At Manheim I suffered very acute pains. A short time after my arrival
at Offenbach, my illness suddenly assumed a character new,
insupportable, and alarming. It was then that a universal
indisposition, an increasing debility, commenced, which, preventing
the employment of the faculties, brought with them a complete disgust
of life; then also commenced that sudden trembling in my limbs and in
my whole frame: those sudden visits of dimness of sight, which I might
call the twinkling of existence. How often in this state, and without
taking any notice of it, have I gone to bed with the thought, I had
almost said the hope, of awaking no more. Madame Las Cases, in the
excess of her anxiety, wished that I should give up every kind of
occupation whatever, of which, in fact, I was absolutely incapable;
she suppressed my letters, and wrote to the relatives of the Emperor,
to apprize them of my real situation, and to prevail upon them to
appoint a successor to me in the cares which I had created for myself.
For a long time past, as a precaution, I myself had entreated them to
join with me a person whose happiness it would have constituted, and
the choice of whom would have been agreeable to the Emperor.[44] He
was then with one of them; but, from one cause or another, this was
not done, and necessity compelled me to break off without any
provision having been made to supply the deficiency. I exhausted in
vain all the aid of medicine; and, if the domestic cares, the tender
solicitude, which surrounded me on every side, could have availed, my
illness would have been only a blessing, from the pleasure of seeing
them lavished upon me. One loves to dwell upon that which was sweet,
and I could not assuredly better describe the great interest felt for
me, and the nature of the recompense which the sentiments I had shewn,
the efforts I had made, had obtained for me, than when I say my little
hermitage has been honoured with the presence of three Queens, and, I
think, on the same day. Two of them, it is true, had been deposed; but
they did not the less command every where at that moment, by the
elevation of their minds, the simplicity of their manners, the _éclat_
of their other qualities, a universal respect, at least, as much as at
the era of their greatest splendour.
Footnote 44:
Colonel Planat, who had accompanied us as far as Plymouth, and who
had lately obtained leave to repair to St. Helena himself.
It was at Offenbach that the little colony, which Cardinal Fesch sent
to St. Helena, was addressed to me on its way to that place. It
consisted of a chaplain, a surgeon, a physician, and a valet de
chambre; all chosen by the Cardinal. On my arrival in Europe, I had
written to him, to be assured that to send a priest, capable also of
writing to dictation, and of assisting a little in business, would be
very agreeable to the Emperor; and I had employed his mediation to
interest, for that purpose, the conscience of the Holy Father, who, in
fact, demanded it of the English Ministers, who had hitherto opposed
the measure, or attached to it inadmissible conditions. It was also
from Offenbach, that I despatched to Longwood two charming portraits:
one, the young Napoleon, painted from the life in the same year, and
sent by King Jerome; the other that of the Empress Josephine, by Sain,
a present from the Queen Hortense. It was mounted in a magnificent
tea-caddy, of crystal. This choice of crystal was a delicate
precaution of the Queen’s, who also had the mounting executed in such
a manner as to render it impossible to suspect any concealed writing.
The former of these two portraits reached its destination. The valet
de chambre of the Emperor has since told me, that Napoleon, on
perceiving it, seized it with avidity and kissed it. I, who know how
reserved the Emperor was, can judge from this circumstance the whole
extent of his joy and satisfaction. As to the portrait of the Empress
Josephine, it never arrived at Longwood, although, by a singular
contrariety, it was found, in consequence of some memorandum, to have
paid the custom-house duty on its importation into England.
Towards the end of the summer, Madame Las Cases, by order of the
physicians, carried me to the waters of Schwalbach, where I was an
object of pity to every one. I returned without having derived any
benefit from them; but a circumstance then revived my strength for an
instant, and caused me to quit Germany.
