his charge, if policy did not permit him to be restored to liberty; and how great would be your majesty's own happiness. It would be said, the Sovereigns of Europe, after having vanquished the great Napoleon, abandoned him to his most cruel enemies; they conducted him towards his grave by the most prolonged and barbarous torments; the continuation of his agony urged him even to demand more active executioners; he seemed forgotten, and without hope of aid; but Marie Louise remained to him, and he was restored to life."

Whether this letter ever reached its address is not clear; but if it did, it produced no discoverable effect.

But the absence of those confidants increased the troubles of the unlucky Montholon in a formidable degree, and Napoleon's habit of dictating his thoughts and recollections, (which he frequently continued for hours together, and sometimes into the middle of the night,) pressed heavily on the count and Bertrand; the latter being excluded after six in the evening, when the sentinels were posted for the night, as he resided with his family, and thus devolving the task of the night on Montholon. Those dictations were sometimes on high questions of state, and on theories of war; sometimes on matters of the day, as in the following instance.

palace was about to be built for the king of Rome at Passey, it was necessary to purchase some buildings which already stood on the ground. One of these was a hut belonging to a cooper, which the architects valued at a thousand francs. But the cooper, resolving to make the most of his tenure, now demanded ten times the sum. Napoleon ordered the money to be given to him; but when the contract was brought to him to sign, the fellow said, that "as an emperor disturbed him," he ought to pay for turning him out, and must give him thirty thousand francs. "The good man is a little exacting," said Napoleon, "still there is some sense in his argument. Give him the thirty thousand, and let me hear no more about it." But the cooper, thinking that he had a fine opportunity, now said that he could not take less than forty thousand. The architect did not know what to say; he dared not again mention the matter to the emperor, and yet it was absolutely necessary to have the house. Napoleon learned what was passing, and was angry, but allowed the offer of the forty thousand. Again the dealer retracted, and demanded fifty thousand. "He is a despicable creature," said the emperor. "I will have none of his paltry hut: it shall remain where it is, as a testimony of my respect for the law."

extortion, for he had thus, deservedly, lost the opportunity of making his fortune.

The death of the Princess Charlotte, which The works were still going on at the time of the threw the mind of England into such distress, had exile, in 1814; and the cooper, finding himself in just been made known at St. Helena. Napoleon the midst of rubbish and building materials, groaned spoke of it as reminding him of the perilous child-over the consequences of his folly, or rather of his birth of Marie Louise. "Had it not been for me," said he," she would have lost her life, like this poor Princess Charlotte. What a misfortune! The death of Cipriani, the maître d'hôtel, occurred young and beautiful, destined to the throne of a about this time, and was startling from its suddengreat nation, and to die for want of proper care on ness. He was serving Napoleon's dinner, when he the part of her nearest relations! Where was was attacked by such violent pains, that he was her husband? where was her mother? why were unable to reach his chamber without assistance. they not beside her, as I was beside Marie Lou- He rolled on the ground, uttering piercing cries. ise? She, too, would have died, had I left her Four-and-twenty hours afterwards his coffin was to the care of the professional people. She owes carried to the cemetery of Plantation House! Cipher life to my being with her during the whole time riani had been employed in the secret police, and of danger; for I shall never forget the moment had distinguished himself by some difficult missions when the accoucheur Dubois came to me pale with in the affairs of Naples and Northern Italy. It fright, and hardly able to articulate, and informed was only after the banishment to Elba that he had me that a choice must be made between the life of formed a part of the household. It was to Cipriani the mother and that of the child. The peril was that the taking of Capri was owing. In 1806, Sir imminent; there was not a moment to be lost in Hudson Lowe commanded at Capri, as lieutenantdecision. Save the mother,' said I—it is her colonel of a legion, composed of Corsican and Nearight. Proceed just as you would do in the case politan deserters. The position of Capri in the of a citizen's wife of the Rue St. Denis.' It is a Bay of Naples was of some importance for carrying remarkable fact, that this answer produced an elec-on communications with those hostile to the French tric effect on Dubois. He recovered his sang froid, and calmly explained to me the causes of the danger. In a quarter of an hour afterwards, the king of Rome was born; but at first the infant was believed to be dead, he had suffered so much on coming into the world, and it was with much difficulty that the physicians recalled him to life."

