and void of pretension, and as he seemed desirous of making a
favourable impression on me, he assumed the tone most likely to attain
his end. I have never beheld anyone more calm, more simple, more mild,
or less ostentatious in appearance; nothing about him indicated the
feeling of power in a great monarch; he spoke to me as an old
acquaintance would speak to an equal, and what was more extraordinary
on his part, he conversed with me exclusively for an hour and a half,
to the great surprise of the whole assembly."

Then Wieland goes on to relate what the conversation was. Napoleon
"preferred the Romans to the Greeks. The eternal squabbles of their
petty republics were not calculated to give birth to anything grand,
whereas the Romans were always occupied with great things, and it was
owing to this they raised up the Colossus which bestrode the world....
He was fond only of serious poetry, the pathetic and vigorous
writers, and above all, the tragic poets."

Wieland had been put so much at his ease (so he says) that he ventured
to ask how it was that the public worship Napoleon had restored in
France was not more philosophical and in harmony with the spirit of
the times. "My dear Wieland," was the reply, "religion is not meant
for philosophers! they have no faith either in me or my priests. As to
those who do believe, it would be difficult to give them, or to leave
them, too much of the marvellous. If I had to frame a religion for
philosophers, it would be just the reverse of that of the credulous
part of mankind."[13]

Müller, the Swiss historian's private interview with him at this
period is quite remarkable, and shows what a vast knowledge and
conception of things the Emperor had. Nothing shows more clearly his
own plan of regulating and guiding the affairs of the universe for the
benefit of all. He tells Müller that he should complete his history of
Switzerland, that even the more recent times had their interest. Then
he switched from the Swiss to the old Greek constitutions and history;
to the theory of constitutions; to the complete diversity of those in
Asia, and the causes of this diversity in the climate, polygamy, the
opposite characters of the Arabian and the Tartar races, the peculiar
value of European culture, and the progress of Freedom since the
sixteenth century; how everything was linked together, and in the
inscrutable guidance of an invisible hand; how he himself had become
great through his enemies; the great Confederation of Nations, the
idea of which Henri IV. had; the foundation of all religion and its
necessity; that man could not bear clear truth and required to be kept
in order; admitting the possibility, however, of a more happy
condition, if the numerous feuds ceased which were occasioned by too
complicated Constitutions (such as the German) and the intolerable
burden suffered by States from excessive armies.

These opinions clearly mark the guiding motives of Napoleon's attempts
to enforce upon different nations uniformity of the institutions and
customs. "I opposed him occasionally," says Müller, "and he entered
into discussion. Quite impartially and truly, as before God, I must
say that the variety of his knowledge, the acuteness of his
observations, the solidity of his understanding (not dazzling wit),
his grand and comprehensive views, filled me with astonishment, and
his manner of speaking to me with love for him. By his genius and his
disinterested goodness, he has also conquered me."[14] The remarkable
testimony of Wieland and Müller, both men of distinction, is of more
than ordinary value, seeing that they were not his countrymen, but on
the side of those who waged war against him. Müller admits that he
conquered him, and the world must admit that he is gradually, but
surely, conquering it in spite of the colossal libels that have been
spoken and written of him for the ostensible purpose of vindicating
the Puritans and making him appear as the Spoliator and Antichrist
whose thirst for blood, so that he might attain glory, was an
inexhaustible craze in him. To them he is the Ogre that staggers the
power of belief, and yet he defies the whole world to prove that he
ever declared war or committed a single crime during the whole
carnival of warfare that drenched Europe in human blood.

Up to the present, the world has lamentably failed to do anything of
the sort. His opponents, libellers, and progeny of his mean
executioners, are all losing ground, and he is gaining everywhere.
There is an unseen hand at work revealing the awful truth. This
dignified, calm, unassuming man, while surrounded by a crowd of Kings
and Princes, who were competing with each other to do him homage and
show their devotion, startles them by telling a story of when he was
"a simple Lieutenant in the 2nd Company of Artillery." Possibly some
of his guests were observed to be putting on airs that were always
distasteful to the Emperor, and this was his scornful way of rebuking
them. Or it might be that he wished to take the opportunity of
informing Europe that he had no desire to conceal his humble
beginning, though at that time he was recognised first man in it.
Historians, when he was at the height of his power, ransacked musty
archives assiduously to find out and prove that he had royal blood in
him. They professed to have discovered that he was connected with the
princely family of Treviso, and the comical way in which he
contemptuously brushed aside this fulsome flattery must have lacerated
the pride of courtiers who sought favours by such methods.

Bearing on the royal blood idea, Gourgaud in his Journal relates that
the Emperor told him the following stories:--

"At one time in my reign there was a disposition to make out that I
was descended from the Man in the Iron Mask. The Governor of Pignerol
was named Bompars. They said he had married his daughter to his
mysterious prisoner, the brother of Louis XIV., and had sent the pair
to Corsica under the name of 'Bonaparte,'" and then with fine humour
he adds:--"I had only to say the word and everybody would have
believed the fable."

He never forgot that he was Napoleon, hence never said the word.

His insincere father-in-law has been industriously searching for royal
blood too, and this is what his son-in-law says of him:--

"When I was about to marry Marie Louise, her father the Emperor sent
me a box of papers intended to prove that I was descended from the
Dukes of Florence. I burst out laughing, and said to Metternich, 'Do
you suppose I am going to waste my time over such foolishness? Suppose
it were true, what good would it do me? The Dukes of Florence were
inferior in rank to the Emperors of Germany. I will not place myself
beneath my father-in-law. I think that as I am, I am as good as he. My
nobility dates from Monte Notte. Return him these papers.' Metternich
was very much amused."

Francis of Austria must have felt confounded at the rebuke of his
unceremonious relative, who was always the man of stern reality--too
big to be dazzled by mouldy records of kingly blood. Neither did pomp
or ceremony attract him, except in so far as it might serve the
purpose of making an impression on others. Bourrienne, a shameless
predatory traitor, has said in his memoirs that when the seat of
government was removed from the Luxembourg to the Tuileries, the First
Consul said to him, "You are very lucky; you are not obliged to make a
spectacle of yourself. I have to go about with a cortège; it bores me,
but it appeals to the eye of the people."

Roederer in _his_ memoirs relates pretty much the same thing, only
that it bears on the question of title, and presumably the researches
for confirmation of his royal descent.

Here again, his strong practical view of things, and his utter
indifference to grandeur or genealogical distinction, are shown. He
says: "How can anyone pretend that empty names, titles given for the
sake of a political system, can change in the smallest degree one's
relations with one's friends and associates? I am called Sire, or
Imperial Majesty, without anyone in my household believing or thinking
that I am a different man in consequence. All those titles form part
of a _system_, and therefore they are necessary." He always ends his
ebullitions of convincing wisdom by making it clear precisely where he
stands.

The writer might quote pages of eulogies of him from the most eminent
men of every nationality. There is no trustworthy evidence that he
ever sought the flattery that was lavished on him; indeed, he seems
to have been alternately in the mood for ignoring or making fun of it.
On one occasion he writes to King Joseph, "I have never sought the
applause of Parisians; I am not an operatic monarch."[15]

Seguier says:--

"Napoleon is above human history. He belongs to heroic periods and is
beyond admiration."[16]

A notable Englishman, Lord Acton, says (like Müller) that "his
goodness was the most splendid that has appeared on earth." And there
are innumerable instances which prove that his sympathies and goodness
to those who were notoriously undeserving was a fatal passion with
him. But there is no opinion, blunt though it be, that so completely
touches one as that of the plain English sailors who said at Elba that
"Boney was a d----d good fellow after all." "They may talk about this
man as they like," said one of the crew of the _Northumberland_, "but
I won't believe the bad they say of him," and _this_ view seems to
have been generally held by the men who composed the crew of the
vessel that took the Emperor to St. Helena. It is noteworthy that
English man-of-war's-men, and also merchant seamen of these stirring
times, should have formed so favourable an impression of Napoleon,
especially as the Press of England teemed with hostility against him.
Articles attributing every form of indescribable bestiality,
corruption, gross cruelty to his soldiers, subordinate officers, and
even Marshals, appeared with shameful regularity. In these articles
were included the most absurd as well as the most serious charges.

I include the following story as a specimen, and take it in particular
as being quoted quite seriously by certain anti-Napoleonic writers in
the endeavour to bolster up a feeble case. Prejudice and distorted
vision prevented them from seeing the absurdity of such attempts to
blacken the character of Napoleon. Let the reader judge!

It is related that, at the time of the Concordat, Napoleon remarked to
Senator Volney, "France wants a religion." Volney's courageous (!)
reply was, "France wants the Bourbons," and the Emperor is thereupon
supposed to have been attacked by a fit of ungovernable fury, and to
have kicked the Senator in the stomach!

The more serious charges included incest with his sister Pauline and
his stepdaughter Hortense, and the poisoning of his plague-stricken
soldiers at Jaffa.

His palaces were said to be harems, and his libertinism to put
Oriental potentates to the blush. So industrious were these foes to
human fairness that they manufactured a silly story just before the
rupture of the Treaty of Amiens, to the effect that Napoleon had made
a violent attack on Lord Whitworth, the British Ambassador. So violent
was he in his gestures, the Ambassador feared lest the First Consul
would strike him. Even Oscar Browning is obliged to refute this
unworthy fabrication as being absurd on the face of it, but it has
taken ninety years to produce the authentic document from the British
Archives which disproves the scandal. Napoleon was too much absorbed
in things that mattered to take notice of the stupid though virulent
stories that were constantly being concocted against him. When he was
appealed to by his friends to have the libels suitably dealt with, he
merely shrugged his shoulders, as was his custom, and said, "All this
rubbish will be answered, if not in my time, by posterity. It pleases
the chatterers and scandalmongers, and I haven't time to be perturbed,
or to meddle with it."

It ill became the subjects of George IV. to attack Napoleon on the
side of morality. It is well enough known that the French Court during
the Empire was the purest in Europe. In his domestic arrangements, the
one thing that Napoleon was jealous of, above all others, was that
_his_ Court should have the reputation of being clean. He took
infinite pains to assure himself of this. His private amorous
connections are fully described by F. Masson, a Frenchman, and a
staunch admirer of his. But to accuse him of libertinism is an
outrage. He had mistresses, it is true, and it is said he would never
have agreed to the divorce of Josephine had it not been that Madame
Walewska (a Polish lady) had a son by him. (This son held high office
under Napoleon III.) But even in the matter of mistresses he was most
careful that it should not be known outside a very few personal
friends. As a matter of high policy it was kept from the eye of the
general public, and he gives very good reasons for doing so. Not
merely that it would have brought him into serious conflict with
Josephine, but he knew that in order to maintain a high standard of
public authority food for scandal must be kept well in hand.[17]

His enemies, however, were adepts at invention, and although the moral
code of that period was at its lowest ebb, they pumped up a standard
of celibacy for the French Emperor that would have put the obligation
under which any of his priests were bound in the shade. So shocked
were they at the breaches of orthodoxy which were written and
circulated by themselves without any foundation to go upon, that they
advocated excommunication, assassination, anything to rid the world of
so corrupt a monster. But the moral dodge fell flat. It was not
exactly in keeping with the unconventionalities of the times, and, in
fact, they had carried their other accusations and grievances to so
malevolent a pitch, the straightforward and rugged tars aboard the
_Bellerophon_ and _Northumberland_ were drawn in touching sympathy
towards the man who had thrown himself into their hands in the fervent
belief that he would be received as a guest and not as a prisoner of
war.

We know that he had other means of escape had he chosen to avail
himself of them. He had resolved after his abdication to live the time
that was left to him in retirement, and believing in the generosity of
the British nation, he threw himself on their hospitality. He had made
his way through a network of blockade when he returned from Egypt and
Elba, and looking at the facts as they are now before us, it is
preposterous to adhere to the boastful platitude that he was so hemmed
in that he had no option but to ask Captain Maitland to receive him as
the guest of England aboard the _Bellerophon_, and it may be taken
for granted that the resourceful sailors knew that he had many
channels of escape. They knew the _Bellerophon_ was a slow old tub,
and that she would be nowhere in a chase.

Besides, it was not necessary for Napoleon to make Rochefort or
Rochelle his starting-point. The troops and seamen at these and the
neighbouring ports were all devoted to him, and would have risked
everything to save him from capture. He knew all this, but he was
possessed of an innate belief in the chivalry of the British
character, and left out of account the class of men that were in
power. He knew them to be his inveterate foes, but was deceived in
believing they had hearts. Their foremost soldier had taken an active
share in his defeat, and he acknowledged it by putting himself under
the protection of our laws. The honest English seamen who were his
shipmates on both ships were not long in forming a strong liking to
him, and a dislike to the treatment he was receiving. They felt there
was something wrong, though all they could say about it was that "he
was a d----d good fellow."