All of a sudden, I learnt from the public papers the return of Madame
Montholon to Europe; she had been, like myself, repulsed from England,
and landed at Ostend. I was not able to resist going to seek authentic
details, of which I had so long been deprived. I hastened to rejoin
her, whether she should be permitted to stay in the country, or should
be forced, after my example, to run up and down the highways, for in
that case I should be useful to her; I had had experience.
Travelling with mystery, for I remembered too well all the ill
treatment I formerly received in the Netherlands, I joined the
Countess of Montholon at Brussels. Not only was she at liberty to
reside there, but she had been received with the most particular
respect; and a journal of the place having announced that she would be
obliged to continue her route, a semi-official article refuted this
news, upon this ground, especially, that the Netherlands was the _land
of hospitality_. I wanted no more; Belgium appeared to me nearly as
France; in the midst of the Belgians, I should think myself among my
countrymen. I wrote, therefore, to Madame Las Cases to acquaint her
with our good fortune, and desiring that she might hasten to come and
join me. Shunning Brussels, for the same reasons which had made me
leave Frankfort, I chose Liege; remembering the kind reception which I
had there experienced, at the time of my unfortunate passage, eighteen
months before; and I settled there, not without apprehension of some
new ill luck. But I was wrong; for I must with truth and gratitude say
that, during nearly two years and a half that I have since traversed
the country in all directions, without any request, any solicitation,
not even a previous announcement, that country, formerly so baneful to
me, has ever since been the land of hospitality; never having
afterwards had occasion to perceive any authority whatever, otherwise
than by the tranquillity, the repose, which I enjoyed under its shade.
Influence and foreign malice had ceased; it was at this time that my
son requested leave, anew, and on his own account, to return to
Longwood. I have the answer of Lord Bathurst, who refused it.
Subsequently, the Princess Pauline, who succeeded in obtaining leave
to repair thither, wrote to me to know if my son wished to accompany
her: but then, alas! it was too late.
Neither the affection nor the care of my friends at Liege, where I
remained the whole winter; nor the rural situation of Chaude-Fontaine,
where I spent the spring; nor the generous hospitality of the worthy
and excellent proprietor of that charming spot Justlanville, who
forced me to accept for the summer, at a few steps from him, the
residence called Johan, at the gates of Spa and of Verviers; nor the
benevolence of all his family, so numerous, so kind, so respected in
the country; were able to ameliorate my condition, or fix my stay. Yet
it would be difficult for me to describe, as they deserve, the extreme
kindness, the touching dispositions, the sympathetic spirit, of the
whole population of these countries, so prosperous, so rich, so
flourishing, under the imperial reign, and which continues so
grateful.
I spent my second winter at Antwerp, with some sincere friends whom I
tenderly love, and whom my arrival on the expedition to Flushing, ten
years before, had procured for me; and in the spring I reached
Malines, without any particular motive; for I was not able to remain a
long time in the same place. I stood in need of change. I was the
patient who tosses and turns in his bed, seeking in vain the sweets of
sleep. Twice, during the two years in Belgium, Madame Las Cases wished
to take me to the south; and twice, at the very moment of setting out,
imperative circumstances happened to stop us:—disappointments,
however, which were to us so many real favours of fortune. But for the
first of them, we should have found ourselves advanced a day’s journey
within the frontier, at the very moment of a fatal and sanguinary
catastrophe; and, but for the second, we should have arrived at Nice
precisely at the moment of the constitutional explosion in Piedmont;
and no doubt that, in both cases, and naturally enough, we should have
been subjected to at least temporary inconvenience.
Meanwhile the Congress of Laybach was held, and I could not refrain
from attempting new solicitations. I addressed a new letter to each of
the three high Sovereigns. The following is that to the Emperor
Alexander:—
“SIRE,—A new and solemn occasion presents itself for preferring to
your Majesty my humble and respectful accents. I seize it anew with
eagerness.
“I am not afraid of rendering myself importunate: my excuse and my
pardon are in the generosity of your soul.
