21st.—I had at length taken possession of the new lodging built for me
instead of my former oven. Upon a soil constantly damp had been placed
a floor eighteen feet long by eleven wide; this was surrounded by a
wall of a foot and half in thickness, composed of loam, and which
might have been kicked down with the foot: at the height of seven feet
it was covered with a roof of boards, defended by a coating of paper
and tar. Such were the construction and the outline of my new palace,
divided into two apartments, one of which contained two beds separated
by a chest of drawers, and afforded room for only a single chair; the
other, at once my saloon and my library, had a single window strongly
fastened up on account of the violence of the winds and rain: on the
right and left of it were two writing-tables, for me and my son; on
the opposite side a couch and two chairs. This was the whole of the
furniture and accommodations: add to this that the aspect of the two
windows is towards a wind constantly blowing from the same quarter,
and generally accompanied with rain, often very heavy, and which,
previously to our taking possession, already forced its way through
the cracks, or soaked through the walls and the roof. I had just
passed my first night in these new quarters; I was indisposed, and my
change of bed had prevented me from sleeping. I was informed about
seven o’clock, that the Emperor was going out on horseback; I replied
that, not feeling myself well, I should endeavour to take some rest;
but only a few minutes had elapsed when a person hastily entered my
apartment, opened my curtains with an air of authority, found fault
with me for being so idle, and pronounced that my ailments must be
shaken off; then, struck with the smell of the paint, the extreme
smallness of the room, and the closeness of the two beds, he decided
that we could no longer be suffered to sleep huddled together in that
way; that it was far too unwholesome; and that I must return to the
bed in the topographical cabinet, which I ought not to abandon through
false delicacy; and that, if I occasioned any inconvenience there, I
should be told of it. It will have been guessed that this person was
the Emperor. I was, of course, soon out of bed, dressed, and well. The
Emperor was, however, already far off: I had to seek him in the park.
After I had overtaken him, our conversation turned on the long
audience that he had given to Governor Wilks on the preceding day. He
dwelt, with much good humour, on the great importance which my work
appeared to have given me in the Governor’s eyes, and the extreme
good-will towards me with which it seemed to have inspired him. “Of
course,” continued he, “it is understood that these sentiments are to
be mutual; the usual regard and fraternity of authors, as long as they
do not criticize each other. And is he aware of your relationship to
the venerable Las Casas?” I answered that I knew nothing of the
matter; but General Gourgaud, who was on the other side of the
Emperor, replied in the affirmative. “And how do you know it
yourself?” said the Emperor to me; “Are you not romancing with us?”
“The following, Sire, are my proofs. Our family had been two hundred
years in France, when Barthelemi de Las Casas flourished in Spain; but
the Spanish historians all describe him as a native of the same city
from which we ourselves came, that is to say, Seville. They all
mention him as of an ancient family, of French origin, and state his
ancestors to have passed into Spain precisely at the time when our
family went there.”—“What, then, you are not Spanish? He was French,
as well as you!”—“Yes, Sire.”—“Let us hear all about it; come, Sir
Castellan, Sir Knight-errant, Sir Paladin,—let us see you in your
glory; unrol your old parchments; come, enjoy yourself.”—“Sire, one of
my ancestors followed Henry Count of Burgundy, who, at the head of a
few crusaders, achieved the conquest of Portugal, about the year 1100.
He was his standard-bearer at the famous battle of Ourique, which
founded the Portugese monarchy. Afterwards we returned to France with
Queen Blanche, when she came to be married to the father of St. Louis.
Sire, this is the whole.”
THE EMPEROR’S READINGS.—MADAME DE SEVIGNÉ.—CHARLES XII.—PAUL AND
VIRGINIA.—VERTOT.—ROLLIN.—VELLY.—GARNIER.
22nd–26th. These days were rendered unpleasant by almost incessant
rain. The Emperor was only twice able to ride out—in the park one
morning, and once in the afternoon through our usual valley, which the
weather had rendered almost impassable. Nor was it more practicable to
make use of the calash; we were therefore compelled to confine
ourselves to a few turns in the garden, and to share in the gloom of
the weather. We worked, however, the more on this account. The Emperor
regularly took excellent and long lessons in English. It is his custom
to pass all the morning in reading; he reads whole works of very
considerable extent regularly through, without feeling in the least
fatigued; he always read some part of them to me before he began his
English lessons.