Lord Keith was so afraid of his fascinating personality after his
visit to the _Bellerophon_ that he said, "D----n the fellow! if he
had obtained an interview with His Royal Highness, in half an hour
they would have been the best friends in England." In truth, Lord
Keith lost a fine opportunity of saving British hospitality from the
blight of eternal execration by evading the lawyer who came to
Plymouth to serve a writ of Habeas Corpus to claim the Emperor's
person, and the pity is that an honoured name should have been
associated with a mission so crimeful and an occasion so full of
illimitable consequences to England's boasted generosity. Except that
he too well carried out his imperious instructions, Lord Keith does
not come well out of the beginning of the great tragedy. The only
piece of real delicacy shown by Lord Keith to the Emperor was in
allowing him to retain his arms, and snubbing a secretary who reminded
him that the instructions were that _all_ should be disarmed. This
zealous person was told to mind his own business.

Napoleon asks the Admiral if there is any tribunal to which he can
apply to determine the legality of him being sent to St. Helena, as he
protested that he was the guest and not the prisoner of the British
nation; and Keith, with an air of condescending benevolence, assures
him that he is satisfied there is every disposition on the part of the
Government to render his situation as comfortable as prudence would
permit. No wonder Napoleon's reply was animated, and his soul full of
dignified resentment at the perfidy that was about to be administered
to him under the guise of beneficence.

Scott describes the interview with Keith as "a remarkable scene." He
says: "His (Napoleon's) manner was perfectly calm and collected, his
voice equal and firm, his tones very pleasing, the action of the head
was dignified, and the countenance remarkably soft and placid, without
any marks of severity." That is a good testimony from the author of
the "Waverley Novels," who was anything but an impartial biographer.
Not even the novelist's most ardent admirers (and the writer is one of
them) can give him credit for excessive partiality towards the hero
who was the first soldier, statesman, and ruler of the age, who not
only knew the art of conquering men as no other (not even Alexander)
had ever known it, but had the greater quality of knowing how to
conquer and govern himself under conditions that were unexampled in
the history of man.

I say again, that apart from the violence of the treatment of the
Powers towards him (and they all had a shameful share in it), it was a
fatal blunder to send this great mind to perish on a rock when, by
adopting a more humane policy, his incomparable genius might have
been used to carry out the reforms he had set his mind on after his
return from Elba. The tumult which surrounded his career had changed;
he saw with a clear vision the dawn of a new era, and at once
proclaimed to Benjamin Constant and to the French nation his great
scheme of renewing the heart of things. He knew it would take time,
and he foresaw also that a combination of forces was putting forth
supreme efforts to destroy him. They were out for blood, and _he_ was
in too great a hurry.

In one of his day-dreams at St. Helena he exclaimed, "Ah! if I could
have governed France for forty years I would have made her the most
splendid empire that ever existed!"

His demand on fortune was too great, and notwithstanding the knowledge
he had of human nature, he could not check the torrent of treason that
had been sedulously nursed against him by his enemies until it ignited
the imagination of those whom he had a right to expect would stand
loyally by him in an hour of tribulation such as no other man had ever
experienced.

It is true that he made history (brilliant history if you like) in
those latter days, but oh! the anguish and the baseness of it all.

Cæsar made history too; neither did _this_ ruler succeed altogether.
Brutus, his friend, forsook and dispatched him, and possibly that was
the most enviable finish to a great career. Did Napoleon fare better
than his prototype, inasmuch as he was not the victim of the
assassin's dagger? Intoxicated with the spirit of charity, his
conquerors decreed that he should be deported to a secluded place of
abode on a barren and unhealthy rock, there to be maintained at a cost
to the nation of £12,000 a year, and succumb as quickly as possible
like a good Christian gentleman.

The presumption of Lord Keith in observing to Napoleon that it was
preferable for him to be sent to St. Helena than to be confined in a
smaller space in England or sent to France or Russia, and the
Emperor's supposed reply--"Russia! God preserve me from it!"--is
almost unbelievable, and in the light of what he constantly asserted
while England's captive, this expression may be regarded as a
fabrication.

Whether it was an innate belief that Alexander of Russia was his
friend, or the fact that Francis of Austria was his father-in-law, he
certainly avowed--according to the St. Helena chroniclers--that if he
had surrendered to either of them he would have been treated, not only
with kindness, but with a proper regard as befitted a monarch who had
governed eighty-three millions of people, or more than the half of
Europe. But even if he were merely soliloquising, or wished to
convince himself and those he expressed this opinion to, it is hard to
think that any of the continental Powers would have risked the certain
consequences of having him either shot or ill-treated, and it is
extremely doubtful whether even in France there could have been found
a soldier that would have obeyed an order to shoot his former Emperor,
who had been requisitioned to return from Elba, and who so recently,
with only six hundred soldiers, made war against Louis with his two
hundred thousand and defeated and dethroned him.

Nothing so magnificent has ever been known. This great man had
complete hold of the imagination and devotion of his common people and
soldiers. Even in the hour of defeat their loyalty was amazing.

Various instances are given of this deep-rooted loyalty and affection.
Some of his Imperial Guards who were wounded at Waterloo killed
themselves on hearing that he had lost the battle, and many, who had
been thought to be dead, when brought to consciousness shouted "Vive
l'Empereur." The hospitals were full of dying men who uttered the same
cry. One was having his leg amputated, and as he looked at the blood
streaming from it, said that he would willingly give it all in the
service of Napoleon. Another, who was having a ball extracted from
his left side near the heart, shouted, "Probe an inch deeper and there
you will find the Emperor."

The story of the old woman whom he and Duroc met during the second
campaign in Italy, and while climbing Mont Tarare, is a striking
illustration of how he was regarded by the poorer classes. She hated
the Bourbons and wanted to see the First Consul. Napoleon answered,
"Bah! tyrant for tyrant--they are just the same thing." "No, no!" she
replied; "Louis XVI. was the king of the nobles, Bonaparte is the king
of the people." This idea of the old woman was the universal feeling
of her class right through his reign. No writer has been able to give
proof that it was withdrawn, even when he was overwhelmed with
disaster which drained his empire of vast masses of its population. No
cruel inhuman despot could magnetise with an enduring fascination
multitudes of men and women as he did. It was not his incomparable
genius, nor his matchless military successes in battle. He was loved
because he was lovable, and was trusted because he inspired belief in
his high motives of amelioration of all down-trodden people. He ruled
with a stern but kindly discipline, and put a heavy hand on those who
had despotic tendencies.

The Duchess of Abrantès, who smarted under some severe comments he
had made about her husband (Junot), the Duke of Abrantès, while at St.
Helena, has been generous enough to say many kind things of him in her
memoirs. One of her references to him is to this effect:--"All I know
of him" (and she knew him well from childhood) "proves that he
possessed a great soul which quickly forgets and forgives." She is
very fond of repeating in her memoirs that Napoleon proposed marriage
to her mother, Madame Permon, who was herself a Corsican and knew the
Bonaparte family well.

Madame Junot relates another story which is characteristic of
Bonaparte. Such was the enthusiasm of the people on his march towards
Paris after landing from Elba, that when he was holding a review of
the National Guard at Grenoble, the people shouldered him, and a young
girl with a laurel branch in her hand approached him reciting some
verses. "What can I do for you, my pretty girl?" said the Emperor. The
girl blushed, then lifting her eyes to him replied, "I have nothing to
ask of your Majesty; but you would render me very happy by embracing
me." Napoleon kissed her, and turning his head to either side, said
aloud, with a fascinating smile, "I embrace in you all the ladies of
Grenoble."

That Napoleon made mistakes no one will dispute; indeed, he saw
clearly, and admitted freely, in his solitude, that he had made many.
His minor fault (if it be right to characterise it as such) was in
extending clemency to the many rascals that were plotting his ruin and
carrying on a system of peculation that was an abhorrence to him.
Talleyrand, Fouché, and Bourrienne frequently came under his
displeasure and were removed from his service, but were taken back
after his wrath had passed.

Miot de Melito speaks of them as "Bourrienne and other subordinate
scoundrels," and, indeed, Miot de Melito does not exaggerate in his
estimate of them. Fouché says that Bourrienne kept him advised of all
Napoleon's movements for 25,000 francs per month, besides being both
partner and patron in the house of Coulon Brothers, cavalry equipment
providers, who failed for £120,000.

In 1805, Bourrienne was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary at Hamburg,
and during his stay there he made £290,000 by delivering permits and
making what is known as "arbitrary stoppages," and besides betraying
Bonaparte to the Bourbons, this vile traitor wrote to Talleyrand, a
few days after the abdication at Fontainebleau: "I always desired the
return of that excellent Prince, Louis XVIII., and his august family."
But these things are mere shadows of the incomparable villainy of
this thievish human jackdaw.

His memoirs are said to have been written by an impecunious and
mediocre penman called Villemarest, who also wrote "Mémoires de
Constant" (the Emperor's valet), and both books have been very
extensively read and believed. Men have got up terrific lectures from
them, authors have quoted from them whenever they desired an authority
to prove that which they wished themselves and their readers to
believe of trumped-up stories of Napoleon's despotism and evildoings.
Certainly, Bourrienne is the last and most unreliable of all the
chroniclers that may be quoted when writing a history of the Emperor.
Neither his character nor any of his personal qualities imbues the
impartial reader with confidence in either his criticisms or
historical statements.

Men like Fouché, Talleyrand, and Bourrienne, and political women like
Madame de Remusat and Madame de Staël, all of whom were brought under
the Emperor's displeasure by their zealous aptitude in one way and
another for intrigue, disloyalty, and, so far as the men are
concerned, glaring dishonesty in money matters, have assiduously
chronicled their own virtues and declaimed against Napoleon's
incalculable vices, and this course was no doubt chosen in order to
avert the public gaze from too close a scrutiny into their own
perfidy. Their plan is not an unusual one under such circumstances;
rascals never scruple to multiply offences more wicked than those
already committed in order to prove that they are acting from a pure
sense of public morality and historical truth. If the object of their
attack be a benefactor, and one who has been obliged to rebuke or
dismiss them for misdeeds, great or small, then they assail him with
unqualified hostility.

This unquestionably was the penalty paid by Napoleon for extending
clemency to men who, if they had been in the service of any other
monarch in Europe, would have been shut up in a fortress, or shot, the
moment their perfidies had been discovered. The pity is that so much
of this declamatory stuff has been so willingly believed and made use
of in order to defame the name of a sovereign whose besetting fault
was in relaxing just punishment bestowed on those who, he could never
altogether forget, were his companions in other days.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] Montholon wished to have the following simple inscription:
"Napoléon, né à Ajaccio, le 15 Août, 1769, mort à St. Helena, le 5
Mai, 1821."

[13] Horne's "History of Napoleon," vol. ii.

[14] Horne's "History of Napoleon," vol. ii.

[15] "Correspondence of Napoleon I."

[16] Ibid.

[17] Madame Walewska bore him two children. This caused him to develop
the idea of having an heir.

THREE GENERATIONS: MADAME LA MÈRE, MARIE LOUISE, AND THE KING OF ROME

It seems as though Hell had been let loose on this great man and his
family. The crowned heads of Europe and the plutocrats stopped at
nothing in order that they might make his ruin complete. They dare not
run the risk of putting him to death outright, but they engineered, by
means of willing tools, a plan that was unheard-of in its atrocious
character. They poured stories of unfaithfulness into the ears of a
faithless woman whose name will go down to posterity as an ignoble
wife and callous mother. She took with her into Austria the King of
Rome, a beautiful child who was put under the care of Austrian tutors.
He was watched as though he held the destinies of empires in the
hollow of his hand. His father's name was not allowed to fall on his
youthful ears, and more than one tutor was dismissed because he
secretly told him something of his father's fame. Treated as a
prisoner, spied upon by Metternich's satellites, not allowed to have
any visitors without this immortal Chancellor's permission, not
allowed to communicate with his father's family or with Frenchmen,
this pathetic figure, stuffed with Austrian views, is seized with a
growing desire to learn the history of his father, who declared in a
letter to his brother Joseph in 1814 that he would rather see his son
strangled than see him brought up in Vienna as an Austrian prince.[18]

Prince Napoleon in his excellent book--"Napoleon and His
Detractors"--refers to the young Prince playing a game of billiards
with Marmont and Don Miguel, the former having been one of his
father's most important generals. He it was who betrayed him, and now
he is become the Duke's confidant and instructor. The Prince says that
his cousin asked to be told about the deeds that his father had done,
his fall, and exile. There does not appear to be any record in
existence as to what Marmont conveyed or withheld from the son of
Marie Louise, but there is much evidence to show that the young man
was not only an eager student of his father's career, but fully
realised his own importance and influence on European politics.

It has been stated that until 1830 he really knew nothing of passing
events in the land of his birth. Obenaus, his tutor, states in his
diary, January 18, 1825: "During the afternoon walk, the political
relations of the Prince to the Imperial family and to the rest of the
world were discussed." Count Neipperg advised him to study the French
language, and his reply was: "This advice has not fallen on an
unfruitful or an ungrateful soil. Every imaginable motive inspires me
with the desire to perfect myself in, and to overcome the difficulties
of, a language which at the present moment forms the most essential
part of my studies. It is the language in which my father gave the
word of command in all his battles, in which his name was covered with
glory, and in which he has left us unparalleled memoirs of the art of
war; while to the last he expressed the wish that I should never
repudiate the nation into which I was born."[19] He further adds, "The
_chief_ aim of my life must be not to remain unworthy of my father's
fame."

