Chapter IX: Front Matter (9)

We immediately began to search amongst our records. The Emperor portioned them out, pointing out the share which each of us was to take, in order to transcribe them with greater despatch. The day however passed without any thing being done on the subject. The next day (Friday), as soon as I saw the Emperor, I took the liberty of reminding him of our plans of the preceding day; but he now appeared to think less of the matter, and ended the conversation by saying, “_We must see_.” This day passed like the preceding; I was on thorns. At night, as if to add to my impatience, my man came again, and renewed the unreserved offer of his services. I told him that I should take advantage of them, and that he might act without scruple, as I should not involve him in any criminality or danger. To this he replied that he did not care about that, and that he would take charge of any thing I might wish to give him, observing only, that he would call for it, without fail, the day after the next (Sunday), which would, in all probability, be the eve of his sailing. The next day (Saturday) as soon as I saw the Emperor, I hastened to communicate to him what I had heard from the servant, dwelling upon the circumstance of our having only twenty-four hours more; but the Emperor, with the utmost indifference, turned the conversation to some other topic, totally foreign to my object. I was struck with surprise. I knew the Emperor’s disposition, and I was perfectly satisfied that the indifference, the sort of absence of mind, which he manifested at this moment could not be the effect of chance, still less the result of caprice; but what then could his motives be? This idea haunted my mind the whole day, and rendered me melancholy and miserable. At night, the same sentiment which agitated my breast during the day, prevented me from sleeping. I painfully recalled to my mind every circumstance connected with this affair, when suddenly a new light broke in upon me. What do I require of the Emperor, thought I? that he should stoop to the execution of trifling details too much beneath him! No doubt, disgust and secret dissatisfaction have occasioned the silence which has caused my uneasiness. Ought we to be useless to him? Can we not serve him without afflicting him? And then several of his former observations came across my mind. Had I not informed him of the affair; had he not approved of it; what more could I expect?[23] Henceforth it was for me to act, and I made up my mind in one instant. I resolved to proceed in the business, without mentioning another word to him on the subject: and, in order that it might remain more secret, I determined to keep it entirely to myself.

Footnote 23:

Mr. O’Meara’s work informs me, after a lapse of six years, that I
had guessed precisely the Emperor’s feeling on this occasion.

Some months had now elapsed since I had succeeded in forwarding the celebrated letter, in answer to Sir Hudson Lowe, concerning the Commissioners from the Allied Powers, and which was the only document that had been sent to Europe up to that period. The person who had kindly taken charge of it had brought me a large piece of satin, on part of which the letter had been written. Some was still left; and that was precisely what I wanted. Thus every thing combined to urge me towards the precipice, down which I was destined to fall.

As soon as daylight appeared, I gave the remainder of the satin to my son, on whose discretion I could rely; and he spent the whole of the day in copying upon it my letter to Prince Lucien. Night came, and, faithful to his word, my young mulatto appeared. He had some knowledge of the business of a tailor; he sewed with his own hands the satin into his clothes, and took his leave of me. I promised to give him some other things if he came to see me again before his departure, and wished him a pleasant voyage in case I should not see him again:—afterwards I went to bed with a light heart, and a feeling of satisfaction, arising from the contemplation of a day well employed, and marked by a fortunate event. I was far from thinking, at that moment, that I had just cut with my own hands the thread of my destiny at Longwood!

Alas! it will soon be seen that twenty-four hours had not elapsed when, under pretence of my having written that letter, I was removed from Longwood, and my person and papers were in the power and at the entire disposal of the Governor, Sir Hudson Lowe. And if I should now be asked how I could be so unguarded, and not suspect that possibly a snare might be laid for me, I should say that my servant had appeared to me honest, that I believed him to be faithful, and that I was still a stranger to all idea of instigating spies, a new invention, the honour of which the British Ministers of that period may claim as their own, and which has since thriven so well on the continent!

MY REMOVAL FROM LONGWOOD.—SOLITARY CONFINEMENT
AT ST. HELENA (A SPACE OF ABOUT SIX WEEKS).

25th.—The Emperor sent for me at about four o’clock; he had just finished work, and appeared much pleased with the result of his occupations of the day. “I have been busy with Bertrand all day on fortifications,” said he to me, “and the day has appeared to me very short.” I have already said that this was a newly acquired taste of the Emperor’s, quite of the moment; and such pastimes are valuable here, God knows!

I had followed the Emperor to the kind of grassplot which adjoins the tent; we thence went to the corner of the walk that leads to the bottom of the garden. Five oranges were brought on a plate, with a knife and some sugar. Oranges are very scarce on the island; they are sent from the Cape. The Emperor is very fond of this fruit. These were a present from Lady Malcolm, and the Admiral never failed to send him some, whenever he had any. We were three of us at this moment with the Emperor; he gave me one of these oranges to put in my pocket for my son, and proceeded to cut the others in slices, and prepare them; and, seated on the trunk of a tree, was eating them cheerfully, and familiarly distributing part of them to us at the same time. By a fatal instinct, I was precisely at that instant contemplating the pleasure of this momentary situation! Alas! I was far from thinking that I was then taking the last present I could receive from his hands!...

