Three years previous to this the Colonial Secretary in writing to Lowe says:—"We must expect that the removal of Mr. O'Meara will occasion a great sensation, and an attempt will be made to give a bad impression on the subject. You had better let the substance of my instructions be generally known as soon as you have executed it, that it may not be represented that Mr. O'Meara has been removed in consequence of any quarrel with you, but in consequence of the information furnished by General Gourgaud in England respecting his conduct."[11]

In reading through these State letters, one is struck with the diplomatically(?) cunning composition of them. There does not seem to be a manly phrase from beginning to end. Trickery, suspicion, cruelty, veiled or apparent, and an occasional dash of pious consideration and bombast sums up these perfidious documents. A few extracts will convey precisely the character of the men who were carrying on negotiations which should have been regarded as essentially delicate.

In February, 1821, Bathurst writes to Lowe:—

"Sufficient time will have elapsed since the date of your last communications to enable you to form a more accurate judgment with respect to the extent and reality of General Bonaparte's indisposition. Should your observations convince you that the illness has been assumed, you will of course consider yourself at liberty to withhold from him the communication which you are otherwise authorised to make in my despatch No. 21," &c.

On April 11, 1821, Lowe writes to Bathurst:—"The enclosed extract of a letter from Count Montholon may merit, as usual, your lordship's perusal." (This, of course, is intended as wit.) "It may be regarded as a bulletin of General Bonaparte's health, meant for circulation at Paris."

Dr. Antommarchi, in writing to Signor Simeon Colonna on March 17, 1821, after dilating on his master's health, the climate, &c., bursts out in a paragraph: "Dear friend, the medical art can do nothing against the influence of climate, and if the English Government does not hasten to remove him from this destructive atmosphere, His Majesty soon, with anguish I say it, will pay the last tribute to the earth"; and in a postscript he adds: "I offer the undoubted facts stated above, in opposition to the gratuitous assertions in the English newspapers relative to the good health which His Majesty is stated to enjoy here."

On March 17, 1821, Montholon writes to Princess Pauline Borghesi: "The Emperor reckons upon your Highness to make his real situation known to some English of influence. He dies without succour upon this frightful rock; his agonies are frightful." At the time Napoleon was suffering thus, letters were published in some of the Ministerial newspapers purporting to have come from St. Helena and representing him to be in perfect health.

On May 6, 1821, Lowe writes to Bathurst announcing the death of the Emperor. It is a long rigmarole not worth quoting, except that he condescends to allow the body to be interred with the honours due to a general officer of the highest rank. Then follows the majestic reply of Bathurst. He says, "I am happy to assure you that your conduct, as detailed in those despatches, has received His Majesty's approbation"; which indicates that Lowe did not feel quite happy himself as to how the effusions would be regarded by his employers, now that the Emperor had succumbed to their and his own wicked treatment. In his despatches of February and April, 1821, he had mockingly referred to Napoleon's indisposition as being faked, and in May he is obliged to write himself as an unscrupulous liar, but notwithstanding this, his action meets with the approval of the chief of the executioners, which is very natural, seeing that this person was regarded as one of the most prominent scoundrels in Europe. But Sir Hudson Lowe craved for approbation, and was so mentally constituted that he believed he deserved it by committing offences against God and man.

"Every good servant does not all commands, no bond but to do just ones," but Lowe, in his anxiety to please his employers, went to the furthest limits of injustice. How void of human understanding and what Mrs. Carlyle called "that damned thing, human kindness" this wretched man was!

As will be hereafter shown, he had not long to wait after Napoleon's death and the receipt of tokens of friendliness that had been sent to him through the Colonial Secretary, before he was made to feel that the Government was not disposed to carry any part of his public unpopularity on its shoulders. He had done his best or worst to make that portion of the earth on which he lived miserable to those he might have made tolerably happy, without infringing the loutish instructions of a notoriously stupid Government. Instead of this he made himself so despised that the Emperor, almost with his last breath, called all good spirits to bear witness against him and his murderous confederates.

The great soldier had slipped his moorings on May 6, 1821, and on the 7th or 8th, after much ado with the Governor, a post-mortem examination was held by Dr. Francois Antommarchi in the presence of Drs. Short, Arnott, Burton, and Livingstone. Lowe was represented by the Chief of Staff. The examination disclosed an ulcerous growth and an unnaturally enlarged liver, which may be assumed as the ultimate cause of death, though Antommarchi's report assuredly points to the fatal nature of the climatic conditions.

The French were anxious to have the body of their Emperor embalmed, but Hudson Lowe insisted that his instructions forbade this. Napoleon had commanded that his heart should be put in a silver vase filled with spirits of wine and sent to Marie Louise. When Sir Hudson Lowe heard that this was being done, he sent a peremptory order forbidding it, stating that no part should be preserved but the stomach, which would be sent to England. Naturally such wanton disregard of the Emperor's wish was violently resented by the French, and by the best of the English who were there. A long and heated discussion seems to have ensued on this question, which ended in the Governor having to give way—not altogether—but he was compelled to a compromise, viz., that the heart and stomach should be preserved and put into the coffin.

The Governor was then confronted with what to him was another knotty point. The Emperor had desired that a few gold coins struck during his reign should be buried with him. After serious consideration this was graciously allowed, but not without forebodings of trouble arising therefrom! What the British Government or their idiotic Governor wanted with Napoleon's stomach, or why they refused to allow his body to be embalmed, or his heart preserved and sent to his wife, Heaven only knows. They had monstrously violated all human feeling by ignoring appeals made to them from all parts of the world to be merciful to a much afflicted man. They were well informed by the best medical authorities on the island that the climate was deadly to a constitution such as his. They ignored reports of his declining health even up to a few weeks of his death, and then when the Arch-enemy claimed him, they flooded Europe with the intelligence that he had succumbed to the malady from which his father died, and that their tender and benevolent care for him was unavailing. The progress of his inherited disease could not be checked.

The world is fast beginning to realise the infamy of it all. Not a thought ever entered their heads but that of torture, veiled or open, and the appalling clumsiness of their endeavours to conceal their Satanic designs, so that they might appear in the light of beneficent hosts, shows that they cowered at the possibility of public vengeance. Happily for them, Napoleon's death came too near to the terrific commotion caused by the French Revolution.

Tumult raged round the Emperor during the whole of his public career, and powerful agencies were constantly proclaiming against him and his methods. His advent had brought with it a new form of democracy, which cast down oligarchies and despotisms everywhere. His system destroyed and affected too many interests not to leave behind it feelings of revenge, but this revenge did not exist among the common people. Those who persecuted the common people felt his heavy hand upon them. The populace entered into his service in shoals, only to betray him when the time of trial came. He knew the risk he ran, but did not shrink from it. He hoped that he might bring them to adopt the great principles he held and the plan he had in view.

His ambition was to seek out all those who had talent and character and give them the opportunity of developing their gifts for the benefit of the race. Humble origin had no deterrent effect on him. His most brilliant officers and men of position sprang from the middle and lower middle class, and taking them as a whole, their devotion never gave way, even during the most terrible adversity that ever befell mortal man. One small instance of admiration and sympathy is evidenced by the beautiful reverence shown by the officers and men of the English army and navy, who defiled before the dead hero's remains and bent their knees to the ground.

Montholon says that "some of the officers entreated to be allowed the honour of pressing to their lips the cloak of Marengo which covered the Emperor's feet." Lowe must have felt a pang of remorse when he saw these simple men pouring out in their sailorly and soldierly way tokens of profound sorrow. Everything that could had been done to cause their captive to be regarded as a menace to human safety, and to be forgotten altogether; but how futile to attempt such a task while the world of civilisation is swayed by human instinct and not by barbarity!

The report of Napoleon's death did not relieve the anxieties of the European Cabinets. They knew the danger of being overwhelmed by a revulsion of feeling, and the difficulty of stopping the masses once they are set in motion, and there were strong manifestations of the popular indignation breaking loose, with all the terrible consequences of a reign of terror. The feeling of grief was universal and intense. A spark might have caused a great conflagration. Lord Holland declared in Parliament that the very persons who detested this great man had acknowledged that for ten centuries there had not appeared upon earth a more extraordinary character.... "All Europe," he added, "has worn mourning for the hero"; and those who contributed to that great sacrifice are destined to be the objects of the execrations of the present generation as well as to those of posterity.

