NAPOLEON 
 
 THE LAST PHASE 

 
 c ij Am 
 C. K. OODEN 
 
 ? SHIPTOIM 
 IXTON. 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT
 
 JL. 3
 
 ARTHUP ~H!PTG 
 
 NAPOLEON : THE LAST PHASE

 
 NAPOLEON 
 
 THE LAST PHASE 
 
 BY 
 
 LORD ROSEBERY 
 
 LONDON 
 
 ARTHUR L. HUMPHREYS 
 1900
 
 THIRD IMPRESSION
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE LITERATURE 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCIII, AND OTHERS 
 
 GOURGAUD 
 
 THE DEPORTATION . 
 
 SIR HUDSON LOWE . 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE QUESTION OP TITLE . 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE MONEY QUESTION 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE QUESTION OF CUSTODY 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 College 
 Library 
 
 PAGE 
 1 
 
 34 
 
 66 
 
 77 
 
 92 
 
 LORD BATHURST 
 
 116
 
 CONTENTS 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 PAGB 
 
 THE DRAMATIS PERSONS ..... 123 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 
 
 THE COMMISSIONERS ..... 136 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE EMPEROR AT HOME ..... 149 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON ... 163 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE SUPREME REGRETS ... . . . 197 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 NAPOLEON AND THE DEMOCRACY ... 206 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE END . . . . . .217 
 
 APPENDIX ....... 253 
 
 INDEX 257 
 
 VI
 
 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 feelings 
 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 follow 
 Napoleon's name in library catalogues mainly represent 
 compilations, or pamphlets, or lives conscientiously con- 
 structed out of dubious or inadequate materials, meagre 
 bricks of scrannel straw. But now, under a Govern- 
 ment in France which opens its records freely, and 
 with the gradual publication of private memoirs, more 
 or less authentic, we are beginning perhaps to see a 
 possible limit to possible disclosure. The publication 
 of the suppressed correspondence removes a reproach 
 from the official publication, and fills its blanks. And 
 JL 1
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 the mania for Napoleonic literature which has prevailed 
 for some years past, unaccompanied, strangely enough, 
 by any sign of the revival of Bonapartism as a political 
 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, but at any rate out 
 of the harvest of its abundance 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 workman, 
 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. Vandal 
 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 materials 
 would be gigantic before a single word could be written. 
 Nor, indeed, could any one man adequately 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. The Conqueror of 
 17961812, and, it 'may be added, the Defender of 1813 
 and 1814, would require a consummate master of the 
 art of war to analyse and celebrate his qualities. 
 Again, Napoleon the civilian would have to be treated, 
 though not necessarily by different hands, as the states- 
 man, the administrator, the legislator. Last of all there 
 comes the general survey of Napoleon as a man, one 
 
 2
 
 THE LITERATURE 
 
 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 Helena, 
 when he not merely recorded and annotated his career, 
 but afforded a definite and consecutive view of him- 
 self. "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 com- 
 mentary has never perhaps received its just measure 
 of attention. Some one has said somewhere that the 
 memoirs he produced himself appear to be neglected 
 because they are the primitive and authoritative docu- 
 ments, 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 Bour- 
 rienne, or Remusat, or Constant, 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 unbiassed records of fact. Still they remain as the 
 direct deliberate declarations of this prodigy as to his 
 achievements, and they contain, 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- 
 
 3
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 personal 
 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 writing 
 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 reliable 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 O'Meara's book. 
 It is perhaps not too much to hope that his manu- 
 script 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 between his " Voice from St Helena " 
 and his private communications to the English officials 
 at the Admiralty and at Plantation House.* Then we 
 have had the voluminous batteries of Gourgaud, 
 Montholon, and Las Cases (whose suppressed passages 
 
 * Since this was written portions have been published in the Century 
 magazine, which make it abundantly clear that O'Meara skimmed off all the 
 valuable matter for the "Voice." 
 
 4
 
 THE LITERATURE 
 
 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 Betsy," 
 who became Mrs Abell. We have the histories of St 
 Helena by Barnes and Masselin. And in 1816, a former 
 Governor, General Beatson, availed himself of the 
 sudden interest in the island to launch on the public 
 a massive quarto detailing its agricultural 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 Commissaries have taken the field ; 
 Montchenu, Balmain, and Sturmer have all yielded their 
 testimony. So has Madame 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 
 down his sayings : I would thus gain from 500 to 
 1000 louis a day." He was cognisant of the journal 
 of Las Cases, which was dictated to or copied by St 
 Denis, one of the servants, whom Napoleon would some- 
 times 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, except 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 con- 
 tributions; and it may be considered that, while both 
 are striking, one exceeds in interest all the previous 
 publications of St Helena, from the light that it throws 
 on Napoleon's character. Lady Malcolm's " Diary of St 
 
 5
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 Helena" gives a vivid account of the Emperor's con- 
 versations 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 respects 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 conviction 
 that this book is more nearly the unvarnished truth 
 than anything else that has been put forth. 
 
 For there is one rule to which we fear we can scarcely 
 make an exception, which applies to all the Longwood 
 publications: they are none of them wholly reliable. 
 If we did make an exception it would certainly be in 
 favour of Gourgaud. And it may further be said that 
 their veracity increases in proportion to the remoteness 
 of their publication from the events to which they relate. 
 Gourgaud, who is published 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 
 
 6
 
 THE LITERATURE 
 
 of Napoleon, partly to keep up a dramatic representa- 
 tion 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 exact 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 character 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 perceptible 
 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 Gourgaud, in March 
 1818 to the end of May 1821, we know practically nothing. 
 We know what the English outside reported. We have 
 an authorised but not very trustworthy record from 
 within. But, in reality, we know nothing or next to 
 nothing.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 T.Ag CASES, ANTOMMABCHI, AND OTHERS 
 
 THE book of Las Cases, which is the most massive, and 
 perhaps the most notorious, is not without a certain 
 charm of its own. First published in eight volumes, 
 it was subsequently compressed, and under the title of 
 "Memorial 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 realised 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 vicissitudes of his papers. What he narrates 
 is told with spirit and even eloquence, and when cor- 
 roborated by other authority may be taken to be a 
 faithful transcript of the Emperor's talk as he wished it 
 to be reported, or at any rate of his dictations. But, 
 when uncorroborated, it is wholly unreliable. For, 
 putting 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 documents. 
 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 definitely to 
 
 8
 
 LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, AND OTHERS 
 
 pronounce. At any rate, four such fabricated letters are 
 printed at length in Las Cases' book, and he must be 
 held responsible for a fifth, which is nowhere printed, 
 and which probably had but a transient 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 1'Empereur en 
 Espagne." 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 fabricated 
 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 irresolu- 
 tion of the despatch, and the orders that the French 
 armies should perpetually retreat before the Spaniards, 
 as wholly alien to the Napoleonic character. 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 display 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 Murat'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. Napoleon 
 in his other despatches never alludes to this one. 
 Murat never acknowledges its receipt. Murat's minute 
 register of letters received and sent contains no allusion 
 to it. How, in any case, did it suddenly make its 
 appearance at St Helena? It seems useless to accumu- 
 late proofs that a more audacious fabrication has seldom
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 been presented to the public. The editors of the imperial 
 correspondence, indeed, blush as they print it, for they 
 append a note stating that neither the draft, nor the 
 original, nor any authentic copy are discoverable. 
 Savary, Beausset, and Thibaudeau, blindly accept the 
 letter on the authority of Las Cases. Meneval, who 
 was at the time Napoleon's private secretary, anticipates 
 the doubts of Count Murat, and details some material 
 circumstances which vitiate the letter, one of them being 
 that though the letter is dated from Paris Napoleon at 
 that time was at St Cloud. Meneval says that he cannot 
 solve the mystery, though his arguments all point irre- 
 sistibly to fabrication ; his only argument the other way 
 a very dangerous one is that no one but Napoleon 
 could have composed it. The perplexity of Meneval, 
 when his confidential position is considered, is extremely 
 significant, if not conclusive. Thiers thinks that Napoleon 
 wrote it, and wrote it on the professed date, but 
 admits that the letter was never sent. His reasons 
 for this strange theory cannot be examined here, but 
 they appear to be the mere result of a desperate effort 
 to prove the authenticity of the letter, in spite of over- 
 whelming difficulties stated by himself. Montholon prints 
 it among a number of other letters which he says were 
 handed to him by the Emperor. This casts doubt on the 
 narrative of Montholon as well. 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 composition. He tells us that he drew 
 up Napoleon's protest at Plymouth. He drew up in- 
 numerable protests of his own. " Once a corre- 
 spondence established with Sir H. Lowe," he says, with 
 ominous pleasantry, "I did not remain idle." He rained 
 documents on the Governor. Deported to the Cape, he 
 never stopped writing : the Governor of that settlement, 
 
 10
 
 LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, AND OTHERS 
 
 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 Cases would like nothing better 
 than to pen a few Napoleonic despatches to keep him- 
 self in exercise. We should not, on this instance alone, 
 definitely pronounce that Las Cases deliberately fabri- 
 cated the letter to Murat ; for it might have been an 
 academical 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, 1811. It 
 is entirely ignored by the editors of the imperial corre- 
 spondence. It is, however, inserted in the " Lettres 
 inedites de Napoleon I.," but "with every reserve," for 
 the editors do not know its source. Had they known 
 it, they would no doubt have rejected it, as had the 
 former editors. They take it at second hand from 
 Martel's " CEuvres Litteraires de Napoleon Bonaparte." 
 Martel, who does not name his authority, evidently took 
 it from Las Cases. 
 
 Again, in his sixth volume, Las Cases generously pro- 
 duces 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' 
 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 
 
 11
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 remark, and with an ominous reference to Las Cases 
 as the sole authority. 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 reason 
 for accepting any part as genuine, nor indeed does M. 
 Rocquain supply any. 
 
 In his seventh volume, again, there is a fourth letter, 
 of the authorship of which it may confidently be said 
 Aut Las Cases, aut Diabolus. It purports to be instruc- 
 tions for an anonymous plenipotentiary on a mission in 
 Poland, and it is dated April 18, 1812. 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 reconstitution 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, and to his policy, when it was clearly 
 dictated by the commonest gratitude and humanity to- 
 wards 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 impudent 
 of all. In a moment of disinterested friendship 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 execution, 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 fortune to see or even to hear of 
 
 12
 
 LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, AND OTHERS 
 
 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 language 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 authenticate and justify certain mysterious parts of 
 the history 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 
 "Letters 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 
 memorable events of the last twenty years, a part of 
 which was even written from the dictation of Napoleon 
 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 Napoleon, 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 presented by Talleyrand to Napoleon 
 until it was too late. The young prince was no more." 
 The author goes on to say that in the manuscript, 
 which he had been privileged to see, Napoleon states that 
 "perhaps, if this letter had been presented in time, the 
 political advantages which would have accrued from 
 
 13
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 his declarations and his services, would have decided 
 the First Consul to pardon him." This extract is 
 interesting as containing the only portion of the text 
 of this remarkable document which has been preserved. 
 Rumours 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 confidence 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 ? Napoleon's reply was : ' It is true ; the Duke 
 had written a 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 
 execution.' I observed that Talleyrand by his culpable 
 concealment of the letter was virtually guilty of the 
 death of the Duke. 'Talleyrand,' replied Napoleon, 'is 
 a briccone, capable of any crime.' " 
 
 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. The 
 book had not then arrived, but there were extracts 
 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 
 
 14
 
 LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, AND OTHERS 
 
 to O'Meara. "When he (the Due d'Enghien) arrived at 
 Strasburg, he wrote a letter to me in which he offered 
 to discover everything if pardon were granted to him, 
 said that his family had lost their claims for a long 
 time, and concluded by offering his services 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 Napoleon again, as I was anxious to 
 put the matter beyond 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 
 probable 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 assiduously 
 by Warden, O'Meara, and the "Letters from the Cape," 
 ignominiously bursts. The letter disappears, and with 
 it the charge against Talleyrand. 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 metamorphosis. It is, of course, impossible to 
 perform this task with success, but the hapless equerry 
 extracts himself from it with something less than 
 grace or probability. He tells us that after O'Meara's 
 departure 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 errors 
 were, for the only statement which is corrected is that 
 thrice solemnly made by O'Meara on the authority 
 
 15
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 of Napoleon himself. We must quote textually what is 
 said about it. "M. O'Meara dit que M. de Talleyrand 
 intercepta une lettre e'crite par le Due d'Enghien quel- 
 ques heures avant le jugement. La ve"rite est que 
 le Due d'Enghien a ecrit sur le proces verbal d'inter- 
 rogatoire, avant de signer : ' Je f ais avec instance la 
 demande d' avoir une audience particuliere du premier 
 consul. Mon nom, mon rang, ma fac.on de penser et 
 1'horreur de ma situation, me font espe*rer qu'il ne re- 
 fusera pas ma demande.'" This, of course, is what the 
 Due d'Enghien did actually write. Then Montholon 
 proceeds, " Malheureusement 1'Empereur n'eut connais- 
 sance de ce fait qu'apres 1'execution 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, offering 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 suppressed it. Warden published the first statement 
 in 1816 ; 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 published, appears Mon- 
 tholon's book. By this time the whole story has been 
 hopelessly exploded. A host of elucidatory pamphlets 
 has been published. What has not been published 
 is the document itself, which, so assiduously advertised, 
 
 16
 
 LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, AND OTHERS 
 
 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. 
 Montholon, however, only records one correction, which 
 is 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 
 for Napoleon's remarks to O'Meara in March 1817, 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 are they an 
 application for a post in the French army, nor were they 
 intercepted by Talleyrand. It is noteworthy that, so 
 far from the Due d'Enghien soliciting employment under 
 Napoleon, we know from Savary that the Duke's fatal 
 admission 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 retreat 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. Meneval transcribes from the 
 autograph notes of Napoleon 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 regard to it." Talleyrand's complicity or connivance 
 B 17
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 does not fall to be discussed here; that is a very 
 different matter. But this note expressly contradicts 
 the charge of perfidy which we are discussing, and 
 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 review 
 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 arrested and tried 
 because it was necessary for the safety, interest, and 
 honour of the French people, when the Comte d'Artois 
 was, avowedly, maintaining sixty assassins in Paris. 
 Under the same circumstances, I should do the same 
 again." This we believe to be the truth, though not 
 perhaps- J th<r ( 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 farewell letter of Napoleon to 
 Las Cases himself. Strangely 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 collected to 
 justify certain mysterious parts of the history" of the 
 Emperor's reign? Are we to understand that Napoleon 
 hurriedly culled them at the Elyse'e or Malmaison 
 after Waterloo a letter to Louis, a letter to Murat, 
 a letter to Bernadotte, from his enormous correspon- 
 
 18
 
 LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, AND OTHERS 
 
 dence? We know that the letters which he considered 
 at that time of most importance he confided to his 
 brother Joseph: they were bound in volumes. 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 strangers 
 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 ignorant 
 of these fabrications. There would be perhaps, if we 
 could shut our eyes to the evidence of the author- 
 ship 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 
 connection. Unfortunately, there is no doubt as to the 
 authorship of the "Letters from the Cape." Montholon, 
 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 declared 
 the letter to be genuine. But we do not implicitly trust 
 Montholon. We have, however, described the relations of 
 Napoleon, as set forth by the chroniclers, to the imaginary 
 
 19
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 Enghien letter. We can hardly, then, acquit Napoleon of 
 having been cognisant of these documents. Las Cases, 
 in his Journal, constantly treats us to comet showers 
 of asterisks, which he assures us represent conversa- 
 tions with Napoleon of the utmost moment and mystery. 
 Possibly mystifications may have been concocted at these 
 dark interviews, and if Las Cases kept any record 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, follow- 
 ing the less emphatic opinion of Meneval, positively 
 declares 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, care- 
 less of the future or of the verdict of history, in order 
 to produce a momentary impression in his favour; just 
 as he is said in the days of his power to have 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 various 
 
 20
 
 LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, AND OTHERS 
 
 fabrications lie like a bar sinister athwart the veracity of 
 his massive volumes, and make it impossible 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 signalises two other mis- 
 representations 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 bookmaker 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 
 nights hover perilously near the other extreme; as, for 
 example, when he feels an indescribable emotion on 
 seeing Napoleon rub his stomach. The Emperor has 
 some coffee for breakfast, which he enjoys. "Quelques 
 moments plus tard il disait, en se frottant I'estomac 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. 
 
 21
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 absence 
 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 surprised him in any 
 irritation against any of those of whom he has had 
 most to complain." Were it possible 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, emin- 
 ently suave and gentlemanlike. O'Meara accuses 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 Napoleon'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, indeed, that portions of the book are inser- 
 tions long subsequent to the exile. But, on questions 
 where the credit of Napoleon or his ill-treatment is not 
 involved, they may 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. Gour- 
 gaud 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 Gourgaud, at a time 
 when that fretful porcupine must have been making 
 
 22
 
 LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, AND OTHERS 
 
 his life almost intolerable. Indeed, 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 hypothesis, 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 conversation. One 
 at least of these, the record of a monologue of Napoleon's 
 on March 10, 1819, has been published, and exceeds in 
 interest anything in Montholon'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 Napo- 
 leon's memory, and to solicitude for the political interests 
 of Napoleon's nephew. It languishes, moreover, just 
 when it would have been most fruitful that is, after the 
 departure of the other chroniclers, Las Cases, O'Meara, 
 and Gourgaud, when we have nothing else to depend 
 upon, except the imaginative 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. More- 
 over, his illustrious patient, who in any case did not love 
 physicians, thought him too young and inexperienced. And, 
 
 23
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 according to Montholon, Antommarchi treated the illness 
 of Napoleon as trifling, and even feigned. Yet Mon- 
 tholon 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 Montholon, will make him believe, 
 within seven weeks of the end, in the gravity, or even in 
 the reality, of Napoleon'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 Emperor back to Europe. He declares, with a smile 
 of incredulity, on March 20, that Napoleon's pulse is 
 normal. On March 21, however, he recognises the 
 seriousness of the situation, and declares that he sees 
 undeniable signs of gastritis. Napoleon thereupon con- 
 sents, with great reluctance, to take some lemonade 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 re- 
 member the ulcers which were internally 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 favourite 
 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 
 
 24
 
 LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, AND OTHERS 
 
 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 accompany 
 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 characterises as "bien 
 dure." We quote the concluding paragraph : " During 
 the fifteen months that you have spent on the island you 
 have not made His Majesty feel any confidence in your 
 moral character ; 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 Montholon patched up a reconciliation, and on 
 February 6, Antommarchi was permitted to resume 
 his service. On March 23, as we have seen, there was 
 another quarrel, and Montholon records that on March 31 
 Napoleon refused to allow his name to be even mentioned. 
 However, on April 3, he was allowed to be present 
 at Dr Arnott's visit. On April 8, being again absent 
 when summoned, he is formally told that the Emperor 
 will never see him again. On April 9 he went to 
 Sir Hudson Lowe to request permission to return to 
 Europe, twenty-six days before Napoleon's death. Lowe 
 said that he must refer the matter to England. On 
 April 16, Arnott insisted that Napoleon should once 
 more receive Antommarchi. On April 17, Napoleon 
 dictates a letter which he insists on Antommarchi sign- 
 ing as a condition of remaining, as the doctor had been 
 accused of idle gossip and jests as to his master's habits. 
 On April 18, he is once more allowed to accompany 
 
 25
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 Arnott to the patient's room. On April 21, however, 
 the English doctors hold a consultation without him; 
 and when Montholon wishes to summon him on April 29, 
 Napoleon 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 5, Napoleon dies, and, alone of all his 
 attendants, omits Antommarchi from his will. 
 
 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 example, on the day on 
 which Napoleon twice refused to see him, he records that 
 the patient reluctantly accepted one of his remedies, 
 and declared, "You can measure by my resignation 
 the gratitude I feel for you." Napoleon, declares the 
 doctor, added confidential directions about his funeral, 
 that it was to be, failing Paris, at Ajaccio, and, fail- 
 ing Ajaccio, near the spring in St Helena. On the 
 26th of March, when Napoleon would have none of him, 
 Antommarchi 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 persists in for- 
 bidding that his very name should be mentioned." 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 dis- 
 missal, or of his efforts to leave the island. Yet the two 
 volumes which contain his record of eighteen months 
 would have sufficed to find room for this. It is not 
 possible that Montholon should be guilty of gratuitous 
 
 26
 
 LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, AND OTHERS 
 
 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 
 uncorroborated statements. How, for example, can we 
 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 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 Elysian Fields. Yes," he 
 continued, raising his voice, "Kle"ber, Desaix, Bessieres, 
 Duroc, Ney, Murat, Massena, Berthier, all will come to 
 meet me : they will speak to me of what we have done 
 together. I will 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 
 Hannibals, the Caesars, the Frederics, etc." This fustian, 
 of which Napoleon could scarcely have been guilty before 
 his delirium, is supposed to have been delivered to an 
 audience of two, Antommarchi and Montholon: Antom- 
 marchi, who was in disgrace, and Montholon, who, though 
 he hung on his master's words, does not even mention so 
 remarkable a speech. We may safely aver that this is 
 not what Napoleon said, but what Antommarchi con- 
 siders that Napoleon ought to have said. 
 
 One service Antommarchi rendered, which almost out- 
 weighs 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 exquisite 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 
 
 27
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 of youth. All who beheld the corpse were struck by 
 this transformation. "How very beautiful," was the 
 exclamation of the Englishmen who beheld it. But 
 Antommarchi had to fight even for the authen- 
 ticity of his cast. The phrenologists fell on him and 
 rent him. They declared 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 Antommarchi had not produced the 
 cast till late in 1830. We can only sum up our con- 
 clusions by declaring that we believe in the cast, but that 
 if it be not more authentic than the book, we agree 
 with the phrenologists. 
 
 Warden's book consists of letters, addressed to the 
 lady he afterwards married, vamped up by "a literary 
 gentleman." It bears, in passages, too obvious marks of 
 the handiwork of the literary gentleman, who puts into 
 Warden's mouth meditations of deplorable bathos. But in 
 any case the book is of little value, for a simple reason. 
 Napoleon knew no English, Warden knew no French ; 
 and their interpreter was Las Cases. But we cannot help 
 wondering who translated two of Warden's tactful re- 
 marks to Napoleon. The latter had asked which was the 
 more popular in England, the Army or the Navy. Warden 
 replies in the noblest style, and ends, " Such a field as that 
 of Waterloo can hardly find adequate gratitude in the 
 hearts of Englishmen ! " To this Napoleon made no reply. 
 On another occasion, Warden addressed the Emperor as 
 follows : " The people of England appear to feel an 
 interest in knowing your sentiments respecting the 
 military character of the Duke of Wellington. They 
 have no doubt that you would be just; and perhaps 
 they may indulge the expectation that your justice might 
 produce an eulogium of which the Duke of Wellington 
 
 28
 
 LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, AND OTHERS 
 
 may be proud." Again Napoleon did not answer. But 
 we incline to hope and believe that the strain of trans- 
 lating these two observations was not placed on any 
 interpreter, 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 Warden which could be published 
 in Europe. 
 
 Napoleon's reply to Warden was published in a little 
 book called "Letters from the Cape." These letters 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 adherent 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 written them. The im- 
 portance of this book arises from the fact that it is 
 considered by the official editors of Napoleon's corre- 
 spondence to be his composition, and they print it among 
 his works. This is high authority, and is supported by 
 the fact that a first proof of these letters is in existence 
 with numerous corrections and additions in Napoleon's 
 autograph. But, apart from these proofs, it is abundantly 
 clear, on the testimony both of Gourgaud and of Mon- 
 tholon, that the Emperor dictated these letters himself. 
 Who translated them into English, however, does not 
 appear. If they were translated on the island, it was 
 
 29
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 probably by Madame 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 publication. 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 16, 
 1817, he reads his observations on them to Napoleon, 
 and many of them are adopted. On August 22 Mon- 
 tholon and Gourgaud both record that Napoleon finished 
 the evening by having read to him the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 
 8th 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. Gour- 
 gaud, 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 ridiculous speeches into their mouths, and 
 Madame Montholon goes so far as to say that they are 
 badly written, 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 criticism. It is, 
 indeed, only a pamphlet for contemporary consumption, 
 with statements in it intended to influence public 
 opinion. It has no value except from its author- 
 ship and the statement made in it of the fabricated 
 letter of the Due d'Enghien, the existence of which the 
 pamphlet explicitly asserts. 
 
 30
 
 LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, AND OTHERS 
 
 O'Meara's " Voice from St Helena " is perhaps the most 
 popular of all the Longwood narratives, and few publica- 
 tions 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 volumes, and retain any confidence 
 in O'Meara's facts. He may sometimes report conversa- 
 tions correctly, or he may not, but in any doubtful case 
 it is impossible to accept his evidence. He was the con- 
 fidential servant 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 circulated 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 follower 
 of Murat's, who has left some readable memoirs. 
 Santini, who had indeed little time for composition, 
 being Napoleon's tailor, haircutter, and gamekeeper, 
 has, however, his episode in the history 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 villain! If you have 
 any such notions again, you will have to deal with 
 me." And then the Emperor explains to his guests that 
 Santini, who had been of late on long solitary excursions 
 with a double-barrelled 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," 
 
 31
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 said Napoleon, "to restrain him." Santini was deported 
 from the island by Sir Hudson Lowe, 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 cavalry 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 at Brunn. 
 Thence he finally returned to Paris, and ended his life, 
 not unsuitably, as custodian of his master's tomb in the 
 Invalides. 
 