His grandfather, the Emperor Francis--who was reputed to be quite
devoted to him--said, "I wish that the Duke should revere the memory
of his father." "Do not suppress the truth," says he to Metternich
(the disloyal friend of Napoleon). "Teach him above all to honour his
father's memory." The Chancellor replies, "I will speak to the Duke
about his father as I should wish myself to be spoken of to my own
son." What irony! Whatever attempts were made at any time to
depreciate the Emperor, his son's loyalty to him never flinched. He
regarded his father in the light of a hero whose glorious traditions
were unequalled by any warrior or ruler of men. He drank in every
particle of information he could discover about his father's life, and
was by no means ignorant of what would be his own great destiny should
he be permitted to live.

A strong party in France longed to have the son of their Emperor on
the throne of France. A section of the Poles clamoured to have him
proclaimed King of Poland after the Polish revolution, and the Greeks
claimed him as their future King. All existing records dealing with
the Prince's view concerning his position indicate quite clearly that
he never under-estimated his importance. He was fully alive to and
appreciated the growing devotion to himself, his cause, and to the
great name he bore. We learn from Marshal Marmont that the Prince
received him with marked cordiality when the Emperor Francis gave him
permission to relate to him his father's history. Marmont, like all
traitors, never neglected to put forth his popularity with the Emperor
Napoleon. This is a habit with people who do great injury to their
friends. They always make it appear that the injured person is
afflicted with growing love for them--they never realise how much they
are loathed and mistrusted.

The Prince at first received him with suspicion, then he tolerated him
coldly, and it was not until Marmont fascinated him with stories of
the genius and unparalleled greatness of his father's history that the
young man subdued his prejudices and encouraged the Marshal in his
visits to his apartments, in order that he might learn all that
Marmont could tell him of his father's qualities and accomplishments.
The young Napoleon caused the General to marvel at the quick
intelligence he displayed in the pointed comments made on his father's
career. In recognition of his services Marmont was presented with a
portrait of the Prince.[20]

His cousin, Prince Napoleon, son of King Jerome, in his book "Napoleon
and His Detractors," obviously desires to convey the impression that
all questions, important or unimportant, relating to the Emperor, were
studiously kept from his son, and until he arrived at a certain age
there can be little doubt that undue and unnatural precautions were
taken to prevent the Emperor's name being spoken, but the means used
for this purpose must have proved abortive, as everything points to
him having been well informed. He appears to have had an instinctive
knowledge that nullified the precautions of the Court of Vienna, and
especially its culpable Chancellor, Metternich, whose clumsy and
heartless treatment is so apparent to all students of history.
Probably this is the policy that prevailed up to 1830 which Prince
Napoleon complains of. Be that as it may, we are persuaded that the
Duke was not only well informed, but took a keen interest in the
events of his own and of his father's life, long before the advent of
Marmont as his tutor. For instance, on one occasion his friend, Count
Prokesch, dined with his grandfather in 1830, and at table the Prince
was afforded great pleasure in having the opportunity of conversing
with this distinguished man. The young Duke knew that Prokesch had
broken a lance in 1818 in defence of his father, and he eagerly
availed himself of the chance of saying some very complimentary things
to the Count. He informs him that he has "known him a long while, and
loved him because he defended his father's honour at a time when all
the world vied with each other to slander his name"; and then he
continues: "I have read your 'Battle of Waterloo,' and in order to
impress every line of it on my memory I translated it twice in French
and Italian."[21] Obviously this young man was neither a dunce nor
indolent when his father's fame and his own interests were in
question.

One of the most remarkable features of this pathetic young life is the
intense interest his mother's husband began to take in him, and he
probably owed a great deal to the fact that Count Neipperg urged him
to make himself familiar with the glory of the Empire and his father's
deeds. Strange though it may appear, the son of the Great Napoleon and
the morganatic husband of his mother were attached to each other in
the most intimate way. If he perceived the immoral relations between
Neipperg and Marie Louise, the Duke never seems to have divulged it;
but taking into account the passionate love and devotion he had for
his father's memory, it is barely likely that he knew either of the
amorous connection or marriage having taken place between the Count
and his mother, otherwise he would have had something to say about it,
not only to Neipperg himself, but certainly to his friends Prokesch,
Baron Obenaus, and Count Dietrichstein, and very naturally his
grandfather. It may be that the circumstances of his life made him
cautious, and even cunning, in keeping to himself an affair that was
generally approved by the most interested parties, but it is hardly
likely that the spirit of natural feeling had been so far crushed out
of him as to forbid his openly resenting a further monstrous wrong
being done to his Imperial father.

The young Prince was the centre of great political interest, and the
object of ungrudging sympathy and devotion of a large public in
Europe, and especially in France, and had his life been preserved a
few more years he would, in spite of obstacles and prejudices, have
been put on the throne of the land of his birth.

Metternich, the inveterate trickster, does not appear to have had any
serious thought of encouraging the project of making the Duke Emperor
of the French. His subtle game was to use him as a terror to Louis
Philippe when that monarch became refractory or showed signs of
covetousness.

The Prince carried himself high above sordid party methods. He was
proud of being heir to a throne that his father had made immortal and
he was determined not to soil it. If it was to be reclaimed, all
obstacles must be removed ere he would lend his countenance to it.
There must be a clear, uninterrupted passage. Thirty-four million
souls, it was claimed, were anxious for his restoration to France.
Amongst the leaders were to be found some of his father's old
companions in arms and in exile, amongst whom none were more
enthusiastic than the loyal and devoted Count Montholon, Bertrand, the
petulant and penitent Gourgaud, and Savary, Duke of Rovigo. These were
joined to thousands of other brave men who would have considered it an
honour to shed their last drop of blood for the cause, and in memory
of him whom they had loved so well. The two first-named were executors
to his father's will, in which Napoleon enjoins his son not to attempt
to avenge his death but to profit by it. He reminds him that things
have changed. He was obliged to daunt Europe by his arms, but now the
way is to convince her. His son is urged not to mount the throne by
the aid of foreign influence, and he is charged to deserve the
approbation of posterity. He is reminded that "MERIT may be pardoned,
but not intrigue," and that he is to "propagate in all uncivilised and
barbarous countries the benefits of Christianity and civilisation.
Religious ideas have more influence than certain narrow-minded
philosophers are willing to believe. They are capable of rendering
great services to humanity."

These are only a few of the excellent thoughts transmitted to the
young man from the tragic rock whose memories will ever defame the
name of those who combined to commit a crime unequalled in political
history.

It is none the less a phenomenon that this "abode of darkness," so
monstrous in the history of its perfidy, should be illumined by the
great figure that stamped its fame for evermore with his personality.

One of the last and finest works of genius he did there was to draw up
a constitution for his son. It is doubtful whether Montholon ever
succeeded in conveying it to the Prince, who passed on before the
legitimate call to put it into practice came.

The Powers that made holy war for the last time on the great soldier
with 900,000 men against his 128,000 arrogated the right to outlaw and
brand him as the disturber of public peace. I have already said this
was their ostensible plea, but the real reason was his determination
to exterminate feudalism and establish democratic institutions as soon
as he could bring the different factions into harmony. He failed, but
the colossal cost of his failure in men and money is unthinkable. His
subjugation left Great Britain alone with a debt, as already stated,
of eight hundred millions, and then there was no peace.

The constitution intended for his son could have been very
beneficially applied to some of the nations represented at the
Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle by the allied sovereigns who declared him
an outlaw, and spent their time in allocating slices of other people's
territory to each other. The only nation that came badly out of the
Congress was Great Britain.

This terrible despot, who was beloved by the common people and hated
by the oligarchy, left behind him a constitution that might well be
adopted by the most democratic countries.

The first article--composed of six words: "The sovereignty dwells in
the nation"--stamps the purpose of it with real democracy. It might do
no harm to embody some of its clauses into our own constitution at the
present time. We very tardily adopted some of its laws long after his
death, and we might go on copying to our advantage. He was a real
progressor, but his team was difficult to guide. Had he been
conciliated and allowed to remain at peace, he would have democratised
the whole of Europe, but the fear of that, or the legitimacy idea, was
undoubtedly the great underlying cause of much of the trouble. The
mistrust and animus against the father was reflected upon the son, who
was practically a State prisoner.

During childhood the Prince was strong and healthy, and his robust
physique caused favourable comment. It was not until 1819 that his
health became affected by an attack of spotted fever. This passed away
in a few weeks, but the decline of his health, which was attributed to
his rapid growth, dates from that period. He died prematurely on July
22, 1832, at Schönbrunn, and the accounts which may be relied upon
indicate either wilfully careless or incompetent medical treatment. It
is even asserted that this heir to the throne of France, ushered in
twenty-one years before as the herald of Peace, was to be regarded as
a source of infinite danger, and for that barbaric reason his health
was allowed to be slowly and surely undermined until death took him
from the restraining influences and crimeful policy of the Courts of
Europe. Great efforts have been made to convince a sceptical public
that his early death was the result of youthful indiscretions, but
this is stoutly denied by Prokesch, who declares that he was a
strictly moral youth, and Baron Obenaus, in his diary, justifies this
opinion, if there was nothing else to support it. Moreover the same
Anton, Count Prokesch was asked by Napoleon III. to tell him the truth
as to the alleged love affairs, and he averred that the rumours were
without foundation.

The King of Rome died at Schönbrunn in the same room that his father
had occupied in 1809. In Paris a report was put about that he had been
poisoned by the Court of Vienna. This opinion has been handed down,
and there are many persons to-day who have a firm belief in its
possibility.

Another common rumour, current in 1842, was that Metternich sent a
poisoned lemon by Prokesch, which had done its work, and even this
highly improbable story is not without reason believed, because
Metternich was known to be the most heartless cunning Judas in
politics at that time. He had betrayed the father of the Prince while
he was declaring the most loyal friendship. He admits this, nay, even
boasts of it, in his memoirs, and his shameful conduct has its reward
by having won for him the stigma of wishing for, and hastening on, the
death of an unfortunate young man for whom ordinary manliness should
have claimed compassion. This moral assassin of father and son
declared that he had "used all the means in his power to second the
hand of God" by trapping Napoleon into the clutches of the combined
moralists of Europe. The Usurper was to be ruined, then peace
proclaimed for evermore. That was their pretence, though it could not
have been their conviction. If it was, they were soon disillusioned.

I made a long journey in company with a Danish statesman a few years
ago, and amongst other things that we conversed about was the reign
and fall of Napoleon. This gentleman held up his hands and said to me,
"Oh! what a blunder the criminal affair was. Had the Powers beheld the
mission of this man aright, what a blessing it would have been to the
world!"--and there is not much difficulty in supporting the view of
this Danish gentleman. The more one probes into the history of the
period, the more vivid the blunder appears.

Metternich has the distinction of being eulogised by M. Taine, who was
neither fair nor accurate, and there is not much glory in being
championed by a man whose book is made up of libels. Metternich may
here be dismissed as being only one of many whose highest ambition was
to destroy the man whom the French nation had made their monarch.
Their aim was accomplished, but the spirit that evolved from the wreck
of the Revolution still lives on, and may rise again to be avenged for
the great crime that was committed.

Whether the gifted and amiable son of the Emperor Napoleon was
despatched by the cruellest of all assassinations or came by his
premature death by neglect, or by natural and constitutional causes,
is a matter that may never be cleared up, though the actions of the
high commissioners in the nauseous drama cause lingering doubts to
prevail as to their innocence. It is certain that several determined
attempts were made to take the Prince's life, and large sums were
offered to desperadoes to carry out this murderous deed. Then the
Court of Vienna were in constant fear of his abduction. His
invitations to come to France were perpetual.

A lady cousin--the Countess Napoleone Camerata, daughter of Elisa
Bacciochi, a sister of the Emperor, easily obtained a passport from
the Pope's Secretary of State, and coquetted so successfully with the
Austrian Ambassador, that he gave it a double guarantee of good faith
by signing it. This impetuous and eccentric female made her way
uninterruptedly to Vienna, found her cousin on the doorstep, made a
rush for him and seized his hand, then shouted, "Who can prevent my
kissing my sovereign's hand?" She also found means to convey letters
to him. There is not much said about this Napoleonic dash, but from
the records that are available the incident set the heroes--comprising
the allied Courts (including France)--into a flutter of excitement.
The fuss created by the enterprise of the pretty little Countess gives
a lurid insight into the wave of comic derangement which must have
taken possession of men's minds.

This lady received a pension during the Third Empire, and in eighteen
years it mounted to over six million francs. She died in Brittany,
1869, and left her fortune to the Prince Imperial.

