Napoleon

by Emil Ludwig

  Las Cases' servant steals a diamond cross belonging to Gourgaud; in order to secure peace, the Emperor has to put the cross in his own pocket, and, later, present it to Gourgaud with the assurance that he had taken it himself. Again, Gourgaud complains that he is short of money and has not enough to keep his mother in comfort. The Emperor writes : " General! We are here on a battle-field. He who runs away because he does not

  Intrigues and Enmities

  receive enough money, is a coward ! .. I do not owe you any thanks. If you had remained in France you would have been executed, for you had a command in the '15 campaign! " In rare moments only, does the rage in his heart find such vent. Napoleon does, indeed, tell Gourgaud that he is free to leave any day he pleases. But immediately afterwards the Emperor turns the conversation on to cannons, gun-carriages, and cartridges. Next day he says :

  " My dear Gourgaud, how glum you look! Have a cold rub down; that'll do you good. One must curb one's imagination, otherwise one is liable to go mad ; it is like the Danube : at the source of the river one can cross it in a bound. . . . When I die, I shall leave no family behind me but you. I am no longer wealthy, but I have a few million still. In addition you will inherit my writings. I know what I owe you. But, while we are here, I want my friends to cheer me, and not to make me sadder by pulling long faces. . . . Do you fancy that I have no terrible moments ? At night I wake up and think of what I was and to what I have come."

  When such poignant words are uttered at the table of this tiny court, all sit silent and tremble. Each one feels that from this room, this house, this island, an echo like a belated rock-fall from the volcano must surely find its way to Europe's shore. For a few days thereafter, intrigues are discontinued and enmities subside. But next week, over a trifle, the quarrels break out anew. Gourgaud can stand life on the island no more. He leaves at the end of two years. He makes friends with the English, and, when he bids farewell to Emperor and island, he sails away with letters of introduction from the governor who is the deadly foe of his master.

  Count Montholon is the most loyal of the exile's companions. As a youngster of ten he had been instructed by Captain Buonaparte in mathematics. Later, he had served in two-score battles under his master, and was much at the Emperor's court, Many decades after Napoleon's death, he proved his fidelity to the House of Bonaparte; for, just as now

  Napoleon at St. Helena. Watercolour painting, probably by

  a Japanese, with a marginal inscription in Chinese

  ideographs concerning the owner.

  Broadley Collection.

  Faithful Servants

  he offers up six years of his life to live with his exiled master on this rocky site, so, too, he devotes six further years to Napoleon's nephew, sharing the third Napoleon's captivity in a fortress. The only drawback in St. Helena is that the count's wife does not get on with Madame Bertrand. One day the countess declares in the hearing of all that the Bertrands' latest born is puny because the mother's milk is good for nothing.

  Meanwhile Madame Bertrand is reckoning that her eldest is sure to be made grand marshal as soon as Napoleon II. ascends the throne. How much jealousy rages in these breasts because, meanwhile, under Napoleon I., Bertrand remains " grand marshal," while Montholon superintends culinary affairs and Gour-gaud attends to the Emperor's stable. Besides, none of them have enough to do. Their duties cannot occupy more than two hours of the endless day. At last things come to such a pass in this ramshackle palace that the members of the little court can only communicate with one another in writing. Even Countess Montholon and her children have in the end to forsake the Emperor and the island.

  Who is really loyal, loyal in his heart of hearts ?

  Three servants. Marchand, the valet, who has attended the Emperor for the last four years ; and two Corsicans who, in the hurry of departure, Napoleon had pressed into his service, thereby linking up the island of his birth with the island of his latter days. These servants never have any dealings with the English foe, who would gladly draw their secrets from them. Cipriani has a special reason for his reticence : as sergeant he had seized Capri from the governor of Capri who to-day is governor of St. Helena. Santini occasionally asks for a day off in order to go shooting. But his sport is soon stopped when the fact gets known that he intends to shoot " that monster, the governor," and then to put a bullet through his own head.

  The Emperor sternly forbids his man to contemplate any such deed, for who in Europe would not immediately cast

  "A Venetian Sbirro "

  suspicion on himself ? But when the servant has withdrawn, the master thinks indulgently : " We Corsicans are all like that!"

  XI

  A lean, middle-aged man with restless movements, red-haired, freckled, with a large brown patch on the cheek; his throat is stringy; he has pale golden eyebrows shading eyes which can look no one in the face; he is clad in a British uniform—such is the governor of the prison.

  He lives in a fine country house, in the most sheltered part of the island, with a garden which is the oldest and most luxuriant in St. Helena. When he pays his first visit to Longwood, the Emperor says : " Execrable ! A real hang-dog face, like that of a Venetian sbirro. He glared at me with the eye of a hyena caught in a trap. Perhaps he is my executioner."

  It was not Sir Hudson Lowe's position which made him seem so obnoxious to the prisoner, who was on excellent terms with two or three army officers and with the admiral. But Lowe had been an English Fouche on the small scale, had been chief of the spy service in Italy, and had taken over his present delicate task in Fouche's spirit. It was true that the peace of Europe depended on his watchfulness ; and since, in Europe, people loved sleep more than greatness, one section of the public was hounding Lowe on to be brutal.

