Part 27

24th.—The Emperor had been reading some publication in which he was made to speak in too amiable a strain; and he could not help exclaiming against the mistake of the writer. “How could they put these words into my mouth?” said he. “This is too tender, too sentimental, for me: every one knows that I do not express myself in that way.” “Sire,” I replied, “it was done with a good intention; the thing is innocent in itself, and may have produced a good effect. That reputation for amiableness, which you seem to despise, might have exercised great influence over public opinion; it might at least have counteracted the effect of the colouring in which a certain European system has falsely exhibited your Majesty to the world. Your heart, with which I am now acquainted, is certainly as good as that of Henri IV., which I did not know. Now, his amiableness of character is still proverbial: he is still held up as an idol; yet I suspect Henri IV. was a bit of a quack. And why should your Majesty have disdained to be so? You have too great an aversion to that system. After all, quackery rules the world; and it is fortunate when it happens to be only innocent.”

The Emperor laughed at what he termed my prosing. “What,” said he, ”is the advantage of popularity and amiableness of character? Who possessed those qualities in a more eminent degree than the unfortunate Louis XVI.? Yet what was his fate? His life was sacrificed!—No! a sovereign must serve his people with dignity, and not make it his chief study to please them. The best mode of winning their love is to secure their welfare. Nothing is more dangerous than for a sovereign to flatter his subjects: if they do not afterwards obtain every thing they want they become irritated, and fancy that promises have been broken; and if they are then resisted, their hatred increases in proportion as they consider themselves deceived. A sovereign’s first duty is doubtless to conform with the wishes of the people; but what the people say is scarcely ever what they wish: their desires and their wants cannot be learned from their own mouths so well as they are to be read in the heart of their prince.

“Each system may, no doubt, be maintained: that of mildness as well as that of severity. Each has its advantages and its disadvantages; for every thing is mutually balanced in this world. If you ask me what was the use of my severe forms and expressions, I shall answer, to spare me the pain of inflicting the punishment I threatened. What harm have I done after all? What blood have I shed? Who can boast that, had he been placed in my situation, he could have done better? What period of history, exhibiting any thing like the difficulties with which I was surrounded, presents such harmless results? What am I reproached with? My government archives and my private papers were seized; yet what has there been found to publish to the world? All sovereigns, situated as I was, amidst factions, disorders, and conspiracies, are surrounded by murders and executions! Yet, during my reign, what sudden tranquillity pervaded France!—You are, no doubt, astonished at this chain of reflection,” continued he, smiling, “you, who frequently display the mildness and simplicity of a child.”

I could not but admit the force of his arguments, and now, in my turn, maintained that both systems might have their peculiar advantages. “Every individual,” said I, “should form a character for himself by means of education; but he should be careful, at the same time, to lay its foundation on the character he has received from Nature; otherwise he runs a risk of losing the advantages of the latter, without obtaining those of the character which he wishes to acquire; and his education may prove an instrument to mislead him. After all, the course of a man’s life is the true result of his character, and the proper test by which it should be judged. Of what, then, can I have to complain? From the lowest degree of misery, I raised myself, by my own efforts, to tolerable independence; and from the streets of London, I penetrated to the steps of your throne, and to the benches of your Council-chamber; all this, too, without having cause to blush in the presence of any individual for any thing that I have ever spoken, written, or done. Have I not then also performed my little wonders in my own little way? What could I have done better had another turn been given to my character?”

The conversation was here interrupted by some one entering, to announce that the Admiral and some ladies, who had arrived by the Doris, solicited the favour of being presented to the Emperor; but he answered drily, that he would see no one, and that he did not wish to be disturbed.

Under our present circumstances, the personal politeness of the Admiral was felt only as an additional insult: and with regard to those who accompanied him, as no one could approach us but with the Admiral’s permission, the Emperor did not choose that the honours of his person should be thus performed. If it were intended that he should remain in close confinement, he ought to be told so; but, if not, he should be allowed to see whom he pleased without the interference of any person. Above all, it was not fair that they should pretend in Europe to surround him with every sort of attention and respect, while, on the contrary, they were annoying him with every kind of indecorum and caprice.

