9th.—In the papers which I was translating to the Emperor, I found the
history of the Spanish General Porlier, one of the most distinguished
chiefs of the famous Guerillas. He had made an attempt to excite the
Spaniards to rise against the tyranny of Ferdinand; but he failed, was
arrested, and hanged.
The Emperor said, “I am not in the least surprised that such an
attempt should have been made in Spain. Those very Spaniards, who
proved themselves my most inveterate enemies when I invaded their
country, and who acquired the highest glory by the resistance they
opposed to me, immediately appealed to me on my return from Elba. They
had, they said, fought against me as their tyrant; but they now came
to implore my aid as their deliverer. They required only a small sum
to emancipate themselves, and to produce in the Peninsula a revolution
similar to mine. Had I conquered at Waterloo, it was my intention
immediately to have assisted the Spaniards. This circumstance
sufficiently explains to me the attempt that has lately been made.
There is little doubt that it will be renewed. Ferdinand, in his
madness, may grasp his sceptre as firmly as he will; but one day or
other it will slip through his fingers like an eel.”
About four o’clock, I presented to the Emperor the Captain of the
Theban, who was to sail next day for Europe, and Colonel Macoy, of the
Ceylon regiment. This brave soldier looked like a mutilated monument;
he had not only lost one of his legs, but his face was disfigured by a
sabre-cut across his forehead, and several other scars. He had been
wounded on the field of battle in Calabria, and made prisoner by
General Parthonaux. The Emperor received him with particular
attention; it was easy to see that they felt a mutual sympathy for
each other. Colonel Macoy had held the rank of Major in the Corsican
regiment, commanded by the new Governor, whom we expected. The Colonel
remarked to some person, that he thought the Emperor was very
ill-treated here; but that he had too high an idea of General Lowe’s
liberality of mind, not to believe that, having accepted the
Government of the Island, he would do every thing in his power to
meliorate our condition.
The Emperor afterwards rode out on horseback, when we again went up
the valley, and did not return until about seven o’clock. The Emperor
then resumed his walk in the garden; the temperature was very mild,
and the moon shone delightfully. The fine weather had completely
returned.
ON EGYPT.—PLAN FOR ALTERING THE COURSE OF
THE NILE.
10th.—The Emperor now begins to make rapid advancement in English;
and, with the assistance of his dictionary, might manage tolerably
without me. He was delighted with the decided progress he had made.
His lesson for to-day was the task of reading in the Encyclopedia
Britannica the article on the Nile, of which he now and then made
memorandums to assist him in his dictations to the Grand Marshal. In
this article the Emperor found a fact related which I had formerly
mentioned to him, but which he had hitherto considered as an absurd
story. The great Albuquerque proposed to the King of Portugal to turn
the course of the Nile previous to its entrance into the valley of
Egypt, so as to make it fall into the Red Sea, which would have
rendered Egypt an impassable desert, and made the Cape of Good Hope
the only channel for the great trade of India. Bruce thinks the
execution of this gigantic idea not entirely impossible; the Emperor
was forcibly struck with it.
About five o’clock the Emperor took an airing in the calash; the drive
was extremely pleasant, and the circumstance of some trees having been
cut down has, by forming several circuitous roads, made our original
space three times as large as before. On our return, we took advantage
of the fineness of the evening to walk for a long time in the garden:
the conversation was most interesting. It turned on various important
subjects, viz. on the variety of religions; on the spirit that had
given them birth; the ridiculous absurdities with which they were
mingled; the excesses by which they had been degraded; the objections
that had been urged against them, &c. The Emperor treated all these
subjects with his usual superiority.