Betsy and the Emperor

by Anne Whitehead

  In New South Wales, Thomas was recognised as an artist of significance and praised for his paintings ever since the 1848 Aboriginal Exhibition, the first time paintings of the original inhabitants of the country were exhibited as serious studies. But after the death of his brother and beloved daughter, his mental and emotional stability had rapidly deteriorated; he was pressed by creditors and his marriage was in trouble—it was public knowledge that he had a mistress. On 13 October 1861, Thomas ended his life by putting a pistol to his head and pulling the trigger as he stood on the front path at Napoleon Cottage. Thomas’s wife Lydia and his children were left in a state of poverty. But relief came from an unexpected quarter. The mistress died and in her will left all her estate to her lover’s benighted family.20

  Almost seven years later, Betsy was to write to her sister-in-law Emma Balcombe, about the shock of Charles Johnstone’s death on 5 May 1868, aged just 41, ‘from Haemorrhage and exhaustion’. She and Bessie were left in greatly reduced circumstances, and they received no assistance from Charles’s family. There were no children from the marriage, probably a relief for the Johnstones. By the rule of primogeniture, Broncroft Castle and the estates went to the younger brother. Betsy informed Emma on 10 June: ‘We are looking for a small house to suit our altered means. Poor Bessie is far from well.’21

  Louis Napoleon’s term of office as president had ended in 1851. When he failed to gain the support of the National Assembly for a second term in office, he demonstrated the ruthlessness of his uncle. He simply dissolved Parliament and engineered another coup. Several hundred insurgents and bystanders were shot. The following year he proclaimed himself Emperor Napoleon III.

  Betsy, then aged 50, had not wished to burden her kind son-in-law with her financial support. Her daughter wrote in her appendix to the Recollections: ‘though loved and cared for with the utmost generosity and affection by my husband, she would still have liked to possess some post of independence . . . She accordingly wrote to the emperor and requested in terms too vague (as my husband told her) to be worth anything, that he would remember her.’ She received a reply, in French, from the Emperor’s assistant secretary, dated 30 October 1852, which translated as: ‘Madam—The emperor has received yours bearing date the 16th instant. On reading it, however, His Imperial Majesty remarked that you had failed to state precisely what office you desire. I have therefore the honour to ask you to be good enough to state definitely in what way we may serve you, and remain, madam, Yours most respectfully . . .’22

  Ultimately the imperial office came up with something. The assistant secretary wrote again to Mrs Abell with a proposal from His Majesty: they would be happy to offer her ‘a thousand acres of the best of land’ in Constantia, a province of Algeria, the new French colony. This was not, as it turned out, a derisory offer, especially if the land was located in the potentially lucrative Beni-Salah cork forest. But the land was not in fact the Emperor’s to give. The rights of a large number of Algerian owners had been totally ignored and the forest was handed out in parcels to members of the Emperor’s entourage and to cronies like Charles de Lesseps, brother of the builder of the Suez Canal.

  Emperor Napoleon III is best remembered for his grand reconstruction of Paris by Baron Haussmann, for promoting the building of the Suez Canal and for increasing the French merchant marine to become the second largest in the world. He actually had much to be proud of. His weakness was his futile endeavour to emulate his uncle on the battlefield. In July 1870, he took France into the disastrous Franco-Prussian War, without allies and with an inferior military force. His men were crushed by Bismarck’s army at Sedan, and in September he made what was widely considered to be a ‘shameful surrender’. He himself was imprisoned in Prussia. In March 1871, he was deposed and went into exile in England. France had had quite enough of the Bonapartes.

  But the Balcombe women had not, and remained devoted to the end. Mrs Lucia Elizabeth Abell was 68 when she died of a bladder disease at Belgravia in London on 29 June 1871. She never visited her vast acreage of Algerian land and there is no evidence that any benefit was ever derived from it. But until the very end, she always described herself as a ‘fervent Bonapartist’. It was as if, in her early exposure to the once most powerful man in the world and to his magnetic, compelling personality, she had, like Icarus, flown too close to the sun and never recovered from the radiance.

  A dejected Napoleon, depicted after his abdication in April 1814, the year before he arrived at St Helena. Napoleon at Fontainebleau, by Paul Delaroche.

  The Balcombe sisters with Napoleon at The Briars. The figure on the left may be William Balcombe. A lithograph, possibly based on a sketch by Louis-Joseph Marchand, Napoleon’s valet.