The Emperor walked out in the garden at five o’clock. The Colonel of the 53rd regiment waited on him there, and begged permission to present to him, next day, the officers of his regiment. The Emperor granted his request, and appointed three o’clock as the hour to receive them. The Colonel took his leave, and we prolonged our walk. The Emperor stopped awhile to look at a flower in one of the beds, and asked me whether it was not a lily. It was indeed a magnificent one.

After dinner, while we were playing our usual game of _reversis_, of which, by the by, the Emperor began to grow weary, he suddenly turned to me and said, “Where do you suppose Madame Las Cases is at this moment?”—“Alas, Sire,” I replied, “Heaven knows!”—“She is in Paris,” continued he; “to-day is Tuesday; it is nine o’clock; she is now at the Opera.”—“No, Sire, she is too good a wife to go to the theatre while I am here.”—“Spoken like a true husband,” said the Emperor, laughing, “ever confident and credulous!” Then turning to General Gourgaud, he rallied him in the same style with respect to his mother and sister. Gourgaud seemed very much downcast, and his eyes were suffused with tears, which the Emperor perceiving, cast a side-glance towards him, and said, in the most interesting manner, “How wicked, barbarous and tyrannical I must be thus to trifle with feelings so tender!”[29]

Footnote 29:

General Gourgaud entertained the greatest affection for his mother and sister, and was equally beloved by them. To such a length did he carry his regard for them that in his letters he even described St. Helena as a delightful place, in order to ease their anxiety on his account. In his letters he talked of nothing but groves of orange and lemon-trees, and perpetual Spring; in short, every thing that a romantic imagination could suggest. The English Ministers, however, blushed not, subsequently, to turn against him these innocent misrepresentations, the offspring of his filial solicitude!

The Emperor then asked me how many children I had, and when and how I had become acquainted with Madame Las Cases. I replied that my wife had been the first acquaintance of my life; that our marriage was a tie which we had ourselves formed in early youth, yet that it had required the occurrence of the greater part of the events of the Revolution to bring about its accomplishment.

THE EMPEROR FREQUENTLY WOUNDED IN HIS CAMPAIGNS.—COSSACKS.—JERUSALEM DELIVERED.

25th.—The Emperor, who had not been well the preceding evening, was still indisposed this morning, and sent word that it would be impossible for him to receive the officers of the 53rd, as he had appointed. He sent for me about the middle of the day, and we again perused some chapters of the Campaign of Italy. I compared that which treats of the battle of Arcole to a book of the Iliad.

Some time before the dinner-hour, he assembled us all around him in his chamber. A servant entered to announce that dinner was ready; he sent us away, but, as I was going out last, he called me back. “Stay here,” said he, “we will dine together. Let the young people go; we old folks will keep one another company.” He then determined to dress, intending, as he said, to go into the drawing-room after dinner.

While he was dressing, he put his hand on his left thigh, where there was a deep scar. He called my attention to it by laying his finger in it; and, finding that I did not understand what it was, he told me that it was the mark of a bayonet wound by which he had nearly lost his limb, at the siege of Toulon. Marchand, who was dressing him, here took the liberty of remarking that the circumstance was well known on board the Northumberland; that one of the crew had told him, on going on board, that it was an Englishman who first wounded our Emperor.

