_Napoleon's Illness--viz. Cancer in the Stomach--Removal of Las
Cases--Montholon's Complaints brought forward by Lord Holland--and
replied to by Lord Bathurst--Effect of the failure of Lord Holland's
motion--Removal of Dr. O'Meara from his attendance on
Buonaparte--who refuses to permit the visits of any other English
Physician--Two Priests sent to St. Helena at his desire--Dr.
Antommarchi--Continued Disputes with Sir Hudson Lowe--Plans for
Effecting Buonaparte's Escape--Scheme of a Smuggler to approach St.
Helena in a Submarine Vessel--Seizure of the Vessel--Letter
expressing the King of England's interest in the Illness of
Napoleon--Consent of the latter to admit the visits of Dr.
Arnott--Napoleon employs himself in making his Will--and gives other
directions connected with his Decease--Extreme Unction administered
to him--HIS DEATH, on 5th May, 1821--Anatomization of the Body--His
Funeral._
[Sidenote: ILLNESS.]
Reports had been long current concerning the decline of Buonaparte's
health, even before the battle of Waterloo; and many were disposed to
impute his failure in that decisive campaign, less to the superiority of
his enemies than to the decrease of his own habits of activity. There
seems no room for such a conclusion: The rapid manner in which he
concentrated his army upon Charleroi, ought to have silenced such a
report for ever. He was subject occasionally to slight fits of
sleepiness, such as are incident to most men, especially after the age
of forty, who sleep ill, rise early, and work hard. When he landed at
St. Helena, so far did he seem from showing any appearance of declining
health, that one of the British grenadiers, who saw him, exclaimed, with
his national oath, "They told us he was growing old;--he has forty good
campaigns in his belly yet, d--n him!" A speech which the French
gentlemen envied, as it ought, they said, to have belonged to one of the
Old Guard. We have mentioned Captain Hall's account of his apparent
state of health in summer 1817; that of Mr. Ellis, about the same
period, is similar, and he expresses his belief that Buonaparte was
never more able to undergo the fatigues of a campaign than at the moment
he saw him. Yet at this time, viz. July, 1817, Napoleon was alleging the
decline of his health as a reason for obtaining more indulgence, while,
on the other hand, he refused to take the exercise judged necessary to
preserve his constitution, unless a relaxation of superintendence should
be granted to him. It is probable, however, that he himself felt, even
at that period, the symptoms of that internal malady which consumed his
life. It is now well known to have been the cruel complaint of which his
father died, a cancer, namely, in the stomach, of which he had
repeatedly expressed his apprehensions, both in Russia and elsewhere.
The progress of this disease, however, is slow and insidious, if indeed
it had actually commenced so early as 1817. Gourgaud, at a much later
period, avowed himself a complete disbeliever in his illness. He
allowed, indeed, that he was in low spirits to such an extent as to talk
of destroying himself and his attached followers, by shutting himself
and them up in a small apartment with burning charcoal--an easy death,
which Berthollet the chemist had, it seems, recommended. Nevertheless,
"on the subject of General Buonaparte's health, General Gourgaud stated,
that the English were much imposed upon; for that he was not, as far as
bodily health was concerned, in any degree materially altered, and that
the representations upon this subject had little, if any, truth in them.
Dr. O'Meara was certainly the dupe of that influence which General
Buonaparte always exercises over those with whom he has frequent
intercourse, and though he (General Gourgaud) individually had only
reason _de se louer de Mr. O'Meara_, yet his intimate knowledge of
General Buonaparte enabled him confidently to assert, that his state of
health was not at all worse than it had been for some time previous to
his arrival at St. Helena."
Yet, as before hinted, notwithstanding the disbelief of friends and
foes, it seems probable that the dreadful disease of which Napoleon
died, was already seizing upon the vitals, though its character was not
decisively announced by external symptoms. Dr. Arnott, surgeon to the
20th regiment, who attended on Napoleon's death-bed, has made the
following observations upon this important subject:
"We are given to understand, from great authority,[262] that this
affection of the stomach cannot be produced without a considerable
predisposition of the parts to disease. I will not venture an
opinion: but it is somewhat remarkable, that he often said that his
father died of scirrhus of the pylorus; that the body was examined
after death, and the fact ascertained. His faithful followers, Count
and Countess Bertrand, and Count Montholon, have repeatedly declared
the same to me.
"If, then, it should be admitted that a previous disposition of the
parts to this disease did exist, might not the depressing passions
of the mind act as an exciting cause? It is more than probable that
Napoleon Buonaparte's mental sufferings in St. Helena were very
poignant. By a man of such unbounded ambition, and who once aimed at
universal dominion, captivity must have been severely felt.
"The climate of St. Helena I consider healthy. The air is pure and
temperate, and Europeans enjoy their health, and retain the vigour
of their constitution, as in their native country."
Dr. Arnott proceeds to state, that notwithstanding this general
assertion, dysentery, and other acute diseases of the abdominal viscera,
prevailed among the troops. This he imputes to the carelessness and
intemperance of the English soldiers, and the fatigue of the working
parties; as the officers, who had little night duty, retained their
health and strength as in Europe.
"I can therefore safely assert," continues the physician, "that any
one of temperate habits who is not exposed to much bodily exertion,
night air, and atmospherical changes, as a soldier must be, may
have as much immunity from disease in St. Helena as in Europe; and I
may therefore farther assert, that the disease of which Napoleon
Buonaparte died was _not_ the effect of climate."
In support of Dr. Arnott's statement, it may be observed, that of
Napoleon's numerous family of nearly fifty persons, English servants
included, only one died during all their five years' residence on the
island;[263] and that person (Cipriani, the major-domo) had contracted
the illness which carried him off, being a species of consumption,
before he left Europe.
Dr. Arnott, to whose opinion we are induced to give great weight, both
from the excellence of his character and his having the best
opportunities of information, states that the scirrhus, or cancer of the
stomach, is an obscure disease; the symptoms which announce it being
common to, and characteristic of, other diseases in the same region; yet
he early conceived that some morbid alteration of the structure of the
stomach had taken place, especially after he learned that his patient's
father had died of scirrhus of the pylorus. He believed, as already
hinted, that the disease was in its incipient state, even so far back as
the end of the year 1817, when the patient was affected with pain in the
stomach, nausea, and vomiting, especially after taking food; which
symptoms never left him from that period, but increased progressively
till the day of his death.
From this period, therefore, Napoleon was in a situation which,
considering his great actions, and the height of his former fortunes,
deserved the compassion of his most bitter enemies, and the sympathy of
all who were disposed to take a moral lesson from the most extraordinary
vicissitude of human affairs which history has ever presented. Nor can
we doubt that such reflections might have eventually led to much
relaxation in the severity with which the prisoner was watched, and, it
may be, at length to his entire emancipation. But to attain this end, it
would have been necessary that Napoleon's conduct, while under
restrictions, should have been of a very different character from that
which he thought it most politic, or felt it most natural, to adopt.
First, to obtain the sympathy and privileges due to an invalid, he ought
to have permitted the visits of some medical person, whose report might
be held as completely impartial. This could not be the case with that of
Dr. O'Meara, engaged as he was in the prisoner's intimate and even
secret service, and on the worst terms with the governor; and Napoleon's
positive rejection of all other assistance seemed to countenance the
belief, however unjust, that he was either feigning indisposition, or
making use of some slight symptoms of it to obtain a relaxation of the
governor's vigilance. Nor was it to be supposed that Dr. Antommarchi's
evidence, being that of an individual entirely dependent on Napoleon,
could be considered as more authentic, till corroborated by some
indifferent, and, at the same time, competent medical authority.
Secondly, It is to be remembered, that the fundamental reason on which
Napoleon's confinement was vindicated, was, that his liberty was
inconsistent with the tranquillity of Europe. To prove the contrary, it
would have been necessary that the Ex-Emperor should have evinced a
desire to retreat from political disputes, and shown symptoms of having
laid aside or forgotten those ambitious projects which had so long
convulsed Europe. Compassion, and the admiration of great talents, might
then have led the states of Europe to confide in the resigned
dispositions of one, whom age, infirmities, and sufferings, appeared to
incline to dedicate the remainder of his days to ease and retirement,
and in whom they might seem a sure guarantee for his pacific intentions.
But so far were such feelings from being exhibited, that every thing
which emanated from St. Helena showed that the Ex-Emperor nourished all
his former plans, and vindicated all his former actions. He was not
satisfied that the world should adopt the opinion that his ambition was
allayed, and his pretensions to empire relinquished. On the contrary,
his efforts, and those of the works into which he breathed his spirit,
went to prove, if they proved any thing, that he never entertained
ambition of a culpable character--that his claims of sovereignty were
grounded upon national law and justice--that he had a right to entertain
them formerly, and that he was disposed and entitled to assert them
still. He was at pains to let the world know that he was not altered in
the slightest degree, was neither ashamed of his projects, nor had
renounced them; but, if restored to Europe, that he would be in all
respects the same person, with the same claims, and little diminished
activity, as when he landed at Cannes to recover the empire of France.
This mode of pleading his cause had the inevitable consequence of
confirming all those who had deemed restrictions on his freedom to be
necessary in the outset (and these were the great majority of Europe,)
in the belief that the same reasons existed for continuing the
restraint, which had originally caused it to be imposed. We are
unwilling to revert again to the hackneyed simile of the imprisoned
lion; but certainly, if the royal animal which Don Quixotte desired to
set at liberty, had, instead of demeaning himself peaceably and with
urbanity, been roaring, ramping, and tearing the bars of his cage, it
may be questioned whether the Great Redresser of Wrongs himself would
have advocated his freedom.
[Sidenote: LAS CASES.]
