rarely from thought to deed, is still true to type. When he reads news
from Paris, he dictates rejoinders which demonstrate his expertise, and
he compiles financial schemes. From his rock, from his little room, he
answers the sounds coming from the outer world, although the sounds are
no summons and his answer dies away into the void. He often proposes
to write a treatise on the art of war, but he gives the notion up, “for
the generals who in days to come get beaten will blame me, and say they
were following my principles.... I could instruct them, for I am a good
teacher; but I cannot have my principles of warfare set down in print.”
He mistrusts every systematisation, for he is essentially a man who has
learned by experience, by the unexpected. But if an isolated problem
crops up in the course of a book he is dictating, then he deals with it
in the precisest of terms. Thus, he makes Gourgaud calculate how much
water a fire hose can deliver, for he wants to introduce the fire hose to
combat the consequences of artillery fire.
Congenial society occasionally shortens the day. Or visitors come to see
the Emperor. English travellers, men of learning, colonial magnates, are
admitted to audience. On their return to Europe, they bear witness to
his mental alertness. Napoleon himself desires such reports to be spread
abroad, for they can do nothing but good to his cause now that Las Cases’
diary has aroused fresh sympathy for his plight.
“Scatter your complaints throughout Europe! I myself do not complain.”
And he adds the orphic saying:
“I command, or else I hold my peace.”
His visitors tell him interesting things. An English admiral, whose
vessel had been lying off the coast during the battle of Waterloo,
assures the Emperor that Wellington had already given orders to ship
the English army because Blücher did not arrive. When his companions
inform him of the enthusiasm with which the enemy officers were filled
after their interview with the Emperor, he says, assuming the role of
the revolutionary: “Of course, these people belong to us. They all come
from England’s third estate, and are the natural foes of their haughty
aristocracy.”
All the men in the services are on his side. English sailors, on shore
leave for a day or two, will prowl round the place all night. At the
first opportunity, they pounce upon him, stuttering incoherent words,
presenting him with flowers. The Emperor claps them pleasantly on the
shoulder. When the garrison is changed, he receives the members of the
officers’ corps, exactly as though they had been Frenchmen and he their
army chief. They form a semicircle; he asks, “How many years’ service;
how many wounds? I was greatly pleased with the 53rd regiment. I shall
always be delighted to hear of good strokes of luck coming in its way.
You are sad, Admiral Bingham, that these brave soldiers are leaving you.
To comfort your heart, My Lady must bear you a little Bingham!” The army
men laugh. The admiral blushes. When, next day, the transport hoists
sail, the men give the prisoner three hearty cheers. A few months later,
all Europe is agog with the anecdote.
On another occasion, he sees a medal displayed on the chest of a captain,
half raises it, and reads: Victory at Vittoria. The Emperor allows the
decoration to slip from his fingers, and passes without a word to the
next visitor.
Each of England’s allies sends a commissioner to the island. They are
there merely to gratify the curiosity of their sovereigns. The prisoner
refuses them access to his presence, and, though they are here on
this desolate rock with the sole purpose of seeing that he is in safe
custody, during all the years of their sojourn they never clap eyes on
him once. Here is a fresh focus of intrigue and boredom. The only one
of the commissioners whom the Emperor allows his suite to make friends
with is Monsieur le Marquis. This is the representative chosen by His
Very Christian Majesty King Louis XVIII to keep watch on his formidable
predecessor. The marquis sees that Napoleon gets all the most recent
periodicals; the Emperor reciprocates by the loan of books. When tidings
are brought announcing the assassination in France of a Bourbon duke,
General Bonaparte sends his condolences to the marquis of the old
nobility by the intermediation of Count Bertrand, who is also a sprig of
the noblesse. A scene out of comic opera!
When the prisoner is in happy vein he seeks other pastimes. One evening
he spends fluttering the pages of the official year-books of his reign,
and says, like the bewitched tinker in the old folk-tale: “It was a fine
empire. I ruled eighty-three million human beings; more than half the
population of Europe!” He spends the whole of another evening with Las
Cases chatting over old times. They laugh, the Emperor’s spirits rise, he
orders champagne to be brought, and before they realise it the hands of
the clock point to eleven. Napoleon says delightedly: “How quickly the
time has gone! What agreeable hours! My dear fellow, you are sending a
happy man to bed.”
