11th.—As I was walking after breakfast, about half-past twelve, before
the gate, I saw a numerous cavalcade approaching, preceded by the
Colonel of the 53rd: it was Admiral Taylor, who had arrived the
evening before with his squadron from the Cape, and was to leave us
the next day but one for Europe. Among his captains was his son, who
had lost his arm at the battle of Trafalgar, where his father
commanded the Tonnant.
Admiral Taylor said he was come to pay his respects to the Emperor;
but he had just received for answer that he was unwell; at which the
Admiral was much disappointed. I observed to him that the climate of
Longwood was very unfavourable to Napoleon. I chose an unlucky time
for making this observation, as the sky was beautiful, and the place
displayed at this moment all the illusion which it is capable of
producing: the Admiral did not fail to remark that the situation was
charming. I replied, in a tone of genuine sorrow: “Yes, Admiral,
to-day, and for you, who only remain a quarter of an hour in it.” At
this he seemed quite disconcerted, began to make excuses, and begged
me to pardon him for having made use of what he called an impertinent
expression. I must render justice to the peculiar urbanity of manner
which he evinced on this occasion.
THE EMPEROR AIMED AT BY A SOLDIER.—OUR EVENING
AMUSEMENTS.—NOVELS.—POLITICAL REMARKS.
12th—14th. The Emperor had now for several days left off his
excursions on horseback. The result of his attempt to resume them, on
the 12th, was neither calculated to revive his partiality for this
amusement, nor to render it once more habitual to him. We had cleared
our valley as usual, and were re-ascending at the back part opposite
Longwood, when a soldier from one of the heights, where there had
hitherto been no post, called out several times, and made various
signs to us. As we were in the very centre of our circuit, we paid no
attention to him. He then came running down towards us, out of breath,
charging his piece as he ran. General Gourgaud remained behind, to see
what he wanted, while we continued our route. I could see the General,
after dodging the fellow many times, collar and secure him: he made
him follow him as far as the neighbouring post by the Grand Marshal’s,
which the General endeavoured to make him enter, but he escaped from
him. He found that he was a drunken corporal, who had not rightly
understood his watchword. He had frequently levelled his piece at us.
This circumstance, which might have been very easily repeated, made us
tremble for the Emperor’s life: the latter looked upon it only as an
affront, and a fresh obstacle to the continuance of his exercises on
horseback.
Napoleon had ceased giving invitations to dinner: the hours, the
distance, the dressing, were inconvenient to the guests: to us these
parties produced only trouble and constraint, without any pleasure.
The Emperor had by degrees resumed his regular work. He now dictated
daily to the Grand Marshal upon the expedition to Egypt; some time
before dinner he ordered me and my son to be called to him, in order
to read the different chapters of the Campaigns of Italy over again,
and separate them into paragraphs. Reversis had gone out of fashion;
the Emperor had given it up. The time after dinner was henceforth
devoted to the reading of some work: the Emperor himself read aloud;
when he was tired, he handed the book over to some other person; but
then he never could bear their reading more than a quarter of an hour.
We were now reading novels, and we began many which we never finished,
_Manon l’ Escaut_ we soon rejected as fit only for the ante-chamber;
then followed the _Memoirs of Grammont_, which are so full of wit, but
so far from honourable to the morals of the great of that period; the
_Chevalier de Faublas_, which is only to be endured at the age of
twenty years, &c. Whenever these readings could be protracted to
eleven or twelve o’clock, the Emperor seemed truly rejoiced. He called
this making conquests over time; and he found such victories not the
most easy to gain.
Politics had also their turn. Every three or four weeks, or
thereabouts, we received a large packet of journals from Europe; this,
like the cut of a whip, set us going again for some days, during which
we discussed, analyzed, and re-discussed the news: and afterwards fell
again insensibly into our usual melancholy. The last journals had
reached us by the Greyhound sloop, which had arrived some days before.
They occupied one of the evenings, and gave rise to one of those
moments, wherein that ardour and inspiration burst forth from the
Emperor, which I have sometimes witnessed in the Council of State, and
which escape him from time to time even here.