The Emperor then took some turns in the garden; the wind had become cold: he went into the house again, and bade me follow him alone into the drawing-room, and the billiard-room, whilst he paced up and down the whole extent of the two rooms. He was talking to me again about the manner in which he had passed his day, and asked me how I had spent mine; then, the conversation having turned on his marriage, he was speaking of the festivities which had taken place on that occasion, and which had ended in the terrible accident that happened at M. Schwartzenberg’s ball. I was listening, and inwardly proposing to make an interesting article in my journal on the subject, when the Emperor suddenly interrupted his conversation, to observe through the window a great number of English officers, who were advancing towards us from the gate of our enclosure: it was the Governor, surrounded by several of his staff. The Grand Marshal, who at this moment came into the room, observed that the Governor had already been there in the morning; and that he had been at his house, and remained there some time; he added that a certain movement of the troops was spoken of. These circumstances appeared singular; and—mark the effect of a guilty conscience!—the idea of my letter clandestinely sent, immediately occurred to my mind, and a secret foreboding instantly warned me that all these strange proceedings concerned me. Such in fact, was the case, for a few minutes afterwards, a message was brought to me, informing me that the English Colonel, the creature of Sir Hudson Lowe’s, was waiting for me in my own apartment. I made a sign that I was with the Emperor, who, a few minutes afterwards, said to me, “Go, Las Cases, and see what that animal wants of you.” And, as I was going, he added, “_and come back soon_.” These were the last words of Napoleon to me. Alas, I have never seen him since! but his accent, the tone of his voice, still sound in my ears. How often since have I taken delight in allowing my imagination to dwell upon them! and what mingled sensations of pleasure and regret may be produced by a painful recollection!

The Colonel who wished to see me was a man entirely devoted to the Governor’s wishes, his factotum, and with whom I had frequently to communicate as interpreter. I had no sooner entered the room than, with an expression of benevolence and kindness both in his voice and countenance, he inquired after my health with a tender interest. This was the kiss of Judas; for, having made a sign to him with my hand to sit down on the sofa, and having also taken a seat on it myself, he seized this opportunity to place himself between me and the door: and, altering at once his tone and expression, he informed me that he arrested me in the name of the Governor, Sir Hudson Lowe, on the deposition of my servant, who had charged me with having carried on a secret correspondence.

My room was already guarded by dragoons, all representations on my part became useless, I was obliged to yield to violence, and was carried away strongly escorted. The Emperor has since written, as it will be seen hereafter, that, on seeing me from his window, hurried along through the plain, surrounded by armed men, the alacrity of the numerous staff prancing about me, and the rapid undulation of their high feathers floating in the air, had put him in mind of the ferocious joy of the savage inhabitants of the islands of the Pacific Ocean, dancing round the prisoner whom they are about to devour.

I had been separated from my son, who had been detained prisoner in my apartment; but he soon joined me also under escort: so that the sudden interruption and final termination of our communications with Longwood date from that moment. We were both shut up in a wretched hovel, near the former habitation of General Bertrand and his family. I was obliged to sleep on a miserable pallet, and to make room for my poor son by my side, lest he should have to lie on the floor; I considered his life to be at this moment in danger, he was threatened with an aneurism, and had been on the point of expiring in my arms a few days before. We were kept until eleven o’clock without food; and when, in order to supply the wants of my son, I went to the door and to each of the windows to ask the men who guarded them for a morsel of bread, they answered me only by presenting their bayonets.

MY PAPERS ARE EXAMINED, &C.

25th, 26th.—What a terrible night is the first night spent in prison, within four walls! What ideas, what reflections, arise in the mind! My last thought at night, and the first on waking in the morning, had been that I was still only a few minutes’ walk from Longwood, and yet that perhaps I was already separated from it for ever.

In the course of the morning, the Grand Marshal, accompanied by an officer, passed within hail of my hovel. I was enabled to ask him from my dungeon how the Emperor was. The Grand Marshal was going to the Governor’s at Plantation House. His visit was undoubtedly on my account, but what could be the object of his mission? What were the ideas and the wishes of the Emperor on the subject? This occupied all my thoughts. On passing again, on his return, the Grand Marshal, with an expression of melancholy, made a sign to me, which gave me the idea of bidding me adieu, and which went to my heart. In the course of the morning, General Gourgaud and M. de Montholon also came as far as the late residence of Madame Bertrand, which was opposite to my prison, and not far from it. It was consolatory to me to see and to interpret their signs of friendship and tender interest. They solicited in vain to be allowed to come into my prison; they were obliged to return without having succeeded. Shortly afterwards, Madame Bertrand sent me some oranges, informing me, at the same time, that she had just received indirectly some news of my wife, and that she was in good health. These attentions, these demonstrations of kindness, from all my companions, were to me a proof that the first appearance of misfortune is sufficient to awaken the feelings of family affection, and I found some consolation at this moment in being a prisoner.