Just at the time the great spirit of the hero was passing on to the Elysian Fields, there, as he used to fancifully foreshadow, to meet his brave comrades in arms who had preceded him, a tempest of unusual severity broke over "the abode of darkness and of crimes." Houses were shaken to their foundation; the favourite willow-tree, where he had often sat and enjoyed the fresh breezes, was torn up by the hurricane, as indeed were the other trees round about Longwood. This terrible disturbance of the elements was characteristically interpreted as being the voice of the living God proclaiming to the world that the Emperor was being thundered into eternity to meet his Creator, and to be judged by Him for the wrongs his political and other opponents said he was guilty of towards themselves and the human race generally. In true British orthodoxy, the Great Judge is always claimed as a fellow-countryman, and Sir Walter Scott is not singular in attributing this phenomenal disturbance as an indication of coming vengeance against England's prisoner. The Scottish bard is not altogether impartial in the send-off of the exile. He associates another colossal personage with the great Corsican. The Lord Protector, we are reminded, was similarly borne from time into eternity on the wings of a devasting tornado. Poor Oliver! whose war-cry was "The Lord of Hosts," and who never doubted that he was the high commissioner sent by the Almighty to clean the earth of mischievous Royalists, traitors, Papists, and other ungovernable creatures in Ireland and elsewhere.

It does not appear to have struck these gentlemen, with their thoughts centred on Holy Writ and finding comfort in the support it gave to their contention, that the Great God, instead of making nature break out with such terrible violence to indicate His displeasure against this wonderful man, made in His own image and sent by Him to serve both a divine and a human purpose, was using accumulated natural forces to show His wrath at the culmination of the most atrocious tragedy that had ever been perpetrated.

The good Sir Walter and the unctuously pious biographer of Sir Hudson are obviously overcome by the coincidence of the storm and Napoleon's death coming simultaneously. To them it is the voice of God shouting forth gladness that the enemy of the British race is being made to pay the penalty of all the evil he has wrought. This is a very comforting conclusion to arrive at after having kept your victim on the rack for six years and made war on him for twenty, but did it never occur to them that the greatest sacrifice ever offered culminated in just such natural disturbances and that at the same time "the veil of the temple was rent in twain"?

Happily for the fair fame of human rights, many writers of Napoleonic history have got over national prejudices and timidity, and are chronicling very different views from those of Sir Walter and the uninteresting defender of Lowe; and the more impartial the minds who inquire into the first as well as the last phase of this extraordinary career, the more will it appear that he was not an enemy, but a powerful reforming agency of mankind. He vowed over and over again that he "never conquered unless in his own defence, and that Europe never ceased to make war upon France and her principles." And again he asserted: "One of my grand objects was to render education accessible to everybody. I caused every institution to be formed upon a plan which offered instruction to the public, either gratis or at a rate so moderate, as not to be beyond the means of the peasant. The museums were thrown open to the canaille. My canaille would have become the best educated in the world. All my exertions were directed to illuminate the mass of the nation instead of brutifying them by ignorance and superstition." These ideals are in striking contrast to the policy of the oligarchy of Europe, who were fighting to suppress knowledge and to re-establish the worst form of superstition and despotism.

It is a deplorable thought that the nations (and especially Great Britain) who allied themselves against this man of the people and sent him to an inhuman death might have saved themselves the eternal condemnation of future ages had they made their peace with him, as the sagacious Charles James Fox would have done had he lived. Had they been wise, they would have made use of his matchless gifts and well-balanced mind to help forward the regeneration of the human chaos which was both the cause and the result of the Revolution. Above all, had the "Liberty loving" British nation been true to her declared principles, she would either have kept aloof from the conflict that was raging or found some honourable means of co-operating with him, and thereby earned a share of the glory that will be eternally attached to his name in the great effort of extinguishing thraldom and ameliorating the condition of the masses.

Instead of this, she basely linked her destiny with the traitors of France and the allies of Europe to dethrone the monarch elected by the French people, and to place in his stead a king who was forced upon them by the Allies, and not the people of France. This is a strange travesty of "Liberty loving" government. Had the great Quaker been kept in power, instead of Pitt, who was always in a chronic state of scare and whining that he could never survive the downfall of his country, the rivers of British blood that were shed and the eight hundred million pounds sterling of debt need not have been squandered. All this was done at the bidding of a few men who were entrusted with the government of a great nation, and either by odious deception, or sheer incapacity to judge of the fitness of things, caused it to be believed that they were bound to maintain the balance of power or status quo which was endangered, and that the one man who had upset their nerves and incurred their hatred should be removed at all costs.

It is pretty certain that England could easily have kept out of the continental embroil had the Government been composed of men of talent and free from oligarchal prejudices, whereas all we got out of it, plus the loss of life and treasure, was a share in the questionable glory of Waterloo, the custody of the great figure who was betrayed by some of his own subjects, "the odium of having his death bequeathed to the reigning family of England," and the fact that Louis XVIII., by his own admission to the French nation, was put on the throne by our own precious Prince Regent.

These are only a few of the results that should not make us proud of that part of our history. But we have travelled far since those days of vicious actions. Nothing approaching the perfidy of it could happen in the present age. It is unthinkable that either the sagacious, peaceloving, peacemaking monarch on the throne or his Ministers and people would lend themselves to committing the senseless blunders that disgraced our name at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Even allowing that it was inevitable we should wage war against the head of the French nation, nothing can ever blot out the stain of having refused him the asylum he asked for, after we had taken so large a share in bringing about his downfall. He asked in the following letter to the Prince Regent to be the guest of England, and England made him its prisoner. Here is the document:—

"The sport of those factions which divide my country and an object of hostility to the greatest Powers of Europe, I have finished my political career, and come, like Themistocles, to sit down by the hearth of the English people. I place myself under the protection of their laws, which I claim from your Royal Highness as the most powerful, the most constant, and most generous of my enemies." Had it been left to the English people instead of to the Government and His Royal Highness, I do not think this dignified appeal would have been altogether ignored, as Napoleon's quarrel was not with the people.

They knew that it was the oligarchy that feared and detested him. It has been said that even His Royal Highness would have granted hospitality, and it would have saved the nation over which he ruled the blight of eternal execrations had he been strong enough to stand against the blundering decision of a revengeful Ministry.

No impartial student of the part played by Napoleon during twenty years of warfare will deny that the institutions he founded, the laws that he made, and his mode of government wherever established, were beneficent, and entirely aimed at the adjustment of inequalities that had culminated in a great national uprising. His dictatorship was wielded with a wholesome discipline without unnecessarily using the lash. He had no cut-and-dried maxim of dealing with unruly people, but his awful power made them feel that he distinguished between eternal justice and tyranny. He knew, and he made everybody else know, that under the circumstances too much liberty would be like poison to some people. When he said, "No more of this," the aggressors realised that the doctrine of fraternity as they understood it must not be stretched further.

Notwithstanding his methods of reproof and restraint, he was idolised by the masses, even by those he led his armies against and so often conquered. Even in our own country, where enmity against him was assiduously nursed by the press and other agencies, there was an important section who believed we were putting our money on the wrong horse. This idea was not confined to the poorer classes. Many of our best and wisest statesmen were strongly opposed to this policy of hostility against him.

He had starved in the streets of Paris, sold his precious books and other belongings to provide the means of buying bread to sustain himself and his much beloved brother Louis, who in after years behaved to him with base ingratitude. He suffered dreadful privations during the keen frosty nights, owing to the want of fire, light, and sometimes sufficient clothing. No wonder that he thought of ending his woes by plunging into the Seine.

But a glimmering of light came and lifted him out of a numbing despair. He was made to see in his hour of trial that lassitude must cease, and that he was meant for other things, and in order to accomplish them he must be strong and audacious. Fate, fortune, and a mysterious Providence found in him an indomitable chief whose genius was intended to change the face of Europe. Like all big men who spring from obscurity and the deadliness of poverty, and are launched on the scene to create order out of tumult and chaos, his enemies, in the nature of things, were both numerous and prolific. At the outset he adopted the method he so often thundered into his soldiers when on the eve of battle, viz.: "You must not fear Death, my lads. Defy him, and you drive him into the enemy's ranks."

