Napoleon Buonaparte sat in his garden at St. Helena, in the shadow of a
fig-tree. Before him stood a little table, and upon the table stood a
glass of sangaree. The day was hot and drowsy; the sea boomed
monotonously on the rocks; the broad fig-leaves stirred not; great
flies buzzed heavily in the sultry air. Napoleon wore a loose linen
coat and a broad brimmed planter’s hat, and looked as red as the
sangaree, but nowise as comfortable.
“To think,” he said aloud, “that I should end my life here, with
nothing to sweeten my destiny but this lump of sugar!”
And he dropped it into the sangaree, and little ripples and beads broke
out on the surface of the liquid.
“Thou should’st have followed me,” said a voice.
“Me,” said another.
And a steam from the sangaree rose high over Napoleon’s head, and from
it shaped themselves two beautiful female figures. One was fair and
very youthful, with a Phrygian cap on her head, and eager eyes beneath
it, and a slender spear in her hand. The other was somewhat older, and
graver, and darker, with serious eyes; and she carried a sword, and
wore a helmet, from underneath which her rich brown tresses escaped
over her vesture of light steel armour.
“I am Liberty,” said the first.
“I am Loyalty,” said the second.
And Napoleon laid his hand in that of the first spirit, and instantly
saw himself as he had been in the days of his youthful victories, only
beset with a multitude of people who were offering him a crown, and
cheering loudly. But he thrust it aside, and they cheered ten times
more, and fell into each other’s arms, and wept and kissed each other.
And troops of young maidens robed in white danced before him, strewing
his way with flowers. And the debts of the debtor were paid, and the
prisoners were released from captivity. And the forty Academicians came
bringing Napoleon the prize of virtue. And the Abbé Sieyès stood up,
and offered Napoleon his choice of seventeen constitutions; and
Napoleon chose the worst. And he came to sit with five hundred other
men, mostly advocates. And when he said “Yea,” they said “Nay”; and
when he said “white,” they said “black.” And they suffered him to do
neither good nor evil, and when he went to war they commanded his army
for him, until he was smitten with a great slaughter. And the enemy
entered the country, and bread was scarce and wine dear; and the people
cursed Napoleon, and Liberty vanished from before him. But he roamed
on, ever looking for her, and at length he found her lying dead in the
public way, all gashed and bleeding, and trampled with the feet of men
and horses, and the wheel of a tumbril was over her neck. And Napoleon,
under compulsion of the mob, ascended the tumbril; and Abbé Sieyès and
Bishop Talleyrand rode at his side, administering spiritual
consolation. Thus they came within sight of the guillotine, whereon
stood M. de Robespierre in his sky-blue coat, and his jaw bound up in a
bloody cloth, bowing and smiling, nevertheless, and beckoning Napoleon
to ascend to him. Napoleon had never feared the face of man; but when
he saw M. de Robespierre great dread fell upon him, and he leapt out of
the tumbril, and fled amain, passing amid the people as it were mid
withered leaves, until he came where Loyalty stood awaiting him.
She took his hand in hers, and, lo! another great host of people
proffering him a crown, save one little old man, who alone of them all
wore his hair in a queue with powder.
“See,” said the little old man, “that thou takest not what doth not
belong to thee.”
“To whom belongeth it then?” asked Napoleon, “for I am a plain soldier,
and have no skill in politics.”
“To Louis the Disesteemed,” said the little old man, “for he is a
great-great-nephew of the Princess of Schwoffingen, whose ancestors
reigned here at the flood.”
“Where dwells Louis the Disesteemed?” asked Napoleon.
“In England,” said the little old man.
Napoleon therefore repaired to England, and sought for Louis the
Disesteemed. But none could direct him, save that it behoved him to
seek in the obscurest places. And one day, as he was passing through a
mean street, he heard a voice of lamentation, and perceived a man whose
coat and shirt were rent and dirty; but not so his pantaloons, for he
had none.
“Who art thou, thou pantaloonless one?” asked he, “and wherefore makest
thou this lamentation?”
“I am Louis the Esteemed, King of France and Navarre,” replied the
distrousered personage, “and I lament for my pantaloons, which I have
been enforced to pawn, inasmuch as the broker would advance nothing
upon my coat or my shirt.”
And Napoleon went upon his knees and divested himself of his own nether
garments, and arrayed the king therein, to the great diversion of those
who stood about.
“Thou hast done wickedly,” said the king when he heard who Napoleon
was, “in that thou hast presumed to fight battles and win victories
without any commission from me. Go, nevertheless, and lose an arm, a
leg, and an eye in my service, then shall thy offence be forgiven
thee.”
And Napoleon raised a great army, and gained a great battle for the
king, and lost an arm. And he gained another greater battle, and lost a
leg. And he gained the greatest battle of all; and the king sat on the
throne of his ancestors, and was called Louis the Victorious: but
Napoleon had lost an eye. And he came into the king’s presence, bearing
his eye, his arm, and his leg.
“Thou art pardoned,” said the king, “and I will even confer a singular
honour upon thee. Thou shalt defray the expense of my coronation, which
shall be the most splendid ever seen in France.”
So Napoleon lost all his substance, and no man pitied him. But after
certain days the keeper of the royal wardrobe rushed into the king’s
presence, crying “Treason! treason! O Majesty, whence these republican
and revolutionary pantaloons?”
“They are those I deigned to receive from the rebel Buonaparte,” said
the king. “It were meet to return them. Where abides he now?”
“Saving your Majesty’s presence,” they said, “he lieth upon a certain
dunghill.”
“If this be so,” said the king, “life can be no gratification to him,
and it were humane to relieve him of it. Moreover, he is a dangerous
man. Go, therefore, and strangle him with his own pantaloons. Yet, let
a monument be raised to him, and engrave upon it, ‘Here lies Napoleon
Buonaparte, whom Louis the Victorious raised from the dunghill.’”
They went accordingly; but behold! Napoleon already lay dead upon the
dunghill. And this was told unto the king.
“He hath ever been envious of my glory,” said the king, “let him
therefore be buried underneath.”
And it was so. And after no long space the king also died, and slept
with his fathers. But when there was again a revolution in France, the
people cast his bones out of the royal sepulchre, and laid Napoleon’s
there instead. And the dunghill complained grievously that it should be
disturbed for so slight a cause.
And Napoleon withdrew his hand from the hand of Loyalty, saying,
“Pish!” And his eyes opened, and he heard the booming of the sea, and
the buzzing of the flies, and felt the heat of the sun, and saw that
the sugar he had dropped into his sangaree had not yet reached the
bottom of the tumbler.