Betsy and the Emperor

by Anne Whitehead

  CHAPTER 16

  OUR BEAUTIFUL ISLAND

  The storeship Tortoise arrived at Jamestown on 5 March 1817, bringing supplies and mail from England. Sir Hudson Lowe, who was still planning to move against O’Meara, was unaware that the doctor had just received a gratifying letter from his friend at the Admiralty: ‘We thought you would have reached home now, as we did hear that the Governor had determined to send you home. Lord Melville however immediately applied to Lord Liverpool to interfere and prevent it. Of one thing, be certain your reports have given infinite satisfaction and you and them are highly esteemed in the highest quarters.’1 That Viscount Melville, First Sea Lord, had personally applied to the prime minister to prevent his removal from the island and that he was esteemed by the Prince Regent himself gave O’Meara supreme confidence. He was safe as long as, like Scheherazade, he kept spinning stories that kept his audience spellbound.

  On 25 March, the Malcolms came to Longwood with Captain Francis Stanfell, commander of the frigate HMS Phaeton, another of William Balcombe’s naval friends. He was meeting Bonaparte for the first time and, having just been to the Cape, could tell him that he had visited Count de Las Cases at Newlands, the country house of Lord Somerset, the governor. Young Emmanuel de Las Cases had become a frequent visitor to Cape Town since his remarkable recovery after treatment by Dr James Barry, a skilled military surgeon. (Dr Barry was famously revealed after death to have been a woman.2)

  If the British visitors noticed the presence of numerous rats in the house, they were too tactful to mention it. On a recent occasion, when Napoleon took his hat off the sideboard a large rat had sprung from it and scuttled between his legs, ‘to the surprise of those present’. Rats had killed 140 fowls in just three weeks, sucking out their brains as the birds slept.3 With so much food thrown away after meals and with gaps in the floors and ceilings of the rickety building, the rodents had become a disgusting problem.

  At the April races, Gourgaud was flattered to join most of the notables: Sir Hudson and Lady Lowe, Sir Pulteney and Lady Malcolm, Sir George and Lady Bingham and the three commissioners. He was paid particular attention by the commissioners, who aimed for access through him to Bonaparte. The Austrian commissioner, Baron von Stürmer, walked with Gourgaud as they left the ground, alerting Major Thomas Reade to watch them closely. ‘En route,’ Gourgaud wrote that night, ‘Sturmer assures me that things would be much more pleasant if we saw one another more often. I answer, that His Majesty’s mind is made up—he will never receive the Commissioners.’4

  Stürmer was seeking intelligence, but was unaware of the despatch Lowe had just received from Lord Bathurst. The British ambassador in Vienna had informed his lordship that the Austrian government had mastered the code employed in the Viennese Antigallican newspaper, sometimes delivered to Longwood. A deciphered message to Bonaparte said that news of the sale of his silverware had caused a sensation; funds had been sent to his brother Joseph; Hortense was well; the army would be increased to 500,000 men; and he should not sleep at night. Finally, ‘If the British government make proposals to you, do not confide in Sturmer.’ Bathurst advised Lowe that they needed to find evidence of the person in Vienna inserting these messages, and their objective. ‘You will therefore permit the Antigallican newspapers to reach General Bonaparte in the usual manner.’5

  The Prince Regent from Calcutta anchored in James Bay in late April, and a glimpse of Bonaparte was a memorable event for a five-year-old British child, William Makepeace Thackeray. He was on his way to boarding school in England with an Indian servant as escort. The servant took young William on an arduous walk up the Sidepath, over rocks and hills, until they could peer over a wall at ‘a dumpy-looking man’ prowling the pathways of an enclosed garden: ‘“That is he,” said the black man: “that is Bonaparte! He eats three sheep every day, and all the little children he can lay hands on!”’ Thackeray later commented: ‘There were people in the British dominions besides that poor Calcutta serving-man, with an equal horror of the Corsican ogre.’6

