Three days after the Regent’s fifty-fourth birthday, Napoleon’s forty-seventh was observed with little fanfare. He breakfasted in the garden marquee with members of his court. Gourgaud annoyed him by making up a floral bouquet, saying it was from Napoleon’s son, the King of Rome. ‘Bah!’ Napoleon exclaimed. ‘The King of Rome does not think any more about me now.’19 In the evening, according to O’Meara’s sardonic account, ‘the second class of domestics, including the English, had a grand supper and a dance afterwards. To the astonishment of the French, not an Englishman got drunk.’20
The following day, a birthday gift from Lady Holland was sent by the governor, an amazing machine for making ice using an air pump.21 Admiral Malcolm rode up to Longwood and discovered Napoleon and his companions in awe at a demonstration by the local upholsterer, ‘who understood the process’.22 Napoleon was fascinated when a cup of water was frozen in his presence in fifteen minutes. He remarked what a gratification that would have been in Egypt.23
Betsy and Jane came with their father to see the marvel. Napoleon was now the expert on the machine’s workings. ‘After making a cup of ice, he insisted upon my putting a large piece into my mouth, and laughed to see the contortions it induced from the excessive cold. It was the first ice that had ever been seen at St. Helena.’24
The governor called at Longwood for a discussion ‘principally about the necessity of reducing the expenses of the establishment’. He gave written instructions to Bertrand that the household budget be kept within £8000 a year. He offered to go through the items with him, but Bertrand replied: ‘The less communication you and I have either verbally or in writing the better.’ Lowe said the wish was reciprocal, and departed.25
If relations between Bonaparte and Lowe were bad before, they were about to become a great deal worse. On Sunday 18 August, Admiral Malcolm met the governor at Hutt’s Gate and, accompanied by Sir Thomas Reade and Major Gorrequer, they rode to Longwood together. They saw Bonaparte walking in the garden with Madame de Montholon and Count de Las Cases. The confrontation that followed was to sever all personal relations between the governor and his prisoner for the remainder of their lives. It was particularly painful for Lowe because he was insulted in front of the admiral and his own staff, with Dr O’Meara and Captain Poppleton listening in the background.
At first Napoleon exchanged pleasantries with the admiral, pointedly ignoring the governor’s presence. Lowe interrupted, saying he was sorry to raise a disagreeable subject but that the rude and improper conduct of Count Bertrand made it necessary. His instructions were that the expenses at Longwood had to be resolved and he needed to know with whom he could communicate.
Napoleon was silent for several minutes, walking to and fro, then he addressed himself to the admiral: ‘Count Bertrand is a man well known and esteemed in Europe; he has been distinguished and has commanded armies.’ He nodded in the direction of the governor: ‘He treats him like a corporal. Madame Bertrand is a lady well born, who has been accustomed to the first place in society; he does not treat her with the regard that is her due; he stops her letters and prevents her seeing those that wish to visit her, except under restrictions.’
Lowe interjected that he merely carried out his instructions; if his conduct was disapproved of by the government, he might readily be removed. ‘Since your arrival we have experienced nothing but vexations,’ Napoleon said, turning to him. ‘Your instructions are the same as Sir George Cockburn’s—he told me so—but you execute them with fifty times more rigour. He never vexed us with trifles . . . but there is no dealing with you—you are a most intractable man. You suspect everything and everybody. You are a Lieutenant-General but you perform your duty as if you were a sentinel; you never commanded any men but Corsican deserters. I know the name of every English general who has distinguished himself, but I have never heard of you except as a clerk to Blücher, or as a commandant of assassins. You do not know how to conduct yourself towards men of honour, your soul is too low. Why do you not treat us like prisoners of war? You treat us like Botany Bay convicts.’
Lowe spoke with cool deliberation: ‘I have every desire to render your situation as agreeable as is in my power, but you prevent me . . . I am the subject of a free government. I hold every species of tyranny and despotism in execration, and I will repel every attack upon my character on this point.’