One of them was the Letters of Madame de Sevigné, the style of which
is so easy, and depicts so faithfully the manners of the time. Reading
the death of Turenne, and the trial of Fouquet, he observed, with
respect to the latter, that Madame de Sevigné seemed to evince too
much warmth, too much earnestness and tenderness, for mere friendship.
Another was _Charles XII._, in reading whose defence of his house, at
Bender, against the Turks, he could not help laughing, and repeating
as they did, “_Ironhead! Ironhead!_” He asked me whether the nature of
this monarch’s death was a settled point. I told him that I had it
from the mouth of Gustavus III. himself, that he had been assassinated
by his followers. Gustavus had examined his body in the vault; the
ball was a pistol-bullet; it had been fired very near, and behind him,
&c.
At the beginning of the Revolution, I was well acquainted with
Gustavus III., at the waters of Aix-la-Chapelle; and, though I was
then very young, I had more than once the honour of conversing with
him: he even promised me a place in his navy, if our affairs in France
should turn out unfavourably.
Another day the Emperor was reading _Paul and Virginia_; he gave full
effect to the touching passages, which were always simple and natural;
those which abounded with the pathos, the abstract and false ideas so
much in fashion when the work was published, were all, in the
Emperor’s opinion, cold, bad, spoiled. He said he had been infatuated
with this book in his youth; but he had little personal regard for its
author; he could never forgive him for having imposed on his
generosity on his return from the Army of Italy. “Bernardin de St.
Pierre’s sensibility and delicacy,” said he, “were little in harmony
with his charming picture of Paul and Virginia. He was a bad man; he
used his wife, Didot the printer’s daughter, very ill; he was always
ready to ask charity, without the least shame. On my return from the
Army of Italy, Bernardin came to see me, and almost immediately began
to tell me of his wants. I, who in my early youth had dreamed of
nothing but Paul and Virginia, and who moreover felt flattered by a
confidence which I imagined was reposed in me alone, and which I
attributed to my great celebrity, hastened to return his visit, and,
unperceived by any one, left on the corner of his chimney-piece a
little rouleau of five-and-twenty louis. But how was I mortified on
seeing every one laugh at the delicacy of my proceeding, and on
learning that such ceremony was entirely superfluous with M.
Bernardin, who made it his trade to beg of all comers, and to receive
from every body. I always retained some little resentment towards him,
for having thus imposed upon me. It was otherwise with my family.
Joseph allowed him a large pension, and Louis was constantly making
him presents.”
But though the Emperor liked Paul and Virginia, he laughed, for very
pity, at the _Studies of Nature_, by the same author. “Bernardin,”
said he, “though versed in the belles lettres, was very little of a
geometrician; this last work was so bad that scientific men disdained
to answer it: Bernardin complained loudly of their not noticing him.
The celebrated mathematician Lagrange, when speaking on this subject,
always said, alluding to the Institute, ‘If Bernardin were one of our
class—if he spoke our language, we would call him to order; but he
belongs to the Academy, and his style is out of our line.’” Bernardin
was complaining as usual, one day, to the First Consul, of the silence
of the learned with respect to his works. Napoleon asked, “Do you
understand the differential method, M. Bernardin?”—“No.”—“Well, go and
learn it, and then you will be able to answer yourself.” Afterwards,
when Emperor, every time he perceived St. Pierre, he used to say to
him, “M. Bernardin, when are we to have any more Paul and Virginias,
or Indian Cottages? You ought to supply us every six months.”
In reading Vertot’s Roman Revolutions, of which in other respects the
Emperor thinks highly, he found the declamations much too diffuse.
This was his constant complaint against every work he took up; he had
in his youth, he said, been much to blame in this respect himself. He
may justly be said to have thoroughly reformed afterwards. He amused
himself with striking out the superfluous phrases in Vertot; and the
result was that, after the erasures, the work appeared much more
energetic and animated. “It would certainly be a most valuable and
successful labour,” said he, “if any man of taste and discernment
would devote his time to reducing the principal works in our language
in this manner. I hardly know any writer except Montesquieu who would
escape those curtailments. He often looked into Rollin, whom he
thought diffuse, and too credulous. Crevier, his continuator, seemed
to Napoleon detestable. He complained of our classical works, and of
the time which our young people are compelled to lose in reading such
bad books. They were composed by rhetoricians and mere professors, he
said; whereas such immortal subjects, the basis of all our knowledge
throughout life, ought to have been written and edited by statesmen
and men of the world.” The Emperor had excellent ideas on this
subject; the want of time alone prevented him from carrying them into
execution.
