if he were in the full enjoyment of health, and had the means which
Providence once placed in his hands, he abhors civil war.
Sires, I am a mother, and my son’s life is dearer to me than my own.
Pardon my grief, which prompts me to take the liberty of addressing
this letter to your Imperial and Royal Majesties.
Do not render unavailing the entreaties of a mother, who thus appeals
against the long series of cruelties that has been exercised towards
her son.
In the name of Him, who is in essence goodness, and of whom your
Imperial and Royal Majesties are the image, I entreat that you will
interest yourselves to put a period to my son’s misery, and to restore
him to liberty. For this I implore God, and I implore you who are his
Lieutenants on earth.
Reasons of state have their limits; and posterity, which gives
immortality, adores, above all things, the generosity of conquerors.
I am, &c.
MADAME MERE.
This letter remained unanswered. Other steps were taken in favour of
Napoleon, by different members of his family; but they were not made
known in a way sufficiently authentic to authorize my mentioning them
here.
NOTE ADDRESSED TO THE ALLIED SOVEREIGNS, AT THE CONGRESS
OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, OCTOBER, 1818.
SIRES,—Royal Majesty has no judges on earth. But since sovereigns
themselves, stripping it of its most sacred attribute, have subjected
it to their tribunal, I come with respectful confidence to appeal to
them in favour of a monarch, whom they long recognised, but who is now
deposed by them, a captive in their name, and presenting to the world
the grandest and most terrible vicissitude that was ever witnessed.
Who shall deem himself secure, if even inviolability be violated?
Faithful to his dignity, superior to misfortune, he looks forward to
death as the only termination of his misery. But I, who have been
unexpectedly torn from the fatal rock where I rendered him every
attention in my power, wish now to devote to him the remainder of a
feeble life, and to endeavour to assuage the misery which I am no
longer permitted to share.
I have taken upon myself the sacred mission in which I am now engaged.
I have been prompted to do so by my tender devotedness to the person
of the Emperor, by my private affection for him who was my Sovereign.
I am here a stranger to every political question. I have no other
impulse, no other guide, than that sacred morality which is alike
respected by kings and subjects. It constitutes my strength, my right,
and my excuse.
Napoleon on his rock is a prey to torments and vexations of every
kind; he is the victim of the ill treatment of men, and the
insalubrity of climate. These facts are now notorious to all, and are
sufficiently proved by authentic documents, transmitted from the place
itself, several of which I now presume to submit to the eyes of your
Majesties.
If the law of war, if the law of nations, have been transgressed for
the peace of the world, as it is said, the law of humanity at least
cannot be extinct.
For the last three years, war has every where been succeeded by peace;
passions are calmed; nations and individuals are reconciled; the
hostility of governments and parties is disarmed; the common law of
nations has resumed its sway; one man alone is excluded from these
benefits. He alone is still without the pale of human law. He is
exiled to a barren rock, exposed to an unhealthy climate, doomed to
the misery of a lingering death, and is the daily victim of hatred and
insult. When will there be an end to this extraordinary persecution?
If he be doomed to live, this extraordinary treatment is too cruel!
And surely it is still more barbarous if he be doomed to die! What is
his crime? By whom has he been tried? By what tribunal? Who are his
judges? Where is their right to pronounce sentence on him? Will it be
said that the only guarantee, the only security, against him, are
imprisonment, chains, and death? Will it be said that his acts, his
promises, and his oaths are not to be trusted? Will his return from
the isle of Elba be mentioned as an instance of his bad faith? But at
Elba he was a Sovereign: engagements had been entered into with him,
and had not been kept! Now, by quitting the continent, he has resigned
all sovereignty, and declared his political career to be at an end.
The case is entirely altered. If the sacrifice of his life can alone
appease hatred, and put a period to alarm, _why not inflict death
openly_? (these are his own words;) _a speedy death, though not more
just, would have been more humane, and less odious; it would be a
favour_. This is what he has himself repeatedly said and written. Who
can deny the justice of the remark?
What sufficient motives can still be maintained in justification of
such intolerable treatment?