 The value of Lady Malcolm's book consists, as has been 
 said already, in the vivid reports of Napoleon's conversa- 
 tion, 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 ("1'amiral 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 allow- 
 ing a seat; both men standing or walking about, till at 
 last they would lean against the furniture from fatigue. 
 The raciness of Napoleon's conversation, even in a trans- 
 lation, is notable. "I made Ossian the fashion," he ex- 
 claims. "The income-tax is a good tax, for everyone 
 grumbles at it, which shows that everyone 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 destroy 
 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 
 
 32
 
 LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, AND OTHERS 
 
 had quarrelled with Napoleon, therefore everyone 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 is also clear that this 
 annoyed the ruler of St Helena, with whom no one en- 
 dured 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 suppressed something material. 
 An English lieutenant was sent away from the island 
 because he delayed for a few days to report to the 
 Governor a commonplace 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 reply to the 
 last report charged the Admiral with suppressing 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 Mal- 
 colm, "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 correspondence 
 has, however, been preserved, eminently characteristic 
 of Lowe, whose share in it is tart, narrow, and sus- 
 picious. No one who reads it can fail to understand 
 why he was an unfit representative of Britain in so 
 delicate and difficult a charge, 
 c 33
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 GOURGAUD 
 
 Bur the one capital and supreme record of life at St 
 Helena is the private journal of Gourgaud, written, in 
 the main at least, for his own eye and conscience alone, 
 without flattery or even prejudice, almost 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, in- 
 deed, the greatest pains to prove that no more captious, 
 cantankerous, sullen, and impossible a being than him- 
 self has ever existed. He watched his master like a 
 jealous woman: as Napoleon himself remarked, "He 
 loved me as a lover loves his mistress, he was im- 
 possible." 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, pro- 
 duces 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 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 quarrel- 
 
 34
 
 GOURGAUD 
 
 ling or grumbling. Napoleon himself was in much the 
 same position. His fire without fuel, to use Madame 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 children. 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 character, 
 to accompany him. Maitland had noticed on the Bel- 
 lerophon the tears stealing down Planat's cheeks as 
 he sate at breakfast the first day and contemplated 
 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 communicated to Gourgaud there was 
 such a scene of jealous fury that Gourgaud's name 
 had to be substituted. Gourgaud's wishes had thus 
 been gratified, he was almost alone with the Emperor, 
 his only resource was the Emperor, yet every day his 
 sulkiness 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 de- 
 parted, having first challenged Montholon. The Emperor 
 intervened, and enveloped Montholon in his authority. 
 Whether the duel was a comedy or not, it is impossible 
 to say. The editors of his journal 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 written by Montholon to Gourgaud 
 a fortnight after the challenge, which shows that 
 their relations were then not unfriendly, and that the 
 
 35
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 departure of Gourgaud was either planned or utilised by 
 the Emperor for purposes of his own. "The Emperor 
 thinks, my dear Gourgaud," writes Montholon, "that 
 you are over-acting 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 inclined 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 vexa- 
 tion 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 Gourgaud away in 
 order to appeal to the Russian Emperor. And, according 
 to Montholon, as will appear later, Gourgaud's departure 
 is merely a Russian 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 Montholon was 
 utilised 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. 
 
 The value of Gourgaud's journal does not lie in the 
 portrayal of himself, but of his master. Incidentally, how- 
 ever, it is necessary to say much of Gourgaud as the foil 
 who illustrates a new view of his chiefs character. With- 
 out this inducement, we should soon have had enough 
 of the brilliant young officer, devoted to his master, 
 with the unreasonable petulant jealousy which made 
 his devotion intolerable, but, above all, profoundly bored. 
 Bored with the island, bored with the confinement, bored 
 
 36
 
 GOURGAUD 
 
 with the isolation, bored with celibacy, bored with court 
 life in a shanty involving all the burden without any 
 of the splendour 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 Mon- 
 tholon, apparently because there is no one else to 
 quarrel with ; for Bertrand is a laborious and futile 
 peacemaker. The long moan of his life is Ennui. 
 Ennui, Grand Ennui, Melancholie, are his perpetual 
 entries. Here is a week's sample record. " Mardi 25, 
 Ennui, Ennui ! Mercredi 26, idem. Jeudi 27, idem. 
 Vendredi 28, idem. Samedi 29, idem. Dimanche 30, 
 Grand Ennui." Again, "j'etouffe d'Ennui." 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 
 better 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 
 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 charge is, that 
 never once while at Longwood did he speak to Sir H. 
 Lowe, and that he defies anyone to show a single line 
 in his handwriting which is not instinct with the devotion 
 
 37
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 he felt for Napoleon. In making this challenge he must 
 have been conscious 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 that 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 Hudson 
 Lowe and Stunner, the Austrian Commissioner, respect- 
 ing the secret hopes and plans which were carrying on 
 at Longwood. When he arrived in Britain in the spring 
 of 1818, 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 preferred remaining on the island to 
 making the attempt." Scott rests these statements on 
 records in the State Paper Office, and on a report 
 by Stunner, which, with the adhesive disingenuousness 
 of St Helena, is not included in the French collec- 
 tion of Stunner's reports, but which may be found, 
 stripped of its date, in the gloomy recesses of Forsyth's 
 appendix. We do not pretend or wish to adjudicate 
 on this matter, but we do not believe that Gourgaud, 
 an honourable and distinguished French General, long 
 attached to the person of Napoleon, would wantonly 
 reveal to Lowe, Bathurst, or Stunner 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 humour, or, 
 most probable of all, to divert their suspicions from 
 something else, he was mystifying them; and, perhaps, 
 as Montholon says, over-playing his part. When we 
 
 38
 
 GOURGAUD 
 
 read in Balmain's reports, "His denunciations of his 
 former master are beyond decency," or when he tells 
 Balmain that he intended to shoot Napoleon on the 
 battlefield of Waterloo and cannot understand why 
 he failed to do so, we seem to hear the warning voice 
 of Montholon, " You are over-acting your part." His 
 candour was at least suspicious ; " ton de franchise sus- 
 pect," says the Russian Government in its memorial. 
 We do not believe, for example, that it had been pro- 
 posed 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 revelations 
 of Gourgaud. Across an abyss of eighty years we seem 
 to see him wink. So too as to the 10,000 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 Napoleon on his death, 
 and there are no doubloons : they were, we are convinced, 
 coined by Gourgaud for the consumption of Lowe. 
 
 We think it very possible that the irritable officer did 
 at St Helena talk something at random, as Balmain 
 says, in the madness of his jealous rage, and that, as 
 Montholon says, he overdid his part. But we are con- 
 vinced that he revealed nothing of the slightest 
 importance either now or afterwards in London. 
 Indeed, he was soon ordered out of England on account 
 of his active devotion to the cause of his master. 
 
 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 himself. He 
 is speaking to Montchenu, the old French Royalist 
 Commissioner. "You are talking," says Gourgaud, "to 
 a chevalier of St Louis; whatever attachment I might 
 still have felt (in 1814) for the Emperor, nothing could 
 
 39
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 have made me fail in my duty to the King and my 
 gratitude to the Due de Berry. The proof of this 
 is that my friend Lallemand thought me too much 
 attached to this last prince to put me in 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 3 I was appointed by the Emperor his first 
 orderly officer, and that is why I 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 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 impossible companion. It empoisoned his life at 
 St Helena. Long after his departure from St Helena 
 the success of Se^gur's narrative of the Russian campaign 
 maddened him and drove him to publishing a waspish, 
 unworthy criticism 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 vexations 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 cour- 
 tiers irritate him. When Las Cases exclaims, on hearing 
 some military narrative of Napoleon's, that it is finer 
 than the Iliad, Gourgaud, like Burchell in the Vicar of 
 
 40
 
 GOURGAUD 
 
 Wakefield, says audibly, " Fudge," or its equivalent. The 
 narrative 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 favour 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 himself. He becomes more 
 and more sullen, and, consequently, a less and less agree- 
 able companion. Take, for example, this : Napoleon asks 
 what time it is. " Ten o'clock, sire." " Ah ! how long the 
 nights are!" "And the days, sire?" At last Napoleon 
 says frankly to him : " What right have you to complain 
 that I only see and dine with Montholon? You are 
 always gloomy and do nothing but grumble. Be as 
 gloomy as you please, so long as you do not 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, one of whom, at 
 any rate, might well be held to require the anxious 
 treatment of a convalescent after a terrible fall, there 
 should have been a sustained effort in the common 
 interest to combat depression. Gourgaud made no such 
 effort; he was the embodiment of captious melancholy, 
 yet he could not understand why his bilious companion- 
 ship was not eagerly sought. But to the blank hopeless- 
 ness of St Helena a Knight of Sorrowful Countenance 
 was an intolerable addition. And indeed, on more than 
 one occasion, Gourgaud embarrassed his master by 
 weeping in conversation. "Je pleure" is not an 
 unf requent entry. 
 
 41
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 Moreover, Gourgaud was not merely passively gloomy ; 
 he became actively a bore. He began on every slight 
 occasion to detail his services and his claims, as a pre- 
 face or an epilogue to a long recital of his wrongs. 
 Bertrand suffered much of this with exemplary patience ; 
 for Gourgaud's conception of conversation with Bertrand 
 is embodied in this entry: "He talks of his worries, and 
 I of mine." But at last he told Gourgaud that no 
 longer, even on this mutual principle, could he be wearied 
 with Gourgaud's complaints. One of Gourgaud's great 
 achievements 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 
 portentous. With regard to one letter of complaint, he 
 declares boldly that "the less one writes about eating 
 and drinking the better, as these sordid details lend 
 themselves to ridicule." Again, speaking of the Emperor, 
 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." 
 
 42
 
 GOURGAUD 
 
 On the whole position he writes with wisdom, and 
 a conviction of what was the proper attitude of Napoleon. 
 "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. The Emperor's position 
 is so frightful that the only method of maintaining his 
 dignity is to appear resigned, and to do nothing to obtain 
 any change in the restrictions. We must endure every- 
 thing 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, secondly, 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 anti- 
 pathetic to the whole lives and nature, and to every 
 taste of these brilliant people. 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 anyone, so terrible to them, with fortitude 
 and philosophy. 
 
 The jealousies which haunt a court forbade them to 
 be a little less unhappy than they were. For them, at 
 this petty court, where neither fortune nor places could 
 be awarded, there was only one dignity, only one con- 
 solation the notice of the Emperor, which alone gave 
 rank and consideration. Hence anger, envy, and tears. 
 Bertrand had soon remarked them: "His Majesty," he 
 said, in April 1816, "is the victim of intriguers. Long- 
 
 43
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 wood is made detestable by their disputes." As a 
 rule Bertrand comforts himself by declaring that the 
 Emperor is just 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 began with the very first night on the 
 island. In Napoleon's limited lodging he had room 
 for only one companion, 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 Gourgaud 
 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 luxury? They torment them- 
 selves 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 
 money to, but my companions. And this question of 
 money has much to do with Gourgaud's furious jealousies. 
 He is always mounting on a pinnacle whence he declares 
 that he will take nothing from the Emperor ; but he is 
 always descending 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 for one; he will not take it; he will take it; and so 
 
 44
 
 GOURGAUD 
 
 forth : until the reader is left wondering whether 
 Gourgaud's mother, through all these susceptibilities and 
 delicacies, constantly aroused and constantly overcome, 
 ever secured anything at all. In any case she and her 
 pension became a nightmare to Napoleon, 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 cir- 
 cumstances 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-colour everything at St Helena in 
 order to cheer his parent. His letters of this decep- 
 tive character were read by Lowe, or by Bathurst, 
 or both, and gave them the most sensible pleasure, as 
 affording an authoritative contradiction to Napoleon's 
 complaints. Bathurst and Lowe henceforward cherished 
 a sort of affection for Gourgaud. This fact, and these 
 dutifully mendacious letters, could not be agreeable 
 to Napoleon. Thirdly, the Emperor could not bear 
 that anyone who was devoted to him should be 
 devoted to anyone else. He required a sole and absorb- 
 ing allegiance. 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. 
 
 But Napoleon's brutality was only a passing expres- 
 sion of annoyance at a devotion which he considered 
 he should absorb. Napoleon made no secret of this, 
 
 45
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 he avowed it to Montholon. " Every one," he says, 
 " has a dominant object of affection, and to those 
 whom I like and honour 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 people who are useful to me, 
 and so long as they are useful." His followers were 
 well aware of this principle 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 Emperor is an egotist. He only, 
 says Bertrand, cares for those from whom he expects 
 some service. Another 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 (Madame 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 pre- 
 tended to make friends," he would say. His imperial 
 ideas of state and aloofness, indeed, made any idea of 
 friendship impossible. Now the retribution had come; 
 when he wanted friends he found only courtiers. Pain- 
 fully and laboriously he endeavoured to resume the 
 forgotten art of making friends. It was only fair, and 
 in the nature of things, that he should be but partially 
 successful. 
 
 It is not a pleasant trait in Napoleon that he should 
 
 46
 
 GOURGAUD 
 
 expect the blind renunciation of every human tie and 
 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 prolonged adula- 
 tion 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 
 favour, and that he made his companions suffer much 
 more. Of all these, Napoleon, if he may be called a 
 companion, had by far the most to endure. 
 
 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 Napoleon's 
 own character, and the faithful notes of Napoleon's 
 conversation in its naked strength. We dwell on Gour- 
 gaud, not for the sake of Gourgaud, but for the sake 
 of Napoleon. Napoleon is the figure, Gourgaud 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 Napoleon 
 such as few but Rapp have hitherto presented to us. 
 Kapp, indeed, the most independent and unflattering 
 of all Napoleon's generals, and who, as his 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 humour was sometimes 
 impatient and fluctuating. But he was so good and 
 so generous that he was soon appeased : though the 
 
 47
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 confidants of his cares, far from appeasing, would 
 endeavour to excite his anger." The austere and up- 
 right Drouot constantly averred when at Elba that 
 the Emperor's anger was only skin-deep. "I always 
 found him," says his private secretary, "kind, patient, 
 indulgent." Testimonies of this kind might be multi- 
 plied 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, 
 patient, 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 himself. 
 " In short, I am very angry. The Emperor seeks to calm 
 me; I remain silent: we pass to the 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 crushing his sullen and rebellious 
 equerry, but trying to soothe, to assuage, to persuade. 
 
 48
 
 GOURGAUD 
 
 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 
 forbearance, but we rise from the study of Gourgaud's 
 volumes with the conviction that few men would have 
 borne so patiently with so irritating an attendant. Some- 
 times he is so moved as to speak openly of the disparity 
 of their burdens. Gourgaud speaks of his "chagrin." 
 The Emperor turns upon him with pathetic truth : 
 " You speak of sorrow, you ! And I ! What sorrows 
 have I not had! What 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 moments when I think of what I was, 
 and what I am?" 
 
 On another occasion Napoleon proposes a remedy, or 
 a sedative, for Gourgaud's ill-humour unique 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 Gourgaud replies: 
 "Sire, this journal has no doubt 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 Emperor 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- 
 D 49
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 bearance and long-suffering of Napoleon. The instances 
 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 Montholon. " 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 acknowledge 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 deVoueY' 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 honour and virtue. I 
 know now that one should never tell the truth to 
 sovereigns, and that flatterers and schemers are those 
 who succeed with them. Your Majesty will come to 
 understand some day what a hypocrite 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 scene 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 Gourgaud hears 
 this, he immediately, by way of allaying the strain 
 on their common life, challenges Montholon. Things 
 get worse and worse, until Gourgaud remonstrates 
 
 50
 
 GOURGAUD 
 
 with the Emperor on the double allowance that he 
 gives Montholon. Napoleon points out that Montholon 
 has a wife and family, which Gourgaud has not. Still 
 Gourgaud grumbles. At last, Napoleon loses patience, 
 and says frankly that he prefers Montholon to Gour- 
 gaud. Then, indeed, there is an explosion. Gourgaud 
 is choked with tears, says that all the generals who 
 have distinguished 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 pre- 
 ferable companion to Gourgaud. And so the incessant 
 and wearisome scenes go on. The Emperor patient and 
 friendly: the aide-de-camp fretful, sullen, even insult- 
 ing. One day, for example, he says : " Yes, Sire, provided 
 that History does not say that France was very great 
 before Napoleon, but partitioned after him." Even 
 this taunt does not ruffle his master. Another time, 
 after a tiresome wrangle, the Emperor tells him good- 
 humouredly to go to bed and calm himself. To which 
 Gourgaud replies, that if he had not more philo- 
 sophy 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 
 philosophy and strength of mind by informing Bertrand 
 that his patience is at an end and that he must box 
 Montholon'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," says Gourgaud, with patronising candour, "it 
 is indeed horrible. It would have been better to die 
 
 51
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 before coining 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 reply, merely sends for Bertrand as a more agreeable 
 companion. On yet another day 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 preconceived 
 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 gentle- 
 ness and patience with which he bore them. 
 
 His companions, indeed, were not of very much com- 
 fort to him ; Bertrand was much absorbed by his wife ; 
 Montholon was neither very able nor very trustworthy; 
 Las Cases, who was an adroit and intelligent talker, 
 was a firebrand to the jealousies of the others; Gour- 
 gaud was almost intolerable. Napoleon had to make 
 the best of them, to soothe them, to cheer them, to 
 pay visits to Madame Bertrand, and to make presents 
 to Madame de Montholon, to try and put Gourgaud to 
 some mathematical and historical work which would 
 occupy his mind. Or else the Emperor tries almost 
 humbly to put Gourgaud into a better humour. 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 
 humour. "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." 
 
 52
 
 GOURGAUD 
 
 "Gorge, 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 behaviour or some allusion of the 
 chronicler himself. Moreover, these occasions are rare, 
 and we gather them only from Gourgaud's malign impres- 
 sions, not from any proof of the Emperor's anger. Once 
 in these last days there is a misunderstanding, notable 
 only as showing Gourgaud's anxiety to misunderstand. 
 I shall die, says Napoleon, and you will go away: "vous 
 vous en irez," "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. 
 "Although 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 proceeds 
 this one-sided, cat-and-dog life. Everything that Napo- 
 leon 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 weari- 
 some, 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 "organise his departure." But still he delays. Before 
 he goes he must challenge Montholon, and Madame de 
 Montholon 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 Gourgaud 
 declares to Bertrand that the moment has come to chal- 
 lenge Montholon. Nine years has he been with the 
 
 53
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 Emperor (here follows the inevitable record of his ser- 
 vices) and he is to be sacrificed to the Montholons. "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 Montholon, but that Montholon will kill 
 him. So much the better, says Gourgaud, it is better to 
 die with honour 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 apologises 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 narrative, 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 departure were mixed. It was 
 impossible for him to 'continue on his present footing ; he 
 had become irksome 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 Emperor 
 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 Montholon. With his usual un- 
 consciousness of humour, he sends with the challenge a 
 gun and six louis which he had borrowed of his enemy. 
 
 54
 
 GOURGAUD 
 
 Montholon replies that he has given his word of honour 
 to his master not to fight under present circumstances. 
 Then Gourgaud doubles back again. The strange creature 
 goes to Lowe, of all people, and asks his advice. 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 treated with extreme 
 rigour, and returns to Longwood to write a letter to 
 Napoleon, asking leave to retire on the ground of illness. 
 The Emperor grants permission, regretting with imper- 
 turbable gravity that the liver complaint indigenous 
 to the island (and with which, for obvious reasons, he 
 was always determined to credit himself) should have 
 made another victim. He receives Gourgaud once more. 
 This last records, though, it may be presumed, very incom- 
 pletely, what passes. The Emperor bids him see Princess 
 Charlotte, on whose favour 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 cordially as ever." (This was a gloss on the 
 instructions he had dictated the day before, when he 
 declared: "I 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 another world 
 embrace me." Gourgaud embraces him with tears, and 
 so ends this strange, unhappy connection. From another 
 source we discover that the day before this farewell 
 interview, the Emperor dictated to Montholon a long 
 appeal to the Emperor of Russia, probably for the use 
 
 55
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 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 ultimate 
 result. Then Gourgaud goes forth among the Gentiles; 
 stays with Jackson, dines with Lowe and the Commis- 
 sioners, abuses Napoleon, communicates cock-and-bull 
 revelations, over-acts his part. Meanwhile, we learn 
 from Montholon that he is all the time secretly com- 
 municating to Longwood the result of his conversations 
 with Stunner 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 communications from Napoleon in the soles 
 of his boots. A characteristic ending to his tormented 
 exile. 
 
 56
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE DEPORTATION 
 
 WERE it possible, we would ignore all this literature, as 
 it is peculiarly painful for an Englishman to read. He 
 must regret that his Government ever undertook 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 unfortunate. 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 Govern- 
 ment. They 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 removal 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 
 certain that Napoleon should never more escape. Our 
 own view is that under no circumstances could Napoleon 
 have ever again conquered Europe; his energies were 
 exhausted, and so was France for his lifetime. But the 
 Allies could not know this ; they would have been cen- 
 surable had they taken such a view into consideration, 
 
 57
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 and in any case Napoleon, well or ill, active or inactive, 
 if at large, would have been a formidable rallying-point 
 for the revolutionary forces of Europe. 
 
 We may then consider it as admitted and established 
 that Napoleon could never again be a free agent. It was 
 hard for him, but he had been hard on the world. And 
 in a sense it was the greatest compliment that could 
 be paid him. 
 
 Napoleon surrendered himself to Great Britain, and 
 the Allies desired that Great Britain should be answer- 
 able for him. In what spirit did our Government 
 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 
 Buonaparte, as the best termination of the business." 
 To make his case clear he put it thus to Eldon : 
 Napoleon "must then revert either to his original 
 character of a French subject, or he had no character 
 at all, and headed his expedition as an outlaw and an 
 outcast hostis humani generis." The option, as it pre- 
 sented itself, apparently to Lord Liverpool at that time, 
 was that 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 suffi- 
 ciently strong to treat him as a rebel, we are ready to 
 take upon ourselves the custody of his person," and so 
 forth. Sir Walter Scott admits that in 1816 a consider- 
 able party in Britain still considered that Napoleon 
 should have been handed over to Louis XVIII. to be 
 dealt with as a rebel subject. Fortunately, though no 
 thanks to our ministers, we are spared the memory of 
 their having handed over Napoleon to the French Govern- 
 ment to be shot like Ney. 
 
 58
 
 THE DEPORTATION 
 
 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 Holland, 
 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 Arcola, 
 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 mysterious 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 Napoleon. 
 Not all the precautions that enclosed Danae could have 
 prevented commiseration and solicitation to so potent 
 a neighbour. Napoleon had been the genius of unrest 
 in Europe ; the tradition and association would have 
 remained with Colonel Muiron, however respectable and 
 domesticated that officer 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 exclaims, " 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. 
 
 59
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 con- 
 tented. 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 immediately, 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 himself 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 fascinated Maitland, who took 
 him to England, as he had fascinated Ussher, who 
 had conducted him to Elba. Maitland caused inquiries 
 to be made, after 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 Montchenu held similar views. When he had 
 left the Undaunted, which conveyed him to Elba, 
 the boatswain, on behalf of the ship's company, had 
 wished him "long life and prosperity in the island 
 
 60
 
 THE DEPORTATION 
 
 of Elba, and better luck another time." After two 
 short meetings, 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 Regent), 
 in half-an-hour they would have been the best friends 
 in England." Napoleon was ultimately made aware of 
 the danger that was apprehended from his living in 
 England. A traveller had told him that the British 
 Government could not suffer 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 unnecessary to expand. Napoleon in England would 
 have been a danger to the Governments both of France 
 and of Britain. 
 
 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 outrage 
 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 Napoleon would have 
 been at least a centre of disturbance. Indeed, he frankly 
 admitted that had he lived there he would not have con- 
 fined 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. Under these circumstances, however, it was 
 
 61
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 not unnatural to select St Helena as a proper residence 
 for Napoleon. The Congress at Vienna, in 1814-15, 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 Liverpool, a very fine residence which Napoleon 
 might inhabit; as he might, indeed, had not Lord 
 Liverpool 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 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 honours "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 
 
 62
 
 THE DEPORTATION 
 
 consideration. A cabin twelve feet by nine was as- 
 signed 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 communication with submission and good- 
 humour." 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 everyone to remain. "I believe 
 the General has never read Lord Chesterfield," he re- 
 marks. This delicate irony was not lost on Napoleon's 
 little court, one of whom was quick to retort with pertin- 
 ence and 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 act the 
 Sovereign occasionally, but I cannot allow it." Pursuing 
 this course of discipline, he notes, a few days later, "I 
 did not see much of General Buonaparte throughout 
 this day, as, owing to his appearing inclined 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 behaved 
 somewhat too cavalierly to the captive. He quotes 
 Napoleon as saying: "Let them put me in chains if they 
 
 63
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 like, but let them at least treat me with the considera- 
 tion that is due to me." 
 
 Cockburn, from his vantage-point of native chivalry, 
 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 Napoleon's birth- 
 day, 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 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 complaint. 
 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 Napoleon; all 
 the water on board, it was alleged, had also been to 
 India, was discoloured 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 appear to have been fairly 
 patient, and at any rate not to have attracted the par- 
 ticular censure of the fastidious Cockburn. 
 
 The Admiral himself cannot have been entirely at his 
 ease. His crew was in a state of scarcely suppressed 
 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 language and con- 
 duct were beyond description ; they thought nothing of 
 
 64
 
 THE DEPORTATION 
 
 striking the midshipmen. A guard was placed outside 
 the Emperor's cabin to prevent 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 remained in 
 charge of the Admiral until a new governor should 
 arrive, for the actual governor, Mr Wilks, besides 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 office till April 1816, when he was 
 superseded by the arrival of Sir Hudson Lowe. 
 