In November 1816, Napoleon sustained a loss to which he must have been
not a little sensible, in the removal of Count Las Cases from his
society. The devoted attachment of the Count to his person could not be
doubted, and his age and situation as a civilian, made him less apt to
enter into those feuds and quarrels, which sometimes, notwithstanding
their general attachment to Napoleon, seemed to have arisen among the
military officers of the household of Longwood. He was of a literary
turn, and qualified to converse upon general topics, both of history and
science. He had been an emigrant, and understanding all the manœuvres
and intrigues of the ancient noblesse, had many narrations which
Napoleon was not unwilling to listen to. Above all, he received and
recorded every thing which was said by Napoleon, with undoubting faith
and unwearied assiduity. And, like the author of one of the most
entertaining books in the English language (Boswell's Life of Johnson,)
Count Las Cases thought nothing trivial that could illustrate his
subject. Like Boswell, too, his veneration for his principal was so
deep, that he seems to have lost, in some cases, the exact perception of
right and wrong, in his determination to consider Napoleon as always in
the right. But his attachment, if to a certain degree tending to blind
his judgment, came warm from his heart. The count gave a substantial
mark, also, of his sincerity, in dedicating to his master's service a
sum of £4000, or thereabout, his whole private fortune, which was vested
in the English funds.[264]
For our misfortune, as also for his own, since he must have considered
his separation from Buonaparte as such, Count Las Cases had been tempted
into a line of conduct inconsistent with the engagement he had come
under with the other attendants of the Ex-Emperor, not to hold secret
communication beyond the verge of the island. The opportunity of a
servant of his own returning to England, induced him to confide to the
domestic's charge a letter, written upon a piece of white silk, that it
might be the more readily concealed, which was stitched into the lad's
clothes. It was addressed to Prince Lucien Buonaparte. As this was a
direct transgression, in a most material point, of the conditions which
Count Las Cases had promised to observe, he was dismissed from the
island and sent to the Cape of Good Hope, and from thence to
Europe.[265] His Journal remained for some time in the hands of Sir
Hudson Lowe; but, as we had formerly occasion to mention, alterations
and additions were afterwards made, which, in general, are more
vituperative of the governor, than the manuscript as it originally stood
when the Count left St. Helena. The abridgement of the Count's stay at
the island was much to be regretted, as his Journal forms the best
record, not only of Napoleon's real thoughts, but of the opinions which
he desired should be received as such. Unquestionably, the separation
from this devoted follower added greatly to the disconsolate situation
of the Exile of Longwood; but it is impossible to suppress the remark,
that, when a gentleman attached to Napoleon's suite found himself at
liberty thus to break through a plighted engagement in his chief's
behalf, it sufficiently vindicated Sir Hudson Lowe for putting little
faith in the professions made to him, and declining to relax any
reasonable degree of vigilance which the safe custody of his prisoner
seemed to demand.
The complaints of Napoleon and his followers produced, as they ought to
have done, an inquiry into the personal treatment of the Ex-Emperor, in
the British Parliament; when the general reasoning which we have hinted
at, joined to the exposure which ministers afforded of the exaggerated
representations that had been made in the statements which had come from
St. Helena, were found greatly to preponderate over the arguments of
Napoleon's compassionate and accomplished advocate, Lord Holland.
[Sidenote: LORD HOLLAND'S MOTION.]
The question came before the House of Lords, on 18th March, 1817.[266]
Lord Holland, in a speech of great good sense and moderation, disowned
all attempts at persuading the House, that the general line of policy
adopted with respect to Napoleon should be changed. It had been adopted
in contradiction to his (Lord Holland's) sentiments, but it had been
confirmed by Parliament, and he did not hope to obtain a reversal of
their judgment. But, if the confining Napoleon was, as had been alleged,
a measure of necessity, it followed that necessity must limit what
necessity had created, and of course that the prisoner should be treated
with no unnecessary harshness. His lordship did not presume to state the
reports which had reached him as absolute matters of fact, but only as
rumours which demanded an inquiry, where the honour of the country was
so nearly concerned. Most of the allegations on which Lord Holland
grounded his motion, were contained in a paper of complaints sent by
General Montholon. The particulars noticed in this remonstrance were
circumstances which have been already adverted to, but may be here
briefly noticed, as well as the answers by the British Government.
First, the restrictions upon the exercising ground formerly allowed to
Napoleon, was alleged as a grievance. The climate of St. Helena, Lord
Holland admitted, was good, but his lordship complained that the upper
part of the island, where Longwood was situated, was damp and unhealthy.
The inconvenience of the house was also complained of.
Lord Bathurst, the colonial secretary of state, replied to this charge,
that the general accounts of Longwood described it as healthy. It had
been the usual country residence of the lieutenant-governor, which went
far to show that the site could not be ineligible. The situation had
been preferred by Napoleon himself, who was so impatient to take
possession of it, that he even wished to have pitched a tent there till
the house could be cleared for his reception. The restriction of the
bounds of exercise, he explained to have been caused by Napoleon's
evincing some disposition to tamper with the inhabitants. He still had a
circuit of eight miles, within which he might range unattended and
uncontrolled. If he wished to go farther, he was at liberty to traverse
the island, upon permitting an orderly officer to join his suite. His
refusal to take exercise on such terms, was not the fault of the British
Government; and if Napoleon's health suffered in consequence, it was the
result not of the regulations, which were reasonable and indispensable,
but of his own wilfulness in refusing to comply with them.
The second class of exceptions taken by Lord Holland, was against what
he considered as the harsh and iniquitous restrictions upon the exile's
communication with Europe. He was not, his lordship stated, permitted to
obtain books, or to subscribe for journals and newspapers. All
intercourse by letter was interdicted to the distinguished prisoner,
even with his wife, his child, and his nearest and dearest relatives. He
was not allowed to write under seal to the Prince Regent.
Upon these several topics Lord Bathurst answered, that a list of books,
the value of which amounted to £1400 or £1500 (which General Montholon
termed a few books,) had been sent by Napoleon to Britain; that the
commissioners put this list into the hands of an eminent French
bookseller, who had supplied as many as could be obtained in London and
Paris, but several of them, chiefly works on military matters, could not
be procured. The volumes which could be procured, had been sent, with an
apology for the omission of those which were not to be gotten; but the
residents of Longwood had not admitted the excuse. Respecting the
permission of a free subscription by Napoleon to journals, Lord Bathurst
deemed it his duty to place some restriction upon that species of
indulgence, attempts having been detected to establish a correspondence
with Napoleon through the medium of newspapers. On the subject of
intercourse with Europe by letter, Lord Bathurst stated that it was not
interdicted, unless by the condition that Sir Hudson Lowe should
previously be permitted to read the letter, whether of business or
otherwise. This right, Lord Bathurst stated, had been exercised only by
the governor in person, and with strict delicacy and feeling; and he
repelled, with the most flat contradiction, the assertions of Montholon,
that the governor of St. Helena had broken open and detained letters,
under pretence that they did not come through the channel of the English
minister. Lord Bathurst said, that General Montholon had been challenged
by Sir Hudson Lowe to produce a single instance of such tyranny having
been permitted, but that the French general had remained silent, the
assertion being absolutely false. All the letters which the relatives of
Napoleon were disposed to send through his, Lord Bathurst's office, he
said, should be instantly forwarded, but it was a necessary preliminary
that such should be written. Now, a letter from his brother Joseph,
which was received in October last, and instantly forwarded, was the
only one from any of his family or relatives which had reached the
office. His lordship then adverted to the regulation which enacted, that
even a letter to the Prince Regent must pass through the governor of
St. Helena's hands in an open state. Lord Bathurst explained that the
regulation gave the governor no authority or option as to transmitting
the letter, which he was directed to forward instantly. The rule only
required that Sir Hudson Lowe should be privy to the contents, in order,
that, if it should contain any impeachment of his conduct, his defence
or apology might reach London as soon as the accusation. This, his
lordship remarked, was necessary, in order that no time might be lost in
redressing a complaint of a grave character, or in repelling any
frivolous and unsubstantial charge. He added, that should any sealed
letter be addressed to the Prince Regent by Napoleon, he, Lord Bathurst,
would have no hesitation to open it, if the governor had not previously
done so. He should conceive it to be his duty to forward it instantly as
addressed, whenever he was acquainted with the contents; but being in
his department responsible for the acts of the sovereign, he would feel
it his duty to make himself previously acquainted with the nature of the
communication.
Thirdly, Lord Holland touched on the inadequacy of the sum allowed for
the maintenance of Napoleon, and on the unworthiness of making that
personage contribute to bear his own charges. The ministers, his
lordship stated, having placed him in a situation where great expense
was necessary, turned round upon him, and insisted that he should
himself be in a great measure at the charge of supporting it.
Lord Bathurst replied by stating the facts with which the reader is
already acquainted. He mentioned, that the sum of £8000 had been fixed
upon as adequate, after the heavy expenses of the first year; and that
it was increased to £12,000 on the remonstrance of Sir Hudson Lowe. This
allowance, he said, was the same given to the governor, who had to bear
the cost of frequent entertainments. It did not appear to government,
that the family of Napoleon, which was to be maintained on the footing
of that becoming a general officer of distinction, ought to cost more
than that of Sir Hudson Lowe, who actually held that condition, with the
necessity of discharging the expenses of his staff, and all other
incumbent disbursements. He gave some details on the subject of the
provisions and the cellar, from which it appeared, that, besides the
inferior species of wine, the table of Napoleon was supplied at the rate
of two bottles daily of those of a superior quality for each individual.
Lord Holland concluded with stating, that although Queen Mary could be
no otherwise regarded than as the bitterest enemy of the illustrious
Elizabeth, yet the greatest stain upon the memory of the latter
sovereign was not the unjust, for _unjust_ it was not, but the harsh and
ungenerous treatment of Mary. He reminded the House, that it would not
be considered by posterity, whether Buonaparte had been justly punished
for his crimes, but whether Great Britain had acted in that generous
manner which became a great country. He then moved for the production
of such papers and correspondence betwixt St. Helena and the British
Government, as should seem best fitted to throw light on the personal
treatment of Napoleon.
It may be observed, that in the candid and liberal manner in which Lord
Holland stated the case, he was led into a comparison unfavourable to
his own argument. To have rendered the case of Mary (the justice of
which his lordship admitted, in questioning its generosity) parallel to
that of Napoleon, two remarkable circumstances were wanting. First,
Mary, far from being at war with Queen Elizabeth, was ostensibly on the
most friendly terms with that sovereign when she took refuge in England;
secondly, the British Ministry testified no design to finish Napoleon's
confinement by cutting off his head.
Lord Darnley, who had concurred with Lord Holland in desiring an
inquiry, now considered the reports alluded to as totally refuted by the
candid and able statement of Lord Bathurst, and was not of opinion that
Lord Holland should press the motion farther. The Marquis of
Buckingham's opinion was founded on the broad ground of Napoleon's
delinquencies towards Europe, and England in particular. He was of
opinion, that every degree of restraint necessary to prevent his escape,
should be imposed and enforced. The severe and close durance to which
General Buonaparte was subjected, was not, his lordship said, dictated
by motives of revenge, but of security. It was a piece of political
justice which we owed to Europe, and the defeat of which would never be
forgotten in this or in any other state of the civilized world.