He took large strides as he walked amongst us, becoming gradually more
animated, and only interrupting his discourse by a few moments of
meditation.
“Poor France,” said he, “what will be thy lot! Above all, what is
become of thy glory!... I suppress the rest, which is of very great
length: I _must_ suppress it.”
The papers seeming to say that England desired the dismemberment of
France, but that Russia had opposed it, the Emperor said that he
expected this; that it was natural that Russia should be dissatisfied
at seeing France divided; because she would then have to fear that the
different states of Germany would unite against her; whilst, on the
other hand, the English aristocracy must be desirous of reducing
France to the extremity of weakness, and of establishing despotism
upon her ruins. “I know,” said he, “that this is not your opinion,”
addressing himself to me; “you are an Englishman.” I replied that it
was very difficult to dispute with him; but that it appeared to me
that in this same English aristocracy, it must be allowed, there might
possibly exist heads sufficiently clear, as well as hearts just
enough, to understand that, after having overthrown that which
threatened their existence, it might prove advantageous to raise up
that which was no longer to be dreaded; that circumstances were now
singularly favourable for establishing a new system, which might for
ever unite the two nations in their dearest interests, and render them
necessary to each other, instead of keeping them in perpetual enmity,
&c. The Emperor concluded the conversation by saying that he must be
very perverse, without doubt; but that, with every consideration that
he could give the subject, he could foresee nothing but catastrophes,
massacres, and bloodshed.
ON THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE CABINET OF
BONAPARTE, BY GOLDSMITH.—DETAILS, &C.
15th.—When I was on board the Northumberland, I had heard the _Secret
History of the Cabinet of Bonaparte_ by Goldsmith, spoken of, and, in
my first leisure moments here, I felt an inclination to skim it over;
but I met with great difficulty in obtaining it, as the English
excused themselves from putting it into my hands, for a considerable
time, saying, it was such an abominable libel that they were afraid to
let me have it, and were themselves ashamed of it. I was for a long
time under the necessity of urging them incessantly, repeating that we
were all proof against such civilities; that he who was the object of
them only used to laugh at such things, when chance brought them
before his eyes; and moreover that, if this work was so bad as it was
said to be, it must have failed in its end, and ceased to be hurtful
at all. I asked who this Goldsmith, the author, was. I was told, he
was an Englishman who ... at Paris, and who, upon his return to
England, had endeavoured to avoid ... and at the same time to gain
more money, by loading with insults and imprecations that idol to whom
he had so long offered incense. I at last obtained the work. It must
be confessed that it would be difficult to bring together more
horrible and ridiculous abominations than are presented to us in the
first pages of this book: rapes, poison, incest, assassination, and
all that belongs to them, are heaped by the author upon his hero, and
that from his earliest childhood. It is true that the author appears
to have given himself little concern about bestowing on these
calumnies any air of probability; and that he himself sometimes
demonstrates their impossibility, and sometimes refutes them by
anachronisms, alibis, and contradictions of every kind; mistakes in
the names, persons, and most authentic facts, &c. Thus, for example,
when Napoleon was only about ten or twelve years of age, and was
confined within the bounds of the Military School, he causes him to
commit outrages which would require at least the age of manhood, and a
certain degree of liberty, &c. The author makes him undertake what he
calls the robberies of Italy, at the head of eight thousand
galley-slaves, who had escaped from the bagnio at Toulon. Afterwards,
he makes twenty thousand Poles abandon the Austrian ranks to join the
standard of the French General, &c. The same author makes Napoleon
arrive at Paris in Fructidor, when all the world knows that he never
quitted his army. He makes him treat with the Prince of Condé, and ask
the hand of the Princess Royal as the price of his treachery. I omit a
number of other things equally absurd and impudent. It is evident
that, with respect to the loose and ridiculous anecdotes particularly,
he only collected all he could hear; but from what source has he drawn
his information? The greater part of the anecdotes have certainly had
their rise in certain defamatory and malevolent circles of Paris; but,
as long as they were on that ground, they still preserved the
appearance of some wit, salt, point, colour, some grace in the
relation; whilst the stories in this book have evidently descended
from the drawing-rooms into the streets, and have only been picked up
after rolling in the kennel. The English allowed it to be so coarse
that, except to the most vulgar classes of society, the work was a
poison which carried its own antidote along with it.