One of the charges made against him by serene critics who have been desirous of showing his weak points is that he was too careless and forgiving towards the squabbling nest of paid and unpaid murderers who prowled about in disguise, thirsting after his blood. It is certain that he carried clemency to a fault in many instances, and this no doubt contributed to his undoing; but at the same time there is ample proof that he knew well enough where his foes were to be found, and whenever the dignity and safety of the State were imperilled, he was not slow to punish. His habit was not weakness, but only a too careless regard for his own personal safety.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Montholon, "History of the Captivity of Napoleon," p. 326. The editor says he is indebted for these details to the official accounts published at the time by the French Government.

[2] This was the name given to Napoleon by the Arabs. "Kebir" means "great" (Montholon, vol. iv. p. 245).

[3] These words were dictated to Las Cases by Napoleon at St. Helena in 1819 (p. 315, vol. iv., of his Journal).

[4] See p. 183, vol. i., "Captivity of Napoleon."

[5] O'Meara, in his second volume, p. 134, states: "The Emperor was so firmly impressed with the idea that an attempt would be made to forcibly intrude upon his privacy, that, from a short time after the departure of Sir George Cockburn, he always kept four or five loaded pistols and some swords in his apartments, with which he was determined to despatch the first who entered against his will."

[6] See p. 299, Montholon's "Captivity of Napoleon," vol. i.

[7] See p. 301, vol. i., "Captivity of Napoleon."

[8] See pp. 57-62, bust incident.

[9] The easygoing Joseph had been careless of the letters, which would have further proved the infamy of the oligarchy. These letters were in many cases applications for territory. He had intrusted them to a base friend, by whom they were offered to the various Governments for L30,000. The Russian Ambassador is reported to have paid L10,000 to get hold of those concerning his master. His Majesty of Prussia appears to have had a covetous eye on Hanover. He always entertained a paternal regard for that country. The sovereigns in general seem to have compromised themselves deeply in their efforts to secure territory.

[10] See "Montholon," vol. iii p. 37.

[11] This is an impudent lie. The quarrel was with Lowe because the doctor refused to be his accomplice.



CHAPTER II

THE MAN OF THE REVOLUTION—CRITICISM, CONTEMPORARY AND OTHERWISE

On May 9, 1821, the mortal remains of the Exile were interred at a spot called the Valley of Napoleon. He had selected this spot in the event of the Powers not allowing his remains to be transferred to France or Ajaccio. Lowe desired to put on the lid of the coffin "Napoleon Bonaparte," but his followers very properly disdained committing a breach of faith on the dead Emperor, and insisted on having "Napoleon" and nothing else. The Governor was stubbornly opposed to it, so he was buried without any name being put on the coffin.[12]

Perhaps one of the most terrific passages of unconscious humour is related by Forsyth (vol. iii. p. 288), where Lowe is made to say to Major Gorrequer and Mr. Henry, as they walked together before the door of Plantation House discussing the character of Napoleon, "Well, gentlemen, he was England's greatest enemy and mine too; but I forgive him everything. On the death of a man like him we should only feel deep concern and regret." Forsyth thinks this splendid magnanimity on the part of his hero.

It is not recorded what the gallant Major thought of it, but it may be taken for granted that if Mr. Henry and Gorrequer had any sense of humour at all, Lowe's comment must have sounded very comical, knowing what they did of the relations between the dead monarch and his custodian, though it must be said that Henry seems to have been the only person who could work up a sympathetic word for Sir Hudson. Forsyth, in vol. iii. p. 307, says: "No one can study the character of Napoleon without being struck by one prevailing feature, his intense selfishness." This is a remarkable statement for any man who professes to write accurate history to make, and proves conclusively that Forsyth had not "studied" Napoleon's "character," or he would have found, not only his closest friends, but some of his bitterest enemies doing him the justice of stating the very opposite of what this writer says of him.

Mr. Henry, who took part in the dissection of the corpse, says that Napoleon's face had a remarkably placid expression, and indicated mildness and sweetness of disposition, and those who gazed on the features as they lay in the still repose of death could not help exclaiming, "How beautiful!" After this very fine description from Sir Hudson's friend, Forsyth adds a footnote: "It may interest phrenologists to know that the organs of combativeness, causativeness, and philoprogenitiveness were strongly developed in the cranium"! In order to prove the charge of selfishness he brings in the old familiar story of the divorce: "A memorable example of this (i.e., selfishness) occurs in his treatment of the nobleminded Josephine."

This outburst is obviously intended for effect, but Forsyth does not score a success in bringing the amiable Empress to his aid; for, whatever virtue she may have possessed, authentic history reveals her as the antithesis of "nobleminded." Those who knew the lady intimately speak with marked generosity of her graces, but they also record a shameless habit of faithlessness to her husband at a time when he was pouring out volumes of love to her from Italy. And she seems to have let herself go without restraint during his stay in Egypt. The wayward, weak Josephine had many lovers, who were not too carefully selected.

From the time of her marriage with Napoleon until she heard of him being on his way from Egypt to France, her love intrigues were well known, and her lovers were certainly not men of high public repute. In short, Josephine was anything but "nobleminded." She was a confirmed and audacious flirt until the stern realities of the dissolution of her marriage brought her to her senses, and from that time until the great political divorce took place, she appears to have kept free from further love entanglements. Napoleon's attachment to her was very genuine, and remained steadfast up to the time of her death, and even at St. Helena he always spoke of her with great reverence. Forsyth does not enhance Lowe's reputation or damage Napoleon's by the popular use he makes of the annulment of the little Creole lady's marriage, the merits of which may be referred to at greater length hereafter, as it is a subject of itself and this reference to a momentous incident of her husband's history is only by the way.

Meanwhile the Emperor's remains, in layers of coffins composed of wood, tin, and lead, were hermetically sealed, and the tomb, having been securely battened down with cement and slab, was substantially railed in to prevent the intrusion of a sympathetic and curious public. His tomb was left in charge of a British garrison, and the heroes who followed him to his grave, and shared his martyrdom and exile on that fatal rock for six mortal years, were shipped aboard the Camel and conveyed to England, there to be received by a set of mildew-witted bureaucrats smitten with suspicion that the exiles may have brought with them the spirit of their dead master, with the object of invoking a sanguinary reaction in his favour by disturbing the peace of Europe—as though Europe had experienced a single day of real peace since the downfall of the Empire!

These exemplary men had faced and borne with magnificent fortitude hardships well-nigh beyond human endurance. Their mission was to carry out the dying command of the hero whom they adored, and who had succumbed to the hospitable treatment of Bathurst, Castlereagh, Liverpool, and Wellington, and their accomplices. These guilty men, whose names, strange to say, are as undying as that of their victim, would fain have made it appear that had he not died of cancer of the stomach, it were not possible that he could have died of anything but robust health, owing to the salubrity of the climate they had selected and the unequalled care they had taken of his person through the immortal Lowe.

It is a remarkable thing that these men had no conception of the great being they were practising cruelty upon. It is indeed a strange freak of nature that makes it possible that the human mind can think of Napoleon and these bureaucrats at the same time, but that is part of the mystery that cannot at the present stage be understood. Time may reveal the phenomenon, and in the years to come the spirits of the just will call aloud for a real vindication of the character of the man of the French Revolution, and, forsooth, it may be that a terrible retribution is gathering in the distance. Who knows? Waterloo and St. Helena may yet be the nemesis of the enemies of the great Emperor. Obviously, he had visions, as had his compatriot Joan of Arc, who suffered even a crueller fate than he at the hands of a few bloodthirsty English noblemen, who disgraced the name of soldier by not only allowing her to be burnt, but selling her to the parasitical Bishops with that object in view. It is not strange that the Maid of Orleans, who suffered martyrdom for the supernatural part she took in fighting for her King and country, should, on April 18, 1909, become a saint of the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world, nor that the Pope should perform the ceremony. The English sold her. An ecclesiastical court, headed by the infamous Bishop of Beauvais, condemned her to be burnt as a witch, and when the flames were consuming her a cry of "Jesus" was heard. An English soldier standing by was so overcome by the awful wickedness that was being perpetrated by the Anglo-French ecclesiastical alliance, that he called out, "We are lost! We have burnt a saint!"