The motion of Lord Holland does not appear to have been seconded, and
was negatived without a division.
There can be no doubt that the failure of this effort in the British
Senate had a deep effect on Napoleon's spirits, and may, perhaps, have
aggravated that tendency to disease in the stomach, which was suspected
to have already taken place. Nothing is better known, though perhaps few
things are more difficult to be satisfactorily explained, than the
mysterious connexion betwixt distress of mind and the action of the
digestive powers. Violent sickness is produced on many persons by
extreme and sudden affliction, and almost every one feels the stomach
more or less affected by that which powerfully and painfully occupies
the mind. And here we may add, that Lord Holland's kindness and
compassion for so great a man, under such severe circumstances, were
shown by a variety of delicate attentions on his part and that of his
lady, and that the supplies of books and other articles sent by them
through the Foreign Office, where every facility was afforded for the
conveyance, continued from time to time to give Napoleon assurance of
their sympathy. But though he gratefully felt their attentions, his
distress of body, and perhaps of mind, assumed a character incapable of
receiving consolation.
This unhappy state was kept up and prolonged by the extent to which
Buonaparte indulged in determined opposition to the various regulations
respecting the custody of his person; on which subject every thing which
occurred occasioned a struggle against the authority of Sir Hudson Lowe,
or a new effort to obtain the Imperial distinctions which he considered
as due to his rank.
The last point seems to have been carried to the length of childish
extravagance. It was necessary, for example, that Dr. O'Meara should
report to the governor of the island the state of the prisoner's health,
which began to give room for serious apprehension. Napoleon insisted,
that when this bulletin was rendered in writing, O'Meara, whom he
considered as in his own service, should give him the title of Emperor.
It was in vain that the Doctor remonstrated, pleading that the
instructions of Government, as well as the orders of Lieutenant-General
Lowe, prohibited him from using this forbidden epithet; and it was with
difficulty that he at last prevailed that the word Personage or Patient
might be substituted for the offensive phrase of _General Buonaparte_.
Had this ingenious device not been resorted to, there could have been no
communication with the Government on the subject of Napoleon's health.
The physician of Napoleon had till now enjoyed an easy office. His
health was naturally sound; and, like many persons who enjoy the same
inestimable advantage, the Ex-Emperor doubted of the healing powers of
medicines which he never needed to use. Abstinence was his chief
resource against stomach complaints, when these began to assail him, and
the bath was frequently resorted to when the pangs became more acute. He
also held it expedient to change the character of his way of living,
when he felt affected with illness. If it had been sedentary, he rode
hard and took violent exercise; and if, on the contrary, he had been
taking more exercise than usual, he was accustomed to lay it aside for
prolonged repose. But more recently he had not the wish to mount on
horseback, or take exercise at all.
About the 25th of September, 1817, Napoleon's health seems to have been
seriously affected. He complained much of nausea, his legs swelled, and
there were other unfavourable symptoms, which induced his physician to
tell him that he was of a temperament which required much activity; that
constant exertion of mind and body was indispensable; and that without
exercise he must soon lose his health. He immediately declared, that
while exposed to the challenge of sentinels, he never would take
exercise, however necessary. Dr. O'Meara proposed calling in the
assistance of Dr. Baxter, a medical gentleman of eminence on Sir Hudson
Lowe's staff. "He could but say the same as you do," said Napoleon, "and
recommend my riding abroad; nevertheless, as long as the present system
continues, I will never stir out." At another time he expressed the same
resolution, and his determination to take no medicines. Dr. O'Meara
replied, that, if the disease should not be encountered by remedies in
due time, it would terminate fatally. His answer was remarkable: "I will
have at least the consolation that my death will be an eternal dishonour
to the English nation, who sent me to this climate to die under the
hands of * * * *." The physician again represented, that, by neglecting
to take medicine, he would accelerate his own death. "That which is
written is written," said Napoleon, looking up. "Our days are
reckoned."[267]
This deplorable and desperate course seems to have been adopted partly
to spite Sir Hudson Lowe, partly in the reckless feelings of despondency
inspired by his situation, and in some degree, perhaps, was the effect
of the disease itself, which must necessarily have disinclined him to
motion. Napoleon might also hope, that, by thus threatening to injure
his health by forbearing exercise, he might extort the governor's
acquiescence in some points which were disputed betwixt them. When the
governor sent to offer him some extension of his riding ground, and Dr.
O'Meara wished him to profit by the permission, he replied, that he
should be insulted by the challenge of the sentinels, and that he did
not choose to submit to the caprice of the governor, who, granting an
indulgence one day, might recall it the next. On such grounds as
these--which, after all, amounted just to this, that being a prisoner,
and one of great importance, he was placed under a system of vigilance,
rendered more necessary by the constant intrigues carried on for his
escape--did he feel himself at liberty to neglect those precautions of
exercise and medicine, which were necessary for the preservation of his
health. His conduct on such occasions can scarce be termed worthy of his
powerful mind; it resembled too much that of the froward child, who
refuses its food, or its physic, because it is contradicted.
[Sidenote: REMOVAL OF O'MEARA.]
The removal of Dr. O'Meara from Napoleon's person, which was considered
by him as a great injury, was the next important incident in the
monotony of his life. It seems, from quotations given elsewhere in this
volume, that Dr. O'Meara had been for some time a confident of Sir
Hudson Lowe, and was recommended by him to ministers as a person by
whose means he could learn what passed in the family of Napoleon. But in
process of time, Dr. O'Meara, growing, perhaps, more intimate with the
prisoner, became unwilling to supply the governor with the information
of which he had been formerly profuse, and a quarrel took place betwixt
him and Sir Hudson Lowe. In describing the scenes which passed between
him and the governor, we have already said that Dr. O'Meara writes with
a degree of personal animosity, which is unfavourable to his own credit.
But his departure from St. Helena was occasioned by a warmer mark of the
interest which he took in Napoleon's fortunes, than could be inferred
from his merely refusing to inform Sir Hudson of what was said at
Longwood.
Dr. O'Meara seems not only to have taken the part of Napoleon in his
controversies with the governor, but also to have engaged deeply in
forwarding a secret correspondence with a Mr. Holmes, the Ex-Emperor's
agent in London. This appears to have been clearly proved by a letter
received from the agent, relating to large remittances of money to St.
Helena, by the connivance of the physician.[268] Under such suspicions,
Dr. O'Meara was withdrawn by the governor's mandate from attending on
the person of Napoleon, and sent back to England. Napoleon had never
obeyed his medical injunctions, but he complained severely when he was
recalled from his household; expressing his belief that the depriving
him of the medical attendant, whose prescriptions he had never followed,
was a direct and bold step in the plan contrived for murdering him. It
is probable, however, he regretted Dr. O'Meara's secret services more
than those which were professional.
Sir Hudson Lowe again offered the assistance of Dr. Baxter, but this was
construed at Longwood into an additional offence. It was even treated as
an offer big with suspicion. The governor tried, it was said, to palm
his own private physician upon the Emperor, doubtless that he might hold
his life more effectually in his power. On the other hand, the British
ministers were anxious that every thing should be done which could
prevent complaints on this head. "You cannot better fulfil the wishes of
his Majesty's Government" (says one of Lord Bathurst's despatches to the
Governor) "than by giving effect to any measure which you may consider
calculated to prevent any just ground of dissatisfaction on the part of
General Buonaparte, on account of any real or supposed inadequacy of
medical attendance."
Dr. Stokoe, surgeon on board the Conqueror, was next called in to visit
at Longwood. But differences arose betwixt him and the governor, and
after a few visits his attendance on Napoleon was discharged.
After this period, the prisoner expressed his determination, whatever
might be the extremity of his case, not to permit the visits of an
English physician; and a commission was sent to Italy to obtain a
medical man of reputation from some of the seminaries in that country.
At the same time, Napoleon signified a desire to have the company of a
Catholic priest. The proposition for this purpose came through his
uncle, Cardinal Fesch, to the Papal government, and readily received the
assent of the British ministry. It would appear that this mission had
been thought by his Holiness to resemble, in some degree, those sent
into foreign and misbelieving countries; for two churchmen were
despatched to St. Helena instead of one.
The senior priest, Father Bonavita, was an elderly man, subject to the
infirmities belonging to his period of life, and broken by a residence
of twenty-six years in Mexico. His speech had been affected by a
paralytic stroke. His recommendation to the office which he now
undertook, was his having been father confessor to Napoleon's mother.
His companion was a young abbé, called Vignali.[269] Both were pious,
good men, well qualified, doubtless, to give Napoleon the comfort which
their Church holds out to those who receive its tenets, but not so much
as to reclaim wanderers, or confirm those who might doubt the doctrines
of the Church.
[Sidenote: RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.]
Argument or controversy, however, were not necessary. Napoleon had
declared his resolution to die in the faith of his fathers. He was
neither an infidel, he said, nor a philosopher. If we doubt whether a
person who had conducted himself towards the Pope in the way which
history records of Napoleon, and who had at one time been
excommunicated, (if, indeed, the ban was yet removed,) could be sincere
in his general professions of Catholicism, we must at least acquit the
Exile of the charge of deliberate atheism. On various occasions, he
expressed, with deep feelings of devotion, his conviction of the
existence of the Deity, the great truth upon which the whole system of
religion rests; and this at a time when the detestable doctrines of
atheism and materialism were generally current in France. Immediately
after his elevation to the dignity of First Consul, he meditated the
restoration of religion; and thus, in a mixture of feeling and of
policy, expressed himself upon the subject to Thibaudeau, then a
counsellor of state. Having combated for a long time the systems of
modern philosophers upon different kinds of worship, upon deism, natural
religion, and so forth, he proceeded. "Last Sunday evening, in the
general silence of nature, I was walking in these grounds (of
Malmaison.) The sound of the church-bell of Ruel fell upon my ear, and
renewed all the impressions of my youth. I was profoundly affected, such
is the power of early habit and associations; and I considered, if such
was the case with me, what must not be the effect of such recollections
upon the more simple and credulous vulgar? Let your philosophers answer
that. The people must have a religion." He went on to state the terms on
which he would negotiate with the Pope, and added, "They will say I am a
Papist--I am no such thing. I was a Mahomedan in Egypt. I will be a
Catholic here, for the good of the people. I do not believe in forms of
religion, but in the existence of a God!" He extended his hands towards
heaven--"Who is it that has created all above and around us?"[270] This
sublime passage proves, that Napoleon (unfortunate in having proceeded
no farther towards the Christian shrine) had at least crossed the
threshold of the temple, and believed in and worshipped the Great Father
of the Universe.