  The Balcombe’s home on St Helena. The Briars and Pavilion, a watercolour attributed to Betsy Balcombe, possibly a copy of an earlier painting. (Courtesy of The Briars, Mt Martha, Victoria)

  Napoleon’s house on St Helena. Longwood House, 1817, a watercolour by Lieutenant Basil Jackson; the figures of Napoleon, Count Bertrand and General Gourgaud were added by Denzil Ibbetson, the purveyor to Longwood after Balcombe.

  The main town on St Helena. View of Jamestown from the Road Leading to The Briars, lithograph after Vincent Brooks.

  A portrait miniature, signed A. Mur, believed by Balcombe descendants to be of the young Countess Albine de Montholon and gifted to Betsy. (Private collection)

  The steep hills and Georgian buildings of Jamestown. Vue intérieure de la ville de Jamestown, French lithograph, based on a drawing by H. Durand Brager.

  Napoleon’s obsession with his legacy was legendary. Napoleon dictating his memoirs to Count de Las Cases, 1816, by Sir William Quiller Orchardson.

  Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt, the influential patron of the Balcombe family.

  Mrs Jane Fraser, the Balcombe family friend from Saint-Omer, France. (Private collection)

  Sydney around the time of Betsy’s arrival. View of Sydney Cove from Dawes Point, attributed to Joseph Lycett, c.1817–18. (Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales)

  Captain John Piper’s home was the centre of Sydney society. Henrietta Villa, Point Piper, Home of Captain John Piper, 1820, by Richard Read.

  A party at Henrietta Villa. Dome Room, Point Piper, by Frederick Garling.

  Watercolour of an Australian rural scene by Betsy’s brother Thomas Tyrwhitt Balcombe; he is now recognised as a minor colonial artist. (Private collection)

  Thomas’s wife, Lydia, on horseback, painted by Thomas Tyrwhitt Balcombe. (Private collection)

  Elizabeth Jane (Bessie) Abell, daughter of Betsy Balcombe and Edward Abell, painted around the time her mother published Recollections. (Courtesy of The Briars, Mt Martha, Victoria)

  After the death of her father and return to England, Betsy taught music in London. In this painting, Betsy is shown standing behind her daughter Bessie, who is playing the piano. The Music Party, by Alfred Tidey. (Worthing Museum and Art Gallery, UK)

  Napoleon facing The Briars. A lithograph from late 1815 by Major Stewart of the 24th Regiment of Foot.

  A map of St Helena, showing the boundary within which Napoleon could move unescorted.

  The Porteous lodging house next to the castle gardens in Jamestown. Napoleon stayed here on his first night ashore.

  Plantation House, the governor’s residence on St Helena. Based on a sketch by Lieutenant F.R. Stack c.1845–46.

  Jane Balcombe

  William Balcombe (Courtesy of The Briars, Mt Martha, Victoria)

  A sketch of the Balcombe family with Napoleon and Count de Las Cases that appeared in one of the many books about Napoleon’s final days.

  Countess Albine de Montholon

  Louis-Joseph Marchand

  Count de Las Cases

  Count Charles Tristan de Montholon

  Major Gideon Gorrequer

  Dr John Stokoe

  Sir Hudson Lowe

  Count Henri-Gatien Bertrand

  Dr Barry O’Meara

  Lor
d Henry Bathurst

  Countess Françoise-Elisabeth Bertrand

  Laura Wilks

  Napoleon dictating his memoirs to General Gaspard Gourgaud, 1818. (Getty)

  Napoleon perched on the island of St Helena. Caricature by George Cruikshank, 1815.

  Napoleon on his deathbed surrounded by the faithful, 5 May 1821.

  Betsy in her early forties.

  Betsy in her mid-fifties. A sketch adapted from a photograph taken by G.W. Melliss in 1857.

  A colonial kangaroo hunt. A pen and ink wash by Thomas Tyrwhitt Balcombe. (Private collection)

  Sydney harbour and foreshore. A pen and ink wash by Thomas Tyrwhitt Balcombe. (Private collection)

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The research for this book was made possible by the helpful staff of many archives and libraries: Archives of the Island St Helena; National Library of South Africa; University of Capetown Library; William Cullen Library of the University of Witwatersrand; Bibliothèque d’Agglomération de Saint-Omer; National Archives of Scotland; British Library Manuscripts Collection; Caird Library, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich; Devon Record Office; West Country Studies Library, Exeter; National Library of Australia; State Records of New South Wales; Richard Neville and the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW; University of Sydney Library; and the Royal Australian Historical Society, Sydney, especially librarian Donna Newton.

