Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 369, July 1846

On crossing the Line, the triumph of Neptune was celebrated in the usual grotesque style. The Deity of the Sea requested permission to make acquaintance with Napoleon, who received him graciously, and presented him with five hundred Napoleons for himself and the crew, upon which he was rewarded with three cheers, and "Long live the Emperor Napoleon!"

On the 16th of October 1815, the Northumberland cast anchor in the roads at St Helena. The Count remarks that the 17th, the day on which he disembarked, reminded him of a disastrous day. It was the anniversary of the last day of the battle of Leipsig. If distance from all the habitable parts of the globe were to be the merits of Napoleon's prison, nothing could have been more appropriate than the island of St Helena. It was two thousand leagues from Europe, twelve hundred leagues from the Cape, and nine hundred from any continent. A volcanic rock in the centre of the ocean.

In the month of April, the frigate Phaeton anchored in the roads, having the new governor, Sir Hudson Lowe, with his family, on board. Sir Hudson is now where neither praise nor blame can reach him, but the choice was unfortunate in the very point for which probably he had been chosen; – he had been colonel of the Corsican regiment in our service, had served much in the Mediterranean, and had already been (as far as we remember) the object of Napoleon's bitterness in some of his Italian manifestoes. There can be no doubt that the mildest of governors would have been no favourite with the prisoner of Longwood. But in the present instance Napoleon's blood boiled at the idea of being placed under the jurisdiction of the colonel of the Corsican rangers; and he, accordingly, took every opportunity of exhibiting his indignation – a sort of feeling which, in a foreigner, and especially one of southern blood, always amounts to fury.

We pass over a multitude of minor circumstances, though all characteristic, and all invaluable to the historian of the next century; but which would retard the more interesting conversations of the extraordinary captive. On the communication of the convention signed at Paris in August 1815, declaring him the prisoner of the four allied powers, and the announcement of the commissioners under whose charge he was to be placed, Napoleon burst out into a passionate remonstrance, which, however, he addressed only to the people around him. On those occasions he always adopted that abrupt and decisive style which in a Frenchman passes for oracular.

"The expenses of my captivity will certainly exceed ten millions of francs a-year. It has not been the will of fate that my work should finish by effecting the social reorganisation of Europe." He then ran into his old boasting of his probable triumph in his great collision with the British army. "At Waterloo I ought to have been victorious – the chances were a hundred to one in my favour; but Ney, the bravest of the brave, at the head of 42,000 Frenchmen, suffered himself to be delayed a whole day by some thousands of Nassau troops. Had it not been for this inexplicable inactivity, the English army would have been taken flagrante delicto, and annihilated without striking a blow. Grouchy, with 40,000 men, suffered Bulow and Blucher to escape from him; and finally, a heavy fall of rain had made the ground so soft that it was impossible to commence the attack at daybreak. Had I been able to commence early, Wellington's army would have been trodden down in the defiles of the forest before the Prussians could have had time to arrive. It was lost without resource. The defeat of Wellington's army would have been peace, the repose of Europe, the recognition of the interests of the masses and of the democracy."

Napoleon was always fluent on this subject; but the only true matter of surprise is, that so clever a personage should have talked such nonsense. In the first place, he must have known that Ney with his 40,000 men had been soundly beaten by about half that number, and was thus unable to move a step beyond Quatre-Bras. In the next, that Grouchy, instead of suffering the Prussians to escape him, was gallantly fought by their rear-guard, was unable to make any impression whatever on them, and if he had not made his escape in the night, would unquestionably have been crushed to pieces the next day; and thirdly, as to the English armies being saved by the rain, the Duke of Wellington fought the French from eleven in the forenoon till seven in the evening without being driven an inch from the ground. If the French could not beat him in eight hours, they could not beat him in as many days. It was not until seven in the evening that the Prussian guns were heard coming into the field. Even then they were a mile and a half from Wellington's position. The British then charged, swept the French before them, Napoleon himself running away amongst the foremost, leaving 40,000 of his troops on the field or in the hands of the enemy. It would have been much wiser to have said not a syllable upon the battle, or much manlier to have acknowledged that he was more thoroughly beaten than he had ever seen an army beaten before; and that with 72,000 French veterans in the field, he had been routed and ruined by 25,000 British, three-fourths of whom had never fired a shot before in their lives.