  Admiral Malcolm, who was soon to depart, was received again at Longwood on 3 May. He urged Napoleon to meet with the diplomat Lord Amherst, who would call on his way back from China and could mediate with the governor. Napoleon refused: ‘They sent me, at my age, beyond the tropics into a terrible country and I was given into the custody of a man still more frightful than the country.’ What he would like, he said, was for Lady Malcolm to visit him before her departure, ‘as undoubtedly the Princess Charlotte will send for her after her arrival in England. I will undertake to tell her the shameful treatment that has been imposed on me.’ The admiral was non-committal and Napoleon turned on him: ‘You have influence. But I see it; when one is not English, there is nothing to expect from you. You don’t feel obliged to do anything for those who are not English.’7

  The mail brought to Longwood that month included much absorbing reading: there was an account of Lord Holland’s speech in March to the House of Lords condemning the situation of the French exiles and moving that certain documents be tabled to make known the treatment of Bonaparte. He was referring to ‘Remonstrance’, which the Corsican servant Santini had smuggled out, sewn into his jacket, the printing paid for by Lord Holland. The motion was opposed by Lord Bathurst. The speeches were published in The Times and the Morning Chronicle and the ‘Remonstrance’ letter widely quoted in the press.

  In an interview for The Times, Santini had deplored the conditions in which his master lived: the climate of Longwood was most unhealthy, with extremes of wind, humidity and heat. The house was a hovel and the roof leaked; it was ‘infested by rats, who devour everything that they can reach. All the Emperor’s linen, even that which was lately sent from England, has been gnawed and completely destroyed by them . . . When the Emperor is at dinner the rats run about the apartment and even creep beneath his feet.’ However, his strongest criticism was reserved for the food sent by Balcombe the purveyor. The provisions were always too small in quantity and frequently of bad quality. Often there was no butcher’s meat for the emperor’s table, and Cipriani would send Santini to town to purchase a sheep for four guineas or some pork for making soup. ‘I was even, from necessity, in the habit of repairing secretly to the English camp to purchase butter, eggs and bread, of the soldiers’ wives, otherwise the Emperor would often have been without breakfast, and even without dinner.’ Santini claimed that he sometimes rose at daybreak to shoot pigeons, or else the emperor would have nothing for breakfast, as ‘the provisions did not reach Longwood until two or three o’clock in the afternoon’. He said that in publishing his account he was fulfilling a ‘painful but sacred duty’.8

  Santini had been a servant at Fontainebleau and at the small but gracious palace on Elba and he expected catering standards fit for an emperor. He failed to understand the paucity of provisions for most island residents then (and still today) and how shocked those residents would have been by a typical meal served at Longwood.

  The editor of The Times fulminated: ‘It is a fact, which will appear incredible, but which is not the less true, that the Emperor is limited to a bottle of wine per day! Marshal and Madame Bertrand, General Montholon and his Lady, General Gourgaud and Count de Las Cases have also each their bottle . . . We have ourselves always found fault with the expense which is imposed upon this nation by keeping this man which . . . amounts to £20,000 a year . . . and we think it hard that this nation is to be taxed to support such a creature as he is, in a state of dignity to which his original condition in life gave him no pretensions.’9

  At about the same time as Santini’s interview, the servants despatched with him, Joseph Archambault and Rousseau, arrived in America. Hyde de Neuville, the French ambassador based in Washington, informed his home government on 21 May: ‘It seems that two members of Bonaparte’s suite have just arrived from St Helena, by way of England. They are said to have met Bonaparte’s zealous partisans, whose hopes have been greatly encouraged since this event.’ He sent a more alarming
report a few weeks later: ‘The arrival of the two emissaries from St Helena is an established fact. Absurd rumours have been circulating ever since; they go so far as to announce Bonaparte’s escape. The most probable explanation seems to be that these two individuals have been given a mission with this end in view, and have been sent to make arrangements with Joseph and the leaders of the party.’10 Archambault and Rousseau had given Joseph Bonaparte a map of St Helena with information on landing spots, sentry posts and troop placements. Years later, Bertrand told Prince Metternich that ‘their only hope . . . had lain in an American plan to carry off the prisoner’.11

  But Napoleon cautioned his companions against desperate escape measures. There was still a chance that the Whigs might come to power in Britain. ‘If Lord Holland were to enter the Ministry,’ he told Gourgaud, ‘I would probably be recalled to England; and our greatest hopes lie in the death of the Prince Regent. In this event, little Princess Charlotte would ascend the throne. She would recall me.’12