  The English press was describing the prisoner in atrocious terms. One of the most noted of English journals pilloried him as the murderer of the Jaffa prisoners, describing his sisters as whores, and spoke of Murat as a waiter ; a special law was passed to make any attempt at freeing him a capital offence, with the proviso that the offender would be denied spiritual consolation on the way to execution ; the prince regent was said to have " besmirched his name " by presenting some fowling-pieces to Napoleon. The honour of England is saved only by the Whigs; and by the formal protest of two members of the House

  In Chains

  of Peers, the duke of Sussex and Lord Holland. Lady Holland ventures to send the Emperor books and fruit; another noblewoman, who in earlier days had wanted to raise a corps of amazons against him, now boldly espouses his cause in London; a great English lawyer writes twenty-one theses to prove that Napoleon's detention after peace has been signed is illegal; Thomas Moore and Lord Byron save England's credit before the tribunal of history. Germany's good fame is rescued by the fierce attacks upon Lowe in the German press, attacks that go on for years.

  The governor is attacked because he has turned the whole island into a prison. He has issued regulations arranged in twenty-four paragraphs, informing the captains and crews of vessels that touch at St. Helena about all the things that are forbidden, under penalty; posters in the streets of Jamestown prohibit contact with the French; no one may approach Long-wood without a written permit. Every movement of the prisoners is watched through a telescope ; for six long years British officers keep their eyes riveted on the place of detention, but can rarely see anything more noteworthy than the lizards on the roof. Semaphores keep the governor informed as to all that is going on. They report: " General Bonaparte is out of bounds."—" He is accompanied."—" He is alone."—One flag was kept in reserve for a terrible emergency, to announce the news that General Bonaparte had vanished. This blue signal was never hoisted.

  The " bounds " are a twelve-mile ring round Longwood, subsequently restricted to an eight-mile ring; at 9 p.m. (or, when the restrictions are increased, at sunset), a cordon of sentries at fifty paces' interval is posted. If Bertrand, who lives at Hutt's Gate (a small villa about a mile away), is summoned by th
e Emperor after nightfall, he is escorted to Longwood by two soldiers with fixed bayonets—these bayonets, so runs the order, " must point at the Frenchman's heart."

  The Emperor, who has for thirty years been accustomed to

  Harassing Restrictions

  horseback exercise, may not go out of bounds unless accompanied by a British officer. He protests, " Not because I object to the red uniform more than another; after their baptism of fire, all soldiers are alike. But I refuse to do anything which involves the acknowledgement that I am a prisoner." When in high spirits, as he was sometimes in the early days of his captivity, he would defy the regulations. Once he gave the English officer the slip, rode across country with Gourgaud, burst into a private plantation, saying to the owner: " Don't let any one know that we have been here ! " But during the latter part of his stay at St. Helena he kept within bounds, and, indeed, rarely left the grounds of Longwood. Sometimes he would order his horse for a ride ; and then, when all was ready for the start, overwhelmed with bitterness at sight of the officer who was to accompany him, he would countermand the order re-enter the house.

  The result of this lack of outdoor exercise is that his health suffers more and more. The climate alone would have brought premature death, but confinement to the house quickens the pace of his maladies. For lack of movement, his legs swell. Furthermore, while Sir Hudson Lowe is giving dinner parties, for weeks at a time Napoleon cannot get even fresh water or milk. His stomach trouble grows much worse. The sick man would like a wider bed, but there is no room for one; he must content himself with rigging up a sofa beside his camp bed.

  He and his companions have been deprived of their money. The letters he writes to France asking for funds are intercepted. Being positively in want, he has some of his silver plate put up to auction. When this is reported to thegovernor by semaphore, the inhabitants are forbidden to buy; Lowe himself purchases the articles at knock-down prices through an agent. Six months later, when the governor reads in the newspapers what Europe thinks of his conduct, he is greatly incensed, makes the regulations stricter than ever, supplies Longwood with uneatable meat and sour wine.

  The Gaoler

  Like the villain in the folk-tale, Lowe is continually on the lookout for new ways of mortifying his prisoner. On the anniversary of Waterloo, he holds a great review close to Long-wood. He invites " General Bonaparte " to Plantation House on the prince regent's birthday. Another invitation is " to meet the countess " (Lady Loudoun, wife of the governor general of India). When the mail brings him a new lampoon against Napoleon, the governor sends it to one of the Emperor's companions ; but when a bust of the king of Rome, modelled by an admirer, arrives, he proposes to impound it, for documents may be hidden in its interior. He intercepts a letter from Napoleon to the prince regent, in which the prisoner begs for news of his wife and child; refuses to allow a Viennese traveller who has seen the little boy to visit Longwood; and when, through the kindly thought of a nurse and the loyalty of a valet, a lock of the boy's hair at length reaches the Emperor by devious channels, Lowe sends home a detailed report concerning the obvious dangers of a conspiracy to liberate the caged eagle.

