Part 33

But now the Grand Marshal and Gourgaud arrived; they assisted the Emperor to mount again, and we proceeded. These gentlemen acknowledged that without their assistance the horse could never have been saved; the united efforts of all three had barely sufficed to disengage him. A considerable time afterwards, turning an elbow of the road, the Emperor observed that the servant had not followed, and said they ought to have remained till they had found he was in a condition to come on. They thought that he had staid behind to clean his horse a little. In the course of our ride, at several other turnings, the Emperor repeated the same observation. We arrived at the Grand Marshal’s, went in, and rested there a few minutes; as we came out, the Emperor asked whether the servant had passed on; no one had seen him. When we arrived at Longwood, his first question was whether the man had returned. He had been at home some time, having returned by a different road. I may perhaps have dwelt somewhat too much on this trifling circumstance; but I did so because it appeared to me perfectly characteristic. In this domestic solicitude, the reader will find it difficult to recognise the insensible, obdurate, wicked, cruel monster—the tyrant, of whom he has so often and so long been told.

THE EMPEROR SPEAKS IN PRAISE OF ST. HELENA.—SCANTY RESOURCES OF THE ISLAND.

February 1.—The happiest and wisest philosophy is that which sometimes enables us to view the least unfavourable side of the most disagreeable things. The Emperor, who was, doubtless at the moment, under the influence of this happy feeling, observed, as we were walking with him in the garden, that, after all, as a place of exile, perhaps St. Helena was the best that could be. In high latitudes we should have suffered greatly from cold, and, in other tropical islands, we should have dragged out a miserable existence under the scorching rays of the sun. “This rock,” continued he, “is wild and barren, no doubt; the climate is monotonous and unwholesome; but the temperature, it must be confessed, is mild and agreeable.”

He afterwards asked me, in the course of conversation, which would have been preferable, England or America, in case we had been free to follow our own inclinations. I replied that, had the Emperor wished to spend his days in philosophic retirement, far from the tumult of the world, he should have chosen America; but, if he felt any interest, or entertained any after-thought with regard to public affairs, he should have preferred England. And, not willing to be behindhand in giving an additional touch to the flattering picture which the Emperor had drawn of our miserable rock, I even ventured to say that there might, perhaps, be circumstances under which St. Helena would not be found the worst possible asylum. We might here be under shelter, while the tempest was howling in other parts of the world; and we were placed beyond the reach of conflicting passions, circumstances every way favourable to the chance of a happier futurity. These observations arose out of my wish to represent things on their fairest side; I extended the horizon to the utmost stretch of my imagination.

Meanwhile, in order to afford a correct idea of our place of exile and the scantiness of its resources, it is only necessary to observe that we were this day informed it would be requisite to economise various articles of our daily consumption, and, perhaps, even to make a temporary sacrifice of some. We were told that the store of coffee was rapidly diminishing, and that it might soon be entirely exhausted. For a considerable time we have denied ourselves the use of white sugar; there was but very little and that very bad, which was reserved exclusively for the Emperor’s use; and there is now every prospect of this little supply being exhausted before more can be obtained. It is the same with various other necessaries. Our island is like a ship at sea; our stores are speedily exhausted, if the voyage be prolonged, or if we have more mouths to feed than we have the means of supplying. Our arrival has produced a scarcity at St. Helena, particularly as trading ships are not now suffered to approach the island; we might be tempted to believe that they avoid it as a fatal rock, were we not aware that the English cruiser carefully keeps them at bay. But, of all the privations with which we are threatened, that which most surprises us, and which is most of all vexatious, is the want of writing paper. We are informed that, during our three months residence here, we have consumed all the paper in the island; which proves either that St. Helena is in general very scantily supplied with that article, or that we have used a most unreasonable quantity. The inmates of Longwood must have consumed six or eight times as much as all the rest of the colony together.

In addition to this, our physical and moral privations must be taken into account; it must be recollected that we are not in the full enjoyment of even the few resources which the island affords, and of which arbitrary feeling and caprice in part deprive us; for we are not permitted to regale our eyes with the sight of the grass and foliage, in places at a certain distance from Longwood. The Admiral had promised that the Emperor should be free to ride over the whole of the island, and that he would make arrangements with respect to his guard, so as to relieve him from all annoyance. It has already been seen how, on our second attempt to avail ourselves of it, the Admiral broke this kind of engagement; and by his orders an officer insisted on accompanying the Emperor in his rides. The Emperor consequently renounced the idea of taking any excursion whatever, and we now remain cut off from all communication with mankind.