  Nothing cheered Gourgaud. He had taken dictation on Waterloo for the tenth time and Napoleon had exclaimed: ‘I still cannot conceive how the battle was lost!’13 The unwilling scribe complained to his journal: ‘After dinner His Majesty declares that our stay at St Helena will make us all very learned, which remark provokes a unanimous “No!” Boredom. Bed at 10.’14

  Life was not so dull for Marchand, who had a mistress, Esther Vesey, a mixed-race island girl who was a servant to Madame de Montholon.15 At the beginning of June, Esther gave birth to a son. Napoleon said he did not want her staying at Longwood—the gossips would attribute the child to him. Before she had recovered from the birth, Esther and her baby were forced to move into town. The valet wanted to visit her there but was prevented. ‘It is useless for him to go,’ said Napoleon. ‘I will not allow it. In a fortnight, Esther will be well again, and will be able to come and see Marchand. All this tenderness is ridiculous.’16 Gourgaud agreed: ‘Who can be certain that Esther’s father will not thrash Marchand and make him sign a promise of marriage?’17

  But in mid-June, Gourgaud made a curious journal entry about a conversation with Napoleon: ‘He sends for Marchand, and lies down on his bed. He tells me that Marchand is supposed to be the father of Esther’s son. This will be painful news to the Empress, when she hears of it.’18 One wonders why Marchand was supposed to be the father, when earlier discussion had indicated that he was. And why would the news of a humble valet fathering an illegitimate child be painful news for Marie Louise, Napoleon’s legal wife? The wording invites speculation that the child was in fact Napoleon’s, that Esther Vesey had been his bed partner, or he had enjoyed her occasional sexual favours with the collusion of his devoted valet. British sentries patrolled Longwood’s exterior but were not privy to what went on in the bedrooms.

  Earlier in the month Gourgaud made a visit to town; escorted by Captain Poppleton and accompanied by the Montholons, they walked down the mountain. In Jamestown they visited the shops, despite the embargo the governor had placed on shopkeepers serving them, and Madame de Montholon bought ‘numerous gowns’ and Gourgaud some shirts; they were greeted by Major Fehrzen and called on Admiral Malcolm and his wife. When they arrived back at Longwood, Napoleon asked Gourgaud for news. ‘The Montholons spoke of the welcome we received in town and the Emperor exclaims: “We are still notable people. In England, the Whigs speak of no one but me. We underestimate our own importance.”’19

  They read in the papers about factory workers in the north of England rioting against the installation of machines. Napoleon said they were crying out for him ‘to lead them in defence of the rights of the people. They might seize several vessels and come and rescue us, after which they would go to France and expel the Bourbons.’ He said that this was why Lowe had redoubled his vigilance.20

  On 19 June, Admiral Malcolm rode up to Longwood on a final visit, accompanied by a ship’s captain and a major of the marines who hoped to meet General Bonaparte. Lady Malcolm travelled in a little pony-drawn cart lent by Lady Lowe.21

  Napoleon led the Malcolms into the drawing room to see the newly arrived bust of his six-year-old son, the King of Rome, whom he refused to call the Duke of Parma. (The marble bust was rumoured to have been sent by the former empress Marie Louise.) He said it was brought on one of the storeships and that Sir Thomas Reade had told the captain ‘he ought to have thrown it overboard’. Napoleon turned to Lady Malcolm and asked if this was not barbarous. She replied that it was so barbarous she did not believe Sir Thomas capable of it.

  Napoleon continued to rant about Lowe and his restrictions while the admiral defended the governor. Then Napoleon adopted a different approach, presenting Lady Malcolm with a coffee cup and saucer from his Sèvres set. ‘This is a gift for my lady,’ he said, adding that he would not make the admiral a gift, ‘for he would not hear reason. Ladies had more compassionate hearts than men for an object in misfortune.’22 Napoleon’s strategy was still to win advantage from Lady Malcolm’s family relationship with Admiral Lord Keith and friendship with Princess Charlotte. ‘He hopes the gift of the cup will produce the desired effect,’ Gourgaud noted.23

