Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

A letter of O’Meara to a Mr Finlayson at the Admiralty, gives a characteristic detail of the voyage. “During the passage the ladies were either ill the whole time, or fancied themselves to be so; in either of which cases, it was necessary to give them medicine, in the choice of which it was extremely difficult to meet their tastes or humours, or their ever-unceasing caprice. What was most extraordinary, they never complained of loss of appetite. They generally ate of every dish at a profusely supplied table, of different meats, twice every day, besides occasional tiffins, bowls of soup, &c. They mostly hate each other, and I am the depositary of their complaints—especially Madame Bertrand’s, who is like a tigress deprived of her young, when she perceives me doing any service for Madame Montholon. The latter, to tell the truth, is not so whimsical, nor subject to so many fits of rage as the other.

“Bonaparte was nearly the entire of the time in perfect health. During the passage, Napoleon almost invariably did not appear out in the after-cabin, before twelve; breakfasted either in bed or in his own cabin about eleven; dined with the admiral about five; stayed about half an hour at dinner, then left the table and proceeded to the quarter-deck, where he generally spent a couple of hours, either in walking, or else leaning against the breech of one of the guns, talking to De las Cases. He generally spoke a few words to every officer who could understand him; and, according to his custom, was very inquisitive relative to various objects. His suite, until the day before we landed (three days after our arrival), invariably kept their hats off while speaking to him, and then, by his directions, remained covered. He professes his intention, I am informed, to drop the name of Bonaparte, and to assume that of a colonel he was very partial to, and who was killed in Italy.

“He is to proceed in a few days to Longwood, the present seat of the Lieutenant-governor, where there is a plain of above a mile and a half in length, with trees (a great rarity here) on it. He is to have a captain constantly in the house with him, and he is also to be accompanied by one whenever he goes out. None of his staff are to go out, unless accompanied by an English officer or soldier.

“I had a long conversation with him the day before yesterday. Among other remarks he observed, ‘Why, your Government have not taken the most economical method of providing for me. They send me to a place where every necessary of life is four times as dear as in any other part of the globe; and not content with that, they send a regiment here, to a place where there are already four times as many inhabitants as it can furnish subsistence to, and where there are a superabundance of troops. This is the way,’ continued he, ‘that you have contracted your national debt—not by the actual necessary expenses of war, but by the unnecessary expenses of colonies.’”

Napoleon was in the habit of predicting the ruin of England, and pointing out, we may presume, with no intention of warning, the _blunders_ of that policy which, however, had rescued Europe from the French yoke, and sent himself to moralise in a dungeon. “This island,” said he, “costs, or will cost, two millions a-year, which is so much money thrown in the sea. Your East India Company, if their affairs were narrowly scrutinised, would be found to lose instead of gaining, and in _a few years_ must become bankrupt. Your manufactures, in consequence of the dearness of necessaries in England, will be _undersold_ by those of France and Germany, and your manufacturers will be _ruined_.” All this train of ill omen is profitable, if it were only to show how little we are to depend upon the foresight of politicians. Here was unquestionably one of the most sagacious of human beings delivering his ideas on the future, and that not a remote future, not a future of centuries, but a future within the life of a generation; and yet what one of these predictions has not been completely baffled? The East Indian territories of England have been constantly aggrandising for nearly forty years of that period which was to have seen their bankruptcy. The manufactures of England, instead of total failure, have been growing to a magnitude unequalled in the annals of national industry, and are rapidly spreading over the globe. England, instead of struggling with exclusion from foreign commerce, and domestic disaffection, has possessed a peace, the longest in its duration, and the most productive in its increase of opulence, invention, and power, that Europe has ever seen. But if the malignant spirit of her prisoner may be presumed to have perverted his sagacity, his opinions were the opinions of the Continent; and every statesman, from Calais to Constantinople, occupied himself by counting on his fingers the number of years that lay between England and destruction. Yet England still stands, the envy of all nations; and will stand, while she retains her loyalty, her principle, and her honour; or, rather, while she retains her religion, which includes them all.

The exterior of St Helena is unpromising. “Masses of volcanic rock, sharp and jagged, tower up round the coast, and form an iron girdle. The few points where a landing can be effected are bristling with cannon.” The whole has the evidence of the agency of fire; and from the gigantic size of the strata, so disproportioned to its circuit, it has been supposed the wreck of a vast submerged continent. But the narrow valleys, radiating from the basaltic ridge forming the backbone of the island, have scenes of beauty. A writer on the “Geognosy” of the island, even describes those valleys as exhibiting an alternation of hill and dale, and luxuriant and constant verdure. Even Napoleon, in all his discontent, admitted that it had “good air.” Or, as in some more detailed remarks transmitted by Las Cases—“After all, as a place of exile, perhaps St Helena was the best. In high latitudes we should have suffered greatly from cold; and in any other island of the tropics we should have expired miserably, under the scorching rays of the sun. The rock is wild and barren, no doubt; the climate is monstrous and unwholesome; but the temperature, it must be confessed, is mild (douce).”