With respect to our physical existence, our situation is most miserable, either through unavoidable circumstances or mismanagement. Scarcely any of the provisions are eatable. The wine is execrable; the oil unfit for use; the coffee and sugar almost exhausted, and, as I have already observed, we have nearly bred a famine in the island. Of course, we can endure all these privations, and might contrive to exist under many more. But, when it is asserted that we are treated in a style of magnificence, when it is declared that we are very well off, we are induced to unfold our real situation, and to shew that we are destitute of every comfort. And, lest our silence hereafter should lead to the inference that we are happy, let it be understood that our moral strength may enable us to endure miseries which language would be inadequate to express.

MY SON’S INDISPOSITION.—THE EMPEROR GIVES ME A HORSE.

2nd.—My son having been, for some time past, troubled with a pain in his chest, accompanied by violent palpitation of the heart, I called in three surgeons, and they ordered him to be bled.—Bleeding is at present the favourite remedy with the English; it is their universal panacea. They employ it in all disorders, and sometimes where there is no disorder at all. They laughed at the astonishment we evinced at a treatment which was altogether new to us.

About the middle of the day we took a ride in the calash. On our return home, the Emperor wished to see a horse that had just been purchased for him: he thought him very handsome and well made. He tried him, declared that he liked him uncommonly, and then, with the most captivating good-nature, made me a present of him. However, I could not ride him: he proved vicious, and he was transferred to General Gourgaud, who is a much better horseman than I am.

THE EMPEROR’S PROGRESS IN LEARNING ENGLISH.

3rd–6th. The 3rd was a terrible day; the rain fell incessantly, and we found it impossible to stir out. The weather has continued wet for several days in succession. I never imagined that we could have contrived to stay for such a length of time within doors. The damp is penetrating on every side of our dwelling, and the rain is making its way through the roof. The bad weather without doors had an unpleasant effect upon us within.—I became very dull; the Emperor was by no means well, and I was not better. “What is the matter with you?” said he to me, one morning; “you seem quite altered for these few days past. Is your mind ailing? Are you conjuring up _dragons_, like Madame de Sevigné?”—“Sire,” I replied, “my illness is altogether bodily. The state of my eyes afflicts me exceedingly. As for my mind, I know how to keep that under the bridle. I can even use the curb, if needful; and your Majesty has given me a pair of spurs which will be my last and victorious resource.”

The Emperor devoted three, four, and even five hours at a time to the study of English. His progress was really very remarkable; he felt this, and was delighted at it. He frequently says that he is indebted to me for this conquest, and that he considers it a very important one. For my part, however, I can claim no other merit than the method which I adopted with regard to the other occupations of the Emperor. I first suggested the idea, and then continually reverted to it: and when it was once fairly set on foot, I followed up its execution with a promptitude and daily regularity which stimulated the Emperor to proceed. If any of us happened not to be ready at the moment he wanted us, if it was found necessary to postpone any business till the following day, he was immediately seized with disgust, and his labours were suspended until some circumstance occurred to induce him to renew them. “I stand in need of excitement,” said he, in one of these transient interruptions, “nothing but the pleasure of advancement can bear me through: for, between you and me, it must needs be confessed that there is nothing very amusing in all this. Indeed there is very little diversion in the whole routine of our present existence.”

The Emperor still continued to play two or three games at chess before dinner; in the afternoons we resumed _reversis_, long abandoned. Formerly we had not been regular in paying our debts of honour; and we henceforth agreed to pay the sums that we owed to each other into a general bank. We began to consider how the money thus accumulated should be disposed of. The Emperor asked our opinions, and one proposed that the money should be applied to the liberation of the prettiest female slave in the island. This idea was universally approved; we sat down to play with great spirit, and the first evening produced two Napoleons and a half.

THE EMPEROR LEARNS THE DEATH OF MURAT.

7th—8th. The Theban frigate arrived from the Cape, and brought us some newspapers. I translated them to the Emperor while we walked in the garden. One of these papers brought intelligence of a great catastrophe. I read that Murat, having landed in Calabria, with a few troops, had been seized and shot. At this unexpected news, the Emperor interrupted me by exclaiming, “The Calabrians were more humane, more generous, than those who sent me hither.” This was all he said; and after a few moments’ silence, as he said nothing, I continued to read.

