17th.—An English Colonel, arrived from the Cape on his return from the
Isle of France, came in the morning and addressed himself to me, to try
to get an introduction to the Emperor. The Admiral had only allowed his
vessel to remain two or three hours in the road. Having prevailed on the
Emperor to receive him at four o’clock, he assured me that he would
rather miss his vessel than lose such an opportunity. The Emperor was
not very well, he had passed several hours in his bath; at four he
received the Colonel.
The Emperor put many questions to him concerning the Isle of France,
lately ceded to the English; it seems that its prosperity and its
commerce suffer from its change of sovereignty.
After the departure of the Colonel, being alone with the Emperor in the
garden, I told him that his person seemed to have remained very dear to
the inhabitants of the Isle of France; that the Colonel had informed me
that the name of Napoleon was never pronounced there but with
commiseration. It was precisely on the day of a great festival in the
colony, that they learned his departure from France and his arrival at
Plymouth; the theatre was to be particularly attractive: the news having
arrived during the day, in the evening there was not a single colonist,
either white or of colour, in the house: there were only some English,
who were exceedingly confused and irritated at the circumstance. The
Emperor listened to me. “It is quite plain,” said he, after some
moments’ silence; “this proves that the inhabitants of the Isle of
France have continued French. I am the country; they love it: it has
been wounded in my person, they are grieved at it.” I added that the
change of dominion restraining their expressions, they durst not propose
his health publicly; but that the Colonel said they never neglected it
notwithstanding; they drank to _him_, this word had become consecrated
to Napoleon. These details touched him. “Poor Frenchmen!” he said with
emphasis—"Poor People! Poor Nation! I deserved all that, I loved thee!
But thou, thou surely didst not deserve all the ills that press upon
thee! Ah! thou didst merit well that one should devote himself to thee!
But what infamy, what baseness, what degradation, it must be confessed,
I had about me!" And, addressing himself to me, he added: “I do not
speak here of your friends of the Fauxbourg-Saint-Germain; for with
respect to them it is another matter.”
There frequently reached us incidents and expressions which, like those
from the Isle of France, were calculated to excite emotion in the heart.
The Island of Ascension, in our neighbourhood, had always been desert
and abandoned; since we have been here, the English have thought proper
to form an establishment there. The captain who went to take possession
of it told us, on his return, that he was much astonished on landing to
find upon the beach, _May the great Napoleon live for ever!_
In the last papers that reached us, among many good-natured sallies, it
was remarked, in several languages, that _Paris_ would never be happy
till his _Helen_ should be restored to him: these were a few drops of
honey in our cup of wormwood.
HIS INTENTIONS RESPECTING ROME.—HORRIBLE
FOOD.—BRITANNICUS.
18th—19th. The Emperor was on horseback by eight o’clock. He had
abstained from it for a long time: want of space to ride over was the
cause. His health suffers visibly in consequence, and it is astonishing
that the want of exercise is not still more hurtful to him, who was in
the daily habit of taking it to a violent degree. On our return, the
Emperor breakfasted out of doors; he detained us all. After breakfast,
the conversation fell on Herculaneum and Pompeii; the phenomenon and
epoch of their destruction, the time and the accident of their modern
discovery, the monuments and the curiosities, which they have since
afforded us. The Emperor said that if Rome had remained under his
dominion, she would have risen again from her ruins: he intended to have
cleared away all the rubbish; to have restored as much as possible. He
did not doubt that, the same spirit extending through all the vicinity,
it might have been in some degree the same with Herculaneum and Pompeii.
Breakfast being concluded, the Emperor sent my son to bring the volume
of Crevier which contains this event; and he read it to us, as well as
the death and character of Pliny. He retired about noon to take some
rest. Towards six o’clock we took our usual round in the carriage. The
Emperor took with him Mr. and Mrs. Skelton, who were come to visit him.
On our return, the Emperor, driven from the garden by the damp, went to
see General Gourgaud, who was recovering rapidly. After dinner, on
leaving the table and returning to the drawing-room, we could not help
reverting to the meal we had just made;—literally nothing was fit to
eat: the bread bad, the wine not drinkable, the meat disgusting and
unwholesome: we are frequently obliged to send it back again. They
continue in spite of our remonstrances, to send it to us dead, because
by that method they can put us off with such animals as have died
naturally.
The Emperor, shocked at this representation, could not refrain from
saying, with warmth: “No doubt there are people whose physical situation
is still worse; but that circumstance does not deprive us of the right
of giving an opinion on our own condition, or on the infamous manner in
which we are treated. The injustice of the English government, not
content with sending us hither, has extended to the selection of the
individuals to whom our persons and the supply of our wants are
intrusted! For my part, I should suffer less if I were sure that it
would one day be divulged to the whole world in such a way as to brand
with infamy those who are guilty of it. But let us talk of something
else,” said he—“what is the day of the month?” He was told it was the
19th of March: “What!” he exclaimed, “the eve of the 20th of March!” And
a few seconds afterwards: “But let us talk of something else.” He sent
for a volume of Racine, and at first began to read the comedy of the
_Plaideurs_: but, after a scene or two, he turned to _Britannicus_,
which he read to us. When the reading was concluded, and the due tribute
of admiration had been paid, he said that Racine was censured for making
the _dénouement_ of this piece too sudden, that the poisoning of
Britannicus was not expected so early in the play as it ought to have
been. He highly praised the truth of the character of Narcissus,
observing that it was always by wounding the self-love of princes that
their determinations were most influenced.