No time had been lost in my late apartment, after my arrest: a police officer (a recent importation into the colony, and, I presume, the first attempt of the kind that had been made on British ground) had made his first essay on me. He had searched my secretaire, broken open my drawers, and seized all my papers; and, anxious to shew his dexterity and the extent of his abilities, he had immediately set about undoing our beds, and taking my sofa to pieces, and even spoke of taking up the flooring.

The Governor, having got possession of all my papers, now proceeded to produce them to me in triumph. He went into the late house of Madame Bertrand, opposite to me, followed by eight or ten officers, and sent to ask me whether I would go over and there be present at the inventory which was to be made of them, or whether I preferred that he should come to me. I replied that since he left me the option, the latter plan would be most agreeable to me. Every body being seated, I rose to protest most positively against the indecorous manner in which I had been taken away from Longwood, against the illegality of sealing up my papers in my absence, and against the violation about to be committed on my private papers, the sacred depositories of my thoughts, which should exist for me only, and which had remained to this day a secret to all the world. I protested against the abuse that might be made of their contents by power; I told Sir Hudson Lowe that, if he thought that the circumstances of the case required that he should examine them, he must use his own discretion; that I had no fear of the consequences; but that I owed to myself and to general principles to throw the responsibility of the act entirely upon him, to yield only to violence, and not to authorize it by my consent.

These words, uttered by me in presence of all his officers, irritated the Governor, who exclaimed, “Count Las Cases, do not render your situation worse than it is; it is bad enough already!” alluding probably to the punishment of death, which he often reminded us of our being liable to, if we assisted in endeavouring to effect the escape of the great Captive. He concluded, no doubt, that my papers would produce the most important discoveries: God knows how far his ideas might go on that subject.

Before Sir Hudson began to read my papers, he called General Bingham, the second in command in the island, to assist personally in their perusal; but that officer’s ideas of delicacy differed entirely from those of the Governor. “Sir Hudson Lowe,” answered he, with a marked expression of disgust, “I beg you will excuse me, I do not think that I shall be able to read that kind of French hand-writing.”

I had, in fact, no real objection to the Governor’s examining my papers; and I therefore told him that, not in his capacity of judge or magistrate, for he was neither the one nor the other to me, but of my own accord and out of pure condescension, I thought proper to allow him to read them. He fell immediately upon my Journal. His joy and his expectations may be imagined, when he perceived that it would inform him, day by day, of all that happened among us at Longwood. It was sufficiently arranged to have a table of contents, or index to the subjects at the beginning of each month. Sir Hudson Lowe, on meeting frequently with his name, would immediately refer to the page pointed out in the index to read the details; and I could not help observing to him that if he found it often necessary to use forbearance, it was not my fault, but the fault of his own indiscretion. I assured him that my Journal was not known to any body; that the Emperor himself, who was the sole subject of it, had only read the first pages of it; that its contexture was far from being settled, and that it was intended to remain, for some time to come, a secret known to myself only.

After Sir Hudson Lowe had spent two or three hours in looking over my Journal, I told him that my intention had been to enable him to form a correct idea of the nature of its contents, and that, having now done so, I felt bound, for many reasons, to prohibit, as far as it was in my power, his going any further; that he _could_ of course do as he pleased, but that I should protest against the violence he would thus exercise, and the abuse of his authority. I could easily perceive that this was a great disappointment to him; he even hesitated: however, my protest produced its effect, and my Journal was not touched again. I might have extended the protest to all my other papers, but I did not care much about them; and they were, during several days, most minutely examined.

I had my last will sealed up: I was obliged to open it as well as other papers equally sacred. Having got to the bottom of a portfolio containing some things which I had not ventured to look at since my absence from Europe, I was obliged to open them. This day was to be a day of emotion to me: the sight of these objects awoke in my breast some old recollections which my courage had stifled, since certain painful separations had taken place. I was affected, and obliged to hasten out of the room. My son, who remained in it, told me afterwards that the Governor himself had appeared somewhat affected by this circumstance.

MY REMOVAL TO BALCOMBE’S COTTAGE.

