and I made this observation to him; adding, that the step he had taken
was quite sufficient to induce me to resign myself with entire
confidence to whatever he might wish to do with me; and, as his
politeness had led to a prolongation of the conversation between us,
which seemed greatly to excite his curiosity, he soon told me that he
was going to put a question to me which was indiscreet, no doubt, and
perhaps improper; but that he could not resist his desire of being
informed whether it was true that I had left Napoleon because he was
so much soured by misfortune that it was impossible to live with him;
for the English ministerial papers had circulated a thousand reports
respecting me, one more ridiculous than the other. I replied to him
with a smile, “Sir, if I had any thing to say against Napoleon, if I
had the least subject of complaint to adduce against him, be assured
that you would not have to guard me at this moment, and that I should
be far from being ill treated any where.” Upon which he exclaimed in
his turn, striking his forehead, that such was the answer which ought
to have suggested itself to his mind. His attentions towards me after
this explanation became still more marked; and, having learnt from me
that it was my intention to go to Brussels, he imposed no other
condition to the uncontrolled liberty which he left me than that of
not taking my departure without informing him of it, assuring me at
the same time that a determination respecting me could not be delayed
twenty-four hours longer, as a courier had been despatched to the
Governor of the province, whose return would, in all probability, set
me entirely at liberty.
I took advantage of the delay, to which I was thus obliged to submit,
to write to the Ministers of the Police of France and of the
Netherlands, respectively, concerning the situation in which I was
henceforth to be placed.
To the French Minister I wrote in the following manner.
“Sir,—I think it right, on landing on the Continent, to inform your
Excellency of the circumstances in which I am placed; and I trust that
you will approve the motives that induce me to do so.
“A year ago, I was suddenly removed from Longwood, and have been,
since that period, carried from shore to shore like a captive. On
entering the Thames, I received an order to depart instantly to the
Continent, having no other choice allowed to me but to proceed either
to Calais or Ostend.
“A feeling of delicacy and prudence has prompted me to prefer Ostend.
“France is, of all countries, that where my appearance is most likely
to be watched, and I have wished to spare the department over which
you preside, and myself, the inconveniencies attending such a measure.
This double consideration has induced me to adopt the cruel resolution
of self-banishment. I have also been actuated by another motive, viz.
the hope of possessing in this country greater facilities (setting
aside all political views, influenced only by private and personal
feelings of affection), for procuring through the legal channel
allowed by the English regulations, and even under the cover of the
British Ministers, some alleviation and innocent consolations for the
martyrs at Longwood. In France, this pious and sacred care might have
been misinterpreted, and might consequently have given rise to
impediments.
“I hope that a statement so open and candid will remove all
unfavourable impressions that might have been suggested to your mind
by the circumstances of my case; and, in furtherance of that object, I
now take the liberty of enclosing under cover to you, an unsealed
letter for my wife, in whose favour I request the interposition of
your kindness, in any thing relating to your functions, that may
facilitate the means of her coming to share my voluntary exile.
Receive,” &c.
To the Minister of the Netherlands I wrote, that it is usual to
endeavour to escape from being rendered subject to superintendence;
but that I, on the contrary, came to request to be placed under his. I
repeated to him, as in the preceding letter, what had happened to me
in the Thames, and that I had been thrown on the Continent without any
motive having been adduced, or any cause assigned for this measure.
I informed him that I had just written to the Minister of the Police
of France, to lay before him the motives which induced me to expose
myself to voluntary exile. I represented to him that I was very ill,
and that the state of my son’s health was most alarming; that I had
just made a passage of a hundred days’ duration in a very small
vessel—that I was entirely ignorant as to whether my wife and family
were still in existence—that I was totally in the dark respecting the
state of my domestic concerns; and, taking all these circumstances
into consideration, I entreated him to allow me to reside for a few
days at Brussels, to breathe and look around me, to send for my wife,
and have the benefit of the attendance of a physician; adding that,
perhaps, in the mean time, the British Ministers, whose harsh and
precipitate conduct towards me must necessarily have been founded on
some error, would consent to allow me to be present, agreeably to my
request, at the examination of the papers which they had taken from
me.