That there was a determined and well-conceived plot to carry the Duke
off is undoubted, but the counter-plots prevailed against the more
ardent Bonapartists who were thirsting for a resurrection of the
glorious Empire. Prince Louis Napoleon, the eldest son of King Louis,
disagreed with the idea of his family. He looked upon the Emperor's
son as being an Austrian Prince, imbued with Austrian methods and
policy, and therefore dangerous to the best interests of France. This
Prince went so far as to hail with pleasure the crowning of Louis
Philippe. He died in 1831. In the following year his Imperial cousin
passed on too, and his demise was a great blow to the Bonapartists'
cause, and it well-nigh killed the aged Madame Mère, who had centred
all her hopes in him. Marie Louise announced his death, to his
grandmother and asks her to "accept on this sorrowful occasion the
assurance of the kindly feeling entertained for her by her
affectionate daughter," and here is the cold, dignified, crushing
reply from Madame Mère. It is dictated, and dated Rome, August 6,
1832:--

    "Madame, notwithstanding the political shortsightedness which
    has constantly deprived me of all news of the dear child whose
    death you have been so considerate to announce to me, I have
    never ceased to entertain towards him the devotion of a mother.
    In him I still found an object of some consolation, but to my
    great age, and to my incessant and painful infirmities, God has
    seen fit to add this blow as fresh proof of His mercy, since I
    firmly believe that He will amply atone to him in His glory for
    the glory of this world.

    "Accept my thanks, madame, for having put yourself to this
    trouble in such sorrowful circumstances to alleviate the
    bitterness of my grief. Be sure that it will remain with me all
    my life. My condition precludes me from even signing this
    letter, and I must therefore crave your permission to delegate
    the task to my brother."

Never a word about the lady's relationship to her son or to herself.
Her reply is studiously formal, but every expression of it betokens
grief and thoughts of the great martyr whom the woman she was writing
to had wronged. There is not a syllable of _open_ reproach, though
there runs through it a polite, withering indictment that must
assuredly have cut deeply into the callous nature of this notorious
Austrian Archduchess who had played her son so falsely.

This wonderful mother of a wonderful family seems to have been the
least suspected of political plotting of all the Bonapartists. She
was respected by all, and revered and beloved by many. Crowned heads
were not indifferent to her strength and nobility of character, but
the stupid old King who succeeded her son to the throne of France got
it into his head that she was harbouring agents in Corsica to excite
rebellion, and he thereupon had a complaint lodged against her. Pius
VII., who knew Madame Mère, sent his secretary to see her about this
supposed intrigue. She listened to what the representative of the Pope
had to say, and then with stern dignity began her reply:--

"Monseigneur, I do not possess the millions with which they credit me,
but let M. de Blacas tell his master Louis XVIII. that if I did, I
should not employ them to foment troubles in Corsica, or to gain
adherents for my son in France, since he already has enough; I should
use them to fit out a fleet to liberate him from St. Helena, where the
most infamous perfidy is holding him captive."

Then she bowed reverently and left the room.

This was indeed a slashing rebuff both to Pius VII. and the "Most
Christian King."

Another very good story is told of this extraordinary old lady by H.
Noel Williams. It appears she persisted after the fall of the Empire
in using the Imperial arms on her carriage.

"Why should I discontinue this symbol?" she asked. "Europe bowed to
the dust before my son's arms for ten years, and her sovereigns have
not forgotten it."

On one occasion she was out driving when a block occurred. Two
Austrian officers, who were riding past, boldly looked into the
carriage. Madame Mère, observing the Austrian uniform, to which she
had an aversion, was excited to indignation, so letting down the
window she exclaimed to them, "What, gentlemen, is your pleasure? If
it is to see the mother of the Emperor Napoleon, here she is!" The
officers were naturally crestfallen. They respectfully saluted and
rode off. These stinging shots of hers were quite disturbing; they
always went home, and reached too far for the comfort of her son's
persecutors.

Her letter to the allied sovereigns who met at Aix-la-Chapelle is one
of the most trenchant indictments that has ever been penned. Its
logic, its brave, though courteous, appeal for justice and
magnanimity, and above all the echo of motherly love which
characterises it, stamp it as a document worth cherishing. The last
paragraph will fascinate the imagination of generations yet to come,
and heavy judgment will be laid on those that were committing the
crime.

"Reasons of State," she says, "have their limits, and _posterity_,
which _forgets nothing_, admires above everything the generosity of
conquerors."

The allied sovereigns were afraid to answer the letter. Better for
their reputations if they had obviated the necessity of writing it.
The testimony of Pius VII. is that she was "a God-fearing woman who
deserved to be honoured by every prince in Christendom."

A great joy came to Madame Mère in 1830, when they told her that the
Government had decided to replace the statue of Napoleon on the
Vendome Column. She went into ecstasies over this, but bewailed her
lameness (she had broken her thigh that year) and total blindness,
which would forever prevent her beholding the statue. She turned away
from these painful reflections and comforted herself with a few words
of sad humour, remarking that if she could have been in Paris as in
former days, God would have given her strength to climb to the top of
the column to assure herself that it was there. She refused to
separate her lot from that of her children, and would not accept the
proposal that the sentence of banishment should be repealed unless it
included all her family. This remarkable woman died February 2, 1836,
aged eighty-five, and Napoleon III. had the remains of his grandmother
and Cardinal Fesch removed to Ajaccio in 1851. Six years later the
remains were again removed and deposited in a vault constructed to
receive them in a church which was built subsequent to the first
interment at Ajaccio.

Pity and strange it is that the Emperor's faithless second wife should
be noticed at all in history. Happily, very few even of those
historians who are anti-Napoleon have anything very complimentary to
say of her. She survived her son the King of Rome fifteen years, and
the earth claimed her in December, 1847, her age being fifty-six. Had
this amiable adulteress, who wished success to the allied armies
against her husband, lived a little longer, she would have witnessed
the humiliating spectacle of her father's successor being forced to
abdicate his throne in favour of the nephew of her Imperial husband,
whose memory all noble hearts revere, and whose sufferings, domestic
and public, will ever lie at the door of this woman who allowed
herself to be the base accomplice of a great assassination. The most
fitting reference to her death appeared in the _Times_ newspaper,
which said that "nothing in her life became her like the leaving it."
On April 15, 1821, in the third paragraph of his will, Napoleon, with
consistent magnanimity, if not wilful indifference to this passive,
icy female's abandonment of him, says: "I have always had reason to be
pleased with my dearest Marie Louise. I retain for her, to my last
moment, the most tender sentiments. I beseech her to watch, in order
to preserve my son from the snares which yet environ his infancy."
What irony!

It is quite a reasonable proposition to suppose that Napoleon must
have had a secret suspicion of his wife's infidelity. It is even hard
to believe that he had not a full knowledge of her actual association
with Count Neipperg. It will be observed that while his reference to
her is dutiful, not to say tender, there is still something lacking,
as though he kept something snugly in the back of his head, something
like the following:--"I cannot make this historical document without
alluding to you for my son's sake, though I know full well you have
wronged me and consorted with my enemies and betrayers. I know all
this, but I am about to pass on, and true to my instincts of
compassion and to my Imperial dignity, I must carry my sorrow and
grief with me, and having given you as good a testimonial as I can, I
must leave you to settle accounts with posterity as to your conduct
towards me and your adopted country. I shall not do by you as you have
done. I hope full allowance will be made for all you have made me
suffer. Meanwhile, I am about to relieve the digestion of Kings by
passing to the Elysian Fields, there to be greeted by Kleber, Desaix,
Bessières, Duroc, Ney, Murat, Masséna, and Berthier, and we shall talk
of the deeds we have done together. Yes, Marie Louise, I bend under
the terrible yoke your father, his Chancellor, and the allied
satellites have made for me, and yet I keep these incomparable
warriors of Europe in a state of alarm. I wish you joy of your allies,
who have behaved so nobly to your husband in captivity. I have often
thought in my solitude, Louise, that it would have been a more popular
national union had I carried out my intention of taking for my second
wife a Frenchwoman. It may be that my marriage with you, consummated
by every token of peace and goodwill, was really the beginning of my
downfall. Ah! how much more noble of you to have followed me in my
adversity to Elba. You might have done great service to France and to
your native land, to say nothing of the possibility of breaking up the
coalition against me and saving rivers of blood. Waterloo might never
have been fought had you emulated your matchless sister-in-law,
Catherine of Westphalia, in her attitude of supreme womanhood, and
your fame might have surpassed that of Joan of Arc, and been handed
down to distant ages as an example of heroic firmness and devotion,
and then you would have been beatified by the Church and acclaimed a
saint by the people to which you belong. You shared with me the
unequalled grandeur of the most powerful throne on earth. I was
devoted to you and you betrayed me. Your father insisted that you
should break your marriage vow and found in you a willing accomplice
in the outrage committed against me. You had shared my throne, and I
had reason to expect that every human instinct would call you to my
side in my exile, and the thought that burns into my soul is that in
the infamy of years, posterity will not be reproached for averting its
eye from you as well as from that heartless father who requested you
to forsake me. Catherine of Westphalia did better. She defied her
father, and clung more closely to her husband when he needed all the
succour of a sympathetic being to comfort him in his hour of dire
misfortune. These gloomy thoughts are forced upon me by every law of
nature, and now that I have but a brief time left, I am impelled to
bequeath to you in the third paragraph of my last will and testament
some tender remembrance of you. I do this notwithstanding that you,
Marie Louise, Empress of the French, prayed to God that He would bless
the arms of the enemies of the land of your adoption. And then that
letter which I sent you from Grenoble in a nutshell on my way from
Elba to Paris to reclaim the throne which treason had deprived me of.
I requested you to come to me with my son the King of Rome. You
ignored that, as you did other communications which I sent, and which
I am assured you received. I make no public accusation against you.
_That_ would be undignified and unkingly."

In spite of his apparent unaltered affection for his wife, Napoleon
reflectively made occasional remarks during his exile which indicated
that her conduct was much in his mind; and the foregoing portrayal of
his sentiments towards her may be regarded as a human probability. The
remarkable thing is that he should have made any reference at all to
this erotic woman in his will. It puzzled his companions in exile, who
knew well enough that she was the cause of much mental anguish to him.
It afflicted him so keenly on two notable occasions that he drew
pathetically a comparison between her conduct and that which would
have been Josephine's under similar circumstances. It is an
astonishing characteristic in Napoleon that he always forgave those
who had injured him most.

In order to emphasise the spirit of forgiveness, he specially refers
to a matter that must have taken a lot of forgiving. In the sixth
paragraph of his will he says: "The two unfortunate results of the
invasions of France, when she had still so many resources, are to be
attributed to the treason of Marmont, Augereau, Talleyrand, and La
Fayette. I forgive them--may the posterity of France forgive them as I
do." Then in the seventh paragraph he pardons his brother Louis for
the libel he published in 1820, although, as he states, "It is replete
with false assertions and falsified documents." He heaps coals of fire
on Marie Louise by requesting Marchand to preserve some of his hair
and to cause a bracelet to be made of it with a little gold clasp. It
is highly probable that the wife of Count Neipperg would rather not
have been reminded of her amorous habits and other culpable conduct by
these little attentions.

Neipperg, this foul and willing instrument of seduction, whose
baseness insults every moral law, suffered great agony for three years
from an incurable disease, and died in December, 1828, aged
fifty-seven years. The Kings and regicides in their ferocious fear had
made it an important part of their policy that Marie Louise should be
the pivot on which the complete ruin of Napoleon should centre, so
Neipperg was fixed upon as a fit and proper person to mould the
ex-Empress into passive obedience to the wishes of her husband's
inveterate enemies. Meneval notes that this man had already amours to
his credit. He had indeed run away with another man's wife, and had
issue by her. Probably his amorous reputation influenced the
oligarchy in their choice.

In order that the plan might be carried out, he adroitly improvised
falsehood, poured into her ears stories of faithlessness on the part
of her Imperial husband, read books and pamphlets manufactured and
exactly suited for the purpose he had in view. His instructions were
to carry things as far he could get them to go, and he did this with
revolting success.

God's broad earth has not known a more ugly incident than that of
carrying personal hatred and political cowardice to such a pitch of
delirium as that of forcing a weak woman to forsake her husband,
sacrifice the interests of her child, and tempt her to break her
marriage vow in order that her husband's ruin might be more completely
assured. As a matter of high policy its wickedness will never be
excelled.

At the death of her morganatic husband Marie Louise became
"inconsolable." She gave orders for a "costly mausoleum to be put up
so that her grief might be durably established." In reply to a letter
of condolence written to her by the eminent Italian, Dr. Aglietti, in
which he seems to have made some courteous and consoling observations,
she says "that all the efforts of art were powerless, for it is
impossible to fight against the _Divine Will_. You are very right in
saying that time and religion can alone diminish the bitterness of
such a loss. Alas! the former, far from exercising its power over me,
only daily increases my grief." This "amiable," grief-stricken royal
sham, overcharged with expressions of religious fervour, succumbs
again to her natural instincts. "Time," she avers, "cannot console,"
but only increases the depth of her grief for "our dear departed."