We have from time to time some curious acknowledgments of the political treacheries which formed the actual system of Napoleon's government, whether consular or imperial. On dictating a note relative to St Domingo to Count Montholon, he elucidated this policy in the most unequivocal manner. It will be remembered that, on the peace of Amiens, he had sent out a powerful fleet and an army of thirty thousand men to the West Indies. It will also be remembered, that in reply to the remonstrance of the British government, who naturally looked on so formidable an armament with considerable suspicion, the First Consul disclaimed in the most solemn manner all sinister views, pronounced, with every appearance of sincerity, that his sole object was the subjection of a French island then in revolt, and when this object was effected his whole purpose would be accomplished. But in St Helena, where candour cost nothing, he amply acknowledged the treachery. "I had two plans," said he, "for St Domingo. The first was that of acknowledging the power of the blacks, making Toussaint L'Ouverture governor, and, in fact, making St Domingo a West Indian vice-royalty. This plan was my favourite, and why? The French flag would acquire a great development of power in the American waters, and a variety of expeditions might have been undertaken against Jamaica and all the Antilles, and against South America, with an army of thirty thousand blacks trained and disciplined by French officers."

We are to remember that at this time he was at peace with both England and Spain, whose territories he was thus about to dismember; for we cannot believe that the affairs of St Domingo were suffered greatly to occupy his mind. In the busy days from Marengo to the loss of Egypt, and the conclusion of peace, he had intended to have raised an universal negro insurrection in our islands. Upon the colours of his negro army he was to have inscribed "Brave blacks, remember that France alone recognises your liberty" – which would have been, in fact, a manifesto, calling upon all the negroes of the West Indies to revolt without delay. But the negroes of St Domingo, having formed plans of liberty for themselves, dispatched one of their colonels with a demand of independence. The chance, therefore, of invading Jamaica through their means was extinguished at once, and France was punished by the loss of her greatest colony for ever.

In a conversation with Colonel Wilks, the ex-governor, on taking his leave, he told him that India had been constantly an object of his policy – that he had constantly assailed it by negotiations, and would have reached it by arms, had he been able to come to an understanding with the Emperor of Russia on the partition of Turkey. He then talked of his constant wish for peace – a declaration which the colonel probably received with a smile; and next disclosed a transaction, which, on any other authority, would have been incredible, but which amounted to perhaps the boldest and broadest piece of bribery ever attempted with a distinguished minister.

While the French army was still on the right bank of the Elbe, the offer of the Austrian mediation was brought by Prince Metternich, demanding, as a preliminary, the abandonment of the great German fortresses which still remained in French hands.

"I said to Metternich with indignation," are the words of this singular conference – "Is it my father-in-law who entertains such a project? Is it he who sends you to me? How much has England given you, to induce you to play this game against me? Have I not done enough for your fortune? It is of no consequence – be frank– what is it you wish? If twenty millions will not satisfy you, say what you wish?"

He adds, that on this scandalous offer of corruption, Metternich's sudden sullenness and total silence recalled him to a sense of what he had just expressed, and that thenceforth he had found this great minister wholly impracticable. Who can wonder that he did so, or that the offer was regarded as the deepest injury by a man of honour? But Napoleon's conception of the matter, to the last, was evidently not that he had committed an act of bribery, but that he had "mistaken his man." "It was," as Fouché observed, "worse than a crime, it was a blunder."

One of the absurdities of the crowd who collected anecdotes of Napoleon, was a perpetual affectation of surprise that he should not have terminated his imprisonment by his own hand. He was conscious of the imputation, and it seems to have formed the occasional subject of his thoughts. But his powerful understanding soon saw through the sophistry of that species of dramatic heroism, by which a man escapes "with a bare bodkin" all the duties and responsibilities of his being.

"I have always regarded it," said he, "as a maxim, that a man exhibits more real courage by supporting calamities, and resisting misfortunes, than by putting an end to his life. Self-destruction is the act of a gambler who has lost all, or that of a ruined spendthrift, and proves nothing but a want of courage."