It will probably be recollected as a similar instance of the advantage of care and decision, that Queen Caroline was rescued from the same hazard. Her accouchment was preceded by great suffering, and her strength seemed totally exhausted. The attendants were in a state of extreme alarm, when Lord Thurlow said, in his usual rough way, "Don't think of princesses here: treat her like the washerwoman, and give her a glass of brandy." The advice was followed, and the princess speedily recovered.

Connected with the history of this short-lived son, is an anecdote, which Napoleon related as an instance of his own love of justice. When the

interests in Italy. Salicetti, prime minister of Naples, was vainly pondering on the capture of Capri ; when it occurred to him to employ Cipriani, to put it into his power by surprise or treachery. Among the Corsicans under Sir H. Lowe's command, was one Suzanelli, a profligate, who had reduced himself by his debaucheries to acting as a spy. Cipriani soon ascertained that they had been fellow-students at college.

The whole story is curious, as an instance of the dexterity of Italian treachery, and of the difficulty which an honest man must always find in dealing with that people. Cipriani instantly found out Suzanelli, who was then in Naples, and said, "I know all, but we are fellow-countrymen-we have eaten the same soup: I do not desire to make you lose your head: choose between the scaffold and making your fortune from your own country. You are the spy of the English: help me to expel them from Capri, and your fortune is made. Refuse, and you are my prisoner, and will be shot within twenty

return, the Emperor Alexander would have been on his way to Russia. But the result of his precipitancy was, that by rushing into France, while the emperors and diplomatists were still in combination, they were enabled to level the blow at him imme diately. Instead of negotiations, he was pursued with a hue and cry; and instead of being treated as a prince, he was proclaimed an outlaw. Cipriani arrived in Elba on the 27th of February, but Napoleon had sailed on the evening of the 26th. So delicate was the interval between total ruin and what might have been final security; for Cipriani brought news of the congress, and despatches from Vienna, which would have proved the importance of delaying the departure of the expedition.

four hours." "I take your offer," was the answer. I waiting for the return of Cipriani, whom he had "What do you want with me?" Cipriani proposed sent on a special mission. Had he waited for that to give him double what he received from the English, on condition of handing over all the letters which he received for Naples, and delivering the answers as if he had received them from the writers. Suzanelli thenceforth communicated all news relative to the movements of old Queen Caroline, and the British in the Mediterranean. Sir Hudson Lowe's confidence in Suzanelli was so much increased by the apparently important communications which the Neapolitan police had purposely made to him, that he rewarded him profusely, and at length accepted his offer of furnishing recruits to the Corsican legion at Capri. When the garrison was corrupted through the medium of those recruits, and an expedition was prepared at Naples, Suzanelli, in order to hoodwink the governor of Capri, whose vigilance might be awakened by the preparations, sent him a detailed report of the strength and object of the expedition, but telling him that it was meant to attack the Isle of Ponza. The expedition, under General La Marque, sailed at night, and the French effected their landing by surprise. The royal Maltese regiment contained a great number of Suzanelli's recruits. They laid down their arms, and surrendered the forts in their charge. The commandant succeeded with difficulty in shutting himself up in the citadel with the royal Corsican regiment. It was inaccessible by assault, but the French dragged some heavy guns to a commanding height, and after a cannonade the garrison capitulated. This story is not exactly true; for the capitula-him a year for the march to Moscow. But he was tion was not the result of the cannonade; but water and provisions had totally failed. The attempt made by an English frigate to succor the island had been frustrated by a violent gale, and there was no resource but to give up the island. Yet, if our memory is exact, there was no capitulation; for the garrison escaped without laying down their arms.