 B 65
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 SIR HUDSON LOWE 
 
 THERE are few names in history so unfortunate as 
 Lowe's. Had he not been selected for the delicate 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, how- 
 ever, to accept a position in which it was difficult 
 to be successful, but impossible for him. He was, we 
 conceive, a narrow, ignorant, irritable man, without a 
 vestige of tact or sympathy. "His manner," says the 
 apologetic Forsyth, "was not prepossessing, even in 
 the judgment of favourable friends." "His eye," said 
 Napoleon, on first seeing him, "is that of a hyaena 
 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 person of large or generous nature to watch over 
 the remainder 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 
 external to himself. He had commanded the Corsican 
 Rangers, a regiment of Napoleon's subjects and fellow- 
 countrymen in arms against France, and, therefore, from 
 that sovereign's point of view, a regiment of rebels and 
 deserters. This made him peculiarly obnoxious to the 
 
 66
 
 SIR HUDSON LOWE 
 
 Corsican Emperor, who was not sparing of taunts on the 
 subject. Nor was it any advantage 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 married 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 uniformly 
 unfavourable. We have met with only two writers who 
 give a favourable account of Lowe, besides 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 description 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 unfavourable, and alludes 
 to the hastiness of temper, uncourteousness of demean- 
 our, and severity of measures with which Lowe was 
 credited. All these are counterbalanced in the author's 
 mind by the talent which the Governor " exerted 
 in unravelling the intricate plotting constantly going 
 on at Longwood, and the firmness in tearing it to 
 pieces, with the unceasing vigilance," and so forth. No 
 one denies the vigilance; but we have no evidence of 
 plots at Longwood more dangerous than the smuggling 
 of letters. The testimony, therefore, does not seem very 
 valuable, but let it stand for what it is worth. The 
 other authority is the anonymous author of a story 
 called "Edward Lascelles." Here the prejudices of the 
 author are overcome by the hospitality of the Governor ; 
 and, in both cases, the charm of Lady Lowe seems to 
 
 67
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 have been effectual. These, however, are slender bul- 
 warks. On the other hand, we have Walter Scott, with 
 strong prepossessions in favour of High Toryism and 
 the Liverpool Government. "It would require," says 
 Scott, " a strong defence on the part of Sir Hudson Lowe 
 himself ... to induce us to consider him as the very 
 rare and highly-exalted species of character to whom, 
 as we have already stated, this important charge ought 
 to have been entrusted." Even Lowe's own biographer, 
 whose zeal on the Governor's behalf cannot be ques- 
 tioned by those who have survived the perusal of his 
 book, is obliged to censure: on one occasion he says 
 truly that one of Lowe's proceedings 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 manner was rigid and unaccommodating, 
 and his temper of mind was not such as to soften the 
 distress which the Emperor suffered during his deten- 
 tion." "Sir Hudson Lowe," said the Duke of Wellington, 
 "was a very bad choice; he was a man wanting in edu- 
 cation 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 that Napoleon 
 had nothing to complain of. But, after all, there are 
 certain witnesses of high character, well acquainted 
 with Lowe, who were on the spot, whose testimony 
 seems to us conclusive. We mean Sir Pultehey Malcolm 
 (who was Admiral on the station), and the foreign 
 Commissioners. Malcolm was in the same interest, was 
 serving the same Government, and seems to have 
 been heartily loyal to the Governor. But that did not 
 prevent the Governor's quarrelling with him. Malcolm 
 
 68
 
 SIR HUDSON LOWE 
 
 found, as we have seen, that the island was pervaded 
 by the Governor's spies, that Lowe did not treat him 
 as a gentleman, that Lowe cross-questioned him about 
 his conversations with Napoleon in a spirit of unworthy 
 suspicion. 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 impossible. 
 The Frenchman, Montchenu, was the most favourable, 
 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 inaccessible 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." 
 
 Stunner, the Austrian, says that it would have been 
 impossible to make a worse choice. It would be difficult 
 to find a man more awkward, extravagant, or disagree- 
 able. "I know not by what fatality Sir Hudson Lowe 
 always ends by quarrelling with everybody. Over- 
 whelmed with the weight of his responsibilities, he 
 harasses and worries himself unceasingly, and feels a 
 desire to worry everybody else." Again he writes of 
 Lowe: "He makes himself odious. The English dread 
 him and fly from him, the French laugh at him, the 
 Commissioners complain of him, and every one agrees 
 that he is half crazy." Balmain, the Russian, was a 
 favoured guest of Lowe's, and ended by marrying 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 repre- 
 senting an authority other than his own. He would
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 remain silent when they spoke to him. He was incon- 
 ceivably rude to them. But that in itself seems no 
 proof of his unfitness for his post. 
 
 One of his freaks with regard to the Commissioners is 
 too quaint to be omitted. He insisted on addressing 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 
 instant his judgment to his feelings, and should be 
 able at once to detect and reply to all such false argu- 
 ments, as might be used to deter him from the downright 
 and manful discharge of his office. But then, there ought 
 to have been combined with those rare qualities a calm- 
 ness of temper almost equally rare, and a generosity of 
 mind, which, confident in its own honour and integrity, 
 could look with serenity and compassion upon the daily 
 and hourly effects of the maddening causes, which 
 tortured into a state of constant and unendurable 
 irritability the extraordinary being subjected to their 
 influence." This rather pompous and wordy definition 
 does certainly 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 
 incredible. 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 Montchenu a few beans to plant, 
 both white and green. To the ordinary mind this seems 
 
 70
 
 SIR HUDSON LOWE 
 
 commonplace and utilitarian enough. But the Governor's 
 was not an ordinary mind. He scents a plot : he suspects 
 in these innocent vegetables an allusion to the white 
 flag of the Bourbons, and the green uniform usually 
 worn by Napoleon. He writes gravely 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 say ; 
 but the Marquis de Montchenu, it appears to me, would 
 have acted with more propriety if he had declined re- 
 ceiving either, or limited himself to a demand for the 
 white alone." " Sir H. Lowe," says Forsyth, " thought 
 the matter of some importance, and again alluded to 
 it in another letter to Lord Bathurst." Even Forsyth 
 cuts a little joke. 
 
 Take another example. A young Corsican priest is 
 sent out to the exile. He is, like all the rest, much and 
 necessarily bored all the more as, it is said, he can 
 neither read nor write. So he determines to try and 
 ride, and he is naturally shy 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 Napoleon and thus 
 deceive the orderly officer. ... It was not an un- 
 important 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. Judging from Forsyth's 
 account it was considerable. The fact that the experi- 
 mental 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 may exercise 
 on a mind in which suspicion has become monomania. 
 
 71
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 Bertrand's children go to breakfast with Montchemi. 
 The little boy, on seeing a portrait of Louis XVIII., 
 asks: "Qui est ce gros pouf?" On being told, he 
 adds, "C'est un grand coquin"; while his sister 
 Hortense displays a not unnatural aversion to the white 
 cockade, the symbol of the party, which had ruined her 
 family and condemned her father to death. The artless 
 prattle of these babes is categorically recorded by 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'Meara," says the Governor, " has committed un- 
 pardonable faults. He informed the people there" (at 
 Longwood) "of what was going on 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 Englishman, on behalf of Napoleon, and secretly, a 
 snuff-box! What infamy! 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 colleagues, 
 while his captive remained the centre of admiration and 
 interest, and, in the main, master of the situation. He 
 prowled uneasily about Longwood, 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 term of office. For nearly five 
 years before Napoleon's death they never exchanged a 
 word. 
 
 With regard to this question of interviews, Napoleon 
 was rational enough. Lowe was antipathetic to him 
 as a man and as his gaoler. Consequently, Napoleon 
 
 72
 
 SIR HUDSON LOWE 
 
 lost his temper outrageously when they met, a humilia- 
 tion for which the Emperor suffered afterwards, and 
 which he was therefore anxious to avoid. Four days 
 before their last terrible conversation of August 18, 1816, 
 Napoleon says, with perfect good sense and right feel- 
 ing, that he does not wish to see the Governor, because 
 when they meet he says things which compromise his 
 character and dignity. On the 18th Lowe conies to 
 Longwood. Napoleon escapes, but Lowe insists on 
 seeing him, and the result fully justifies Napoleon's 
 apprehension and self-distrust. As soon as it is over, 
 Napoleon returns to his former frame of mind, and 
 bitterly regrets having received the Governor, for the 
 reasons he gave before, and determines to see him no 
 more a resolution to which he fortunately adhered. 
 
 And yet, with all this mania of suspicion, it is curious 
 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 Government 
 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 gratified in the 
 honour of his company to meet the Countess at dinner 
 on Monday next at six o'clock. They request 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 
 
 73
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 occupied the throne of France, "to meet the Countess" 
 at dinner, was not likely to fulfil, with success, functions 
 of extreme delicacy. Sir Hudson, however, regarded 
 Napoleon as a British General not in employ, and 
 thought it an amiable condescension to invite him 
 to take his dinner with "the Countess." Moreover, 
 to make his advances entirely acceptable, the Governor 
 addressed Napoleon by a title which he well knew 
 that the Emperor considered as an insult to France 
 and to himself. With a spirit of hospitality, however, 
 unquenched by his rebuff, Sir Hudson, three months 
 afterwards, asked Bertrand to invite the Emperor on 
 his behalf, to his party on the Prince Regent's birth- 
 day, but Bertrand declined to give the message. Lady 
 Lowe, however, had the good sense to say gaily, "He 
 would not come to my house, and I thought him per- 
 fectly right." 
 
 It is unnecessary, we think, to multiply these 
 examples, or to dilate further on the uncongenial 
 subject of Lowe's shortcomings and disabilities. 
 Justice, however, requires us to notice that Napoleon 
 was avenged on his enemy by the ill - fortune which 
 pursued Sir Hudson. He was coldly approved by his 
 Government, but received little, in spite of constant 
 solicitation. His rewards were indeed slender and un- 
 satisfying. 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 commander 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 con- 
 verted to the basest uses. The approach to it was through 
 a large pig-sty: the billiard-room was a hayloft: the 
 room in which Napoleon died was converted into a stable. 
 All trace of the garden at which the Emperor had toiled, 
 
 74
 
 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 beholding this scene of 
 desolation and disgrace, he was not destined to \vitness a 
 more cheering prospect in England. He first waited on 
 his old patron, Lord Bathurst, who advised him at once 
 to return to Ceylon. He then went to the Duke of 
 Wellington, and asked for a promise of the reversion of 
 the governorship of Ceylon. The Duke replied 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, unambigu- 
 ously 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 received either employ- 
 ment 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 applying for a 
 criminal information. This was easier said than done, 
 "from the peculiar art with which the book was com- 
 posed." . . . "Truth and falsehood," continued Lowe, 
 "were so artfully blended together in the book, that he 
 found it extremely difficult to deny them in an unquali- 
 fied manner." He found it indeed so difficult that he took 
 too long about it. O'Meara had published his book in 
 
 75
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 unvindicated. Nor did 
 he attempt any further efforts to clear himself, but, in 
 the words of his admiring biographer, "he wearied the 
 Government with applications for redress, when he had, 
 in fact, in his own hands the amplest means of vindicat- 
 ing his own character." These " ample means " apparently 
 lurked in an enormous mass of papers, entrusted 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, forsake 
 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 neglected memory. It 
 is in three massive volumes, and represents the in- 
 digestible 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 Hor- 
 tensius." 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 ques- 
 tion we are not concerned. But as a defence of Lowe it 
 is futile because it is unreadable. Mr Seaton, however, 
 has, by quarrying in Mr Forsyth's materials, produced a 
 much more spirited and available refutation of O'Meara. 
 
 And, indeed, whatever the demerits of Forsyth's book, it 
 renders two services to the student. For it is a repository 
 of original documents bearing on the story: and it con- 
 clusively exposes the bad faith and unveracity of O'Meara. 
 
 76
 
 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 operated 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 thing 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 landed on the 
 island, Cockburn had sent him an invitation to a ball 
 directed to " General Bonaparte." On receiving it through 
 Bertrand, Napoleon had remarked to the Grand Marshal, 
 "Send this card to General Bonaparte; the last I heard 
 of him was at the Pyramids and Mount Tabor." 
 
 But, as a rule, he did not treat this matter so lightly. 
 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 
 
 77
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 ourselves conceive on what ground it was disputed. He 
 had been recognised as Emperor by every Power in 
 the world except Great Britain, and even she had 
 recognised 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 Emperor, 
 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 marshals and knights 
 whom he had created, all were recognised. The 
 sovereign source of these was by implication necessarily 
 recognised with them. The Commissioners appointed to 
 accompany Napoleon to Elba were especially enjoined 
 to give him the title of Emperor and the honours due 
 to that rank. Wellington 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 recognise Napoleon's admission to the caste 
 of Kings; for, as Consalvi remarked at Vienna in 1814, 
 "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 keynote of their policy, vehement and 
 insistent, and it affords an admirable object-lesson of 
 the range and wisdom of that ministry. In the Act 
 which passed through Parliament "for more effectually 
 detaining" him "in custody," he is carefully called 
 "Napoleon BuonaparteY' 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, 
 resolutely inaugurated this solemn farce. And so soon 
 
 78
 
 THE QUESTION OF TITLE 
 
 as he landed he thus answered a note in which 
 Bertrand mentioned the Emperor: "Sir, I have the 
 honour 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 cognisance 
 of any Emperor being actually upon this island, or of 
 any person possessing such dignity having (as stated 
 by you) come hither with me in the Northumberland. 
 With regard to yourself, and the other officers of 
 distinction who have accompanied you here," and so he 
 proceeds. Napoleon was one of these ! Cockburn com- 
 placently sends the correspondence to Bathurst, 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 scrupu- 
 lous fidelity. Hobhouse sent his book on the Hundred 
 Days to Napoleon, writing inside it "Imperatori Napo- 
 leoni." This, though the inscription after all in strictness 
 meant " To General Napoleon," the conscientious 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 chessmen from China. Lowe made diffi- 
 culties 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 honours 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- 
 
 79
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 will, to the officers of the 20th regiment. Unfortunately 
 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 20th regiment would 
 perhaps not mind possessing 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 petti- 
 ness survived even Napoleon himself. On the Emperor'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 accept. So there was no 
 name on the coffin. It seems incredible, but it is true. 
 
 What are the grounds on which the British Govern- 
 ment took up so unchivalrous and undignified an 
 attitude? They are paraded by Scott with the same 
 apologetic melancholy with which his own Caleb Balder- 
 stone sets forth the supper of the Master of Ravenswood. 
 They appear to be as follows: 
 
 (1) "There could be no reason why Britain, in com- 
 passionate courtesy, should give to her prisoner 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 nothing 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 Yarmouth and Lauderdale to negotiate 
 with the Emperor in 1806; while the Imperial title and 
 its representative are duly set forth in the protocols of 
 the Congress of Chatillon to which both Napoleon and 
 
 80
 
 THE QUESTION OF TITLE 
 
 the Prince Regent sent plenipotentiaries, and when, but 
 for the distrust or fatalism, or madness of Napoleon, a 
 treaty would have been signed by both. There is, then, 
 something of the ostrich in the refusal of Great Britain 
 to recognise the style of Emperor. And it seems, to say 
 the least of it, in face of what occurred in 1806 and 1814, a 
 strong statement of Scott's to assert that " on no occasion 
 whatsoever, whether directly or by implication, had 
 Great Britain recognised the title of her prisoner to be 
 considered as a sovereign prince." Are then, plenipo- 
 tentiaries 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 Castle- 
 reagh and Caulaincourt compared theirs at Chatillon, 
 the British Government did not "by implication," though 
 not "directly," recognise Napoleon as Emperor? With 
 whom, then, were Yarmouth and Lauderdale dealing 
 in 1806, or Castlereagh in 1814 ? It is declared 
 indeed, on good authority, that in the negotiations 
 which led up to the peace of Amiens the British 
 plenipotentiaries hinted their readiness to recognise 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 per- 
 se veringly refused to recognise 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 recognised." 
 
 Again, in what capacity and to whom was Sir 
 Neil Campbell accredited to Elba? By the protocol of 
 April 27, 1814, Britain had recognised the sovereignty 
 of Elba. Who, then, was the sovereign? Was it 
 "General Bonaparte"? But Sir Neil officially signed 
 P 81
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 documents in which he was called "S. M. 1'Empereur 
 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 annoy- 
 ance 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 favour 
 to a vanquished 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, 
 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 demanded 
 for his safe custody." Shallow indeed must the Govern- 
 ment 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 com- 
 plimentary, to say that the circumstances were as un- 
 precedented 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 Valencjay in the strictest 
 custody. Napoleon might indeed have rejoined that he 
 
 82
 
 THE QUESTION OF TITLE 
 
 did not recognise Ferdinand as King, though he was so 
 by the abdication of his father, by the acknowledgment 
 of the Spaniards, and by hereditary right. But Napoleon's 
 rejoinder would only have assisted our Government, 
 who would have pointed out that neither had they 
 recognised him. 
 
 There was, however, a higher precedent yet. There 
 is a Sovereign whose pretensions soar far above Empire, 
 who is as much above terrestrial thrones, dominations, 
 and powers, as these in their turn are above their sub- 
 jects. 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 Representative 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 this very Superintendent 
 and Source of Sovereignty was, without being deprived 
 of his sublime 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 convincing 
 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. 
 
 83
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 
 occupant 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 represented the 
 only Government that had really committed the offence 
 which they now pretended to apprehend. For more than 
 forty years their reigning Sovereign had indeed styled 
 himself King of France, though the fifteenth and six- 
 teenth 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 simultaneously two Kings of France, of whom the 
 King of Britain was the groundless aggressor and pre- 
 tender. 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 
 without the desire of conciliating him. But the par- 
 ticular 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 
 Sovereign 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 
 
 84
 
 THE QUESTION OF TITLE 
 
 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 
 reasoning on this subject is the most pleasing and 
 plausible) 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 being 
 admitted by the Allies, that he was declared an outlaw 
 by the Congress at Vienna." We know of no renuncia- 
 tion in form or "in essence" of the title of Emperor of 
 Elba. When Napoleon landed at Frejus, he was, we 
 suppose, in strict form the Emperor of Elba making 
 war on the King of France. But either way this is a 
 puerility unworthy of discussion. 
 
 It is, however, true that the Congress of Vienna had 
 outlawed Napoleon. "In violating the Convention which 
 had established him in the Island of Elba, Bonaparte 
 had destroyed the only title to which his existence was 
 attached. . . . The Powers therefore declare that 
 Napoleon Bonaparte has placed himself outside civil 
 and social relations, and as the enemy and disturber of 
 the tranquillity of the world has delivered himself 'a 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, unluckily, the first breach in the 
 Convention, which established 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 elsewhere was that he should live. With that 
 object the signatories of that Treaty had stipulated 
 
 85
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 that he should receive an income on the Great Book 
 of France of two millions of francs, that his family 
 should receive an income of two millions and a half 
 of francs, that his son should have as his inheritance 
 the 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 
 when Napoleon left Elba. Neither he nor his relatives 
 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 honour 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 possibly an arrangement might 
 be made by which Britain might be jockeyed into fur- 
 nishing 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 obvious breaches of this treaty committed by the 
 Allies. So fanatical an opponent of the Emperor as 
 Lafayette declares that it seemed a fixed policy of the 
 Bourbons 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 re- 
 moval to St Helena, as Lafayette, in spite of contradic- 
 tion, insists, was demanded, and insidiously communicated 
 to Napoleon as a plan on the point of execution. Pro- 
 jects for his assassination were favourably considered, 
 though these, as beyond the provisions of the Treaty, 
 may be considered as outside our present argument. For 
 
 86
 
 THE QUESTION OF TITLE 
 
 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 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 conten- 
 tion of the Allies that he was outlawed by breach of the 
 Treaty. Were it internationally correct that he should 
 be outlawed for the rupture of that Treaty, all the other 
 signatory sovereigns should have been outlawed too. 
 
 And, after this decree of outlawry was promulgated, 
 the situation had materially changed in Napoleon's 
 favour; for France by a plebiscite had consecrated 
 what he had done. It is the fashion to sneer at plebi- 
 scites, and they are not always very reliable. But this 
 was the only possible expression of French opinion, the 
 only possible form of French ratification. The will of 
 the nation condoned or approved his return, just as 
 it allowed the Bourbons to pass away in silence, with- 
 out 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 re- 
 placed with great circumstance 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 
 
 87
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 will ever think of asking, as Pitt said, whether Nelson 
 was a Baron, a Viscount, or an Earl. 
 
 With this 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 Emperor. 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 hencefor- 
 ward 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 contained 
 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 abdication, for nothing could 
 divest him of his blood or his birth. Moreover, Charles's 
 wish was to be a monk; he had quitted this earth; 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 ac- 
 quired them by gigantic effort, than to those who in- 
 herited 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 Grand Marshal in his hut at St Helena 
 
 88
 
 THE QUESTION OF TITLE 
 
 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 
 associations might cast on the sacred attributes of 
 substantial 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 bidding 
 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 Bonaparte, 
 for the French nation had the same right to make him 
 sovereign that they had to make him General. 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 ques- 
 tion of the sovereign right and independence 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 contemptuously, "that Napoleon 
 . . . considered this vailing of his dignity as too great 
 a concession on his part 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 hav- 
 
 89
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 ing been opened to our researches by the liberality of 
 Lord Bathurst, late Secretary of State for the Colonial 
 department." The fact is, of course, that Napoleon de- 
 liberately and formally in September or October 1816 
 (when he referred to a similar offer made through 
 Montholon to Cockburn eight months before) proposed 
 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 3, 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 contracting 
 parties appeared to be on the point of agreement, 
 but we have no doubt that Sir Hudson wished to 
 gain time to refer to his Government. Lowe, according 
 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 disguise 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 arrival 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 
 Cathedral were Counts of Lyons, and that the Emperor 
 could not assume an ecclesiastical incognito. This was 
 conclusive. Meanwhile, the Governor was referring the 
 question home. We do not know in what terms, for 
 it is characteristic of Forsyth's murky compilation that 
 he only prints Bathurst's reply. That reply is, indeed, 
 amazing. Napoleon had offered a simple and innocent 
 means of getting rid of what was not merely a per- 
 petual irritation, but an absolute barrier to communica- 
 tion: for the Governor ignored all papers in which the 
 
 90
 
 THE QUESTION OF TITLE 
 
 imperial title occurred, and Napoleon ignored all others. 
 " On the subject," says Bathurst, " of General Bonaparte's 
 proposition I shall probably not give you any instruc- 
 tion. It appears harsh to refuse it, and there may 
 arise much embarrassment in formally accepting it." 
 We cannot conjecture the nature of the embarrassment 
 apprehended by our Colonial Secretary. Forsyth, how- 
 ever, has been so fortunate, from the resources at 
 his command, as to divine the Minister's meaning. The 
 assumption of an incognito is, it appears, the privilege 
 of monarchs, and not even thus indirectly could the 
 British Government concede to Napoleon the privilege 
 of a monarch. This particular 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 incog- 
 nito. So we are still in the dark, more especially 
 as it was Lowe who invited Napoleon to avail himself 
 of this "privilege." But Napoleon had thus done his 
 best: he could do no more: the blame and responsi- 
 bility for all further embarrassment about title must 
 remain not with him, not even with Lowe, but with 
 the Ministers of George IV. 
 
 Lowe, by the bye, had made a characteristically tact- 
 less suggestion of his own to solve the difficulty. He 
 proposed to give Napoleon "the title of Excellency, 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. 
 
 91
 
 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, fortunately 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 abdicated monarch, he might 
 be held to require an expensive establishment. But 
 the war had been costly, and the prisoner must be 
 cheap. The most expensive 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 extravagant a price," and Lowe pointed out that 
 Bathurst's limit was impossible. The Governor magnani- 
 mously 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. 
 
 But, in the meantime, much had happened. Lowe 
 was ordered by Bathurst to cut down the expenses of 
 
 92
 
 THE MONEY QUESTION 
 
 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 house- 
 hold consumption of wine and meat. Napoleon 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 impelled him to speak to the 
 Emperor about such matters. " We could wish," he says, 
 "that the Governor had avoided entering upon the sub- 
 ject of the expenses of his detention with Napoleon in 
 person." The Emperor put the point tersely enough. " II 
 marchande ignominieusement notre existence," he said. 
 And when Bertrand asks for a duplicate list of sup- 
 plies to the Emperor, as a check on the servants, 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 reductions, but he could not discuss these 
 household details with his gaoler. 
 
 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 may 
 have made a practical demonstration against the new 
 economies. However that may be, Napoleon orders his 
 silver to be broken up and sold. Montholon pleads in 
 vain, and partially disobeys. Three lots of silver are 
 sold at a tariff fixed by Lowe. Montholon has the 
 
 93
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 Emperor's dinner served on common pottery. Napoleon 
 is ashamed of himself he cannot 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 disobedi- 
 ence, and restores uninjured the favourite pieces of plate. 
 
 And indeed the last sale of silver had vanquished 
 Lowe. He expressed lively regret, says Montholon ; and 
 was evidently afraid of the blame that this scandal 
 might bring on him. At any rate, Napoleon remained 
 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 cannot blame him. He was 
 fighting the British Government 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 meagre- 
 ness of his means. Later on he attempted the same effect 
 on a smaller scale. Fuel was short 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 "yamstocks" (for so were the in- 
 habitants of St Helena nicknamed), " and the tyranny of 
 the Governor," Gourgaud gravely adds, "is at its last 
 gasp." 
 
 Theatrical strokes were, of course, by no means 
 unfamiliar to him. Like all great men, he was a man of 
 
 94
 
 THE MONEY QUESTION 
 
 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 ambassadors: he would 
 play the bosom friend with a brother Emperor for weeks 
 at a time. He studied his costumes 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 declares that the announcement of his 
 victories was prepared with similar care. Rumours of 
 defeat were sedulously spread : the ministers appeared 
 uneasy and depressed : then, in the midst of the general 
 anxiety, the thunder of cannon announced a new triumph. 
 And his effects were generally happy. During the 
 Russian campaign there are two more dubious instances : 
 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 home an elaborate plan 
 for the reorganisation of the Theatre Fran<jais. This, of 
 course, was to impress his staff with the ease and detach- 
 ment of his mind, and France with the conviction that 
 the administration 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 overwhelm- 
 ing calamities, he ended the ghastly record of the 29th 
 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 
 
 95
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 faith that after all his well-being was the one tiling 
 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 individuality. 
 We have something of the same nature in our own 
 annals, though widely differing in degree and in con- 
 ception. 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 individuality, sublime in 
 the admiral before the supreme victory, revolted man- 
 kind with the apparent selfishness of the general, who 
 had led a nation to court and undergo disaster, in the 
 very hour of catastrophe. And yet mankind perhaps 
 was hardly just. The assertion of personality had been 
 hi Napoleon's case such a strength, that he could not 
 afford to dispense with it even when it seemed inoppor- 
 tune. And we must remember that those who took 
 part in the Russian campaign testify that the first 
 question, the first anxiety 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 characterised by his 
 excellent common - sense, that we may believe them 
 to be authentic. " Here 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 in- 
 terested in me. Had your ministers acted wisely, 
 they would have given a carte blanche for this house. 
 