Murat, without real judgment, without solid views, without a character proportioned to the circumstances in which he was placed, had perished in an attempt evidently desperate. It is not impossible that the Emperor’s return from Elba may have turned his brain, and inspired him with the hope of renewing the prodigy in his own person. Such was the miserable end of him who had been one of the most active causes of our reverses! In 1814, his courage and intrepidity might have saved us from the abyss in which his treachery involved us. He neutralized the Viceroy on the Po, and fought against him; whereas, by uniting together, they might have forced the passes of the Tyrol, made a descent into Germany, and arrived on Bâle and the banks of the Rhine, to destroy the rear of the allies and cut off their retreat from France.

The Emperor, while he was at Elba, disdained all communication with the King of Naples; but, on departing for France, he wrote to inform him that, being about to resume possession of his throne, he felt pleasure in declaring to him that all their past differences were at an end. He pardoned his late conduct, tendered him his friendship, sent some one to sign the guarantee of his States, and recommended him to maintain a good understanding with the Austrians, and to content himself with merely keeping them in check, in case they should attempt to march upon France. Murat, at this moment, inspired with the sentiments of his early youth, would receive neither guarantee nor signature. He declared that the Emperor’s promise and friendship were sufficient for him, and that he would prove he had been more unfortunate than guilty. His devotedness and ardour, he added, would obtain for him oblivion of the past.

“Murat,” said the Emperor, “was doomed to be our bane. He ruined us by forsaking us, and he ruined us by too warmly espousing our cause. He observed no sort of discretion. He himself attacked the Austrians, without any reasonable plan and without adequate forces; and he was subdued without striking a blow.”

The Austrians, when rid of Murat, cited his conduct either as a reason or as a pretence for attributing ambitious views to Napoleon when he again appeared on the scene. They constantly referred to Murat, whenever the Emperor made protestations of his moderation.

Before these unlucky hostilities of the King of Naples, the Emperor had already set on foot negotiations with Austria. Other inferior states, which I think it unnecessary to mention by name, had signified to him that he might rely on their neutrality. Doubtless the fall of the King of Naples gave another turn to affairs.

Endeavours have been made to represent Napoleon as a man of furious and implacable temper; but the truth is that he was a stranger to revenge, and he never cherished any vindictive feeling, whatever wrong he suffered. His anger was usually vented in violent transports, and was soon at an end. Those who knew him must be convinced of this fact. Murat had scandalously betrayed him; as I have already observed, he had twice ruined his prospects, and yet Murat came to seek an asylum at Toulon. “I should have taken him with me to Waterloo,” said Napoleon; “but such was the patriotic and moral feeling of the French army that it was doubtful whether the troops would surmount the disgust and horror which they felt for the man who had betrayed and lost France. I did not consider myself sufficiently powerful to protect him. Yet he might have enabled us to gain the victory. How useful would he have been at certain periods of the battle! For what was required, at certain moments of the day, to insure our success?—to break through three or four English squares; and Murat was admirable in such a service as this—he was precisely the man for it. At the head of a body of cavalry, no man was ever more resolute, more courageous, or more brilliant.

“As to drawing a parallel,” said the Emperor, ”between the circumstances of Napoleon and Murat—between the landing of the former in France and the entrance of the latter into the Neapolitan territory; no such parallel exists. Murat could have no good argument to support his cause, except success; which was purely chimerical, at the time and in the manner in which he commenced his enterprise. Napoleon was the chosen ruler of a people; he was their legitimate sovereign according to modern doctrines. But Murat was not a Neapolitan; the Neapolitans had not chosen Murat; how, therefore, could it be expected that he should excite any lively interest in his favour? Thus his proclamation was totally false, and destitute of facts. Ferdinand of Naples could view him in no other light than as an instigator of insurrection; he did so, and he treated him accordingly.

“How different was it with me!” continued the Emperor: “before my arrival, one universal sentiment pervaded France, and my proclamation on landing was imbued with that sentiment:—every one found that it echoed the feelings of his own heart. France was discontented; I was her resource. The evil and its remedy were immediately in unison. This is the whole secret of that electric movement which is unexampled in history. It had its source solely in the nature of things. There was no conspiracy, and the impulse was general; not a word was spoken, yet a general understanding prevailed throughout the country. Whole towns threw themselves at the feet of their deliverer. The first battalion which my presence gained over to me immediately placed the whole army in my power. I found myself borne on to Paris. The existing government and its agency disappeared without effort, like clouds before the sun. And yet,” concluded the Emperor, “had I been subdued, had I fallen into the hands of my enemies, I was not a mere insurrectionary chief; I was a Sovereign acknowledged by all Europe. I had my title, my standard, my troops; and I was advancing to wage war upon my enemy.”