But it must now be acknowledged that, if there ever was a human being under the influence of infatuation, that being was Napoleon, in the latter stages of his career. For ten years the favorite of fortune, the long arrear had begun to be paid in the year 1812. His expedition to Moscow was less a blunder than a frenzy. There was, perhaps, not one man in a thousand in Europe but foresaw the almost inevitable ruin of his army. We can recol lect the rejoicing with which this perilous advance was viewed in England, and the universal prediction that the Russian deserts would be the grave of his army, if not of his empire. Poland had been conquered in a march and a month. The residence of Napoleon at Warsaw for the winter would have raised a Polish army for him, and would have given

infatuated: there is no other solution of the prob lem. He rushed on, captured the capital, and was ruined. Even with Moscow in ashes round him, he still persisted in the folly of supposing that he could persuade into peace an empire which had just given so tremendous an evidence of its fidelity and its fortitude. He was infatuated. He was detained amid the embers until it was impossible to remain longer, and equally impossible to escape the horrors of a Russian winter in a march of six hundred miles. His hour was come. Of an army which numbered four hundred thousand men on crossing the Niemen, probably not one thousand ever returned; for the broken troops which actually came back had been reinforcements which reached the grand army from time to time. He reached Paris with the stamp of fallen sovereignty on his brow: the remainder of his career was a struggle against his sentence. Waterloo was merely the scaffold he was under irretrievable condemnation long before.

It is proverbial, that great events frequently depend upon very little causes. All the world now blames the precipitancy of Napoleon in leaving Elba while the congress was assembled. If he had waited until it was dissolved, he would have gained all the time which must have been lost by the allies in reuniting their councils. The princes and diplomatists would have been scattered; the armies would have marched homewards; months would probably have elapsed before they could again have been brought into the field; and during that period, there would have been full opportunity for all the arts of intrigue and insinuation, which Napoleon so well knew how to use. Or, if he had delayed his In his captivity, Napoleon was liberal in his donareturn for a twelvemonth longer, he would have tives. On the departure of Balcombe, in whose house only found the obstacles so much the more dimin- he had remained for some time on his arrival in the ished. In short, to him the gain of time was every-island, he gave him a bill for seventy-two thousand thing.

His own narrative on the subject now was, that he had been misled; that he was fully sensible of the advantages of delay, but that accident had betrayed him. He had established a secret correspondence with Vienna, through which he received weekly accounts of all that had passed in congress, and was prepared to act accordingly. One of his agents, De Chaboulon, arrived at Elba, at the same period with the Chevalier D'Istria, (whom the King of Naples had sent with the despatch received from his ambassador at Vienna,) announcing the closing of the congress, and the departure of the Emperor Alexander. On this intelligence Napoleon determined immediately to set sail for France, without LIVING AGE. VOL. XIV. 39

OLXXVI.

francs, with the grant of a pension of twelve thousand-saying to him, "I hear that your resignation of your employment is caused by the quarrels drawn upon you through the hospitality which you showed me: I should not wish you to regret ever having known me."

A quarrel relative to the bulletins of Napoleon's health, produced an order from the governor for the arrest of O'Meara. There was a vast quantity of peevishness exercised on the subject, and Napoleon attempted to raise this trifling affair into a general quarrel of the commissioners. But on his declar ing that he would no longer receive the visits of O'Meara while under arrest, the governor revoked the order, and O'Meara continued his attendance

until instructions were received from Lord Bathurst, This statement is true, and yet the mask is easi-
to remove him from his situation in the household ly taken off the revolution. The whole question is,
of the emperor, and send him to England. This whether the means by which it was purchased
gave another opportunity for complaint. "I have were not wholly unnecessary. It cost seven years
lived too long," said Bonaparte; "your ministers of the most cruel and comprehensive wickedness
are very bold. When the pope was my prisoner, that the world ever saw; and, when at last its vio-
I would have cut off my arm rather than have signed
an order for laying hands on his physician."