“Sire, to recal, at this moment, to your recollection, and to that of
your high Allies, the august captive, whom you, a long time, called
your brother and your friend; to seek to divert your thoughts and
theirs to that victim whose cruel suffering is always present to me;
this is, I know it, to make the knell of death heard amidst joy and
feasting. But therein, Sire, I trust that, even in the eyes of your
Majesty, I fulfil an honourable and pious duty, the performance of
which must remain always sweet to me, however perilous it may be!
“Sire,—reduced to a state of infirmity and weakness which leaves me
scarcely able to connect a few ideas, I follow the instinct of my
heart in default of the faculties of my head, in merely repeating
literally here to your Majesty the note which I presumed to address to
you at Aix-la-Chapelle; for, the circumstances having remained the
same, no change having since taken place in that respect, what could I
do better than to place under the eyes of your Majesty the same
picture, the same facts, the same reasoning, the same truths.
“Only if, in spite of that which I then thought was certain, the
illustrious victim, contrary to my expectation and that of the
faculty, still breathes; if he has not yet fallen, I shall dare to
observe to your Majesty that this unexpected prolongation of his life,
which has been to him only a continuation of torment, is perhaps, to
your Majesty, a blessing from heaven, which Providence reserves for
your heart and for your memory.... Ah! Sire, there is then time
still!... But the precious opportunity may every moment escape from
_all your power_!... And what would be then the tardy, impotent
regrets which could neither appease your heart, nor restore to your
memory an act magnanimous, generous—a glory of a nature the most
soothing, the most moral, the most commendable in the eyes of
posterity, the best understood, perhaps, with which you could have
embellished your glorious life? I mean oblivion of injuries, disdain
of vengeance, remembrance of old friendship; in fine, the respect due
to royal majesty—to _one of the Lord’s anointed_!!!
“Sire,—since my return to Europe, separated from the society of men, a
prey to hopeless sufferings originating in St. Helena itself,
belonging for the future and unalterably much more to another life
than to this, I ardently raise every day in my retreat my hands to the
Almighty, praying that he will deign to touch the heart of your
Majesty, and to enlighten it upon so essential a part of its interests
and its glory.
“I am, &c.
“COUNT DE LAS CASES.”[45]
Footnote 45:
A similar letter was addressed to the other Allied Sovereigns, with
slight appropriate alterations.
How prophetic were many of these lines! Alas, they were scarcely
before the eyes of the monarchs when he was no more!—He had ceased to
live, to suffer!—On opening the Moniteur, I found there the fatal
announcement. Though it could not surprise me, having been a long time
certain to my understanding, I was not the less struck, overcome as at
an unexpected event that was never to happen.
The next day I received a melancholy letter from London with
circumstantial details, and conjectures for which these details might
furnish matter; and this letter concluded by saying, “It was on the
fifth of May, at six o’clock in the evening, at the very instant when
the gun was firing at sunset, that his great soul quitted the earth.”
How strange the coincidences that sometimes happen!—When about the
person of Napoleon, and under his influence, I had contracted the
habit of keeping a diary, and he frequently expressed his regret that
he had not done the same. “A line to assist the memory,” said he,
“merely two or three indicatory words.” I had continued this practice
ever since; and, as it may easily be imagined, I hastened to turn to
the fifth of May, to see where I was, what I had been doing, and what
had happened to me at that fatal moment. And what should I
find?—_Sudden storm; shelter under a shed; awful clap of thunder._
Taking a ride, towards evening, in the country beyond Malines, the
weather being delightful, there came on suddenly one of those summer
storms, of such violence that I was obliged to seek shelter on
horseback beneath a shed; and while in this situation there was a
thunder-clap so tremendous that it seemed to be close to me. Alas! and
what was passing elsewhere, at such a distance, at the same
moment!—The circumstance may perhaps appear more than strange, but no
doubt there are at Malines, or in its environs, naturalists or
meteorologists who keep an account of the weather: it is for them to
confirm or to contradict my statement.
[Illustration:
THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON.