The soldier saw at once that the child of the Domremy labourer was a "saint," but it has taken five centuries for the Church to which she belonged, and whose representatives burnt her as a witch, to officially beatify her. True, this stage has been gradually worked up to by the erection of monuments to her honour and glory. Chinon distinguished itself by this, presumably because it was there that Joan interviewed the then uncrowned Charles, and startled him into taking her into his service by the story she told of hearing the heavenly voices at Domremy farm demanding that she should go forth as the liberator of France.

The recognition of Napoleon's claim, not to "sanctity," but as a benefactor of mankind, will also surely come, but in his case the demand will come from no Church, but with the irresistible voice of all Humanity.

Joan's country had been at war for one hundred years. Ravaged by foreign invaders and depopulated by plague, it was foaming with civil strife and treason to the national cause, many of the most powerful men and women, both openly and in secret, taking sides with the enemy. The crisis had reached a point when this modest, uneducated, clear-witted, fearless maiden was launched by her "voices" to the scene of battle, there to inspire hope and enthusiasm in the hearts of her people. In a few weeks she had established confidence, smashed the invader, and crowned the unworthy Charles VII. as King. Twenty years after they had burnt her, there was scarcely a foreign foot to be found on French soil.

There is a further similarity between the peasant girl and Napoleon. She was brought to the aid of her country by the voices of the unseen, and four hundred years after, when her country was again in dire trouble, he was found in obscurity and in an almost supernatural way flashed into prominent activity to save the Revolution. It was the voices of the living, seen and unseen, that called aloud for the little Corporal to lead to battle, conquer, and ultimately govern. It was some of the self-same voices that intrigued and then burst forth in declamation and demanded his abdication on the eve of his first reverse. The Church, which owed its rehabilitation to him after he had implanted a settled government in France, had no small share in the conspiracy for his overthrow. He said, "There is but one means of getting good manners, and that is by establishing religion." He believed it, and did it in spite of a storm of opposition that would have hurled a less resolute man from power, but he knew full well his strength, and was sure then, as he ever was, of his opinions.

The Church and those of the people who become allied to its material policy are prone to destroy those who have been of service to their cause. There is indeed no society of men and women who are so vindictive, nay, revengeful, once they are seized with the idea that they are being neglected, or their interests not receiving all the patronage they think they deserve, and then, after a few generations of reflection, they become overwhelmed with unctuous sanctity and remorse, and proceed to make saints of the victims of their progenitors in order that the perfidy they are historically linked to shall be whitewashed and atoned for.

Napoleon believed that "No physical force ever dies; it merely changes its form or direction"—and could we but get a glimpse behind the veil, we might see his imperishable soul fleeting from sphere to sphere, struggling with cruel reactionary spirits who forced him into eternity before the work he was sent to do was completed.

Wieland, the German writer, had an interview with him on the field of Jena. He says:—"I was presented by the Duchess of Weimar. He paid me some compliments in an affable tone, and looked steadfastly at me. Few men have appeared to me to possess in the same degree the art of reading at the first glance the thought of other men. He saw in an instant that, notwithstanding my celebrity, I was simple in my manners and void of pretension, and as he seemed desirous of making a favourable impression on me, he assumed the tone most likely to attain his end. I have never beheld anyone more calm, more simple, more mild, or less ostentatious in appearance; nothing about him indicated the feeling of power in a great monarch; he spoke to me as an old acquaintance would speak to an equal, and what was more extraordinary on his part, he conversed with me exclusively for an hour and a half, to the great surprise of the whole assembly."

Then Wieland goes on to relate what the conversation was. Napoleon "preferred the Romans to the Greeks. The eternal squabbles of their petty republics were not calculated to give birth to anything grand, whereas the Romans were always occupied with great things, and it was owing to this they raised up the Colossus which bestrode the world.... He was fond only of serious poetry, the pathetic and vigorous writers, and above all, the tragic poets."

Wieland had been put so much at his ease (so he says) that he ventured to ask how it was that the public worship Napoleon had restored in France was not more philosophical and in harmony with the spirit of the times. "My dear Wieland," was the reply, "religion is not meant for philosophers! they have no faith either in me or my priests. As to those who do believe, it would be difficult to give them, or to leave them, too much of the marvellous. If I had to frame a religion for philosophers, it would be just the reverse of that of the credulous part of mankind."[13]

Mueller, the Swiss historian's private interview with him at this period is quite remarkable, and shows what a vast knowledge and conception of things the Emperor had. Nothing shows more clearly his own plan of regulating and guiding the affairs of the universe for the benefit of all. He tells Mueller that he should complete his history of Switzerland, that even the more recent times had their interest. Then he switched from the Swiss to the old Greek constitutions and history; to the theory of constitutions; to the complete diversity of those in Asia, and the causes of this diversity in the climate, polygamy, the opposite characters of the Arabian and the Tartar races, the peculiar value of European culture, and the progress of Freedom since the sixteenth century; how everything was linked together, and in the inscrutable guidance of an invisible hand; how he himself had become great through his enemies; the great Confederation of Nations, the idea of which Henri IV. had; the foundation of all religion and its necessity; that man could not bear clear truth and required to be kept in order; admitting the possibility, however, of a more happy condition, if the numerous feuds ceased which were occasioned by too complicated Constitutions (such as the German) and the intolerable burden suffered by States from excessive armies.

These opinions clearly mark the guiding motives of Napoleon's attempts to enforce upon different nations uniformity of the institutions and customs. "I opposed him occasionally," says Mueller, "and he entered into discussion. Quite impartially and truly, as before God, I must say that the variety of his knowledge, the acuteness of his observations, the solidity of his understanding (not dazzling wit), his grand and comprehensive views, filled me with astonishment, and his manner of speaking to me with love for him. By his genius and his disinterested goodness, he has also conquered me."[14] The remarkable testimony of Wieland and Mueller, both men of distinction, is of more than ordinary value, seeing that they were not his countrymen, but on the side of those who waged war against him. Mueller admits that he conquered him, and the world must admit that he is gradually, but surely, conquering it in spite of the colossal libels that have been spoken and written of him for the ostensible purpose of vindicating the Puritans and making him appear as the Spoliator and Antichrist whose thirst for blood, so that he might attain glory, was an inexhaustible craze in him. To them he is the Ogre that staggers the power of belief, and yet he defies the whole world to prove that he ever declared war or committed a single crime during the whole carnival of warfare that drenched Europe in human blood.

Up to the present, the world has lamentably failed to do anything of the sort. His opponents, libellers, and progeny of his mean executioners, are all losing ground, and he is gaining everywhere. There is an unseen hand at work revealing the awful truth. This dignified, calm, unassuming man, while surrounded by a crowd of Kings and Princes, who were competing with each other to do him homage and show their devotion, startles them by telling a story of when he was "a simple Lieutenant in the 2nd Company of Artillery." Possibly some of his guests were observed to be putting on airs that were always distasteful to the Emperor, and this was his scornful way of rebuking them. Or it might be that he wished to take the opportunity of informing Europe that he had no desire to conceal his humble beginning, though at that time he was recognised first man in it. Historians, when he was at the height of his power, ransacked musty archives assiduously to find out and prove that he had royal blood in him. They professed to have discovered that he was connected with the princely family of Treviso, and the comical way in which he contemptuously brushed aside this fulsome flattery must have lacerated the pride of courtiers who sought favours by such methods.

Bearing on the royal blood idea, Gourgaud in his Journal relates that the Emperor told him the following stories:—

"At one time in my reign there was a disposition to make out that I was descended from the Man in the Iron Mask. The Governor of Pignerol was named Bompars. They said he had married his daughter to his mysterious prisoner, the brother of Louis XIV., and had sent the pair to Corsica under the name of 'Bonaparte,'" and then with fine humour he adds:—"I had only to say the word and everybody would have believed the fable."

He never forgot that he was Napoleon, hence never said the word.