Words which grip one perhaps more poignantly than any complaint could do.
He takes Montholon’s seven-year-old child on his knee and recites La
Fontaine’s fable of the wolf and the lamb. The child has not fully
understood, and makes a delicious muddle of lamb, wolf, and His Majesty.
Another happy half hour in the Emperor’s life! Again, he strolls up and
down the room in the evening after dinner, humming an Italian aria, and
laughing gleefully, for he has just read that King Louis always speaks of
him as “Monsieur de Buonaparte.” If he has a sleepless night, he makes
Las Cases tell him anecdotes from the Faubourg; or he says to Gourgaud:
“Let us exchange stories about love affairs. I never had enough time to
spare for women. Otherwise they would have ruled my life for me.” If he
gets bored in his bath, he takes the opportunity of demonstrating to
Gourgaud why the pressure of the water upon a floating body is equal to
the weight of the body. On one occasion, in the drawing-room, he has his
own height and that of his companions measured against the door.
Sometimes he will not dress or go out in the morning, putting off both
until the afternoon. On one of these occasions, after an exceptionally
torrid evening, he does not re-enter the house till midnight, and says
that he has won a real victory by staying out so long. Another day he
goes up the stair-ladder into his valet’s garret, having been told
that it is so nicely furnished. He is shown his own wardrobe, which is
stowed away there, and is amazed to find what a lot of clothing he still
possesses. He fingers the uniform he had worn as Consul (a gift from the
city of Lyons), the spurs he had worn at Wagram, the cloak of the Marengo
days. He makes no comment; goes down the stair-ladder in silence.
Amid these desperate attempts to kill time, does the prisoner come across
no one whose situation moves him?
Yes, there is one. Of all the dwellers on this rock, the one whose lot
touches the Emperor’s heart most profoundly is a slave, a Malay who
passes by the name Tobias, has been kidnapped, sold into slavery, and
cast up on this remote island. Napoleon comes across him working in the
garden, or meets him in the road, is never weary of studying him, and
gives him a gold coin whenever he sees him. The Malay thanks him in
broken English: “Good gentleman.”
“Poor devil!” says the Emperor to his companion, obviously picturing
himself in the position of this dusky piece of flotsam. “Snatched from
his family, torn from his home, robbed of himself, sold into slavery! Was
there ever a greater piece of wickedness? If a captain did it, he was a
villain; but if the crew combined to seize poor Tobias, they were hardly
responsible. Wickedness is always individual, never collective. Joseph’s
brethren could not make up their minds to kill him, but Judas betrayed
his master.”
After the next encounter with the Malay: “What a pitiful machine man is,
after all! Not one bodily wrapping like another; not one soul that does
differ from all the rest. Those who fail to recognise this, make a great
many mistakes. Had Tobias been a Brutus, he would have hurled himself on
death; an Æsop, and he would have been governor by now; a good Christian,
and he would have blessed his chains. But he is only poor Tobias, so he
is none of these things, merely bows his head in his simplicity and goes
on with his daily task.”
The two continue their walk: “Certainly it is a long way from poor Tobias
to King Richard. But the deed which brought the fellow here is no less
shameful, for this man had his family, his friends, his own life. What a
crime to have condemned him to slave on this island until the day of his
death!” Suddenly, Napoleon stops short, and eyes Las Cases quizzically:
“I read from your face that you are thinking he is not the only sufferer
of the kind on this island.” Las Cases nods assent, and the Emperor
bursts out with a youth’s ardour: “There is no warrant for such a
comparison! True, the violence done to us is more refined in its cruelty,
but, in compensation, we are more distinguished victims.... The world has
its eyes fixed on us. We are the martyrs of an immortal cause! Millions
weep for us, the fatherland sighs, the spirit of glory mourns....
Adversity, too, has its heroism and its fame. Had I died on the throne,
surrounded by all the emblems of power, I should have remained a riddle
to many. To-day the wrappings have been stripped from me; thanks to my
misfortunes, every one can judge me in my nakedness.”