Her sentiments would be consummately impressive were it not that we
know how wholly deceitful she was without in the least knowing it. But
the creeping horror of time is quickly softened by her marriage in
1833 to a Frenchman called De Bombelles, who was in the service of her
native land, and is said to have had English blood in his veins. In
spite of the loyal effort of Meneval to make her ironic procession
through life appear as favourable as he can, the only true impression
that can be arrived at is that she was without shame, self-control, or
pity.

A strange sympathiser of Napoleon in his dire distress was a daughter
of Maria Theresa and a sister of Marie Antoinette--Queen Marie
Caroline, grandmother to Marie Louise. She had regarded the Emperor of
the French with peculiar aversion, but when his power was broken and
he became the victim of persecution, this good woman forgot her
prejudices, sent for Meneval, and said to him that she had had cause
to regard Napoleon at one time as an enemy, but now that he was in
trouble she forgot the past. She declared that if it was still the
determination of the Court of Vienna to sever the bonds of unity
between man and wife in order that the Emperor might be deprived of
consolation, it was her granddaughter's duty to assume disguise, tie
sheets together, lower herself from the window, and bolt.

There is little doubt the dexterous and spirited old lady gave Louise
sound advice, and had she acted under her holy influence, her name
would have become a monument of noblemindedness, a lesson, in fact,
against striking a vicious, cowardly blow at the unfortunate. It is
moreover highly probable that Queen Caroline felt, at the time, that
the political marriage of her granddaughter to the French Emperor was
ill-assorted and tragic, but the deed having been done, she upheld the
divine law of marriage. Besides, she knew that Napoleon had been an
indulgent, kind husband to the uneven-minded girl, and that, whatever
his faults may have been, it was her duty to comfort him and share in
his sorrow as she had so amply shared in his glory. Hence she urges a
reunion with the exile, but the ex-Empress may have made it
impossible ere this to enjoy the consoling sweets of conjugal
companionship, and her subsequent conduct makes it more than likely
that she was too deeply compromised to abandon the vortex and face the
penalty of the errors she had committed.

"I could listen," says Napoleon, "to the intelligence of the death of
my wife, my son, or of all my family, without a change of feature--not
the slightest emotion or alteration of countenance would be visible.
But when alone in my chamber, _then_ I suffer. Then the feelings of
the man burst forth."

We are not accustomed to think of this strong personality as being
overcome with soft emotions. We have regarded him as the
personification of strength, and yet with all his gigantic power over
men and himself, he had a real womanly supply of human tenderness.
Once he was seen weeping before the portrait of his much beloved son,
whom he called "Mon pauvre petit chou." "I do not blush to admit,"
said he on a memorable occasion, "that I have a good deal of a
mother's tenderness. I could never count on the faithfulness of a
father who did not love his children."

FOOTNOTES:

[18] "Correspondance de Napoléon," vol. 128, p. 133.

[19] Quoted from De Wertheimer's "Duke of Reichstadt," p. 330.

[20] See "Memoirs."

[21] See "Memoirs."

CHAPTER IV

THE OLIGARCHY, THEIR AGENTS AND APOLOGISTS

It would be an easy task to enlarge on the excellent qualities of this
wonderful man. Volumes could be written about this phase of his
dazzling career alone, and yet we have miscreants such as Talleyrand
proclaiming to the Conference of "Christian Kings" and traitors that
the greatest, most powerful, and most humane prince of the age "must
be exterminated like a mad dog." The news of his flight from Elba and
arrival in Paris, vociferously acclaimed by the French people as their
lawful sovereign, threw this band of parasites into apoplectic terror;
Talleyrand, of all creatures, dictating to the Conference as to the
wording of the proclamation that should be issued outlawing his
Emperor, whom he and they styled "Usurper." If it were not so
outrageous a violation of decency, we would look upon it as the most
comical incident notified in history. Talleyrand, the most
accomplished traitor and barefaced thief in Europe, except perhaps
Bourrienne, he who could not prevent himself from fumbling in his
sovereign's and everybody else's pockets whenever the opportunity
occurred, to be allowed to sit in conference with the anointed rulers
of Europe is really too comic.

Napoleon was styled "Usurper" by these saintly Legitimists, not one of
whom attained kingship so honourably and legitimately as the man whom
they had sworn to destroy, even though the whole of Europe were to be
drenched in blood by the process of it. They set themselves to
disfranchise and usurp the rights of the French people, who had only
just again ratified by millions of votes his claim to the throne, and
the gallant and heroic response to their requisition that he should
leave Elba and become their ruler again. Surely it will never be
contended that Napoleon's claims were less legitimate than those of
the Prince of Orange, or the Elector of Hanover, or Frederic William
the great Elector, whose sole qualification for kingship consisted in
having the instincts of a tiger. Of the latter Lord Macaulay says,
"His palace was hell, and he the most execrable of fiends." His sole
ambition seemed to be to pay fabulous sums for giant soldiers, and he
showed an inhuman aversion to his son, afterwards known as Frederic
the Great, and his daughter Wilhelmina. He was as ignorant and
ill-conditioned a creature as could be found in the whole world, a
cowardly rascal who found pleasure in kicking ladies whom he might
meet in the street and ordering them "home to mind their brats." No
more need be said of the father of the great Frederic, whose "Life"
took Thomas Carlyle thirteen years in searching musty German histories
to produce. Carlyle says, "One of the reasons that led me to write
'Frederic' was that he managed not to be a liar and charlatan as his
century was"; and indeed his adoration for Frederic is quite
pardonable. He had spent thirteen years of his life in the supreme
effort of making him a hero, and his great work, contained in eight
volumes, is a matchless piece of literature; but there is nothing in
it to justify anyone believing that Frederic was neither a liar nor a
charlatan. It is true Frederic finished better than he began, but
truthfulness and honesty were not conspicuous virtues of his. He lied,
broke faith, and plundered wherever and whenever it suited his
purpose, and some of his other vices were unspeakable. There is no
doubt he was both a quack and a coward when he broke the Pragmatic
Sanction and began to steal the territory of Maria Theresa. The powers
of England, France, Spain, Russia, Poland, Prussia, Sweden, Denmark,
the Germanic body, all had agreed by treaty to keep it. Had he been an
honourable man and possessed of the qualities Carlyle credits him
with, he would have stood by his oath. Instead of defending his ally,
he pounced upon her like a vulture, and plunged Europe into a
devastating, bloody war, with the sole object of robbery; and all he
could say for himself in extenuation of such base conduct was:
"Ambition, interest, the desire of making people talk about me,
carried the day; and I decided for war."

Truly Frederic was not a good man, and his reputation for being great
was mainly acquired because the Powers and circumstances allowed him
to succeed after seven long years of sanguinary conflict.

Indeed, there was not a single act in the whole of Napoleon's career
that approaches the lawlessness and cruelty of Frederic. He really
usurped nothing, and Frederic usurped everything that he could put his
hands on, regardless of every moral law; but then he ignored all moral
laws. There is no need for comparison, but it is just as well to point
out that the plea of legitimacy is very shallow, and the contention of
the Allies is an amazing burlesque emanating from the brains of an
industrious mediocrity.

These legitimate monarchs, through their Ministers, used barefacedly
to inspire journalists to write the doctrine of waste of blood as
being a natural process of dealing with the problem of overpopulation.
History is pregnant with proof that their cry for peace was an
impudent hypocrisy. They might have had it at any time, but this did
not suit their policy of legitimacy. Countless thousands of human
beings were slaughtered to satisfy the aversion of kings and nobles to
the plan of one man who towered above them, and insisted on breaking
up the nefarious system of feudalism and kingship by divine right.
They loathed both him and his system. They plotted for his
assassination, and intrigued with all the ferocity of wild animals
against his humane and enlightened government. He trampled over all
their satanic dodges to overthrow the power that had been so often
enthusiastically placed in his hands by the sovereign people. He
constructed roads and canals, and introduced new methods of creating
commerce. He introduced a great scheme of expanding education,
science, art, literature. Every phase of enlightenment was not only
initiated, but made compulsory so far as he could enforce its
application. He re-established religion, and gave France a new code of
laws that are to this day notoriously practical, comprehensive, and
eminently just.

He not only re-established religion, but he upheld the authority of
the Pope as the recognised head of the Roman Church. He built his
"pyramids in the sea," established a free press, and declared himself
in favour of manhood suffrage. He included in his system a unification
of all the small continental States, and was declaimed against as a
brigand for doing it. Wherever his plans were carried out the people
were prosperous and happy, so long as they were allowed to toil in
their own way in their fields and in other industrial pursuits.

It was the perpetual spirit of war that overshadowed the whole of
Europe which prevented his rule from solving a great problem. He, in
this, was invariably the aggrieved. The plan which he had carried into
practical solution was wrecked by the allies, and in less than a
century after the great reformer had been removed from the sphere of
enmity and usefulness, Prince Bismarck forced these small States into
unification with the German Empire, thereby carrying into effect the
very system Napoleon was condemned for bringing under his suzerainty.
What satire, what malignity of fate, that Bismarck, a positive
refutation of genius in comparison with the French Emperor, should
succeed in resurrecting the fabric that the latter had so proudly
built up for France, only to be in a few short years the prize of
Germany, recognised by the very Powers who fought with such embittered
aggressiveness against the great captain and statesman who made not
only modern France, but modern Europe; and who at any time during his
reign could, by making a sign, as he has said, have had the nobles of
France massacred. These bloodsucking creatures were always in the road
of reform, always steeped overhead in political intrigue, always
concerned in plots against the life of Napoleon, and always shrieking
with resentment when they and their accomplices were caught. Some
writers are so completely imbued with the righteousness of murdering
Napoleon, they convey the impression that when any attempt failed, the
perpetrators, instead of being punished, should have had the
decoration of the Legion of Honour placed upon them by himself. They
are also quite unconscious that they are backing a mean revenge and an
awful mockery of freedom when they eloquently shout "Hosanna!"

According to them St. Helena was the only solution of the problem, if
it may be so called, and the Powers who sent him there must have had
an inspiration from above. They have no conception that the Allies
perpetrated another crucifixion on the greatest and (if we are to
judge him by _reliable_ records) the best man of the nineteenth
century. Ah! fickle France! you are blighted with eternal shame for
having allowed these cowardly vindictive conspirators, popularly
called the Allies, to besmear _you_, as well as themselves, with the
blood of a hero.

France had resources at her command which could and should have been
used to drive the invaders beyond her boundaries. Frenchmen can never
live down the great blunder of abandoning their Emperor, forsaking
themselves and the duty they owed to their native land. They forsook
in the hour of need all that was noble and honourable, and cast
themselves into a cauldron of treason, such as has never been heard of
in the world's history. They were soon disillusioned, but it was then
too late. The poison had done its work, and France was placed under
the subjection of traitors, place-hunters and foreign Powers for many
years to come.

I have already said that Louis XVIII. was put on the throne, not by
the French people, but by their conquerors and their myrmidons. He did
not long survive his ignoble accession. Then came Charles X., who had
to fly to Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh because he governed so ill. His
qualification to rule was in putting down all reform and liberty;
after him came Louis Philippe, but even he only governed on
sufferance, though on the whole he occupied an onerous position with
creditable success. A monarch who rules under the tender mercies of a
capricious people, and worse still, a capricious and not too
scrupulous monarchy of monarchs, is not to be envied, and this was
exactly the position of Louis Philippe. He was beset by the noisy
clamour of many factions, besides having to keep a shrewd eye on those
lofty men to whom he had to look with perpetual nervous tension for
the stability and endurance of his throne. He knew the heart of the
nation was centred on St. Helena, and that a wave of repentance was
passing over the land. The people wished to atone for the crime they
allowed to be committed in 1815.