It is of some importance to the national character to touch on those matters, as they show that Napoleon was not sent for any other purpose than security of detention. A West Indian island might have unduly hastened the catastrophe. A letter from Lieutenant-Colonel Jackson gives even a more favourable testimony than has been generally conceived. He had been a resident for several years.

“Lying within the influence of the south-east trade-wind, which is usually a strong breeze between the Cape and St Helena, the tropical heat is moderated thereby to a delightful temperature, and perhaps there is no finer climate to be found than in certain parts of St Helena. In the town, I rarely saw the thermometer above 80°, while the general height may have been about 75°. But I write from memory, having lost my register of the temperature. Between Longwood and Jamestown there is a difference of eight or ten degrees. A fire is rarely necessary, unless perhaps as a corrective of the dampness produced by fog, to which the elevated portions of the island are occasionally liable. I believe the average duration of life to be much as in England.”

Mr Henry, who was stationed in the island as assistant-surgeon during Napoleon’s residence, gives even a more decided testimony. “For a tropical climate, only 15° from the line, St Helena is certainly a healthy island, if not the _most_ healthy of the description in the world. During one period of twelve months, we did not lose _one_ man by disease out of five hundred of the 66th quartered at Deadwood. In 1817, 1818, and 1819, Fahrenheit’s thermometer, kept at the hospital, ranged from fifty-five to seventy degrees; with the exception of calm days, when it rose to eighty. In Jamestown, from the peculiar radiation of heat to which it was exposed, the temperature was sometimes upwards of ninety.... There is no endemic in the island.... The upper parts of St Helena, including the residence of Bonaparte, are decidedly the most healthy, and we often moved our regimental convalescents from Jamestown to Deadwood for cooler and better air. The clouds moved so steadily and regularly with the trade-wind that there appeared to be no time for atmospherical accumulations of electricity, and we never had any thunder or lightning. No instance of hydrophobia, in man or any inferior animal, had ever been known in St Helena.”

We shall limit ourselves to an outline of the transactions referring to Napoleon. He landed at Jamestown on the evening of the 17th of October, where he remained for the night, and on the next day removed to the “Briars,” the country house of Mr Balcombe, who afterwards became purveyor to the residence at Longwood. Two proclamations were immediately issued by the governor, Colonel Wilkes, one cautioning the inhabitants of the island against any attempt to aid the escape of “General Napoleon Bonaparte;” and the other, prohibiting all persons from passing through any part of the island (except in the immediate vicinity of the town) from nine at night until daylight, without having the _parole_ of the night; and a third, placing all the coasts, and vessels or boats, under the control of the Admiral. A despatch from the Admiral, to the Secretary of the Admiralty, explained the choice of Longwood for the residence of the prisoner. “I have not hesitated on fixing on it. Longwood is detached from the general inhabited parts of the island, therefore none of the inhabitants have occasion, or are at all likely, to be met with in its neighbourhood; it is the most distant from the parts of the coast _always_ accessible to boats.” He then mentions it as having an extent of level ground, perfectly adapted for horse-exercise, carriage-driving, and pleasant walking. The house was small, but it was better than any other in the island (out of the town) except the governor’s; and by the help of the ships’ carpenters and others, was capable of convenient additions. Repairs were accordingly made, and everything was done that could fit it for a comfortable residence.

The system of discontent, remonstrance, and, we must add, misrepresentation, was begun. A letter from the “Grand Marshal, Count Bertrand,” led the way. It protested against everything, and frequently applied the term “Emperor” to Napoleon. The Admiral’s reply was fair and manly. It expressed regret for the necessary inconveniences, and a desire to consult the wishes of General Bonaparte; but said that he was authorised to apply _no_ title which had not been given by his Government. This refusal was perfectly justifiable, though it made one of the clamours of the time. The custom of European diplomacy is _never_ to acknowledge a new title but by treaty, and in return, if possible, for some concession on the part of the claimant. The embarrassments connected with the opposite practice are obvious. Where is the line to be drawn? If every ruler, however trifling his territory, or however recent his usurpation, were to fix his own title, all the relations of public life might be outraged. The creature of every revolution might be authenticated the legitimate possessor of sovereignty—an upstart received into the family of kings, become a living encouragement to political convulsion. All the declamation which was lavished on the denial of the Imperial title to Bonaparte, amounted to the maxim, that success justifies usurpation. If, in general life, no man can bear a title without the sanction of the laws—to avoid the disturbance of the Civil order, why should not the same sanction be demanded where the result of concession without cause might influence the highest interests of public life? There can be no question that the Imperial title, continued to Napoleon by the credulity of Alexander, laid the foundation of the renewed disturbances of France and Europe. It had placed him within sight of power again; it had fixed the eye of French conspiracy on him; it had conveyed to all his partisanship the idea that he still was an object of fear to Europe, and it thus revived the hope of his restoration. This dangerous concession made him, while at Elba, the virtual Emperor of France—prompted him to contemplate the resumption of the sceptre—pointed him out as a rallying point for disaffection—connected his mock crown with his former sovereignty—and left the peace of the world to the hazard of the die which was thrown at Waterloo.