From 28th to 30th.—This day, 28th, we have been removed from our wretched hovel to a kind of cottage belonging to Mr. Balcombe, our former host when at Briars, and situated about a league distant. The house was small, but very tolerable, and situated opposite to Longwood, and at a short distance from it: we were only separated from it by several ridges of precipices and steep summits of mountains. We were guarded by a detachment of the sixty-sixth regiment; numerous sentinels watched over us, and forbade the approach to our prison. An officer was at our disposal, Sir Hudson Lowe obligingly said, and, as he affirmed, for our convenience. All communications were strictly intercepted; we were placed in a state of the most absolute seclusion. On the summit of the hills which surrounded the hollow in which our house was situated, there was a road on which we saw to-day General Gourgaud, accompanied by an English officer. We could observe his efforts to come as near to us as possible, and we received with feelings of joy and affection the signs and demonstrations of friendship which our companion addressed to us from that distance, and returned ours to him in the same manner. The kind and excellent Madame Bertrand sent us again some oranges: we were not allowed to write to her to thank her, and were obliged to confine the expression of our gratitude by sending her some roses which we had gathered in our prison.

The next day Sir Hudson Lowe came to see us in our new residence. He wished to know what kind of bed I had had, and I took him to the next room and shewed him a mattress on the floor. The same kind of attention had been bestowed upon our food. “I mention these things to you,” said I, “because you have asked me; but, for my part, I do not care about them.” He then grew very angry with the person to whom he had intrusted the superintendence of our establishment here, and sent us our meals from his own table at Plantation House, although a distance of two leagues, and continued so to do until our wants were regularly provided for.

It became necessary to devise some occupation in our new prison, to enable us to bear the weight of time. I divided our hours so as to fill up our days: I regularly gave lessons in history and mathematics to my son; we read, and, during our intervals of leisure, we walked about our enclosure. The place was agreeable enough for St. Helena, it contained some verdure and a few trees. A great number of common fowls, which were rearing for the consumption of Longwood, were kept there, as well as some Guinea fowls, and other large birds, which we soon rendered tame: prisoners are ingenious and compassionate. In the evening, we used to light a fire, and then I related to my son some family stories; I informed him of my family concerns, and mentioned to him, and made him take down the names of those persons who had shewn themselves kind to me during the course of my life, or had rendered me any service. In short, our life was dull and melancholy, but so calm that it was not devoid of a kind of pleasurable feeling. One idea alone was exceedingly painful, and haunted us continually: the Emperor was there almost within sight, and yet we inhabited two distinct worlds; we were separated only by a short distance, and yet all communication had ceased! There was something horrible in this situation; I was no longer with him, and I was not with my family, which I had left to follow him. What then remained to me? My son shared in these feelings: urged by this situation, and by the enthusiasm of youth, the dear boy offered to me, in a moment of excitement, to take advantage of the darkness of night, to elude the vigilance of our guards, descend the numerous precipices, and scale the steep heights which parted us from Longwood, see Napoleon, and bring me back some news from him, which he engaged to do before day-light. I calmed this zeal, which, even had it rendered the attempt practicable, would have produced no other result than a feeling of personal satisfaction, and might have occasioned the most serious consequences. The Emperor had conversed with me so often and so fully that I did not suppose there was any thing he might wish to inform me of; and if such an attempt by my son had been discovered, what a noise it would have made, what importance would have been attached to it by the Governor, what absurd stories he would have invented and produced! &c.

MY RESOLUTION.—MY LETTERS TO SIR HUDSON
LOWE, &C.

From Sunday December 1st, to Friday December 6th.—The days of our imprisonment were slowly succeeding each other, and the Governor, although he continued to visit us frequently, did not mention any thing concerning our situation: he had merely hinted to me that my residence in the Island and my confinement might be protracted, until instructions were returned from London.

Eight days had nearly elapsed without producing the least approach towards any result whatever. This state of inactivity and passiveness could not agree with the nature of my disposition. The health of my son was at times most alarming. Deprived of all communication with Longwood, I was left alone to meditate by myself. I reflected upon the situation in which I was thus placed, fixed upon a plan, and took a resolution. I chose it, extreme in its nature, thinking that, if it was approved by the Emperor, it might be useful, and that it would be very easy to retrace my steps if he wished it. I therefore wrote to the Governor the following letter:

“SIR,—In consequence of a snare laid by my servant, I was on the 25th ultimo torn from Longwood, and all my papers were seized, for having infringed your restrictions, to which I had previously submitted. Had you trusted the observance of these restrictions to my word or to my delicacy, I should have considered them as sacred; but you chose to guard them by attaching penalties to their violation, and I chose to run the risk of encountering them. You have applied those penalties at your own discretion, and I have made no objection to it. All this, as far it goes, is perfectly regular; but the measure of punishment should not exceed the measure of the offence. What is now the case? Two letters have been delivered for transmission without your knowledge: one of them contains the relation of the events that have occurred to us, written for Prince Lucien, and which would have passed through your hands, if you had not informed me that the continuation of my correspondence and the style of my letters would cause my removal by you from the person of the Emperor. The other letter was merely a letter of friendship. However, this circumstance has placed all my papers at your disposal, you have seen them all, even to the most secret. I have myself so much facilitated your researches that I have consented to allow you to peruse solely upon your word, that which was known only to myself, which is as yet a mass of undigested ideas, undetermined, and liable at every moment to be corrected, or modified; in a word, the secret, the chaos of my thoughts. In so doing I have wished to convince you, and I appeal to your candour, when I say that I hope I have convinced you that, in the multitude of papers which you have hastily looked over, there is nothing that could be considered as tending to interfere with the high and important part of your functions: no plot, no plan, not even a thought relating to Napoleon’s escape. You could not find any, because none existed. We are of opinion that his escape is impossible, and we do not think of it. Yet I will not deny that I should willingly have attempted to effect it, had I seen the possibility of success. I should willingly have sacrificed my life to restore him to liberty. I should have fallen a martyr to my zeal, and my memory would have lived for ever in all noble and generous hearts. But I repeat it, nobody considers the attempt practicable; and nobody thinks of making it. The Emperor Napoleon’s plans and wishes are still those which he formed when he repaired _willingly and in good faith_ on board the Bellerophon, that is, to go and seek a life of tranquillity in America, or even in England, under the protection of the laws.

“These points settled, I protest with all my might against your reading henceforward, I might say all my private papers, but I confine myself to what I call my _Journal_. I owe it to the great respect which I entertain for the august personage whose name fills its pages, I owe it to the respect due to myself, to state my solemn objection to your so doing. I therefore demand either that those papers may be immediately restored to me, if you think conscientiously that their contents are foreign to the grand object of your administration; or if, from what you have read of them, you consider that certain parts should be laid before the British Ministers, I demand that you will forward them all to England, and send me with them. You, Sir, are so often alluded to in those papers that delicacy imperatively commands you to adopt one of those two alternatives. You cannot possibly endeavour to avail yourself, more than I have allowed you, of this opportunity to read in them what concerns you personally, lest you expose yourself to the conclusions that will be drawn by induction from this abuse of your authority, lest the circumstance be thought connected with the trap laid for me, and with the great stir that has been made about such a trifle. As soon as I shall have arrived in England with these papers, I shall ask the Ministers in their turn, and I shall appeal to the whole world, whether any importance can be attached, in the eye of the law, to a document recording day by day, with all the negligence warranted by strict privacy, the conversation, the words, and perhaps even the gestures, of the Emperor Napoleon? I shall ask them particularly whether I have not a right to demand of them the most inviolable secrecy concerning every part of a Journal, which is only the rough draught of my thoughts, which properly speaking does not exist, which contains only materials yet undigested; which I might without scruple disavow in almost every particular, as being as yet far from being settled in my own mind, and in which it happened to me, every day, to have to correct by the tenor of a new conversation the errors of a former one, errors that must be unavoidable and of frequent occurrence both with respect to the man who speaks without knowing that he is observed, and to the man who collects without considering himself bound to warrant the authenticity of his information. As for what concerns you, Sir, in those pages, if you have frequently had occasion to complain of the opinions I have pronounced, or the facts I have stated, it is very easy to point out, between man and man, the errors into which I may have fallen. You cannot possibly afford me a greater pleasure than by giving me an opportunity of being just; and whatever be the opinion in which I persist, after your explanation, you will at least be obliged to acknowledge my candour and sincerity. Be that as it may, Sir, and whatever be your intentions with respect to me, I from this moment withdraw, in as far as my present position will admit, from the state of voluntary subjection in which I had placed myself towards you. When I entered into that engagement, you told me that I remained at liberty to retract it at any time; and I therefore, from the present moment, desire to be restored to the common class of citizens. I place myself once more under the operation of your civil laws; I appeal to your tribunals, not to implore their favour, but their justice and their judgment. I presume, General, that you have too much respect for the laws, and too much innate justice in your heart, to make it necessary for me so far to insult you as to observe, that you would become responsible for all violations of the law that may be exercised against me directly or indirectly. I do not suppose that the _letter_ of your instructions, which might induce you to detain me a prisoner here or at the Cape during several months, could shelter you from the _spirit_ of those same instructions, appealed to by the power, the superiority, the majesty of the laws.

“Those instructions, if I have rightly understood them, in ordering you to detain every person having belonged to the establishment at Longwood, during a certain time before you restore them to liberty, have only for their object, no doubt, to derange the communications that might have been held with that horrible prison, and to let some time elapse after their cessation. Now the manner in which I have been torn away has been sufficient to attain that end. It was impossible for me to bring away any idea of the moment. I was, as it were, struck with sudden death. Besides, if I am sent to England under accusation, and submitted to the operation of the laws, they will, if I am found guilty, sufficiently obviate the inconvenience which it has been sought to avoid. If I am not guilty, I shall still be exposed to the provisions of the Alien Act; or, if that is not enough, I here give beforehand my voluntary assent to all precautions, however arbitrary they may be, which it may be thought proper to adopt against me on this occasion.