London: Published for Henry Colburn, March, 1836.
]
On the report of the death of Napoleon, it must, however, be said,
that there was but one single cry, one selfsame sentiment in the
streets, in the shops, in the public places; even the saloons shewed
some feeling: the cabinets alone shewed themselves insensible, worse
than insensible! But, after all, it was natural, they breathed, at
length, at their ease....
During his life, in the time of his power, he had been assailed with
pamphlets and libels; on his death, we were suddenly inundated with
productions in his praise—a contrast, nevertheless, that gives a
little relief from so much meanness of the human heart. There were
every where, and from all parts, compositions in prose and in verse,
paintings, portraits, pictures, lithographs, and a thousand little
things more or less ingenious, proving much better than all the pomp
of kings could do the sincerity, the extent, the vivacity of the
sentiments which he left behind him. A clergyman on the banks of the
Rhine, the place of whose residence had received some particular
favour from the Emperor, assembled his parishioners, and made them
pray for their old benefactor. In a large city of Belgium, a great
number of citizens subscribed for a solemn funeral service, and if
they abstained from the performance of it, it was much more from
etiquette than in consequence of any interdict. Then these words of
Napoleon, which I have often heard him repeat, were verified:—“In the
course of time, nothing will be thought so fine, or strike the
attention so much, as the doing of justice to me.... I shall gain
ground every day in the minds of the people. My name will become the
star of their rights; it will be the expression of their regrets.” And
all these circumstances are verified in every country and every where.
Without reckoning things of this kind, of which I am no doubt unaware,
a peer of Great Britain shortly after said in open Parliament, “That
the very persons who detested this great man have acknowledged that
for ten centuries there had not appeared upon earth a more
extraordinary character. All Europe,” added he, “has worn mourning for
the hero; and those who have contributed to that great sacrifice are
devoted to the execrations of the present generation as well as to
those of posterity.”[46]
Footnote 46:
Speech of Lord Holland. _Pilot_ of the 3rd of August, 1822.
Two German professors, who either had always known his real character,
or had been cured of their national prejudices, have erected upon
their grounds a monument to his memory, with some inscriptions,
indicating that, with him, fell a funereal veil over the rights of the
people, and the ascendant impulse of civilization.
Our writers have defended his memory, our poets have celebrated it,
and our orators, in the legislative tribunal, have proclaimed aloud
the attachment which they had felt for him, or that they are honoured
by the distinctions which they had received from him.
Nothing now remained for me but to return to my country. In crossing
the frontier, at the end of the second emigration, I could not avoid
thinking of the circumstances of my return after the first, and what a
difference of sentiment distinguished them! Then I seemed, at every
step, to advance amidst a hostile population; now I felt as if I was
entering into my family. I soon beheld again all my companions of
Longwood, and, while embracing them, I could not deny myself one
melancholy reflection—we were all met again; but he for whom we had
sought the fatal rock, he alone remained there! I recollected that he
had told us it would be so, and many other things besides. I learned
from all these eye-witnesses the details and the circumstances of the
ill treatment which, since my departure, had been daily increasing;
and I saw that the times which I had known had not even been the most
unhappy moments.
[Illustration:
STATUE OF NAPOLEON
ON THE COLUMN OF THE PLACE VENDÔME.
London: Published for HENRY COLBURN, December, 1835.
]
I read his last will; I there found my name, three or four times, in
his own hand!—What were my emotions!—Assuredly I did not stand in need
of them for my reward. For a long time I have carried it within my
breast. But the remembrances, however, were dear and precious—how much
more precious than millions! And yet he joined to them large sums from
those of his family who were most nearly connected with him, and were
dearest to him. If they ever pay them, so much the better; that will
concern them hereafter more than me. I should have liked to consider
myself only as a kind of depository. I even wished to anticipate them,
but I found it necessary to stop: my means did not allow me to make
these advances. My happiness would have been great in affording a
retirement to a few civil and military veterans. In our long evenings,
we should have often spoken of his battles or discoursed of his heart.