If it be said that the concession which was dangerous at Elba was trifling at St Helena, we have no hesitation in accounting for the sudden forgetfulness of Napoleon exhibited by France to the refusal of the title. “General” Bonaparte lived only in the recollection of a broken army; the “Emperor” lived in the pride and passions of the people. It was essential to dissolve this combination; to show that the _prestige_ of his name existed no longer; that he was an object of fear no more; and especially, that his connection with title-loving France was to be cut asunder for the remainder of his existence. All this was done, and could alone be done, by refusing to continue that title to the prisoner, which England had loftily refused to him in the height of his power.

Even Napoleon himself was so fully convinced of the contradiction between his present state and his former, that he subsequently wrote a Memorial addressed to the Governor, containing this declaration: “Seven or eight months ago Count Montholon proposed, as a means of removing the little inconveniences which were ever recurring, the adoption of an ordinary name.... I am quite ready to take any ordinary name; and I repeat that, when it may be deemed proper to remove me from this cruel abode, I am resolved to remain a stranger to politics, whatever may be passing in the world. Such is my resolve; and anything which may have been said different from this would not be the fact.”

Unfortunately, it was wholly impossible to rely on any declaration of this kind, and it would have been absolute folly to have hazarded the peace of Europe on the contingency of Napoleon’s keeping his word. He had gone to Elba with the same protest against politics, he had publicly declared that his political life was ended; and the weakness of giving credit to that declaration cost the lives of perhaps fifty thousand men, and might have cost a universal war.

If the strictness of the regulations at St Helena have been matter of charge against this country, it is to be remembered that the highest interests might have been endangered by his escape; that no royal captive was ever so indulged before; and that England was but a trustee for the tranquillity of the world. The instructions were the most lenient possible, consistently with his safe keeping. A captain was to ascertain his presence twice in the twenty-four hours. Whenever Napoleon rode or walked _beyond_ the boundaries where the sentinels were placed, he was to be attended by an officer. Napoleon and his attendants were to be within his house at nine o’clock every night.

If these restrictions might be considered severe, it is to be remembered that they were only severities against the necessity of a second Waterloo. It is to be observed, also, that these regulations all took place before the arrival of Sir Hudson Lowe. The English mind revolts against confinement of any kind; but the limits of Napoleon’s grounds, within which he might take exercise _unattended_ by any officer, embraced a circuit of _twelve_ miles! The ground was nearly flat, and well covered with turf. On the plain of Deadwood, adjoining, was an excellent race-course, a mile and a half long, of which one mile was in a straight line. The house at Longwood had been used by the former governor as a villa; but it was small, consisting only of five rooms. To these, however, additions were made; the whole being merely a temporary residence until the completion of a house on a larger scale, which was preparing in England.

It became the peevish custom of the French, on the arrival of Sir Hudson Lowe, to contrast his conduct with that of Sir George Cockburn, and speak of their satisfaction with the latter; but they quarrelled equally with both. A letter from O’Meara to his correspondent Finlayson (not printed in his volumes), says: “Napoleon inveighs most bitterly against the English Ministry for sending him here. He has been for sometime back at Longwood, where he is tolerably well lodged, considering the island.”

As to his displeasure at being sent to the island, he should have regarded himself as peculiarly well treated; for what must have been his condition in the custody of any other government? He must have been sent to a fortress with no other liberty of exercise than within the space of the ramparts; he must have had sentinels everywhere on his steps, and have been subjected to all the rigid regulations of a garrison, and perhaps altogether separated from his attendants and general society. The greater probability of escape in Europe would have required the greater strictness; and the necessity of the case must have made his confinement little better than that of the dungeon. What liberty was allotted to Louis Napoleon in Ham for six years? What liberty was allotted to Toussaint Louverture by Napoleon himself?—a damp dungeon until he died. What liberty was allotted to the State prisoners under the Empire?—or what liberty was allotted to the English officers confined in the casemates of Biche? Instead of such restrictions, he had a large space of a healthy island in which he might move, without watch or ward, with a crowd of attendants of his own choice round him, with such society as he chose to receive, with a sumptuous table kept for him, and every deference paid to his fame and rank, compatible with that essential point, the prevention of his escape, which he appears to have been constantly meditating.

An order prohibiting the general access of the population to Longwood was now issued. Napoleon at this was in great indignation. He said to O’Meara, “It was absurd to prohibit people from visiting him, while he was at liberty to go out and call upon them.... I will never receive any person coming with a pass from the Admiral, as I will immediately set down the person receiving it as being _like the donor_, and a spy upon me.”... Then becoming more warm, he said, “Who is the Admiral? I have never heard his name as the conqueror in a battle, either singly or in general action.... It is true, he has rendered his name in_famous_ in America; and so he will now render it here, on this desolate rock.”

Stopping then with much agitation, and looking at me earnestly—“Next to your Government exiling me here, the worst thing they could have done, and the most insufferable to my feelings, is sending me with such a _man as_ HE. I shall make my treatment known to all Europe. It will be a reflection and a stain on his posterity for centuries. What! does he want to introduce Turkish laws into the Rock? Other prisoners under sentence of death are allowed to communicate, by the laws of England and all other civilised nations.”