In conclusion, I assured him that I entertained no political views or
feelings, that my sentiments were solely sentiments of individual
affection and personal attachment; that such sentiments were natural
and honourable, and that my open avowal of them must afford a perfect
security that they were not calculated to give any cause of
uneasiness.
I owe it to justice and to gratitude to state that my letter to the
Minister of the Police of France had at least the effect of obtaining
from him, when occasion offered, all that might be expected from a
gentleman.
Such was not the case with respect to the Minister of the Netherlands;
the only answer I received from him was the arrival of guards to
secure my person. Orders were sent in every direction to find me out
again, for they thought I was lost. As I had been told by the person
intrusted with the superintendence over me, the permission from the
Governor to continue my journey soon arrived, and I had immediately
taken advantage of it; choosing, on account of the weak state of my
health, the easy, but obscure and slow, conveyance of the barges and
canals. This had not been thought of; and they were seeking for me at
a great distance from Ostend, whilst I was still almost at its gates.
My unsuspecting confidence and security had baffled all their
calculations; they had not yet got the exact description of my person,
and were consequently much embarrassed to know me; however, I myself
soon put an end to their perplexity by throwing myself up, as the
saying is, into the wolf’s jaws.
My first step, after my arrival at Brussels, which I reached late in
the evening, after a journey of three days, was to send to inform the
police of my being in that city, and ask what had been the
determination of the Minister relative to my case, in consequence of
the letter which I had addressed to him from Ostend. The generous
answer to my innocent confidence was, to send instantly to surround
the inn where I was, and they waited with impatience the first dawn of
day to signify to me that I must leave the kingdom of the Netherlands
without the least delay. I was very much indisposed, and had some
degree of fever about me; nevertheless, I vainly appealed to their
compassion, and asked to be allowed to stay one day longer.
Very serious obstacles must certainly have existed to my being
permitted to sojourn in Brussels, or a predisposition to treat me with
cruelty, for I was not allowed even one hour. They placed me in a
carriage between a police officer and a gendarme, and turned me on the
high road. These people, who saw my condition, took compassion upon
me, and after a few hours’ journey consented to stop, in order that I
might procure a little rest and some requisite medical attendance; but
under the express condition that I should resume my journey at an
early hour on the following morning, in charge of the guards appointed
to succeed them; a system that was strictly acted upon and repeated in
every town, notwithstanding the repeated observations and the
testimony of all medical men. This cruel treatment compelled me to
complain to the French Ambassador at the court of the Netherlands, who
I thought would warmly resist such a proceeding; for it was an insult
to his public character to treat in this manner, without any just
motive, and in direct violation of the laws, a Frenchman who was
placed under his protection. I therefore informed him of the vexatious
and inhuman conduct which was then exercised towards me.
I told him “that, upon landing at Ostend I had written to the French
Minister of Police, to state to him my motives for remaining out of
France; that I had also written at the same time to the Minister of
the Police of the Netherlands, requesting he would allow me to sojourn
a short time in Brussels, and that, having reached that city at a late
hour, without having been guarded or placed under any superintendence,
I had hastened to inform his Excellency of my arrival; but that I had
been suddenly awaked before day-light on the following morning, and
surrounded by four police officers and two gendarmes, who signified to
me that I must instantly depart, notwithstanding the very precarious
state of my health; that I had in vain demanded a physician to verify
my case; that I had been told that I should be allowed one for form’s
sake, but that I must depart, whatever might be his opinion; that, in
fact, I had been removed to Louvain like a malefactor, and in the last
stage of sickness, under the escort of a gendarme and of a police
officer; that, having arrived in this town during the night, suffering
from increased illness, covered with blisters, and in a state of
fever, I had asked to be allowed to stop the following day; that the
Burgomaster had been inhuman enough to refuse my request, in spite of
two or three very strong medical certificates; that, having demanded
that the physician at least might accompany me in the carriage,
instead of the gendarme, who could follow on horseback, this favour
had also been refused me; that all that could be allowed, they said,
was that the physician should accompany me in another carriage. This
was, no doubt, a piece of irony.”