Before leaving the island, O'Meara drew up a statement of his patient's health, in which he seems to have regarded the liver as the chief seat of his disease. A copy of this paper reached home, when Cardinal Fesch and the mother of Napoleon had it examined by her own physician and four medical professors of the university. They also pronounced the disease to consist of an obstruction of the liver. So much for the certainty of medicine. The whole report is now known to have been a blunder. Napoleon ultimately died of a fearful disease, which probably has no connection with the liver at all. His disease was cancer in the stomach.

The result of those quarrels, however, was to give a less circumscribed promenade to Napoleon. On the decline of his health being distinctly stated to Sir Hudson Lowe, he enlarged the circle of his exercise, and Napoleon resumed his walks and works. From this period, too, he resumed those dictations which, in the form of notes, contained his personal opinions, or rather those apologies for his acts, which he now became peculiarly anxious to leave behind him to posterity.

lence overflowed the frontiers, it cost nearly a
quarter of a century of slaughter, of ruthless plun-
der and savage devastation, concluding with the
capture of the French capital itself, twice within
two years, and the restoration of the royal family
by the bayonets of the conquerors.

Yet every beneficial change which was produced
by the revolution, at this enormous waste of na-
tional strength and human happiness, had been
offered by the French throne before a drop of blood
was shed; and was disdained by the leaders of
the populace, in their palpable preference for the
havoc of their species.

In the beginning of November, 1818, Sir Hud-
son Lowe communicated to Count Montholon a
despatch from Lord Bathurst announcing the de-
parture from Italy of two priests, a physician, a
maître d'hôtel and cook, sent by Cardinal Fesch, for
the service of Longwood. This news was received
by the household with joy, in consequence of Na-
poleon's declining health. Towards the end of
November he became worse; and Dr. Stock, the
surgeon of one of the ships on the station, was sent
for, and attended him for awhile. Liver complaint
was Napoleon's disease in the opinion of the doc-
tor; the true disease having escaped them all.
The paroxysm passed off, and for six weeks his
constitution seemed to be getting the better of his
disease.

The complaints of the governor's conduct appear
to have been kept up with the same restless assi-
duity. If we are to judge from a conversation
with Montholon, those complaints were of the most
vexatious order. "It is very hard," said Sir Hud-
son, "that I who take so much care to avoid doing
what is disagreeable, should be constantly made
the victim of calumnies; that I should be presented
as an object of ridicule to the eyes of the European
powers; that the commissioners of the great powers
should say to me themselves, that Count Bertrand
had declared to them that I was a fool; that I
could not be sure that the emperor was at Long-
wood; that I had been forty days without seeing
him; and that he might be dead without my know-
ing anything of it." He further said that the news-
papers, and particularly the Edinburgh Review,
were full of articles which represented him as an
assassin. But in the mean time, it was necessary
that the orderly officer should see Napoleon every
day, and that this might be done in any way he
pleased. All that was
necessary was, that he
should be seen.