The attempts to prove that Napoleon wanted personal intrepidity were at all times childish. His whole career in his Italian campaigns was one of personal exposure, and from the period when he rose into civil eminence, he had other responsibilities than those of the mere general. His life was no longer his own; it was the keystone of the government. Whether as consul or as emperor, his fall would have brought down along with it the whole fabric on which the fate of so many others immediately depended. It is, however, certain, that his courage was not chivalric, that no gallant fit of glory ever tempted him beyond the necessary degree of peril, and that he calculated the gain and loss of personal enterprise with too nice a view as to the balance of honour and advantage. A man of higher mind – an emperor who had not forgot that he was a general, would never have deserted his perishing army in Poland; an emperor who had not forgot that he was a soldier, would never have sent his Imperial guard, shouting, to massacre, and stayed himself behind. But to expect this devotion of courage is to expect a spirit which Napoleon never exhibited; and which is singular among the military exploits of the south. Napoleon might have commanded at Platea, but he would never have died at Thermopylæ.

In days like ours, which begin to familiarize men with the chances of political convulsion, it may be well worth while to listen to the conceptions of one who better knew the nature of the French Revolution than perhaps any among the great actors of the time. Napoleon was sitting by his fireside, in St Helena, on the 3d of September: —

"To-day," said he, "is the anniversary of a hideous remembrance, the St Bartholomew of the French Revolution – a bloody stain, which was the act of the Commune of Paris, a rival power of the Legislature, which built its strength upon the dregs of the passions of the people. * *

We must acknowledge, that there has been no political change without a fit of popular vengeance, as soon as, for any cause whatever, the mass of the people enter into action. * *

General rule: —No social revolution without terror! Every revolution is in principle a revolt, which time and success ennoble and render legal; but of which terror has been one of the inevitable phases. How, indeed, can we understand, that one could say to those who possess fortune and public situations, 'Begone, and leave us your fortunes and your situations,' without first intimidating them, and rendering any defence impossible? The Reign of Terror began, in fact, on the night of the 4th of August, when privileges, nobility, tithes, the remains of the feudal system, and the fortunes of the clergy, were done away with, and all those remains of the old monarchy were thrown to the people. Then only did the people understand the Revolution, because they gained something, and wished to keep it, even at the expense of blood."

This language is memorable. It ought to be a lesson to England. Napoleon here pronounces, that the great stimulant of political revolution is public robbery. Privileges may be the pretence, but the real object is plunder; and the progress of reason may be alleged as the instrument, but the true weapon is terror. In England, we are preparing the way for a total change. The groundwork of a revolution is laid from hour to hour; the Aristocracy, the Church, the landed proprietors, are made objects of popular libel, only preparatory to their being made objects of popular assault. The League has not yet taken upon it the office of the Commune of Paris, nor have the nobles, the clergy, and the bankers, been massacred in the prisons; but when once the popular passions are kindled by the hopes of national plunder, the revolution will have begun, and then farewell to the constitution. The habits of England, we willingly allow, are opposed to public cruelty; and in the worst excesses, the France of 1793 would probably leave us behind. But the principle in every nation is the same – the possessors of property will resist, the plunderers of property will fight; conflicting banners will be raised, and, after desperate struggles, the multitude will be the masters of the land.

There can be nothing more evident, than that some of the leaders in these new movements contemplate the overthrow of the monarchy. There may be mere dupes in their ranks, the spirit of money-making may be the temper of others; but there are darker minds among them which scarcely condescend to conceal their intentions. The presidentship of a British republic would be not without its charms for the demagogue; and the bloody revolution of 1641, might rapidly find its still more sanguinary counterpart in the revolution of the nineteenth century. We have the history in the annals of France, and the commentator is the "child and champion of Jacobinism" – Napoleon.

His impression that revolution always fixed its especial object in plunder, found another authority in one of the peculiar agents of public disturbance. "Barrère," said Napoleon, "affirmed, and truly, Le peuple bat monnaie sur la place Louis XV." ("The people coin money in the square of Louis XV.") – alluding to the guillotine, which enriched the treasury by the death of the nobles, whose wealth became the property of the nation.

He proceeded, with equal decision and truth: "A revolution is always, whatever some may think, one of the greatest misfortunes with which the Divine anger can punish a nation. It is the scourge of the generation which brings it about; and for a long course of years, even a century, it is the misfortune of all, though it may be the advantage of individuals."