I added, “that I was quite certain such treatment could not proceed
from him who alone, however, on this occasion, would have a right to
exercise any influence over my fate; that I was too well acquainted
with the sentiments of the nation to which we belonged to suppose for
a moment that his instructions could decree the proscription of a
person towards whom there neither was, nor could be, any law or motive
for such a proceeding; that the ill usage I experienced could
therefore only proceed from the authorities of this country, where
however, in common justice, I ought not to be considered in any other
light than as a traveller; that as such I would demand of them what
was my crime, and what were their rights over my person.” And I
concluded by placing my interests under his care, as his situation
made him their natural protector; and, with a view to call his
attention more particularly to me, I gave him news of Madame Bertrand,
his wife’s sister, which I had received just as I was leaving Dover,
and I offered myself, in case Madame de Latour Dupin wished to say any
thing to her sister, to whom it would afford the greatest pleasure, to
take charge of it, as I proposed to write to Madame Bertrand regularly
once a month, by the channel which the English regulations allowed,
viz., under the very cover of Ministers.
His Excellency made no reply to this letter; his endeavours, no doubt,
proved unavailing; the impulse, the very orders, perhaps, emanated at
this time from the other side of the water.
I continued in this manner, without intermission, transferred from
town to town, from one police officer to another, from gendarme to
gendarme, across the whole kingdom of the Netherlands; and when I
occasionally asked, in the height of my sufferings, what could be the
motive for such harsh treatment, I was simply told, in reply, that
such were the orders that had been given; and, in fact, this was all
that appeared to be known on the subject. Arrived at Aix-la-Chapelle,
on the Prussian territory, I was there exchanged by the Agents of the
Netherlands for a receipt, as might have been done with a bale of
goods; and the Prussians, in their turn, hurried me along with equal
rapidity from place to place, from officer to officer, and from one
gendarme to another; and when I enquired of them also the motive of
all this, they candidly answered that they did not know; but that I
had been thrown into their country, and that they were going to throw
me out of it. If I asked to stop, they politely replied that they
would not keep me upon their territory; and some friends, for it will
hereafter be seen that I found friends every where, whispered in my
ear that I ought to thank God for it, and above all things, to take
immediate advantage of this piece of good fortune, as some exiled
Frenchmen had lately been forced to the shores of the Baltic, and shut
up in fortresses. I then declared that I desired to go to Frankfort,
an expression which appeared to give pleasure to my hosts, the
Prussians, as they said it would no longer concern them. After what I
had just learnt, I was equally rejoiced at this upon my own account.
After having described, but very feebly, all the savage brutality that
had just been exercised upon me, all the vexations and sufferings that
I had endured, it would be unjust and ungrateful in me, and I should
be depriving myself of the most gratifying sensation, were I to omit
mentioning the kind of compensation which I found at every step of my
journey.
My story had made a great noise; it had spread in every direction; it
preceded me; the public papers had laid hold of it. It was known whom
I had served, to whom I had wished to devote my care, for whom I
suffered; and all endeavoured to mark their sense of my conduct. All
classes were eager to evince every mark of attention and sympathy
towards me; and open demonstrations, or secret offers, awaited me
every where. It was then that those words of Napoleon’s occurred to my
mind, which I have, by the way, had many subsequent occasions to recal
to my recollection: “My dear friends, when you shall have returned to
Europe, you will find that, from this spot, I still bestow crowns.”