“Without yet knowing, Sir, what your intentions may be with respect to the disposal of my person, I have already imposed upon myself the greatest of all sacrifices. I am still very near to Longwood, and perhaps I am already separated from it by eternity; horrible thought, that harrows up my soul, and will continue to haunt my imagination!... But a few days ago, and you would have brought me to submit to the greatest sacrifices, by the fear of being removed from the Emperor’s person; to-day, it is not in your power to restore me to him. A stain has been affixed upon me, by arresting me almost within his sight, I can no longer be a source of consolation to him; he would only see in me a being dishonoured, suggesting painful recollections. And yet his presence, the attentions which I delighted to pay him, are dearer to me than my life. But perhaps, some pity will be shewn to me from afar! Something tells me that I shall return; but by a purified channel, bringing with me all that is dear to my existence, to assist me in surrounding with pious and tender cares the immortal monument placed at the extremity of the universe, and slowly consuming by the inclemency of the climate and the perfidy and cruelty of mankind. You have spoken to me, Sir, of your own afflictions; we do not suspect that you have mentioned all the tribulations with which you are assailed; but every one knows and feels his own misery only. You do not suspect, on your side, Sir, that you keep Longwood covered with the veil of mourning. I have the honour,” &c.

A correspondence being once established with Sir Hudson Lowe, I did not remain idle. The following day I wrote to him again, to tell him that, in consequence of my letter of the preceding day, I now officially and in due form demanded my removal from St. Helena and my return to Europe. On the following day, I took up the same subject, and treated it with reference to my situation, as affecting my domestic concerns.

“In my two preceding letters,” said I to him, “both relating to my political situation, I thought it improper and unbecoming to introduce a single word touching my private affairs; but now that I consider myself as belonging once more to the mass of common citizens, I do not hesitate, as an accidental inhabitant of your island, to represent to you all the horrors of my private situation. You are aware of the dangerous state of my son’s health: it must have been reported to you by the medical men. Ever since he has seen the dear and sacred tie which bound us to Longwood dissolved, all his ideas, all his wishes, all his hopes, are ardently turned towards Europe, and his disease will be increased by impatience and the power of imagination. Such is _his_ physical situation, which renders _my_ moral situation still worse, if possible. I have to contend at one and the same time against the feelings of my heart and the uneasiness of my mind. I cannot consider, without a feeling of terror, that I am responsible to myself for having brought him hither, and for being the cause of his being detained here. What should I answer to his mother, who would ask me for her son? What should I reply to the multitude of idlers and others, who, though indifferent to the circumstances, are ever ready to judge and condemn? I say nothing of my own health, it is of little importance amidst such emotions, and such causes of anxiety. And yet, I find myself in a most deplorable state; for, since I have no longer before my eyes the cause which kept the faculties of my mind in action, my body sinks under the dreadful havoc produced by eighteen months’ struggles, agitations, and afflictions, such as the imagination can hardly dwell upon. I am no longer near the august personage for whom I cheerfully endured them, and I am nevertheless also separated from my family, whose absence has caused me so much sorrow. Deprived of both objects, my heart is torn between them; it wanders in an abyss; it can no longer endure this situation. I leave you, Sir, to weigh these considerations. Do not sacrifice two victims. I request that you will send us to England, to the source of science and of every kind of assistance. This is the first demand of any kind, that I have made either of yourself or your predecessor. But the deplorable state of my son’s health overpowers my stoicism; will it not awaken your humanity? Several motives may tend to influence your decision: they are all contained in my letter of 30th November. I shall merely add here that an opportunity now offers for you to give a great and rare example of impartiality, in sending thus to your Ministers one of your adversaries.“

After having received these two letters, Sir Hudson Lowe called upon me, and with reference to the first, he immediately denied having laid any trap for me through the medium of my servant. He however admitted that appearances warranted my suspicions.

Sir Hudson Lowe, afterwards, went on to discuss verbally some passages of my letters, dwelling particularly upon certain expressions, which, he represented to me in a friendly manner, could not but be unpleasant to him. He found me not only on this, but on several other occasions of the same nature, perfectly accommodating. My answer to his observations was generally to take up the pen immediately, and erase or modify the expressions that displeased him.

I omit a pretty voluminous correspondence upon the same subject; I shall merely state that, in general, Sir Hudson Lowe avoided giving a written answer, and that his custom was to come, as it has just been seen, to converse with me respecting the letters he had just received, and obtain some erasures, after which he retired, saying that he would soon give a circumstantial answer: this he did not do at the time, and has never done since; but, as I have been informed from England, he now pays periodical papers, or occasional libellers, to abuse my work, and to revile its author.