 96
 
 THE MONEY QUESTION 
 
 This would have been making the best of a bad busi- 
 ness, 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 signal instance 
 over-reached itself. Napoleon had asked for some books, 
 mainly to enable him to write his memoirs. The 
 Government supplied the books as "an indulgence" 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 ordered Bertrand to 
 refuse to pay this without a detailed account. So on 
 his death the books were impounded 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 them. Had this asset been preserved to 
 the nation, we might have been inclined to shut our 
 eyes as to its history and origin. The penny -unwise 
 and pound-foolish policy of the Government lost both 
 reputation and result. 
 
 O 97
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE QUESTION OF CUSTODY 
 
 THE last group of grievances related to the question of 
 custody. The main object of the coalesced Governments 
 was, not unnaturally, that under no circumstances 
 should Napoleon escape from confinement 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 already impregnable; although, before leaving 
 England, 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 in- 
 tercepted letter to Lucien described them with some 
 humour, and declared that the posts established on the 
 peaks were usually lost in the clouds. Montchenu, 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 responsibility in the matter 
 second only to those of Lowe himself. He details with 
 pathetic exactitude the precautions taken. The plain of 
 Longwood, where Napoleon lived, is, he says, separated 
 from the rest of the island by a frightful gully which 
 completely surrounds it and is only crossed by a narrow 
 tongue of land not twenty feet broad, so steep that if 
 
 98
 
 THE QUESTION OF CUSTODY 
 
 10,000 men were masters of the island fifty could prevent 
 their arriving at Longwood. One can only arrive at 
 Longwood by this pathway, and, in spite of these 
 difficulties, the 53rd regiment, a park of artillery, and a 
 company of the 66th are encamped at the gate farther 
 on, nearer the town, there is another post of twenty 
 men, and the whole enclosure is guarded, day and night, 
 by little detachments in view of each other. At night 
 the chain of sentries is so close that they almost touch 
 each other. Add to this a telegraph station on the top 
 of every hill, by which the Governor receives news of 
 his prisoner in one minute or at most two, wherever 
 he may be. It is thus evident that escape is impos- 
 sible, and even if the Governor were to permit it, the 
 guardianship of the sea would prevent it. For, 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 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, appear to have been allowed under 
 any pretext to communicate with the shore.) 
 
 Surely, then, the agonised apprehensions of the 
 Governor were misplaced: his custody might have been 
 less strict; and Napoleon might have then been allowed 
 to keep himself in health by riding over this 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 Poppleton. Bertrand begs 
 Poppleton not to follow so close ; Napoleon sets off at 
 a gallop with Gourgaud; they soon lose Poppleton, 
 
 99
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 who, it appears, was not a dashing horseman. Popple- 
 ton, disconsolate, returns and reports to the Admiral. 
 Cockburn laughs at the affair as a boyish joke, " une 
 espieglerie 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 conviction 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 officer 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 ignominious 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 happens? On September 4, Lowe comes to with- 
 draw his instructions. Forsyth omits all mention of 
 this incident, 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 
 
 100
 
 THE QUESTION OF CUSTODY 
 
 sight of the prisoner that he is recommended to betake 
 himself to the keyhole. Sometimes he is more for- 
 tunate, and sees a hat which may contain Napoleon'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 appalling nudity. 
 But, as a rule, the existence of this hapless officer is one 
 of what hunting men would call blank days. 
 
 "April 3rd. Napoleon still keeps himself concealed. 
 I have not been able to see him since the 25th ult. . . . 
 April 19. I again waited on Montholon, 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 endeavouring to see Napoleon 
 Bonaparte before I succeeded, and I have experienced 
 many such days since I have been stationed at Long- 
 wood. . . . 23rd. I believe that I saw Napoleon Bona- 
 parte to-day in the act of strapping 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 hours, endeavouring to procure a sight 
 of Napoleon Bonaparte, either in his little 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 ser- 
 vants, but also to the gardeners and other persons 
 employed about Longwood House ; and that I have very 
 frequently 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- 
 
 101
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 successful tout, exposed to the derision of the gardeners 
 and household as well as the ironical survey of the 
 invisible prisoner. Napoleon had won the day, mainly 
 through the wooden clumsiness of his opponents. 
 
 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 dis- 
 covered a "vast and complicated plan" to seize Per- 
 nambuco, where there were said to be 2000 exiles, and 
 with this force to do something unexplained to remove 
 Napoleon. A Colonel Latapie seems to have had the 
 credit of this vast and complicated mare's nest. A 
 " submarine vessel " the constant bugbear of British 
 Governments capable of being at the bottom of the 
 sea all day and of unnatural activity at night, was 
 being constructed by "a smuggler of an uncommonly 
 resolute character," called Johnstone, apparently a 
 friend of O'Meara. But the structure of the vessel 
 excited suspicion, and she was confiscated before com- 
 pletion by the British Government. Our great Scottish 
 master of fiction narrates all this without a vestige of 
 a smile. Another submarine vessel was being con- 
 structed on, it appears, the "Sommariva system," at 
 Pernambuco, 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. British officers volunteered 
 to exchange out of their regiments in Europe in order 
 to contrive being put on duty at St Helena. But I 
 cannot enter into particulars." This, for obvious reasons, 
 we regret. Maceroni, however, does inform us more 
 
 102
 
 THE QUESTION OF CUSTODY 
 
 specifically that this great enterprise split on the money 
 difficulty: 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 con- 
 spiracy, if it ever existed, came to an end. The family 
 of Bonaparte were by this time somewhat wary as 
 to projects of rescue, and the inseparable 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 allusion to St Helena, 
 Cracow, and Philadelphia," addressed to a gentleman at 
 Cracow; news of a fast-sailing vessel being equipped by 
 a person named Carpenter in Hudson's 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 Dutchman. 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 
 meditating escape. The supreme escape was indeed 
 imminent, 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 American 
 soil. Napoleon at once refused to entertain the pro- 
 
 103
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 posal. And Montholon believes that under no circum- 
 stances would he have entertained it, even had a boat 
 been able to reach the only possible point, and, what 
 was also necessary, had the Emperor been able to con- 
 ceal himself all day in a ravine, 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 suc- 
 cess, but distinctly declares that were they all favour- 
 able he would, none the less, refuse to have anything 
 to do with a project of escape." 
 
 Montholon after this makes an entry which is signi- 
 ficant enough. " A plan of escape," he says, " is submitted 
 to the Emperor. He listens without interest, and calls 
 for the 'Historical Dictionary.'" 
 
 Nor, as we have said, do we 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, however, 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. 
 
 104
 
 THE QUESTION OF CUSTODY 
 
 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 Bastia, and who 
 warned me of the departure for Porto Ferrajo of the 
 garde-du-corps who afterwards confessed 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 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 lonely rock, 
 garrisoned by a large military force and surrounded 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 preposterous. 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 inimitably, 
 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 judgment was exactly verified. Six 
 years and a month from Austerlitz would have brought 
 him to 1812, to the Russian campaign, which, had he 
 
 105
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 observed his own rule, he would have avoided. It is 
 noteworthy that throughout 1812, 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 attri- 
 bute the morbid and feverish activity which drove him 
 into that fatal expedition to constitutional disease. 
 Some vivid scraps of the notebook of Duroc, his 
 closest attendant and friend, relating to the beginning 
 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 transforma- 
 tion. There was a notable failure in the sequence of 
 his ideas. His conversation consisted mainly of inco- 
 herent and imaginative bursts. There was no longer 
 the same force of character; not the same passion 
 or power of work. Riding 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 defence 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 terrible 
 activity had become necessary to his life. The suppressed 
 energy, the necessary change of habits injured his health. 
 He became enormously fat; this was the great change 
 
 106
 
 THE QUESTION OF CUSTODY 
 
 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 suggests a reminiscence of Shakespeare. 
 Striking his stomach with both hands, "Is one ambitious 
 when 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 evidence to the same 
 effect, though he holds, and Houssaye with him, that 
 Napoleon's energy disproves the probability of serious 
 ailment. Savary testifies that he could scarcely sit his 
 horse on the battlefield. Lavallette, 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 evident 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 realised 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 praetorians would hardly have been so easy to 
 satisfy. The limitation of his frontier, too, would have 
 
 107
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 been a goad as well as an eyesore. Against these we 
 balance the 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 physical 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 authority of Sismondi, that his ministers, to their 
 astonishment, 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 battlefield, to the amaze- 
 ment of Gerard and Grouchy, he wastes precious time in 
 discoursing to them about politics in Paris, the Chamber 
 and the Jacobins. This discursiveness was partly due, 
 says Mollien, to a lassitude 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 
 Fouchd 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 Bellerophon, 
 he is fooled by Fouche^ betrayed by Fouche^ and prob- 
 ably delivered over to the British by Fouchd Napoleon 
 suffers all this patiently, though not ignorantly. He 
 
 108
 
 THE QUESTION OF CUSTODY 
 
 took a course, indeed, which combined the errors of 
 all possible courses. He told Fouch^ that his intrigues 
 were discovered, and kept Fouche as Minister of Police. 
 
 At last he shakes off the dust of Paris, its Parliament 
 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 days. 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 celerity 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 acknowledges that 
 had he not been so tired he should have been on horse- 
 back 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, "II 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 21st. He is received on the steps by Caulain- 
 court, whose tender and faithful arm supports him 
 into the palace. The army, he says, had done wonders, 
 but had been seized by a panic. Ney, like a madman, 
 had sacrificed his cavalry. He himself is suffocated, 
 exhausted ; he throws himself into a hot bath, and con- 
 vokes his ministers. Lavallette saw him that morning, 
 
 109
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 epileptic 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 temporary : he soon 
 recovered his self-command, and asked what was hap- 
 pening at the Chambers." He recognised 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 
 ended their sitting in Cromwellian fashion. He should 
 too, he acknowledges, 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 
 Parliament. 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 courtyard ready to take him to the Chambers; it 
 is sent away. In the face of treachery and opposition 
 and intrigue he remains passive and resourceless. At last, 
 at a second council, he mechanically signs his abdication, 
 his ante-chambers empty at once, and his palace becomes 
 a desert. 
 
 But outside the soldiers and the multitude clamour 
 for him, they adjure him not to desert them but to 
 organise 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 utilised 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 
 
 110
 
 THE QUESTION OF CUSTODY 
 
 successful revolution, had the Emperor cared to utilise 
 it in that way. At any rate, it alarms Pouche* and his 
 satellites ; they send the Emperor 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 hurrying 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 neither for 
 resistance nor for flight. One day decides both. He is 
 induced to offer his services as general to the Pro- 
 visional Government. The reply he receives is a direc- 
 tion 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 oppor- 
 tunity. 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 afterwards escaped. But Napoleon declared that 
 anything in the nature of disguise was beneath his 
 dignity, though he had certainly not held this opinion on 
 his way to Elba. Again he might have attempted 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 He d'Aix 
 at that moment two French frigates besides smaller 
 vessels. One of the captains was doubtful if not hostile : 
 
 111
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 entrust Caesar and his for- 
 tunes to such a hazard. But now he seemed under some 
 maleficent charm or blight. He dawdled about, sum- 
 moned councils of his suite to ask their advice as to what 
 he had better do, displayed his every movement to the 
 watchful enemy, did in fact everything that a few years 
 before he would have despised anyone 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 telescope he gazed fixedly at the land. 
 From seven 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 
 outline 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 amazed 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 
 
 112
 
 THE QUESTION OF CUSTODY 
 
 British Government and Sir Hudson Lowe, was likely 
 to glide down an inaccessible rock, unperceived by 
 ubiquitous sentries, and, in some unexplained manner, 
 pass vigilant vessels of war, in order once more to dis- 
 turb the world. It is safe to say that had he effected the 
 impossible and escaped, he could never have seriously 
 disturbed the world again, except 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 sometimes hoped to leave St Helena, never, we are 
 convinced, even thought of escape, though Gourgaud 
 records a jesting scheme for this purpose, launched by 
 the Emperor amidst laughter after dinner. He based 
 such meagre hopes as he entertained on the Opposition 
 party in Parliament, or on Princess Charlotte'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 creating 
 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 invaded France he 
 professed to rely greatly on the army of Marshal Mac- 
 donald. " 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 
 
 * 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." 
 
 H 113
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 are four straw chairs and a plank table." Again, during 
 the campaign 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 repeti- 
 tion 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 strang- 
 est instance of this is detailed by Meneval, who tells us 
 that when the Emperor added up numbers 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 persuaded that the expense of 
 his detention would induce the British Government to 
 agree to his liberation. 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 Cevennes 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 favour, 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, because 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, perhaps, be- 
 
 114
 
 THE QUESTION OF CUSTODY 
 
 cause 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. Montchenu con- 
 stantly deplores this ominous fact. Everyone, he 
 says, leaves Napoleon's presence in a state of the 
 greatest enthusiasm. Were I you, said the Marquis to 
 the Governor, I would not allow a single stranger to 
 visit Longwood, for they all leave it in a transport of 
 devotion, which they take back with them to Europe. 
 "What is most astonishing," says the Russian Com- 
 missioner, "is the ascendancy that this man, dethroned, 
 a prisoner, surrounded by guards and keepers, exer- 
 cises 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. . . . The English no longer approach him 
 but with awe. Even his guardians seek anxiously 
 for a word or a 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. He would go into a cottage, sit down 
 and chat with the people, who would receive "Sir 
 Emperor" with awful joy. He would talk to slaves and 
 give them 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 should be within them. 
 
 115
 
 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 impolitic, 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 respon- 
 sibility for these ignominies, or for the general principle 
 of the Emperor's treatment. They were only the some- 
 what narrow and coarse agents of a sordid and brutal 
 policy. It was the British Ministry which was answer- 
 able jointly and severally for the treatment of Napoleon ; 
 and which, strangely enough, was equally condemned 
 by the partisans of Lowe. "Worst of all," says the 
 Governor's most efficient advocate, "... was the con- 
 duct of the British Government, which, viewed in itself, 
 was utterly undignified: viewed from Sir Hudson Lowe's 
 standpoint was unfair and treacherous." When, how- 
 ever, 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 Napoleon 
 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, placed between a mad 
 King and a discredited Regent, exposed to the virulent 
 attacks of the Opposition, to the revolt of injured in- 
 terests, to the complaints of the City, face to face with 
 
 116
 
 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." Rarely, he continues, have men displayed more 
 admirable 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 theii 
 country and of the world, they derive from that con- 
 sciousness a virtue of energy and patience which makes 
 them equal to the greatest." Liverpool, Eldon, Bathurst, 
 Castlereagh, and Sidmouth were men whose names can 
 scarcely be said to glow in history. They had, how- 
 ever, felt doggedly that they must fight it out to 
 the bitter end; and, supported 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 some- 
 body else to shoot him or hang him: failing which, they 
 were determined 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 honest 
 men acting up to their lights : 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? 
 
 117
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 him- 
 self 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 in- 
 structed 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 Draconian 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 delicate raillery of the Commissioners. 
 " After all, I cannot hang you" he would say. Meanwhile 
 Bathurst was tightening the screw. 8000 was 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 was aimed at. The remainder were to be persuaded 
 
 118
 
 LORD BATHURST 
 
 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, "with 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, withdrawn. 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 visitors to Napoleon to pass the sentries was 
 withdrawn. 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 which 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 was intense. Every 
 scrap of news from St Helena was eagerly devoured 
 by the public. The craving for each fragment of in- 
 telligence 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 narrates 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 
 
 119
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 regulations 
 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 comfortable 
 
 by a supply of the publications of the day 
 
 I think it right also to add that there exists in 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 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 inconvenience 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 animaUs alleged 
 sagacity, that it is not a topic likely from choice to be 
 brought forward as a grievance ; but the number of 
 these animals 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 icilling to 
 
 120
 
 LORD BATHURST 
 
 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 complaint 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 italicised lose none of 
 their point from this circumstance; though he may be 
 held to be going a little far when he hints that the 
 Emperor, always scrupulously dainty in such things, 
 wilfully encouraged 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 consolation 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 com- 
 municate to General Buonaparte the 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 relief of which his situation 
 admits. You will assure General Buonaparte that there 
 is no alleviation which can be derived from additional 
 medical assistance, nor any arrangement consistent 
 with the safe custody of his person at St Helena 
 (and His Majesty cannot now hold out any expecta- 
 tion of his removal) which His Majesty is not most 
 anxious to afford," and so forth. The force of Bathurst 
 could no further go. Fortunately 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 
 
 121
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 cheeseparing and petty 
 police, must rest not with the instruments but with the 
 principals; with the Liverpools and Bathursts at home, 
 not with the Cockburns and Lowes at St Helena : 
 although the Ministers, as we have seen, tried to dis- 
 sociate themselves from the sinister reputation of Lowe 
 by extending a conspicuously cold shoulder to him on 
 his return. 
 
 122
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE DRAMATIS PERSONS 
 
 THE dramatis personce of this long tragedy are few in 
 number, and some even of these, the Poppletons and the 
 like, flit like ghosts across the stage, without voice or 
 substance. Of Poppleton, for example, 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 sometimes dug potatoes, and that, 
 on leaving, he surreptitiously 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 
 Admiral 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 Emperor'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 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 
 
 123
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 was, moreover, devoted to his master, but not less 
 devoted to his wife. This double allegiance, which 
 had already caused inconvenience at Elba, plunged 
 him into constant difficulties with the Emperor, 
 who resented it even on his death-bed. But Ber- 
 trand resisted his wife's entreaties 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 surroundings. 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 authority, commend him. Napoleon on 
 his death-bed ordered Bertrand to be reconciled to 
 Lowe ; and a reconciliation accordingly took place 
 after the Emperor's death. 
 
 Madame 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 sympathies, but of 
 this not the slightest trace is discoverable. Her appear- 
 ance seems to have possessed a singular charm. She 
 was, says an English lady on the island, "a most engag- 
 ing, 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 appearance; her eyes black, sparkling, soft, 
 and animated; her deportment that of a young queen, 
 accustomed to command admiration, yet ivinning to 
 preserve it." Her character was, however, liable to 
 tumults of Creole 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 
 
 124
 
 THE DRAMATIS PERSONS 
 
 attempted to drown herself. The result, and even the 
 attempt, had, fortunately, no element of tragedy. For 
 while her body was half out of the cabin window, her 
 husband restrained her from within, while Savary, with 
 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 Bellerophon, 
 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 honour," 
 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 affectionate wife, with many excellent 
 qualities, "though perhaps a little warm." Forsyth says 
 that she seems to have won the goodwill and regard 
 of all who knew her. One trait of humour 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 
 permission. Madame de Montholon records that she 
 lived through their long and dreary captivity in complete 
 harmony with this seductive creature. After Madame 
 de Montholon's departure she was left for two years 
 without the society of a countrywoman, and she had 
 to beg Lowe for the relief of a little company. No 
 one made greater sacrifices in order to accompany 
 Napoleon and her husband than Madame Bertrand. 
 She was fond of luxury and of society; she was accus- 
 tomed to play a leading part in a splendid court; she 
 had, indeed, at Trieste, held a vice-regal court of her own ; 
 
 125
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 her exquisitely beautiful children were approaching an age 
 when their education 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, afforded 
 an unbounded field for that blessed calling. 
 
 Of the personality of M. and Madame de Montholon 
 we catch but a faint view, though their names are 
 written large in the chronicles of the captivity. 
 Montholon 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 
 Cceur de Lion, and had been created in consequence Earl 
 of Lee and Baron O'Brien: titles which, it is alleged, 
 were inherited by Montholon, but which diligent re- 
 search fails to identify. However that may be, he had 
 been known to Napoleon ever since he was a child of 
 ten years old, when, being 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 Beau- 
 harnais. Hence he was, as may be supposed, closely 
 identified with the career of Napoleon, and he was still 
 further connected with the imperial interest through 
 the marriage of his sister with the pure and chivalrous 
 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 tenderness of a son, to live to assist in the fantastic 
 attempt on Boulogne, and so to be partaker of the third 
 Napoleon's captivity for exactly the term of the cap- 
 tivity of the first. Six years of his life were spent in 
 sharing the imprisonment of the first, and six years in 
 
 126
 
 THE DRAMATIS PERSONS 
 
 sharing that of the third Napoleon. He lived to see the 
 re-establishment of the Empire, which Gourgaud missed 
 by a few months : but Gourgaud, characteristically 
 enough, was in opposition to the Prince President. 
 
 Montholon was, happily, a blind devotee ; happily, for 
 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 Bertrand, 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." Montholon, 
 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 Bertrand and himself as attendants 
 on the exile, and Planat, as we have seen, was almost 
 starting to replace him. Scott met him at Paris in 1826, 
 and found him an "interesting person, by no means 
 over - much prepossessed in favour of his late master, 
 whom he judged impartially, though with affection." 
 
 Of Albinie Helene de Vassal, Madame 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 incident- 
 ally from Meneval that her marriage with Montholon 
 encountered some difficulties, for she had two divorced 
 husbands living. The Emperor forbade the banns, but 
 afterwards gave Montholon permission to marry "the 
 niece of the President Se"guier." Montholon had tricked 
 his sovereign, for his bride was the forbidden lady under 
 
 127
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 another description. "A quiet unassuming woman," says 
 Maitland, "who gave no trouble, and seemed perfectly 
 satisfied, provided she were allowed to accompany 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 chequered career. At an early age he entered the 
 French Navy and took part in the siege of Gibraltar. 
 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 savour for Napoleon. 
 From Coblentz he was despatched on a secret mission 
 to Gustavus III. of Sweden. Then Las Cases drifted to 
 England, formed a part of the disastrous expedition to 
 Quiberon, and on his escape thence gave lessons in 
 London, where he published a Historical Atlas, which 
 proved remunerative. After the Eighteenth of Brumaire 
 he returned to France, served under Bernadotte, 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 Hundred 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 
 
 128
 
 THE DRAMATIS PERSONS 
 
 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 situation than Napoleon's. 
 Besides, he adored his master, had no secrets from him, 
 regarded him as superhuman and divine. We have 
 seen indeed that he had no scruples in the Emperor's 
 service. "Napoleon 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 com- 
 plaisance to be much shorter than the Emperor. There 
 were, of course, drawbacks. He humiliated 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 favour 
 with Napoleon, though perfectly explicable to us from 
 his experience and his contrast with the too domestic 
 Bertrand, the less cultured Montholon, and the imprac- 
 ticable Gourgaud, was a constant irritation to them. 
 Then again his departure is not easily explained. He 
 might have returned but would not, imbedding himself 
 in vapid phrases which even now we cannot exactly 
 interpret, but which we translate into a conviction that 
 his colleagues had rendered his life at Longwood impos- 
 sible. In spite of all, in spite of his unblushing fabrica- 
 tions, his want of veracity, the irrepressible suspicion 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 
 I 129
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 man; and we cannot forget that he insisted on handing 
 over to Napoleon four thousand pounds, which was 
 probably his entire 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 
 expedition 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 
 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 unbidden and un- 
 welcome to join the Emperor. If we may trust the 
 others, Gourgaud found him out at once to be untruth- 
 ful 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 disdainfully 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 extremely 
 pretty," says a witness who lived at St Helena during 
 the Emperor's residence, and our various chronicles 
 are full of them. There were the two Balcombes, 
 Miss Wilks, Miss Robinson, who was known as " the 
 Nymph," and Miss Kneipps, who was known as "the 
 Rosebud." 
 
 130
 
 THE DRAMATIS PERSONS 
 
 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 Napoleon 
 that he should be provided with a better marriage in 
 France. He sees the ship that bears her away, and 
 heaves a despairing " Adieu, Laure ! " 
 
 All testimony is unanimous that Gourgaud in this 
 instance placed his affections well. "Miss Wilks was 
 then in the first bloom of youth, and her whole demean- 
 our, affability, and elegant, modest appearance 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 
 scarcely done her justice. 
 
 She was the daughter of Colonel Wilks, the East 
 Indian Governor of the island. She eventually married 
 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 re-named it the Valley of the Nymph. The Nymph 
 was a farmer's daughter, "a very pretty girl of about 
 
 131
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 seventeen," named Marianne Robinson, whose sister had 
 married a Captain Jordan of the 66th Regiment, quar- 
 tered 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 for- 
 bade his daughter to appear when the Emperor called. 
 This silly scandal Napoleon thought it worth his while 
 to contradict in the "Letters from the Cape," stating 
 that he only once spoke to her, in broken English, 
 without alighting from his horse. Montchenu, however, 
 who had an eminently prurient mind, repeats the 
 statement, and avers that Napoleon made her a declar- 
 ation, 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 
 Gourgaud 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 impeach- 
 ment 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 mysterious comment, that the marriage 
 proves that the English have more decision than 
 the French, a remark which appears to indicate some 
 hesitating aspirations on the part of some member of 
 the Household, probably Captain Piontkowski. She 
 brings the husband to Longwood, when Napoleon says 
 
 132
 
 THE DRAMATIS PERSONS 
 
 that she has the air of a nun, and that her husband 
 resembles 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 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 Bonaparte : 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 Kneipps. She makes transient appear- 
 ances, 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 records. 
 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 Balcombe, 
 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 Longwood was being 
 prepared for his reception, and there made acquaint- 
 ance with his two daughters. Betsy was about fifteen 
 and the younger of the two. They both talked French, 
 but Betsy was the prettier and the favourite, 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 
 
 133
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 novelty to Napoleon. She boxed his ears, she attacked 
 him with his own sword. But the suite were not 
 unnaturally disgusted at the familiarity with which she 
 treated their master, and Napoleon himself wearied 
 of her, denounced 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 character- 
 istic 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 unanimity. 
 "The rats," says O'Meara, "are in numbers almost in- 
 credible at Longwood. I have frequently 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 partitions and galloping in flocks in the garrets." 
 Frequently 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 anyone. 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 not to be mentioned beside it. 
 