Subsequently, the Emperor buys the slave, wishing to send him back to his
own land and his own folk, but the governor forbids the repatriation: “It
is plain to me that General Bonaparte is trying to win the hearts of the
coloured population, in the hope of setting up a second negro empire, as
in San Domingo.”
Tobias, therefore, remains a captive; a slave in a far country, like the
Emperor.
XIII
“I am very old to make a journey of two thousand leagues. Perhaps I
should die on the way; but, never mind, I should die nearer you.”
Thus writes his mother. The Emperor reads the letter again and again,
when it is delivered to him a year after it was penned. The powers
forbade the journey: who could tell, the old lady might concoct a plan
for his escape! Letizia had been banished from France when the other
members of her family were expelled. For the second time in her life, she
is unable to go to her island home: the first time had been long ago when
Corsica was in revolt; now, Europe stands in the way. She, therefore,
goes to Rome, where the moral power of the pope upholds her; always
making fresh attempts to secure her son’s removal to a more healthy
abiding place. Although the tsar is favourable to such a transfer,
Habsburg and England are determined Napoleon shall die; so there is
nothing more to be done. Neither mother nor any of the brothers and
sisters is allowed to send money to the exile.
When the monarchs assemble in Aix-la-Chapelle for the congress, Letizia
writes to the princes: “A mother, more bowed with grief than words can
tell, has long been hoping that the meeting of your imperial and royal
highnesses would give her back her life. It is impossible that the
captivity of Emperor Napoleon should not come up for discussion. Your
magnanimity, your power, and your memory of earlier events, will surely
incline Your Imperial and Royal Majesties to work for the liberation of
a prince for whom you once professed friendship. I pray to God and to
you, for you are God’s representatives on earth. Interests of State have
their limits. Posterity, which confers immortality, admires a generous
conqueror.”
No answer.
Later the captive learns that his mother has been accused of fostering a
conspiracy in Corsica. She is said to have provided money amounting to
millions. The pope is ordered to send his secretary of State to see the
old lady and to make enquiries. Letizia gives the emissary the following
message: “Tell the pope, and may the monarchs mark my words: If I were so
fortunate as to possess all these millions they have credited me with, I
should certainly not spend them in buying champions for my son’s cause.
He has enough of them already. I would, rather, equip a fleet capable of
rescuing him from the island where he is unjustly detained.”
What a feeling of pride and elation fills the son’s heart as he reads
his mother’s words! But he never hears of Letizia’s bitter remark to
an Austrian noble: “Why is my daughter-in-law amusing herself in Italy
instead of joining her husband in St. Helena?”
Round what sun are the other planets turning? What an anticlimax!
Lucien and Joseph have gone to America, and are later joined by Jerome.
They assume exotic titles. The Spanish revolutionaries have offered their
ex-king the crown of Mexico. This piece of news excites the prisoner:
“Joseph will refuse. He is too fond of the pleasures of life to bother
himself again with the burden of a crown—and yet, it would be a stroke
of luck for England that the whole problem of Spanish America should be
solved in this way. For if Joseph were to become king of Mexico a breach
with France and Spain would be inevitable. For myself, his acquiescence
would be weighty with consequences. He loves me and would use his
position as a weapon to coerce England into treating me differently.
Unfortunately, he is sure to refuse.” Thus quickly and hopefully does
Napoleon, in the first year of his captivity, toy with every fresh
opportunity.
The other brothers and sisters retire into obscurity. Jerome alone lives
to be an old man, and, in the days of the third Napoleon, appears once
more at court. The Emperor receives few letters from his brothers and
sisters. Caroline begs her mother to send some money. Letizia refuses:
“All I have belongs to the Emperor, from whom I have received all I
possess.” To Lucien she writes: “When one is no longer king, one makes
oneself a laughing-stock if one tries to live ostentatiously. Rings may
adorn the fingers; but, if they fall off, the fingers still remain.”
Hortense and Pauline once more play comedy as they had done at Malmaison.
Other tidings give Napoleon food for thought. Bernadotte becomes king.
And Désirée? At last Napoleon’s early love wears a crown; she also lives
to see the Second Empire. Countess Walewska, now a widow, marries a
French nobleman. He approves the step, passes her situation in review,
considers all he has done for her son, and then says complacently: “She
is rich, and must have saved.” The tactless Gourgaud makes answer: “Your
Majesty paid Madame Walewska ten thousand francs a month.” The Emperor
blushes, and asks with embarrassment: “How do you know that?”