And can there be a nobler, a more precious one, than the esteem, the
affection, the sympathy, of those even who know you not, and have
never seen you! What hand, however powerful, can bestow any thing of
equal value! These feelings manifested themselves at inns, upon the
high-roads, every where. Postboys, gendarmes, all that I met with on
my journey, addressed me with a kind of pride and exultation. One
said, “I belonged to the Imperial Guard;” another, “I was a French
gendarme;” a third, “I have been a soldier under Napoleon.” These
recollections, and the feelings of good-will to which they gave rise,
appeared in all classes and conditions. Twice, in Belgium, offers were
made to rescue me, every thing having been, I was informed, carefully
prepared beforehand; the same offer had already been made to me at the
Cape, by an American Captain; and a similar proposal was made to me at
a later period, on the part of some Englishmen, to whom I was quite
unknown, and who had resolved to come from London in order to carry me
off from Frankfort, where they thought me in a much worse situation
than I really was. But I invariably replied—“What end would it answer?
Why should I injure so noble a cause?”
The very agents of authority felt an anxiety concerning my fate, and a
kind of interest for me. One of them, although appointed to watch me,
offered to take charge of any paper that I would venture to intrust to
his care; I availed myself of his offer, as I did not see any
inconvenience in so doing, even if he had some bad intention, as he
might possibly have, and I addressed, to a person of high rank in
England, a letter of half a dozen lines, describing with warmth the
ill usage which the British Ministers had made me suffer for the last
twelve months, and requesting that he would publish my statement, if
he saw no objection to it. I enclosed, with the same view, that part
of the Emperor’s letter which I had been allowed to copy, adding that
I should have continued to to keep it to myself, had not the
ridiculous and insulting reports, which were inserted in the
newspapers, rendered it imperative upon me to make it public. I,
however, left to his discretion to decide what should be done.
How great was my surprise to see the whole published in the Belgic
papers two days afterwards! I was extremely mortified at it; it was
not at all consistent with my disposition to wish to make so much
noise. I was, above all, especially hurt that the person in England to
whom I addressed my letter, and to whom I was unknown, should receive
it only through the public press: this mode of proceeding was also
totally inconsistent with my manners. I was at a loss to conceive how
the thing could have happened. I have since learnt that my confident,
in the warmth of his zeal, had consulted with two or three persons of
the same way of thinking, and that, the papers having been read in
their little council, they had decided that, instead of losing time in
sending them to England, where, perhaps, no use would be made of them,
it would be better to publish them instantly upon the spot, where
indeed they created a very lively sensation. Notwithstanding the
trouble that I then suffered from them, they proved eventually of the
most signal advantage to me.
In short, there would be no end to it were I to mention the affecting
marks of attention that were shewn to me; the offers of all kinds, in
money, clothes, &c.; even people of the very lowest class were eager
to tender their mite. One of them, forcing his way into my apartment,
from which he was pulled back by the gendarmes, cried out to me that
he had only two coats; that he saw, by my size, that the second would
not fit me; that he was therefore going to sell it, and would throw me
the amount through the window. What sufferings, what torments would
not be effaced by the sensations which such acts must produce!
I was, however, so ill, on arriving at Cologne, that it was found
necessary to allow me to stop twenty-four hours in that town. This
increase of suffering turned out a fortunate circumstance for me. I
was in a gentle sleep when, on a sudden, the _valet de place_ rushed
into my apartment, with demonstrations of that joy which the bearer of
good news is sure to occasion and even to experience, and announced to
me Madame de Las Cases. I had not yet been able to ascertain whether
she was alive, and therefore thought that I had misunderstood the man,
or was dreaming; but a moment afterwards, the door was thrown open—it
was she herself!
RESIDENCE IN GERMANY.
FROM THE TIME OF MY ARRIVAL AT FRANKFORT TO THE
PERIOD OF MY RESIDENCE AT OFFENBACH.
-------
A Space of Fifteen Months.