His insincere father-in-law has been industriously searching for royal blood too, and this is what his son-in-law says of him:—

"When I was about to marry Marie Louise, her father the Emperor sent me a box of papers intended to prove that I was descended from the Dukes of Florence. I burst out laughing, and said to Metternich, 'Do you suppose I am going to waste my time over such foolishness? Suppose it were true, what good would it do me? The Dukes of Florence were inferior in rank to the Emperors of Germany. I will not place myself beneath my father-in-law. I think that as I am, I am as good as he. My nobility dates from Monte Notte. Return him these papers.' Metternich was very much amused."

Francis of Austria must have felt confounded at the rebuke of his unceremonious relative, who was always the man of stern reality—too big to be dazzled by mouldy records of kingly blood. Neither did pomp or ceremony attract him, except in so far as it might serve the purpose of making an impression on others. Bourrienne, a shameless predatory traitor, has said in his memoirs that when the seat of government was removed from the Luxembourg to the Tuileries, the First Consul said to him, "You are very lucky; you are not obliged to make a spectacle of yourself. I have to go about with a cortege; it bores me, but it appeals to the eye of the people."

Roederer in his memoirs relates pretty much the same thing, only that it bears on the question of title, and presumably the researches for confirmation of his royal descent.

Here again, his strong practical view of things, and his utter indifference to grandeur or genealogical distinction, are shown. He says: "How can anyone pretend that empty names, titles given for the sake of a political system, can change in the smallest degree one's relations with one's friends and associates? I am called Sire, or Imperial Majesty, without anyone in my household believing or thinking that I am a different man in consequence. All those titles form part of a system, and therefore they are necessary." He always ends his ebullitions of convincing wisdom by making it clear precisely where he stands.

The writer might quote pages of eulogies of him from the most eminent men of every nationality. There is no trustworthy evidence that he ever sought the flattery that was lavished on him; indeed, he seems to have been alternately in the mood for ignoring or making fun of it. On one occasion he writes to King Joseph, "I have never sought the applause of Parisians; I am not an operatic monarch."[15]

Seguier says:—

"Napoleon is above human history. He belongs to heroic periods and is beyond admiration."[16]

A notable Englishman, Lord Acton, says (like Mueller) that "his goodness was the most splendid that has appeared on earth." And there are innumerable instances which prove that his sympathies and goodness to those who were notoriously undeserving was a fatal passion with him. But there is no opinion, blunt though it be, that so completely touches one as that of the plain English sailors who said at Elba that "Boney was a d——d good fellow after all." "They may talk about this man as they like," said one of the crew of the Northumberland, "but I won't believe the bad they say of him," and this view seems to have been generally held by the men who composed the crew of the vessel that took the Emperor to St. Helena. It is noteworthy that English man-of-war's-men, and also merchant seamen of these stirring times, should have formed so favourable an impression of Napoleon, especially as the Press of England teemed with hostility against him. Articles attributing every form of indescribable bestiality, corruption, gross cruelty to his soldiers, subordinate officers, and even Marshals, appeared with shameful regularity. In these articles were included the most absurd as well as the most serious charges.

I include the following story as a specimen, and take it in particular as being quoted quite seriously by certain anti-Napoleonic writers in the endeavour to bolster up a feeble case. Prejudice and distorted vision prevented them from seeing the absurdity of such attempts to blacken the character of Napoleon. Let the reader judge!

It is related that, at the time of the Concordat, Napoleon remarked to Senator Volney, "France wants a religion." Volney's courageous (!) reply was, "France wants the Bourbons," and the Emperor is thereupon supposed to have been attacked by a fit of ungovernable fury, and to have kicked the Senator in the stomach!

The more serious charges included incest with his sister Pauline and his stepdaughter Hortense, and the poisoning of his plague-stricken soldiers at Jaffa.

His palaces were said to be harems, and his libertinism to put Oriental potentates to the blush. So industrious were these foes to human fairness that they manufactured a silly story just before the rupture of the Treaty of Amiens, to the effect that Napoleon had made a violent attack on Lord Whitworth, the British Ambassador. So violent was he in his gestures, the Ambassador feared lest the First Consul would strike him. Even Oscar Browning is obliged to refute this unworthy fabrication as being absurd on the face of it, but it has taken ninety years to produce the authentic document from the British Archives which disproves the scandal. Napoleon was too much absorbed in things that mattered to take notice of the stupid though virulent stories that were constantly being concocted against him. When he was appealed to by his friends to have the libels suitably dealt with, he merely shrugged his shoulders, as was his custom, and said, "All this rubbish will be answered, if not in my time, by posterity. It pleases the chatterers and scandalmongers, and I haven't time to be perturbed, or to meddle with it."

It ill became the subjects of George IV. to attack Napoleon on the side of morality. It is well enough known that the French Court during the Empire was the purest in Europe. In his domestic arrangements, the one thing that Napoleon was jealous of, above all others, was that his Court should have the reputation of being clean. He took infinite pains to assure himself of this. His private amorous connections are fully described by F. Masson, a Frenchman, and a staunch admirer of his. But to accuse him of libertinism is an outrage. He had mistresses, it is true, and it is said he would never have agreed to the divorce of Josephine had it not been that Madame Walewska (a Polish lady) had a son by him. (This son held high office under Napoleon III.) But even in the matter of mistresses he was most careful that it should not be known outside a very few personal friends. As a matter of high policy it was kept from the eye of the general public, and he gives very good reasons for doing so. Not merely that it would have brought him into serious conflict with Josephine, but he knew that in order to maintain a high standard of public authority food for scandal must be kept well in hand.[17]

His enemies, however, were adepts at invention, and although the moral code of that period was at its lowest ebb, they pumped up a standard of celibacy for the French Emperor that would have put the obligation under which any of his priests were bound in the shade. So shocked were they at the breaches of orthodoxy which were written and circulated by themselves without any foundation to go upon, that they advocated excommunication, assassination, anything to rid the world of so corrupt a monster. But the moral dodge fell flat. It was not exactly in keeping with the unconventionalities of the times, and, in fact, they had carried their other accusations and grievances to so malevolent a pitch, the straightforward and rugged tars aboard the Bellerophon and Northumberland were drawn in touching sympathy towards the man who had thrown himself into their hands in the fervent belief that he would be received as a guest and not as a prisoner of war.

We know that he had other means of escape had he chosen to avail himself of them. He had resolved after his abdication to live the time that was left to him in retirement, and believing in the generosity of the British nation, he threw himself on their hospitality. He had made his way through a network of blockade when he returned from Egypt and Elba, and looking at the facts as they are now before us, it is preposterous to adhere to the boastful platitude that he was so hemmed in that he had no option but to ask Captain Maitland to receive him as the guest of England aboard the Bellerophon, and it may be taken for granted that the resourceful sailors knew that he had many channels of escape. They knew the Bellerophon was a slow old tub, and that she would be nowhere in a chase.

Besides, it was not necessary for Napoleon to make Rochefort or Rochelle his starting-point. The troops and seamen at these and the neighbouring ports were all devoted to him, and would have risked everything to save him from capture. He knew all this, but he was possessed of an innate belief in the chivalry of the British character, and left out of account the class of men that were in power. He knew them to be his inveterate foes, but was deceived in believing they had hearts. Their foremost soldier had taken an active share in his defeat, and he acknowledged it by putting himself under the protection of our laws. The honest English seamen who were his shipmates on both ships were not long in forming a strong liking to him, and a dislike to the treatment he was receiving. They felt there was something wrong, though all they could say about it was that "he was a d——d good fellow."

Lord Keith was so afraid of his fascinating personality after his visit to the Bellerophon that he said, "D——n the fellow! if he had obtained an interview with His Royal Highness, in half an hour they would have been the best friends in England." In truth, Lord Keith lost a fine opportunity of saving British hospitality from the blight of eternal execration by evading the lawyer who came to Plymouth to serve a writ of Habeas Corpus to claim the Emperor's person, and the pity is that an honoured name should have been associated with a mission so crimeful and an occasion so full of illimitable consequences to England's boasted generosity. Except that he too well carried out his imperious instructions, Lord Keith does not come well out of the beginning of the great tragedy. The only piece of real delicacy shown by Lord Keith to the Emperor was in allowing him to retain his arms, and snubbing a secretary who reminded him that the instructions were that all should be disarmed. This zealous person was told to mind his own business.