Whatever may be the historic value of those notes, it is impossible to read them without the interest belonging to transactions which shock Europe, and without remembering that they were the language of a man by far the most remarkable of his time, if not the most remarkable for the result of his acts, since the fall of the Roman empire. In speaking of the return from Elba-"I took," said he," that resolution as soon as it was proved to me that the Bourbons considered themselves as the continuance of the Third Dynasty, and denied the legal existence of the republic and the empire, which were thenceforth to be regarded only as usurping governments. The consequences of this system were flagrant. It became the business of the bishops to reclaim their sees; the property of the clergy, and the emigrants must be restored. All the services rendered in the army of Condé and in La Vendée, all the acts of treachery committed in opening the gates of France to the armies which brought back the king, merited reward. All those rendered under the standard of the republic and the empire were acts of felony." He then gave his special view of the overthrow of the French monarchy. "The revolution of 1789 was a general attack of the masses upon the privileged classes. The nobles had occupied, either directly or indirectly, all the posts of justice, high and low. They were Yet this demand of seeing him, which was thus exempt from the charges of the state, and yet en- expressed in moderate terms, and obviously essenjoyed all the advantages accruing from them, by tial to his safe keeping, was answered in the lofty the exclusive possession of all honorable and lucra- style of a melodrama. "Count Bertrand and mytive employments. The principal aim of the revo- self have both informed you, sir, that you should lution was to abolish those privileges.' He then never violate the emperor's privacy without forcing declared the advantages of the revolution. "It his doors, and shedding blood." had established the right of every citizen, according A great deal of the pretended irritation of Nato his merit, to attain to every employment; it had poleon and his household, arose from the govern broken down the arbitrary divisions of the provinces, or's omission of the word emperor in his notes; and out of many little nations formed a great one. and on this subject a cavil had existed even in EngIt made the civil and criminal laws the same every-land. Yet what could be more childish than such where the regulations and taxes the same every- a cavil, either in England or in St. Helena? It is where. The half of the country changed its a well-known diplomatic rule, that no title which a new power may give to itself can be acknowledged,

proprietors."

except as a matter of distinct negotiation; and those | leagues from my frontiers. Poland and its resources Frenchmen must have known that the governor were but poetry, in the first months of the year had no right to acknowledge a title, which had 1812." He then adroitly flatters the Russian nanever been acknowledged by the British cabinet.

At length the quarrel rose to bullying. The governor having insisted on his point, that Napoleon should be seen by the orderly officer; this was fiercely refused; and at length Bertrand made use of offensive language, filling up the offence by a challenge to the governor. The most surprising matter in the whole business is, that Sir Hudson did not instantly send the blusterer to the blackhole. It was obvious that the idea of fighting with men under his charge was preposterous. But he still, and we think injudiciously, as a matter of the code of honor, wrote, that if Count Bertrand had not patience to wait another opportunity, as he could not fight his prisoner, he might satisfy his rage by fighting Lieutenant-Colonel Lyster, the bearer of his reply, who was perfectly ready to draw his sword. Of this opportunity, however, the count had the wisdom to avoid taking advantage. The whole question now turned on the admission of the orderly officer, to have personal evidence that Napoleon was still in the island-a matter of obvious necessity, for Europe at that time teemed with the projects of revolutionary Frenchmen for setting him free. His escape would have ruined the governor; but even if it had been a matter of personal indifference to him, his sense of the public evils which might be produced by the return of this most dangerous of all incendiaries would doubtless have made his detention one of the first duties.

tion. "I was not so mad as to think that I could
conquer Russia without immense efforts. I knew
the bravery of the Russian army. The war of 1807
had proved it to me." He then hints at the sub-
ject of his conversations at Erfurth, and discloses
some of those curious projects, by which France
and Russia were to divide the world.
He says
that Alexander offered to exchange his Polish prov-
inces for Constantinople. Under this arrangement
Syria and Egypt would have supplied to France the
loss of her colonies. He then admits that he had
desired to marry the grand-duchess; and, finally
asserting that the dynasty of the Bourbons was
forced upon the people, he declares himself willing
to accept of Russian intervention to save himself
from the "martyrdom of that rock."

It is evident that the conduct of the governor was constantly guided by a wish to consult the convenience of his prisoner; but the most important point of all was to guard against his escape. Gradually the relaxations as to the limits of his movements became more satisfactory even to the household themselves; and for some time in the latter period of 1819 Napoleon was suffered to ride to considerable distances in the island, without the attendance of an English officer. He now took long ridesamong others, one to the house of Sir William Doveton, on the other side of the island. In the evenings he dictated narratives relative to some of the more prominent points of his history, for the purpose of their being sent to Europe, where he was determined, at least, never to let the interest of his name die, and where, though he was practically forgotten, this clever but utterly selfish individual deceived himself into the belief that thousands and tens of thousands were ready to sacrifice everything for his restoration. On one of these evenings he gave his own version of the revolt of Marshal Ney.