The Emperor was still more dissatisfied with our French historians; he
could not bear to read any of them. Velly is rich in words, and poor
in meaning: his continuators are still worse. “Our history,” said the
Emperor, “should either be in four or five volumes, or in a hundred.”
He had been acquainted with Garnier, who continued Velly and Villaret;
he lived very near Malmaison. He was an old man of eighty, and lodged
in a small set of apartments on the ground-floor, close to the road.
Struck with the officious attention which this good old man always
evinced whenever the First Consul was passing, the latter enquired who
he was. On learning that it was Garnier, he comprehended his motives.
“He, no doubt, imagined,” said the Emperor pleasantly, “that a First
Consul was his property, as historian. I dare say, however, he was
astonished to find Consuls, where he had been accustomed to see
Kings.” Napoleon told him so, himself, laughing, when he called him
one day, and settled a good pension on him. “From that time,” said the
Emperor, “the poor man, in the warmth of his gratitude, would gladly
have written any thing I pleased, with all his heart.”
A DIFFICULTY OVERCOME.—THE EMPEROR’S PERSONAL DANGER AT EYLAU,
JENA, &C.—RUSSIAN, AUSTRIAN, AND PRUSSIAN TROOPS.—YOUNG
GUIBERT.—CORBINEAU.—MARSHAL LANNES.—BESSIERES.—DUROC.
27th.—About five o’clock the Emperor went out in his calash; the
evening was very fine; we drove rapidly, and the distance to be
traversed is very short. The Emperor made the servants slacken their
pace, in order to prolong the ride. As we returned, the Emperor,
casting his eyes on the camp, from which we were separated only by the
ravine, asked why we could not pass that way, which would double the
length of our ride. He was told that it was impossible; and we
continued our way homeward. But, on a sudden, as if roused by this
word _impossible_, which he had so often said was not French, he
ordered the ground to be reconnoitred. We all got out of the carriage,
which proceeded empty towards the difficult points; we saw it clear
every obstacle, and returned home in triumph, as if we had just
doubled our possessions.
During dinner, and afterwards, the conversation turned on various
deeds of arms. The Grand Marshal said, that what had most struck him
in the life of the Emperor happened at Eylau, when, attended only by
some officers of his staff, a column of four or five thousand Russians
came almost in contact with him. The Emperor was on foot; the Prince
of Neufchatel instantly ordered up the horses: the Emperor gave him a
reproachful look; then sent orders to a battalion of his guard to
advance, which was a good way behind, and standing still. As the
Russians advanced, he repeated several times, “What audacity! what
audacity!” At the sight of the grenadiers of the guard, the Russians
stopped short. It was high time for them to do so, as Bertrand said.
The Emperor had never stirred; all who surrounded him had been much
alarmed.
The Emperor had heard this account without making any observation;
but, when it was finished, he said that one of the finest manœuvres
he remembered was that which he executed at Eckmühl. Unfortunately, he
did not proceed, or give any particulars. “Success in war,” said he,
“depends so much on quicksightedness, and on seizing the right moment,
that the battle of Austerlitz, which was so completely won, would have
been lost if I had attacked six hours sooner. The Russians shewed
themselves on that occasion such excellent troops as they have never
appeared since; the Russian army of Austerlitz would not have lost the
battle of the Moscowa.”
“Marengo,” said the Emperor, “was the battle in which the Austrians
fought best: their troops behaved admirably there; but that was the
grave of their valour. It has never since been seen.
“The Prussians, at Jena, did not make such a resistance as was
expected from their reputation. As to the multitudes of 1814 and 1815,
they were mere rabble compared to the real soldiers of Marengo,
Austerlitz, and Jena.”
The night before the battle of Jena, the Emperor said, he had run the
greatest risk. He might then have disappeared without his fate being
clearly known. He had approached the bivouacs of the enemy, in the
dark, to reconnoitre them; he had only a few officers with him. The
opinion which was then entertained of the Prussian army kept every one
on the alert: it was thought that the Prussians were particularly
given to nocturnal attacks. As the Emperor returned, he was fired at
by the first sentinel of his camp; this was a signal for the whole
line; he had no resource but to throw himself flat on his face until
the mistake was discovered. But his principal apprehension was that
the Prussian line, which was very near to him, would act in the same
manner.