  Dr Terry Irving, Professor Emeritus Richard Waterhouse and Professor Emerita Desley Deacon all gave their support for this project, and my literary agent Rick Raftos took it on.

  On St Helena I was given kind assistance by Garth Armstrong and Rachel Armstrong; Barbara and Basil George; and the French Honorary Consul Michel Dancoisne-Martineau.

  For their help with the book in progress I must thank Dr Susan Adams; Margaret Barbalet; John and Fiona Blanche; Bob Connolly; Sylvia and Tony Francis, who offered a home for London research; Kathy and Malcolm Fraser in Scotland for their hospitality and revelations from their documents collection; Daniel Leunens in Saint-Omer; Dr Susan Lever, the ‘godmother’ for this book; Lisa Matthews; Tom Molomby SC for a rare reference and French translations; Pouya Paymani for computer help; Sophie Raymond for author photographs; Stephen Scheding for research advice; Associate Professor Beverley Kingston; Associate Professor Zora Simic; former St Helena Governor, David Smallman; and Clinton Smith and Dr Diane Morgan for generous work on my website.

  The research and writing has taken a number of years and during that time some who helped with it have passed away: Sarah Fried who read the manuscript in progress; on St Helena the archivist Ricky Fowler and the finance secretary Paul Blessington, and in England the St Helena historian, Trevor Hearl, who corresponded with me and whose papers are now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

  I must thank Shirley and David Joy, Mornington shire local historians for their pioneering work on the Balcombes’ story, and many Balcombe descendants and their families for research assistance: the late Richard a’Beckett, who made a gift of Alexander Balcombe’s original farmhouse, The Briars at Mt Martha, as a museum and historic park, for family letters; his widow Sue and son Michael for continuing help; also Caroline Gaden, Dee Clements and especially Diana and Tony Bradhurst. The Briars staff Chris and Ilma Hackett have given tireless assistance, particularly with pictures from the wonderful collection, and thanks to Steve Yorke for permission for their use. The devoted volunteers for The Briars, Keith and Shirley Murley, supported this book from its inception to completion.

  Gratitude to my publishers: Richard Walsh, who took it up when still an incomplete manuscript and always had faith in it; and to my wonderful team at Allen & Unwin, Australia—publisher Elizabeth Weiss, editorial manager Angela Handley, and copyeditor Clara Finlay—all of whose expertise saw it through to publication; many thanks also to Clare Drysdale at Allen & Unwin in the UK.

  I have been fortunate to have readers of the manuscript who made detailed notes and gave encouragement from the beginning: Gil Brealey, Tony Bremner (and his friend Miss Picky), Janet Bell, who checked French translations, believed in the work, made insightful comments and bolstered my spirits when they flagged. Especial thanks to John Kerr, who has been a tower of strength in so many ways. I owe a great deal to Allan Deacon for his constant support throughout the research and writing. My thanks to all.

  NOTES

  CHAPTER 1

  1 The 74-gun Northumberland was escorted by the brigs Zephyr, Redpole, Ferret and Icarus and troopships Havannah, Bucephalus and Ceylon.

  2 Thomas Brooke, A History of St Helena, London, 1824, 387, noted: ‘Napoleon landed and walked to the house prepared for his reception, accompanied by Sir George Cockburn and in the presence of perhaps the largest concourse of people that had ever assembled at St Helena on any former occasion.’

  3 Mrs L.E. Abell (late Miss Elizabeth Balcombe), Recollections of the Emperor Napoleon during the First Three Years of his Captivity on the Island of St Helena, including the time of his residence at her father’s house, ‘The Briars’, [1844], 2nd edn, London, John Murray, 1845, 15.

  4 Actually 1118 miles (1800 km) from the Angolan coast of Africa and 2025 miles (3260 km) from the Brazilian coast. (The South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha may have a stronger claim but it has a much smaller population.)

  5 Mark Wilks, Colonel Wilks and Napoleon: Two conversations, London, John Murray, 1901 (first published in The Monthly Magazine, 1901), quoting Catherine Younghusband in the introduction by Julian S. Corbett, 5.