_Residence at Frankfort.—My endeavours to alleviate the Situation of
the Inhabitants of Longwood.—Letters to Maria Louisa and to the
Allied Sovereigns.—My Letter to Lord Bathurst.—Petition to the
British Parliament.—Transactions with several Members of the
Emperor’s Family.—Measures to supply the Wants of Longwood;
Details, &c.—Journey to Baden.—Residence at Manheim; Motives for
this choice.—Congress at Aix-la-Chapelle; my Efforts;
Details.—Letter from Madame Mère, &c.—Note to the Sovereigns.—New
Official Documents received from Longwood, and addressed to the
Sovereigns; new Efforts; &c.—State of Public Opinion.—Arrival of
the brig Musquito.—Fresh Vexation; the Minister of Baden orders me
to leave Manheim.—I retire to Offenbach._
The band of captives arrived at last at Frankfort, after having, for
fifteen days, undergone persecutions almost unexampled in civilized
countries, and in a state of tranquillity. A Prussian officer, whose
duty, he politely said, was not so much to guard me as to see that I
was well treated, had conducted me thither. He did not allow me to
communicate freely with any person, and was not to leave me until some
authentic and final decision had been adopted with respect to me.
On arriving at Frankfort, I immediately sent to our Ambassador, as I
had done in the Netherlands, the following letter:
SIR,—I have the honour, on arriving in this town, to claim the
protection of your public character, against the rigorous measures
which have been pursued for some time past in regard to me.
I have been arrested, and am carried about from town to town, under
escort, against my will, like a captive. Those who act thus candidly
confess that they only push me on in that manner, because I have been
so brought to them; and they have not any special motive or positive
order on the subject. On my passage through the Netherlands, I
addressed a representation on the subject to our ambassador at the
court of the Hague; but I have been hurried on so precipitately that
it has not been possible for me to receive any answer. I take the
liberty of sending you a copy of the letter which I addressed to him,
in order to put your Excellency in possession of the first details of
my adventure.
It is now, Sir, the hundred and thirtieth day of my travels; I am
harrassed, tired, sick, and infirm; I have been tossed by the fury of
the waves, and must perish at last if I cannot find a port. In the
name of humanity and justice, I implore to be allowed to take breath
for a moment. I have found an erroneous impression existing every
where in my way: and those who thus disposed of my person have all
expressed the greatest surprise, when the discussion of the point has
proved that there did not exist in France any law or act, either
public or private, directed against me; and that nothing had ever
occurred which could give rise to such a proceeding. I request, Sir,
that you will be kind enough to prevent, by your testimony, the
possibility of an error that might influence the decision to be taken
with respect to me; and that you will grant me that protection which I
am naturally entitled to expect from you in your public character.
I have the honour, &c.
P.S. I think it right to inform your Excellency that, in the
perplexity of my situation, I wrote a few days since to His Majesty
the Emperor of Austria, to request an asylum in his dominions, should
my liberty be placed under any restraint. But a distant country, the
language and manners of which are quite new to me, cannot suit me,
except in case of necessity. I should wish to be as near to France as
possible, in order to be able to see my family, and attend to my
domestic concerns, which have been neglected for the last three years;
and Brussels, which, in addition to these advantages, possesses that
of the language which would enable me to superintend the education of
my children, is the place in which I should be happy to reside. I have
requested M. Latour Dupin, at the Hague, to obtain the necessary
permission to enable me to do so, and I earnestly entreat you to
assist him, as far as it lies in your power.
The same thing that had happened in the Netherlands happened also at
Frankfort; I received no answer to my letter. But his Excellency did
not remain idle with respect to me, and I have been assured that he
had immediately required from the senate of this free and sovereign
city my removal within the space of twenty-four hours. Fortunately the
Prussian officer, who was obliged to follow me, and who did not relish
such a continuation of our journey, induced the Minister from his
court to interfere, in order that I might be allowed to remain at
Frankfort.