As, in the numerous verbal discussions to which my letters gave rise, Sir Hudson Lowe did not, with the exception of the erasure of a few expressions, obtain any important concession, or attain any of the objects which he had in view; he would, on leaving me, represent me as a man of deep cunning, and, as he affirmed, very much to be feared: for with him a man was very cunning, very crafty, and very dangerous, who had sense enough not to yield blindly to all his views, or to fall into his snares. However, the following is the only trick I ever played him. The idleness and rigour of captivity sharpen the invention; besides, it was all fair between us: the incontestable right of a prisoner is to endeavour to deceive his gaoler.

I said, at the beginning of this work, that the Emperor at the moment of our departure for St. Helena, had secretly intrusted me with a necklace of diamonds of very considerable value.

The habit of carrying it about me for such a length of time had brought me to think no more about it, so that it was only after several days of seclusion, and quite by chance, that I thought of it. Closely watched as I was, I could not see any possibility of being able to restore it to the Emperor, who had no doubt forgotten it as well as myself. After having thought a great deal on the subject, I contrived to make use of Sir Hudson Lowe himself for that purpose. I requested to be allowed to bid my companions farewell, and wrote the following letter to the Grand Marshal:—

”SIR,—Torn from the midst of you all, left to myself, deprived of all communication whatever, I have been obliged to found my decisions on my own judgment and my own feelings. I have addressed them officially to Sir Hudson Lowe, on the 30th of November. In return for the liberty which I am allowed, I abstain from saying a single word about it, and rely upon the delicacy of the high authorities to communicate to you the whole of my letter, if any part of it should ever be mentioned or alluded to—I resign myself to my fate.

“It only remains for me to request you will lay at the Emperor’s feet the assurance of my respect, veneration, and affection: my life is still entirely devoted to him. I shall never enjoy any happiness but near his august person.

“In the unfortunate state of penury to which you are all reduced, I should have most ardently wished to leave behind me some of my wife’s jewels ... a necklace ... the widow’s mite! But how shall I venture to offer it?... I have often made the offer of the four thousand louis which I possess in England at my disposal, that offer I now again renew; my position, whatever it be, cannot produce any alteration in my intention. I shall henceforward be proud to be in want! Once more, Sir, assure the Emperor of my entire devotion to his person, of my fidelity and unshaken constancy....

“And you, my dear companions of Longwood, let me ever live in your recollection! I know the privations and afflictions to which you are exposed; and my heart bleeds for you. With you, I was of little importance; far from you, you shall know my zeal and my tender solicitude, if they have humanity enough to allow me to exercise them. I embrace you all very affectionately, and request you will add for yourself, Sir, the assurance of my respect and consideration.

“P.S. This letter has been ready for you some time; it was written when I thought I was going to be removed hence. To-day the Governor, in giving me permission to send it to you, informs me that I am to wait here, until answers shall have arrived from England. Thus I shall be for months at St. Helena, and yet Longwood will cease to exist for me; a new species of torment which I had not thought of!”

Sir Hudson Lowe, to whom I delivered this letter open, for such was his condition, read it, approved it, and was kind enough to undertake to deliver it himself, a circumstance which had the effect of exciting the Emperor’s attention, and which contributed, in a great measure, though indirectly, to cause the deposit to be restored to Napoleon.

A register was made of all letters from my London friends, in order to ascertain in the public offices whether any had arrived by indirect modes of conveyance. I had commenced a second letter to Prince Lucien; the Governor laid particular stress upon it. It was in vain I represented to him that it was full of erasures, and crowded with pencil notes almost effaced; that it had not been written, and did not therefore exist in reality; that I might disown it without scruple; that it was impossible to make any _legal_ or _honest_ use of it: he persisted in having some parts of the letter copied; God knows for what purpose!

He was much puzzled by a note of the Lieutenant-Governor’s lady. On quitting St. Helena for England, she had told us that the law forbade her taking charge of any letter; but that she would have great pleasure in being useful to us in any other way. I had sent to her, for my London friends, some articles which had been used by the Emperor, or which had come from himself. A small silver inkstand, I believe, some words in his hand-writing, perhaps some of his hair; I know not what. These I called precious relics. Mrs. Skelton had replied that she would treat them with all the respect they deserved, but that she must confess to me she had not been able to resist the temptation of taking a small portion of them.

Sir Hudson Lowe could not account for my being either unable or unwilling to state what those precious objects were. I should be mortified if they should have brought any disagreeable consequences on this lady. I had merely kept the note in memory, and in token of respect for her. Mr. and Mrs. Skelton were a moral and virtuous couple, whom we had much injured, though undoubtedly against our wish; but their politeness and attention to us had constantly increased with the harm we did them. Our arrival in the island had caused their being dispossessed of Longwood, losing their situation, and being sent back to Europe, where they must be without a provision.