Is it wished to punish his past invasions? But the invaded countries
have forgotten their resentment in the triumph of victory, and they
are now silent. Is it wished to make reprisals? But Napoleon was a
conqueror, and did he act thus? What was his conduct at Austerlitz, at
the bivouac of Moravia, at Vienna, at Tilsit, at the conferences of
Dresden? Let him be viewed even in that circumstance in which history
will have most difficulty in defending him. Charles IV. when a captive
in the hands of Napoleon, had his choice of residing either in
Compiegne, Marseilles, or Rome, always maintaining the dignity of a
king. Ferdinand, at Valency, was surrounded by all the attention and
respect he could wish. A prince who disputed the throne with the
Emperor fell into his hands. What use did Napoleon make of his
victory? The immediate release of the prisoner attested his
magnanimity; and history will compare this act with the indignities
that are heaped upon the Emperor.
Is it intended to renew for Napoleon the ostracism of the ancients?
But the ancients, if they banished from among them the talents which
they had reason to fear, did not sacrifice the victim. They did not
transport him to another hemisphere, to a desert rock, and a burning
climate. They did not, at least, render Nature chargeable with a crime
which, in the present case, it would seem, human hands dare not
execute.
Finally, is it feared that even the Emperor’s name would have too
powerful an influence in Europe? May not his enemies defeat their own
ends? Persecution always excites interest, always moves the great mass
of the people, who are invariably generous. If it be wished to create
partizans, it is sufficient to make martyrs! Where, then, is the
necessity for these extraordinary and singular measures? Why thus
violate at once the code of nations, the code of sovereigns, and the
code of private men?
Among civilized nations, fury is disarmed before a fallen enemy, who
is respected even among savages, particularly when he trusts to good
faith.
Why then persist in opposing the demands of humanity, justice,
religion, morality, policy, and all the laws of civilization? Why not
rather yield to the dictates of generosity, glory and true interest?
The examples of kings doomed to misery and death have always been
condemned by history: they are recollected with horror by subjects,
and with dread by sovereigns.
Since my removal from St. Helena, I do not personally know what
changes may have taken place in the treatment of the Emperor Napoleon;
but before my departure it was intolerable, both as regarded his
personal dignity and his moral and physical existence. Have those
modifications at length been made which his servants so long and so
vainly solicited? But the deadly influence of the climate and all the
horrors of the place of banishment cannot be changed. These
circumstances in themselves suffice to poison all the sources of life.
There is no dungeon in Europe that would not be preferable to
Longwood, and there is no human being, whatever might be his vigour of
body and strength of mind, who could, under such circumstances, long
resist the effects of so terrible a prison.
The victim is already seized with a disease that must infallibly, in a
very short time, hurry him to his grave. The faculty have candidly
pronounced this opinion, and, in the anguish of my heart, I presume to
report it to your Majesties, trusting that your humanity and high
wisdom will suggest a remedy.
Surely I cannot be accused of want of respect and devotedness to
sovereignty. The testimonies which my life presents are my guarantee
for now presuming to address your Majesties; as the consciousness of
your interests, dignity, and glory, is the guarantee of my hopes and
wishes.
COUNT LAS CASES.
LETTER TO HIS MAJESTY THE EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA, ENCLOSING
THE ABOVE NOTE. (ADDRESSED TO THE EMPEROR HIMSELF.)
SIRE,—On the 10th of February last, I presumed to lay at your
Majesty’s feet the wishes and entreaties of a faithful servant in
favour of his master.
I hope your Majesty will forgive my perseverance, which may, perhaps,
have the appearance of importunity. I now venture to lay before you
another note, in favour of him who was your brother, and whom you made
your son. I take the liberty of accompanying this note with some
authentic documents.
Sire, my hope and my apology rest on the many excellent virtues for
which your Majesty is distinguished. Europe acknowledges and proclaims
you to be the most sincere, moral, humane, and religious of men; and
yet it is in your name that the tortures of a lingering death are
inflicted on him, to whom you gave the hand of your beloved daughter;
whom your own choice and religion have made your son.