At Marengo the Austrian soldiers had not forgotten the conqueror of
Castiglione, Arcole, and Rivoli; his name had much influence over
them; but they were far from thinking that he was present; they
believed that he was dead: care had been taken to persuade them that
he had perished in Egypt; that the First Consul, whom they now heard
spoken of, was only his brother. This report had gained so much credit
every where that Napoleon was under the necessity of appearing in
public at Milan, in order to refute it.
After these anecdotes, the Emperor proceeded to mention a great number
of his officers and aides-de-camp, distributing praise and censure
amongst them as he went on; he knew them all thoroughly. Two of the
circumstances which had most affected him on the field of battle he
said, were the deaths of young Guibert and General Corbineau. At
Aboukir, a bullet went quite through the breast of the former, without
killing him instantly: the Emperor, after saying a few words to him,
was obliged, by the violence of his feelings, to leave him. The other
was carried away, crushed, annihilated by a cannon-ball, at Eylau,
before the Emperor’s face, whilst he was giving him some orders. The
Emperor spoke also of the last moments of Marshal Lannes, the valiant
Duke of Montebello, so justly called the Orlando of the army, who,
when visited by the Emperor on his death-bed, seemed to forget his own
situation, and to feel only for him, whom he loved above every thing.
The Emperor had the highest esteem for him. “He was for a long time a
mere fighting man,” said he, “but he afterwards became an officer of
the first talents.” Some one then said he should like to know what
line of conduct Lannes would have pursued in these latter times, if he
had lived. “We have learned,” said the Emperor, “not to swear to any
thing. Yet I cannot conceive that it would have been possible for him
to deviate from the path of duty and honour. Besides, it is hard to
imagine that he could have existed. With all his bravery, he would
unquestionably have got killed in some of the last affairs, or at
least sufficiently wounded to be laid up out of the centre and
influence of events. And if he had remained disposable, he was a man
capable of changing the whole face of affairs by his own weight and
influence.”
The Emperor next mentioned Duroc, on whose character and life he dwelt
some time. “Duroc,” concluded he, “had lively, tender, and concealed
passions, little corresponding with the coldness of his manner. It was
long before I knew this, so exact and regular was the performance of
his duty. It was not until my day was entirely closed and finished,
and I was enjoying repose, that Duroc’s work began. Chance, or some
accident, could alone have made me acquainted with his character. He
was a pure and virtuous man, utterly disinterested, and extremely
generous.”
The Emperor said that, on the opening of the campaign at Dresden, he
lost two men who were extremely valuable to him, and in the most
foolish manner in the world: these were Bessieres and Duroc. In
mentioning the circumstance, the Emperor now affected a stoicism which
was visibly not natural to him. When he went to see Duroc, after he
had received his mortal wound, he attempted to hold out some hopes to
him; but Duroc, who did not deceive himself, only replied by begging
him to order opium to be given to him. The Emperor, excessively
affected, could not venture to remain long with him, and tore himself
from this distressing spectacle.
One of the company then reminded the Emperor that, on leaving Duroc,
he went and walked up and down by himself before his tent: no one
durst accost him. But, some essential measures being requisite against
the following day, some one at length ventured to ask him where the
battery of the guard was to be placed. “Ask me nothing till
to-morrow,” was the Emperor’s answer.
At this recollection, the Emperor, with a marked effort, began
abruptly to talk of something else.
Duroc was one of those persons whose value is never known till they
are lost: this was, after his death, the common expression of the
Court and City, and the unanimous sentiment every where.
He was a native of Nancy, in the department of La Meurthe. The origin
of his fortune has been related above. Napoleon found him in the train
at the siege of Toulon, and immediately interested himself for him.
His attachment to him increased every day, and it might be said that
they never more separated. I have elsewhere mentioned that I have
heard the Emperor say that, throughout his career, Duroc was the only
person who had possessed his unreserved confidence, and to whom he
could freely unburden his mind. Duroc was not a brilliant character;
but he possessed an excellent judgment, and he rendered essential
services, which, owing to their nature as well as to his reserve, were
little heard of.
Duroc loved the Emperor for himself: it was rather to the individual,
personally, that he was attached, than to the monarch. In being made
the confidant of his prince’s feeling, he had acquired the art, and
perhaps the right, of mitigating and directing them. How often has he
whispered to people struck with consternation by the anger of the
Emperor:—“Let him have his way: he speaks from his feelings, not
according to his judgment; nor as he will act to-morrow.” What a
servant! what a friend! what a treasure! How many storms he has
soothed! how many rash orders, given in the moment of irritation, has
he omitted to execute, knowing that his master would thank him the
next day for the omission! The Emperor had accommodated himself to
this sort of tacit arrangement; and on that account gave way the more
readily to those violent bursts of temper, which relieve by the vent
they afford to the passions.