The fact was, that Napoleon wished to accomplish an object incompatible with the purpose of his being sent to the island; he demanded all the conveniences of perfect freedom—of course for the purpose of escape. However, to avoid all shadow of cruelty, the passports were finally left to the distribution of Bertrand.

O’Meara further says, “He has since discovered that the Admiral’s conduct has been most grossly and shamefully misrepresented and blackened to him. The people he is surrounded by at present give me some faint idea of what the court of St Cloud must have been during his omnipotent sway. Everything here is disguised and mutilated.”

Napoleon’s theatrical rants were sometimes amusing. Foreigners can rail fluently enough at misfortune, but they always forget the share which they had in bringing it on themselves. “Behold the English Government!” said he one day, gazing round on the stupendous rocks which encompassed him; “this is their liberality to the unfortunate, who, _confiding_ in what is called their national character, in an evil hour gave himself up to them! But your Ministers laugh at your laws. I thought once that the English were a free nation; but I now see that you are the _greatest slaves_ in the world. You all tremble at the sight of _that_ man.”

“Another time, talking to me (O’Meara) about the island, he said, ‘In fact, I expect nothing less from your Government than that they will send out an executioner to _despatch_ me. They send me here to a horrible rock, where even the water is not good. They send out a _sailor_ with me, who does not know how to treat a man like me, and who puts a camp under my nose, so that I cannot put my head out without seeing my jailors. Here we are treated like felons: a proclamation is issued for nobody to come near and touch us, as if we were lepers.’”

O’Meara’s description of the officers in attendance on Napoleon is sufficiently contemptuous. Of Montholon he speaks most offensively. He admits Bertrand to be a “good man;” but he thus characterises Gourgaud, whose quarrel with Sir Walter Scott once made some noise: “Gourgaud is now recovering from dysentery. During his illness, I never saw a man betray so much fear of dying as he did on various occasions. One night a large black beetle got into the bed, and crawled up alongside of him. His imagination immediately magnified the insect into a devil, or some other formidable apparition, armed with talons, long teeth, and ready to tear away his lingering soul from its mortal abode. He shrieked, became terribly agitated and convulsed; a cold sweat bedewed his pallid face; and when I entered he presented all the appearance of a man about to expire, with the most terrific ideas of what would be his future lot; and it was not till after a considerable time that he could be restored to some degree of composure.” Gourgaud had in some degree provoked this description by his previous _fanfaronades_. When he arrived in the island he had produced a sword to the daughters of Mr Balcombe, on which he had himself represented in the act of killing a Cossack who was about to take Bonaparte prisoner, with a pompous inscription narrating the feat. At the end of the blade he made them observe a spot, as if stained with the blood of two Englishmen, slain by him at Waterloo. He gave the last finish to this “passage of arms,” by saying, that in the same battle he _might_ have made the Duke prisoner! “but that he saw the business was decided, and he was unwilling to produce any further effusion of human blood!” (“Credit—believe it who will,” says O’Meara.) During Gourgaud’s illness, however, he seemed to have forgotten all his chivalry—as, one day, “whining and lamenting over his state, he said, with many _tears_, ‘He did not know for what he was exiled, for he had never done harm to mortal man.’”

O’Meara’s own history was a varied one. He had begun his course as an assistant-surgeon in the 18th, in 1804; but a duel happening in the regiment, in which he acted as second, a courtmartial was the consequence, and he retired from the army. He then served as a naval surgeon, for many years, in the Mediterranean and the West Indies, with Maitland (captain of the Bellerophon), who gave him an advantageous character. He was then selected as the surgeon in attendance on Napoleon. The quick observation of that sagacious personage saw instantly that O’Meara might be useful in more capacities than those of his profession; he flattered him with his confidence, and converted him into partisanship.

Nothing but the extraordinary selfishness of Napoleon’s character could have stooped to those perpetual complaints. A man who had sat upon the first throne of the Continent ought to have felt that nothing, after such a catastrophe, could be worth a care. A man of true grandeur of mind, after having seen all the diadems of the Continent under his feet, ought to have scorned any inferior degree of power—been utterly indifferent to title, wealth, or the homage of dependents. A philosopher would have despised the mockery of ex-emperorship; rejected the affectation of a power which he was to possess no more; and, having been once forced to submit to a change of fortune which displaced him from the summit of society for ever, would have been contemptuous of living on the fragments of his feast of supremacy. But Napoleon had no sense of this generous and lofty disdain—he clung to the wrecks of his royalty. He was as anxious to sustain the paltry ceremonial of kissing a hand, as when he saw kings crowding to his palace; and showed as much fretfulness at the loss of the most pitiful mark of respect, as he could at an insult to a throne which threw its shadow across the civilised world. This anomaly is easily explained. The spirit of selfishness belongs to all foreign life. Its habits, its amusements, its perpetual passion for frivolous excitement, its pursuit of personal indulgence in every shape, high or low, utterly extinguish all the nobler attributes of mind—substitute fierceness for fortitude, rashness for decision—and feeble repinings against fate, for the dignity which makes defeat but another occasion of showing the superiority of man to fortune. Napoleon was selfishness embodied, and was as important to _himself_ at St Helena as in the Tuileries.

