Napoleon, the last phase;

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Literature i

II. Las Cases, Antommarchi, and Others .... 9

Chapter I The Literature

Will there ever be an adequate life of Napoleon? Hitherto it has been scarcely worth while to ask the question, as we have been too near the prejudices and passions of his time for any such book to be written. Nor are we as yet very remote, for it may be noted that our present sovereign was all but two years old when Napoleon died, and that there are still probably in existence people who have seen him. Moreover, the Second Empire revived and reproduced these feelings in almost their original force, and the reaction from the Second Empire prolonged them. So we are still, perhaps, not sufficiently outside Napoleon's historical sphere of influence for such a book to be written.

Nor until recently did we possess anything like adequate materials. The pages and pages that follow Napoleon's name in library catalogues mainly represent compilations, or pamphlets, or lives conscientiously constructed out of dubious or inadequate materials, meagre bricks of scrannel straw. But now, under a government in France which opens its records freely, and with the gradual publication i of [)rivate memoirs, more or less authentic, we are ) beginning perhaps to see a possible limit to possible ' disclosure. The publication of the suppressed correspondence removes a reproach from the official j publication, and fills its blanks. And the mania j for Napoleonic literature which has prevailed for j some years past, unaccompanied, strangely enough, ! by any sign of the revival of Bonapartism as a po- ; litical force, has had the effect of producing a great supply to meet a greedy demand — a supply, indeed, \ by no means always unquestionable or unmixed, i but at any rate out of the harvest of its abundance i furnishing some grains of genuine fact. '

The material, then, varied and massive as it is, \ seems to be ready for the hand of the destined work- : man, when he shall appear. And even he would seem not to be remote. In the great narrative of the relations of Napoleon and Alexander of Russia we wish to see his shadow projected. Is it too much ] to hope that M. ya.iadaL will crown the services that he has rendered to history in that priceless work by writing at least the civil life of Napoleon? Might | not he and M. Henri Houssaye, who has also done ; so much so well, jointly accomplish the whole? \

We speak of a partnership, as we do not conceive it to be possible for any one man to undertake the task. For the task of reading and sifting the materials would be gigantic before a single word could ' be written. Nor, indeed, could any one man ade- i quately deal with Napoleon in his military and his civil capacities. For Napoleon, says Metternich, a ^ hostile judge, was born an administrator, a legislator, ; and a conqueror ; he might have added, a statesman. :

THE LITERATURE

The conqueror of 1796-1812, and, it may be added, the defender of 1813 and 1814, would require a con summate master of the art of war to analyze and celebrate his qualities. Again, Napoleon the civilian would have to be treated, though not necessarily by different hands, as the statesman, the administrator, the legislator. Last of all, there comes the general survey of Napoleon as a man, one of the simplest character to his sworn admirers or sworn enemies, one of the most complicated to those who are neither.

And for this last study the most fruitful material is furnished in the six years that he spent at St. Helena, when he not merely recorded and annotated his career, but afforded a dehnite and consecutive view of himself. " Now," as he said there himself, " thanks to my misfortune, one can see me nakedly as I am." What he dictated in the way of autobiography and commentary has never perhaps received its just measure of attention. Some one has said somewhere that the memoirs he produced himself appear to be neglected because they are the primitive and authoritative documents, so far as he is concerned, of his life. People prefer to drink at any other source than the original; more especially do they esteem the memoirs of any who came, however momentarily, into contact with him. What the man himself thought or said of himself seems to most of those who read about Napoleon a matter of little moment. What they want to read is Bourrienne, or Remusat, or Constant, or the like. They may, no doubt, allege that Napoleon's own memoirs are not so spicy as those of some of his servants, and that they are by no means to be always relied upon as unbiased records of fact. Still they remain as the direct deliberate declarations of this prodigy as to his achievements, and they contain, moreover, commentaries on the great captains of the past — Caesar, Frederic, and Turenne — which cannot be without serious interest to the historian or the soldier.