It will be remembered that Ney, when the command of the troops was given to him by Louis XVIII. made a dashing speech to the king, declaring that " he would bring back the monster in an iron cage." But it happened that he had no sooner seen the monster, than he walked over to him with his whole army. This was an offence not to be forgiven; and the result was, that on the restoration of the king, Ney was tried by a court-martial, and shot.

However, finding at last that the state of Napoleon's health might afford a sufficient guarantee against immediate escape, and evidently with the purpose of softening the irritation between them as much as possible, it was finally, though " temporarily," agreed to take Montholon's word for his being at Longwood. On the 21st of September, the priests and Dr. Antomarchi arrived. Napoleon, always active and inventive, now attempted to interest the Emperor of Russia in his liberation. It must be owned, that this was rather a bold attempt for the man who had invaded Russia, ravaged its provinces, massacred its troops, and finished by leaving Moscow in flames. But he dexterously limited himself to explaining the seizure of the Duchy of Oldenburg, which was the commencement of the rapacious and absurd attempt to exclude English merchandise from the continent. Oldenburg was one of the chief entrances by which those manufactures made their way into Germany. Its invasion, and the countless robberies which followed, had been among the first insolences of Napoleon, and the cause of the first irritations of Alexander, as his sister was married to the reigning prince. Napoleon lays the entire blame on Davoust, "Marshal Ney," said he, "was perfectly loyal, whom he charges with both the conception and the when he received his last orders from the king. But execution. But if he had disapproved of the act his fiery soul could not fail to be deeply impressed why had he not annulled it? "I was on the point by the intoxicating enthusiasm of the population of of doing so," said Napoleon," when I received a the provinces, which was daily depriving him of menacing notice from Russia; but," said he," from some of his best troops, for the national colors were the moment when the honor of France was impli- hoisted on all sides." Notwithstanding this, Ney, cated, I could no longer disapprove of the mar- when the emperor was ready at Lyons, resisted his shal's proceedings." He glides over the invasion recollections, until he received the following letter of Russia with the same unhesitating facility. "I from the emperor. "Then he yielded, and again made war," said he, "against Russia, in spite of placed himself under the banner of the empire." myself. I knew better than the libellers who re- The letter was the following pithy performance: proached me with it, that Spain was a devouring" "Cousin, my major-general sends you the order cancer which I ought to cure before engaging my- of march. I do not doubt that the moment you self in a terrible struggle, the first blow of which heard of my arrival at Lyons, you again raised the would be struck at a distance of five hundred tricolored standard among your troops. Execute

66

Of course, there could be but one opinion of this unfortunate officer's conduct; but it is curious to observe the romantic color which Napoleon's dexterous fancy contrived to throw over the whole scene.

the orders of Bertrand, and come and join me at | Napoleon now paid his debt, as it may be preChalons. I will receive you as I did the morning sumed, magnificently; made him accept three hunafter the battle of Moscow." It must be acknowl-dred thousand francs as a reimbursement from the edged that the man who could have been seduced emperor for the thirty thousand lent to the subaltern by this letter must have been a simpleton: it has of artillery; and, besides, made him director-general all the arrogance of a master, and even if he had of the gardens of the crown, with a salary of thirty been perfectly free, it was evident that obedience thousand francs. He also gave a government place would have made him a slave. But he had given to his brother. a solemn pledge to the king; he had been given the command of the army on the strength of that pledge; and in carrying it over to the enemy of the king, he compromised the honor and hazarded the life of every man among them. The act was un-emigrated, and was the engineer employed by Sir pardonable, and he soon found it to be fatally so.