  As it happened, on 20 June, the day after the Malcolms’ visit, a wedding took place in Edinburgh, binding together in marriage Margaret Mercer Elphinstone and Auguste Charles Joseph, Comte de Flahaut de La Billarderie. The bride’s father did not attend. The news rippled through society circles. One aristocratic English lady wrote to another of Admiral Lord Keith’s fury at his daughter’s marriage ‘with the natural son of Talleyrand, the Aid de Camp of Bonaparte. Sure such a Fellow has a Right to make Conquests: though the Scotch People here tell me the Admiral is enraged to think of his Title ornamenting the eldest son of Monsieur Flahaut, for so it certainly will.’24

  Lord Keith had spent his life fighting the French and had no intention of allowing his estates to be inherited by them. In July he wrote a deed of trust together with a revised will. The marriage of his daughter to Count Flahaut was, he wrote, ‘most repugnant to my wishes and, I am convinced, to her true interest’. He was fully resolved that she should ‘be excluded from all interest in or benefit from my Estates’ and stipulated that his estates could only be inherited by persons ‘educated as a Protestant in the United Kingdom, under no allegiance to any Foreign Power, nor holding any commission of service to any Foreign State’.25 However, he could do nothing about the fact that Margaret was an heiress in her own right, the beneficiary of her mother’s considerable wealth.

  On 29 June, the flagship Conqueror appeared on the horizon, bringing Admiral Malcolm’s replacement, Rear-Admiral Robert Plampin. Betsy Balcombe was visiting Longwood at the time and gaily bounded up to ‘Ali’ Saint-Denis, the second valet, asking where she could find the emperor. He told her that he was over at the Bertrand house, but was ‘in no mood for badinage today, Mademoiselle’.

  She found Napoleon standing on the sloping lawn, looking grim as he gazed out at the ocean that glistened like quicksilver far below. General Bertrand stood beside him. The Conqueror, a mighty 74-gun ship of the line, was beating up to windward. Betsy felt subdued by the intense melancholy of Napoleon’s expression. After a long silence he said, ‘The English are kings upon the sea,’ and added: ‘I wonder what they think of our beautiful island? They cannot be much elated by the sight of my gigantic prison walls.’26

  CHAPTER 17

  THE COMPANY OF A GREEN PARROT

  Rear-Admiral Robert Plampin, aged 55, the new commander of the St Helena and Cape of Good Hope naval stations, made a ceremonial visit on 29 June to the governor at the castle. While he was no naval hero, he had served with modest distinction in the American Revolutionary War and in various naval campaigns against France. He had been a lieutenant at the 1793 Siege of Toulon when the artilleryman Captain Napoleon Buonaparte made his name. As a youth, Plampin had spent some years in France and acquired proficiency in the language; because of this, he had been Admiral Lord Hood’s interpreter during the Toulon siege.1

/>   On his second day on the island, Plampin called on Lady Lowe at Plantation House. People wondered why his presumed wife, who had sailed with him from England, did not accompany him. Dr John Stokoe, surgeon on the Conqueror, mentioned that the lady had not embarked at Portsmouth but had joined the ship from a boat which put out from the Isle of Wight, exciting ‘suspicions unfavourable to the lady, for none of us supposed that the Admiralty would have denied a passage to the wife of the Admiral’.2 The truth was not long in coming out. ‘In this community where the death of a sheep was news,’ noted Gilbert Martineau, ‘the incredible fact was soon public knowledge: the Admiral and the person in question were not united by any of the contracts that bind man and woman in respectable society.’3 Stokoe wrote that the outrage ‘was most severe at Plantation House. The ladies who formed the court of the queen of the island were unanimous in the opinion that the Admiral’s conduct was the grossest insult that could possibly be offered them, considering that he was the second rank in the island.’4

  The Caesar from the East Indies arrived in James Bay, also in late June, bringing William Pitt, 1st Earl Amherst, the British ambassador to China, and members of his delegation after their failed trade mission.5 Napoleon agreed to an audience; at the end of their meeting, Amherst offered to transmit any request by Napoleon to the Prince Regent, so inviting a catalogue of grievances. According to Bertrand, the diplomat was sympathetic, declaring ‘that it was not the intention of the Chamber of Paris nor of the Parliament that he was thus treated, and they wanted a better situation for him’.6