would have un- 
derstood the military value of the loyal piety of the 
Tyrolese, or the stern fanaticism of the Covenanters. 
That he deemed religion essential to a nation he 
proved by his bold achievement of the concordat. 
It is clear, too, that he thought the same of morality, 
of the sanctity of the family, of public and even 
private virtue. He was never weary of inculcating 
them. But it never even occurred to him that these 

272 



THE END 

rules were applicable to himself, for he soon re- 
garded himself as something apart from ordinary- 
men. He did not scruple to avow his conviction. 
"I am not a man like other men/' he would say; 
" the laws of morality and decorum could not be in- 
tended to apply to me." He was, it may be fairly- 
alleged, indulgent and affectionate to his family, 
particularly in his first, better years; dutiful to his 
mother; kind to his early friends. He wished to be 
a good husband according to his lights. He would 
have cherished his son had he been allowed. He 
was a tender brother in his early years, especially to 
Louis, who rewarded him by the grossest suspicions 
of a hypochondriac. He was free from the sordid 
cares of personal wealth or personal avarice. He 
was quick to wrath, but, according to the best and 
keenest judges, easily appeased. "Always kind, 
patient, and indulgent," says Meneval. Mme. de 
Remusat, a hostile and observant chronicler, nar- 
rates several instances of his consideration and 
tenderness, as well as of his susceptibility to the 
pleading fondness of Josephine. Mme. de Remusat 
witnessed in 1806 a scene of almost hysterical and 
insurmountable emotion when Napoleon embraced 
Talleyrand and Josephine, declaring that it was 
hard to part from the two people that one loved 
the most; and, utterly unable to control himself, 
fell into strong convulsions. This was no comedy. 
There was nothing to gain. It was the sudden and 
passionate assertion of his heart. 

But, it must be admitted, this was an exceptional 
case. In the final deteriorated phase of his charac- 
ter there is no trace of friendship. In one or two in- 
stances he may have felt it. But he had no friends. 
S 273 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

Duroc most nearly approached to that intimate char- 
acter. Napoleon, on assuming the crown, had bade 
Duroc continue to call him "thou," a rare if not a 
singular privilege. Duroc he called his conscience. 
From Duroc he was said to have no secrets. But 
Duroc stood alone. Great masses, who knew him 
only in his public capacity, chiefly as a general, 
adored him to the last. The private soldiers who 
marched from France to Waterloo were inspired with 
an enthusiasm for him which at least equalled that of 
the soldiers at Marengo or Austerlitz. But that en- 
thusiasm diminished in proportion to remoteness from 
the rank and file. Officers felt it less in an ascend- 
ing scale, and when the summit was reached it was 
no longer perceptible. It had long since ceased to 
be felt by those who knew the Emperor most inti- 
mately. Friendship, as we have seen, he had delib- 
erately discarded as too close a relation for other mor- 
tals to bear to himself. Many, too, of his early 
friends had died on the field of battle, friends such 
as Lannes, Desaix, and Duroc. But some had sur- 
vived and left him without ceremony, or even decency. 
Berthier, his life-long comrade, the messmate of his 
campaigns, his confidant, deserted him without a 
word, and did not blush to become captain of Louis 
XVIII. 's bodyguard. His marshals, the compan- 
ions of his victories, all left him at Fontainebleau, 
some with contumely. Ney insulted him in 1814, 
Davoust in 18 15. Marmont, the petted child of his 
favor, conspicuously betrayed him. The loyal Cau- 
laincourt found a limit to his devotion at last. Even 
his body attendants. Constant and Rustan, the valet 
who always tended him, and the Mameluke who 
slept against his door, abandoned him. It was dif- 

274 



THE END 

ficult to collect a handful of officers to accompany 
him to Elba, much more difficult to find a few for St. 
Helena. The hopeless followers of ungrateful mas- 
ters, the chief mourners of misfortune who haunted 
the barren antechambers of the Bourbons and the 
Stuarts, had no counterpart in the exile of Napoleon. 
We need not reproach a nation, for that nation found 
many faithful adherents for their ancient kings. 
Moreover, his wife, who left him without a sigh, who 
wrote, when under his roof, that she was only happy 
by his side, and who, after his death, wrote that she 
had never felt any real affection for him, was an Aus- 
trian. We must regretfully attribute this alienation, 
discreditable as it is to the deserters, as more dis- 
creditable to Napoleon himself. Bertrand, as we 
have seen, who, if alone, can claim the halo of fidel- 
ity, avowed the truth at St. Helena, not in anger, 
but in sorrow : " The Emperor is what he is ; we can- 
not change his character. It is because of that char- 
acter that he has no friends, that he has so many 
enemies, and, indeed, that we are at St. Helena." 