 134
 
 THE DRAMATIS PERSONS 
 
 The inhabitants are powerless against them. A slave 
 sleeping in a passage 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 
 children had to be protected from them at night. 
 Trifling, and indeed diverting, as this pest seemed to the 
 distant Bathurst, it must have been an odious addition 
 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 popula- 
 tion of St Helena the rats ; Napoleon granting a 
 constitution to the rats; Napoleon sleeping at peace 
 because guarded by a cat-sentry; and so forth. One need 
 not dilate on these pleasantries. 
 
 135
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE COMMISSIONERS 
 
 IN this dreary drama, as in most human transactions, 
 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 fore- 
 sight with a wise economy, declined to avail herself of 
 this privilege. But the other Courts hastened to nomin- 
 ate their representatives. These had, it will be observed, 
 one sole and single duty, "to assure themselves of his 
 presence." It is sufficient 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 
 same occasion the Austrian, concealed in a trench, per- 
 ceived through a telescope a man in a three-cornered 
 
 136
 
 THE COMMISSIONERS 
 
 hat whom he judged to be the Emperor. The French- 
 man had the same telescopic glimpse, but, remaining till 
 Napoleon's death, was privileged to see his remains. 
 That is the whole record of their mission, "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 authority, 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 comforted 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 Emperor 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 morn- 
 ing 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 convenances." Mont- 
 chenu 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 I am here to 
 guard him and not to dine with him." On no other 
 occasion was the option open to Montchenu or the 
 Commissioners. It was their last and only chance. 
 
 Montchenu, the French Commissioner, took himself the 
 
 137
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 most seriously and therefore, in this absurd commission, 
 was by much the most absurd. His appointment is said 
 to have been the revenge of Talleyrand for all that he 
 had endured at the hands of Napoleon. "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 chatterbox. I know him, he can- 
 not endure such a boredom, he will become ill and die 
 as before a slow fire." As we have seen, however, this 
 subtle vengeance failed in its object, for Montchenu never 
 once succeeded in inflicting himself on the captive. In 
 early life he had known the Emperor, when Napoleon 
 was a subaltern at Valence in a regiment of which Mont- 
 chenu was lieutenant-colonel, and when both were rivals 
 for the affections of Mademoiselle de Saint Germain, 
 who, however, preferred M. de Montalivet, whom she 
 married, to either. He seems to have retained this 
 amorous complexion at St Helena, and his conversation, 
 as reported by Gourgaud, appears to consist entirely of 
 indecorous observations and immoral advice. He en- 
 deavoured to "embrace Mrs Martin," whoever she may 
 have been. He sent Lady Lowe a declaration of love 
 in eight pages, which Lady Lowe offered to show 
 Gourgaud. His fatuity was only equalled by his vanity. 
 He boasted at large about his success with English 
 ladies. Some 4000 he has known : he intimates that " they 
 were not cruel." Montchenu appeared to have pleasant 
 recollections of Valence ; he questioned Gourgaud as to 
 the later loves of Napoleon; he showed the Emperor 
 little attentions, sent him newspapers and the like. 
 Napoleon's memories of Montchenu do not seem to have 
 been so favourable. " I know this Montchenu," 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, 
 
 138
 
 THE COMMISSIONERS 
 
 is that it is accurate. Again, "Poor fool, poor old fool, 
 old booby," Napoleon calls him. And again, " He is one of 
 those men who support the ancient prejudice that French- 
 men are born mountebanks." Later on the Emperor 
 threatens to kick the old Marquis out of doors should 
 he appear 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 de- 
 scribed him as "bavard insupportable, completement nul." 
 Even Lowe cuts jokes at him. From his willingness to 
 accept and his reluctance to extend hospitality, he was 
 known as M. de Monter-chez-nous. Henry, who attended 
 him medically, had, however, the laugh against himself. 
 He had reckoned 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. 
 Having entered the army before the Revolution, and 
 followed the princes into exile, he made at the restora- 
 tion the same astonishing bound in military promotion 
 that Las Cases had accomplished in the naval service. 
 In December 1815 he was nominated as French Com- 
 missioner at St Helena, an appointment which had the 
 negative advantage of securing him from his creditors. 
 His positive duties " were to assure himself habitually 
 by his own eyes of the existence 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 honour 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 anniversary of Waterloo, lands precipitately, and 
 demands at once to be conducted to Longwood, that 
 
 139
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 
 essential that he should be in a position to say that he 
 has seen the captive. Two days afterwards (June 20), 
 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 wit's 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 Dbats, which he had brought in due 
 course of packing, and which happened to contain 
 the precious treaty. In this undignified form it 
 was forwarded to Napoleon, who answers through 
 Montholon on August 23 by a protest against it. Lowe 
 communicates to the Commissioners an extract from 
 this letter, which amounted to a refusal to see them 
 officially. In the meantime, 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 company of grenadiers. He is reminded 
 that Napoleon has sworn to shoot the first man who 
 enters his room without his leave. In the meantime he 
 attempts the entry alone and is repulsed by a sergeant. 
 Eventually he has to subside into an attitude of watch- 
 fulness, in ambush for the subordinate members of the 
 French colony, in hopes of inveigling them to meals, and 
 
 140
 
 THE COMMISSIONERS 
 
 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 con- 
 sequent necessity that the Commissioner's salary should 
 be not less than 4000 a year. 
 
 Montchenu was distinguished fron the other Com- 
 missioners by the possession of a secretary ; a distinction 
 which was not altogether an advantage. We have an 
 impression that the secretary, M. de Gors, was entrusted 
 with the duty of supervising his chief. At any rate 
 he reported upon him with startling candour. After, 
 we presume, copying Montchenu's despatches, de Gors 
 accompanies them with a scathing commentary. "I 
 am sorry to have to say it, on account of M. de 
 Montchenu, but I am bound to declare that his criti- 
 cisms on his colleagues are unfounded, and are too 
 much coloured by his own 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 forgotten 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 
 Balmain 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 thousand difficulties." 
 
 It is unnecessary to add anything to the description 
 of Montchenu by Montchenu's secretary. We may pass 
 
 141
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 to the Commissioner, who, in the secretary'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 conspicuously 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 innuendoes, were neither limited nor refined. 
 
 Balmain seems to have been the Commissioner of 
 the coolest judgment and most agreeable manner; and 
 Longwood, so to speak, set its cap at him, but without 
 much success. Balmain, says Sturmer, 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. Obliging, 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 identical with those of his colleagues, for he was 
 thus enjoined : " Dans vos relations avec Bonaparte, vous 
 garderez les managements et la mesure qu'exige une 
 situation aussi delicate, et les egards personnels quon 
 lui doit!" a sentence which is neither found nor implied 
 in the instructions of the others. But what was in- 
 finitely more effective than the sentence was the fact 
 that the italics represent a line drawn under those 
 words by the Emperor Alexander himself. So grave 
 an emphasis was not lost on Balmain, who declared that 
 
 142
 
 THE COMMISSIONERS 
 
 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 pro- 
 ceedings. But the underscoring by the Emperor does 
 not seem to have long guided the policy of the Russian 
 Government, for it presented to the Congress of Aix- 
 la-Chapelle a memorial which might have been written 
 by Bathurst himself, and which embodied the undying 
 rancour of Pozzo di Borgo. It demanded rigorous 
 treatment of Napoleon; more especially that he should 
 be compelled to show himself twice a day, 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 simple condition. 
 Napoleon never showed himself, and remained master of 
 the field. 
 
 Balmain commenced his career at St Helena by falling 
 in love with a Miss Bruck (or Brook), by whom he was 
 refused: he ended it by marrying Miss Johnson, the 
 step-daughter of Sir Hudson, who seems afterwards to 
 have amused the Court of St Petersburg by her eccen- 
 tricities and her accent. This courtship, which was 
 carried on during his two last years at St Helena, com- 
 plicated 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 testimony 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 records that 
 the Emperor sends Gourgaud to pump (if so expressive 
 a vulgarism be permitted) the Commissioners, who have, 
 he knows, received despatches from their Governments. 
 Gourgaud returns, according to Montholon's narrative, 
 
 143
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 bringing an immaterial falsehood, supposed to come 
 from Stunner, and the statement from Balmain that 
 his Emperor has charged him with certain communi- 
 cations for Napoleon. Gourgaud's record, it should be 
 noted, in no respect confirms this. Montholon continues 
 by narrating that for two days afterwards there are 
 constant communications with the Russian. A paper of 
 explanations is dictated by the Emperor. On December 17, 
 Montholon states that Napoleon is determined to send 
 Gourgaud to Europe, for he is possessed by recollections 
 of Tilsit and Erfurt, and is therefore anxious to make 
 overtures to the Emperor Alexander, "though there is 
 nothing in the communications of Balmain to warrant 
 these hopes." On January 11, 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 that described by Montholon. 
 In vain, too, we search Balmain's despatches, which are 
 indeed in a very different vein. What this communica- 
 tion, conveyed from someone through someone, neither 
 of whom knew anything about it, purported to be, 
 we also learn from Montholon. On February 10, 1818, 
 he has a vague entry about hopes from the fraternal 
 friendship of Alexander, and as to the acceptability of 
 Gourgaud at the Russian Court. Under these influences 
 Napoleon 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 assurances received from him 
 through Balmain and for the hospitality offered by him 
 in Russia, proceeds to answer three questions which the 
 
 144
 
 THE COMMISSIONERS 
 
 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 concludes by 
 offering the Emperor Alexander his alliance should that 
 sovereign throw over the Bourbons, 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 guidance; and it was in all prob- 
 ability 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 Napoleon. 
 Putting aside the improbability of it, and the absolute 
 silence of Balmain the reputed author, as well as of 
 Gourgaud the reputed channel, the Emperor Alexander 
 was at that time in no mood for inviting Napoleon to 
 Russia, or asking him retrospective historical questions. 
 On the contrary, this was the year of the Congress of 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, where the Russian Government demanded 
 more stringent custody for Napoleon. We may dismiss 
 with absolute confidence the story of the communication. 
 But why, then, did Napoleon found a state paper on a 
 message which he never received, and answer questions 
 which never were asked ? The explanation would appear 
 to be this. Montholon tells us, two months before Gour- 
 gaud'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 
 K 115
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 ascendancy that he had once exercised over Alexander, 
 partly because he was no doubt aware that Balmain's 
 instructions had a shade of favour in them, partly 
 because he must have been aware that Alexander had 
 no love for the Bourbons, and that circumstances might 
 make it necessary 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 Alexander, 
 the message and the questions could be explained 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 unscrupulous 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 useful for the dynasty that an 
 attempt should be made to clear away the misunder- 
 standing with Russia. Meanwhile Balmain, innocent and 
 honourable gentleman as he appears 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 perhaps 
 
 146
 
 THE COMMISSIONERS 
 
 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 married 
 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 Madame de Las Cases and himself. His 
 position was the most difficult of all, for his Govern- 
 ment constantly enjoined 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 entrust Sturmer with 
 a message to the Austrian Emperor which should reach 
 that monarch and no one else. Sturmer 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 demanded of his 
 Government a commission as lieutenant-general, a high 
 decoration, and 500 a year increase of salary from them, 
 as well as a salary of 1200 a year from the Austrian 
 Government. How these modest requests were received 
 history may guess but does not record. 
 
 147
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 Whether from the diversity of their instructions, or 
 the malignity of the climate, or the humours 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 acclimatising 
 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 climate or Lowe or 
 both were too much for the systems of these unlucky 
 diplomatists. 
 
 148
 
 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, therefore, or the most graphic of them, we 
 relegate to an appendix. 
 
 As to his habitation, Longwood itself was a collection 
 of huts which had been constructed as a cattle-shed. It 
 was swept by an eternal wind ; it was shadeless and it 
 was damp. Lowe himself can say no good of it, and 
 may have felt the strange play of fortune by which he 
 was allotted the one delightful residence 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 
 fourteen 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 
 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 
 
 149
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 general squalor a 
 magnificent wash - hand - stand with silver ewers and 
 basins displayed an uncongenial splendour. 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 beatitude with Neipperg 
 at Parma. There were the portraits of the King of 
 Rome, riding a lamb, and putting on a slipper, both by 
 Thibault: there was also a bust of the child. There was 
 a miniature of Josephine. There hung also the alarum 
 clock of Frederic 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 daytime, or to which he would change 
 from the other, when he was, as was generally the case, 
 restless and sleepless at night. 
 
 O'Meara gives a graphic picture of Napoleon in his 
 bedroom. He sate on the sofa, which was covered with 
 a long white cloth. On this "reclined Napoleon, clothed 
 in his white morning gown, white loose trowsers and 
 stockings all in one. A chequered red madras (hand- 
 kerchief) upon his head, and his shirt collar open with- 
 out cravat. His air was melancholy 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 hunting uniform, a green coat with 
 sporting buttons, and, when the cloth grew shabby, had 
 
 150
 
 THE EMPEROR AT HOME 
 
 it turned rather than wear English cloth. With these 
 he wore white kerseymere breeches and stockings. He 
 gave up wearing his uniform of the Chasseurs of the 
 Guard six weeks after he arrived in the island. He re- 
 tained, however, the famous little cocked hat, but the 
 tricoloured 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 after- 
 wards changed the hour to four. Just before Gourgaud 
 left there was a new arrangement; the midday break- 
 fast was abolished, there was dinner at three, and supper 
 at ten; then a few days afterwards dinner is to be at 
 two changes suspected by Gourgaud as intended to suit 
 the health and convenience of Madame 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: what 
 it did see was totally different, for Napoleon kept up, 
 as part of his contention about title, the utmost 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 sharpness 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 
 
 151
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 the ladies of his party when they went out to dinner 
 or to a ball had to be conveyed in a Merovingian 
 equipage drawn by several yoke of oxen. 
 
 The etiquette was not less severe indoors. Gourgaud 
 and Bertrand and Montholon were kept standing for 
 hours, till they nearly dropped from fatigue. On one 
 occasion Napoleon is annoyed by an irrepressible 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. Antommarchi, who, by 
 the bye, had to put on a court dress when he 
 visited his patient, had to stand in his presence till 
 he nearly fainted. On the other hand, if one of 
 them was seated by the Emperor and rose when 
 Madame Bertrand or Madame 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 
 Hundred Days the advance of democracy when one 
 of his ministers rose to leave him without permission. 
 Even in the agony of Bochefort he observed a small 
 breach of etiquette of the same kind. Indeed, when 
 Gourgaud mentions to him that in China the sovereign 
 is worshipped as a god, he gravely replies that that 
 is 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. 
 
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 THE EMPEROR AT HOME 
 
 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 imperial dis- 
 pleasure 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 savoured 
 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, but they disappeared with the Northumber- 
 land, 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 favoured lady. 
 There was a vast variety of dishes of which the 
 Emperor ate heartily; on an honoured guest he would 
 press particular dainties. As always, his dinner oc- 
 cupied 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. 
 
 153
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 determined 
 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 Restoration. 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 days together bathing in them, revelling in them, 
 feasting on them. But indeed he was always inclined 
 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 always Emperor, and 
 that is the only way in which he can live. So he tries 
 to obtain exercise indoors. Lowe reports on one occa- 
 sion that the Emperor had constructed a sort of hobby- 
 horse made of cross beams. He sate 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 derive a morbid satisfaction from the reflec- 
 tion that he was suffering from the Governor's restric- 
 tions. Then again in the last year of his life he 
 determined to live again. He rode a little, but his main 
 
 154
 
 THE EMPEROR AT HOME 
 
 interest was in his garden. Surrounded by a gang of 
 Chinese labourers 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 
 labours of the Chinese gardeners. Paul Delaroche 
 painted a portrait of him in this costume, resting 
 from his labours 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 seems to have been 
 taken of this futile fussiness, for Lowe was now 
 practically ignored. Napoleon threw himself into 
 the operations with his usual ardour: 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 whether they liked 
 or not. But this was perhaps a not unwelcome change 
 of labour. 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 dictated with a vengeance. On 
 one occasion at Longwood he is stated to have dictated 
 for fourteen hours at a stretch, with only short intervals 
 
 155
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 from time to time to read over what had been written. 
 Shorthand was unknown to his household, so the 
 operation was severe; though Las Cases did invent for 
 himself some sort of hieroglyphic system. Moreover, 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 unpublished. But there is a great bulk in print, 
 and some material may have been utilised 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 probable that there was 
 a good deal of dictated inspiration 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 innocent 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 
 
 156
 
 THE EMPEROR AT HOME 
 
 sometimes a sow. Sir Hudson Lowe turned out some 
 rabbits for Napoleon to shoot, but with his unlucky 
 inopportuneness 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 performed 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 Josephine's tame birds. And now he began, 
 during his gardening enthusiasm, in defence of his en- 
 closure, by shooting Madame Bertrand's pet kids, to 
 her infinite, distress and any other vagrant animals 
 that strayed within his boundary. Finding a bullock 
 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 Governor, and to 
 Montchenu his colleague, as well as a remote pang to 
 Forsyth his biographer. What would happen, asked 
 Lowe, if Napoleon killed someone by mistake? Could 
 Napoleon be tried and punished for manslaughter ? Such 
 was the perturbation, 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 
 
 157
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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, saying, 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 poetry. But one of the diffi- 
 culties 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 slumbered (we 
 suspect Gourgaud at once), a circumstance which the 
 Emperor did not forget. On another occasion 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 Madame de 
 Montholon complains that recitals so harrowing disturb 
 digestion. 
 
 He was supposed to declaim like Talma, and prolonged 
 declamation of French tragedy in a warm climate may 
 sometimes invite repose. Tragedy was his favourite 
 reading, and Corneille his favourite author in that depart- 
 ment of literature. There is on record a discourse on 
 Corneille's tragedies, pronounced by the Emperor in the 
 hazardous saloons 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 
 
 158
 
 THE EMPEROR AT HOME 
 
 history, for one only sees them in the real crises, in the 
 supreme moments; and one is not overloaded with the 
 preparatory labour of detail and conjecture which 
 historians, often erroneously, supply. So much the 
 better for human glory, for there is much that is un- 
 worthy which should be omitted, much of doubt and 
 vacillation: and all this should disappear in the repre- 
 sentation 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 Corneille he 
 seems to have loved Racine. But he was catholic in 
 his tastes, and would readily turn to Beaumarchais and 
 the "Arabian Nights," though these may have been 
 concessions to the frailty of his audience. 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, JEschylus or Euripides. 
 From English literature 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 
 Voltaire's "Zaire" he had a positive passion. He had 
 once asked Madame de Montholon to choose a tragedy 
 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 
 little 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 Uni- 
 versal History" had awakened his mind as Lodi awoke 
 his ambition. On the fortunate day when he happened 
 
 159
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 on the discourse, and read of Csesar, Alexander, and 
 the succession of empires, the veil of the temple, he 
 tells us, was rent, and he beheld the movements of the 
 gods. From that time in all his campaigns, in Egypt, in 
 Syria, in Germany, on his greatest days, that vision never 
 quitted him. At St Helena it forsook him for ever, 
 and so we need not marvel that he avoids Bossuet. 
 
 He had always been a great reader, though he declared 
 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 indis- 
 criminately everything he could lay his hands on. 
 "When I was a lieutenant of artillery," 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 Josephine, 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, with which 
 he took great pains. He had planned a portable collec- 
 tion 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 complete, 
 he wisely abandoned the project. Even to Waterloo he 
 was accompanied by a travelling library of 800 volumes 
 in six cases the Bible, Homer, Ossian, Bossuet, and all 
 the seventy volumes of Voltaire. Three days after 
 his final abdication we find him writing for a library 
 from Malmaison, books on America, his chosen destina- 
 
 160
 
 THE EMPEROR AT HOME 
 
 tion, books on himself and his campaigns, a collection 
 of the Moniteur, the best dictionaries and encyclo- 
 paedias. Now, in his solitude, he devoured them 
 history, philosophy, strategy, 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 en- 
 tirely of works of imagination, and the selection does 
 not inspire one with any 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 weariness 
 and futility of it all. One is irresistibly reminded of a 
 caged animal walking restlessly and aimlessly up and 
 down his confined den, and watching 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, indeed, 
 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 year-books of his reign. "It was a fine empire. 
 I ruled eighty-three millions of human beings, more 
 than half the population of Europe." He attempts to 
 control his emotion, 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 fame 
 console him, for he doubts it. "All the institutions that 
 I founded are being destroyed, such as the University and 
 the Legion of Honour, 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, 
 L 161
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 it had been different." 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, remorse- 
 ful, 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 fatigue. 
 How was employment to be found at Longwood 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 little 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 suicide, in vain. The constant 
 efforts of assassination 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 paralys- 
 ing 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 fascinating. 
 
 162
 
 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 accustomed 
 to constant activity and which is suddenly deprived of 
 employment is an engine without guidance; the tongue 
 without a purpose is not always under control. The 
 great man is apt to soliloquise aloud, and then the sup- 
 pressed 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 myself 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 Governor and the restrictions and the rock 
 itself, but as a rule he is calm and meditative, thinking 
 aloud, often with contradictory results. This detach- 
 ment of mind had been noticed on his return from 
 Elba by Lavallette. "Never did I see him more imper- 
 turbably calm : not a word of bitterness with anyone, 
 no impatience ; listening to everything, and discussing 
 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." 
 
 The recorded conversations of Napoleon present a 
 certain difficulty. After the first two years of the 
 
 163
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 Consulate he rarely unbuttoned himself in talk. And 
 those with whom he may have done so most frequently, 
 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 disquisitions, for he was 
 always in the presence of diarists, and knew it. Las Cases 
 and Montholon record nothing else. But all through his 
 reign there are abundant 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 attempt 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 verbatim ; 
 with lifelike accuracy, so far as one can now judge. 
 Read, for example, Roederer's report of his conversa- 
 tions with Napoleon in January and February 1809, 
 in 1811, and especially in 1813. They form in our judg- 
 ment the most vivid representations 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 instantaneously into play on a subject, 
 
 164
 
 THE CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 
 
 and so he lights it up in a moment with reminiscence, 
 historical parallel, native shrewdness, knowledge of man- 
 kind in general and of the men with whom he has had 
 dealings 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 distinction 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 honest narra- 
 tive and, wiping off the bilious hues of jealousy and 
 boredom, an accurate picture. His are, indeed, reminis- 
 cences of high interest. But what is really remarkable 
 is the air of rough truth about all that he records. 
 They are not full dress reminiscences : they are, as it 
 were, the sketch of the moment 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: 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 executions of Ney and Murat. 
 
 Montholon records the Emperor as saying, on February 
 21, that " the death of Ney is a crime. The blood of Ney 
 
 165
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 was sacred for France. His conduct in the Russian cam- 
 paign was unequalled. It should have covered with a holy 
 aegis the crime of high treason, 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 21, as he did not receive the news of Ney's 
 execution 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 despise traitors": 
 " Ney has dishonoured 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 reading Se*gur's "History of the Russian Campaign." 
 Had we known in 1815, she says, what Ney did in 
 Russia, he would never have been executed. Contrast 
 this with Napoleon himself when in Russia. "What 
 a man! What a soldier! Ney is lost! I have 300 
 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 1815 to bring him 
 back in a cage. He only summoned 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. 
 
 166
 
 THE CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 
 
 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 Napoleon by 
 three separate people. Las Cases reads him the news. 
 "At these unexpected words the Emperor seizes me by 
 the arm, and cries, 'The Calabrians were more humane, 
 more generous than those who sent me here.' This was 
 all. After a few moments of silence, as he said no more, 
 I continued reading." This, perhaps, is the authorised 
 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 Murat 
 had perished on the field of battle. At first I hesi- 
 tated 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 announce 
 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 say that it grieves 
 me to think of a brave man like 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 recognised (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 newspapers to him, and 
 says that he suffers. 
 
 167
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 afterwards 
 Napoleon says to Gourgaud, "Murat only 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 Gourgaud. 
 Napoleon, however, repeated himself constantly, 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 testi- 
 mony in favour of legitimate monarchy. But on other 
 occasions the Bible is read with no such object; 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 anecdotes in which he is 
 represented as pointing to the firmament, and declaim- 
 ing a vague Deism. Newman, too, in a noble passage, 
 has given from tradition the final judgment passed 
 on Christianity by Napoleon at St Helena: wherein 
 Napoleon is reported 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 divine?" But the real Napoleon talked in a very 
 different fashion. Gourgaud talks of the stars and 
 their Creator in the way attributed to Napoleon, but 
 the latter snubs him. Briefly, Napoleon's real leaning 
 
 168
 
 THE CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 
 
 seems to be to Mahometanism ; his objection to Chris- 
 tianity 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 Crucifixion 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 courteously 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 simple ; 
 and, he characteristically adds, is superior to Christianity 
 in that it conquered half the world in ten years, while 
 Christianity took three hundred years to establish itself. 
 Another time he declares Mahometanism to be the most 
 beautiful of all religions. And once he even says "We 
 Mahometans." 
 