Louis Philippe showed great wisdom and foresight. Nothing could have
been done with more suitable delicacy than the negotiations which
caused the British Government to consent to give the remains of the
Emperor up to the French. The air of importance and swagger put into
it by Lord Palmerston is supremely farcical, but then the whole
senseless blunder from beginning to end was a farce, which does not
redound to our credit. It is incredible that a nation so thickly
stocked with men of ability in every important department should have
had the misfortune to have her affairs entrusted to Ministers and
officials who were childishly incompetent and ludicrously vindictive.
Men of meagre mental calibre, who hold office under the Crown or
anywhere else, are invariably fussy, pompous, overbearing, and
stifling with conceit. This condition of things was in full swing
during the Napoleonic regime and captivity, and that is the period we
are concerned about. There does not appear to have been a single man
of genius in Europe but himself. The population of France who were
contemporary with him during his meteoric leadership remembered him as
a matchless reformer and an unconquerable warrior. Their devotion and
belief in his great gifts had sunk deeply into their being. A couple
of generations had come into existence from 1815 to 1840, but even to
those who knew him only as a captive, he was as much their Emperor and
their hero and martyr as he was to his contemporaries. The pride of
race, the glory of the Empire and of its great founder, was suckled
into them from the time of birth, and as they grew into manhood and
womanhood they became permeated with a passionate devotion to his
cause. They claimed that his deliverance to the people "he loved so
well" was a right that should not be withheld. The spirit of sullen
determination that he should be given up had taken deep root. They had
arrived at the point when the igniting of a spark would have created
a conflagration. There was to be no more chattering. They meant
business, and were resolved that they would stand no more red-tape
fussy nonsense from either their Government or the Government who kept
a regiment of British soldiers to guard his tomb, lest he should again
disturb the peace of Europe. They let it be known that no more of that
kind of humbug would be tolerated without reprisals, and the hint was
taken. Louis Philippe grasped the situation, and formed an expedition
with his son Prince Joinville as chief, who was accompanied by Baron
Las Cases, member of the Chamber of Deputies; General Count Bertrand;
M. l'Abbé Conquereau, almoner to the expedition; four former servants
of Napoleon--viz., Saint Denis and Noverraz, valets-de-chambre;
Pierron, officer of the kitchen; and Archambaud, butler--Marchand, one
of the executors, and the quarrelsome and disloyal General Gourgaud,
of whom we may have something more to say further on. This same
Gourgaud, who lied so infamously about his Imperial benefactor when he
landed in London, has said that "he could not express what he felt
when he again found himself near that extraordinary being, that giant
of the human race, to whom he had sacrificed all and to whom he owed
all he was." These thoughts, and many more not uttered, would come to
him when he stood beside the sepulchre of the master whom he had so
grievously wronged and who was now and henceforth to be recognised as
having been the "legitimate ruler of his country."

Count Montholon, the most devoted and most constant follower of
Napoleon and his family, was not of the expedition. He was engaged in
helping the nephew of his hero to ascend the throne of his illustrious
uncle, and the effort landed them both in the fortress of Ham. Louis
Philippe and his Ministers were very jealous of anyone sharing in any
part of the glory of having Napoleon brought to the banks of the
Seine. Hence, when King Joseph and Prince Louis Napoleon offered the
arms of the Emperor to the nation, the King refused them, but
prevailed upon General Bertrand to give them to him, that he might
give them to the nation. Napoleon had given the sword he wore at
Austerlitz and his arms to Bertrand when on his deathbed. Prince Louis
could not stand the great captain's name being trumpeted about for
other people's glory. He claimed that it belonged to him. He was the
legitimate heir to all its glory, and this too previous assumption got
him imprisoned in Ham for asserting what he protested was his right.

Meanwhile the _Bellepoule_ goes lumbering along, impeded by calms and
gales, but anchored safely off Jamestown on October 8, 1840. Of course
many formalities had to be carried out, so that the exhumation did not
commence until the 15th at midnight. They came upon the coffin at ten
in the forenoon, opened it, and found the body well preserved. Thereon
everyone was overcome with emotion. After the coffin was deposited
with profound solemnity and the national flag placed over it, the
honours which would have been paid to the Emperor had he been living
were paid to his remains on October 18, 1840.

The expedition set sail, and had only been a few days out when the
captain of a passing vessel called the _Hamburg_ informed Prince
Joinville that war between France and Great Britain was imminent, and
two or three days later this was confirmed by circumstantial
information to him by a Dutch vessel called the _Egmont_. Officers of
the two other vessels of the expedition were ordered aboard the
_Bellepoule_, a council of war held, and a determined resistance
resolved upon. The decks were cleared for action, guns were mounted,
and every form of princely comfort dispensed with. The son of Louis
Philippe added lustre to the name of Bourbon by the heroic decision
that, whatever the fortune of battle might be, he would sink his ship
rather than allow the remains of the Emperor to fall into the hands
of the British again. The resolve was worthy of Napoleon himself.

Every precaution was taken to evade capture, but as the information
proved to be unfounded, the expedition was not interrupted by hostile
cruisers, nor even by contrary winds, and long before it was expected
the historic frigate sailed quietly into the harbour of Cherbourg at
5.0 a.m. on November 30, 1840. She had made the passage from St.
Helena in forty-two days. Then the great and unexampled triumph
commenced.

Europe was a second time in mourning, bowing its head in reverence and
shame. Never have there been such universal tokens of condemnation of
the captivity and the creatures who engineered it, and never such
unequalled joy and homage as were paid to the memory of the great
dead. During the eight days the lying-in-state lasted, more than two
hundred thousand people came to the Invalides daily. Thousands never
got within the coveted grounds, yet they came in increasing numbers
each successive day, notwithstanding the rigour of the biting weather.

It may be said that the whole world was moved with the desire to show
sympathy with this unsurpassed national devotion and worldwide
repentance. His remains are now in the church of the Invalides, where
the daily pilgrimage still goes on. The interest in the victim of the
stupidity of the British Administration never flags. Each day the dead
Emperor is canonised, and his prophetic words that posterity would do
him justice are being amply fulfilled.

The Christian Kings that made saintly war on Napoleon, and combined to
commit an atrocious crime in the name of the founder of our faith,
were dead. God in His mercy had dispensed with their sagacious
guidance in human affairs, and it may be they were paying a lingering
penalty for the diabolical act at the very time their prisoner's ashes
reached the shores of his beloved country and convulsed it with
irrepressible joy. They and many of their accomplices were gone. Four
Popes had reigned and passed on to their last long sleep. The Spanish
nation, which contributed to his downfall, had been smitten with the
plague of chronic revolution. They had been deprived of the great
guiding spirit who alone could administer that wholesome discipline
which was so necessary to keep the turbulent spirits in restraint.
Only Bernadotte, whom Napoleon had put in the way of becoming King of
Norway and Sweden, remained to represent the galaxy of Kings. A few of
the traitor Marshals were left, but Augereau had died soon after the
banishment and Berthier had committed suicide a few day before the
Battle of Waterloo by jumping out a window. Soult, Oudinot, and the
guilty Marmont were in evidence in these days of great national
rejoicing. Davoust, Jourdan, Macdonald, and Masséna had passed behind
the veil. It was the defection of Berthier and Marmont, whom he
regarded as his most trusted and loyal comrades-in-arms, that crushed
the Emperor at the time of the first abdication. It was a cruel stab,
which sunk deep into his soul, and never really healed, but the most
heartless incident in connection with this betrayal was the
appointment of Marmont, the betrayer, by the Emperor Francis to be the
military instructor of Napoleon's son while he was held in captivity
and ignorance at Vienna.

Fouché, whose treason and predatory misdeeds should have had him shot
long before the dawn of disaster to the Empire came, joined the
Ministry of Louis XVIII., whom he had arduously assisted to the
throne, but in 1816 he was included in the decree against the
murderers of Louis XVI., and had to make himself scarce. He went to
Prague, then to Trieste, and died there in 1820.

Talleyrand died at Paris in 1838.

Both men were unscrupulous intriguers, without an atom of moral sense
or loyalty, and both possessed ability, differing in kind, perhaps,
which they used in the accomplishment of their own ends. France can
never overestimate the great evil these two men did to the national
cause. Napoleon's power and penetrating vision kept them in check only
when he could grasp the nettle. Even when absent on his campaigns,
they knew he was kept in close touch with what was going on. It was
not until treason became entangled within treason that their evil
designs had fuller scope and more disastrous results. Bourrienne,
another rascal already referred to in this book, lost his fortune and
his reason in 1830, and died in a lunatic asylum at Caen of apoplexy
in February, 1834. It is a notable fact that nearly the whole of the
prominent figures in the drama of the Empire and its fall had passed
beyond the portal before the great captain's remains were brought back
to France. These individuals are only remembered now as uninspired
small men, benighted in mind, who had wrought ignobly to bring about
the fall of a powerful leader, and to the end of their days were
associated with and encouraged a fiendish persecution of the Emperor
while he lived, and of his family before and after his death.

But the pious care of his tomb by a regiment of British soldiers, paid
for by British taxpayers, from 1821 until the patriotic exhumation in
1840; by stately and solemn permission of the British Government,
excels the comic genius of a gang of plethoric parochial innkeepers.
If it were not so degrading to the national pride of race, we might
regard it as taking rank amongst the drollest incidents of human life.
What a gang of puffy, mildewed creatures were at the head British
affairs in those days! Indeed, they expose the human soul at its
worst, and a curious feature is their ingrained belief in the
integrity of all their doings, which beggars the English vocabulary
describe. How the people tolerated the drain on human life and the
material resources of country is also phenomenal.

Thousands of lives were sacrificed and millions of money squandered,
with the sole object of destroying and humiliating one man, who, had
he been handled discreetly, would have proved greater public asset
than he was. Sir Hudson Lowe would not be known to posterity but for
the guilty part he played in the tragedy. He left St. Helena on July
25, 1821, and was presented on the eve of his departure with an
address from the inhabitants. It has been said that document was
inspired from Plantation House, but that is scarcely credible.
Besides, we are not inclined to discount any credit Lowe and his
friends and accomplices can derive from it. It does not glow with
devotion nor regret at his resigning his command. Indeed, it is
nothing more nor less than a cold, polite way of bidding him farewell.
Forsyth makes much of this, with the object of proving his popularity
with the islanders and the itinerant persons in the service of the
Crown. He only makes his case worse by embarking on so hopeless a
task. As a matter of fact, this extraordinary representative of the
British Government had roused the whole population of St. Helena at
one time and another to a pitch of passion and scorn that puts it
beyond doubt that no genuine regret could have been consistently
expressed by a single soul, except those few composing his staff, who
were as guilty as himself and were always ready to lick his boots for
a grain of favour; and yet it is quite certain, notwithstanding the
heroic fooleries and the care to make Plantation House a sanctuary of
guilty secrecy, there was nothing that transpired, either important or
unimportant, concerning the inhabitants of Longwood, that was not
promptly passed along. Needless to say, these communications relieved
the dull monotony of the exiles, and even Gourgaud was driven to
cynical mockery by the ridiculous character of some of the piteous
stories that filtered through. There never was any difficulty in
verifying the truth of them when it was thought necessary or useful to
do so. On the authority of Lowe's biographer, we are told that this
immortal High Commissioner was presented to his precious sovereign on
November 14, 1821, and was on the point of kissing his hand, but His
Majesty, overwhelmed with the preeminence of the great man who stood
before him, indicated that there was to be no kissing of hands. His
services to his King and country demanded a good shake of the hand and
hearty congratulations from His Christian Majesty. Lowe's arduous and
exemplary task was admitted with tears in the kingly eyes, and so
overcome was His Majesty that he took Lowe's hand again, and shook it
a second time, combining with the handshake a further flow of grateful
thanks and the appointment to a colonelcy of the 93rd Regiment These
compliments were well deserved, coming, as they did from a monarch
whose will he had discharged with such brutal fidelity. But what of
the afterthought, the reaction which began to hum round his ears
almost immediately after this fulsome display of enthusiastic
approbation? A vast public, never in favour of the Government's
vaunted policy of heroism over an unfortunate foe, swung round with a
vengeance. The indignation against the perpetrators of this cruel
assassination had no bounds. It was not confined to Britain. The
civilised world was shocked. The willing tool of the Government got
the worst of it, and the perfidy will cling to his name throughout
eternity.

O'Meara's book, "A Voice from St. Helena; or, Napoleon in Exile,"
published in 1822, sold like wildfire. In vain Bathurst, Castlereagh,
and Liverpool tried to check the flood of public censure that poured
in upon them from everywhere. Sir Hudson Lowe, beside himself with
apprehension, appealed to them for protection, but none was
forthcoming. Indeed, they were too busy searching out some means by
which the blow could be eased off themselves, and with studious
politeness left their accomplice to plan out his defence as best he
could; and the world knows what a sorry job he made of it. His
coadjutors in the great tragedy were not the kind of people to share
any part of the public censure that could be reflected on to their
gaoler. Pretty compliments had been paid to him by the King and some
of his Ministers previous to the realisation of the full force of
public indignation. Bathurst sent him a letter in 1823 reminding him
that his treatment had been beyond that of ordinary governors, that he
was working out an idea of having him recommended to a West Indian
governorship, and that he was not to suppose that this gracious
interest in him was in order to silence the clamour that was being
raised against him. This communication was made in November, and in
December Lowe was told that he was to go to Antigua as Governor. For
special reasons this favour was refused, and two years afterwards he
accepted command of the forces at Ceylon, and was still there when Sir
Walter Scott's exculpation of the British Government appeared in 1828.
Scott was employed for that special purpose.

The ex-Governor searched the pages of this extraordinary work for a
vindication of himself, but never a word that could be construed into
real approval was there. He obtained leave of absence from the
Governor of Ceylon and made his way to England, ostensibly to
vindicate his character. He landed at St. Helena, paid a visit to
Longwood, otherwise known as the "Abode of Darkness" since the
Imperial tenant named it so when he gave O'Meara his benediction on
the occasion of his last parting from him, when he was banished from
the island. Sir Hudson was shocked at seeing the place reverted back
to a worse state than it was previous to the exiles being forced into
it. Then it was a dirty, unwholesome barn, overrun with vermin; now it
was worse than a piggery. The aspect touched a tender chord in this
man who had been the cause of making the Emperor's compulsory sojourn
a sorrowful agony.