On the 10th of January 1816, Sir Hudson Lowe received a despatch from Earl Bathurst, stating that, on his arrival at St Helena, he should notify to all the attendants of Napoleon that they were at perfect liberty to leave the island for Europe or America; but that those who remained should declare, in writing, that they were prepared to submit to the necessary restrictions. To Sir Hudson the orders were—“You are to continue to treat Napoleon Bonaparte as a prisoner of war, until further orders.”

The governor reached St Helena on the 14th of April, and on the 16th he visited Bonaparte, having given him previous notice of his intention. The visit was unlucky, for even the hour was constituted into an offence. Las Cases thus mentions the visit: “The new governor arrived at Longwood about ten o’clock, notwithstanding the rain, which still continued. He was accompanied by the admiral, who was to introduce him, and who had, _no doubt_, told him that this was the most suitable hour for his visit. The emperor did not receive him—he was indisposed; and even had he been well, he would not have seen him. The governor, by this abrupt visit, neglected the usual forms of decorum. It was easy to perceive that this was a _trick of the admiral_. The governor, who probably had no intention to render himself at all disagreeable, appeared very much disconcerted. _We laughed in our sleeves._ As to the admiral, he was quite _triumphant_. The governor, after long hesitation, and very evident marks of ill-humour, took his leave rather abruptly. We doubted not that this visit had been planned by the admiral, with the view of prepossessing us against each other at the very outset.”

The English reader of this incident will find in it the key to the whole conduct of Napoleon and his attendants; _he_ was determined to turn everything into an offence, and they were equally determined to turn everything into an intrigue. The narrative foolishly and malignantly represents the conduct of a naval officer of high character in the light of a paltry _ruse_, and for no imaginable purpose but ill-will. “_They laughed in their sleeves_” at the success of this ruse. The admiral was _triumphant_, _because_ the governor was vexed; and Napoleon was, of course, conqueror on the occasion. This is the most pitiful of all gossip, and is unworthy of even the nursery. Let this be contrasted with the manly account by the governor himself of the first interview which took place next day at four. “I was accompanied by Sir G. Cockburn. General Bertrand received us in the dining-room serving as an antechamber, and instantly ushered me into an inner room, where I found him (Napoleon) standing, having his hat in his hand. Not addressing me when I came in, but apparently waiting for me to speak to him, I broke silence by saying, ‘I am come, sir, to present my respects to you.’ ‘You speak French, sir, I perceive; but you also speak Italian. You once commanded a regiment of Corsicans.’ I replied, ‘the language was alike to me.’ ‘We will speak, then, in Italian;’ and immediately commenced a conversation which lasted about half an hour—the purport of which was principally as follows. He first asked me, ‘where I had served?—how I liked the Corsicans? They carry the stiletto; are they not a bad people?’ (looking at me very significantly for an answer.) My reply was—‘They do not carry the stiletto, having abandoned that custom in our service. They have always conducted themselves with propriety; I was very well satisfied with them.’

“He asked me if I had not been in Egypt with them; and on my replying in the affirmative, he entered into a long discussion respecting that country. ‘Menou was an imbecile. If Kleber had been there, _you would have been all made prisoners_.’” To this ungracious remark the governor seems to have abstained from any reply. How easily might he have reminded Napoleon of Acre! and the difficulty which he found then of taking prisoners even the crews of two English ships, who drove him from the walls at the head of his army, and virtually, after hunting him from Syria, drove him into the desertion of Egypt. In the French narratives of war, the general who has been beaten is always an _imbecile_. It is an extraordinary _trait_ of character in Napoleon to have ventured on the subject at all. Yet he expatiated on it, as if he had never known defeat on its shores. “He blamed Abercromby for not having landed sooner, or for not proceeding to another point. Moore, with his six thousand men, ought to have been all destroyed.” He admitted, however, the bravery of the generals. “He asked me if I knew Hutchinson, and whether he was the same who had been arrested at Paris” (for the escape of Lavalette). “His question on this point betrayed great interest.” The subject of Egypt was resumed. “It was the most important geographical point in the world, and had always been considered so. He had reconnoitered the line of the Canal across the Isthmus of Suez; he had calculated the expense at ten or twelve millions of livres (half a million sterling, he said, to make me understand more clearly the probable cost of it); that a powerful colony being established there, it would have been _impossible_ for us to have preserved our empire in India.”