Ah, Sire! tremble lest his blood-stained coat should be presented to
you!... And when the day of eternal judgment shall arrive, when the
Supreme Judge of men and things, pronouncing his terrible decrees,
shall ask, “What have you done with your son? Why did you separate the
husband from the wife? How durst you disunite those who had been
joined and blessed in my name? I might award victory to whom I
pleased; but none could take advantage of that victory to abuse my
holy laws, without incurring my anger—--”
But, Sire, I say no more: perhaps I have already gone too far. I crave
your Majesty’s forgiveness. These are the sentiments by which I am
powerfully excited;—these are the complaints that are wrung from me by
the murder of my master, which has been perpetrating before my eyes.
Sire, on my knees, I implore your interference, to prevent the crime
of homicide. Be not deaf to my entreaties!
I am &c.[38]
COUNT LAS CASES.
Footnote 38:
A similar letter was addressed to the Emperor Alexander, and the
King of Prussia.
LETTER TO LORD CASTLEREAGH, WITH A COPY OF THE NOTE
ADDRESSED TO THE ALLIED SOVEREIGNS.
MY LORD,—I have the honour to present to your Lordship a copy of a
note, which I took the liberty of addressing to the Allied Sovereigns.
I am induced to transmit this note to you, my Lord, on account of my
profound respect for the august individual whom you represent, and the
esteem I entertain for your Lordship’s personal talents.
Whatever may be your opinions, my Lord, respecting this note, perhaps
even your objections to it, I am convinced your Lordship has too much
generosity to condemn, wholly and without reserve, a servant, who is
resolved, until the latest moment of his existence, to exert every
effort for the relief and consolation of his Sovereign.
My Lord, how great has been your influence on the destiny of that
Sovereign! How great may it yet be! Why cannot my voice reach your
Lordship’s ear? In the anguish of my tedious solitude, I have
frequently sought to discover the great motives which might have
dictated your harsh and cruel determination. My mind dwells only on
the interest of your country, the rigorous law of necessity, the
conviction of the character and disposition of him at whom you aim the
blow; and finally, the glory and responsibility of your ministerial
situation. Has your Lordship been able to combine together the whole
of the contradictory circumstances? Have you exhausted every source of
information? How I regret that the impaired state of my health and
faculties does not permit me adequately to express my feelings and
thoughts! They would perhaps make an impression on you, my Lord:
perhaps many facts, that I could relate, would excite your
astonishment and serious consideration.
I have the honour to be, &c.
COUNT LAS CASES.
The period of the meeting of the Congress having arrived, I went to
Frankfort, and happened to reach that place on the very day on which
the Emperor Alexander made his entry. This was no doubt a very
favourable opportunity to solicit the favour of being presented to
that Sovereign; and his well known affability, the facility with which
he grants admission into his presence, and perhaps also the peculiar
circumstances relating to me, were so many encouragements to the hope
of easily obtaining an audience, and I was consequently strongly
advised by every body to attempt it. It was the surest way, they said,
to accomplish the object I had in view, and I was much blamed for
refusing to make the trial. But I had maturely weighed within my own
breast the advantages and disadvantages of such a step, and I was far
from sharing the general opinion as to the probability of its result.
To what, had I said to myself, could such a high favour lead me? Could
I expect to touch the heart of this Sovereign by my eloquence? And if
my words had produced some effect upon him as a man, was not the final
decision to proceed from the concurrence of many others? And was I
certain, in an interview of so little duration, and of so much
embarrassment, to speak with as much method and precision as I could
write? Was it right for me to deliver to him, before the proper time
had arrived, authentic documents, which I intended only for the
Sovereigns assembled, as if it were an ordinary petition? And, if the
Emperor Alexander had happened to express himself in my presence,
respecting the Emperor Napoleon, in terms which I could not but have
contradicted, as it was but too probable that he would express
himself, might it not turn out that I had irritated and indisposed,
instead of conciliating, him? This latter consideration had chiefly
led to my determination not to seek for an audience, which presented
so many objections and offered but a single advantage, and that one
personal to me, viz., the signal favour of seeing the first of
monarchs, and of conversing with him of whom Napoleon had said on his
rock; “If I die here, he will be my heir in Europe.”