The missionaries were received at St. Helena with civility, and the
rites of mass were occasionally performed at Longwood. Both the
clergymen were quiet, unobtrusive characters, confining themselves to
their religious duties, and showing neither the abilities, nor the
active and intriguing spirit which Protestants are apt to impute to the
Catholic priesthood.
The same vessel which arrived at St. Helena on the 18th September, in
1819, with these physicians for the mind, brought with them Dr. F.
Antommarchi, anatomic pro-sector (that is, assistant to a professor of
anatomy) to the Hospital of St. Marie Neuve at Florence, attached to the
University of Pisa, who was designed to supply the place about the
prisoner's person, occupied by Dr. O'Meara, and after him provisionally
by Dr. Stokoe. He continued to hold the office till Napoleon's death,
and his Account of his Last Moments, a work in two volumes, though less
interesting, and showing far less acuteness than that of Las Cases, or
of O'Meara, is yet useful and entertaining, as relating to the last days
of so extraordinary a person. Dr. Antommarchi seems to have been
acceptable to Napoleon, and the rather that he was a native of Corsica.
He brought also news from his family. The Princess Pauline Borghese had
offered to come to attend him. "Let her remain where she is," said
Napoleon; "I would not have her witness the degrading state which I am
reduced to, and the insults to which I am subjected."
It is needless to resume the subject of these alleged insults. They
consisted in the precautions which Sir Hudson Lowe deemed himself
obliged to take for the security of his prisoner; particularly in
requiring that a British officer should be regularly made assured of his
being at Longwood, and that an officer, not under the rank of captain,
should attend him on the excursions which he proposed to make through
the island. On these subjects, Napoleon had made his mind up to a
species of passive resistance; and had, as we have seen, already
expressed himself determined to take no exercise, however indispensable
to his health, unless the regulations of his confinement were entirely
dispensed with, or modified according to his own pleasure. This was an
argument _ad misericordiam_, which must have given the governor great
distress and uneasiness; since, if the health of the prisoner should
fail, even though it was through his own wilfulness, Sir Hudson could
not expect that his conduct would escape censure. At the same time, if
he yielded to this species of compulsory argument, it might be carried
to an extent altogether inconsistent with the safe custody of the
captive. His vigilance was also sharpened by constant reports of plots
for the liberation of Napoleon; and the sums of money which he and his
family had at their command, rendered it dangerous to trust to the
natural securities of the island. It is remarkable, too, that, in
demanding, as a matter of right, freedom from the restrictions of which
he complained, Napoleon never proposed any concessions on his part, by
offer of his parole or otherwise, which might tend to give any
additional moral assurance, in place of those limitations which he
desired to have removed. Yet, to accommodate himself, in some degree to
his prisoner's obstinacy, Sir Hudson Lowe was content that the British
officer, whose duty it was to report on the presence of Napoleon at
Longwood, should only be required to satisfy himself of it by such
indirect opportunities as his walking in the garden, or appearing at the
window, permitted him to enjoy, and on such occasions he was enjoined to
keep his own person concealed. In this way, there were days which passed
without any regular report on this most important point, for which Sir
Hudson Lowe would have been highly responsible if an escape had been
effected. We beg to refer to Dr. Antommarchi's work for instances of the
peculiar and grossly indelicate opportunities, which, to compound
between the necessity of the case and the obstinacy of Napoleon, his
attendants took to make his person visible when he was not aware of
it.[271]
[Sidenote: PLANS OF ESCAPE.]
Schemes for Napoleon's escape were not wanting. A Colonel Latapie,
distinguished as a partisan officer, was said to be at the head of an
attempt to carry him off from St. Helena, which was to be undertaken by
a band of desperadoes from America. But Napoleon said, he knew too well
the character of such adventurers to hope to profit by them. Government
had other information of attempts to be made from America, but none of
them seem to have proceeded to any serious length.
It was different with the undertaking of Johnstone, a smuggler of an
uncommonly resolute character, and whose life had been a tissue of
desperate risks. He had made a memorable escape from Newgate, and had
afterwards piloted Lord Nelson's vessel to the attack of Copenhagen,
when the ordinary masters of the fleet, and pilots, declined the task.
Johnstone was also said to have meditated a bold attempt to carry off
Buonaparte on a former occasion, when he trusted himself on the water
for the purpose of visiting Flushing.[272] And now he certainly engaged
in a plot to deliver Napoleon from St. Helena, of a very singular kind.
A submarine vessel--that is, a ship capable of being sunk under water
for a certain time, and of being raised again at pleasure by
disengaging certain weights, was to be the means of effecting this
enterprise. It was thought that, by sinking the vessel during the
daytime, she might escape the notice of the British cruizers, and being
raised at night, might approach the guarded rock without discovery. The
vessel was actually begun in one of the building-yards upon the Thames;
but the peculiarity of her construction having occasioned suspicions,
she was seized by the British Government.
These, and others which we could name, were very perilous and wild
attempts, yet calculated to keep vigilance alive; for in every case in
which great natural difficulties had been surmounted by such
enterprises, it has been because these difficulties have been too much
relied upon. But while such precarious means of escape were presented
from time to time, the chance upon which Napoleon secretly relied for
release from his present situation was vanishing from his eyes.
His case was mentioned in the House of Commons, but incidentally only,
on the 12th July 1819.[273] The subject was introduced into a debate on
finance, when Mr. C. H. Hutchinson pointed out the yearly expense of
detaining Napoleon at St. Helena, which he stated to amount to
half-a-million sterling, as a useless expenditure of public money. In
this statement, he received no countenance from any one except Mr.
Joseph Hume. It was answered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and the
expense was declared not to exceed a fifth-part of the sum alleged. The
leading members of Opposition seemed to take no interest in the
question; and it was believed at St. Helena, that Napoleon's
disappointment in the hopes which he had entertained of their strong and
overpowering interposition in his behalf, first led to his mental
depression and total abandonment of hope.
The complexion of the times, indeed, had become such as to strengthen
every reason which existed for detaining him in captivity. The state of
England, owing to the discontent and sufferings of the manufacturing
districts--and more especially that of Italy, convulsed by the
short-lived revolutions of Naples and Savoy--rendered the safe custody
of Napoleon a matter of more deep import than it had been at any time
since his fall. What the effect of his name might have produced in that
moment of general commotion, cannot be estimated, but the consequences
of his escape must have been most formidable.
The British Ministry, aware of the power of such a spirit to work among
the troubled elements, anxiously enjoined additional vigilance to the
governor of St. Helena:
"The overthrow of the Neapolitan government, the revolutionary
spirit which more or less prevails over all Italy, and the doubtful
state of France itself, must excite his attention, and clearly show
that a crisis is fast approaching, if not already arrived, when his
escape would be productive of important consequences. That his
partisans are active, cannot be doubted; and if he be ever willing
to hazard the attempt, he will never allow such an opportunity to
escape. You will, therefore, exert all your attention in watching
his proceedings, and call upon the admiral to use his utmost
vigilance, as upon the navy so much must ultimately depend."[274]
[Sidenote: INCREASED ILLNESS.]
The alarm was natural, but there was no real cause for apprehension.
Politics and war were never more to know the powerful influence of
Napoleon Buonaparte. His lost hopes aggravating the progress of the
cruel disease, which had its source in the stomach, it now affected the
whole frame, and undermined the strength of the constitution. Death was
now finally to terminate the fretful and degrading discussions, by which
he inflicted, and from which he received, so much pain, and to open the
gates of a prison, for which Hope herself could scarce present another
key. The symptoms of disorganisation in the digestive powers became more
and more apparent, and his reluctance to take any medicine, as if from
an instinctive persuasion that the power of physic was in vain,
continued as obstinate as ever. On one of the many disputes which he
maintained on this subject, he answered Antommarchi's reasoning
thus:--"Doctor, no physicking. We are, as I already told you, a machine
made to live. We are organised for that purpose, and such is our nature.
Do not counteract the living principle. Let it alone--leave it the
liberty of defending itself--it will do better than your drugs. Our body
is a watch, that is intended to go for a given time. The watchmaker
cannot open it; and must, on handling it, grope his way blindfolded and
at random. For once that he assists and relieves it by dint of
tormenting it with his crooked instruments, he injures it ten times, and
at last destroys it."[275] This was on the 14th of October, 1820.
As the Ex-Emperor's health grew weaker, it cannot be thought
extraordinary that his mind became more and more depressed. In lack of
other means of amusing himself, he had been somewhat interested in the
construction of a pond and fountain in the garden of Longwood, which was
stocked with small fishes. A mixture of copperas in the mastick employed
in cementing the basin, had affected the water. The creatures which had
been in a good measure the object of Napoleon's attention, began to
sicken and to die. He was deeply affected by the circumstance, and, in
language strongly resembling the beautiful verses of Moore, expressed
his sense of the fatality which seemed to attach itself to him. "Every
thing I love--every thing that belongs to me," he exclaimed, "is
immediately struck.[276] Heaven and mankind unite to afflict me."[277]
At other times he lamented his decay of energy. The bed, he said, was
now a place of luxury, which he would not exchange for all the thrones
in the universe. The eyes, which formerly were so vigilant, could now
scarcely be opened. He recollected that he used to dictate to four or
five secretaries at once. "But then," he said, "I was Napoleon--now I am
no longer any thing--my strength, my faculties, forsake me--I no longer
live, I only exist."[278] Often he remained silent for many hours,
suffering, as may be supposed, much pain, and immersed in profound
melancholy.