Duroc died in the most deplorable manner, at a very critical moment;
his death was another of the fatalities of Napoleon’s career.
The day after the battle of Wurzen, towards evening, the skirmish of
Reichenbach had just ended, the firing had ceased. Duroc was on the
top of an eminence, apart from the troops, conversing with General
Kirchner, and observing the retreat of the last ranks of the enemy. A
piece was levelled at this glittering group, and the fatal ball killed
both the generals.[30]
Footnote 30:
General Kirchner was a very distinguished officer of engineers; he
was brother-in-law to Marshal Lannes, who had chosen him on account
of his courage and capacity.
Duroc had more influence over the Emperor’s resolutions than is
imagined. His death was probably, in this respect, a national
calamity. There is reason to think that, if he had survived, the
armistice of Dresden, which ruined us, would not have taken place; we
should have pushed on to the Oder, and beyond it. The enemy would then
have instantly acceded to peace, and we should have escaped their
machinations, their intrigues, and, above all, the base and atrocious
perfidy of the Austrian Cabinet, which has ended in our destruction.
At a subsequent period Duroc might still have exerted an influence
over other great events, and probably changed the face of affairs.
Finally, even at a later conjuncture, at the time of Napoleon’s fall,
he would never have separated his destiny from that of the Emperor: he
would have been with us at St. Helena; and this aid alone would have
sufficed to counterbalance all the horrible vexations with which
Napoleon was studiously oppressed.
Bessieres, of the department of the Lot, was thrown by the Revolution
into the career of arms. He commenced as a private soldier in the
constitutional guard of Louis XVI. Afterwards, having attained the
rank of captain of chasseurs, he attracted the attention of the
Commander-in-chief of the army of Italy by acts of extraordinary
personal bravery; and, when the general formed his corps of guides, he
chose Bessieres to take the command of them. Such was the beginning of
Bessieres, and the origin of his fortunes. From that instant we find
him always at the head of the Consular or Imperial guard, in charges
of the reserve, deciding the battle, or profiting by the victory. His
name is gloriously connected with all our great battles.
Bessieres rose with the man who had distinguished him, and shared
abundantly in the favours which the Emperor distributed. He was made a
marshal of the Empire, Duke of Istria, colonel of the cavalry of the
guard, &c.
His qualities developing themselves as he rose, proved him always
equal to his fortune. Bessieres was always kind, humane, and generous,
of antique loyalty and integrity, and, whether considered as a citizen
or as a soldier, a honest worthy man. He often made use of the high
favour in which he stood to do extraordinary services and acts of
kindness even to people of very different ways of thinking from his. I
know some who, if they have a spark of gratitude in them, will confirm
my assertion, and can bear testimony to his noble elevated sentiments.
Bessieres was adored by the Guards, in the midst of whom he passed his
life. At the battle of Wagram a ball struck him off his horse, without
doing him any farther injury. A mournful cry arose from the whole
battalion; upon which Napoleon remarked, the next time he saw him:
“Bessieres, the ball which struck you drew tears from all my Guard.
Return thanks to it; it ought to be very dear to you.”
He was less fortunate at the opening of the campaign of Saxony. On the
very eve of the battle of Lützen, a trifling engagement occurred, in
which, having advanced into the very midst of the skirmishers, he was
shot dead on the spot by a musquet-ball in the breast. Thus, after
living like Bayard, he died like Turenne.
I had conversed with him a little before this fatal event. Chance had
brought us together by ourselves in a private box at the theatre.
After talking of public affairs which deeply interested him, for he
idolized his country, his last words, as he left me, were, that he was
to set out for the army that night, and hoped we should meet again.
“But, at the present crisis,” said he, “with our young soldiers, we
leaders must not spare ourselves.” Alas! he was never to return.
Bessieres was sincerely attached to the Emperor; he almost worshipped
him; he, like Duroc, would certainly never have abandoned his person
or his fortunes. And one would really think that Fate, which proved so
decidedly hostile to Napoleon in his latter days, had resolved to
deprive him of the sweetest consolation, by thus removing two such
valuable friends; and at the same time to prevent these faithful
servants from acquiring the very highest claim to glory, that of
gratitude to the unfortunate.