This remark is an example of the dashing way in which foreigners settle all the affairs of the world. If Napoleon had been asked to show how a French colony in Egypt could have overthrown an Indian empire, he must have been profoundly puzzled. A French colony would, doubtless, have prevented the overland passage. Yet, _without_ that passage, India had been ours, or in the direct progress to be ours, for a hundred years! What could a colony in Egypt have done while the Red Sea was blocked up by English ships? How could it transport an army over the Desert—through Arabia, Persia, and the passes of the Himalaya?—and without an army, what could they do in India? The much greater chance was, that a French colony would have been starved or slaughtered, as the French army in Egypt would have been, but for its capitulation. The same absurdity is common to other services. The Russians, from the peasant to the throne, think that India is at their mercy, from the instant of a battalion’s appearing on the verge of Tartary, while they are forced to acknowledge that the Desert is impassable by any army in summer; and General Perowsky, in an expedition which decimated his army, half way to Thibet, has proved it to be equally impassable in winter. Or, may we not ask, if this mighty conquest is so much a matter of calculation, why have not the poor and feeble tribes of the Caucasus been conquered in a war of twenty years, within a stone’s throw of the Russian frontier?—while in India, after a march across swamps, sands, and mountains, they would have to meet an army of two hundred thousand men (easily increased to half a million), led by British officers?

The people of the United States are equally absurd in their speculations on the conquest of Canada. They pronounce it ready to drop into their hands, like fruit from the tree. Yet, every attempt at the invasion of Canada has resulted only in ridiculous defeat!

Napoleon again railed at Menou, and concluded with the remark, which he pronounced in a very serious manner: “‘In war, the gain is always with him who commits the fewest faults.’ It struck me as if he was reproaching himself with some great error.”

In this curious interview, Sir G. Cockburn’s having been shut out by a mere accident was made the most of, as a charge of incivility against the governor. We give Sir Hudson Lowe’s own version. He had been accompanied by the admiral to Longwood. “In order that there might be no mistake respecting the appointment being for Sir George Cockburn as well as myself, I distinctly specified to Bertrand that we should go together. We went, and were received in the outer room by Bertrand, who almost immediately ushered me into Bonaparte’s presence. I had been conversing with him for nearly half an hour, when, on his asking me if I had brought with me the Regent’s speech, I turned round to ask Sir George Cockburn if I had not given it to him? and observed, to my surprise, that he had not followed me into the room. On going out, I found him in the antechamber much irritated. He told me that Bertrand had almost shut the door in his face as he was following me into the room, and that a servant had put his arm across him. He said he would have forced his way, but that he was expecting I would have turned round to see that he was following me, when he supposed I would have insisted on our entering the room together. I told him I knew nothing of his not being in the same room till Bonaparte asked me for the Regent’s speech.... Bonaparte was ready to receive him after I had left the room; but he would not go in. Bertrand and Montholon have been with him since, making apologies. But the admiral, I believe, is still not quite satisfied about it.”

Napoleon’s conversation was essentially rough, a circumstance to be accounted for, partly by his birth, and partly by his camp education. O’Meara mentions that Montholon, having brought a translation of the paper which the domestics who desired to remain with him were to sign, Napoleon, looking at it, said—“This is not French—it is not sense.” “Sire,” said the other, “it is a literal translation of the English.” “However,” said Napoleon, “it is neither French nor German (tearing it in two)—_you are a fool_.” Then, looking it over, he said—“He makes a translation into stuff, which is not French, and is nonsense to any Frenchman.”

As we are not the defenders of the governor, and the subject of mere defence is now past by, we shall chiefly give abstracts of the conversation of his memorable prisoner. He asked O’Meara if he had been at Alexandria. “Yes, in a line-of-battle ship.” “But I suppose you could not enter the harbour?” O’Meara told him, “that we soon found a passage through which any vessel might go. This he would not believe for some time, until I told him that I saw the Tigre and the Canopus, of eighty guns each, enter with ease. ‘Why!’ said he, with astonishment, ‘that Commodore Barré, whom you took in the Rivoli, was ordered by me to sound for a passage when I was there, and he reported to me that there was not a possibility of a line-of-battle ship’s entering the harbour.’ He observed, then, ‘that the fleet might have been saved if he had done his duty.’ I told him, then, that we had blocked up the passage by sinking two vessels laden with stone in it; to which he replied, ‘that it was easy to remove such obstacles.’”

The expenses of Napoleon’s household were heavy. On the voyage out, between the 8th of August and the 17th of November, they had consumed a hundred dozens of wine, besides some casks of an inferior kind for the servants. In one of the governor’s despatches to Lord Bathurst, two fortnights’ accounts are given from Mr Balcombe, purveyor to Longwood. The amount of one fortnight is an expenditure of £683, 5s. 4d.; and of the other, £567, 10s. 4d.; the annual expense, at the former rate, thus amounting to above £16,000, and at the latter to £13,000—nine persons, with four children, being the family; the rest, with the exception of the two officers in attendance, being servants—the whole number amounting to 59.

One day, on hearing that Napoleon had not been seen by the attendant officer, the governor visited Longwood. “I passed,” said he, “through his dining-room, drawing-room, and another room, in which were displayed a great number of maps and plans laid out on a table, and several quires of writing, and was then introduced into an inner room, with a small bed in it, and a couch, on which Bonaparte was reclining, having only his dressing-gown on, and without his shoes.” On the governor’s expressing regret for his indisposition, and offering him medical advice, “I want no doctor,” said he. On his asking “whether Lady Bingham had arrived, and being answered that her non-arrival was owing to the delay of the Adamant transport, which was also bringing wines, furniture, &c., for Longwood, he said—‘It was all owing to the want of a chronometer; that it was a miserable saving of the Admiralty not to give every vessel of above two hundred tons one; and that he had done it in France.’ After a pause, he asked—‘What was the situation of affairs in France when I left Europe?’ I said, ‘Everything, I believe, was settled there.’ Beauchamp’s Campaign of 1814 was lying on the floor near him. He asked me if I had written the letters referred to in the appendix to this work. I answered, ‘Yes.’ ‘I recollect Marshal Blucher at Lubeck,’ said he; ‘is he not very old?’ ‘Seventy-five years,’ I replied, ‘but still vigorous—supporting himself on horseback for sixteen hours a-day, when circumstances render it necessary.’”