About the 22d January, 1821, Napoleon appeared to resume some
energy, and to make some attempt to conquer his disease by
exercise. He mounted his horse, and galloped, for the last time,
five or six miles around the limits of Longwood, but nature was
overcome by the effort. He complained that his strength was
sinking under him rapidly.[279]
The governor had already transmitted to Britain accounts of Napoleon's
decay of health, without having it, however, in his power to ascertain
how far it was real, or how far the appearances were assumed. The
patient would neither receive the visit of any English surgeon or
physician, nor would he authorise the communication of Dr. Antommarchi
with Sir Hudson Lowe. The governor was obliged to state accounts of the
prisoner's declining health as reports, the reality of which he had no
means of ascertaining. The generous feelings of the great personage at
the head of the British Government were naturally deeply interested in
the fate of the prisoner, and prompted him, by every means in his power,
and especially by expressions of his own sympathy, to extend such hope
and comfort to Napoleon as he could be supposed to receive, under the
necessity of his continued captivity. The following is Lord Bathurst's
despatch to Sir Hudson Lowe on this interesting subject, dated 16th
February, 1821:--
"I am aware how difficult it is to make any communication to the
General which will not be liable to misrepresentation; and yet, if
he be really ill, he may derive some consolation by knowing, that
the repeated accounts which have of late been transmitted of his
declining health, have not been received with indifference. You
will, therefore, communicate to General Buonaparte the great
interest which his Majesty has taken in the recent accounts of his
indisposition, and the anxiety which his Majesty feels to afford him
every relief of which his situation admits. You will assure General
Buonaparte that there is no alleviation which can be derived from
additional medical assistance, nor any arrangement consistent with
the safe custody of his person at St. Helena, (and his Majesty
cannot now hold out any expectation of his removal,) which his
Majesty is not most ready and desirous to afford. You will not only
repeat the offer which has already been more than once made, of
such further medical assistance as the island of St. Helena affords,
but you will give him the option of procuring the attendance of any
of the medical gentlemen who are at the Cape, where there is one, at
least, of considerable eminence in his profession; and in case of
any wish being expressed by the General to receive such assistance,
you will consider yourself authorised to make a communication to the
Cape, and take such other measures as may be necessary to secure the
immediate attendance of the person whom the General may name."
Napoleon had not the satisfaction to know the interest which his Majesty
took in his illness, which would probably have afforded him some gleam
of consolation. The tenor of the letter might, perhaps, have induced him
to think, that his own system of pertinacious contest with the
authorities under whose charge he was placed, had been so far
injudicious, as to lead to doubts of the reality of the disorder under
which he was dying; and had therefore been one great cause of
intercepting the sympathy, and perhaps the relief, which must otherwise
have extended itself to a situation so well deserving of commiseration.
[Sidenote: LAST ILLNESS.]
Towards the end of March the disease assumed a character still more
formidable, and Dr. Antommarchi became desirous of obtaining a
consultation with some of the English medical men. The Emperor's
aversion to their assistance had been increased by a well-meant offer of
the governor, announcing that a physician of eminence had arrived at the
island, whom he therefore placed at General Buonaparte's devotion.[280]
This proposal, like every other advance on the part of Sir Hudson Lowe,
had been received as a meditated injury; "He wants to deceive Europe by
false bulletins," said Napoleon; "I will not see any one who is in
communication with him."[281] To refuse seeing every physician but his
own, was certainly an option which ought to have been left in Napoleon's
choice, and it was so left accordingly. But in thus obstinately
declining to see an impartial medical man, whose report must have been
conclusive respecting his state of health, Napoleon unquestionably
strengthened the belief, that his case was not so desperate as it proved
to be.
At length the Ex-Emperor consented that Dr. Antommarchi should consult
with Dr. Arnott, surgeon of the 20th regiment.[282] But the united
opinion of the medical gentlemen could not overcome the aversion of
Napoleon to medicine, or shake the belief which he reposed in the gloomy
doctrines of fatalism. "Quod scriptum scriptum," he replied in the
language of a Moslem; "All that is to happen is written down. Our hour
is marked, and it is not in our power to claim a moment longer of life
than Fate has predestined for us."[283]
Dr. Antommarchi finally prevailed in obtaining admittance for Dr. Arnott
into the apartment and presence of the patient, who complained chiefly
of his stomach, of the disposition to vomit, and deficiency of the
digestive powers. He saw him, for the first time on 2d April, 1821, and
continued his visits regularly. Napoleon expressed his opinion that his
liver was affected. Dr. Arnott's observations led him to think, that
though the action of the liver might be imperfect, the seat of the
disease was to be looked for elsewhere. And here it is to be remarked,
that Napoleon, when Dr. Antommarchi expressed doubts on the state of his
stomach, had repelled them with sharpness, though his own private belief
was, that he was afflicted with the disease of his father. Thus, with a
capricious inconsistency, natural enough to a sick bed, he communicated
to some of his retinue his sense of what disease afflicted him, though,
afraid perhaps of some course of medicine being proposed, he did not
desire that his surgeon should know his suspicions.[284] From the 15th
to the 24th of April, Napoleon was engaged from time to time in making
his testamentary bequests, of which we shall have occasion to make some
mention hereafter, as illustrative of his peculiar character and
sentiments. On the day last mentioned, he was greatly exhausted by the
fatigue of writing, and showed symptoms of over-excitation. Among these
may be safely included, a plan which he spoke of for reconciling all
religious dissensions in France, which he said he had designed to carry
into effect.
As the strength of the patient gradually sunk, the symptoms of his
disease became less equivocal, until, on the 27th April, the ejection of
a dark-coloured fluid gave farther insight into the nature of the
malady. Dr. Antommarchi persevered in attributing it to climate, which
was flattering the wish of the patient, who desired to lay his death
upon his confinement at St. Helena; while Dr. Arnott expressed his
belief that the disease was the same which cut off his father in the
pure air of Montpellier. Dr. Antommarchi, as usually happens to the
reporter of a debate, silenced his antagonist in the argument, although
Dr. Arnott had by this time obtained the patient's own authority for the
assertion. Upon the 28th of April, Napoleon gave instructions to
Antommarchi, that after his death his body should be opened, but that no
English medical man should touch him, unless in the case of assistance
being absolutely necessary, in which case he gave Antommarchi leave to
call in that of Dr. Arnott. He directed that his heart should be
conveyed to Parma, to Maria Louisa; and requested anxiously that his
stomach should be particularly examined, and the report transmitted to
his son. "The vomitings," he said, "which succeed one another without
interruption, lead me to suppose that the stomach is, of all my organs,
the most diseased; and I am inclined to believe that it is attacked with
the same disorder which killed my father--I mean a scirrhus in the
pylorus." On the 2d May, the patient returned to the same interesting
subject, reminded Antommarchi of his anxiety that the stomach should be
carefully examined. "The physicians of Montpellier had announced that
the scirrhus in the pylorus would be hereditary in my family. Their
report is, I believe, in the hands of Louis. Ask for it, and compare it
with your own observations, that I may save my son from the sufferings I
now experience."
[Sidenote: DEATH.]
During the 3d May, it was seen that the life of Napoleon was drawing
evidently to a close; and his followers, and particularly his physician,
became desirous to call in more medical assistance;--that of Dr. Shortt,
physician to the forces, and of Dr. Mitchell, surgeon of the flagship,
was referred to. Dr. Shortt, however, thought it proper to assert the
dignity belonging to his profession, and refused (being under the same
roof with the patient,) to give an opinion on a case of so much
importance in itself, and attended with so much obscurity, unless he
were permitted to see and examine him. The officers of Napoleon's
household excused themselves, by professing that the Emperor's strict
commands had been laid on them, that no English physician, Dr. Arnott
excepted, should approach his dying bed. They said, that even when he
was speechless they would be unable to brook his eye, should he turn it
upon them in reproof for their disobedience.
About two o'clock of the same day, the priest Vignali administered the
sacrament of extreme unction. Some days before, Napoleon had explained
to him the manner in which he desired his body should be laid out in
state, in an apartment lighted by torches, or what Catholics call _une
chambre ardente_. "I am neither," he said, in the same phrase which we
have formerly quoted, "a philosopher nor a physician. I believe in God,
and am of the religion of my father. It is not every body who can be an
atheist. I was born a Catholic, and will fulfil all the duties of the
Catholic Church, and receive the assistance which it administers." He
then turned to Dr. Antommarchi, whom he seems to have suspected of
heterodoxy, which the doctor, however, disowned. "How can you carry it
so far?" he said. "Can you not believe in God, whose existence every
thing proclaims, and in whom the greatest minds have believed?"[285]
As if to mark a closing point of resemblance betwixt Cromwell and
Napoleon, a dreadful tempest arose on the 4th May, which preceded the
day that was to close the mortal existence of this extraordinary man. A
willow, which had been the Exile's favourite, and under which he had
often enjoyed the fresh breeze, was torn up by the hurricane; and almost
all the trees about Longwood shared the same fate.
The 5th of May came amid wind and rain. Napoleon's passing spirit was
deliriously engaged in a strife more terrible than that of the elements
around. The words "_tête d'armée_," the last which escaped his lips,
intimated that his thoughts were watching the current of a heady fight.
About eleven minutes before six in the evening, Napoleon, after a
struggle which indicated the original strength of his constitution,
breathed his last.
* * * * *
The officers of Napoleon's household were disposed to have the body
anatomized in secret. But Sir Hudson Lowe had too deep a sense of the
responsibility under which he and his country stood, to permit this to
take place. He declared, that even if he were reduced to make use of
force, he would insure the presence of English physicians at the
dissection.
Generals Bertrand and Montholon, with Marchand, the valet-de-chambre of
the deceased, were present at the operation, which took place on the 6th
of May. It was also witnessed by Sir Thomas Reade, and some British
staff-officers. Drs. Thomas Shortt, Archibald Arnott, Charles Mitchell,
Matthew Livingstone, and Francis Burton, all of them medical men, were
also present. The cause of death was sufficiently evident. A large ulcer
occupied almost the whole of the stomach. It was only the strong
adhesion of the diseased parts of that organ to the concave surface of
the lobe of the liver, which, being over the ulcer, had prolonged the
patient's life by preventing the escape of the contents of the stomach
into the cavity of the abdomen. All the other parts of the viscera were
found in a tolerably healthy state. The report was signed by the British
medical gentlemen present. Dr. Antommarchi was about to add his
attestation, when, according to information which we consider as
correct, General Bertrand interdicted his doing so, because the report
was drawn up as relating to the body of _General Buonaparte_. Dr.
Antommarchi's own account does not, we believe, greatly differ from that
of the British professional persons, though he has drawn conclusions
from it which are apparently inconsistent with the patient's own
conviction, and the ghastly evidence of the anatomical operation. He
continued to insist that his late patron had not died of the cancer
which we have described, or, in medical language, of scirrhus of the
pylorus, but of a _chronic gastro hepatitis_, a disease he stated to be
endemic in the island of St. Helena; although we do not observe it
asserted or proved that the hospital of the island, at any time,
produced a single case like that of the deceased captive.