Bonaparte turned to the admiral again. ‘There are two kinds of people employed by governments—those whom they honour, and those whom they dishonour; he is one of the latter; the situation they have given him is that of an executioner. I, who have been the Master of the World, know the type of man such positions are given to. It is only the dishonoured who accept them.’26
Soon an account of the meeting was circulating around the island. Sir Hudson Lowe had been spoken to with intolerable rudeness and Bonaparte knew it. ‘I must not see that officer again,’ he told Las Cases. ‘He makes me lose my temper and forget myself. I said things to him that would have been inexcusable at the Tuileries. If they are excusable here it is because I am in his hands and in his power.’27
The governor would never speak to Bonaparte again. For the next five years he saw him only occasionally and at a distance. His next close view was when he inspected the prisoner’s corpse. For the present, he resented Admiral Malcolm’s apparent friendship with Bonaparte—and with William Balcombe. He had heard that Balcombe had told Bonaparte that he, the governor, was gossiping about Madame Mère’s letter and her offer to travel to the island to be with her son—something he categorically denied.28 In his mind The Briars was shaping as a hostile camp. A hostile naval camp. He would ensure that Major Sir Thomas Reade kept the Balcombes under surveillance.
The next day Montholon delivered a long letter, signed by him, to the governor. It had been composed by Napoleon with input from his companions. It stated the rights he claimed as prisoner, listed all their grievances and demanded redress. A copy eventually found publication in Europe, where it became known as ‘The Remonstrance’ and caused a sensation. It concluded by explaining the impossibility of reducing household expenses: ‘You demand from the Emperor £4000 sterling, your government allowing only £8000 for all expenses. I have already had the honour to tell you that the Emperor has no funds.’29 Las Cases was confident that the document would ‘set Europe on fire’. Malcolm asked Lowe for a copy and was offended to be refused. He noted that the governor ‘was very desirous to have it kept secret . . . not so those at Longwood; they read it in French and English to everyone that called and offered copies, but none were taken’.30
Acting on his threat, Lowe further restricted the boundary of Longwood and commanded the 23 sentries to move close to the house at dusk, rather than at 9 pm, denying the prisoner his evening stroll in the garden, for he refused to go out under guard. Instead Bonaparte requested (not entirely seriously) that the servants dig ditches around the perimeter, eight or ten feet deep if necessary, so he could walk in privacy.31 He then directed Montholon to write to the governor saying that if Count Bertrand could no longer grant passes to visitors, ‘the Emperor desired the Governor would not give any, neither to officers, nor to the inhabitants, nor to passing strangers, for they rambled about the grounds and annoyed him’. Lowe sent this letter on to the admiral and asked that he refuse passes to naval officers as well. This had the effect of also inhibiting the Malcolms from visiting. Lady Clementina’s Diary noted: ‘It is understood that Bonaparte wrote this letter under the influence of passion, and wished it recalled, but pride would not permit him to say so.’32
At the beginning of September, Captain Poppleton informed the governor that Captain Piontkowski had approached Lieutenant Nagle, who was shortly leaving for England. The Pole had asked if Nagle was going to France and whether he would be willing to deliver certain correspondence. Nagle refused and reported the matter to Poppleton.
At about the same time, the governor’s secretary Gorrequer told Montholon that the reduction in annual household expenses
was going into effect and he should arrange matters with Balcombe. Montholon protested mightily, but the truth was that pilfering and extravagance had been carried on at Longwood on a grand scale. Balcombe’s prices were exorbitant. The chef, butler and valets, accustomed to the luxury of the Tuileries, had refused to lower their standards. While Napoleon was a moderate drinker, many in his retinue found alcohol a comfort during their windswept lonely exile. Each fortnight, 630 bottles of wine were sent to Longwood, where servants conducted a lucrative business at the kitchen door, selling wine to the soldiers of Deadwood Camp. Local residents, most of whom lived in straitened circumstances, heard about the high living and were appalled. It was said that they ‘hated Bonaparte more for eating their sheep and running through all their poultry than for bringing England to her knees by his blockade’.33
Montholon advised Gorrequer that by discharging seven household servants, they could reduce yearly expenses to about £15,000, the bare minimum.34 The blunt response from Plantation House was that this was not acceptable; if they exceeded the budget of £8000 they would have to send for further funds themselves.