Napoleon asks the Admiral if there is any tribunal to which he can apply to determine the legality of him being sent to St. Helena, as he protested that he was the guest and not the prisoner of the British nation; and Keith, with an air of condescending benevolence, assures him that he is satisfied there is every disposition on the part of the Government to render his situation as comfortable as prudence would permit. No wonder Napoleon's reply was animated, and his soul full of dignified resentment at the perfidy that was about to be administered to him under the guise of beneficence.

Scott describes the interview with Keith as "a remarkable scene." He says: "His (Napoleon's) manner was perfectly calm and collected, his voice equal and firm, his tones very pleasing, the action of the head was dignified, and the countenance remarkably soft and placid, without any marks of severity." That is a good testimony from the author of the "Waverley Novels," who was anything but an impartial biographer. Not even the novelist's most ardent admirers (and the writer is one of them) can give him credit for excessive partiality towards the hero who was the first soldier, statesman, and ruler of the age, who not only knew the art of conquering men as no other (not even Alexander) had ever known it, but had the greater quality of knowing how to conquer and govern himself under conditions that were unexampled in the history of man.

I say again, that apart from the violence of the treatment of the Powers towards him (and they all had a shameful share in it), it was a fatal blunder to send this great mind to perish on a rock when, by adopting a more humane policy, his incomparable genius might have been used to carry out the reforms he had set his mind on after his return from Elba. The tumult which surrounded his career had changed; he saw with a clear vision the dawn of a new era, and at once proclaimed to Benjamin Constant and to the French nation his great scheme of renewing the heart of things. He knew it would take time, and he foresaw also that a combination of forces was putting forth supreme efforts to destroy him. They were out for blood, and he was in too great a hurry.

In one of his day-dreams at St. Helena he exclaimed, "Ah! if I could have governed France for forty years I would have made her the most splendid empire that ever existed!"

His demand on fortune was too great, and notwithstanding the knowledge he had of human nature, he could not check the torrent of treason that had been sedulously nursed against him by his enemies until it ignited the imagination of those whom he had a right to expect would stand loyally by him in an hour of tribulation such as no other man had ever experienced.

It is true that he made history (brilliant history if you like) in those latter days, but oh! the anguish and the baseness of it all.

Caesar made history too; neither did this ruler succeed altogether. Brutus, his friend, forsook and dispatched him, and possibly that was the most enviable finish to a great career. Did Napoleon fare better than his prototype, inasmuch as he was not the victim of the assassin's dagger? Intoxicated with the spirit of charity, his conquerors decreed that he should be deported to a secluded place of abode on a barren and unhealthy rock, there to be maintained at a cost to the nation of L12,000 a year, and succumb as quickly as possible like a good Christian gentleman.

The presumption of Lord Keith in observing to Napoleon that it was preferable for him to be sent to St. Helena than to be confined in a smaller space in England or sent to France or Russia, and the Emperor's supposed reply—"Russia! God preserve me from it!"—is almost unbelievable, and in the light of what he constantly asserted while England's captive, this expression may be regarded as a fabrication.

Whether it was an innate belief that Alexander of Russia was his friend, or the fact that Francis of Austria was his father-in-law, he certainly avowed—according to the St. Helena chroniclers—that if he had surrendered to either of them he would have been treated, not only with kindness, but with a proper regard as befitted a monarch who had governed eighty-three millions of people, or more than the half of Europe. But even if he were merely soliloquising, or wished to convince himself and those he expressed this opinion to, it is hard to think that any of the continental Powers would have risked the certain consequences of having him either shot or ill-treated, and it is extremely doubtful whether even in France there could have been found a soldier that would have obeyed an order to shoot his former Emperor, who had been requisitioned to return from Elba, and who so recently, with only six hundred soldiers, made war against Louis with his two hundred thousand and defeated and dethroned him.

Nothing so magnificent has ever been known. This great man had complete hold of the imagination and devotion of his common people and soldiers. Even in the hour of defeat their loyalty was amazing.

Various instances are given of this deep-rooted loyalty and affection. Some of his Imperial Guards who were wounded at Waterloo killed themselves on hearing that he had lost the battle, and many, who had been thought to be dead, when brought to consciousness shouted "Vive l'Empereur." The hospitals were full of dying men who uttered the same cry. One was having his leg amputated, and as he looked at the blood streaming from it, said that he would willingly give it all in the service of Napoleon. Another, who was having a ball extracted from his left side near the heart, shouted, "Probe an inch deeper and there you will find the Emperor."

The story of the old woman whom he and Duroc met during the second campaign in Italy, and while climbing Mont Tarare, is a striking illustration of how he was regarded by the poorer classes. She hated the Bourbons and wanted to see the First Consul. Napoleon answered, "Bah! tyrant for tyrant—they are just the same thing." "No, no!" she replied; "Louis XVI. was the king of the nobles, Bonaparte is the king of the people." This idea of the old woman was the universal feeling of her class right through his reign. No writer has been able to give proof that it was withdrawn, even when he was overwhelmed with disaster which drained his empire of vast masses of its population. No cruel inhuman despot could magnetise with an enduring fascination multitudes of men and women as he did. It was not his incomparable genius, nor his matchless military successes in battle. He was loved because he was lovable, and was trusted because he inspired belief in his high motives of amelioration of all down-trodden people. He ruled with a stern but kindly discipline, and put a heavy hand on those who had despotic tendencies.

The Duchess of Abrantes, who smarted under some severe comments he had made about her husband (Junot), the Duke of Abrantes, while at St. Helena, has been generous enough to say many kind things of him in her memoirs. One of her references to him is to this effect:—"All I know of him" (and she knew him well from childhood) "proves that he possessed a great soul which quickly forgets and forgives." She is very fond of repeating in her memoirs that Napoleon proposed marriage to her mother, Madame Permon, who was herself a Corsican and knew the Bonaparte family well.

Madame Junot relates another story which is characteristic of Bonaparte. Such was the enthusiasm of the people on his march towards Paris after landing from Elba, that when he was holding a review of the National Guard at Grenoble, the people shouldered him, and a young girl with a laurel branch in her hand approached him reciting some verses. "What can I do for you, my pretty girl?" said the Emperor. The girl blushed, then lifting her eyes to him replied, "I have nothing to ask of your Majesty; but you would render me very happy by embracing me." Napoleon kissed her, and turning his head to either side, said aloud, with a fascinating smile, "I embrace in you all the ladies of Grenoble."

That Napoleon made mistakes no one will dispute; indeed, he saw clearly, and admitted freely, in his solitude, that he had made many. His minor fault (if it be right to characterise it as such) was in extending clemency to the many rascals that were plotting his ruin and carrying on a system of peculation that was an abhorrence to him. Talleyrand, Fouche, and Bourrienne frequently came under his displeasure and were removed from his service, but were taken back after his wrath had passed.

Miot de Melito speaks of them as "Bourrienne and other subordinate scoundrels," and, indeed, Miot de Melito does not exaggerate in his estimate of them. Fouche says that Bourrienne kept him advised of all Napoleon's movements for 25,000 francs per month, besides being both partner and patron in the house of Coulon Brothers, cavalry equipment providers, who failed for L120,000.

In 1805, Bourrienne was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary at Hamburg, and during his stay there he made L290,000 by delivering permits and making what is known as "arbitrary stoppages," and besides betraying Bonaparte to the Bourbons, this vile traitor wrote to Talleyrand, a few days after the abdication at Fontainebleau: "I always desired the return of that excellent Prince, Louis XVIII., and his august family." But these things are mere shadows of the incomparable villainy of this thievish human jackdaw.

His memoirs are said to have been written by an impecunious and mediocre penman called Villemarest, who also wrote "Memoires de Constant" (the Emperor's valet), and both books have been very extensively read and believed. Men have got up terrific lectures from them, authors have quoted from them whenever they desired an authority to prove that which they wished themselves and their readers to believe of trumped-up stories of Napoleon's despotism and evildoings. Certainly, Bourrienne is the last and most unreliable of all the chroniclers that may be quoted when writing a history of the Emperor. Neither his character nor any of his personal qualities imbues the impartial reader with confidence in either his criticisms or historical statements.