Napoleon spent the chief portion of his time in dictating the recollections of his government, and general defences of his conduct. Those dictations were sometimes written down by Montholon, and sometimes by Las Cases. But in November 1816, an order was issued for the arrest of Las Cases, and his dismissal from the island, in consequence of his attempting to send, without the knowledge of the governor, a letter to Prince Lucien, sowed up in the clothes of a mulatto. This arrest made a prodigious noise among the household of Napoleon, and was turned to good advantage in England, as an instance of the cruelty of his treatment. Yet it seems perfectly probable that the whole was a trick of the Ex-emperor himself, and a mere contrivance for the purpose of sending to Europe Las Cases as an agent in his service.

The security of Napoleon's imprisonment was essential to the peace of Europe; and no precaution could be justly regarded as severe, which prevented an outbreak so hazardous to the quiet of the world. Among those precautions, was the strictest prohibition of carrying on any correspondence with Europe, except through the hands of the governor. The whole household were distinctly pledged to the observance of this order, and any infraction of it was to be punished by instant arrest and deportation from the island.

An order had been sent from England to reduce the number of the household by four domestics; and it seems not improbable that Napoleon's craft was suddenly awakened to the prospect of establishing a confidential intercourse with the faction whom he had left behind. But the four domestics were obviously inadequate to this object, and some person of higher condition was necessary. Las Cases some time before had attempted to send a letter to Europe by the mulatto. The fellow had been detected, and was threatened with a flogging if he repeated the experiment; yet it was to this same mulatto that Las Cases committed another letter, which the mulatto immediately carried to the governor, and Las Cases was arrested in consequence. Napoleon was instantly indignant, and vented his rage against the cruelty of the arrest, at the same time expressing his scorn at the clumsiness of Las Cases in delivering his letter to so awkward a messenger. But, whatever might be his pretended wonder at the want of dexterity in the Count, it was exceeded by his indignation at the conduct of the governor. "Longwood," he writes in a long and formal protest against his detention, "is wrapped in a veil which he would fain make impenetrable, in order to hide criminal conduct. This peculiar care to conceal matters gives room to suspect the most odious intentions." This was obviously a hint that the governor's purpose was to put him secretly to death: a hint which neither Napoleon nor any other human being could have believed.

But in alluding to the arrest of the Count, he touches closely on the acknowledgment of the intrigue.

"I looked through the window," he said, "and saw them taking you away. A numerous staff pranced about you. I imagined I saw some South Sea Islanders dancing round the prisoners whom they were about to devour!" After this Italian extravaganza, he returns to his object. "Your services were necessary to me. You alone could read, speak, and understand English. Nevertheless, I request you, and in case of need, command you, to require the governor to send you to the Continent. He cannot refuse, because he has no power over you, except through the voluntary document which you signed. It would be great consolation to me to know that you were on your way to more happy countries."

This letter was carried by Bertrand to the governor for Las Cases, and "the wished-for effect was produced on Sir Hudson Lowe, as soon as he saw the terms in which the Emperor expressed his regret." We are fairly entitled to doubt the sincerity of the wish; for on Sir Hudson's offering to let Las Cases remain at Longwood, a new obstacle instantly arose, – the Count declared that "to remain was utterly impossible;" his honour was touched; he absolutely must go; or, as Count Montholon describes this happy punctilio, – "Unfortunately, Las Cases, influenced by extreme susceptibility of honour, thought himself bound to refuse the governor's offer. He felt himself too deeply outraged by the insult; he explained this to the grand-marshal, and we were obliged to renounce the hope of seeing him again." Then came the finale of this diplomatic farce. "It was in vain that the Emperor sent Bertrand and Gourgaud to persuade him to renounce his determination; he was resolved to leave the island; and on the 29th of December 1816, he quitted St Helena."

We have but little doubt that the whole was a mystification. The gross folly of sending a secret dispatch by the same man of colour who had been detected by the governor, and threatened with punishment for the attempt to convey a letter; the bustle made on the subject at Longwood; the refusal of Las Cases to comply with Napoleon's request to remain, which, if it had been sincere, would have been equivalent to a command; and the conduct of Las Cases immediately on his arrival Europe, his publications and activity, amply show the object of his return. But a simple arrangement on the governor's part disconcerted the whole contrivance. Instead of transmitting Las Cases to Europe, Sir Hudson Lowe sent him to the Cape; where he was further detained, until permission was sent from England for his voyage to Europe. On his arrival, Napoleon's days were already numbered, and all dexterity was in vain. We have adverted to this transaction chiefly for the credit which it reflects on the governor. It shows his vigilance to have been constantly necessary; it also shows him to have been willing to regard Napoleon's convenience when it was possible; and it further shows that he was not destitute of the sagacity which was so fully required in dealing with the coterie at Longwood.