Napoleon found it hard to credit that as a prisoner he was being asked to pay for his own detention. Two days before the deadline, according to O’Meara, he ‘had a conversation with Mr Balcombe relative to the concerns of the establishment’.35 He had devised a strategy that would create huge publicity for his situation, shame the governor and, incidentally, produce some income. ‘Have my silver broken up with axes,’ he ordered. Marchand collected a basketload of table silver (cutlery, salvers, covers, jugs and platters), erased the imperial eagles and coats of arms to avoid their becoming trophies, and then smashed the lot. He took 952 ounces of broken silver to Jamestown and, in the presence of Sir Thomas Reade, sold it to Solomons’ store. Reade ordered that the resulting £240 should be held by Balcombe and drawn from in small sums as necessity required. O’Meara was amused that Reade asked him ‘to try to get him some of Napoleon’s plate whole, which, he observed, would sell better in that state than if it were broken up’.36
Two more sales of household silver followed. The ruse worked brilliantly. Locals came to believe that the French were reduced to this in order not to starve. Shortly afterwards, the governor, on his own initiative, revised Longwood’s household allowance to £12,000 a year, the same as his own for Plantation House.
At the end of September, Lowe received a July despatch from Lord Bathurst. A London businessman named Menet based in Milan had written to say that there was a traitor among the English on the island: ‘Your government is deceived. Napoleon has won over a person at St Helena. If you are a true Englishman, profit by this information which is given by a sincere countryman, and advise your Government to be upon its guard.’ A second note from Menet read: ‘Perfect confirmation. We cannot give the details, but the fact is positive. Keep your eyes well open; watch the slightest movement, and take away certain powerful means that always succeed in corrupting (gold). Burn this.’37
Even more alarming, his lordship sent on a warning from the British ambassador in Paris: ‘The French Government have received intelligence that a person named Carpenter, who is a citizen of the United States of America, is equipping a fast sailing vessel in the Hudson River for the express purpose of facilitating the escape of Bonaparte from the Island of St Helena.’38 In transmitting these enclosures, Bathurst stressed the need for further precautions. He believed that Bonaparte had hundreds of millions of francs held by supporters in Europe against the day when he would make his move. Any requests to visit Longwood should be refused, in order to prevent ‘the clandestine communications sent over by Bonaparte’s followers. It will be impossible to counteract this evil, but we must try to limit its extent.’ In particular, he suspected O’Meara of being responsible for a recent letter which had appeared in a Portsmouth newspaper. Bathurst had decided that the time had come for the meddlesome doctor to leave the island, but told Lowe that ‘in removing him you will so concert your measures, as to do it in the manner least likely to draw attention on the one hand and the one best calculated on the other to prevent his becoming the instrument of mischief on his arrival in Europe’.39
The governor was more than eager to dismiss the doctor, but as O’Meara was an Admiralty appointment, he had to take care how he did it. Meanwhile, he instituted Bathurst’s other instructions. On 4 October, Bertrand was summoned to Plantation House to nominate the departure of four people to reduce expenses. Captain Piontkowski, for his misdemeanour, was ‘particularly pointed out’.40 Also to go were two household servants—Santini and Rousseau—and a groom, Joseph Archambault, the younger of two brothers. Those who stayed had to sign, stating their desire to remain ‘and participate in the restrictions imposed upon Napoleon Bonaparte personally’. (Requests to insert the title ‘Emperor’ were rejected.) They were told that refusal to sign would mean instant deportation. Bathurst had urged Lowe that ‘they cannot be too frequently reminded that their continuance in the island is an act of indulgence on the part of the British Government’. In the end they all signed the ‘obnoxious paper’.