  6 St Paul’s, as the principal church of the island, was sometimes described as its cathedral.

  7 Mrs Abell, Recollections, 10. The second edition of this book appeared in 1845, a third in 1853, and a fourth (incorrectly labelled ‘third’) in 1873 with a new appendix by Mrs Abell’s daughter, Bessie (Mrs Charles Johnstone). Note that in Chapter 1 the author states that ‘The news of his escape from Elba . . . had of course not reached us’, but the news was brought to the island in May 1815.

  8 Cockburn Papers COC/4, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich: ‘Secret letter, Instructions to the Governor of St Helena, 1 August 1815’.

  9 Letter from EIC Court of Directors to Governor Wilks, 1 August 1815, Extracts from the St Helena Records, compiled by Hudson Ralph Janisch, St Helena, 1885.

  10 Desmond Gregory, Napoleon’s Jailer: Lt. Gen. Sir Hudson Lowe, A life, London, Associated University Presses, 1996, 11–12.

  11 M. Meneval, cited in Eclectic magazine, 1843.

  12 Mrs Jane Balcombe and her girls returned in either May or June 1815. Eldest son William (aged seven) remained in England for schooling with Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt as guardian. To return with her family to the island—where they had been living since December 1805—it was necessary for Mrs Balcombe to apply to the East India Company for a bond. The amount needed as security was £1600. The guarantors were the merchants William Burnie & Co., Old South Sea House, London. Bond No. 236 was granted on 15 February 1815: 1815 Court Book, St Helena Archives.

  13 Quoted in Arthur Bryant, The Years of Victory, 1802–1812, London, Collins, 1945, 62.

  14 Quoted in Christopher Woodward, ‘Napoleon’s Last Journey’, History Today, July 2005, 51.

  CHAPTER 2

  1 Anonymous broadside, A Descriptive Sketch of The Island of St Helena, London, J. & E. Wallis, 1815, 1. There were in fact other bays—Ruperts Bay, Sandy Bay, Powells Bay—but a landing was difficult at all of them.

  2 William Warden, Letters Written on Board His Majesty’s Ship the Northumberland and at St Helena, London, Ackermann, 1816, published in Clement Shorter (ed.), Napoleon and His Fellow Travellers, London, Cassell, 1908, 289.

  3 Attributed to Madame Bertrand by Bernard Chevallier, Michel Dancoisne-Martineau, Thierry Lentz and Jacques-Olivier Boudon, Sainte-Hélène, Île de memoire, Paris, Fayard, 2005.

  4 Lieutenant John Bowerbank, ‘An Extract from a Journal Kept on Board HMS Bellerophon’, in Shorter (ed.), Napoleon and His Fellow Travellers, 316.

  5 Lady Charlotte
Fitz Gerald, letter dated 11 August 1815 to ‘dear Charles’ (probably Sir Charles Imhoff, stepson of Warren Hastings), quoted in ‘Napoleon and Richard III’, Notes and Queries, January 1961, 5; Lady Jerningham to daughter Charlotte, 3 August 1815, The Jerningham Letters, 1780–1843, Egerton Castle (ed.), London, Richard Bentley & Son, 1896, Vol. II, 77.

  6 Warden, Letters, in Shorter (ed.), Napoleon and His Fellow Travellers, 290.

  7 Bathurst quoted in Gilbert Martineau, Napoleon’s St Helena, translated from the French by Frances Partridge, London, John Murray, 1968, 3.

  8 Warden, Letters, in Shorter (ed.), Napoleon and His Fellow Travellers, 290.

  9 Emmanuel-Auguste-Dieudonné Comte de Las Cases, Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène: Journal of the private life and conversation of the Emperor Napoleon at Saint Helena, London, Henry Colburn, 1823, Vol. I, 241.

  10 His surname is variously spelled ‘Flahaut’ and ‘Flahault’; for consistency I have adopted the former.

  11 Carnot, cited in Dominique de Villepin, Les Cent-Jours, Paris, Librairie Académique Perrin, 2001, 492; Steven Englund, Napoleon: A political life, New York, Scribner, 2004, 445.

  12 Queen Hortense, Memoirs of Queen Hortense, Mother of Napoleon III, compiled by Sir Lascelles Wraxall and Robert Wehrhan, London, Hurst and Blackett, 1864, quoted in Dormer Creston, In Search of Two Characters: Some intimate aspects of Napoleon and his son, London, Readers Union & MacMillan, 1947, 236.