Besides, the Emperor Alexander knew that I was at Frankfort. I was
told that he had mentioned it in one of his circles, and I was almost
certain that he had been spoken to about me. The circumstance from
which I obtained this information is singular enough to be mentioned
here. My room at the hotel where I had alighted happened to be next to
that of one of his generals, who possessed his intimate confidence,
and who was admitted into his presence at all times. The second or
third evening after my arrival, the master of the hotel came into my
room to inform me that the General was ready to receive me, and that
he would have much pleasure in granting me the interview which I had
asked for. In the first moment of surprise, my immediate answer was to
bid him go and say it was a mistake; but, suddenly reflecting that
this was, perhaps, a fortunate circumstance, brought about by the
intervention of Providence, I ran after the man who was already
delivering his message, and explained myself from the door of the
apartment, that there was probably some error, since I had not the
honour of asking such a favour; upon which the General ran towards me,
as if to detain me, and dismissing his Aide-de-camp, said to me, with
an air of affability and politeness, that, whether it was through
mistake or not, he should be happy to avail himself of this
opportunity to become acquainted, and have some conversation with me.
And we then had a very long conversation together, and, as it will be
easily believed, wholly relating to St. Helena.
I had only come to Frankfort to deposit, in due form, all my documents
in the respective legations, and that done, I returned immediately to
Manheim, in order to escape from the bustle and from the intrigues of
Frankfort. Several persons came thither and offered to serve me at the
Congress, assuring me that their services might be of very great
importance, and proposing to become very zealous agents in my cause.
For this assistance I should of course have been obliged to pay very
largely, and it has been seen that I had scarcely wherewith to supply
the first wants of him for the uncertain interests of whom large sums
were demanded of me. During the sitting of the Congress, and whilst I
was waiting in the hope of a favourable decision from the Sovereigns,
I was destined to receive, even in my solitude at Manheim, fresh
proofs of the perverseness of Sir Hudson Lowe, and of the ill
treatment which he continued to inflict upon his victims. An
unfortunate gunner of an East Indiaman found me out at Manheim, and
about the same time I received a large packet from General Bertrand.
The history of the gunner and of all the vexations to which he was
exposed from the Governor and his confidents, for having been the
bearer of a bust of young Napoleon, from which he hoped to derive some
advantage, by offering it at Longwood, is detailed at some length in
Mr. O’Meara’s work. This bust, which the Governor had at first
intended to throw into the sea, and the existence of which he
afterwards attempted to conceal by taking possession of it, under
pretence of making a present of it to Napoleon himself, was, however,
at last sent to Longwood, in consequence of the expression of public
indignation; and Count Bertrand sent to the gunner, as well for the
value of the bust as to indemnify him for all the vexations and losses
which it had occasioned him, one of the bills which I left with him at
my departure, amounting to 300_l._ Count Bertrand, on sending the bill
to the gunner, requested him to acknowledge the receipt of it; but the
poor fellow, so far from being enabled to acknowledge the receipt of
the bill, had not even heard of Count Bertrand’s Letter, and had been
obliged to pursue his voyage to India, after having delivered the
bust, with the following verbal information given to him by Sir Hudson
Lowe: “That the people of Longwood had destined some gratuity for him,
and that he would hear of it in the course of time.” On his return
from India, the unfortunate gunner was not allowed to go on shore
during the whole time the ship stayed at St. Helena, and he was merely
told once more that what had been mentioned to him concerning his
interests was at the Admiralty in London. When he reached England, he
at last, upon inquiry, got the bill; and it was the first time he had
heard of it; but upwards of eighteen months had elapsed; the persons
on whom it was drawn no longer had the necessary funds, and he was
obliged to leave London with the melancholy persuasion that he had
lost both his bust and his money. This gunner was an inhabitant of
Dalmatia, and was going through Germany on his return home, by way of
Trieste, when he heard, by the greatest chance in the world, at
Frankfort, that he should find at Manheim the drawer of the bill which
he held; he therefore came to me, and his joy was as lively as his
imprecations against Sir Hudson Lowe were abundant, on receiving that
sum which, as he said, was a little fortune to him, and would render
him happy for the remainder of his life.