And yet we must not distribute this judgment over 
his whole career; it applies only to that part of it 
which w^as essentially imperial and partially insane. 
Until he chose to make a demigod of himself, and de- 
liberately cut himself off from humanity, he was 
kind, generous, and affectionate; at any rate, if 
that be too partial a judgment, he was certainly not 
the reverse. 

But in the full swell of his career it would never 
have crossed his mind that these attributes, any more 
than veracity or sympathy, had any relation to him. 
They were right and proper for others, but for him 
something more or something less was required. 

275 



NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 

They were qualities for mere men ; and the ordinary- 
restraints, hke the ordinary objects, of mere men had 
ceased to have any meaning for him. 

Was he a great man? That is a much simpler 
question, but it involves definitions. If by " great " 
be intended the combination of moral qualities with 
those of intellect, great he certainly was not. But 
that he was great in the sense of being extraordi- 
nary and supreme we can have no doubt. If great- 
ness stands for natural power, for predominance, 
for something human beyond humanity, then Na- 
poleon was assuredly great. Besides that indefina- 
ble spark which we call genius, he represents a com- 
bination of intellect and energy which has never 
perhaps been equalled, never, certainly, surpassed. 
He carried human faculty to the farthest point of 
which we have accurate knowledge. Alexander is 
a remote prodigy, too remote for precise comparison. 
To Caesar the same objection is applicable. Homer 
and Shakespeare are impersonal names. Besides, 
we need for comparison men of action and business. 
Of all these great figures, it may be said that we do 
not know enough. But Napoleon lived under the 
modern microscope. Under the fiercest glare of 
scrutiny he enlarged indefinitely the limits of human 
conception and human possibility. Till he had lived 
no one could realize that there could be so stupen- 
dous a combination of military and civil genius, such 
comprehension of view united to such grasp of de- 
tail, such prodigious vitality of body and mind. 
"He contracts history," said Mme. d'Houdetot, 
"and expands imagination." "He has thrown a 
doubt," said Lord Dudley, "on all past glory; he 
has made all future renown impossible." This is 

276 



THE END 

hyperbole, but with a substance of truth. No name 
represents so completely and conspicuously domin- 
ion, splendor, and catastrophe. He raised himself 
by the use, and ruined himself by the abuse, of su- 
perhuman faculties. He was wrecked by the ex- 
travagance of his own genius. No less powers than 
those which had effected his rise could have achieved 
his fall. 



I 



APPENDIX 



I. CAPTAIN MAITLAND 
Napoleon Bonaparte, when he came on board 

the Bellerophon, on the 15th of July, 1815, wanted ex- 
actly one month of completing his forty-sixth year, being 
born the 15th of August, 1769. He was then a remark- 
ably strong, well-built man, about five feet seven inches 
high, his limbs particularly well formed, with a fine 
ankle and very small foot, of which he seemed rather 
vain, as he always wore while on board the ship silk 
stockings and shoes. His hands were also very small, 
and had the plumpness of a woman's rather than the 
robustness of a man's. His eyes light gray, teeth good ; 
and when he smiled the expression of his countenance 
was highly pleasing ; when under the influence of dis- 
appointment, however, it assumed a dark, gloomy 
cast. His hair was of a very dark brown, nearly ap- 
proaching to black, and, though a little thin on the top 
and front, had not a gray hair among it. His com- 
plexion was a very uncommon one, being of a light 
sallow color, differing from almost any other I ever met 
with. From his having become corpulent, he had lost 
much of his personal activity, and, if we are to give credit 
to those who attended him, a very considerable portion 
of his mental energy was also gone. . . . His general 
appearance was that of a man rather older than he then 
was. His manners were extremely pleasing and affa- 
ble : he joined in every conversation, related numerous 

279 



APPENDIX . 

anecdotes, and endeavored, in every way, to promote 
good-humor : he even admitted his attendants to great 
famiHarity ; and I saw one or two instances of their con- 
tradicting him in the most direct terms, though they 
generally treated him with much respect. He possessed, 
to a wonderful degree, a facility in making a favorable 
impression upon those with whom he entered into con- 
versation: this appeared to me to be accomplished by 
turning the subject to matters he supposed the person 
he was addressing was well acquainted with, and on 
which he could show himself to advantage. 

2. SENHOUSE 

July 15, 1815. 
His person I was very desirous of seeing, and I felt 
disappointed. His figure is very bad ; he is short, with 
a large head, his hands and legs small, and his body so 
corpulent as to project very considerably. His coat, 
made very plain, as you see it in most prints, from be- 
ing very short in the back, gives his figure a more ridic- 
ulous appearance. His profile is good, and is exactly 
what his busts and portraits represent ; but his full face 
is bad. His eyes are a light blue, with a light yellow 
tinge on the iris, heavy, and totally contrary to what I 
expected ; his teeth are bad ; but the expression of his 
countenance is versatile, and expressive beyond meas- 
ure of the quick and varying passions of the mind. His 
face at one instant bears the stamp of great good- 
humor, and immediately changes to a dark, penetrating, 
thoughtful scowl, which denotes the character of the 
thought that excites it. 