Men like Fouche, Talleyrand, and Bourrienne, and political women like Madame de Remusat and Madame de Stael, all of whom were brought under the Emperor's displeasure by their zealous aptitude in one way and another for intrigue, disloyalty, and, so far as the men are concerned, glaring dishonesty in money matters, have assiduously chronicled their own virtues and declaimed against Napoleon's incalculable vices, and this course was no doubt chosen in order to avert the public gaze from too close a scrutiny into their own perfidy. Their plan is not an unusual one under such circumstances; rascals never scruple to multiply offences more wicked than those already committed in order to prove that they are acting from a pure sense of public morality and historical truth. If the object of their attack be a benefactor, and one who has been obliged to rebuke or dismiss them for misdeeds, great or small, then they assail him with unqualified hostility.

This unquestionably was the penalty paid by Napoleon for extending clemency to men who, if they had been in the service of any other monarch in Europe, would have been shut up in a fortress, or shot, the moment their perfidies had been discovered. The pity is that so much of this declamatory stuff has been so willingly believed and made use of in order to defame the name of a sovereign whose besetting fault was in relaxing just punishment bestowed on those who, he could never altogether forget, were his companions in other days.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] Montholon wished to have the following simple inscription: "Napoleon, ne a Ajaccio, le 15 Aout, 1769, mort a St. Helena, le 5 Mai, 1821."

[13] Horne's "History of Napoleon," vol. ii.

[14] Horne's "History of Napoleon," vol. ii.

[15] "Correspondence of Napoleon I."

[16] Ibid.

[17] Madame Walewska bore him two children. This caused him to develop the idea of having an heir.



CHAPTER III

THREE GENERATIONS: MADAME LA MERE, MARIE LOUISE, AND THE KING OF ROME

It seems as though Hell had been let loose on this great man and his family. The crowned heads of Europe and the plutocrats stopped at nothing in order that they might make his ruin complete. They dare not run the risk of putting him to death outright, but they engineered, by means of willing tools, a plan that was unheard-of in its atrocious character. They poured stories of unfaithfulness into the ears of a faithless woman whose name will go down to posterity as an ignoble wife and callous mother. She took with her into Austria the King of Rome, a beautiful child who was put under the care of Austrian tutors. He was watched as though he held the destinies of empires in the hollow of his hand. His father's name was not allowed to fall on his youthful ears, and more than one tutor was dismissed because he secretly told him something of his father's fame. Treated as a prisoner, spied upon by Metternich's satellites, not allowed to have any visitors without this immortal Chancellor's permission, not allowed to communicate with his father's family or with Frenchmen, this pathetic figure, stuffed with Austrian views, is seized with a growing desire to learn the history of his father, who declared in a letter to his brother Joseph in 1814 that he would rather see his son strangled than see him brought up in Vienna as an Austrian prince.[18]

Prince Napoleon in his excellent book—"Napoleon and His Detractors"—refers to the young Prince playing a game of billiards with Marmont and Don Miguel, the former having been one of his father's most important generals. He it was who betrayed him, and now he is become the Duke's confidant and instructor. The Prince says that his cousin asked to be told about the deeds that his father had done, his fall, and exile. There does not appear to be any record in existence as to what Marmont conveyed or withheld from the son of Marie Louise, but there is much evidence to show that the young man was not only an eager student of his father's career, but fully realised his own importance and influence on European politics.

It has been stated that until 1830 he really knew nothing of passing events in the land of his birth. Obenaus, his tutor, states in his diary, January 18, 1825: "During the afternoon walk, the political relations of the Prince to the Imperial family and to the rest of the world were discussed." Count Neipperg advised him to study the French language, and his reply was: "This advice has not fallen on an unfruitful or an ungrateful soil. Every imaginable motive inspires me with the desire to perfect myself in, and to overcome the difficulties of, a language which at the present moment forms the most essential part of my studies. It is the language in which my father gave the word of command in all his battles, in which his name was covered with glory, and in which he has left us unparalleled memoirs of the art of war; while to the last he expressed the wish that I should never repudiate the nation into which I was born."[19] He further adds, "The chief aim of my life must be not to remain unworthy of my father's fame."

His grandfather, the Emperor Francis—who was reputed to be quite devoted to him—said, "I wish that the Duke should revere the memory of his father." "Do not suppress the truth," says he to Metternich (the disloyal friend of Napoleon). "Teach him above all to honour his father's memory." The Chancellor replies, "I will speak to the Duke about his father as I should wish myself to be spoken of to my own son." What irony! Whatever attempts were made at any time to depreciate the Emperor, his son's loyalty to him never flinched. He regarded his father in the light of a hero whose glorious traditions were unequalled by any warrior or ruler of men. He drank in every particle of information he could discover about his father's life, and was by no means ignorant of what would be his own great destiny should he be permitted to live.

A strong party in France longed to have the son of their Emperor on the throne of France. A section of the Poles clamoured to have him proclaimed King of Poland after the Polish revolution, and the Greeks claimed him as their future King. All existing records dealing with the Prince's view concerning his position indicate quite clearly that he never under-estimated his importance. He was fully alive to and appreciated the growing devotion to himself, his cause, and to the great name he bore. We learn from Marshal Marmont that the Prince received him with marked cordiality when the Emperor Francis gave him permission to relate to him his father's history. Marmont, like all traitors, never neglected to put forth his popularity with the Emperor Napoleon. This is a habit with people who do great injury to their friends. They always make it appear that the injured person is afflicted with growing love for them—they never realise how much they are loathed and mistrusted.

The Prince at first received him with suspicion, then he tolerated him coldly, and it was not until Marmont fascinated him with stories of the genius and unparalleled greatness of his father's history that the young man subdued his prejudices and encouraged the Marshal in his visits to his apartments, in order that he might learn all that Marmont could tell him of his father's qualities and accomplishments. The young Napoleon caused the General to marvel at the quick intelligence he displayed in the pointed comments made on his father's career. In recognition of his services Marmont was presented with a portrait of the Prince.[20]

His cousin, Prince Napoleon, son of King Jerome, in his book "Napoleon and His Detractors," obviously desires to convey the impression that all questions, important or unimportant, relating to the Emperor, were studiously kept from his son, and until he arrived at a certain age there can be little doubt that undue and unnatural precautions were taken to prevent the Emperor's name being spoken, but the means used for this purpose must have proved abortive, as everything points to him having been well informed. He appears to have had an instinctive knowledge that nullified the precautions of the Court of Vienna, and especially its culpable Chancellor, Metternich, whose clumsy and heartless treatment is so apparent to all students of history. Probably this is the policy that prevailed up to 1830 which Prince Napoleon complains of. Be that as it may, we are persuaded that the Duke was not only well informed, but took a keen interest in the events of his own and of his father's life, long before the advent of Marmont as his tutor. For instance, on one occasion his friend, Count Prokesch, dined with his grandfather in 1830, and at table the Prince was afforded great pleasure in having the opportunity of conversing with this distinguished man. The young Duke knew that Prokesch had broken a lance in 1818 in defence of his father, and he eagerly availed himself of the chance of saying some very complimentary things to the Count. He informs him that he has "known him a long while, and loved him because he defended his father's honour at a time when all the world vied with each other to slander his name"; and then he continues: "I have read your 'Battle of Waterloo,' and in order to impress every line of it on my memory I translated it twice in French and Italian."[21] Obviously this young man was neither a dunce nor indolent when his father's fame and his own interests were in question.

One of the most remarkable features of this pathetic young life is the intense interest his mother's husband began to take in him, and he probably owed a great deal to the fact that Count Neipperg urged him to make himself familiar with the glory of the Empire and his father's deeds. Strange though it may appear, the son of the Great Napoleon and the morganatic husband of his mother were attached to each other in the most intimate way. If he perceived the immoral relations between Neipperg and Marie Louise, the Duke never seems to have divulged it; but taking into account the passionate love and devotion he had for his father's memory, it is barely likely that he knew either of the amorous connection or marriage having taken place between the Count and his mother, otherwise he would have had something to say about it, not only to Neipperg himself, but certainly to his friends Prokesch, Baron Obenaus, and Count Dietrichstein, and very naturally his grandfather. It may be that the circumstances of his life made him cautious, and even cunning, in keeping to himself an affair that was generally approved by the most interested parties, but it is hardly likely that the spirit of natural feeling had been so far crushed out of him as to forbid his openly resenting a further monstrous wrong being done to his Imperial father.