It may probably excite astonishment that I did not lay aside such a
production upon reading the first page of it; but its coarseness and
vulgarity are so gross that it cannot excite anger: on the other hand,
there is no disgust which may not be got over in order to amuse the
heavy hours at St. Helena. We consider ourselves fortunate in having
any thing to peruse. “Time,” said the Emperor, a few days ago, “is the
only thing of which we have too much here.” I therefore continued the
work. And besides, I may perhaps be allowed to say that it is not
without some pleasure that I now read the absurd tales, the lies, and
calumnies, which an author pretends to derive, as usual, from the best
authority, relating to objects which I am now so perfectly well
acquainted with, and which have become as familiar to me as the
details of my own life; and it is likewise gratifying to lay down
pages filled with the falsest representations, and exhibiting a
portrait purely fanciful to study truth by the side of the real
personage, in his own conversation, ever full of novelties and grand
ideas.
The Emperor having desired me to come to him this morning after
breakfast, I found him in his morning-gown lying on his sofa. The
conversation led him to ask me what I was reading at this moment. I
replied that it was one of the most notorious and scurrilous libels
published against him, and I quoted to him upon the spot some of its
most abominable stories. He laughed heartily at them, and desired to
see the work. I sent for it, and we went over it together. In passing
from one horrid calumny to another, he exclaimed, “_Jesus!_” crossing
himself repeatedly—a custom which I have perceived to be familiar with
him, in his little friendly circle, whenever he meets with monstrous,
impudent, cynical assertions, which excite his indignation and
surprise without rousing his anger. As we proceeded, the Emperor
analyzed certain facts, and corrected points of which the author might
have known something. Sometimes he shrugged up his shoulders out of
compassion; at others, he laughed heartily; but he never betrayed the
least sign of anger. When he read the article which speaks of his
great debaucheries and excesses, the violences and the outrages which
he is represented to have committed, he observed that the author,
doubtless, wished to make a hero of him in every respect; that he
willingly left him to those who had charged him with impotency; that
it was for these gentlemen to agree among themselves; adding, merrily,
“that every man was not so unlucky as the pleader of Toulouse.” They
were in the wrong, however, he continued, to attack him upon the score
of morals; him, who, as all the world knew, had so singularly improved
them. They could not be ignorant that he was not at all inclined, by
nature, to debauchery; and that, moreover, the multiplicity of his
affairs would never have allowed him time to indulge in it. When he
came to the pages where his mother was described as acting the most
disgusting and abject part at Marseilles, he stopped, and repeated
several times with an accent of indignation, and something approaching
to grief, “Ah! Madame!—Poor Madame!—with her lofty character! if she
were to read this!—Great God!”
We thus passed more than two hours, after which he began to dress.
Doctor O’Meara was introduced to him: it was the usual hour of his
being admitted. “_Dottore_,” said the Emperor to him in Italian,
whilst he was shaving himself, “I have just read one of your fine
London productions against me.” The Doctor’s countenance indicated a
wish to know what it was. I shewed him the book at a distance; it was
himself who had lent it to me: he was disconcerted. “It is a very just
remark,” continued the Emperor, “that it is the truth only which gives
offence. I have not been angry for a moment; but I have frequently
laughed at it.” The Doctor endeavoured to reply, and puzzled himself
with high-flown sentences: it was, he said, an infamous, disgusting
libel; every body knew it to be such; nobody paid any attention to it:
nevertheless, persons might be found who would believe it, from its
not having been replied to. “But how can that be helped?” said the
Emperor. “If it should enter any one’s head to put in print that I had
grown hairy, and walked on all fours, there are people who would
believe it, and would say that God had punished me as he did
Nebuchadnezzar. And what could I do? There is no remedy in such
cases.” The Doctor went away, hardly able to believe the gaiety, the
indifference, the good-nature of which he had just been witness: with
regard to ourselves, we were now accustomed to it.