The Emperor caused the remains of these two men whom he so much
esteemed, and by whom he knew himself to be beloved in return, to be
carried to the _Invalides_ at Paris. He intended extraordinary honours
for them, of which subsequent events deprived them. But History, whose
pages are far more imperishable than marble or bronze, has consecrated
them, and secured them for ever from oblivion.[31]
Footnote 31:
The following is extracted from the Campaign of Saxony in 1813, by
Baron Odeleben, an eye-witness of the circumstance; under date of
the 10th of August, at the time of the resumption of hostilities,
two or three months after the death of Duroc.
“During the march from Reichenbach to Gorlitz, Napoleon stopped at
Makersdorf, and shewed the King of Naples the place where Duroc
fell. He summoned to his presence the proprietor of the little farm
on which the Grand Marshal died, and assigned to him the sum of
20,000 francs; 4000 of which were for a monument in honour of the
deceased, and 16,000 for the proprietor of the house and his wife.
The donation was consummated in the evening, in the presence of the
rector and the judge of Makersdorf: the money was counted out before
them, and they were charged to get the monument erected.”
STUDY OF ENGLISH.—REFLECTIONS.—RIDE.—MIRED
HORSE.
31st.—Our days passed, as it may be supposed, in an excessively stupid
monotony. _Ennui_, reflection, and melancholy, were our formidable
enemies; occupation our great and only refuge. The Emperor followed
his pursuits with great regularity. English was become an affair of
importance to him. It was now nearly a fortnight since he took his
first lesson, and from that moment he had devoted some hours every
day, beginning at noon, to that study, sometimes with truly admirable
ardour, sometimes with visible disgust; an alternative which kept me
in the greatest anxiety. I considered success as of the utmost
importance: every day I dreaded seeing him abandon the ground gained
on the day preceding; and consequently being regarded as having
wearied him with the most tedious labour, without having produced the
fortunate result that I had promised myself. On the other hand, I was
also daily spurred on by the consciousness that I was approaching the
goal at which I aimed. The attainment of the English language was a
real and serious conquest to the Emperor. Formerly, he said, it had
cost him a hundred thousand crowns a year, merely for translations;
and how did he know whether he had them exact—whether they were
faithful? Now that we were imprisoned, as it were, in the midst of
this language, surrounded by its productions, all the great changes
and questions which the Emperor had given rise to, on the continent,
had been taken up by the English on the opposite side; and in their
works presented so many new faces to him, to which he had hitherto
been a stranger.
It may be added that French books were scarce with us; that the
Emperor knew them all, and had read them even to satiety; whilst we
could easily procure a multitude of English works altogether new to
him. Besides, to learn the language of a foreigner, always
prepossesses him in our favour; it is a satisfaction to one’s self; it
facilitates intercourse, and forms in a certain degree the
commencement of a sort of connection between the parties. However this
may be, I began to perceive the limits of our difficulties; I
anticipated the moment when the Emperor would have got through all the
inevitable disagreeables incident to beginners. But let any one form
an idea, if possible, of what the scholastic study of conjugations,
declensions, and articles must have been to him. It could never have
been accomplished without great courage on the scholar’s side and some
degree of artifice on the part of the master. He often asked me
whether he did not deserve the ferula, of which he now comprehended
the vast utility in schools; he declared, jestingly, that he should
have made much greater progress himself, had he stood in fear of
correction. He complained of not having improved; but, in reality, the
progress he had made would have been extraordinary in any one.
The more grand, rapid, and comprehensive the mind is, the less it is
capable of dwelling on regular minute details. The Emperor, who
discovered wonderful facility in apprehending all that regarded the
philosophy of the language, evinced very little capacity for retaining
its material mechanism. He had a quick understanding and a very bad
memory; this vexed him much; he conceived that he did not get on.