Reflections of all that happened during those five memorable years
must have crowded in upon him and racked him with feelings of bitter
remorse for his avoidable part in the cruel drama; and as he stood
upon the spot that had been made famous by England's voluntary
captive, it was not unnatural that he should have been overcome by a
strange and possibly a purifying sadness. All of that which he had
regarded in other days, under different conditions, as unjustifiable
splendour had vanished. The Imperial bedroom and study were now made
use of to accommodate and give shelter to cows, horses, and pigs.
Other agricultural commodities were strewn about everywhere. Nothing
was left that would indicate that it was consecrated to fame and
everlasting pity. The triumph of death came to it only some six years
before. And now Sir Hudson Lowe, we doubt not, filled with pensive
regret, looked down on the nameless tomb of the great captain, guarded
by sentinels with fixed bayonets, ready to thrust them into any
unauthorised intruder into the sacred precincts of the Valley of
Napoleon, or the Geranium Valley, which is also known by the name of
Punch Bowl.

Ah! what thickly gathering memories must have come to him in that
solemn hour on that smitten rock of bitter and brutal vengeance! All
we shall ever know of that melancholy visit as it really affected Lowe
has been told by his biographer. We are left to imagine a good deal,
and therefore must conclude that he would be less than human if he did
not realise that the shadow of retribution was pursuing him. If his
thoughts of himself were otherwise, he was soon to be disillusioned.

He spent three days on the Rock, and had a good reception and
send-off, and ere long made his appearance in London and presented
himself to his quasi-friend, Bathurst, who, with an eye to his own and
his colleagues' interests, discouraged the idea of publishing an
answer to Sir Walter Scott's book. Bathurst, in fact (with unconscious
drollery), advised Lowe to hurry back to Ceylon without delay, lest
meanwhile a vacancy of the governorship should occur and he might lose
his opportunity. He was assured of the Government's appreciation of
him as their most trusted and loyal public servant, while as a matter
of fact it was ludicrously obvious that his presence was quite as
objectionable to them in England as it was to the exiles in St.
Helena. He was fully alive to, and did not underestimate, the amount
of dirty work he had done for them, and very properly expected to be
amply rewarded. It never occurred to him that retribution was
over-shadowing them as well as himself, and that they could not openly
avow their displeasure at the odium he was the cause of bringing on
the Government and on the British name by reason of his having so
rigidly carried out their perfidious regulations. Had public opinion
supported them, their action would have been claimed as a sagacious
policy, but it didn't, so this poor, wretched, tactless, incompetent
tool became almost as much their aversion as the great prisoner
himself. In fact, things went so ill with them that they would have
preferred it had Lowe indulged every whim of his prisoner, granted him
full liberty to roam wherever he liked, recognised him as Emperor, and
even been not too zealous in preventing his escape; and they must have
wished that, in the first instance, they had not thought of St.
Helena, but wisely and generously granted him hospitality in our own
land. This last would have been the best thing that could have
happened for everybody concerned.

Ill-treatment of the most humble prisoner or assassination of the most
exalted can never be popular with the British people. Sir Hudson got a
cold douche when he obtained an interview with the Duke of
Wellington. His Grace in so many words told him that they wished to
have nothing to do with him. He could not recommend him for a post in
the Russian army. He could not hold out hopes of him getting the
governorship of Ceylon should a vacancy occur. He had been hardly
used, but there was no help for it. Parliament would not grant him the
pension he asked for. Lowe replied that he would stand or fall by its
decision, but the Duke snapped him off by stating that Mr. Peel would
never make such a proposal to the House of Commons. No other course
was open to him now but to return to Ceylon. He did not get the
vacancy which occurred in 1830, and returned to England, but never got
a public appointment again.

He presented a wordy memorial in 1843, complaining of having been kept
out of employment for twelve years. The governorship of Ceylon had
been vacant three times, the Ionian Islands four times; he had been
Governor there in 1812. In other parts of the Empire appointments that
he supposed he could have filled were given to others. Poor creature!
He died in 1844, a broken and ruined man.

He lacked every quality that is essential in an administrator, and was
utterly void of humour, imagination, or the capacity to manage men.
His suspicious disposition and lack of judgment made it eminently
impossible for him to fulfil any delicate position, and it was a
monstrous libel on the knowledge of the fitness of things to entrust
him with the governorship of St. Helena.

Lord Teynham made a violent attack on Lowe in the House of Lords in
1833. The Duke of Wellington was bound to defend his satellite, and
did so with some vigour, as the attack was really on him and certain
members of his Government. Lord Teynham replies with equal vigour: "He
had no intention of aspersing the private character of Sir Hudson, but
as regards his conduct while Governor of St. Helena, he maintained,
and always would, that Lowe was cried out upon by all the people of
Europe as a person unfit to be trusted with power." Lord Teynham a few
days afterwards made a sort of apology, no doubt inspired by
interested persons, for personal plus international reasons. They were
high of heart, these dauntless confederates, in the early and middle
stages of the captivity, and, indeed, they bore themselves with
braggart defiance of public opinion, until many strong manifestations
of inevitable trouble encompassed them, and, like all despots, who are
invariably cowards, they lived in mortal terror lest this creature of
theirs should break out into St. Helena leprosy again and impose
further humiliation upon them. Lowe had talked of actions for libel
against Barry O'Meara, and in a whimsical, half-hearted way worried
his employers to give battle, and the law officers of the Crown stated
a case but advised against taking action, and so it was never brought,
though O'Meara kept telling them in so many words to come on. "I am
anxious that you should have the opportunity of defending the charges
I have brought against you. I am anxious too that the public should
know more than I have written." That in effect was the attitude of the
gallant doctor, who was the first to call serious attention to the
goings on in the "Abode of Darkness." Needless to say, no action was
ever taken, and, in face of all the incriminating facts, it was never
intended that any should be taken. Even High Toryism became alarmed at
the consequences. The Duke of Wellington, brave and gallant soldier
though he was, shrank from so impossible an ordeal. The best he could
say of him was, "He was a stupid man," "A bad choice," "and totally
unfit to take charge of Bonaparte."

Wellington may have been a brave and skilful general, but he did not
know how to be generous to an unfortunate enemy who was himself always
kind and considerate in the hour of victory. Wellington's expressions
about Lowe are more than significant, though his conduct towards the
poor cat's-paw is characteristic of a mean, flinty soul. But his
behaviour towards Napoleon would have put any French Jacobin to the
blush, and has belittled him for all time in the eyes of everybody who
has a spark of human feeling in him.

Meneval[22] says that Waterloo was won by the French in the middle of
the day of that fateful battle, but a caprice of fortune--the arrival
of Bulow's corps and Blucher's army, and the absence of Grouchy's
corps--snatched from Napoleon's hands the triumph which was within his
grasp. Wellington had even said to General Hill, who came to take his
orders at the most critical moment of the battle: "I have no orders to
give you. There is nothing left for us but to die here. Our retreat is
even cut off behind us."

Wellington's despairing words have been handed down in various forms.
Notably he is reported to have said, "Oh! for night or Blücher." When
he heard the firing, "That is old Blücher at last!" &c. That he was in
a tight place there is little doubt, and many authorities have stated
that had Grouchy come up according to orders, the allied forces would
have been cut to pieces.

Whether it was "caprice of fortune" or not, Wellington claimed to have
won the battle. "Caprice of fortune" had nothing to do with it. It
was a hard-fought battle. Treachery and desertion at an important
juncture undoubtedly weakened the chances of French success. Meneval
adds that "in no encounter of such importance did the French army
display more heroism and more resolution than at the Battle of
Waterloo." Napoleon at St. Helena attributed his defeat to a variety
of circumstances: to treachery, and to his orders not being carried
out as they should have been by some of his generals, and often
concludes: "It must have been Fate, for I ought to have succeeded." He
was accustomed to say that "One must never ask of Fortune more than
she can grant," and possibly he erred in this.

Though nearly a century has passed since the catastrophe to France,
the cause of it is still controversial. It is certain that the conduct
of Marshal Soult, who was second in command, gave reason for
suspicion. An old corporal told the Emperor that he was to "be assured
that Soult was betraying him." General Vandamme was reported to have
gone over to the enemy. It was also reported to the Emperor by a
dragoon that General Henin was exhorting the soldiers of his corps to
go over to the Allies, and while this was going on the General had
both legs blown away by a cannon shot. Lieutenants, colonels, staff
officers, and, it is said, officers who were bearing despatches
deserted, but it is significant that there is not a single instance
given of the common soldier forsaking his great chief's cause. Lord
Wolseley declares that if Napoleon had been the man he was at
Austerlitz, he would have won the Battle of Waterloo. Wolseley is
supported in this view by many writers.

After Lutzen, Bautzen, and Dresden, Byron said that "bar epilepsy and
the elements, he would back Napoleon against the field." It is well
known the odds he had to battle with, including the vilest treachery
within his own circle.

Marshal Grouchy's conduct will always remain doubtful, even to the
most friendly critics. High treason bubbling up everywhere must have
had a dulling effect on the mind of the great genius, though he
battled with the increasing vigour of it with amazing courage. He saw
the current was running too strong for him to stem unless he
determined to again risk the flow of rivers of blood. This he shrank
from, and abdicated the throne a second time. And then the barbarous,
crimeful story began.

Sir Hudson Lowe's appointment was a national calamity, but he was the
nominee of Wellington's coadjutors, and carried out their wishes with
a criminal exactitude, and they should have stood by him in his dire
distress, instead of which they allowed him to die in poverty, broken
in spirit, and a victim to calumny which they ought to have been manly
enough to share.

Whatever may be said in exculpation of them and him, _they_ were
undoubtedly too seriously involved to enter upon a fight that would
have ended disastrously for all of them, and so, with unusual wisdom,
they never got further than threats.

Sir Hudson was dead something like nine years before Forsyth burst
upon the public with his eccentric vindication of the unamiable and
unfortunate ex-Governor. The zealous biographer's research for
material favourable to his deified hero caused him to ransack prints
that were written by unfriendly authors and vindictive critics of the
great captive. Even the State Papers, the most unreliable of all
documents on this particular subject, were used to prove the goodness
of Sir Hudson, and when quotations were unavailing, the author
proceeded to concoct the most amazing ideas in support of the task he
had set himself to prove.

Writers of anti-Napoleonic history who take in the St. Helena period
are filled with wonder and contempt of the Emperor, who, according to
their refined and accurate judgment of the fitness of things, should
have been eternally grateful to the British Government that they did
not have him shot. Why should he complain in the fretful way he does
of his treatment and his condition? A great man would have shown his
appreciation of all the money that was being spent on the needs for
his existence and for the better security of his person. It ill
becomes him to complain of improper treatment after all the trouble
and commotion he has caused at one time and another. Indeed, a great
man would bear the burden of captivity with equanimity and praise the
men who gave him the opportunity of showing how a great soldier could
carry himself in such unequalled adversity.

This in effect is what these high-minded men of letters say should
have been the attitude of England's guest. He should have received his
treatment, harsh and arbitrary though it was, with Christian
fortitude, and ought to have borne in mind that he was in the custody
of a Christian King and a Christian people. Dr. Max Lenz, who has
written a most interesting and on the whole moderate account of
Napoleon, considering his nationality, drifts into the same
stereotyped closing phraseology of how Napoleon worried and almost
wore out the good Sir Hudson Lowe, who only did his duty, and gave in
to Napoleon whenever he could see his way to do so.

But on the authority of Gourgaud, whom Lord Rosebery would appear to
regard as the most truthful of all the St. Helena chroniclers, this
eulogy is totally unwarranted, for truly there is no reliable
contemporary writer who would have risked his reputation by making so
reckless a statement that could so easily be proved to be a deliberate
fabrication. This is not to say that fabrication was an uncommon
trick, but the Governor's reputation in relation to Napoleon was so
well and widely known, that no person who claimed to have a clear,
balanced judgment could defend his silly, vicious conduct.

Napoleon never altered his opinion of Lowe's perfidy towards him. On
one occasion, in conversation with the truthful Gourgaud, he exclaims,
"Ah! I know the English. You may be sure that the sentinels stationed
round this house have orders from the Governor to kill me. They will
pretend to give me a thrust with a bayonet by mistake some day."
Gourgaud reports him as saying on another occasion, "Hudson Lowe is a
Sicilian grafted on a Prussian; they must have chosen him to make me
die under his charge by inches. It would have been more generous to
have shot me at once."

It would be absurd to affirm that Napoleon said these things without
sound foundation, and although, when his personal vanity and abnormal
jealousy was aroused by some fancied injury to himself, Gourgaud
would resort to the most remarkable fibbing, what he relates as to his
master's opinion of the Governor may be relied on, being, as it is,
confirmed in a more complete form by O'Meara, Las Cases, Montholon,
Bertrand, Antommarchi, and each of the Commissioners. The former
sacrificed everything rather than be a party to what he termed
treatment that was an "outrage on decency."