 Although he prefers Mahometanism to Christianity, 
 he prefers the Roman to the Anglican communion, 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 him- 
 self to a married priest, who would repeat everything 
 to his wife. He declares that he himself, having been 
 anointed, is capable of confessing a penitent. He is not 
 so favourable to the hierarchy as to the ritual of Rome. 
 He is hostile to the Papacy. Britain and Northern 
 Europe have wisely, he says, emancipated themselves 
 from this yoke, for it is ridiculous that the chief of the 
 
 109
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 himself 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 declared 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 
 Messiah. There were constantly people of this kind. 
 Then I look back from the New Testament to the 
 Old I find one able man Moses, but the Jews are 
 cowardly 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 VII. 
 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 clay, "as Herodotus narrates that 
 Nile mud was transformed into rats," that he was 
 warmed by the sun, and combined with electric fluids. 
 "Say what you like, everything is matter, more or less 
 organised. 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 
 
 170
 
 THE CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 
 
 this is all contrary to religion, but it is my opinion 
 that we are all matter." Again : " What are electricity, 
 galvanism, magnetism? In these lies the great secret 
 of nature. Galvanism works in silence. I think myself 
 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 atmosphere, 
 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." 
 
 The editors think that Napoleon talked in this way 
 in a spirit of opposition to Gourgaud, who was a 
 believer 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 cannot 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 Emperor 
 " has religion," and we certainly think that Napoleon was 
 more religious than these conversations represent. But 
 he had much lee-way to make up. He was the child of 
 that Revolution which abjured 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 companions in arms to follow him to church. 
 
 Whatever may have been his motives, they must have 
 
 171
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 been potent to make him break with the traditions of 
 his manhood. For religious faith and observance which 
 still lurked timidly in the civil life of France had dis- 
 appeared from among its soldiers. "The French army 
 at this time," says Count Lavallette 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 apologises thus : " I am thirty-eight years 
 old, and I have never uttered 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 remember 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, everyone 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 Henry 
 Greville that Louis XVIII. was surprised, on arriving in 
 Paris, to find that the ante-library of his predecessor's 
 cabinet consisted principally of books on theological sub- 
 jects, and that these were his favourite study. Greville 
 asked in reply if Talleyrand thought that Napoleon was 
 a believer. "Je suis porte* a croire qu'il etait croyant, 
 mais il avait le gout de ces sujets," 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. 
 
 172
 
 THE CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 
 
 All that we can safely gather from his conversation 
 at St Helena is that his mind turns greatly on these 
 questions of religion. He ponders and struggles. A 
 remark which he lets fall at St Helena explains prob- 
 ably 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 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 in- 
 teresting 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. Montholon, as it were, suddenly produces from his 
 portfolio a constitution dictated by Napoleon for the 
 empire 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 incline 
 to the belief that it was composed in the seclusion of 
 Ham with an eye to the Bonaparte restoration which 
 soon afterwards took place. The official editors print, 
 however, Montholon's record of the instructions dictated 
 by the dying man for his son on April 17, 1821, which 
 seems to be a genuine manifesto. 
 
 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 
 
 173
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 eye on British journalism 
 and British politics. His sensitiveness to the criticism of 
 English newspapers, which, after all, was the only news- 
 paper criticism 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 
 ignorance of their character and habits of mind. " Had 
 I," he says, "been allowed to go to London in 1815, I 
 should have been carried in triumph. All the populace 
 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 seems to 
 have persuaded himself that the result would have been 
 the same. He told Las Cases that four days after land- 
 ing in England he would have been in London. " I 
 should have entered it, not as a conqueror, but as a 
 liberator. I should have been William III. over again, 
 but more generous and more disinterested. The dis- 
 cipline of my army would have been perfect, and the 
 troops would have behaved as if they were in Paris. 
 No sacrifices, not even an indemnity, would have been 
 exacted from the English. We should have presented 
 ourselves, not as conquerors, but as brothers who came 
 to restore to them their liberties and their rights. I 
 should have bade the English work out their own re- 
 generation themselves; for, as they were our elders in 
 political legislation, we wished to have nothing to do 
 with it except to enjoy their happiness and prosperity; 
 and I should have acted in good faith. So that in a 
 
 174
 
 THE CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 
 
 few months the two nations, so long hostile, would 
 have become identical by their principles, their maxims, 
 and their interests." It is scarcely necessary to point 
 out that he did not believe a word of this ridiculous 
 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' residence 
 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 asks at this point.) Otherwise 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 some- 
 times broke out against them, not unnaturally, he seems 
 to have held them in a certain unspoken respect. " The 
 British nation would be very incapable of contending 
 with us if we had only their national 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 nation 
 which had been his most persistent enemy and which 
 had accepted the invidious charge of his custody. But 
 once he paid them a noble tribute. He begins 
 quaintly enough: "The English character is superior 
 to ours. Conceive Romilly, one of the leaders of a 
 great party, committing suicide at fifty because he had 
 lost his wife. They are in everything more practical 
 than we are : they emigrate, they marry, they kill them- 
 
 175
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 selves, with less indecision 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 Russians, what the Russians are to the Germans, 
 what the Germans are to the Italians." And then he 
 proceeds: "Had I had an English army I should have 
 conquered the universe, for I could have gone all over 
 the world without demoralising 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, con- 
 sidering the speaker and the circumstances, 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 Government for it had perse- 
 cuted 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 remark- 
 able was his language to Foy. In the midst of the 
 Peninsular War Foy came to Paris and had two or 
 three interviews 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 English 
 soldiers?" "Sire, they respect them but do not fear 
 them." "Well, you see, the English have always beaten 
 them, Cressy, Agincourt, Marlborough." "But, Sire, the 
 battle of Fontenoy." "Ah! the battle of Fontenoy. 
 That is a day that made the monarchy live forty years 
 longer than it would otherwise." 
 
 On another occasion, at St Helena, when Napoleon 
 conceived Lady Malcolm to be saying that he hated 
 
 176
 
 THE CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 
 
 England, he interrupted her with much animation, say- 
 ing 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 honourable men in England proportion- 
 ately 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 ferocious, 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 bien " ), but ill, and with even more 
 justice, of our diplomacy. He could not understand, 
 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 shop- 
 keepers, and have wished to show their magnanimity. 
 "Probably for a thousand years such another oppor- 
 tunity of aggrandising England will not occur. In the 
 position of affairs nothing could have been refused to 
 you." It was ridiculous, he said, 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 stipu- 
 lated for a commercial monopoly in the seas of India 
 and China. You ought not to have allowed the French 
 or any other nation to put their nose beyond the Cape. 
 ... At present the English can dictate to the world, 
 more especially if they withdraw their troops from the 
 Continent, relegate Wellington to his estates, and remain 
 a purely maritime Power. She can then do what she 
 M 177
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 likes." "You want old Lord Chatham for a prime 
 minister," he says another day. 
 
 Again: "You English have imposed a contribution on 
 France of 700 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 ardour 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 understand English as he read it, but 
 that his pronunciation was so extraordinary as to con- 
 stitute to some extent a new language. The longest 
 specimen that we possess of Napoleon's English is thus 
 phonetically 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 Napoleon's that we possess, and 
 as a proof of the polite credulity of Las Cases. 
 
 "Count Lascases. Since sixt wek, y learn the 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 hundred. It is 
 in the dictionary more of f oorty thousand ; even he could 
 most twenty ; bot much of terns. 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 labour 
 who it must do into the young aged. 
 
 "Longwood, this morning, the seven march thursday 
 
 178
 
 THE CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 
 
 one thousand eight hundred sixteen after nativity the 
 yors (sic) (lord) Jesus Christ." 
 
 It was thus addressed: 
 
 "Count Lascases, chambellan of the S.M., Longwood; 
 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. marry- 
 ing Lady Seymour the day after he had had Anne 
 Boleyn beheaded. We should never have done such a 
 thing in our country. Nero never committed such crimes. 
 And Queen Mary ! Ah ! the Salic law is an excellent 
 arrangement." But the most interesting result of this 
 is that he discourses on the analogies between Cromwell 
 and himself. There is no doubt, he thinks, some re- 
 semblance between the reign of Charles I. and the 
 French Revolution, but there can be no real comparison 
 between the position of Cromwell and himself. Napoleon 
 was thrice chosen by the free election of the people, and 
 the French army had only waged war with strangers. 
 Cromwell had one essential quality, dissimulation; he 
 had also great political talents, and consummate judg- 
 ment, for there was no action in his life 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 considered 
 an "imbecile." To Lady Malcolm he said that Henry 
 IV. was undoubtedly the greatest man that ever sate on 
 the throne of France. But this judgment was only for 
 external use : in his interior circle he spoke very differ- 
 ently. Henry IV., he declared, never did anything great. 
 Voltaire made him the fashion by the "Henriade," and 
 
 179
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 then he was exalted in order to depreciate Louis XIV., 
 who was hated. Napoleon laughed when he saw 
 Henry described 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 greybeard 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 400,000 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. "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 dishonoured 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 con- 
 ceive 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 legitimate and the parvenu 
 
 180
 
 sovereign. At any rate, the Empress Catherine, who was 
 born remote from the prospect of a throne, had this 
 surprising candour. 
 
 His family, was, he says, among the first in Corsica, 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 nothing 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 enemies 
 accused him of having exchanged birthdays with Joseph, 
 who was born in 1768, and so before the union. A tact- 
 less mayor of Lyons, under this 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 minimised. 
 
 He makes some curious remarks about his descent. 
 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 Bompars: 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. 
 
 181
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 When he married Marie Louise, the Emperor Francis 
 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 Emperors 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 illustrious 
 connection, for he says that the name of Bonaparte is 
 the same as Bonarotti or Buenarotti. Did he then believe 
 himself related to Michael Angelo? He regrets, too, 
 that he did not allow an ancestor of his, Bonaventure 
 or Boniface Bonaparte, to be canonised. The Capucins, 
 to which order the monk belonged, 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 ridicule, 
 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 tune, thirty -nine 
 at another. He 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 
 considered 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 
 
 182
 
 THE CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 
 
 not very refined or decorous reason for disbelieving 
 it. Still Paoli took a semi-paternal 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 fol- 
 lowed the army of independence. The French generals 
 took pity on 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 connection 
 of Napoleon with Corsica. He was born there. He 
 lived there till he was nine. With the first freedom 
 of manhood he returns there. Of the period between 
 January 1, 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 Egypt, and in outline from Elba. 
 Nevertheless, Corsica follows him and profoundly in- 
 fluences his career. During his early years 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 Mar- 
 seilles the Emperor's mother was once more, he tells 
 us, in a desperate plight. She and her daughters had 
 not a farthing to live upon. He himself was reduced 
 
 183
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 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 three 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 coronation, 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 was 
 Josephine, a little. She indeed almost always lied, but 
 always cleverly, except with regard to her stge. As to 
 that she got into such a tangle, that her statements 
 could only be reconciled on the hypothesis that Eugene 
 was twelve years old when he was born. She never 
 asked anything 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 suscep- 
 tible as to her predecessor. When the Emperor tried to 
 take his second wife to see his first the former burst 
 into tears, and she endeavoured by every possible ruse 
 and device to prevent his going there. 
 
 Marie Louise, he declares, was innocence itself and 
 
 184
 
 THE CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 
 
 really loved him. Had she not been influenced by 
 that wret*h (canaille) Madame 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 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 gossiping about the 
 scandal. Still he always praises Marie Louise, and 
 gives, in sum, the following account of her. She was 
 never at ease with the French, remembering they had 
 killed her aunt Marie Antoinette. 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 step-mother. 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 presented to 
 
 185
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 him at St Helena, there is something half comic, half 
 tragic in the declaration. 
 
 To his little son he makes one bitter allusion. Gour- 
 gaud, on the 15th of August, the imperial festival, 
 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 favourably, and became 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 happened. Human nature is indeed 
 strange. And then explodes his inmost thought. " Ah ! 
 la coquine, la coquine, 1'amour 1'a tou jours conduite." 
 
 We have seen that he considered Louis XIV. the 
 greatest of French sovereigns ; and this news of Caroline's 
 marriage produces the strangest of analogies between 
 them. Readers of St Simon will recollect the vivid de- 
 scription 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, per- 
 ceives a scullion pocketing a biscuit: how his suppressed 
 fury breaks out and wreaks itself on the relatively 
 
 186
 
 THE CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 
 
 innocent object : 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 believe their eyes, and the King retires 
 to conceal his agitation. So, on hearing of Caroline'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 Gourgaud, 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 Emperor'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 questionable 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 recording, 
 in view of other and fuller revelations elsewhere. 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 
 
 187
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 military sovereign was required : whereas Joseph thought 
 of nothing but gallantry at Madrid. Joseph, in his 
 great brother's opinion, was not a soldier, though he 
 fancied himself one, nor was he even brave. It may 
 here be mentioned that as Napoleon's appearance deteri- 
 orated 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 Napo- 
 leon whom he saw. With regard to Louis and Lucien, 
 their mania for publishing indifferent verses, and dedi- 
 cating them to the Pope, is a constant perplexity to 
 him. Of both poetasters he remarks at different times : 
 " II 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 dictatorship. 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 un- 
 hesitatingly that he could speak on behalf of the Re- 
 publicans, 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 disliked, he 
 scarcely mentions ; nor does he say much of the 
 exquisite and voluptuous Pauline. And indeed from the 
 world at large the family has scarcely received sufficient 
 attention. For it was an astonishing race. Born and 
 reared in poverty and obscurity, it assumed a divine 
 right with easy grace. No Bourbons or Hapsburgs were 
 so imbued with their royal prerogatives as these princes 
 
 188
 
 THE CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 
 
 of an hour. Joseph believed firmly that he would easily 
 have established himself as King of Spain if Napoleon 
 would only have withdrawn his troops. Louis had the 
 same conviction with regard to Holland. Murat and 
 Caroline were not less fatuous at Naples. Jerome 
 promptly established the state and etiquette of a petty 
 Louis XIV. Not less remarkable was their tenacity 
 of character. An unfriendly commentator is forced to 
 admit that their qualities or defects were all out of 
 the common. The women even approached greatness. 
 Caroline and Eliza had striking qualities. And all, 
 brothers and sisters, had something of the inflexibility 
 of their mighty head, and the fullest possible measure 
 of his self-confidence. They frequently defied him. 
 Some did not scruple to abandon him. The two 
 governing sisters tried to cut themselves adrift from 
 his fortunes, and make terms as independent sovereigns 
 with the enemy. 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 on his 
 fingers, seven mistresses in his life: "C'est beaucoup." 
 But, after all, it is not much when we remember that 
 a learned and competent historian is devoting three 
 thick volumes to this side of Napoleon's character. 
 Of the most famous, Madame Walewska, to whom at 
 one time he seems to have been sincerely attached 
 (though he thought all Polish 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 
 
 189
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 children." 
 "Your Majesty," says the tactless equerry, "paid 
 Madame 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 everything." 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 Madame Walewska. 
 
 He speaks with candour of his relations with Made- 
 moiselle Georges and Madame Grassini, with Madame 
 Duchatel, Madame Gallieno, and a Madame Pellaprat. 
 Of another lady whose name Gourgaud does not 
 record, but who is sufficiently described to be recog- 
 nised as Madame Foures, he says, "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 
 naturally susceptible, and feared to be dominated by 
 women. Consequently he had avoided them, but 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 endeavoured 
 during the Hundred Days, indeed, 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 French- 
 man, he discusses the subject with a zest worthy of 
 
 190
 
 THE CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 
 
 Henry the Fourth. During one dinner, for example, 
 the conversation turns entirely on the question whether 
 fat women are more admirable than thin. He dis- 
 courses 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 candour. "War," he says, "is a strange art. 
 I have fought sixty battles, and I assure you that 
 I have learned nothing from all of them that I did 
 not know hi the first. Look at Caesar: he fights in the 
 first battle as in the last." 
 
 He takes full responsibility for the Russian campaign. 
 " I was master, and 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 remained 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 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 aggrandisement, 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 remained a year on the Niemen 
 and in Prussia, and then devoured Prussia." It is strange 
 indeed, to observe how heartily, as if by a foreboding, 
 he hates Prussia. He bitterly regrets that at Tilsit he 
 
 191
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 did not depose the King, and proclaim that the House 
 of Hohenzollern had ceased to reign. He is confident 
 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 Frederic (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 over-persuaded 
 by the King of Prussia. 
 
 He made, he admits, a fatal mistake in not sending 
 Ferdinand back to Spain after the Russian campaign, 
 for that would have restored to him 180,000 good 
 soldiers. The Spanish blunder began, he confesses, from 
 his having said to himself on watching the quarrels of 
 the 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, Austria, Hungary, and 
 Bohemia. 
 
 What, does he think, was his most brilliant victory? 
 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 constant pride to the strategy of Eckmuhl : 
 
 192
 
 THE CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 
 
 " that superb manoeuvre, the finest that I ever exe- 
 cuted," 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 un- 
 necessary fatigue in the daytime. 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 pro- 
 duced out of the nobility. Kleber, 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 Hannibal. 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 Frederic. In the 
 place of that sovereign he would have done much more, 
 and would not have committed Frederic's mistakes. 
 Frederic, indeed, did not thoroughly understand artillery." 
 
 " I count myself 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 
 N 193
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 each officer knew what to do according to circumstances ; 
 the best army is that which is nearest to this." 
 
 In his judgment of hostile generals, when in active 
 life, he had been politic. A trustworthy associate 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 bulletins, whereas he 
 constantly commended Beaulieu, Wiirmser, or the Arch- 
 duke Charles, whom he did not fear. It seems probable 
 that he afterwards entertained a higher opinion of the 
 Archduke. He declined, as we have seen, to confide his 
 opinion of Wellington 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 Elba, 
 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 under- 
 stood his brother, wished to have the minerals of the 
 island for nothing. 
 
 But Bertrand confided to Gourgaud that St Helena 
 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 
 
 194
 
 THE CONVERSATIONS OF NAPOLEON 
 
 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 be- 
 come 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 here, we can ride, we have 
 a good table, we can go away whenever we like, we are 
 well received everywhere, and covered with glory," 
 records the unhappy Gourgaud, at whom this discourse 
 was aimed. 
 
 In speaking of Elba the Emperor gives one curious 
 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 officers' wives were 
 invited to the banquets at the Hotel de Ville. 
 
 One of his favourite topics, in treating which he 
 reveals the practical character of his mind, is that of 
 private budgets. He is always discussing them. At one 
 time it is the budget of a man of 200,000 francs a year. 
 The imaginary person is French, of course; for a Dutch- 
 man, he declares, in a tone of approbation, would with 
 such an income only spend 30,000 francs a year. Another 
 time he reckons up the expenditure of a man with 500,000 
 francs a year. This is the fortune .he would himself 
 prefer; to live in the country with 500,000 or 600,000 
 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 12 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 
 
 195
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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. The most comical result of this habit 
 or game of calculation appears when he re-reads " Clarissa 
 Harlowe." He cannot wade through it, though he de- 
 voured 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. 
 
 196
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE SUPREME REGRETS 
 
 HE seems to concentrate the main regrets of his solitude 
 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 ambitions; 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 including the return from Elba. Las Cases protests 
 against Moscow, as omitting so much. 
 
 On another occasion Napoleon again leans to Moscow. 
 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 nothing 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 refutation as a conqueror, with- 
 out a parallel in history. 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 would have 
 been a good death: perhaps Dresden would have been 
 better: but no, better at Waterloo. The love of the 
 people, their regret." 
 
 197
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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. Madame 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 vicissi- 
 tudes and anxieties, at Eylau amongst others, and I 
 had come out victorious with emperors and kings paying 
 court to me. Perhaps I was happiest after my vic- 
 tories 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 regrets 
 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 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 Napoleon means, he says, "lion of 
 the desert." "Arabia awaits a man. With the French 
 in reserve and the Arabs as auxiliaries I should have 
 
 198
 
 THE SUPREME REGRETS 
 
 seized Judaea; 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 200,000 men. The East," he goes 
 on repeating, " only awaits a man." " Had I," he says 
 another time, "been able to make allies of the Mame- 
 lukes I should have been master of the East. Arabia 
 awaits a man." 
 
 It was not, however, because of Arabia or Judaea that 
 Napoleon regretted Egypt. He reveals his secret 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 constructed two canals one 
 from the Red Sea to the Nile at Cairo, the other 
 from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. He would 
 have extended the dominion of Egypt to the south, and 
 would have enlisted the blacks of Sennaar and Darfur. 
 With sixty or seventy thousand of these, and thirty 
 thousand picked Frenchmen, he would have marched 
 in three columns on the Euphrates, and, after making 
 a long halt there, would have proceeded to conquer 
 India. On arriving in India, he would have allied him- 
 self with the Mahrattas, and had hopes apparently of 
 seducing the sepoy troops. The British, he declares, 
 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 
 India. But now we shall see what will come to them 
 from Russia. The Russians, already in Persia, have not 
 
 199
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 far to go to reach India." And then he repeats his con- 
 stant preoccupation. " Russia is the Power 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 be 
 crowned by that title. The Confederation of the Rhine 
 was being influenced in -this direction, and at Erfurt, 
 it is said, the matter would have been settled, had 
 not Alexander demanded Constantinople as a counter- 
 balance. At St Helena, however, his regrets are not for 
 that position, but for the Empire of the East. And 
 the reason is twofold : as Ruler of 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 model is Alexander. It is 
 not merely his campaigns that Napoleon admires, for 
 these one cannot, he says, well conceive, but his states- 
 manship. In his thirty-fourth year he leaves an immense 
 and well - established empire. He had, too, the art of 
 making friends of the peoples that he conquered. It was 
 a great act of policy to go to the temple of Ammon, 
 for it was thus that he conquered Egypt. "So I, had I 
 remained in Egypt, should probably have founded an 
 empire like Alexander, by going on a pilgrimage to 
 Mecca." Even as he leaves France in the JBellerophon 
 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, we 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 forsake him, 
 until he had lost his empire on the plains of Russia and 
 
 200
 
 THE SUPREME REGRETS 
 
 Germany. Not long before he passed the Niemen, in 
 the midst of a conversation with Narbonne, 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 extremity of Europe invade Asia in order to attack 
 England. 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 popula- 
 tion 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 re- 
 conciled or assassinated in some palace plot, succeeded 
 perhaps by a new and dependant dynasty. 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 mercan- 
 tile power in India would fall to the ground. It would 
 be a gigantic expedition, I admit, but practicable in 
 this nineteenth century." Who will maintain, who reads 
 this, that absolute power 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, Water- 
 loo, over which we sometimes seem to hear him gnash 
 his teeth. " Ah ! if it were to begin again ! " he exclaims. 
 
 201
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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"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 cavalry, 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 12,000 men employed in 
 La Vendee. But who could tell that La Vendee would 
 be so soon pacified. Should he have attacked at all? 
 Should he not have concentrated all his troops under 
 Paris, and awaited events ? Perhaps then the Allies 
 would not have attacked him. It is noteworthy, he 
 says, that all their proclamations are dated after Water- 
 loo. He should not, he thinks, have employed Ney or 
 Vandamme. 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 Emperor 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 exhausts him- 
 self 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 
 
 202
 
 THE SUPREME REGRETS 
 
 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 which, 
 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 commission 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. Some- 
 times he thinks he should have shot Soult, but when 
 or why does not clearly appear. He would, he says at 
 other times, have beheaded Lafayette, Lanjuinais, and 
 a dozen, sometimes even a hundred others. Gourgaud 
 and he often discuss this interesting point. On one occa- 
 sion, Napoleon alludes to the plan of convoking at the 
 Tuileries the Council of State, the 6000 men of the 
 Imperial Guard in Paris, the faithful part of the 
 National Guard, and the fedtfrgs, 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 col- 
 lected 100,000 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, 
 
 203
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 exhorted them to union, and made them feel that all 
 depended 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 explains more 
 in detail, that he would have demanded the purifica- 
 tion 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 himself 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 moment revolutionise the 
 populace and raise the guillotine? 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, therefore, to abdicate in favour 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 obstacle to peace? Very well, then, get 
 out of the scrape without me." 
 
 Gourgaud is not satisfied; he presses the Emperor, 
 and says that his mere presence would have electrified 
 the deputies, and so forth. 
 
 Napoleon replies with a sepulchral truth, "Ah! mon 
 cher, j'e'tais battu." "As long as I was feared," he con- 
 tinues, "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 
 
 204
 
 THE SUPREME REGRETS 
 
 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 antici- 
 pate that they would turn against me so quickly, for I 
 arrived at eight o'clock and at noon they were in in- 
 surrection ; 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 favour 
 of my son, and, whatever 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 
 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 Talleyrand. 
 But this sort of talk puts me out of temper. Let us 
 go into the drawing-room and talk of our early loves." 
 
 205
 
 \ 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 NAPOLEON AND THE DEMOCRACY 
 
 ONE point is clear in all these discussions on Waterloo 
 and its sequel: so clear and yet so unnoticed that it 
 seems worth a short digression. Whatever Napoleon 
 may occasionally say in retrospect, with regard to placing 
 himself at the lieacl of a popular and revolutionary 
 movement after Waterloo^ we are convinced that he 
 was only deluding himself, or toying with ^iis 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 rf f jgpp-d over Fra.np.ft 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 1'ordre, j'en reponds." 
 
 This was no secret to his intimates. He feared the 
 people, said Chaptal; the least discontent or disturbance, 
 the slightest rising affected him more than 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 insurrec- 
 
 206
 
 NAPOLEON AND THE DEMOCRACY 
 
 tion from loss of bread more than a battle against 
 200,000 men. He would then order stuffs and furniture, 
 and he would advance money to the principal manu- 
 facturers. One of these crises cost him in this way 
 more than two millions sterling. When I hear people, 
 writes Madame de Remusat, 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 citizens: 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 pleasure in talking of the emotions of 
 battle, but would turn pale at the narration of the 
 excesses of a revolted people. The Revolution had 
 indeed set her seal pn^him ; he had never forgotten it. 
 Ho represented and embodied it, but was always silently 
 contending against it. And he knew it to be a hope- 
 less battle. "I, and I alone, stand between society and 
 the Revolution,"-^he wuuld uu,y, "I c^.11 go'Ven* flft J FDra. 
 JtJut 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 Revolu- 
 tion, but a child whose one object was parricide. 
 