Whenever I could subject the matters in question to any regular law or
analogy, they were classed and comprehended in an instant; the scholar
even preceded the master in his applications and deductions; but as to
learning by heart, and retaining the gross elements of the language,
it was a most difficult affair. He was constantly confounding one
thing with another; and it would have been thought too fastidious to
require too scrupulous a regularity at first. Another difficulty was
that, with the same letters, the same vowels, as ours, a totally
different pronunciation is required; the scholar would allow of none
but ours; and the master would have multiplied the difficulties and
disagreeables tenfold, had he required any better. Besides, the
scholar, even in his own language, was incorrigibly addicted to
maiming proper names and foreign words; he pronounced them quite at
his own discretion, and when once they had passed his lips, they
always remained the same in spite of every thing, because he had thus
got them, once for all, lodged, as it were in his head. The same thing
happened with respect to most of our English words: and the master
found it best to have the prudence and patience to let it pass;
leaving it to time to rectify by degrees, if it should ever be
possible, all these defects. From these concurring circumstances
actually sprang a new language. It was understood by me alone, it is
true; but it procured the Emperor the pleasure of reading English, and
he could, in the strictest sense, make himself understood by writing
in that language. This was a great deal; it was every thing.
In the mean time, the Emperor regularly continued his Campaigns of
Egypt with the Grand Marshal. My Campaign of Italy had long been
finished; we were always touching and retouching it, with respect to
its typographical form, the arrangement of the chapters, the division
of the paragraphs, &c.
From time to time he also dictated separate parts to Messrs. Gourgaud
and Montholon. To all this work he added a very little exercise: a
walk now and then, sometimes a ride in the calash, scarcely ever on
horseback. On the 30th, however, he chose to return to our Valley of
Silence, which we had long deserted. We were near the middle of the
vale; the passage was stopped up with dead bushes, and a kind of bar
to keep out cattle. The servant (the faithful Aly) dismounted, as
usual, to clear the way for us. We passed on: but, whilst the servant
was engaged in assisting us, his horse had strayed from him, and, when
he attempted to catch him, ran away. A great quantity of rain had
fallen, and the horse sank into a quagmire, similar to that in which
the Emperor, a few days after our arrival at Longwood, had stuck so
tenaciously as to make it doubtful whether he would not remain in it.
The servant ran after us to say that he must remain for the purpose of
disengaging his horse. We were in a very difficult narrow road, riding
one by one. It was not until some time after that the Emperor heard us
mention to one another the accident of the servant. He found great
fault because we had not waited for him, and desired the Grand Marshal
and General Gourgaud to return for him. The Emperor dismounted to wait
for them, and ascended a little elevation, on which he looked like a
figure on a pedestal in the midst of ruins. He had the bridle of his
horse passed round his arm, and began to whistle an air; mute nature
echoed the strains, but only to the barren desert. “Yet,” thought I,
“a short time ago, how many sceptres he wielded! how many crowns
belonged to him! how many kings were at his feet! It is true,” said I,
“that in the eyes of those who approach him, who daily see and hear
him, he is still greater than ever! This is the sentiment, the opinion
of all about him. We serve him with no less ardour; we love him with
greater affection than ever.”
But now the Grand Marshal and Gourgaud arrived; they assisted the
Emperor to mount again, and we proceeded. These gentlemen acknowledged
that without their assistance the horse could never have been saved;
the united efforts of all three had barely sufficed to disengage him.
A considerable time afterwards, turning an elbow of the road, the
Emperor observed that the servant had not followed, and said they
ought to have remained till they had found he was in a condition to
come on. They thought that he had staid behind to clean his horse a
little. In the course of our ride, at several other turnings, the
Emperor repeated the same observation. We arrived at the Grand
Marshal’s, went in, and rested there a few minutes; as we came out,
the Emperor asked whether the servant had passed on; no one had seen
him. When we arrived at Longwood, his first question was whether the
man had returned. He had been at home some time, having returned by a
different road. I may perhaps have dwelt somewhat too much on this
trifling circumstance; but I did so because it appeared to me
perfectly characteristic. In this domestic solicitude, the reader will
find it difficult to recognise the insensible, obdurate, wicked, cruel
monster—the tyrant, of whom he has so often and so long been told.
THE EMPEROR SPEAKS IN PRAISE OF ST. HELENA.—SCANTY
RESOURCES OF THE ISLAND.
February 1.—The happiest and wisest philosophy is that which sometimes
enables us to view the least unfavourable side of the most
disagreeable things. The Emperor, who was, doubtless at the moment,
under the influence of this happy feeling, observed, as we were
walking with him in the garden, that, after all, as a place of exile,
perhaps St. Helena was the best that could be. In high latitudes we
should have suffered greatly from cold, and, in other tropical
islands, we should have dragged out a miserable existence under the
scorching rays of the sun. “This rock,” continued he, “is wild and
barren, no doubt; the climate is monotonous and unwholesome; but the
temperature, it must be confessed, is mild and agreeable.”
