The Life, Exile and Conversations with Napoleon. Emmanuel-Auguste-Dieudonné Las Cases

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СКАЧАТЬ introduced himself, without farther ceremony, into the Emperor’s room, where I was engaged with him. He had come, however, with good intentions. He was the captain of one of the small vessels which had formed our squadron. He was now about to return to Europe, and came to enquire whether the Emperor had any commands. Napoleon immediately recurred to the subject of our conversation on the preceding evening, and, becoming animated by degrees, gave utterance to sentiments of the loftiest and most energetic character, which he charged him to communicate to the British Government. I interpreted what he said in the same spirit and with great rapidity. The officer seemed astonished at what he heard, and left us with a promise punctually to fulfil his commission. But he could not have described the expression, and particularly the tone, of which I was a witness.—The Emperor, however, directed me to make a memorandum of what he had said, which the officer must have found very feebly expressed compared with what he had just heard. The note was as follows:

      Memorandum.—“The Emperor desires, by the return of the next vessel, to receive some account of his wife and son, and to be informed whether the latter is still living. He takes this opportunity of repeating and conveying to the British Government the protestations which he has already made against the extraordinary measures adopted towards him.

      “1st. That Government has declared him a prisoner of war. The Emperor is not a prisoner of war. His letter to the Prince Regent, which he wrote and communicated to Captain Maitland, before he went on board the Bellerophon, sufficiently proves, to the whole world, the resolutions and the sentiments of confidence which induced him freely to place himself under the English flag.

      “The Emperor might, had he pleased, have agreed to quit France only on stipulated conditions with regard to himself; but he disdained to mingle personal considerations with the great interests with which his mind was constantly occupied. He might have placed himself at the disposal of the Emperor Alexander, who had been his friend, or of the Emperor Francis, who was his father-in-law. But, confiding in the justice of the English nation, he desired no other protection than its laws afforded; and, renouncing public affairs, he sought no other country than that which was governed by fixed laws, independent of private will.

      “2nd. Had the Emperor really been a prisoner of war, the rights which civilized governments possess over such a prisoner are limited by the law of nations, and terminate with the war itself.

      “3rd. If the English Government considered the Emperor, though arbitrarily, as a prisoner of war, the right of that government was then limited by public law, or else, as there existed no cartel between the two nations during the war, it might have adopted towards him the principles of savages, who put their prisoners to death. This proceeding would have been more humane, and more conformable to justice, than that of sending him to this horrible rock; death inflicted on board the Bellerophon, in the Plymouth roads, would have been a blessing compared with the treatment to which he is now subjected.

      “We have travelled over the most desolate countries of Europe, but none is to be compared to this barren rock. Deprived of every thing that can render life supportable, it is calculated only to renew perpetually the anguish of death. The first principles of Christian morality, and that great duty imposed on man to pursue his fate, whatever it may be, may withhold him from terminating with his own hand a wretched existence; the Emperor glories in being superior to such a feeling. But if the British Ministry should persist in their course of injustice and violence towards him, he would consider it a happiness if they would put him to death.”

      The vessel which sailed for Europe, with this document, was the Redpole, Captain Desmond.

      The reader must pardon the insipid monotony of our complaints: they will be found to be always the same, no doubt; but let it be remembered how much more pain must have been felt in repeating them than can possibly be experienced in their perusal.

      MODE OF LIVING AT BRIARS.—CABINET WHICH THE EMPEROR HAD WITH HIM AT AUSTERLITZ.—THE EMPEROR’S LARGE CABINET.—ITS CONTENTS.—ARTICLES OF VIRTÙ, LIBELS AGAINST NAPOLEON, &C., LEFT AT THE TUILERIES BY THE KING.

      25th—27th. The Emperor dressed very early; he took a short walk out of doors; we breakfasted about ten o’clock; he walked again, and then we proceeded to business. I read to him what he had dictated on the preceding evening, and which my son had copied in the morning; he corrected it, and then continued his dictation. We went out again about five o’clock, and returned at six, the hour appointed for dinner, that is to say, if the dinner should be brought from the town by that time. The days were very long, and the evenings still longer. Unfortunately I did not understand chess; at one time I had an idea of studying it by night, but where could I find a teacher? I pretended to a little knowledge of piquet, but the Emperor soon discovered my ignorance: he gave me credit for my good intentions, yet he gave up playing. Want of occupation would sometimes lead him to the neighbouring house, where the young ladies made him play at whist. But his more usual practice was to remain at table after dinner, and to converse sitting in his chair; for the room was too small to admit of his walking about.

      One evening he ordered a little travelling cabinet to be brought to him, and, after minutely examining every part of it, he presented it to me, saying, “I have had it in my possession a long time, I made use of it on the morning of the battle of Austerlitz. It must go to young Emanuel,” said he, turning to my son; “when he is thirty or forty years old, we shall be no more. This will but enhance the value of the gift; he will say when he shews it, the Emperor Napoleon gave this to my father at St. Helena.” I received the precious gift with a kind of reverential feeling, and I preserve it as a valuable relic.

      Passing from that to the examining of a large cabinet, he looked over some portraits of his own family, and some presents which he had personally received. These consisted of the portraits of Madame, of the Queen of Naples, of the daughters of Joseph, of his brothers, of the King of Rome, &c.; an Augustus and a Livia, both exceedingly rare; a Continence of Scipio and another antique of immense value given to him by the Pope; a Peter the Great, on a box; another box with a Charles V.; another with a Turenne; and some, which were in daily use, covered with a collection of medallions of Cæsar, Alexander, Sylla, Mithridates, &c. Next came some snuff-boxes, ornamented with his own portrait set in diamonds. He then looked for one without diamonds, and not finding it, he called his valet-de-chambre to enquire about it: unfortunately this portrait still remained in the town along with the greater part of his effects; I felt mortified at receiving this intelligence, I could not help thinking that I had been a loser by this mischance.

      The Emperor then examined several snuff-boxes which Louis XVIII. had left on his table at the Tuileries at the time of his precipitate departure. On one of these were represented, on a black ground, the portraits of Louis XVI., of the Queen, and of Madame Elizabeth, executed in paste in imitation of ivory, and fantastically arranged. They formed three crescents placed back to back in the shape of an equilateral triangle, and groups of cherubs closely interwoven composed the external border. Another box presented a water-colour sketch of a hunt, which had no other claim to merit than the circumstance of its being attributed to the pencil of the Duchess of Angoulême. A third was surmounted with a portrait, which appeared to be that of the Countess of Provence. These three boxes were of simple and even ordinary execution; and could possess no other value than that which their history attaches to them.

      On the Emperor’s arrival in Paris on the evening of the 20th of March, he found the King’s study precisely in the state in which it had been used; all his papers still remained on the tables. By the Emperor’s desire, these tables were pushed into the corners of the apartment, and others brought. He gave orders that nothing should be touched, intending to examine the papers at his leisure: and as the Emperor himself quitted France without returning to the Tuileries, the King must have found his study and his papers nearly as he had left them.

      The Emperor took a hasty glance at some of the papers. He found among them several letters from the King to M. d’Avary at Madeira, where the latter died; СКАЧАТЬ