King Murat and Marshal Ney are both shot after court martial. Their
master accepts their fate with soldierly fortitude. His only annoyance is
that Murat should have been such a fool as to land in Calabria. He bears
his brother-in-law no grudge. Even Marmont, who lives happily under the
Bourbons, comes in for no more reproach than: “I am sorry for Marmont;
I was really fond of him. He’s not a bad fellow. They appealed to him
through his feelings. He fancied he was to be saviour of his country, and
behaved like a madman. He would have done better to shoot himself....
Human nature is weak.”
And yet it is precisely Marmont who stifles every movement which might be
of advantage to the exile. Murmurings against the Bourbon ruler spread
throughout the land. But when, once more, the émigrés and the members of
the new nobility are placed in great positions, notwithstanding their
lack of qualifications for such posts, and a Richelieu is given high
office in spite of his long absence from France and his ignorance of
French affairs; when Lafayette, the veteran fighter for liberty, becomes
leader of the proletariat and makes ready for a new revolution, gathering
his forces in the clubs and even in the schools, and preparing among
the troops “the men of the coming day,” to clear out the Bourbons, who
can only maintain their position by the aid of foreign armies; when
the radical provinces, eager to flaunt the tricolour cockade, rally in
support of Napoleon II—it is Marmont, Bonaparte’s eldest comrade, who
crushes the movement, and thereafter becomes minister.
The Emperor composedly reads that Louis XVIII. has dissolved the Chambers
because many of the members favour Orleans or Napoleon. Executions for
treason are the order of the day. But who is the most trusted associate
of the Bourbon? A little nobody of a Corsican, whom Letizia once upon a
time had made her private secretary—a sinecure job created to provide the
man with a livelihood. Since all these events take place during the first
year, the Emperor is filled with hope, and meditates upon the chances of
a fresh revolution.
“What a cruel decree of fate that just at this moment I should be held
prisoner! Who is there to set himself at the head of things? Who will
be there to save thousands of the bravest from the scaffold?” He stays
alone in his room until the morrow, when he speaks absently of Elba.
Soon stranger ships heave in sight, the prisoner counts the shots. What
is happening? The Emperor sends his friends to gather tidings; they hear
nothing; but hope is strong. “What children we are, to be sure,” he
exclaims next day. “And I, instead of giving a good example, am no better
than the rest of you. Were I in America, I should think of nothing but my
garden.”
Nevertheless, he would not have gone to America. He owns as much when
he says: “If I were in America with Joseph, instead of suffering here,
nobody would ever think of me, and my cause would be lost. I may have
another fifteen years of life, but I am doomed to die here—unless France
should summon me.”
These hopes are not unfounded. England considers it wise to increase
the garrison from two hundred men to three thousand, in order to keep
guard on one individual, although the cost of the troops in St. Helena
is £320,000 a year. Still, there are possibilities, for the soldiers are
whole-heartedly on his side. On one occasion six officers were arrested.
They had come from Rio de Janeiro, and had planned to get the Emperor
away in a kind of submarine. Again, two captains, travellers to India on
a ship which has touched at the island, make him proposals for an escape:
Napoleon listens attentively, but decides not to accept. On a third
occasion, Montholon breaks in on the Emperor while he is at work with
Gourgaud to remind his master that the passport of a certain individual
expires in an hour’s time and a decision must be made. Montholon writes:
“It had been proposed to take the Emperor to America for the sum of one
million francs payable on landing. The Emperor’s word would suffice.
Unfortunately I may not divulge any more of the scheme, lest I expose
the originator, for whose loyalty to the Emperor we must be eternally
grateful. The Emperor listened to me, and considered all I had to say:
he paced to and fro several times in silence, asked Gourgaud and myself
for our opinions. He took no part in the discussion. In the end, he said:
‘You must decline the offer.’”
There he stands, he has not been captive a year as yet, passably well
in health, athirst for action, goaded by the pin-pricks of a mighty
government and a puny governor. Before him opens out the possibility of
escape, escape with the aid of English officers. The fact that risk is
attached does not alarm one who is used to bold enterprises. There he
is, dictating the story of his youth, when suddenly, at the end of his
career, a friend makes proposals that are certainly not cobwebs of the
brain. Napoleon is silent, he questions, he is silent again. Then: “You
must decline the offer.” Why?