He afterwards asked me, in the course of conversation, which would
have been preferable, England or America, in case we had been free to
follow our own inclinations. I replied that, had the Emperor wished to
spend his days in philosophic retirement, far from the tumult of the
world, he should have chosen America; but, if he felt any interest, or
entertained any after-thought with regard to public affairs, he should
have preferred England. And, not willing to be behindhand in giving an
additional touch to the flattering picture which the Emperor had drawn
of our miserable rock, I even ventured to say that there might,
perhaps, be circumstances under which St. Helena would not be found
the worst possible asylum. We might here be under shelter, while the
tempest was howling in other parts of the world; and we were placed
beyond the reach of conflicting passions, circumstances every way
favourable to the chance of a happier futurity. These observations
arose out of my wish to represent things on their fairest side; I
extended the horizon to the utmost stretch of my imagination.
Meanwhile, in order to afford a correct idea of our place of exile and
the scantiness of its resources, it is only necessary to observe that
we were this day informed it would be requisite to economise various
articles of our daily consumption, and, perhaps, even to make a
temporary sacrifice of some. We were told that the store of coffee was
rapidly diminishing, and that it might soon be entirely exhausted. For
a considerable time we have denied ourselves the use of white sugar;
there was but very little and that very bad, which was reserved
exclusively for the Emperor’s use; and there is now every prospect of
this little supply being exhausted before more can be obtained. It is
the same with various other necessaries. Our island is like a ship at
sea; our stores are speedily exhausted, if the voyage be prolonged, or
if we have more mouths to feed than we have the means of supplying.
Our arrival has produced a scarcity at St. Helena, particularly as
trading ships are not now suffered to approach the island; we might be
tempted to believe that they avoid it as a fatal rock, were we not
aware that the English cruiser carefully keeps them at bay. But, of
all the privations with which we are threatened, that which most
surprises us, and which is most of all vexatious, is the want of
writing paper. We are informed that, during our three months residence
here, we have consumed all the paper in the island; which proves
either that St. Helena is in general very scantily supplied with that
article, or that we have used a most unreasonable quantity. The
inmates of Longwood must have consumed six or eight times as much as
all the rest of the colony together.
In addition to this, our physical and moral privations must be taken
into account; it must be recollected that we are not in the full
enjoyment of even the few resources which the island affords, and of
which arbitrary feeling and caprice in part deprive us; for we are not
permitted to regale our eyes with the sight of the grass and foliage,
in places at a certain distance from Longwood. The Admiral had
promised that the Emperor should be free to ride over the whole of the
island, and that he would make arrangements with respect to his guard,
so as to relieve him from all annoyance. It has already been seen how,
on our second attempt to avail ourselves of it, the Admiral broke this
kind of engagement; and by his orders an officer insisted on
accompanying the Emperor in his rides. The Emperor consequently
renounced the idea of taking any excursion whatever, and we now remain
cut off from all communication with mankind.
With respect to our physical existence, our situation is most
miserable, either through unavoidable circumstances or mismanagement.
Scarcely any of the provisions are eatable. The wine is execrable; the
oil unfit for use; the coffee and sugar almost exhausted, and, as I
have already observed, we have nearly bred a famine in the island. Of
course, we can endure all these privations, and might contrive to
exist under many more. But, when it is asserted that we are treated in
a style of magnificence, when it is declared that we are very well
off, we are induced to unfold our real situation, and to shew that we
are destitute of every comfort. And, lest our silence hereafter should
lead to the inference that we are happy, let it be understood that our
moral strength may enable us to endure miseries which language would
be inadequate to express.
MY SON’S INDISPOSITION.—THE EMPEROR GIVES
ME A HORSE.
2nd.—My son having been, for some time past, troubled with a pain in
his chest, accompanied by violent palpitation of the heart, I called
in three surgeons, and they ordered him to be bled.—Bleeding is at
present the favourite remedy with the English; it is their universal
panacea. They employ it in all disorders, and sometimes where there is
no disorder at all. They laughed at the astonishment we evinced at a
treatment which was altogether new to us.
About the middle of the day we took a ride in the calash. On our
return home, the Emperor wished to see a horse that had just been
purchased for him: he thought him very handsome and well made. He
tried him, declared that he liked him uncommonly, and then, with the
most captivating good-nature, made me a present of him. However, I
could not ride him: he proved vicious, and he was transferred to
General Gourgaud, who is a much better horseman than I am.