Napoleon then, after a pause, returned to the usual observations on his captivity. “I should have surrendered myself,” said he, to the Emperor of Russia, who was my friend, or to the Emperor of Austria, who was related to me. “There is courage in putting a man to death, but it is an act of cowardice to let him languish, and to poison him in so horrid an island, and so detestable a climate.” To the governor’s remark that St Helena was not unhealthy, and that the object of the British Government was, to make his residence on the island as satisfactory to himself as possible, he said—“Let them send me a coffin—a couple of balls in the head is all that is necessary. What does it signify to me whether I lie on a velvet couch or on fustian? I am a soldier, and accustomed to everything.”

As to his repeated expression, that he might have put himself into the hands of others, and that he voluntarily gave himself up to England, there can be no doubt of his _conscious_ falsehood on both points. The French provisional government would not have suffered him to pass the frontier; nor would he have given himself up to Captain Maitland if he could have escaped to America. He also dreaded the sentence of the Bourbons, who would probably have imprisoned, or even put him to death, as they did Ney and Labédoyère, and as Murat was shot by order of the Neapolitan government. If he had fallen into Blucher’s hands, that officer proposed to have him shot in the ditch of Vincennes, on the very spot where the Duc d’Enghien was murdered; a proposal which was ineffectual only through the generous objections of the Duke of Wellington. The proclamation of the Allied sovereigns had already put him in a state of _outlawry_ with Europe. Napoleon knew all this: he had been a prisoner at Malmaison; and though spared for the moment, he might be convinced that, on the withdrawal of the Allied troops, his life would have been demanded by the tribunals. Thus his declarations of confidence in England amounted simply to the belief that he would not be put to death in its hands. He was too sagacious to suppose that he could have been let loose again, to be the firebrand of the Continent, or to play once more the farce of royalty in Elba.

The inveteracy of Napoleon in his hatred of the governor almost amounted to frenzy. After one of these interviews, he said, “I never saw such a horrid countenance. He (Sir H. Lowe) sat in a chair opposite to my sofa, and on the little table between us was a cup of coffee. His physiognomy made such an unfavourable impression on me that I thought _his looks had poisoned it_. I ordered Marchand to throw it out of the window. I could not have swallowed it for the world.” Part of this “_horror_” was probably “acting;” but as everything reached Sir Hudson, it belonged to the system of insult.

Napoleon’s ideas of religion were sometimes regarded as _decent_, compared with the general tone of the Continent. On his deathbed he said, “Je ne suis ni _physicien_ ni _philosophe_.” (I am neither a _materialist_ nor an _infidel_.) But an anecdote given in Sir Hudson’s correspondence shows the unfortunate conception of his creed: “Dr O’Meara related to me yesterday a very characteristic observation of this remarkable personage. He asked him, on seeing that he had taken his oath to the authenticity of the paper he had brought to me, in what manner he had sworn to it. Dr O’Meara replied, ‘On the New Testament.’ ‘_Then_, you _are_ such a fool!’ was his reply.” His attendants were obviously much of the same order of thinking: “Cipriani came out one day from Bonaparte’s room, to Dr O’Meara, saying, in a manner indicative of great surprise, ‘My master is certainly beginning to lose his head. _He believes in God._ You may think; he said to the servant who was shutting the windows, Why do you take from us the light which God gives us?’ Oh, certainly he loses his head. He began at Waterloo, but now it is _certain_.” His following remark was curious, as an evidence of the _actual_ feeling of these people with respect to the man whom they professed to _adore_. Cipriani added—“I do not believe in God; because, if there were one, he would not have allowed a man, who has done so much harm, to live so long. And _he_ does not believe; because, if he believed, he would not have caused so many millions of men to be killed in this world, for fear of meeting them in the other.” This is absurd, but it is perhaps the average of Italian belief. Cipriani was _maître d’hotel_, and a man of intelligence. He died on the island in 1818.

One of the conversations transmitted by O’Meara related to Waterloo. “The worst thing,” said Napoleon, “that England ever did, was that of endeavouring to make herself a great military nation. In doing that, she must _always be the slave_ of Russia, Prussia, or Austria, or at least in some degree subservient to them, because she has not enough of men to combat on the Continent either France or any of the others, and consequently must hire men from some of them; whereas, at sea, you are so superior, your sailors so much better, that you will always be superior to us. Your soldiers, too, have not the qualities for a military nation; they are not equal in agility, address, or intelligence to the French; and when they meet with a reverse, their discipline is very bad.... I saw myself the retreat of Moore, and I never in my life witnessed anything so bad as the conduct of the soldiers; it was impossible to collect them or make them do anything; nearly all were drunk.”