Because France is once more in a state of unrest, and so he decides
to stay where he is. He is so sure of a change of feeling among the
people that, later, when a ship is sighted and signals to the station,
the Emperor says: “Perhaps the vessel brings news of my recall. If the
prince regent dies, the young queen will summon me to England. She was
always against my being sent to St. Helena.” When, on the outbreak of
fresh revolts in Paris, his companions mention the possibility of France
demanding his return, he concedes the point, adding:
“But what can they hope from my return? That I should again conduct wars?
I am too old. That I should seek for fresh glories? I am sated with
them.... It will be much better for my son that I should stay here. If
Christ had not died upon the cross, he would not have become the Son of
God. My martyrdom will give the crown back to my son, if he lives.”
Napoleon’s feeling for the dynasty is as deep as ever. His preoccupation
with the thought of founding a line overpowers, in his maturer years, his
impulse to action, to adventure, and even to win fame.
Though he is inspired with these lofty moods of hope and heroical
renunciation, nevertheless despondency overwhelms him at times; then he
becomes greatly depressed, and the most trifling upset in the household
will seem an intolerable burden. When Bertrand stays away from dinner in
a pet, the Emperor is out of sorts for days: “I know that I have fallen
from my high estate, but that one of my nearest companions should rub
it in is dreadful....” He groans. Las Cases offers to intervene. “No, I
forbid it. I had to say that much. But now all is forgotten and I shall
behave as though I had noticed nothing.” If travellers should wish to
see him on such days, he refuses, saying: “Tell them, dead men do not
receive visitors.” Occasionally Napoleon broods alone for the whole
evening, sends at last for one of his companions, says a word or two, and
dismisses him.
A quarrel arises between Montholon and Gourgaud as to whose room shall
be furnished first, the Emperor has to mediate, the countess weeps,
the Emperor proposes a game of chess. Dinner. A reading from the Book
of Esther. Sometimes these scenes verge on the grotesque: a cow has
escaped, the Emperor shows his vexation, Gourgaud sits glum throughout
dinner because he is responsible for the cow, and is feeling aggrieved
by his master’s anger. After dinner, the Emperor speaks of Islam and
his preferences for the Mohammedan faith, then passes to a discussion of
the trinity; finally he withdraws, making painful attempts to conceal
his angry mood and muttering between his teeth: “Moscow! Five hundred
thousand men!”
Gourgaud, who has left him overnight in an agreeable state of excitement,
finds him next day in a gloomy temper: “What sort of an education will
they give my son? Will they teach him to loathe his father? Hateful
thought!” When Las Cases, who has copied out the chapter on Waterloo,
deplores that victory should have been snatched from the Emperor’s grasp,
Napoleon makes no reply, but says to Las Cases’ son in a voice which
seems to come from a great distance: “My lad, go and fetch _Iphigenia in
Aulis_; that will do us good.” Or he has Racine’s _Andromache_ read to
him.
I am come to the place where my son
lies captive: for one moment only,
allow my tears to flow with his!
This is all that is left to me
of Hector and of Troy. Permit me, Lord,
to visit him once on every day....
But the Emperor breaks in on the reading with the cry:
“Enough! Leave me; I would be alone!”
XIV
With the growing inactivity and boredom, the moods of this tortured heart
become more and more agonising; this many-toned instrument can no longer
be controlled; discords arise.
He has been an emperor! How can he cease to play the part to which the
society of a handful of courtiers and the degrading mockery of the enemy
constrain him? In order to protest against the use of the title of
general and against the illegality of his captivity, he drives out, at
first, in full imperial grandeur, his carriage drawn by six horses, and
an equerry in uniform riding at each door. His companions appear before
him in general’s uniform or in court dress; no one opens conversation
uninvited; when he takes his walks in the garden his suite does not
approach till he gives a sign; visits are announced by an adjutant
general, booted, and wearing a sword. When Gourgaud rises as Countess
Montholon enters the room, he is reproved for this breach of etiquette.