The Emperor, on this, observed that people had in general wondered and talked a great deal of the singular good fortune which had preserved him, as it were, invulnerable in so many battles. “They were mistaken,” added he; “the only reason was that I always made a secret of all my dangers.” He then related that he had had three horses killed under him at the siege of Toulon; several others killed and wounded in his campaigns of Italy; and three or four at the siege of St. Jean-d’Acre. He added that he had been wounded several times; that, at the battle of Ratisbon, a ball had struck his heel; and at the battle of Esling, or Wagram, I cannot say which, another had torn his boot and stocking, and grazed the skin of his left leg. In 1814, he lost a horse and his hat at Arcis-sur-Aube, or in its neighbourhood. After the battle of Brienne, as he was returning to head-quarters in the evening, in a melancholy and pensive mood, he was suddenly attacked by some Cossacks, who had passed over into the rear of the army. He thrust one of them off with his hand, and was obliged to draw his sword in his own defence; several of the Cossacks were killed at his side. “But what renders this circumstance very extraordinary,” said he, “is, that it took place near a tree which at that moment caught my eye, and which I recognized as the very one under which, when I was but twelve years old, I used to sit during play-hours and read _Jerusalem Delivered_.” ... Doubtless on that spot Napoleon had been first fired by the love of glory!

The Emperor repeated that he had been very frequently exposed to danger in his different battles, but it was carefully kept secret. He had enjoined once for all, the most absolute silence on all circumstances of that nature. He said that it would be impossible to calculate the confusion and disorder which might have resulted from the slightest report or the smallest doubt relative to his existence. On his life depended the fate of a great Empire, and the whole policy and destinies of Europe. He added that this habit of keeping circumstances of that kind secret had prevented him from relating them in his campaigns; and indeed he had now almost forgotten them. It was only, he said, by mere accident, and in the course of conversation, that they could recur to him.

MY CONVERSATION WITH AN ENGLISHMAN.

26th.—The Emperor continued indisposed.

One of the English gentlemen, whose wife had yesterday been refused admittance, in company with the Admiral, paid me a visit this morning, with the view of making another and a final attempt to get presented to Napoleon. This gentleman spoke French very well, having resided in France during the whole of the war. He was one of those individuals who were known at the time by the title of _detenus_: who, having visited France as travellers, were arrested there by the First Consul, on the rupture of the treaty of Amiens, by way of reprisal for the seizure of our merchant-ships by the English Government, according to its custom, before the declaration of war. This event gave rise to a long and animated discussion between the two Governments; and even prevented, during the whole of the war, a cartel for the exchange of prisoners. The English ministers persisted in refusing to consider their detained countrymen as prisoners, lest they should, in so doing, make an implicit renunciation of what may perhaps be called their _right of piracy_. However, their obstinacy cost their countrymen a long captivity. They were detained in France more than ten years; their absence was as long and as irksome, though not so glorious, as that of the besiegers of Troy.

This English gentleman was a brother-in-law of Admiral Burton, the Commander on the Indian station, who lately died. This circumstance might very possibly procure for him an immediate communication with Ministers on his arrival in England. He might perhaps have been appointed by the Admiral to be the bearer of intelligence respecting us. Instead, therefore, of declining conversation, I prolonged it. It lasted more than two hours, and was all calculated on my part with a view to what he might repeat to the Admiral, or communicate to the Government or private circles in England. I will not tire my readers by a recital of it. They would only find the same eternal recapitulation of our reproaches and grievances: a repetition of our complaints and vexations: a continued exposure of the violation of those laws that are esteemed most sacred; of the outrage on our good faith; of the arrogance, impudence, and petty insolence of power. I dwelt particularly on the ill-treatment to which we were here exposed; and on the caprices of the individual who was appointed our keeper. “His glory,” said I, “should consist, not in oppressing, but in relieving us. He should endeavour to make us forget, by his attentions, all the rigour and injustice of his country’s policy. Can he court the reprobation of mankind, when his good fortune enables him to connect his name gloriously with that of the man of the age, the hero of history? Can he object that he is bound by his instructions? But even then, in the spirit of our European manners, honour enables him to interpret them in a suitable manner.”

The Englishman listened to me with great attention. He seemed occasionally to take particular interest in what I said; and expressed his approbation of several of my remarks. But was he sincere, and will he not express very different sentiments in London?