The gentlemen of Napoleon's suite were desirous that his heart should
be preserved and given to their custody. But Sir Hudson Lowe did not
feel himself at liberty to permit this upon his own authority. He
agreed, however, that the heart should be placed in a silver vase,
filled with spirits, and interred along with the body; so that, in case
his instructions from home should so permit, it might be afterwards
disinhumed and sent to Europe.
The place of interment became the next subject of discussion. On this
subject Napoleon had been inconsistent. His testamentary disposition
expressed a wish that his remains should be deposited on the banks of
the Seine; a request which he could not for an instant suppose would be
complied with, and which appears to have been made solely for the sake
of producing effect. The reflection of an instant would have been
sufficient to call to recollection, that he would not, while in power,
have allowed Louis XVIII. a grave in the land of his fathers; nor _did_
he permit the remains of the Duc D'Enghien any other interment than that
assigned to the poorest outcast, who is huddled to earth on the spot on
which he dies. But neither did the agitated state of the public mind,
now general through Italy, recommend the measure.
[Sidenote: FUNERAL.]
A grave for the Emperor of France, within the limits of the rocky island
to which his last years were limited, was the alternative that remained;
and sensible that this was likely to be the case, he had himself
indicated the spot where he wished to lie. It was a small secluded
recess, called Slane's, or Haines' Valley, where a fountain arose, at
which his Chinese domestics used to fill the silver pitchers which they
carried to Longwood for Napoleon's use. The spot had more of verdure and
shade than any in the neighbourhood; and the illustrious Exile was often
accustomed to repose under the beautiful weeping willows which overhung
the spring. The body, after lying in state in his small bed-room, during
which time it was visited by every person of condition in the island,
was, on the 8th May, carried to the place of interment. The pall which
covered the coffin was the military cloak which Napoleon had worn at the
battle of Marengo. The members of his late household attended as
mourners, and were followed by the governor, the admiral, and all the
civil and military authorities of the island. All the troops were under
arms upon the solemn occasion. As the road did not permit a near
approach of the hearse to the place of sepulture, a party of British
grenadiers had the honour to bear the coffin to the grave. The prayers
were recited by the priest, Abbé Vignali. Minute guns were fired from
the admiral's ship. The coffin was then let down into the grave, under a
discharge of three successive volleys of artillery, from fifteen pieces
of cannon. A large stone was then lowered down on the grave, and covered
the moderate space now sufficient for the man for whom Europe was once
too little.
CONCLUSION.
[Sidenote: CONCLUSION.]
Arrived at the conclusion of this momentous narrative, the reader may be
disposed to pause a moment to reflect on the character of that wonderful
person, on whom Fortune showered so many favours in the beginning and
through the middle of his career, to overwhelm its close with such deep
and unwonted afflictions.
The external appearance of Napoleon was not imposing at the first
glance, his stature being only five feet six inches English. His person,
thin in youth, and somewhat corpulent in age, was rather delicate than
robust in outward appearance, but cast in the mould most capable of
enduring privation and fatigue. He rode ungracefully, and without the
command of his horse which distinguishes a perfect cavalier; so that he
showed to disadvantage when riding beside such a horseman as Murat. But
he was fearless, sat firm in his seat, rode with rapidity, and was
capable of enduring the exercise for a longer time than most men. We
have already mentioned his indifference to the quality of his food, and
his power of enduring abstinence. A morsel of food, and a flask of wine
hung at his saddle-bow, used, in his earlier campaigns, to support him
for days. In his latter wars, he more frequently used a carriage; not,
as has been surmised, from any particular illness, but from feeling in a
frame so constantly in exercise the premature effects of age.
The countenance of Napoleon is familiar to almost every one from
description, and the portraits which are found every where. The
dark-brown hair bore little marks of the attentions of the toilet. The
shape of the countenance approached more than is usual in the human race
to a square. His eyes were grey and full of expression, the pupils
rather large, and the eyebrows not very strongly marked. The brow and
upper part of the countenance was rather of a stern character. His nose
and mouth were beautifully formed. The upper lip was very short. The
teeth were indifferent, but were little shown in speaking.[286] His
smile possessed uncommon sweetness, and is stated to have been
irresistible. The complexion was a clear olive, otherwise in general
colourless. The prevailing character of his countenance was grave, even
to melancholy, but without any signs of severity or violence. After
death, the placidity and dignity of expression which continued to occupy
the features, rendered them eminently beautiful, and the admiration of
all who looked on them.
Such was Napoleon's exterior. His personal and private character was
decidedly amiable, excepting in one particular. His temper, when he
received, or thought he received, provocation, especially if of a
personal character, was warm and vindictive. He was, however, placable
in the case even of his enemies, providing that they submitted to his
mercy; but he had not that species of generosity which respects the
sincerity of a manly and fair opponent. On the other hand, no one was a
more liberal rewarder of the attachment of his friends. He was an
excellent husband, a kind relation, and, unless when state policy
intervened, a most affectionate brother. General Gourgaud, whose
communications were not in every case to Napoleon's advantage, states
him to have been the best of masters, labouring to assist all his
domestics wherever it lay in his power, giving them the highest credit
for such talents as they actually possessed, and imputing, in some
instances, good qualities to such as had them not.
There was gentleness, and even softness, in his character. He was
affected when he rode over the fields of battle, which his ambition had
strewed with the dead and the dying, and seemed not only desirous to
relieve the victims--issuing for that purpose directions, which too
often were not, and could not be, obeyed--but showed himself subject to
the influence of that more acute and imaginative species of sympathy,
which is termed sensibility. He mentions a circumstance which indicates
a deep sense of feeling. As he passed over a field of battle in Italy,
with some of his generals, he saw a houseless dog lying on the body of
his slain master. The creature came towards them, then returned to the
dead body, moaned over it pitifully, and seemed to ask their assistance.
"Whether it were the feeling of the moment," continued Napoleon, "the
scene, the hour, or the circumstance itself, I was never so deeply
affected by any thing which I have seen upon a field of battle. That
man, I thought, has perhaps had a house, friends, comrades, and here he
lies deserted by every one but his dog. How mysterious are the
impressions to which we are subject! I was in the habit, without
emotion, of ordering battles which must decide the fate of a campaign,
and could look with a dry eye on the execution of manœuvres which must
be attended with much loss; and here I was moved--nay, painfully
affected--by the cries and the grief of a dog. It is certain that at
that moment I should have been more accessible to a suppliant enemy, and
could better understand the conduct of Achilles in restoring the body of
Hector to the tears of Priam."[287] The anecdote at once shows that
Napoleon possessed a heart amenable to humane feelings, and that they
were usually in total subjection to the stern precepts of military
stoicism. It was his common and expressive phrase, that the heart of a
politician should be in his head; but his feelings sometimes surprised
him in a gentler mood.
A calculator by nature and by habit, Napoleon was fond of order, and a
friend to that moral conduct in which order is best exemplified. The
libels of the day have made some scandalous averments to the contrary,
but without adequate foundation. Napoleon respected himself too much,
and understood the value of public opinion too well, to have plunged
into general or vague debauchery.
Considering his natural disposition, then, it may be assumed that if
Napoleon had continued in the vale of private life, and no strong
temptation of passion or revenge had crossed his path, he must have been
generally regarded as one whose friendship was every way desirable, and
whose enmity it was not safe to incur.
But the opportunity afforded by the times, and the elasticity of his own
great talents, both military and political, raised him with unexampled
celerity to a sphere of great power, and at least equal temptation. Ere
we consider the use which he made of his ascendency, let us briefly
review the causes by which it was accomplished.
The consequences of the Revolution, however fatal to private families,
were the means of filling the camps of the nation with armies of a
description which Europe had never seen before, and it is to be hoped,
will never witness again. There was neither safety, honour, nor almost
subsistence, in any other profession than the military; and accordingly
it became the refuge of the best and bravest of the youth of France,
until the army ceased to consist, as in most nations, of the miserable
and disorderly class of the community, but was levied in the body and
bosom of the state, and composed of the flower of France, whether as
regarded health, moral qualities, or elevation of mind. With such men,
the generals of the republic achieved many and great victories, but
without being able to ensure corresponding advantages. This may have
been in a great measure occasioned by the dependence in which these
leaders were held by the various administrators of the republic at
home--a dependence accounted for by the necessity of having recourse to
those in power at Paris, for the means of paying and supporting their
armies. From the time that Napoleon passed the Alps, he inverted this
state of things; and made the newly conquered countries not only
maintain the army by means of contributions and confiscations, but even
contribute to support the government. Thus war, which had hitherto been
a burden to the republic, became in his hands a source of public
revenue; while the youthful general, contributing to the income of the
state, on which his predecessors had been dependent, was enabled to
assert the freedom at which he speedily aimed, and correspond with the
Directory upon a footing approaching to equality. His talents as a
soldier, and situation as a victorious general, soon raised him from
equality to pre-eminence.
These talents applied not less to the general arrangements of the
campaign, than to the dispositions for actual battle. In each of these
great departments of war, Napoleon was not merely a pupil of the most
approved masters of the art--he was an improver, an innovator, and an
inventor.
In strategie, he applied upon a gigantic scale the principles upon which
Frederick of Prussia had acted, and gained a capital or a kingdom, when
Frederick would have won a town or a province. His system was, of
course, that of assembling the greatest possible force of his own upon
the vulnerable point of the enemy's position, paralyzing, perhaps, two
parts of their army, while he cut the third to pieces, and then
following up his position by destroying the remainder in detail. For
this purpose, he taught generals to divide their armies upon the march,
with a view to celerity of movement and facility of supply, and to unite
them at the moment of contest, where an attack would be most feebly
resisted, because least expected. For this, also, he first threw aside
all species of baggage which could possibly be dispensed with--supplied
the want of magazines by the contributions exacted from the country, or
collected from individuals by a regular system of marauding--discontinued
the use of tents, and trusted to bivouacking with his soldiers, where
hamlets could not be found, and there was no time to erect huts. His
system was ruinous in point of lives, for even the military hospitals
were often dispensed with; but although Moreau termed Napoleon a
conqueror at the rate of ten thousand men a-day, yet the sacrifice for a
length of time uniformly attained the object for which it was designed.