Bertrand’s journal that day mentioned that Balcombe visited and informed Napoleon that the more the authorities tried to interrupt his communications, the more he should feel gratified, ‘because it is proof that the urgency to keep you here increases, so your affairs are going well’. Two nights later, after returning home from Longwood, Bertrand wrote an enigmatic entry: ‘At dinner, the Emperor speaks of letters inserted into newspapers and how one deals with St Helena intelligence.’41
He was not the only one busy with his quill pen by candlelight. In his room at Longwood, O’Meara composed a long letter to John Finlaison at the Admiralty. He described the events of recent weeks, including the epic verbal battle between his patient and the governor. He said that Bonaparte described Lowe as a weak man, ‘a man of too weak intellect to be cleverly a wicked man’, whereas ‘the Admiral [Malcolm], who is really a man of talent, has perceived the imbecility of that coglione [arsehole]’. O’Meara relayed more of Bonaparte’s vituperation against the island and its governor, but he assured his exalted readers (he knew there were several) that ‘I beg you not to imagine that I participate in Bonaparte’s sentiments, because I record his words’.42
When the letter reached the Admiralty two months later, the Sea Lords decided that O’Meara’s intimacy with Bonaparte made him a far too valuable resource. It was worth keeping him there, passing information to them, despite any attempt to remove him planned by the Secretary of State.
CHAPTER 14
THE THINNING RANKS
Island gossip continually swirled, as it always had. On 2 October 1816, Lady Lowe was delivered of a son and was rumoured to regret being a mother again. It was said that Count Balmain had proposed marriage to Miss Brooke, daughter of the secretary of the council, and she had refused him. Dr O’Meara’s suit had been rejected by Farmer Breame’s daughter. Montholon had kissed the hand of a sailor’s wife, and the husband, unused to Continental gallantries, had taken offence.1 The story that William Balcombe was a royal bastard was still around. Some locals in litigation with him, like Henry Porteous, considered that he was just an ordinary bastard.
The three departing French servants and Captain Piontkowski set sail on 19 October for the Cape, where they were to be held for two months before proceeding to England. All carried secret messages. Santini, the other faithful Corsican, had a copy of ‘The Remonstrance’ written on satin and sewn into his coat. For fear it would be discovered, Piontkowski had learned it by heart. Napoleon told them: ‘If you reach London, get it printed. You will find a lot of good men in England; some of them do not at all approve of the way their government has treated me.’2 Once there, Santini found Lord Holland, who paid for the printing. Joseph Archambault and Rousseau went on to America to join the household of Joseph Bonaparte. They carried a detailed map of St Helena. Their arrival activated the group of partisans—known as the Champ d’Asile—into a
plan to rescue Napoleon.
On 20 October, the Bertrands were moved from Hutt’s Gate to a custom-built wooden cottage across the road from Longwood, today known as Longwood Farmhouse. It consisted of four rooms on the ground floor and four above, with a kitchen and servants’ quarters at the back.
At Longwood, Bonaparte huddled by the fire, suffering toothache and a cold. ‘What a miserable thing is man!’ he exclaimed. ‘The smallest fibre in his body, assailed by disease, is sufficient to derange his whole system.’ He marvelled that his body was a most ‘curious machine . . . and perhaps I may be confined in it for thirty years longer’.3
O’Meara, who extracted the tooth, thought not. He informed the governor that in his view if Bonaparte continued to stay indoors and refused to take exercise he would become ill and ‘in all probability his existence in St Helena would not be protracted for more than a year or two’. Lowe asked him to make a note of his opinion, cautioning the doctor that in writing it he ‘must bear in mind that the life of one man was not to be put into competition with the mischief which he might cause were he to get loose’.4
Betsy Balcombe sneaked a visit to Longwood with her father. Napoleon said that he wished he could return to The Briars. Betsy found him less amiable than usual, his face swollen and inflamed. ‘He told me that Mr O’Meara had just performed the operation of drawing a tooth, which caused him some pain. I exclaimed, “What! You complain of the pain so trifling an operation can give?”’ She said he astonished her, he who had survived countless battles and bullets. ‘I am ashamed of you. But nevertheless, give me the tooth and I will get it set by Mr Solomon as an ear-ring and wear it for your sake. The idea made him laugh heartily, in spite of his suffering, and caused him to remark that he thought I should never cut my wisdom teeth. He was always in good humour with himself whenever he was guilty of anything approaching to the nature of a witticism.’5
Betsy and the Emperor Page 16