Whenever a ship arrives in England from St. Helena, the public papers immediately give insertion to various stories relative to the captives at Longwood, of so false and absurd a nature, as must necessarily render them ridiculous to the great mass of the public. When we expressed our indignation at these idle reports in the presence of honourable and distinguished Englishmen here, they replied: “Do not deceive yourselves, these false accounts proceed not from our countrymen who visit you; but from our Ministers in London; for, to the excess and violence of power, the administration by which we are now ruled adds all the meanness of the lowest and vilest intrigues.”

ON THE FRENCH EMIGRANTS.—KINDNESS SHEWN BY THE ENGLISH.—RESOURCES OF THE EMIGRANTS.

27th.—The Emperor felt himself better, and rode out on horseback about one o’clock. On his return he received the officers of the 53rd, and behaved to them in the most amiable and condescending manner.

After this visit, the Emperor, who had desired me to remain with him, walked in the garden. I there gave him an account of the conversation I had had the day before with the Englishman. He then asked me some questions relative to the French emigrants, London, and the English. I told him that though the emigrants in a body did not like the English, yet there were few who did not become attached to some Englishman or other: that though the English were not fond of the emigrants, yet there were few English families who did not shew themselves friendly to some of the French. This is the real key to those sentiments and reports, so often contradictory, that are met with on the subject. With regard to the kindness we received from the English, particularly the middle class, from whom the character of a nation is always to be learned, it is beyond all expression, and has entailed a heavy debt of gratitude upon us. It would be difficult to enumerate the private benefactions, the benevolent institutions, and the charitable measures, by which our distresses were relieved. The example of individuals induced the Government to assist us by regular allowances; and even when these were granted, private benevolence did not cease.

The Emperor here asked me whether I had been a sharer in the grants supplied by the English Government: I told him that I had felt more pleasure in being indebted for support solely to my own exertions; and that the state of society and encouragement of industry in England were such that with this feeling a man was sure to succeed. On two occasions I had had an opportunity of making my fortune: Colbert, Bishop of Rhodez, a native of Scotland, who was very fond of me, proposed that I should accompany his brother to Jamaica, where he was appointed to the head of the executive power, and where he was one of the most considerable planters. He would have intrusted to me the direction of his property, and would have obtained for me other employment of the same kind. The Bishop assured me that I should make a fortune in three years. I could not, however, prevail on myself to go; I preferred continuing a life of poverty, to removing to a greater distance from the French shore.

“On another occasion,” continued I, “some friends wished to persuade me to go to India, where I should have obtained employment and patronage, and was assured that in a short time I should realize a considerable fortune. But this I declined. I thought myself too old to travel so far. This was twenty years ago; and yet I am now at St. Helena.

“However, there were few who suffered greater hardships than I did at the commencement of my emigration, and who enjoyed greater comforts towards its close. I have more than once found myself on the point of being entirely destitute of every thing. Still I was never discouraged or dejected. I consoled myself with the treasure of philosophy, and compared my own condition with that of numbers around me, who were more wretched than myself: to old men and women, for example, to those who were destitute of education, or who, wanting the faculties requisite for acquiring a foreign language, were thus cut off from all resources. I was young, full of hope, and capable of exertion. I taught what I did not well know myself, whatever was asked of me, and I learned over-night what I might have to teach on the succeeding day. My Historical Atlas was a fortunate idea, which opened to me a mine of gold. At that period, however, I had executed only an outline of my plan; but in London every thing is encouraged, every thing sells; and, moreover, Heaven blessed my exertions. I landed at the mouth of the Thames, and reached London on foot, with only seven louis in my pocket, without a friend, without an introduction, in a foreign land; but I left it in a post-chaise, possessed of 2500 guineas, having gained many dear friends, to serve whom I would gladly have sacrificed my life.”

“But, supposing I had been an emigrant,” said the Emperor, “what would have been my lot?” He took a view of various professions, but decided in favour of a soldier’s life. “I should have fulfilled my career after all,” said he.—“That is not quite certain,” I observed. “Sire, you would have been smothered in the crowd. On arriving at Coblentz in any French corps, you would have been placed according to your rank on the list, without any possibility of getting beyond it; for we were rigid observers of forms,” &c.