The enemy who had remained in their extensive cantonments, distracted by
the reports of various columns moving in different directions, were
surprised and defeated by the united force of the French, which had
formed a junction where and when it was least expected. It was not till
they had acquired the art of withdrawing from his attack so soon as
made, that the allies learned to defeat the efforts of his movable
columns.
Napoleon was not less original as a tactician than as a strategist. His
manœuvres on the field of battle had the promptness and decision of the
thunderbolt. In the actual shock of conflict, as in the preparations
which he made for bringing it on, his object was to amuse the enemy upon
many points, while he oppressed one by an unexpected force of numbers.
The breaking through the line, the turning of a flank, which had been
his object from the commencement of the fight, lay usually disguised
under a great number of previous demonstrations, and was not attempted
until both the moral and physical force of the enemy was impaired by the
length of the combat. It was at this period that he brought up his
guards, who, impatient of inactivity, had been held in readiness for
hours, and now, springing forward like wolf-dogs from the leash, had the
glorious task, in which they rarely failed, of deciding the
long-sustained contest. It may be added, as further characteristic of
his tactics, that he preferred employing the order of the column to that
of the line; perhaps on account of the faith which he might rest in the
extreme valour of the French officers by whom the column was headed.
The interest which Napoleon preserved in the French soldier's affection
by a frequent distribution of prizes and distinctions, as well as by his
familiar notice of their persons, and attention to their wants, joined
to his possession of absolute and independent command, rendered it no
difficult matter for him to secure their support in the revolution of
the eighteenth Brumaire, and in placing him at the head of affairs. Most
part of the nation were heartily tired by this time of the continually
unsettled state of the government, and the various changes which it had
experienced, from the visionary speculations of the Girondists, the
brutal and bloody ferocity of the Jacobins, and the sordid and undecided
versatility and imbecility of the Directory; and the people in general
desired a settled form of government, which, if less free, should be
more stable in duration, and better calculated to assure to individuals
the protection of property and of personal freedom, than those which had
followed the downfall of the monarchy. A successful general, of a
character more timid, or conscience more tender, than that of Napoleon,
might have attempted the restoration of the Bourbons. But Napoleon
foresaw the difficulties which would occur by an attempt to reconcile
the recall of the emigrants to the assurance of the national sales, and
aptly concluded, that the parties which tore France to pieces would be
most readily amalgamated together under the authority of one, who was in
a great measure a stranger to them all.
Arrived at the possession of supreme power, a height that dazzles and
confounds so many, Napoleon seemed only to occupy the station for which
he was born, to which his peculiar powers adapted him, and his brilliant
career of success gave him, under all circumstances, an irresistible
claim. He continued, therefore, with a calm mind and enlightened wisdom,
to consider the means of rendering his power stable, of destroying the
republican impulse, and establishing a monarchy, of which he destined
himself to be the monarch. To most men the attempt to revive, in favour
of a military adventurer, a form of government, which had been rejected
by what seemed the voice of the nation with universal acclaim, would
have appeared an act of desperation. The partisans of the Republic were
able statesmen, and men of superior talent, accustomed also to rule the
fierce democracy, and organise those intrigues which had overthrown
crown and altar; and it was hardly to be supposed that such men would,
were it but for shame's sake, have seen their ten years' labour at once
swept away by the sword of a young though successful general.
But Napoleon knew himself and them; and felt the confidence, that those
who had been associates in the power acquired by former revolutions,
must be now content to sink into the instruments of his advancement, and
the subordinate agents of his authority, contented with such a share of
spoil as that with which the lion rewards the jackall.
To the kingdom at large, upon every new stride towards power, he showed
the certificate of superior efficacy, guaranteed by the most signal
success; and he assumed the empire of France under the proud title,
_Detur dignissimo_. Neither did his actions up to this point encourage
any one to challenge the defects or flaws of his title. In practice, his
government was brilliant abroad, and, with few exceptions, liberal and
moderate at home. The abominable murder of the Duc d'Enghien showed the
vindictive spirit of a savage; but, in general, the public actions of
Napoleon, at the commencement of his career, were highly laudable. The
battle of Marengo, with its consequences--the softening of civil
discord, the reconciliation with the Church of Rome, the recall of the
great body of the emigrants, and the revivification of National
Jurisprudence--were all events calculated to flatter the imagination,
and even gain the affections, of the people.
But, with a dexterity peculiar to himself, Napoleon proceeded, while
abolishing the Republic, to press into his service those very
democratical principles which had given rise to the Revolution, and
encouraged the attempt to found a commonwealth. His sagacity had not
failed to observe, that the popular objections to the ancient government
were founded less upon any objection to the royal authority in itself,
than a dislike, amounting to detestation, of the privileges which it
allotted to the nobles and to the clergy, who held, from birth and
office, the right to fill the superior ranks in every profession, and
barred the competition of all others, however above them in merit. When,
therefore, Napoleon constructed his new form of monarchical government,
he wisely considered that he was not, like hereditary monarchs, tied
down to any particular rules arising out of ancient usage, but, being
himself creator of the power which he wielded, he was at liberty to
model it according to his own pleasure. He had been raised also so
easily to the throne, by the general acknowledgment of his merits, that
he had not needed the assistance of a party of his own; consequently,
being unfettered by previous engagements, and by the necessity of
gratifying old partisans, or acquiring new ones, his conduct was in a
very unusual degree free and unlimited.
Having, therefore, attained the summit of human power, he proceeded,
advisedly and deliberately, to lay the foundation of his throne on that
democratic principle which had opened his own career, and which was the
throwing open to merit, though without farther title, the road to
success in every department of the state. This was the secret key of
Napoleon's policy; and he was so well aided in the use of it, by acute
perception of character, as well as by good nature and good feeling
(both of which, in his cooler moments, he possessed,) that he never,
through all his vicissitudes, lost an opportunity of conciliating and
pleasing the multitude by evincing a well-timed attention to
distinguish and reward talent.[288] To this his conversation perpetually
alluded; and for this he claims, and is entitled to, the highest praise.
We have little hesitation in repeating, that it was thus opening a full
career to talent of every kind, which was the key-stone of his
reputation, and the main foundation of his power. Unhappily, his love of
merit, and disposition to reward it, were not founded exclusively upon a
patriotic attention to the public welfare, far less on a purely
benevolent desire to reward what was praiseworthy; but upon a principle
of selfish policy, to which must be ascribed a great part of his
success, no small portion of his misfortunes, and almost all his
political crimes.
We have quoted elsewhere the description given of the Emperor by his
brother Lucien, in a moment probably of spleen, but which has been
nevertheless confirmed by almost all the persons habitually conversant
with Napoleon at whom we have had an opportunity of making inquiries.
"His conduct," said his brother, "is entirely regulated by his policy,
and his policy is altogether founded upon egotism." No man, perhaps,
ever possessed (under the restrictions to be presently mentioned) so
intense a proportion of that selfish principle which is so common to
humanity. It was planted by nature in his heart, and nourished by the
half monastic, half military education, which so early separated him
from social ties; it was encouraged by the consciousness of possessing
talents which rendered him no mate for the ordinary men among whom his
lot seemed cast; and became a confirmed habit, by the desolate condition
in which he stood at his first outset in life, without friend,
protector, or patron. The praise, the promotion he received, were given
to his genius, not to his person; and he who was conscious of having
forced his own way, had little to bind him in gratitude or kindness to
those who only made room for him because they durst not oppose him. His
ambition was a modification of selfishness, sublime indeed in its
effects and consequences, but yet, when strictly analyzed, leaving
little but egotism in the crucible.
Our readers are not, however, to suppose, that the selfishness of
Napoleon was of that ordinary and odious character, which makes men
miserly, oppressive, and fraudulent in private life; or which, under
milder features, limits their exertions to such enterprises as may
contribute to their own individual profit, and closes the heart against
feelings of patriotism, or of social benevolence. Napoleon's egotism and
love of self was of a far nobler and more elevated kind, though founded
on similar motives--just as the wings of the eagle, who soars into the
regions of the sun, move on the same principles with those which cannot
bear the dunghill fowl over the pales of the poultry-yard.
To explain our meaning, we may add that Napoleon loved France, for
France was his own. He studied to confer benefits upon her, for the
profit redounded to her emperor, whether she received amended
institutions, or enlarged territories. He represented, as he boasted,
the People as well as the Sovereign of France; he engrossed in his own
person her immunities, her greatness, her glory, and was bound to
conduct himself so as to exalt at the same time the emperor and the
empire. Still, however, the sovereign and the state might be, and at
length actually were, separated; and the egotistical character of
Buonaparte could, after that separation, find amusement and interest in
the petty scale of Elba, to which his exertions were then limited.[289]
Like the magic tent in the Arabian Tales, his faculties could expand to
enclose half a world, with all its cares and destinies, or could
accommodate themselves to the concerns of a petty rock in the
Mediterranean, and his own conveniences when he retreated to its
precincts. We believe that while France acknowledged Napoleon as
emperor, he would cheerfully have laid down his life for her benefit;
but we greatly doubt, if, by merely raising his finger, he could have
made her happy under the Bourbons, whether (unless the merit of the
action had redounded to his own personal fame) that finger would have
been lifted. In a word, his feelings of self-interest were the central
point of a circle, the circumference of which may be extended or
contracted at pleasure, but the centre itself remains fixed and
unchanged.
It is needless to inquire how far this solicitous, and we must add,
enlightened attention to his own interest, facilitated Buonaparte's
ascent to the supreme power. We daily witness individuals, possessed of
a very moderate proportion of parts, who, by intently applying
themselves to the prosecution of some particular object, without being
drawn aside by the calls of pleasure, the seductions of indolence, or
other interruptions, succeed ultimately in attaining the object of their
wishes. When, therefore, we conceive the powerful mind of Napoleon,
animated by an unbounded vivacity of imagination, and an unconquerable
tenacity of purpose, moving forward, without deviation or repose, to the
accomplishment of its purpose, which was nothing less than to acquire
the dominion of the whole world, we cannot be surprised at the immense
height to which he raised himself.
But the egotism which governed his actions,--subject always to the
exercise of his excellent sense, and the cultivation of his interest in
the public opinion--if in a great measure it favoured the success of his
various enterprises, did him in the end much more evil than good; as it
instigated his most desperate enterprises, and was the source of his
most inexcusable actions.