 He dreaded the idea of firing upon the people; he 
 preserved a lifelong regret for his action in the 
 Vende"miaire 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 th^ Revolu- 
 tion and its methods went far beyon^ aiio-h riemonstra- 
 considerable though they be. For he 
 
 ^ ___ m^^^***^^^ ^^^^* . 
 
 would not touch the KqYnln^ r> " QTra in Tfl sa.ve his crown 
 
 207
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 X./ or himself. "Hostility tr> f.Vie Revolution could not go 
 beyond this. He had seen, and seen with bitter out- 
 spoken contempt, Louis the Sixteenth bow to the 
 multitude from the balcony of the Tuileries with the 
 cap of liberty on his head. Not to preserve his liberty 
 or his dynasty would Napoleon for a moment assume 
 that cap. 
 
 After Waterloo the multitude (" canaille " as Napoleon 
 generally called them at St Helena) thronged round his 
 palace and begged him to lead them ; for they considered 
 him the only barrier against feudalism, against the re- 
 sumption of the confiscated property, and against foreign 
 domination. " Wfoat- do f.hp.gp- people pwe me ? " TSLa.pn1pon T 
 as he hears them, breaks out with sudden candour 
 
 preserves for us one of these scenes. "Two regiments 
 and a vast multitude from the Faubourg St Antoine 
 come to demand that he shall lead them against the 
 enemy. One of their spokesmen alludes to the 18th 
 of Brumaire. Napoleon replies that circumstances are 
 changed, that what was then the summary expression 
 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 
 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 sanguinary cries of Down with the Priests ! 
 Down with the Nobles! I prefer the regrets of France 
 
 208
 
 NAPOLEON AND THE DEMOCRACY 
 
 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 return," 
 he said, "I should found my empire on the Jacobins. 
 Jacobinism is the volcano which threatens all social 
 order. Its eruption would 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 great work of 
 founding the French empire. By my arms and by the 
 force of Jacobinism, by availing myself of every favour- 
 able 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 
 o 209
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 protected from Russia, and Great Britain would become 
 a second-rate Power. Only thus can peace be secured 
 for Europe." Montholon records this strange rhapsody, 
 and declares that it was spoken on March 10th, 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 
 meditation as to the possibilities of an alternative policy. 
 Possibly, indeed, he may have come to the conviction, 
 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 Metternich 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 structure of society 
 itself." 
 
 And Talleyrand, with his cold instinct of judgment, 
 had seen at the very outset of the Hundred Days that 
 the one chance for Napoleon was to nationalise 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 he had so long oppressed. 
 Nor was Alexander insensible 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 realised that 
 the one chance for Napoleon was to become again what 
 he had been at the outset of his career the Revolution 
 incarnate. 
 
 Lavallette tells us the truth in one pregnant sentence 
 the eleven months of the reign of Louis XVIII. had 
 thrown France back into 1792. Even during that short 
 
 210
 
 NAPOLEON AND THE DEMOCRACY 
 
 period discontent had crystallised into conspiracies. 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 Emperor was alarmed. He 
 found that the face of Paris was changed respect and 
 regard for him had visibly waned. Had he realised 
 at Elba, he said, the change which had taken place 
 in France he would have remained on his island. He 
 would send for Lavallette sometimes two or three 
 times a day and would discuss the new situation for 
 hours. Even had he returned victorious, he would, says 
 Lavallette, 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 re-conquered France, he 
 replied, "Bah! the time for compliments is past: they 
 let me come as they let the others go." One instance 
 will perhaps suffice. Napoleon had resumed his former 
 title of Emperor by the Grace of God, and the Con- 
 stitutions of the Empire. This was distasteful to the 
 new spirit, and the Council of State replied by pro- 
 claiming 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 peremp- 
 tory insolence from his Chambers. Nevertheless he 
 faced this new situation with imperturbable 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 revolution. Why, then, did he not 
 
 211
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 accept the last alternative ? 
 himself at the h^ftd nf nn nprimnc 
 
 j)bject of desjro --- TVm First Consul would not have 
 hesitated. But the Emperor saw clearly, we think, that 
 here would in that case have been no question of a 
 dynasty, that the dictatorship would have been a 
 
 rmA, fiiaf VIA wrmlH bavft bf>An Sylla nr Marina, 
 
 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 im. Tt was conse- 
 quently impossible lor mm o become the prophet 
 or general of a new Revolution after Waterloo. Had 
 he known what awaited him St Helena, its sordid 
 miseries, its petty gaolers, its wearisome and hopeless 
 years of living death, he might possibly have overcome 
 his repugnance. But all this he could not foresee ; and 
 no less would have moved him; so he preferred to 
 fold his arms and watch the inevitable catastrophe 
 of the rhetoricians ; to fold his arms and await 
 events. Better, he thought, the life of an American 
 farmer than the presidency of a committee of public 
 safety. 
 
 Between Napoleon and the Chambers there reigned 
 from the first a scarcely disguised hostility. Appear- 
 ances 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 con- 
 summate general to resist invasion and the return of 
 
 212
 
 NAPOLEON AND THE DEMOCRACY 
 
 the Bourbons, hoping to be able to subordinate 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 complacent 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. Napoleon, on the other hand, 
 submitted to the Chambers, as a pledge to the world 
 of his reformed character, and with the hope of ob- 
 taining 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 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 many 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 
 Chambers that compelled his 'return to Paris after 
 the disaster. He has been blamed for not remaining 
 on the frontier and endeavouring 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 
 would 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 continued 
 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 
 
 213
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 and patent. What is more difficult to understand is 
 that, in spite of this last sombre struggle between Con- 
 stitutionalism and Napoleon, his name should have been 
 cherished as a watchword for some thirty years by the 
 Liberals of the Continent. For with liberty and its 
 aspirations he had no sympathy ; he relegated them 
 to those whom he contemptuously termed ideologues. 
 Order, justice, force, symmetry, these were his adminis- 
 trative 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 
 disappeared on the return of the Bourbons in a storm 
 of contempt, this episode of the Hundred Days was for- 
 gotten. All that was remembered was the fact that 
 Napoleon was "the" child of the Revolution. whoJiad 
 
 humbled and mutilated the old dynasties ofTTurope wtih- 
 
 cared to recall, that he had knowingly ceded his throne 
 and yielded himself a prisoner rather than place himself 
 at the head of a popular insurrection. 
 
 But had it been remembered, it would have been 
 held to be expiated by the martyrdom 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 captivity cancelled all his 
 errors and all his shortcomings. His memory, purged 
 of all recollection of his iron rule, of his insatiable 
 demands on the blood and resources of France, of the 
 two invasions of her territory which he had brought 
 about, became a tradition and a miracle. The peasantry 
 of France had always been, next to the army, Eis 
 main support, for they had considered him their 
 sure bulwark against any return of feudal rights or 
 
 214
 
 NAPOLEON AND THE DEMOCRACY 
 
 feudal lords, against any restitution of the estates 
 conascatea during the revolution^ The peasantry then 
 were the jealous fiuardi*yp nf his fame. Among them 
 long llhgered tne tradition of his supernatural achieve- 
 ments. Beranger, it has been remarked, 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," says the poet in that exquisite piece, 
 "will they talk of his glory under the thatched roof; 
 in fifty years the humble dwelling will know no other 
 history." And he goes on to give the keynote in a 
 couplet. " Children, through this village I saw him 
 ride, followed by kings." 
 
 It is too much to say, perhaps, that Napoleon 
 received the honours of apotheosis, but short of that 
 point it is difficult to exaggerate. He received, at 
 any rate, the most singular and sublime honour that 
 has ever been awarded to humanity. For he was 
 known in France not as General, or Consul, or 
 Emperor, or even by his name, but simply as "The 
 Man " (!' 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 
 individualitYfl even more than his horror of anarchy, 
 had_made him an absolute ruler, .but as the product 
 of the Revolution, as the Sumbler of king's, a glamour 
 "(if liberty grew round his name. He had gratified 
 the passion for equality By founding the fourth 
 dvnaatv. thoupb sprung f^om nnfhing-. tift Bfl f <"T 'j^p* 
 out tfte" Bourbons] Ee had, above all., crushed and 
 aSas'ed LllB chlBl's of that !Holy Alliance which^wftigfofid 
 "so heavily 6n Europe/which endeavoured to tread out 
 the last embers of tljsi French KevolutionAand which 
 
 215 /
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 represented an embodied hostility to freedom. So re- 
 garded, it is not wonderful that the image of Napoleon 
 became the idol of Continental Liberalism. La^eron, 
 again, It was stamped on a more definite plan. 
 Authoritative democracy, or, in other words, demo- 
 cratic dictatorship, the idea which produced the Second 
 Empire in France, which is still alive there, and which, 
 in various forms, has found favour elsewhere, is the 
 political legacy, perhaps the final message, of Napoleon. 
 
 216
 
 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 atmos- 
 phere 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 explained, entirely on one 
 side. Arnott was evidently unaware of his patient's 
 grave condition. Though he was called in on April 1, 
 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 27 or 28, 
 a bare week before the end, that he realised that the 
 malady was mortal. Nor had the Governor or the 
 British Government any suspicion that the end was 
 near. 
 
 For the last nine days of his life he was constantly 
 delirious. On the morning of May 5, he uttered some 
 incoherent words, among which Montholon fancied that 
 he distinguished, "France . . armee . . tete d'armee."* 
 As the patient uttered these words he sprang from the 
 bed, dragging Montholon, who endeavoured to restrain 
 
 * Antommarchi, characteristically enough, states that three hours after- 
 wards he heard Napoleon say "tete . . . arme"e " and that these were his last 
 words. Montholon expressly states that Antommarchi was not in the room 
 at two o'clock when Napoleon said "tete d'armee." The point is of little 
 importance except as showing to the rery last the difficulty of ascertaining the 
 exact truth at Longwood. 
 
 217
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 him, on to the floor. It was the last effort of that 
 formidable energy. He was with difficulty replaced in 
 bed by Montholon and Archambault, 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 uprooted the willow under which he 
 was accustomed to repose. Within, the faithful Marchand 
 was covering 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 embarrass- 
 ment 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. Comment 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 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 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 ravine. There, under the shade of 
 two willows, by the side of a spring which had supplied 
 
 218
 
 THE END 
 
 the Emperor with water to drink, had the grave been 
 dug. The inmates of Longwood followed as chief 
 mourners. 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 
 musketry and cannon. 
 
 Nineteen years afterwards a French frigate, under 
 the command of the Prince of Joinville, anchored at 
 Jamestown. It had come for the purpose of conveying 
 back to France the Emperor's remains. They 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 Gourgaud, 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 
 Archambault; as well as St Denis who, disguised under 
 the name of Ah", had acted as second Mameluke with 
 Rustan, and whom Napoleon had often used as an 
 amanuensis at St Helena. Together these sombre and 
 devoted survivors visited the scene of their exile, 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 mid- 
 night on October 15, 1840 (the twenty-fifth anniversary of 
 his arrival at St Helena), and, when after ten hours' 
 strenuous labour the coffin was disinterred, they beheld 
 once more the features of the Emperor, unaltered and 
 unimpaired. Together they followed the corpse in a 
 procession which savoured less of a funeral than a 
 
 219
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 splendours 
 of France sate in silent state under the dome of the 
 Invalides, awaiting the arrival of the corpse. Suddenly 
 a chamberlain appearing at the door announced in 
 a clear and resonant voice, " 1' Empereur," as if it were 
 the living sovereign: and the vast and illustrious 
 assembly rose with a common emotion as the body 
 was borne slowly in. The spectators could not restrain 
 their tears as they realised 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, actively 
 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 shrewd interest 
 with a rooted disbelief 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 ! mon 
 pylore! mon pylore!" He, however, as we have seen, 
 gravely condoled with Gourgaud, who was in the best 
 of health, on being another 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 examina- 
 
 220
 
 THE END 
 
 tion, 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 tragical 
 enough, as we gather from the jejune chronicles of 
 Montholon. Even these records do not give the im- 
 pression 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 dying. 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 Madame de Stael had written to him from Italy, 
 should be published. On this point he was strenuous and 
 insistent. He believed them to be in the hands of 
 Joseph. But they had been stolen, and had been offered 
 to and refused by Murray the publisher. The Russian 
 Government had intervened and purchased 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. Other- 
 wise they would surely have recorded with pious care 
 these remarkable moments. 
 
 It is these last months 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 
 
 221
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 no- 
 thing so melancholy 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 Beaconsfield once 
 explained why he wrote Count Alar cos ', a drama nearly, 
 if not quite, forgotten. It was produced, 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 should have put it into 
 shape. And so it is with this little book. It cannot 
 help embodying a tragedy, but it was written to lay a 
 literary ghost, dormant for years, only quickened into 
 activity by the analysis 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 appre- 
 hensions and the suspicions, all are dead. And yet, the 
 subject still seems warm. It is doubtful 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 happi- 
 ness to forget. The Scots are still Jacobites at heart. 
 
 222
 
 THE END 
 
 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 luke- 
 warmness with regard to them. They are detested or 
 adored. The idolatry and hatred which Napoleon inspired 
 survived him too long to allow of the 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, especially that part which was sup- 
 pressed, furnishes, of course, the great picture of his 
 manifold activities and methods. This is, however, but 
 a small fraction 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 re- 
 markably few. 
 
 Some judicious observers, who knew Napoleon well, 
 wrote their real impressions, but wrote them very 
 secretly, 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 
 analyses his character with the dispassionate science of 
 an eminent chemist. Pasquier we are inclined to place 
 next, as being on the whole unfavourably fair. With 
 him we should perhaps bracket Se*gur, whose memoirs, 
 which include the classical history of the Russian 
 
 223
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 favourably fair. And the beauty of the style, 
 the exquisite eloquence of some of the passages, 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 
 stigmatised him as a liar, seems sufficiently reliable, 
 on the partial side. Roederer, from among a number 
 of massive volumes containing his unreadable works, 
 yields some pure gold, priceless notes of Napoleonic 
 conversation. Madame de Remusat, with heavy deduc- 
 tions, 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 afterwards during the bitterest reaction of 
 the Restoration, 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 Talleyrand, 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 details 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 humour 
 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 
 
 224
 
 THE END 
 
 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 snapshots of Napoleon. The extraordinarily life- 
 like scene of Napoleon at the masked ball mopping his 
 hot head with a wet handkerchief and murmuring "Oh! 
 que c'est bon, que c'est bon ! " is recorded by Marbot. 
 The fleeting vision of Napoleon galloping homewards 
 through Spain alone with an aide-de-camp, whose horse 
 the Emperor is flogging with a postillion'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 Gourgaud 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 eternity, the 
 man, as apart from the warrior and statesman, might, 
 possibly but not probably, have revealed 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. 
 P 225
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 delight to scrutinise 
 something that indefinitely raises its conception of its 
 own powers and possibilities. 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 variety 
 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 investigators of Napo- 
 leon's character. Nor can this be considered 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 scientifically divided into acts 
 or phases, gives rise to a number of questions, all obvious 
 
 226
 
 THE END 
 
 and pertinent, but seldom admitting of a direct or satis- 
 factory reply. What was his conception of life? What 
 was his fixed object? Had he any such deliberate con- 
 ception 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, many 
 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 arrive at his 
 own hypothesis, but it will not be a confident one ; and 
 he will find without surprise that his fellows, equally 
 laborious and equally conscientious, will all supply excel- 
 lent solutions, totally at variance with his own and with 
 each other. 
 
 By the philosopher, and still more by the philosopher 
 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 nega- 
 tive ; and that when he has accomplished that work 
 he is withdrawn as swiftly as he came. Caesar, Attila, 
 Tamerlane, and Mahomet are forces of this kind; the 
 last a much more potent and abiding factor in the 
 universe than Napoleon ; another proof, if proof were 
 needed, of how small is the permanent effect of war- 
 fare alone on the history of mankind. These men make 
 great epochs; they embody vast transitions; they per- 
 plex and appal their contemporaries; but when viewed 
 at a distance they are seen to be periodical and neces- 
 sary incidents of the world's movement. The details 
 
 227
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 represents 
 Napoleon's first function as ruler. Thf> volcano of the 
 yVanrli Devolution hft^ Kiiwiftd ita^lf rMI^ He 
 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 
 nnly riniblo rnrmlt What he often said of the Crown 
 of France is absolutely true of its government. " I found 
 it in the gutter, and I picked it up on my sword's point." 
 The gutter government he replaced by a new adminis- 
 trative 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 nil -*h* 1111141 iiP 1.1m pm-glu. h VMU "the 
 
 ^ancient monarcfriftP r f*r\(\ Compels them to set their 
 
 lioi^flfg ir. Aar- 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 fyepm fr"* Napoleon 
 
 this could not hft vft happen pH i for T when ^ hfiassumed' the 
 
 government, JEurope seemed at last to have stemmed 
 
 the Revolution. 
 
 Wft do -nr>f. fligpnaa Tn'g Tni1ii-.fl.ry g-rftfttn ftsp ; that is 
 
 universally acknowledged. It would, moreover, require 
 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 movement and apprejj.en- 
 
 r>f jpaiTn'n liia naming fr> 
 
 extraordinary ffjp+ a , *" a IcnnwlftHgra nf Detail combined 
 with his gigantic grasp, his prodigious triumphs, jnake 
 cool judgment difficult. Later on, even civilians may see 
 
 - "228
 
 THE END 
 
 , fin rrrnmplr, br coming, Jbef ore 
 it struck a blow, little more than a mob, without dis- 
 cipline and without provisions, for want 0f' practical 
 foresight and commissariat. 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 
 gieat administrator. He controlled every wheel and 
 spring, larye or small, of his Vast machinery Qi goyiaai- 
 ment. 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 mnpgpiTTip!nt r 
 by which he sustained p ^act ^^pi^p wif.fr power and 
 splendour, Put \vith rigid economy and without a debt, 
 is a marvel and a jjaysterv. In all the offices of state 
 he knew everything, guided everything, inspired every- 
 thing. He himself aptly enough compared his mind 
 to a cupboard of pigeon - holes ; to deal with any 
 subject he opened the pigeon-hole relating to it and 
 closed the others; when he wished to sleep, he closed 
 them all. Moreover, his inexhaustible memory made 
 him familiar with all the men and all the details as 
 well as with all the machinery of government. Daru, 
 
 229
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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, saying 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 hospital at Mayence for 
 a hundred syringes. "What! Do you provide syringes 
 for the hospital at Mayence?" "Yes, and your Majesty 
 pays for them." The Emperor spent four hours open- 
 ing and reading all the letters; he continued to do so 
 for eight successive 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 apprehen- 
 sion, this detailed probing of his vast administration ! 
 The inherent defect of such an executive 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 paralysed by the least severance from him. 
 The conspiracy of Mallet, 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 per- 
 manent 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 
 
 230
 
 THE END 
 
 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 affects the character of the nation, as 
 well as of the other races to which it has been extended. 
 Few enactments, for example, have had a more potent 
 effect in moulding the social and political life of a 
 community than the provision of the Code for the 
 compulsory 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 organisation, 
 and indeed his physical constitution was not less remark- 
 able than his intellectual mechanism. His digestion 
 endured for a lifetime, without resentment, hearty meals 
 devoured in a few moments at odd times. His first tooth 
 was extracted at St Helena, and then, it appears, un- 
 necessarily. 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 Austrian he slept for thirty-six hours/ On arriving 
 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, without 
 an instant's delay, the entire palace, and the Louvre, 
 where new constructions were proceeding. He would 
 post from Poland to Paris, summon a council at once, 
 and preside at it with his usual vigour and acuteness. 
 And his councils were no joke. They would last eight 
 or ten hours. Once at two o'clock in the morning the 
 
 231
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 councillors were all worn out; the Minister of Marine 
 was fast asleep : Napoleon still urged them to further 
 deliberation, " Come, gentlemen, 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 active and predominant. Never did a 
 council separate without being the wiser, either from 
 what he taught or from the close investigation which 
 he insisted upon. He would work for eighteen hours 
 at a stretch, sometimes at one subject, sometimes at a 
 variety. Never, says Roederer, have I seen his mind 
 weary ; 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 philosopher 
 was carried away senseless. On another occasion he 
 knocked down his Chief Justice and belaboured him 
 with his fists. He is said to have attacked Berthier 
 with the tongs. These were the rare eruptions of a nerv- 
 ous system occasionally yielding to continuous strain. 
 Nor was the primitive Corsican altogether smothered 
 under the robe of Empire. 
 
 Again there were reactions. Witness that strange 
 scene at the little mansion of Diiben, where he sits for 
 two days on a sofa, heedless of the despatches which 
 are massed on his table calling for 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 
 
 232
 
 THE END 
 
 of splendour 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 national ambition. 
 The terrible sacrifices which he exacted are forgotten, 
 and, if they be remembered, compare not unfavourably 
 (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 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 matters 
 subordinate, that is, for History, which only concerns 
 itself with his effect and result. But, none the less, 
 they are profoundly interesting for mankind. They 
 will not, indeed, enable us to discover his secret. 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 failing and human depravity. 
 
 What, after all, is the story? 
 
 Into a career of a score of years he crowded his own 
 dazzling career, his conquests, his triumphant assault 
 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 
 
 233
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 catastrophe. He loses the balance of his judgment and 
 becomes a curse to his own country and to all others. 
 He cannot be stiU himself, or give mankind an instant 
 of repose. His neighbours' landmarks become playthings 
 to him, he cannot leave 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, universal hostility, the universal sense 
 of his incompatibility with all established society. But 
 he pursues his path as if possessed, as if driven by the 
 inward sting of some burning devil. He has ceased to 
 be sane. The intellect and energy are still there, but 
 as it were in caricature: they have become monstrosi- 
 ties. 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 watch- 
 ing with curious compassion the reaction and decline. 
 
 The truth we take to be this. The mind of man 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 unequal to any- 
 thing approaching omnipotence. All history from the 
 Caesars onwards 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 assimilated 
 all necessary information with extraordinary rapidity. 
 But when he had learned all that his councillors could 
 
 234
 
 THE END 
 
 teach him, he realised his immeasurable 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, incapable ministers, the 
 languid barriers of a crumbling society. There seemed 
 nothing in the world to 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 
 realise and consolidate his acquisitions, it is difficult to 
 limit the extent to which his views might have been 
 realised. But the edifice of his empire was so prodigi- 
 ously 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 
 1812 he left 300,000 Frenchmen amidst the snows of 
 Russia. In 1813 he summoned 1,300,000 more under arms. 
 And these werfl only f.ha ffnlnninating figures of a. long- 
 series of overdrafts, anticipations of the annual con- 
 scription, terrible drains on the population of France 
 proper a population of some thirty millions. 
 
 235
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 He, no doubt, had convinced himself, with that faculty 
 of self -persuasion which is at once the weakness 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 Dutchmen 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 annexation, however procured, 
 added as many valid instruments of his policy as it did 
 human beings to his realm. 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, however, considered, 
 or professed to consider, that the populations that he 
 had conquered could be relied upon as subjects and 
 soldiers. This strange hallucination 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, with 
 incredible self-delusion, want of insight, or both, prepar- 
 ing his own destruction by dealing with men as if 
 they were chequers, 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, 1810 : " I approve of this 
 report with the following modifications 1. Only to take 
 from the Italian Tyrol 280,000 souls, a population equal 
 to that of Bayreuth and Ratisbon. 2. That Bavaria 
 
 236
 
 THE END 
 
 should only give up for the Kingdom of Wurtemburg 
 and the Duchies of Baden and Darmstadt a population 
 of 150,000 souls. So that, instead of 188,000 souls, 
 Bavaria should gain 240,000 or 250,000. Out of the 
 150,000 souls ceded by Bavaria, I think one must give 
 110,000 to Wurtemburg, 25,000 to Baden, and 15,000 to 
 Darmstadt." It is only fair to add that the congress 
 of his enemies at Vienna proceeded with flattering imita- 
 tion on the same principles. 
 
 But the exasperation of the transferred and retrans- 
 ferred 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 arrangements. He himself, how- 
 ever, 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 struc- 
 ture was definite 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, 
 rancour, 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 
 
 237
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 contingent, when he must have known, had he been 
 sane, that no Prussians could ever forgive him the 
 humiliations 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. 
 
 Supreme power then destroyed the balance of his 
 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 war- 
 fare. It is difficult to realise 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, responsi- 
 bility, and hazard of great wars. But if common men 
 love to risk chances in the lottery or with the dice, 
 on the racecourse 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 un- 
 speakable 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 sub- 
 limated 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 profoundly 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 
 accompanies the vice. And so, even in his most 
 desperate straits, he cannot bring himself to close the 
 
 238
 
 THE END 
 
 account and sign a peace; for he always cherishes the 
 gambler'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 XII. 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. He had 
 been within an ace of ruin and suicide. No 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 in- 
 deed 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 denned. 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. Frederick had been his 
 immediate prototype. Had Frederick never lived, 
 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, 
 
 239
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 was his superior in two respects. Had Napoleon pos- 
 sessed 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 phenomen- 
 ally 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 emperor; that the 
 lawless abduction and wanton execution of Enghien 
 may mark the beginning. That proceeding, no doubt, 
 denotes not merely a criminal lawlessness, but an irrit- 
 ability, 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 
 
 240
 
 THE END 
 
 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. J^v Tvrnpnlpn^ who declared at one 
 
 time that all thfl f.rmntries 9^ ffuropft aVini^4 ]t?*p 
 
 their archives in Paris, and at another that the French 
 
 ^ *^ B^-MMM ii ^*^**^*""" * '* ' ' i t*^*m*m*mn^m* 
 
 Empire would become the mother co""*Ty nt 11 anvft- 
 reigiities, thajCaU. the kings ol the __garth should have 
 palaces of residence in Paris, and attend_m_jtaifi_Jihp 
 riorpTui.fi n^a of t.ha n>fm"pTFT Emperors ; the Napoleon who 
 
 refused to make__peacjEL in 181JT and 1814, had obviously 
 leHbalance 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 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, overweening 
 individuality contributed to his fall. He had no check or 
 assistance from advice, for his ministers were cyphers. 
 It is not too much to say that the blind idolatry of 
 Bassano had much to do with the imperial catas- 
 trophe. Great responsibility, too, is attributed to the 
 compliance and deference of Berthier. Napoleon was 
 apparently safe from all rivalry. But yet he could 
 Q 241
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 not endure that there should be approved 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 medioc- 
 rity 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 malcontents. In itself this fact suffi- 
 ciently proves the weakness of his government, without 
 taking into account its morbid centralisation. 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 
 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 discontent 
 were what he most feared. So he kept his generals 
 at arm's length, blamed them easily, commended them 
 parsimoniously. It was only the dead, such as Desaix 
 and Kle"ber, 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 
 
 242
 
 THE END 
 
 would deplore, between 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." 
 