The large packet which I received from the Grand Marshal consisted of
a long letter from him, written by order of the Emperor, and of sundry
authentic documents which had arrived out of the regular channel. But,
to my great surprise, the very day when I received that letter, I read
its contents in the Netherland newspapers, as extracted and
re-translated from the English papers. Guessing what had been the
intentions at Longwood, I nevertheless sent an official copy of that
letter to Lord Liverpool, as will be seen presently. I insert here all
those documents, because Count Bertrand’s letter, giving a rather
detailed account of the ill treatment which the Emperor experienced
from the moment I had left him, lays before the reader a further
period of eighteen months of the history of Longwood. Some of these
documents, besides, have postscripts in Napoleon’s own hand-writing,
and are too remarkable to be left unnoticed.
LETTER OF COUNT LAS CASES TO LORD LIVERPOOL.
MY LORD,—I have this instant received a long letter from Count
Bertrand; and at the same moment, to my great surprise, have seen that
letter printed in the _Vrai Liberal_, of Brussels, re-translated from
the _Morning Chronicle_ of London.
To inform your Lordship how that has happened is beyond my power; but
I can assure you, with great truth, that it is without my
participation, and that I sincerely regret the circumstance. I can
only explain it by supposing that one of your countrymen only
consented to take charge of the packet from Longwood, upon condition
of receiving it open, and being assured that it concerned the honour
of his country; and that, on his arrival in London, he communicated
its contents to the public, and forwarded it to me at the same time.
Things would not have been so, my Lord, if, agreeably to my continued
solicitations, I had obtained permission to reside in England.
Persuaded as I am, and as Count Bertrand seems to suspect, that the
atrocious vexations and the indignities which are daily inflicted upon
Longwood may be unknown to the Administration, it would have been to
you, my Lord, who are at the head of that Administration, and to you
alone, that I should immediately have applied to inform you of such
unheard-of grievances; thus furnishing you with the means, and leaving
to you the merit, of redressing them.
I entreat your Lordship to believe that it would have been only after
I had in vain exhausted every step required by decorum, after I had,
in vain, applied, in the order of their rank, to the different
authorities, that I should have adopted the extreme measure of
addressing myself at last to public opinion, which will only be
appealed to and pronounced in the last instance. I gave a proof of
this disposition, my Lord, when, after eight months of absolute
silence on the part of Lord Bathurst, to the statement which I
addressed to his Lordship of various grievances, of which I had the
honour of asking redress at his hands, and which I should, at least,
have been justified in publishing, I did not however do so, until some
ill-timed observations of one of your Members of the House of Commons
rendered it a matter of positive necessity. I gave a proof of it, my
Lord, at the period of the earnest entreaties which my heart prompted
me to make at Aix-la-Chapelle, when I carefully transmitted to Lord
Castlereagh himself a copy of the solicitations and complaints which I
respectfully laid at the feet of the Allied Sovereigns. Lastly, my
Lord, it is to give, as much as lies in my power, an additional proof
of that disposition, that I hastily cause a copy to be made of the
letter of Count Bertrand, in order that your Lordship may possess
direct and authentic knowledge of that document, and lay it before his
Royal Highness the Prince Regent.
A prey to bodily sufferings, caused by the insalubrious climate of St.
Helena, as well as to the moral sufferings by which my separation was
aggravated; the deplorable state of my health is such that every kind
of application is forbidden to me by the faculty. I cannot, therefore,
add any thing to the letter, of which I have the honour of addressing
you a copy. Besides, what commentary could equal the bare recital of
the facts which it contains?
I have the honour to be, with the highest consideration, my Lord, &c.
P. S.—After having addressed your Lordship on the subject of interests
of so high and sacred an importance, may I be allowed to take
advantage of the opportunity thus naturally afforded to descend to the
consideration of objects that are merely personal to me?