PORLIER—FERDINAND.

9th.—In the papers which I was translating to the Emperor, I found the history of the Spanish General Porlier, one of the most distinguished chiefs of the famous Guerillas. He had made an attempt to excite the Spaniards to rise against the tyranny of Ferdinand; but he failed, was arrested, and hanged.

The Emperor said, “I am not in the least surprised that such an attempt should have been made in Spain. Those very Spaniards, who proved themselves my most inveterate enemies when I invaded their country, and who acquired the highest glory by the resistance they opposed to me, immediately appealed to me on my return from Elba. They had, they said, fought against me as their tyrant; but they now came to implore my aid as their deliverer. They required only a small sum to emancipate themselves, and to produce in the Peninsula a revolution similar to mine. Had I conquered at Waterloo, it was my intention immediately to have assisted the Spaniards. This circumstance sufficiently explains to me the attempt that has lately been made. There is little doubt that it will be renewed. Ferdinand, in his madness, may grasp his sceptre as firmly as he will; but one day or other it will slip through his fingers like an eel.”

About four o’clock, I presented to the Emperor the Captain of the Theban, who was to sail next day for Europe, and Colonel Macoy, of the Ceylon regiment. This brave soldier looked like a mutilated monument; he had not only lost one of his legs, but his face was disfigured by a sabre-cut across his forehead, and several other scars. He had been wounded on the field of battle in Calabria, and made prisoner by General Parthonaux. The Emperor received him with particular attention; it was easy to see that they felt a mutual sympathy for each other. Colonel Macoy had held the rank of Major in the Corsican regiment, commanded by the new Governor, whom we expected. The Colonel remarked to some person, that he thought the Emperor was very ill-treated here; but that he had too high an idea of General Lowe’s liberality of mind, not to believe that, having accepted the Government of the Island, he would do every thing in his power to meliorate our condition.

The Emperor afterwards rode out on horseback, when we again went up the valley, and did not return until about seven o’clock. The Emperor then resumed his walk in the garden; the temperature was very mild, and the moon shone delightfully. The fine weather had completely returned.

ON EGYPT.—PLAN FOR ALTERING THE COURSE OF THE NILE.

10th.—The Emperor now begins to make rapid advancement in English; and, with the assistance of his dictionary, might manage tolerably without me. He was delighted with the decided progress he had made. His lesson for to-day was the task of reading in the Encyclopedia Britannica the article on the Nile, of which he now and then made memorandums to assist him in his dictations to the Grand Marshal. In this article the Emperor found a fact related which I had formerly mentioned to him, but which he had hitherto considered as an absurd story. The great Albuquerque proposed to the King of Portugal to turn the course of the Nile previous to its entrance into the valley of Egypt, so as to make it fall into the Red Sea, which would have rendered Egypt an impassable desert, and made the Cape of Good Hope the only channel for the great trade of India. Bruce thinks the execution of this gigantic idea not entirely impossible; the Emperor was forcibly struck with it.

About five o’clock the Emperor took an airing in the calash; the drive was extremely pleasant, and the circumstance of some trees having been cut down has, by forming several circuitous roads, made our original space three times as large as before. On our return, we took advantage of the fineness of the evening to walk for a long time in the garden: the conversation was most interesting. It turned on various important subjects, viz. on the variety of religions; on the spirit that had given them birth; the ridiculous absurdities with which they were mingled; the excesses by which they had been degraded; the objections that had been urged against them, &c. The Emperor treated all these subjects with his usual superiority.

UNIFORMITY.—ENNUI.—THE EMPEROR’S SOLITUDE.—CARICATURES.

11th.—The Emperor read this morning the article entitled Egypt, in the Encyclopedia, and made some notes from it which cannot fail to be of service to him for his Campaign of Egypt. This circumstance gave him a great deal of pleasure; and he repeated several times in the course of the day how much he was delighted with the progress he had made. He is now sufficiently advanced to read without assistance.

About four o’clock I accompanied the Emperor into the garden: we walked by ourselves for some time, but were afterwards joined by the rest of the company. The weather was very mild. The Emperor remarked the calmness of our solitude. It was Sunday, and no workmen were to be seen. He added that we could not, at least, be accused of dissipation, or of the ardent pursuit of pleasure; in fact, it is difficult to imagine a state of greater uniformity, or a more complete absence of every sort of amusement.