At last I received (thanks to the zealous interposition of one of the
most distinguished characters of the English peerage!) the papers
which had been detained from me at St. Helena: and which, in spite of
all the power of the laws, I no longer reckoned upon. In the situation
in which I found myself, with the sentiments with which it had
inspired me, I felt myself under the indispensible obligation to
assist, since I had some means to do it, in making better known him
who had been so much misrepresented; and, in spite of my infirmity, I
set about this work. Heaven has blessed my efforts in permitting me to
reach the end, and to finish it, however ill; this I have the
happiness to do at this instant. If I have succeeded in reconciling
hearts, if I have destroyed prejudices, conquered prepossessions, I
have obtained my dearest, my sweetest object; my mission is
accomplished.
_Passy, August 15, 1823._
POSTSCRIPT.
I have to reproach myself for not having taken an opportunity to
relate the adventures of Santini. At the conclusion of every drama,
whatever may be its nature, one likes to meet again in the
_dénouement_ with all those who have figured in the early part of it.
Santini’s story involves moreover traits of manners, tints of the
times, a reference to public affairs, which induce me to repair my
omission, since I have it in my power to do so.
We had long given up Santini for lost, confined, dead, when all at
once he again made his appearance among us soon after the death of
Napoleon: and the following narrative is from his own lips, and nearly
in his own words.
After making his escape from England, he had traversed Belgium and
some parts of Germany, with the intelligence and address of a clever
Italian. At length, on entering Münich, he imagined that he had
overcome the grand obstacles, and was safe in port. But precisely in
that city he was apprehended, and, in spite of all his applications to
the different authorities, and to several ambassadors, in order to
obtain permission to pass quietly, he was carried back by gendarmes
into Wirtemberg, which he traversed at liberty, but under evident
_surveillance_. On reaching Lombardy, at Como, he went to declare
himself to the police: they had been expecting him there; he was
arrested and conveyed to Milan, where he was told that he could not
remain in the country, at full liberty, without serious inconvenience;
and that, in consequence, he should be conducted to Mantua, where he
would be under less restraint. Now the less restraint that was
promised him proved to be nothing better or worse than a prison, where
he was not allowed to hold communication with any person whatsoever.
Such was the importance attached to his complete seclusion that, Maria
Louisa having passed through that city, and stopped there for
twenty-four or thirty-six hours, poor Santini had for an extraordinary
companion in his room a police officer who did not suffer him to be
for a moment out of his sight, not even during meals or when he slept;
which serves to show the extreme care that was taken to prevent all
communication between Napoleon and Maria Louisa.
At length, in consequence of the disturbance and complaints which he
made in his dungeon, an order arrived to remove him to Vienna; but the
captain of the circle was required to travel in the same carriage with
him, and to conduct him by forced journeys to his new destination.
Santini, contrary to his expectation, found himself again imprisoned,
and again made a great noise; incessantly insisting on being tried,
and either shot, as he said, if he deserved it, or set at liberty if
he had not done any thing wrong. He was at last told that they had
nothing to lay to his charge, but that his entire liberty was attended
with great difficulties; that he could not be suffered to go into
every country, and he should therefore have his choice between England
and Austria. Santini replied that he would never more set foot on land
governed by the executioners of his master. He was then carried to
Brünn, the capital of Moravia, where he was obliged to take an oath to
abstain from seeking any foreign correspondence. On his arrival there,
he found himself, it is true, under a special _surveillance_; but
there, said Santini, ended his persecutions and his troubles; there
began a better condition. His captivity indeed became, he said, a
blessing, and his heart was filled with gratitude. He there found
himself an object of attention and interest: all, from the highest to
the lowest, showed him the greatest kindness. The inhabitants had
twice seen Napoleon; as an enemy it is true, and yet they felt
profound veneration for him. In this manner Santini spent, what he
called, three happy years.