  To begin with, the gaoler sees the prisoner a few times. "Throw away that cup of coffee," says the Emperor after one of these interviews : " the man was near it." From the first, Lowe does his utmost to shorten Napoleon's life. When the Emperor's vital energies begin to flag, the governor deprives him of the services of the English surgeon in whom Napoleon has confidence because this man, O'Meara, has refused any information beyond medical bulletins. O'Meara is one of those on whom Lowe has to keep a wary eye. It is not enough to surround Longwood with spies; the whole island is beset with them ; they watch all the officers ; and when they have nothing better to do, they watch one another. Soon a network of intrigue envelops the little house, whose interior is hung with yet another network—that of the jealousies which of old had been so rife in the Tuileries.

  In the third year of the captivity, O'Meara reports to London that the Emperor's liver trouble has been greatly aggravated by

  Lowe's Animus

  the climate, the dampness of his dwelling, the lack of exercise, and the vexations to which the prisoner is subjected. It is amazing that the illness does not advance with more rapid strides. This would happen, were it not for the energy with which the patient bears up, and were it not that his body has not been weakened by any excesses.—Since this report is shown to the British Minister for Foreign Affairs, and presumably to the prince regent as well, and since in spite of it the Emperor is kept for three years more at St. Helena instead of being sent to the Azores or some other suitable place, the bad faith of Napoleon's custodians may be taken as proved—and Lowe was a worthy interpreter of his instructions.

  The man's animus, and the craftiness of his designs, are well shown by a passage in one of his reports. Lowe says he will arrange matters so that Napoleon will be able to resume horse exercise. Otherwise the prisoner might die of apoplexy, and that would be extremely inconvenient. Death from some lingering disorder would be better, for then the British doctors would have no difficulty in certifying that death was due to natural causes.

  In the early days at St. Helena, the Emperor compiles a long official protest (it occupies twelve pages of print); it contains all his grounds of objection, and he has a private copy made upon silk, hoping that he will be able to smuggle it away to Europe. In this document he reiterates his refusal to allow himself to be addressed as " General Bonaparte," for that implies a disavowal of his position as popularly elected Consul and Emperor. He remarks that he had proposed, as a reasonable compromise, to name himself Duroc or Muiron, after one of his two dead adjutants ; but that England had refused to concede to him this "privilege accorded to persons of sovereign rank." The governor had even attempted to address him as General" Buonaparte."

  In this tragi-comical fashion, after bearing even names, he

  Hostilities

  returns with the eighth, to the first name by which he had been known.

  Soon there are actual hostilities. The lust of battle glows once more in the prisoner. He displays a vigour of hatred which in former days he had hardly ever shown in words, for then he had simply annihilated the objects of his wrath. Longwood, too, inaugurates a system of signals, though a less conspicuous one than that of the British, who use flags and semaphores. When the governor approaches, the Emperor, warned by his vedettes, hastens indoors, and tells his servants to say he is "not at home." Once, however, he is taken by surprise in the garden ; Lowe bluntly tells him that his establishment is too costly, and asks him to cut down expenses. The soldier flames in the Emperor.

  " How dare you talk to me of such matters ? You are nothing but a gaoler. You have only commanded brigands and deserters. I know the name of every English general who has won distinction. All I have ever heard of you is that you were one of Bliicher's quilldrivers, and a robber captain who never had the honour of commanding real soldiers.—Don't send me any more food ! I will take meals with those brave fellows of your 35th, over there ; not one of them will refuse to share his rations with an old fellow-soldier. You can dispose of my life as you please, but not of my heart. That is still as proud on this rock as it was when all Europe was awaiting my orders.— You would stick at nothing. You would poison me if you had the courage, or were sent orders to do so ! "

  Without a word, the governor turns on his heel, mounts his horse, and gallops away. The Emperor compares past and present. " In the Tuileries, I should have blushed at such a scene."

  For ever, the governor remains on the watch, negotiates about details with the Emperor's companions, but does not see the living Napoleon again. One day, however, Lowe makes

  Over My Dead Body

  another attempt, persists in spite of a refusal to admit him, wants to see with his own eyes that " General Bonaparte " is still there. The servant announces this importunacy. Then the governor hears the Emperor shout through the door :

&nbs
p; " Tell him he can bring his executioner's axe if he likes. But if he wants to enter my room, he must do so over my dead body. Give me my pistols ! "

  Lowe was able to satisfy himself as to the general's presence when Napoleon lay dead.

  XII

  The Emperor rises as late as possible, so that the day may seem shorter. He rings; Marchand enters; Napoleon asks about the weather, slips on his white morning gown, and retains his headgear—a red chequered Madras kerchief he has been wearing all night. The red kerchief seems to be a whimsical parody of the turban he once dreamed of donning ! Cold douche and rub—but of eau-de-Cologne, alas, there is none ! Then Dr. O'Meara pays a visit. He speaks Italian with the Emperor, and gossips over the ludicrous happenings on the island. Sometimes there is no sugar to sweeten the coffee. Has the mailship come to ort with fresh newspapers ? Nothing as yet. Gourgaud arrives and writes from dictation. Where were we ? The pyramids ? The Emperor paces to and fro in the narrow room ; a map of Egypt lies spread on the table.