This is a calumny. The army under General Moore offered battle to the army under Napoleon, who _declined it_; and when he saw the steadiness of the British, on their retreat through an exhausted country, and especially saw that his troops could make no impression on the fifteen thousand men commanded by Moore, and _saw_ (as we understood) the utter defeat of the cavalry of his guard by the British hussars, under the command of the present Marquis of Londonderry, he wisely drew rein, and returned to Paris, leaving it to Soult “to drive the leopards into the sea,” who, instead of performing this exploit, was himself beaten on the shore, and forced to see the British embark at their ease. It is true that the rapidity and exhaustion of the British march left many stragglers on the road; but the rapidity resulted from the error of having supposed that there were parallel roads to the highroad, by which a French force might have intercepted their march. But, in _every_ attack on that march, the French were repulsed; and such was the nature of their defeat in the battle of Corunna, that they were wholly driven off their ground, and another hour of daylight must have seen their retreat converted into a _rout_.

The sneer at England, as not being a military nation, is at once answered by the fact, that its whole regular force is an army of _volunteers_, while all the other armies of Europe are raised by a _conscription_; that in the French war England had an army of 200,000 men, raised by the military spirit of the country, besides 500,000 militia and yeomanry! The answer to the “want of soldierly qualification” in the British troops, is given in the fact, that in the whole war the British army _never_ lost a pitched battle.

Napoleon’s account of Waterloo, as given in those pages, is, simply, that Wellington did everything _wrong_, but with the good fortune of everything turning out right; that he _ought_, in all propriety, to have been beaten, though he beat; that the battle was a series of blunders, which by the power of destiny, or _something_ else, turned into victory; and that he himself ought, by all the rules of war, to have been marching in triumph into Brussels, while he was running away to Paris, leaving 40,000 Frenchmen slain, prisoners, or fugitives, instead of the 40,000 Englishmen, who _ought_ to have fallen. In the same spirit, Napoleon ought to have been sitting on the throne of France, while he was talking fustian at St Helena. “What,” said Napoleon, “must have been the consequence of _my_ victory?” The indignation against the Ministry for having caused the loss of 40,000 of the flower of the English army, of the sons of the first families, and others, who would have perished there, would have excited such a popular commotion, that—“they would have been _turned out_.” (A rather lame and impotent conclusion.) “The English would then have made peace, and withdrawn from the Coalition.”

This is one of the perpetual absurdities of foreigners. England has _never_ been compelled to an ignominious peace, by losses in war. She has _never_ seen an enemy in her capital. Loving peace, she willingly makes peace; but she has _never_ surrendered her sword to make it.

He persevered in this verbiage. “I had succeeded; before twelve o’clock everything was mine, I might _almost_ say. But _destiny_ and _accident_ decided it otherwise.” The curious combination of the most fixed, and the most casual, of all things, was alone adequate to account for the defeat of Napoleon! and with this folly the prisoner nursed his self-delusion to the end.

One of the chief charges against the English Government was its stinting the French tables. But one of O’Meara’s _private_ letters gives a fair account of the matter. “With respect to the allowance within which all the expenses were directed to be comprised—viz., £8000 sterling a-year, to which Sir Hudson Lowe has, on his own responsibility, since added £4000 yearly (!) in my opinion a due regard has not been paid to circumstances, and I do not think even this latter sum will be sufficient.... You perhaps are not aware of the French mode of living and their cookery. They have, in fact, _two_ dinners every day—one at eleven or twelve o’clock, to which joints, roast and boiled, with all their various hashes, ragouts, fricassees, &c., &c., are served up, with wine and liqueurs; and another at eight o’clock, which differs from the former only in being supplied with more dishes. Besides these two meals, they all have (except Bonaparte himself, who eats only twice a-day, certainly very heartily) something like an English breakfast, in _bed_, between eight and nine in the morning; and a luncheon, with wine, at four or five in the afternoon.

“The common notion of the English eating more animal food than the French is most incorrect. I am convinced that between their two dinners and luncheon they consume three or four times as much as any English family of a similar number. Those two dinners, then, the first of which they have separately in their respective rooms, cause a great consumption of meat and wine, which, together with their mode of cookery, require a great quantity of either oil or butter, both of which are excessively dear in this place (and you may as well attempt to deprive an Irishman of potatoes as a Frenchman of his oil, or some substitute for it). Their _soupes consommés_ (for they are, with one or two exceptions, the greatest gluttons and epicures I ever saw), producing great waste of meat in a place where the necessaries of life are so dear, altogether render necessary a great expenditure of money.”

Among the cunning attempts to throw the conduct of the governor into abhorrence, was the charge of refusing Napoleon the _bust_ of his son, and even intending to destroy it. O’Meara says, that it had been “landed fourteen days, and some of those in the governor’s hands.” This is another instance of the language perpetually used; the fact being, “that the bust was landed on the 10th or 11th of June, and sent to Longwood the _next day_.”