These are only a few of the men who bear witness against Sir Hudson
being termed "good"; and I may add one other to the galaxy, poor Dr.
Stokoe, who shrank from having the abominable indignity of inquisitor
and spy tacked on to his high office and distinguished profession. He
refused, as O'Meara had done, to sacrifice his manhood or his sense of
honour. Tricked into a false position by Lowe and the virtuous (?) Sir
Robert Plampin, Dr. Stokoe, who had only paid five professional visits
to Longwood, was deprived of his position and all its advantages,
after twenty-five years' service in the Navy, because he refused to
become a sneak and a rascal at the bidding of these two unspeakable
Government officials, the one disgracing the service of his country in
the capacity of Governor and the other the name of a sailor and an
Admiral.

In 1819 Stokoe resigned his position on the _Conqueror_, and sailed
for England. Lowe sent a report addressed to the Lords of the
Admiralty by the same vessel, and Stokoe had scarcely landed when he
was bundled back to St. Helena. He rejoined the _Conqueror_ under the
impression that his conduct had been approved, but was disillusioned
by being forthwith put under arrest. A bogus court-martial was
instituted in the interests of Lowe, and Plampin and these packed
scallywags sentenced him to dismissal from the Navy. The charges
against Stokoe were that he failed to report himself to Plampin at the
Briars after a visit to Longwood, and that in his report he had
designated the patient as the Emperor instead of General Bonaparte.
This is a sample of the "good old times" that a certain species of
creature delights to show forth his wisdom in talking about. I believe
the immortal John Ruskin indulged occasionally in reminding a
twentieth-century world of these days that were so blissful.

Forsyth, the self-reputed impartial historian, neglects to insert in
his work in defence of Lowe's conduct the following amazing charges,
which shall be fully given. They have been published before, but they
are so unique, so unmanly, and so perfidious, I think they ought to be
given to the public again, so that the amiable reader may know the
depth of infamy to which England had sunk in the early part of the
nineteenth century. Here is the whole story on which Dr. Stokoe was
condemned. His bulletin about Napoleon's health asserted that "The
more alarming symptom is that which was experienced in the night of
the 16th instant, a recurrence of which may soon prove fatal,
particularly if medical attendance is not at hand." The Governor and
the worthy Admiral were incensed at such unheard-of arrogance in
making a report not in accordance with their wishes and that of the
Government and the oligarchy, so the indictment of Stokoe, based on
this bulletin, proceeds: "Intending thereby, contrary to the character
and duty of a British officer, to create a false impression or belief
that General Bonaparte was in imminent or considerable danger, and
that no medical assistance was at hand, he, the said Mr. John Stokoe,
not having witnessed any such symptom, and knowing that the state of
the patient was so little urgent that he was at Longwood four hours
before he was admitted to see him, and further, knowing that Dr.
Verling was at hand, ready to attend if required in any such emergency
or considerable danger. He had knowingly and willingly designated
General Bonaparte in the said bulletin in a manner different from that
in which he was designated in the Act of Parliament for the better
custody of his person, and contrary to the practice of His Majesty's
Government, of the Lieutenant-General Governor of the island, and of
the said Rear Admiral, and he had done so at the especial instance and
request of the said General Bonaparte or his attendants, though he,
Mr. John Stokoe, well knew that the mode of designation was a point in
dispute between the said General Bonaparte and Lieutenant-General Sir
Hudson Lowe and the British Government, and that by acceding to the
wish of the said General Bonaparte he, the said Mr. John Stokoe, was
acting in opposition to the wish and practice of his own superior
officers, and to the respect which he owed them under the general
printed instructions." The very idea of any grown man being expected
to have "respect" for superior officers who had no more sense of
justice, dignity, or self-respect than to produce such a blatant
document for the supreme purpose of covering up a sample of mingled
folly and rascality, and ruining a poor man who was at their
ill-conditioned mercy!

Indeed, we need no further justification for Napoleon's statements as
to what the official intention was towards him. Without a doubt Dr.
Max Lenz is too reckless in his generosity towards Lowe, for his
actions from beginning to end of his career prove that he was a
dreadful creature. The thought of him and of those incarnate spiders
who kept spinning their web, and for six mortal years disgracing
humanity, is in truth enough to unsettle one's reason. Vainly they had
ransacked creation in search of persons in authority to support them
in the plea of justification, but never a soul came forth to share
what is now regarded as ingrained criminality.

Perhaps the virulent treatment of Byron ranks with the meanest and
most impotent actions of the militant oligarchists because of his
shocking (?) sympathy with England's enemy. The fierce though
exquisite weaver of rhymes, who had been the idol of the nation and
the drawing-room, was sought after by the highest and most cultured in
the land. Byron had fallen a victim to public displeasure partly
because he gave way to excesses that shocked the orthodoxy of a
capricious public. He had reached a pinnacle of fame such as no man of
his years had ever attained, and suddenly without warning he fell, a
victim to unparalleled vituperation. His faults, if the meagre
accounts that have been handed down are true, were great, but many of
them were merely human. His marriage was not compatible, and his love
entanglements embarrassing. His temper and habits were very similar to
those of other geniuses, and great allowances should be made for
personalities whose mental arrangements may be such as to nullify
normal control.

It is all very well to say that these men should be compelled to
adhere to a conventional law because ordinary mortals are expected to
do so, but a man like Byron was not ordinary. In his particular line
he was a great force with a brain that took spasmodic twists. It is
absurd to expect that a being whose genius produced "Childe Harold"
and "Manfred" could be fashioned into living a quite commonplace
domestic life. Miss Milbanke, who married him, and the public who
first blessed and then cursed and made him an outcast, were not
faultless. Had they been possessed of the superiority they piously
assumed, they would have seen how impossible it was for this eccentric
man of stormy passions to be controlled and overridden by
conventionality.

It is possible the serene critic may take exception to this form of
reasoning and produce examples of genius, such as Wordsworth, who
lived a strictly pious life, never offending any moral law by a
hairbreadth; but Wordsworth was not made like Byron; he had not the
personality of the poor wayward cripple who at one time had brought
the world to his feet, neither had Wordsworth to fight against such
wild hereditary complications as Byron. Wordsworth never caught the
public imagination, while Byron had the power of inflaming it. But,
alas! neither his magnetic force nor his haughty spirit could stem the
whirlwind of hatred, rage, and calumny that took possession of the
virtuous and capricious public. The story of cruelty to his wife grew
in its enormity, his reported liaisons multiplied beyond all human
reason. The bleached, white hearts of the oligarchal party had been
lashed into fury by his withering ridicule and charge of hypocrisy,
but the climax came like a tornado when the poet's sense of fair play
caused him to satirise the Prince Regent and eulogise the Emperor
Napoleon with unique pathos and passion.

This was high treason! He had at last put himself beyond the mercy of
the chosen people. They had twaddled and stormed about his immorality,
but his praise of Napoleon sent them into diabolic frenzy. He was
proclaimed an outlaw and hounded out of the country. The beautiful and
rich Lady Jersey, a leader of society, convinced that he was
misunderstood and was being treated with unreasonable severity,
defended him with all the strength of her resolute character, but
malignity had sunk too deep even for her power and influence to avert
the disaster. So intense was the feeling engendered against him that
it became dangerous for him to drive out without risking an exhibition
of virulent hostility. Had he merely abused the Prince Regent, it is
improbable that any exception would have been taken to it; but to
praise and show compassion for the Man of the French Revolution, who
had fought for a new condition of things which threatened the fabric
on which their order held its dominating and despotic sway, was an
enormity they were persuaded even God in heaven could not tolerate;
why then, should _they_ be expected to do so?--they were only human.
Both public and private resentment ran amok, and thus it was that the
immortal poet's belauding of the immortal Emperor became linked to the
ignominy of being accused of gross immorality. The reaction against
this eccentric being was a fanaticism. There was neither sense nor
reason in it, and as he said, "If what they say of me be true, then I
am not fit for England; but if it be false, then England is not fit
for me"; and with this thought thrilling in his mind he left his
native land, never more to see it.

Caught without a doubt by the spirit of the great man whose eulogy had
given such offence in certain quarters, he embarked on the crusade of
emancipating the Greeks, was stricken with fever, and died at
Missolonghi.

Adhering to human tradition, the nation which had so recently cast
him out became afflicted with grief. Men and women cast reflection on
themselves for their misguided judgment of him, and he became a god in
memory again, his wife being a singular exception in the great
demonstration of national penitence. The incomparable poet had sinned
grievously, if rumour may be relied upon, but he was made to suffer
out of all proportion to his sinning. His faults were only different
from other men's. It may be said quite truly that one of his defects
was in having been born a genius, and allowing himself to be idolised
by a public whose opinions and friendships were shifty. Second, he
erred in disregarding and satirising puritanical conventionalisms.
Thirdly, and probably the most provocative of all, was his defiance of
the fiery patriotism of some of the ruling classes in lauding him whom
they stigmatised as the enemy of the human race and lampooning the
precious Prince Regent. His extraordinary talents did not shield him,
any more than they did the hero of fifty pitched battles whose
greatness he had extolled.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] Vol. iii. pp. 451-2.

CHAPTER V

MESDAMES DE STAËL AND DE REMUSAT

It is a strange human frailty that cannot stand for long the purgatory
of seeing the elevation of a great public benefactor. The less
competent the critics, the more merciless they are in their
declamation and intrigue. They hint at faults, and if this is too
ineffective, they invent them. Men in prominent public positions
rarely escape the vituperation of the professional scandalmonger.
These creatures exist everywhere. Their vanity is only equal to their
incompetency in all matters that count. Their capacity consists in
knowing the kind of diversion a certain class of people relish, and
the more exalted their prey is, and the larger the reputation he may
have for living a blameless life, the more persistent their
whisperings, significant nods, and winkings become. They know, and
they could tell, a thing or two which would paralyse belief. They
could show how correct they have been in consistently proclaiming
that so and so was a very much overestimated man, and never ought to
have been put into such a high position; "and besides, I don't want to
say all I know, but his depravity! Well, there, I could, if I would,
open some people's eyes, but I don't want to do anybody any harm," and
so on. These condescending ulcerous-minded defamers congratulate
themselves on their goodness of heart in withholding from the public
gaze their nasty imaginary accusations, which are merely the thoughts
of a conceited and putrid mind.

Many and many a poor man, without knowing it, is the innocent victim
of unfounded accusations, hatched and circulated in that subtle,
insinuating way so familiar to the sexless calumniator. The genuine
female traducer is an awful scourge, especially if she be political.
No male can equal her in refined aggressive cunning. She can circulate
a filthy libel by writing a virtuous letter, and never a flaw will
appear to trip her into responsibility for it. And her sardonic smile
is an inarticulate revelation of all she wishes to convey. It is more
than a mere oration. It emits the impression of a bite.

Madame de Staël showed an aptitude for this ignoble aggressiveness
towards Napoleon after she had exhausted every form of strategy to
allure him into a flirtation with her. She was frequently a sort of
magnificent horse-marine who bounced herself into the presence of
prominent individuals, thrusting her venomed points on those who had
been flattered into listening; at other times she was feline in her
methods. Talleyrand and Fouché made use of this latter phase of her
character to serve their own ends. She had a talent which was used for
mischief, but her vulgarity and egotism were quite deplorable. She
would have risked the torments of Hades if she could but have embarked
upon a liaison with Napoleon. She plied him with letters well seasoned
with passion, but all to no purpose. She came to see him at the Rue
Chantereine, and was sent away. She invited him to balls to which he
never went. But she had opportunities given her which were used in
forcing herself upon his attention. At one of these she held him for
two hours, and imagining she had made a great impression, she asked
him abruptly, "Who was the most superior woman in antiquity, and who
is so at the present day?" Napoleon had had enough of her love-making
chatter, so snapped out in his quick practical way, "She who has borne
the most children." The lady's discomfiture may be imagined. It was a
deadly thrust.

This very same lady, who had tempted the ruler of France without
success, made violent love to Benjamin Constant, who was no friend of
Napoleon's at the time. Her letters to him were passionate, and
Napoleon told Gourgaud at St. Helena that she even threatened to kill
her son if Benjamin would do what she wished him to. This fussy female
intriguer suggested to Napoleon that if he would give her two million
francs she would write anything he wished. She was immediately packed
about her business.

Madame de Staël was not an important personage at all, but she had the
power of attracting people to her who, like herself, had grievances to
be discussed, and we may without doubt conclude that these gatherings
were composed of well-selected intriguers whom she had fixed in her
feline eye. Her great grievance was the First Consul's, and
subsequently the Emperor's, coldness towards her. He estimated her at
her true value. He treated her with the courtesy due to a French
citizen, but nothing more, and when she misbehaved in his presence, he
rebuked her with due consideration for her sex. When she caused people
to talk to him of her, he merely shrugged his shoulders as was his
habit, and smiled disdainfully; though occasionally he could not
resist the temptation of ridiculing her comic pretensions. But this