 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 Empire. When he 
 discovered that they were considered 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 
 
 243
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 pestilent instrument which it was equally dangerous 
 to utilise or to neglect. Napoleon did both, a course 
 which combined both disadvantages. Talleyrand, cynical 
 and ignoble 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 colour 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 corrup- 
 tion, he was a consummate Foreign Minister and an 
 unrivalled diplomatist. Up to the time of the Spanish 
 imbroglio he was Napoleon's close confidant, as he had 
 been one of the earliest associates of his fortunes. 
 Napoleon charged him with advising the policy with 
 regard to Spain and then denouncing it. Talleyrand 
 denied the charge. We are inclined to think that both 
 were right. Talleyrand, as we learn from his intimate 
 friend, Madame de Remusat, openly declared, and had 
 no doubt advised the Emperor, that "a Bourbon was 
 an inconvenient neighbour to Napoleon, and it was 
 doubtful whether such a neighbour could be tolerated." 
 But he entirely disapproved of Napoleon's proceedings. 
 In a word, he probably gave the impulsion and inspired 
 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 Talleyrand and Fouche, 
 and was never able to replace them. 
 
 His relations to both these officials throws an in- 
 structive light on the cynical side of his character. He 
 grossly and publicly insulted Talleyrand on more than 
 
 244 

 
 THE END 
 
 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 con- 
 versation, Talleyrand calmly remarks, "But, by the bye, 
 I thought we had quarrelled." 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 dis- 
 grace. 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, 
 as we have seen, he whistles him back, and entrusts 
 him with one of the most delicate and important offices 
 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 con- 
 sidered, 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, the causes which effected his 
 ruin, but rather the effects and outcome of the causes 
 which produced 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 proceed- 
 ings. 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 distin- 
 guished economists have, on a smaller scale, often since 
 
 245
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 endeavoured 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 expedition was a blunder in 
 method, but not necessarily in policy. Louis XIV. had 
 carried out the same policy with conspicuous success. 
 And Napoleon could not foresee that a people which 
 had long supported dynasties so contemptible would rise 
 like one man against his own. Again, the 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 
 prerogatives, 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 Ureat 
 Britain, aspired vaguely to becoming in some way LoM 
 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 prob- 
 ably thought that a mere remnant of his empire would 
 be a rich inheritance 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 
 
 246
 
 THE END 
 
 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 to Napoleon 
 without a sense of incongruity which approaches the 
 grotesque. *^Was NapoleonagooTJhpMui^ Tb,e_ irresistible 
 wifh wfrjnh wa rflflt. ift iiftat 
 
 not the proved iniquity, but the exceptional position of 
 this unique personality. Ordinary measures and tests do 
 not appear to apply to him. We seem to be trying to 
 span a mountain with a tape. In such a creature we 
 expect prodigious virtues and prodigious vices, all be- 
 yond 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 circum- 
 stances 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 other 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 statecraft, if it 
 had a morality at all, had a morality of its own. His 
 
 247
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 own morals, he would have said, and indeed thought, 
 were extremely creditable to so altogether exceptional 
 a being. To use a common vulgarism, 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 eighteenth century, the circumstances 
 and temptations of his position must be taken into 
 account. Men must judge men not absolutely but rela- 
 tively, 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 with- 
 out injury draughts of brandy which would drown a 
 drunkard. And so with Napoleon. 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 w^as 
 reared in the life of camps and in the terrors of re- 
 volution. He was raised to rule a nation, which, in the 
 horrors o"f~a "great convulsion, had formally leiiuiiIlCed 
 and practically abjured Onnstianity. 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 
 
 of religion we do not knowT He graypud, ncr" 
 
 doubt, its political forced He would have understood 
 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 rules were applicable to himself, for he 
 
 248
 
 THE END 
 
 soon regarded 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 intended 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 Me"neval. Madame de 
 Remusat, a hostile and observant chronicler, narrates 
 several instances of his consideration and tenderness, as 
 well as of his susceptibility to the pleading fondness of 
 Josephine. M. de Re'musat 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 character there is 
 no trace of friendship. In one or two instances he may 
 have felt it. But he had no friends. Duroc most nearly 
 approached to that intimate character. 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 
 
 249
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 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 
 enthusiasm diminished in proportion to remoteness from 
 the rank and file. Officers felt it less in an ascending 
 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 intimately. 
 Friendship, as we have seen, he had deliberately dis- 
 carded as too close a relation for other mortals 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 survived and left him without 
 ceremony or even decency. Berthier, his lifelong com- 
 rade, 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 companions of his victories, all left him 
 at Fontainebleau, some with contumely. Ney insulted 
 him in 1814, Davoust in 1815. Marmont, the petted 
 child of his favour, conspicuously betrayed him. The 
 loyal Caulaincourt 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 difficult 
 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 masters, the chief 
 mourners of misfortune who haunted the barren ante- 
 chambers 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 
 
 250
 
 THE END 
 
 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 Austrian. We must regret- 
 fully attribute this alienation, discreditable as it is to 
 the deserters, as more discreditable to Napoleon himself. 
 Bertrand, as we have seen, who, if alone, can claim the 
 halo of fidelity, avowed the truth at St Helena, not in 
 anger, but in sorrow : " The Emperor is what he is, 
 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 yet we must not distribute this judgment over 
 his whole career ; it applies only to that part of it which 
 was essentially imperial and partially insane. Until he 
 chose to make a demigod of himself and deliberately 
 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. They were qualities 
 for mere men; and the ordinary restraints, like the 
 ordinary objects of mere men had ceased to have any 
 meaning for him. 
 
 Was he a great^niaia-? Thnf ^ Tn/li nimp 
 
 question, but it involves defJnit f jrm Tf by "grrwi,^ be 
 intended the combination of moral qualities with those 
 oiT'mtellect, great llu~T?ei!^a4gry~was~not. But that Hie 
 was great m the sense of being extraordinary and 
 supreme we can have no doubt. If greatness stanag""for 
 /natural power, /for predominance, for something human 
 
 251
 
 NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE 
 
 beyond humanity, *hfiTt Nnprrlftffn wafl assuredly great. 
 Besides that indefinable spark which we call genius, he 
 represents a combination of intellect and energy which 
 has never perhaps been equalled, never, certainly, sur- 
 passed. He carried human faculty to the farthest point 
 of which we have ace Ul'aljdL knowledge. Alexander isr~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 micro- 
 scope. Under the fiercest glare of scrutiny he enlarged 
 indefinitely the limits of human conception and human 
 possibility. Till he had lived, no one could realise that 
 there could be so stupendous a combination of military 
 and civil genius, such comprehension of view united to 
 such grasp of detail, such prodigious vitality of body and 
 mind. "He contracts history," said Madame 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 hyperbole, but 
 with a substance of truth. No name represents so 
 completely and conspicuously dominion, splendour, and 
 catastrophe. He raised himself by the use, and ruined 
 himself by the abuse, of superhuman faculties. He 
 was wrecked by the extravagance of his own geniusT 
 No less powers than those which had ejected his rise 
 could have achieved his fall. 
 
 252
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 1. CAPTAIN MAITLAND 
 
 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, when he came on board the Bellerophon, 
 on the 15th of July 1815, wanted exactly one month of completing 
 his forty-sixth year, being born the 15th August 1769. He was then 
 a remarkably 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 grey, teeth good ; and when 
 he smiled, the expression of his countenance was highly pleasing ; 
 when under the influence of disappointment, however, it assumed 
 a dark gloomy cast. His hair was of a very dark brown, nearly 
 approaching to black, and, though a little thin on the top and front, 
 had not a grey hair amongst it. His complexion was a very un- 
 common one, being of a light sallow colour, 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 affable: he joined in every conversation, 
 related numerous anecdotes, and endeavoured, in every way, to 
 promote good humour : he even admitted his attendants to great 
 familiarity; and I saw one or two instances -of their contradicting 
 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 favourable impression upon those with whom he entered 
 into conversation : this appeared to me to be accomplished by turn- 
 ing the subject to matters he supposed the person he was addressing 
 was well acquainted with, and on which he could show himself to 
 advantage. 
 
 253
 
 APPENDIX 
 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 being very short in the back, gives his figure a more 
 ridiculous 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 measure of the quick and varying passions of the mind. 
 His face at one instant bears the stamp of great good humour, 
 and immediately changes to a dark, penetrating, thoughtful scowl, 
 which denotes the character of the thought that excites it. 
 
 3. BUNBUBY 
 
 July 31, 1815. 
 
 Napoleon appears to be about five feet six inches high. His 
 make is very stout and muscular. His neck is short, 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 ap- 
 parent 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 away suddenly, 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 embroidery ; 
 small gilt buttons, and gold epaulettes. He had a white neck- 
 cloth, 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 Honour over his waistcoat, and the star, 
 in silver embroidery, on his coat. There were also three very 
 
 254
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 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 grey, 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 melan- 
 choly ; 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 25th, 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 grey eyes ; a capacious 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 beautiful 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 Honour; white waistcoat 
 and breeches ; white silk stockings ; and shoes with oval gold 
 buckles. She was struck with the kindness of his expression, so 
 contrary to the fierceness she had expected. She saw no trace 
 of great ability ; his countenance seemed rather to indicate good- 
 ness. . . . 
 
 5. HENRY 
 
 Sept. 1, 1817. 
 
 He was dressed in a plain dark green uniform coat without 
 epaulettes, or anything equivalent, but with the star of the Legion 
 of Honour on the breast, which had an eagle in the centre. The 
 
 255
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 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 his shoes ; with a small opera hat under his arm. 
 Napoleon's first appearance was far from imposing, the stature 
 was short and thick, his head sunk into the shoulders, his face 
 fat, with large folds under the chin ; the limbs appeared to be 
 stout and well-proportioned, complexion 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 
 general look was more that of an obese Spanish or Portuguese 
 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. 
 
 256
 
 INDEX 
 
 Aix - LA - CHAPELLE, Congress of, 
 Memorial from the Russian Gov- 
 ernment to, 104, 143 
 
 Alexander the Great, Napoleon's 
 admiration for, 200 
 
 Alison, his opinion of Sir Hudson 
 Lowe quoted, 68 
 
 Alvinzy, Napoleon's opinion of, 194 
 
 Annual Register, The, Napoleon 
 suggests that Gourgaud shall 
 translate, 49 
 
 Antommarchi, his narrative of little 
 value, 23, 27 
 
 treated Napoleon's illness as 
 
 trifling, 24 
 
 leaves and resumes Napoleon's 
 
 service, 25 
 
 his services repelled by Napo- 
 leon, 26 
 
 took a cast of Napoleon's face, 
 
 27 
 
 Austria, Napoleon attributed his fall 
 to, 192 
 
 BALCOMBE, Miss, Napoleon's acquaint- 
 ance with, 133 
 
 Balmain, Count of, his reports of 
 Gourgaud's revelations, 39 
 
 his opinion of Sir Hudson Lowe, 
 
 69 
 
 his character described, 142 
 
 his marriage with Sir Hudson 
 
 Lowe's step-daughter, 143 
 
 Bathurst, Lord, his orders as to 
 Napoleon's treatment, 118 
 
 his letter on Napoleon's illness, 
 
 121 
 
 Beaconsfield, Lord, why he wrote 
 
 Count Alarcos, 222 
 Bertrand, his devotion to Napoleon, 
 
 124 
 
 the object of Lowe's hatred, 
 
 124 
 
 Bertrand, Madame, 124 
 Bunbury, his description of Napo- 
 leon's appearance, 254 
 
 B 257 
 
 CAMPBELL, Sir Neil, 81 
 
 Chaptal observes the failing energy 
 
 of Napoleon, 106 
 Chatillon, Congress of, 80 
 Christianity, Napoleon's objection 
 
 to, 169 
 Clavering, Lady, Napoleon's "Letters 
 
 from the Cape " addressed to, 29 
 Cockburn, Admiral, his treatment of 
 
 Napoleon, 63 
 Corneille, the favourite author of 
 
 Napoleon, 158 
 Corsica, Napoleon's connection with, 
 
 183 
 Cromwell, Napoleon's remarks on 
 
 the analogies between himself and, 
 
 179 
 
 DESAIX, Napoleon's opinion of his 
 
 ability as general, 193 
 Drouot, his testimony as to Napoleon's 
 
 disposition, 48 
 Dumouriez, Napoleon's opinion of his 
 
 ability as general, 193 
 Duroc, his intimacy with Napoleon, 
 
 249 
 "Duroc, Baron," one of the names 
 
 proposed to be assumed by 
 
 Napoleon, 90 
 
 EGYPT, Napoleon regrets having left, 
 
 198 
 regarded by Napoleon as the 
 
 key to India, 199 
 Elba, Napoleon regrets, 194 
 Enghien, Due d', the affair of, 13 
 English History, Napoleon's remarks 
 
 on, 179 
 
 FONTAINEBLEAU, Treaty of, broken 
 by the Allies, 87 
 
 Forsyth, his book on the captivity of 
 Napoleon, 76 
 
 Fouoho, his intrigues against Napo- 
 leon, 108
 
 INDEX 
 
 Frederick the Great compared with 
 Napoleon, 239 
 
 GOURQATID, the accuracy and value of 
 his private journal, 6, 34 
 
 his alienation from Napoleon, 
 
 35 
 
 challenges Montholon, 35 
 
 hia departure said to be a 
 
 Russian mission, 35 
 
 charged with having revealed 
 
 plans for escape, 37 
 
 his reply to Scott's charge of 
 
 treachery, 37 
 
 his jealous temper, 40 
 
 saved Napoleon's life at Brienne, 
 
 42 
 
 instances of his petulance, 50 
 
 leaves St Helena, 56 
 
 HENRY, his description of Napoleon's 
 
 appearance, 255 
 Henry IV., Napoleon's opinion of, 
 
 179 
 Hoche, Napoleon's estimate of his 
 
 ability as general, 193 
 Holland, Lord, protested against the 
 
 treatment of Napoleon, 59, 120 
 
 INDIA, Napoleon's plan to conquer, 
 199 
 
 JACOBINISM, Napoleon's views as to, 
 
 209 
 Joseph Bonaparte, his plan for 
 
 Napoleon's escape, 111 
 Josephine, Napoleon's remarks on, 
 
 184 
 
 KLKBER, 193 
 
 LtAiiEMAND forbidden to accom- 
 pany Napoleon to St Helena, 62 
 
 Las Cases, the unreliability of his 
 book, 8 
 
 spurious letters quoted by him, 
 
 9, 18 
 
 his imaginary account of Pas- 
 
 quier's interview with Napoleon, 
 21 
 
 the most Boswellian of Napo- 
 leon's biographers, 21 
 
 the chosen companion of Napo- 
 leon, 44 
 
 his career reviewed, 128 
 
 hated by his colleagues, 129 
 
 Leoben, Treaty of, Napoleon's re- 
 mark on, 241 
 
 Liverpool, Lord, his views as to the 
 disposal of Napoleon, 58 
 
 Longwood, its situation, 98 
 
 description of, 149 
 
 Louis XIV., Napoleon's estimate of, 
 
 180 
 Lowe, Sir Hudson, his quarrels with 
 
 Admiral Malcolm, 33 
 
 his opinion of Gourgaud, 40 
 
 opinions as to his appointment 
 
 as Governor, 68 
 
 his absurd suspicions, 70 
 
 appointed Commander of the 
 
 Forces in Ceylon, 74 
 
 his treatment of Napoleon, 79 
 
 suggests that Napoleon assumes 
 
 the title of Count of Lyons, 90 
 
 ordered to reduce expenditure, 
 
 92 
 
 his precautions to 
 Napoleon's escape, 98 
 
 prevent 
 
 MACERONI, Colonel, the author of 
 Santini's book, 31 
 
 Mahometanism, Napoleon's leaning 
 towards, 168 
 
 Maitland, Captain, Napoleon's sur- 
 render to, 112 
 
 his description of Napoleon's 
 
 appearance, 253 
 
 Malcolm, Admiral, his conversations 
 with Napoleon, 32 
 
 his quarrel with Sir Hudson 
 
 Lowe, 33 
 
 Malcolm, Lady, her diary of St 
 Helena, 5 
 
 her accounts of Napoleon's con- 
 versation, 32 
 
 her description of Napoleon's 
 
 appearance, 255 
 
 Marie Louise, Napoleon's remarks on, 
 185 
 
 Meneval, his doubts as to the accur- 
 acy of Las Cases, 10 
 
 Montchenu details the precautions 
 taken to prevent Napoleon's escape, 
 98 
 
 Napoleon's opinion of, 138 
 
 his nickname, 139 
 
 Montholon reads O'Meara's Journal 
 
 to Napoleon, 15 
 
 his memoirs said to be untruth- 
 ful by O'Meara, 22 
 
 suppressions in his memoirs, 23 
 
 25S
 
 INDEX 
 
 Montholon receives a challenge from 
 Gourgaud, 35 
 
 his testimony as to plans for 
 
 Napoleon's escape, 103 
 
 his long acquaintance with 
 
 Napoleon, 126 
 
 Montholon, Madame de, 127 
 
 her opinion of the "Letters 
 
 from the Cape," 30 
 
 Moscow, Napoleon's regret that he 
 survived, 197 
 
 " Muiron, Colonel," one of the names 
 proposed to be assumed by Napo- 
 leon, 90 
 
 Murat, Napoleon's remarks on his 
 execution, 167 
 
 Murat, Count, proves Las Cases' un- 
 veracity, 9 
 
 NAPOLEON reads extracts from War- 
 den's Letters, 14 
 
 points out errors in O'Meara's 
 
 Journal, 15 
 
 relates the affair of the Due 
 
 d'Enghien to O'Meara, 15 
 
 his cognisance of the spurious 
 
 letters, 20 
 
 quarrels with Antommarchi, 24 
 
 omits Antommarchi from his 
 
 will, 26 
 
 cast of his face taken by Antom- 
 marchi, 27 
 
 the author of the " Letters from 
 
 the Cape," 29 
 
 his reply to Warden in the 
 
 " Letters from the Cape," 29 
 
 his conversations with Admiral 
 
 Malcolm, 32 
 
 his story of the Dey of Algiers, 
 
 32 
 
 plans for his escape alleged to 
 have been revealed by Gourgaud, 
 38 
 
 - his life saved by Gourgaud at 
 Brienne, 42 
 
 jealousy of his staff, 44 
 chose Las Cases as his com- 
 panion, 44 
 
 his egotism, 46 
 
 his character described by Rapp, 
 
 47 
 
 instances of his forbearance, 48 
 
 hia farewell interview with 
 
 Gourgaud, 55 
 
 his personal fascination, 60, 
 
 115 
 
 Napoleon, his reluctance to go to St 
 
 Helena, 62 
 his parting with Savary and 
 
 Lallemand, 62 
 
 his grievances, 77 
 
 the right to his title of Emperor, 
 
 77 
 
 outlawed by the Congress of 
 
 Vienna, 85 
 
 his allowance, 92 
 
 orders the sale of his silver, 93 
 
 his mode of announcing victories, 
 
 95 
 
 the sale of his books, 97 
 
 precautions taken to prevent his 
 
 escape, 98 
 
 reported plans to effect his 
 
 escape, 102 
 
 said to have refused to attempt 
 
 to escape, 104 
 
 his failing health and energy, 
 
 106 
 
 his dealings with Fouche", 108 
 
 his conduct after Waterloo, 109 
 
 signs his abdication, 110 
 
 his retirement to Malmaison, 
 
 111 
 
 is ordered to leave France, 111 
 
 surrenders to Maitland, 112 
 
 his last sight of France, 112 
 
 his lethargy at St Helena, 112 
 
 his hopes of liberation, 114 
 
 refuses to see the Commis- 
 sioners, 140 
 
 his attempt to open relations 
 
 with his father-in-law, 147 
 
 his style of dress, 150 
 
 his manner of life at St Helena, 
 
 151 
 
 his observance of etiquette, 152 
 
 his love of reading, 154, 160 
 
 his interest in his garden, 155 
 
 his favourite books, 159 
 
 his leaning towards Maho 
 
 metanism, 169 
 
 his objections to Christianity, 
 
 169 
 
 his ignorance of the English, 
 
 173 
 
 learns the English language, 
 
 178 
 
 his remarks on history, 179 
 
 his remarks on his descent, 181 
 
 his connection with Corsica, 183 
 
 his remarks on his family, 185 
 
 his mistresses, 189 
 
 259
 
 INDEX 
 
 Napoleon, his remarks on the Rus- 
 sian Campaign, 191 
 
 his remarks on his victories, 
 
 192 
 
 attributes his fall to Austria, 
 
 192 
 
 his remarks on his generals, 193 
 
 regrets not having been killed 
 
 in battle, 197 
 
 regrets having left Egypt, 198 
 
 his plan to conquer India, 199 
 
 his remarks on the Battle of 
 
 Waterloo, 202 
 
 his hatred of the Revolution, 
 
 207 
 
 his death unexpected, 217 
 
 his burial, 218 
 
 his remains brought to France, 
 
 219 
 
 the cause of his death, 221 
 
 his military greatness, 228 
 
 his powers of administration, 
 
 229 
 
 his physical constitution, 230 
 
 his work as legislator, 230 
 
 his physical appearance, 253-6 
 
 Ney, Marshal, Napoleon's remarks 
 
 on his execution, 166 
 
 Nicholls, Captain, reports his diffi- 
 culties in procuring a sight of 
 Napoleon, 101 
 
 Northumberland, The, conditions on 
 board during the voyage to St 
 Helena, 64 
 
 O'MuABA, his manuscript Journal, 4 
 informs Napoleon of the publica- 
 tion of Warden's Letters, 14 
 
 his investigations respecting the 
 
 affair of the Due d'Enghien, 14 
 
 accused Montholon of being un- 
 truthful, 22 
 
 - the impossibility of accepting 
 his evidence, 31 
 
 the popularity of his book, 31 
 said to have made preparations 
 for Napoleon's rescue, 102 
 
 PASQUIER points out inaccuracies in 
 
 Las Cases' book, 21 
 Piontkowski, a member of Napoleon's 
 
 staff at St Helena, 130 
 Planat selected by Napoleon to 
 
 accompany him in captivity, 35 
 Poppleton, Captain, orderly officer at 
 
 Longwood, 99, 123 
 
 RAPP, his view of Napoleon's char- 
 acter, 47 
 
 Rats, the curse of St Helena, 134 
 
 Reade, Sir Thomas, asserts the in- 
 accuracy of Warden's Letters, 29 
 
 Religion one of Napoleon's chief 
 topics of conversation, 168 
 
 Revolution, The, Napoleon's hatred 
 of, 207 
 
 Robinson, Marianne, Napoleon's ac- 
 quaintance with, 132 
 
 Rocquain, his opinion of letter quoted 
 by Las Cases, 12 
 
 Roederer, his report of Napoleon's 
 conversation, 164 
 
 Russian Campaign, Napoleon's re- 
 marks on, 191 
 
 ST HELENA, why selected as a prison 
 
 for Napoleon, 62 
 Santini, his book a fabrication, 31 
 
 deported from St Helena, 32 
 
 Savary forbidden to accompany 
 
 Napoleon to St Helena, 62 
 Scott, Sir Walter, his charges against 
 Gourgaud, 37 
 
 his opinion of Sir Hudson 
 
 Lowe, 68 
 
 on Napoleon's right to the title 
 
 of Emperor, 80 
 
 Segur notes the decline of Napoleon's 
 health and energy, 106 
 
 Senhouse, his description of Napo- 
 leon's appearance, 254 
 
 Stendhal, his opinion as to the cause 
 of Napoleon's fall, 243 
 
 Sturmer, his opinion of Sir Hudson 
 Lowe, 69 
 
 Napoleon attempts to open 
 
 relations with his father-in-law 
 through, 147 
 
 Sussex, Duke of, protested against 
 the treatment of Napoleon, 59 
 
 TALLEYRAND, the Due d'Enghien 
 affair attributed by Warden to, 14 
 
 acquitted by Napoleon of any 
 
 blame in the Enghien affair, 17 
 
 the effect of Napoleon's quarrel 
 
 with, 241 
 
 Thiers believed the letter from Napo- 
 leon to Murat to be genuine, 20 
 Trafalgar, the famous signal at, 96 
 Turenne considered by Napoleon 
 the greatest French General, 193 
 
 260
 
 INDEX 
 
 VIENNA, Congress of, outlawed Napo- 
 leon, 85 
 
 WALEWSKA, Madame, 189 
 Warden attributes the death of Due 
 d'Enghien to Talleyrand, 14 
 
 his letters of little value, 28 
 
 Napoleon's letters in reply to, 
 
 29 
 
 Waterloo, Battle of, Napoleon's 
 conduct after, 109 
 
 Napoleon's remarks on, 202 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, Napoleon 
 
 refuses to give an opinion of, 28 
 
 his opinion of Sir Hudson 
 
 Lowe, 68 
 
 Napoleon's remark about, 194 
 
 261
 
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