Moderate politicians will agree, that after the imperial system was
substituted for the republican, the chief magistrate ought to have
assumed and exerted a considerable strength of authority, in order to
maintain that re-establishment of civil order, that protection of the
existing state of things, which was necessary to terminate the wild and
changeful recurrence of perpetual revolutions. Had Napoleon stopped
here, his conduct would have been unblameable and unblamed, unless by
the more devoted followers of the House of Bourbon, against whom
Providence appeared to most men to have closed the gate of restoration.
But his principles of egotism would not be satisfied until he had
totally destroyed every vestige of those free institutions which had
been acquired by the perils, the blood, the tears of the Revolution, and
reduced France, save for the influence of public opinion, to the
condition of Constantinople, or of Algiers. If it was a merit to raise
up the throne, it was natural that he who did so should himself occupy
it; since in ceding it to the Bourbons he must have betrayed those at
whose hands he accepted power; but to plunder the nation of their
privileges as free-born men, was the act of a parricide. The nation
lost, under his successive encroachments, what liberty the ancient
government had left them, and all those rights which had been acquired
by the Revolution. Political franchises, individual interests, the
property of municipalities, the progress of education, of science, of
mind and sentiment, all were usurped by the government. France was one
immense army, under the absolute authority of a military commander,
subject to no control nor responsibility. In that nation so lately
agitated by the nightly assembly of thousands of political clubs, no
class of citizens under any supposable circumstances, had the right of
uniting in the expression of their opinions. Neither in the manners nor
in the laws, did there remain any popular means of resisting the errors
or abuses of the administration. France resembled the political carcass
of Constantinople, without the insubordination of the Pachas, the
underhand resistance of the Ulemas, and the frequent and clamorous
mutinies of the Janizaries.[290]
Whilst Napoleon destroyed successively every barrier of public
liberty--while he built new state prisons, and established a high
police, which filled France with spies and jailors--while he took the
charge of the press so exclusively into his own hand--his policy at
once, and his egotism, led him to undertake those immense public works,
of greater or less utility or ornament as the chance might be, but which
were sure to be set down as monuments of the Emperor's splendour. The
name given him by the working classes, of the General Undertaker, was by
no means ill bestowed; but in what an incalculably greater degree do
such works succeed, when raised by the skill and industry of those who
propose to improve their capital by the adventure, than when double the
expense is employed at the arbitrary will of a despotic sovereign! Yet
it had been well if bridges, roads, harbours, and public works, had
been the only compensation which Napoleon offered to the people of
France for the liberties he took from them. But he poured out to them,
and shared with them, to drown all painful and degrading recollections,
the intoxicating and fatal draught of military glory and universal
domination. To lay the whole universe prostrate at the foot of France,
while France, the nation of Camps, should herself have no higher rank
than the first of her own Emperor's slaves, was the gigantic project, at
which he laboured with such tenacious assiduity. It was the Sisyphæan
stone which he rolled so high up the hill, that at length he was crushed
under its precipitate recoil.
The main objects of that immense enterprise were such as had been
undertaken while his spirit of ambition was at its height; and no one
dared, even in his councils, to interfere with the resolutions which he
adopted. Had these been less eminently successful, it is possible he
might have paused, and perhaps might have preferred the tranquil pursuit
of a course which might have rendered one kingdom free and happy, to the
subjugation of all Europe. But Napoleon's career of constant and
uninterrupted success under the most disadvantageous circumstances,
together with his implied belief in his Destiny, conspired, with the
extravagant sense of his own importance, to impress him with an idea
that he was not "in the roll of common men,"[291] and induced him to
venture on the most desperate undertakings, as if animated less by the
result of reason than by an internal assurance of success. After great
miscarriages, he is said sometimes to have shown a corresponding
depression; and thence he resigned four times the charge of his army
when he found his situation embarrassing, as if no longer feeling
confidence in his own mind, or conceiving he was deserted for the moment
by his guardian genius. There were similar alternations, too, according
to General Gourgaud's account, in his conversation. At times, he would
speak like a deity,[292] at others, in the style of a very ordinary
person.
To the egotism of Napoleon, we may also trace the general train of
deception which marked his public policy, and, when speaking upon
subjects in which his own character was implicated, his private
conversation.
In his public capacity, he had so completely prostituted the liberty of
the press, that France could know nothing whatever but through
Napoleon's own bulletins. The battle of Trafalgar was not hinted at till
several months after it had been fought, and then it was totally
misrepresented; and so deep and dark was the mantle which covered the
events in which the people were most interested, that, on the very
evening when the battle of Montmartre was fought, the _Moniteur_, the
chief organ of public intelligence, was occupied in a commentary on
_nosographie_, and a criticism on a drama on the subject of the chaste
Susannah.[293] The hiding the truth is only one step to the invention of
falsehood, and, as a periodical publisher of news, Napoleon became so
eminent for both, that, to "lie like a bulletin," became an adopted
expression, not likely soon to lose ground in the French language, and
the more disgraceful to Napoleon, that he is well known to have written
those official documents in most instances himself.
Even this deceptive system, this plan of alternately keeping the nation
in ignorance, or abusing it by falsehood, intimated a sense of respect
for public opinion. Men love darkness, because their deeds are evil.
Napoleon dared not have submitted to the public an undisguised statement
of his perfidious and treacherous attacks upon Spain, than which a more
gross breach of general good faith and existing treaties could scarce
have been conceived. Nor would he have chosen to plead at the public
bar, the policy of his continental system, adopted in total ignorance of
the maxims of political economy, and the consequences of which were,
first, to cause general distress, and then to encourage universal
resistance against the French yoke throughout the whole continent of
Europe. Nor is it more likely that, could the public have had the power
of forming a previous judgment upon the probable event of the Russian
campaign, that rash enterprise would ever have had an existence. In
silencing the voice of the wise and good, the able and patriotic, and
communicating only with such counsellors as were the echoes of his own
inclinations, Napoleon, like Lear,
"Kill'd his physician, and the fee bestow'd
Upon the foul disease."
This was the more injurious, as Napoleon's knowledge of the politics,
interests, and character of foreign courts was, excepting in the case of
Italy, exceedingly imperfect. The peace of Amiens might have remained
uninterrupted, and the essential good understanding betwixt France and
Sweden need never have been broken, if Napoleon could, or would, have
understood the free constitution of England, which permits every man to
print or publish what he may choose; or if he could have been convinced
that the institutions of Sweden did not permit their government to place
their fleets and armies at the disposal of a foreign power, or to sink
the ancient kingdom of the Goths into a secondary and vassal government.
Self-love, so sensitive as that of Napoleon, shunned especially the
touch of ridicule. The gibes of the English papers, the caricatures of
the London print-shops, were the petty stings which instigated, in a
great measure, the breach of the peace of Amiens. The laughter-loving
Frenchmen were interdicted the use of satire, which, all-licensed
during the times of the republic, had, even under the monarchy, been
only punished with a short and easy confinement in the Bastile. During
the time of the consulate, Napoleon was informed that a comic opera,
something on the plan of the English farce of _High Life Below Stairs_,
had been composed by Monsieur Dupaty, and brought forward on the stage,
and that, in this audacious performance, three valets mimicked the
manners, and even the dress of the three Consuls, and especially his
own. He ordered that the actors should be exposed at the Grève, in the
dresses they had dared to assume, which should be there stripped from
their backs by the executioner; and he commanded that the author should
be sent to St. Domingo, and placed, as a person under requisition, at
the disposal of the commander-in-chief. The sentence was not executed,
for the offence had not existed, at least to the extent alleged;[294]
but the intention shows Napoleon's ideas of the liberty of the stage,
and intimates what would have been the fate of the author of the
_Beggar's Opera_, had he written for the French Opera Comique.
But no light, which reason or information could supply, was able to
guide the intensity of a selfish ambition, which made Napoleon desire
that the whole administration of the whole world should not only
remotely, but even directly and immediately, depend on his own pleasure.
When he distributed kingdoms to his brothers, it was under the express
understanding that they were to follow in every thing the course of
politics which he should dictate; and after all, he seemed only to
create dependent states for the purpose of resuming them. The
oppressions, which, in the name of France, he imposed upon Holland, were
the direct, and, in all probability, the calculated means of dethroning
his brother Louis; and he had thoughts of removing Joseph from Spain,
when he saw of what a fair and goodly realm he had pronounced him king.
In his wild and insatiable extravagance of administering in person the
government of every realm which he conquered, he brought his powerful
mind to the level of that of the spoiled child, who will not be
satisfied without holding in its own hand whatever has caught its eye.
The system, grounded on ambition so inordinate, carried with it in its
excess the principles of its own ruin. The runner who will never stop
for repose must at last fall down with fatigue. Had Napoleon succeeded
both in Spain and Russia, he would not have rested, until he had found
elsewhere the disasters of Baylen and of Moscow.
The consequences of the unjustifiable aggressions of the French Emperor
were an unlimited extent of slaughter, fire, and human misery, all
arising from the ambition of one man, who, never giving the least sign
of having repented the unbounded mischief, seemed, on the contrary, to
justify and take pride in the ravage which he had occasioned. This
ambition, equally insatiable and incurable, justified Europe in
securing his person, as if it had been that of a lunatic, whose
misguided rage was not directed against an individual, but against the
civilized world; which, wellnigh overcome by him, and escaping with
difficulty, had a natural right to be guaranteed against repetition of
the frantic exploits of a being who seemed guided by more than human
passion, and capable of employing in execution of his purpose more than
human strength.
The same egotism, the same spirit of self-deception, which marked
Napoleon during his long and awful career of success, followed him into
adversity. He framed apologies for the use of his little company of
followers, as he had formerly manufactured bulletins for the Great
Nation. Those to whom these excuses were addressed, Las Cases and the
other gentlemen of Napoleon's suite, being too much devoted to him, and
too generous to dispute, after his fall, doctrines which it would have
been dangerous to controvert during his power, received whatever he said
as truths delivered by a prophet, and set down doubtless to the score of
inspiration what could by no effort be reconciled to truth. The horrid
evils which afflicted Europe during the years of his success, were
represented to others, and perhaps to his own mind, as consequences
which the Emperor neither wished nor contemplated, but which were
necessarily and unalterably attached to the execution of the great plans
which the Man of Destiny had been called upon earth to perform,
resembling in so far the lurid and fear-inspiring train pursuing the
rapid course of a brilliant comet, which the laws of the universe have
projected through the pathless firmament.