The young Prince was the centre of great political interest, and the object of ungrudging sympathy and devotion of a large public in Europe, and especially in France, and had his life been preserved a few more years he would, in spite of obstacles and prejudices, have been put on the throne of the land of his birth.

Metternich, the inveterate trickster, does not appear to have had any serious thought of encouraging the project of making the Duke Emperor of the French. His subtle game was to use him as a terror to Louis Philippe when that monarch became refractory or showed signs of covetousness.

The Prince carried himself high above sordid party methods. He was proud of being heir to a throne that his father had made immortal and he was determined not to soil it. If it was to be reclaimed, all obstacles must be removed ere he would lend his countenance to it. There must be a clear, uninterrupted passage. Thirty-four million souls, it was claimed, were anxious for his restoration to France. Amongst the leaders were to be found some of his father's old companions in arms and in exile, amongst whom none were more enthusiastic than the loyal and devoted Count Montholon, Bertrand, the petulant and penitent Gourgaud, and Savary, Duke of Rovigo. These were joined to thousands of other brave men who would have considered it an honour to shed their last drop of blood for the cause, and in memory of him whom they had loved so well. The two first-named were executors to his father's will, in which Napoleon enjoins his son not to attempt to avenge his death but to profit by it. He reminds him that things have changed. He was obliged to daunt Europe by his arms, but now the way is to convince her. His son is urged not to mount the throne by the aid of foreign influence, and he is charged to deserve the approbation of posterity. He is reminded that "MERIT may be pardoned, but not intrigue," and that he is to "propagate in all uncivilised and barbarous countries the benefits of Christianity and civilisation. Religious ideas have more influence than certain narrow-minded philosophers are willing to believe. They are capable of rendering great services to humanity."

These are only a few of the excellent thoughts transmitted to the young man from the tragic rock whose memories will ever defame the name of those who combined to commit a crime unequalled in political history.

It is none the less a phenomenon that this "abode of darkness," so monstrous in the history of its perfidy, should be illumined by the great figure that stamped its fame for evermore with his personality.

One of the last and finest works of genius he did there was to draw up a constitution for his son. It is doubtful whether Montholon ever succeeded in conveying it to the Prince, who passed on before the legitimate call to put it into practice came.

The Powers that made holy war for the last time on the great soldier with 900,000 men against his 128,000 arrogated the right to outlaw and brand him as the disturber of public peace. I have already said this was their ostensible plea, but the real reason was his determination to exterminate feudalism and establish democratic institutions as soon as he could bring the different factions into harmony. He failed, but the colossal cost of his failure in men and money is unthinkable. His subjugation left Great Britain alone with a debt, as already stated, of eight hundred millions, and then there was no peace.

The constitution intended for his son could have been very beneficially applied to some of the nations represented at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle by the allied sovereigns who declared him an outlaw, and spent their time in allocating slices of other people's territory to each other. The only nation that came badly out of the Congress was Great Britain.

This terrible despot, who was beloved by the common people and hated by the oligarchy, left behind him a constitution that might well be adopted by the most democratic countries.

The first article—composed of six words: "The sovereignty dwells in the nation"—stamps the purpose of it with real democracy. It might do no harm to embody some of its clauses into our own constitution at the present time. We very tardily adopted some of its laws long after his death, and we might go on copying to our advantage. He was a real progressor, but his team was difficult to guide. Had he been conciliated and allowed to remain at peace, he would have democratised the whole of Europe, but the fear of that, or the legitimacy idea, was undoubtedly the great underlying cause of much of the trouble. The mistrust and animus against the father was reflected upon the son, who was practically a State prisoner.

During childhood the Prince was strong and healthy, and his robust physique caused favourable comment. It was not until 1819 that his health became affected by an attack of spotted fever. This passed away in a few weeks, but the decline of his health, which was attributed to his rapid growth, dates from that period. He died prematurely on July 22, 1832, at Schoenbrunn, and the accounts which may be relied upon indicate either wilfully careless or incompetent medical treatment. It is even asserted that this heir to the throne of France, ushered in twenty-one years before as the herald of Peace, was to be regarded as a source of infinite danger, and for that barbaric reason his health was allowed to be slowly and surely undermined until death took him from the restraining influences and crimeful policy of the Courts of Europe. Great efforts have been made to convince a sceptical public that his early death was the result of youthful indiscretions, but this is stoutly denied by Prokesch, who declares that he was a strictly moral youth, and Baron Obenaus, in his diary, justifies this opinion, if there was nothing else to support it. Moreover the same Anton, Count Prokesch was asked by Napoleon III. to tell him the truth as to the alleged love affairs, and he averred that the rumours were without foundation.

The King of Rome died at Schoenbrunn in the same room that his father had occupied in 1809. In Paris a report was put about that he had been poisoned by the Court of Vienna. This opinion has been handed down, and there are many persons to-day who have a firm belief in its possibility.

Another common rumour, current in 1842, was that Metternich sent a poisoned lemon by Prokesch, which had done its work, and even this highly improbable story is not without reason believed, because Metternich was known to be the most heartless cunning Judas in politics at that time. He had betrayed the father of the Prince while he was declaring the most loyal friendship. He admits this, nay, even boasts of it, in his memoirs, and his shameful conduct has its reward by having won for him the stigma of wishing for, and hastening on, the death of an unfortunate young man for whom ordinary manliness should have claimed compassion. This moral assassin of father and son declared that he had "used all the means in his power to second the hand of God" by trapping Napoleon into the clutches of the combined moralists of Europe. The Usurper was to be ruined, then peace proclaimed for evermore. That was their pretence, though it could not have been their conviction. If it was, they were soon disillusioned.

I made a long journey in company with a Danish statesman a few years ago, and amongst other things that we conversed about was the reign and fall of Napoleon. This gentleman held up his hands and said to me, "Oh! what a blunder the criminal affair was. Had the Powers beheld the mission of this man aright, what a blessing it would have been to the world!"—and there is not much difficulty in supporting the view of this Danish gentleman. The more one probes into the history of the period, the more vivid the blunder appears.

Metternich has the distinction of being eulogised by M. Taine, who was neither fair nor accurate, and there is not much glory in being championed by a man whose book is made up of libels. Metternich may here be dismissed as being only one of many whose highest ambition was to destroy the man whom the French nation had made their monarch. Their aim was accomplished, but the spirit that evolved from the wreck of the Revolution still lives on, and may rise again to be avenged for the great crime that was committed.

Whether the gifted and amiable son of the Emperor Napoleon was despatched by the cruellest of all assassinations or came by his premature death by neglect, or by natural and constitutional causes, is a matter that may never be cleared up, though the actions of the high commissioners in the nauseous drama cause lingering doubts to prevail as to their innocence. It is certain that several determined attempts were made to take the Prince's life, and large sums were offered to desperadoes to carry out this murderous deed. Then the Court of Vienna were in constant fear of his abduction. His invitations to come to France were perpetual.

A lady cousin—the Countess Napoleone Camerata, daughter of Elisa Bacciochi, a sister of the Emperor, easily obtained a passport from the Pope's Secretary of State, and coquetted so successfully with the Austrian Ambassador, that he gave it a double guarantee of good faith by signing it. This impetuous and eccentric female made her way uninterruptedly to Vienna, found her cousin on the doorstep, made a rush for him and seized his hand, then shouted, "Who can prevent my kissing my sovereign's hand?" She also found means to convey letters to him. There is not much said about this Napoleonic dash, but from the records that are available the incident set the heroes—comprising the allied Courts (including France)—into a flutter of excitement. The fuss created by the enterprise of the pretty little Countess gives a lurid insight into the wave of comic derangement which must have taken possession of men's minds.