Napoleon's habits of dictating his memoirs must have been formidable toil to his secretaries. He sometimes dictated for twelve or fourteen hours, with scarcely an intermission. He spoke rapidly, and it was necessary to follow him as rapidly as he spoke, and never to make him repeat the last word. His first dictation was a mere revival of his recollections, without any order. The copy of his first dictation served as notes to the second, and the copy of this second became the subject of his personal revision; but he, unfortunately for his transcribers, made his corrections almost always in pencil, as he thus avoided staining his fingers – no woman being more careful in preserving the delicacy of her hands.

Those dictations must be regarded as the studied defences of Napoleon against the heavy charges laid against his government.

We have now given a general glance at the career of the French Emperor, as exhibited to us in these Recollections. He strikingly showed, in all the details of his government, the characteristics of his own nature. Impetuous, daring, and contemptuous of the feelings of mankind, from the first hour of his public life, his government was, like himself, the model of fierceness, violence, and disregard of human laws. Whatever was to him an object of ambition, was instantly in his grasp; whatever he seized was made the instrument of a fresh seizure; and whatever he possessed he mastered in the fullest spirit of tyranny. He was to be supreme; the world was to be composed of his soldiery, his serfs, courtiers, and tools. The earth was to be only an incalculable population of French slaves. There was to be but one man free upon the globe, and that man Napoleon.

We find, in this romance of power, the romance of his education. It has been often said, that he was Oriental in all his habits. His plan of supremacy bore all the stamp of Orientalism – the solitary pomp, the inflexible will, the unshared power, and the inexorable revenge. The throne of the empire was as isolated as the seraglio. It was surrounded by all the strength of terror and craft, more formidable than battlements and bastions. Its interior was as mysterious as its exterior was magnificent; no man was suffered to approach it but as soldier or slave; its will was heard only by the roaring of cannon; the overthrow of a minister, the proclamation of a war, or the announcement of a dynasty crushed and a kingdom overrun, were the only notices to Europe of the doings within that central place of power.

But, with all the genius of Napoleon, he overlooked the true principles of supremacy. All power must be pyramidal to be secure. The base must not only be broad, but the gradations of the pile must be regular to the summit. With Napoleon the pyramid was inverted – it touched the earth but in one point; and the very magnitude of the mass resting upon his single fortune, exposed it to overthrow at the first change of circumstances.

Still, he was an extraordinary being. No man of Europe has played so memorable a part on the great theatre of national events for the last thousand years. The French Revolution had been the palpable work of Providence, for the punishment of a long career of kingly guilt, consummated by an unparalleled act of perfidy, the partition of Poland. The passions of men had been made the means of punishing the vices of government. When the cup was full, Napoleon was sent to force it upon the startled lips of Prussia, Austria, and Russia. The three conspirators were crushed in bloody encounters – the capitals of the three were captured – the provinces of the three were plundered – and the military pride of the three was humiliated by contemptuous and bitter conditions of peace.

But, when the destined work was done, the means were required no more. When the victims were broken on the wheel, the wheel and the executioner were alike hurried from the sight of man. The empire of France was extinguished by the same sovereign law which had permitted its existence. The man who had guided the empire in its track of devastation – the soul of all its strength, of its ambition, and its evil – was swept away. And as if for the final moral of human arrogance, France was subjected to a deeper humiliation than had been known in the annals of national reverses since the fall of Rome; and the ruler of France was plunged into a depth of defeat, a bitterness of degradation, an irreparable ruin, of which the civilized world possesses no example. His army destroyed in Russia by the hand of Him who rules the storm – the last forces of his empire massacred in Belgium – his crown struck off by the British sword – his liberty fettered by British chains – the remnant of his years worn away in a British dungeon, and his whole dynasty flung along with him into the political tomb, were only the incidents of the great judicial process of our age. The world has been suffered to return to peace; while the sepulchre of this man of boundless but brief grandeur has been suffered to stand in the midst of that nation which most requires the great lesson – that ambition always pays for its splendour by its calamities; that the strength of a nation is in the justice of its councils; and that he "who uses the sword shall perish by the sword!"