3. BUNBURY 

July 31, 1815. 
Napoleon appears to be about five feet six inches high. 
His make is very stout and muscular. His neck is short, 

38q 



I 



APPENDIX 

and his head rather large; it is particularly square 
and full about the jaw, and he has a good deal of double 
chin. He is bald about the temples, and the hair on 
the upper part of his head is very thin, but long and 
ragged, looking as if it were seldom brushed. In the 
management of his limbs Napoleon is ungraceful; but 
he used very little gesture, and the carriage of his head 
is dignified. He is fat, and his belly projects ; but this 
is rendered more apparent by the make of his coat, which 
has very short lapels turned back, and it is hooked tight 
over the breast to the pit of the stomach, and is there 
cut suddenly away, leaving a great display of white 
waistcoat. He wore a green uniform with scarlet collar 
and scarlet edging to the lapels, but without lace or em- 
broidery; small gilt buttons, and gold epaulettes. He 
had a white neckcloth, white waistcoat and breeches, 
silk stockings, and shoes with small gilt buckles. A 
very small old-fashioned sword, with a worked gold hilt, 
was buckled tight to his hip. He wore the ribbon of the 
Legion of Honor over his waistcoat, and the star, in sil- 
ver embroidery, on his coat. There were also three very 
small orders hanging together at one of his button-holes. 
His hat, which he carried most of the time under his arm, 
was rather large, quite plain, and having an extremely 
small tricolor cockade. Napoleon took snuff frequently 
during the interview; the box was not showy; it was 
rather long, and appeared to have four coins or medals 
set in its top. 



Napoleon's eyes are gray, the pupils large ; not much 
eyebrow ; hair brown ; complexion sallow, and the flesh 
sodden. His nose is finely formed, his upper lip very 
short, and the mouth beautiful. His teeth are bad 
and dirty, but he shows them very little. The general 
character of his countenance was grave and almost mel- 

281 



APPENDIX 

ancholy ; but no trace of severity or violent passion was 
allowed to appear. I have seldom seen a man of stronger 
make, or better fitted to endure fatigue. 



4. LADY MALCOLM 

June 25, 1816. . . . The following is Lady Malcolm's 
idea of his figure: His hair of a brown -black, thin 
on the forehead, cropped, but not thin in the neck, 
and rather a dirty look ; light blue or gray eyes ; a ca- 
pacious forehead; high nose; short upper lip; good 
white even teeth, but small (he rarely showed them) ; 
round chin; the lower part of his face very full; pale 
complexion; particularly short neck. Otherwise his 
figure appeared well proportioned, but had become too 
fat ; a thick, short hand, with taper fingers and beauti- 
ful nails, and a well-shaped leg and foot. He was dressed 
in an old threadbare green coat, with green velvet collar 
and cuffs ; silver buttons with a beast engraven upon 
them, his habit de chasse (it was buttoned close at the 
neck) ; a silver star of the Legion of Honor ; white waist- 
coat and breeches; white silk stockings; and shoes 
with oval gold buckles. She was struck with the kind- 
ness of his expression, so contrary to the fierceness she 
had expected. She saw no trace of great ability; his 
countenance seemed rather to indicate goodness. . . . 



5. HENRY 

Sept. I, 1817. 
He was dressed in a plain dark green uniform coat with- 
out epaulettes, or anything equivalent, but with the star 
of the Legion of Honor on the breast, which had an eagle 
in the centre. The buttons were gold, with the device 
of a mounted dragoon in high relief. He had on white 
breeches and silk stockings, and oval gold buckles in 

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his shoes ; with a small opera hat under his arm. Na- 
poleon's first appearance was far from imposing, the 
stature was short and thick, his head sunk into the shoul- 
ders, his face fat, with large folds under the chin ; the 
limbs appeared to be stout and well proportioned, com- 
plexion olive, expression sinister, forbidding, and rather 
scowling. The features instantly reminded us of the 
prints of him which we had seen. On the whole his gen- 
eral look was more that of an obese Spanish or Portu- 
guese friar than the hero of modern times. . . . 

A fascinating prestige, which we had cherished all our 
lives, then vanished like gossamer in the sun. The 
great Napoleon had merged in an unsightly and obese 
individual ; and we looked in vain for that overwhelming 
power of eye and force of expression, which we had been 
taught to expect by a delusive imagination. 



THE END 



LBJe'08 



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