At last, after a time, the famous clandestine documents came out in their turn: my letter to Prince Lucien, and the one to my London acquaintance. Sir Hudson Lowe had caused them to be carefully copied, but with many chasms, from not having been able to read all, certain words being found effaced upon the satin, owing to the documents having been accidentally wetted since I had parted with them. I carried my complaisance and good nature so far as to restore them; and then a sort of interrogatory commenced.

The Governor’s attention was much engaged by two points, which he had it deeply at heart to clear up, if, he said, I had no objection to it. The first question was relative to these words of my letter to Prince Lucien: “Those who surround us complain bitterly that their letters are falsified in the public papers,” &c. It was asked of me who these persons were. The Aide-de-camp held his pen to take down my answers. I desired he would write that, seeing no inconvenience in answering, I would do so, but entirely of my own accord; for that, if the Governor thought to question by virtue of his authority, I should be silent; and I then said, “that those words of my letter were vague, general, and without any application whatever; that they were what had been said to us by every one, when they sought to console us for the very improper expressions or descriptions regarding us, which we occasionally found in the London papers, under the date of St. Helena.”

The Governor’s second question applied to my private letter. It contained, amongst others, a request to ask Lord Holland whether he had received the parcels I had directed to him. Sir Hudson Lowe inquired what those parcels were, and by whom I had forwarded them, &c.; and here he visibly redoubled the mildness of his deportment, in order to obtain a satisfactory answer, confessing that he had no right to compel me to reply; but it would be, he said, the means of materially expediting and simplifying my own affair, &c. I replied, rather in a solemn manner, that this point was my _secret_, which evidently created an impression upon the physiognomy of Sir Hudson Lowe; and, my words being taken down as I uttered them, I continued to dictate, adding that the answer I had just given was only that which my education and habits prompted me to give, that any other might have given rise to the Governor’s doubts, and that it was not proper I should expose the veracity of my words to the smallest suspicion; that, after this preliminary statement, however, I had no longer any objection to declare that I never, in all my life, had any communication with Lord Holland. This unexpected conclusion was a _coup de théâtre_, quite a comedy-scene; it would be difficult to describe the surprise of the Governor, the astonishment of the officers; the pen stopped in the writer’s hand. Sir Hudson Lowe did not hesitate to reply that he fully believed me, but that he must confess he could not understand the business at all. I confessed, in my turn, that I could not help laughing at the perplexity I caused him, but that I had told him all. The fact is, I had intended, when my servant should return, to intrust him besides with several authentic documents upon our situation, for Lord Holland: but I had not been allowed time for so doing; they had come too soon to take me away. I had the honour of knowing his Lordship only by the nobleness and dignity of his public conduct; but to transmit the truth to him, as an hereditary legislator of his country, and a member of the supreme court of Great Britain, appeared to me very proper in us both, and equally becoming and serviceable to the honour of the British character.

MY ANXIETIES.—A LETTER FROM THE EMPEROR,
A REAL BLESSING.

16th.—More than twenty days had elapsed, and nothing as yet announced any change in our dreadful situation. My son’s illness continued to exhibit the most alarming symptoms; my health was visibly declining through grief and anxiety. Our confinement was so strict that we had not yet heard a single word from Longwood; I was quite ignorant how my unfortunate affair had been interpreted there; I had merely learnt that the Emperor had not left his apartment during the last fifteen or eighteen days and had almost always taken his meals there alone. What did I not suffer from these circumstances! The Emperor had evidently been affected, but in what manner? Shall I own it? this doubt was, to me, a source of absolute torment; it haunted me at every moment since I had quitted Longwood: for the Emperor was perfectly ignorant of the cause of my being carried off; fate had so ordained it. What would he have thought, on hearing about my clandestine letters? What would have been his opinions, what motive would he assign to my disguise towards him; I, who from habit, would not have stirred a step, or hazarded an expression, without communicating with him? I coupled these faults, which I even exaggerated, with the affecting kindness of the last moments I had passed with him. Some minutes before I was torn away from him, he was more cheerful towards me, seemed even better disposed than usual; and, some moments later, he had perhaps been led to find something mysterious in my conduct. The appearance of the right of reproach and of doubt had perhaps already risen in his mind. This idea grieved me more than I could express, and visibly affected my health. Fortunately, the Governor came to restore me to life. He presented himself towards evening, appearing much taken up with what he had to tell me, and, after a long preamble, which it was difficult for me to understand, he concluded by informing me, that he held in his hand a letter, which my situation gave him the right to withhold from me; but that he knew how dear to me was the hand that wrote it, how much I valued the sentiments which it expressed, and that he was, therefore, going to shew it to me, notwithstanding the many personal motives he might have for not doing so! It was a letter from the Emperor!