Nor must this indifference to truth count for too much in an estimate of Napoleon's character. Truth was in those days neither expected nor required in continental statesmanship — so little, indeed, that half a century afterwards Bismarck discovered it to be the surest means of deception. Napoleon's fiercest enemies, Metternich and Talleyrand, have now given us their memoirs. But we should be sorry to give a blind credence to these in any case where their personal interest was involved. Napoleon at St. Helena was, as it were, making the best case for himself, just as he was in the habit of doing in his bulletins. His bulletins represented what Napoleon desired to be believed. So did the memoirs. They are a series of Napoleonic bulletins on the Napoleonic career, neither more nor less.

But there is one distinction to be drawn. In writing his bulletins, Napoleon had often an object in deceiving. At St. Helena his only practical aim was to further the interests of his dynasty and his son. So that where these are not directly concerned the memoirs may be considered as somewhat more reliable than the bulletins.

The literature of St. Helena is fast accumulating, and must be within a measurable distance of completion. Eighty-four years have elapsed since a greedy public absorbed five editions of Warden's Letters in five months : seventy - eight since the booksellers were crowded with eager purchasers for

THE LITERATURE

O'Meara's book. It is perhaps not too much to hope that his manuscript journal, which now sleeps in California, may soon be published in its entirety, for it is said to be full of vivid and original matter; while it might throw light on the discrepancies between his Voice from St. Helena and his private communications to the English officials at the Admiralty and at Plantation House.'" Then we have had the voluminous batteries of Gourgaud, Montholon, and Las Cases (whose suppressed passages might also be safely produced, if, indeed, they exist, or ever existed) met by the ponderous defence of Forsyth and the more effective abstract of Seaton. We have had, too, the light artillery of Maitland and Glover, and Cockburn and Santini, and the madcap "Miss Bets3^," who became ]\Irs. Abell. We have the histories of St. Helena by Barnes and Masselin. And in l8i6, a former Governor, General Beatson, availed himself of the sudden interest in the island to launch on the public a massive quarto detailing its agricultural features with a minuteness which could scarcely be justified in the case of the Garden of Eden. We have the tragedy of Antommarchi, whatever that effort may be worth. Of late, too, the commissaries have taken the field; Montchenu, Balmain, and Sturmer have all yielded their testimony. So has Mme. de Montholon. Napoleon, indeed, urged his companions to record his utterances in journals, and frequently alluded to the result. " Yesterday evening," says Gourgaud, "the Emperor told me that I might turn my leisure to profit in writing

* Since this was written, portions have been pubHshed in the "Century magazine, which make it abundantly clear that O'Meara §kimmed ofi a'l the valuable matter for the Voice, down his sayings: I would thus gain from 500 to 1000 louis a day/' He was cognizant of the journal of Las Cases, w^iich was dictated to or copied by St. Denis, one of the servants, whom Napoleon would sometimes question as to its contents. O'Meara's journal was read to him. He took it for granted that they all kept journals, and he was right. For, except the faithful Bertrand and the wife who divided with the Emperor his affection, none of the actors in that dreary drama have held their peace.

Lately, however, there have appeared two further contributions; and it may be considered that, while both are striking, one exceeds in interest all the previous publications of St. Helena, from the light that it throws on Napoleon's character. Lady Malcolm's Diary of St. Helena gives a vivid account of the Emperor's conversations with Sir Pulteney, and an impartial account of Lowe, which seems to turn the balance finally against that hapless and distracted official. But the second publication is in some respects not merely the most remarkable book relating to Napoleon at St. Helena, but to Napoleon at any time. It is the private diary of Gourgaud written entirely for his own eye, though the editors seem to think that the latter part at any rate may have been prepared for the possible detection of Lowe. But the great bulk was obviously prepared for no one except Gourgaud, since it could please no one else, and scarcely Gourgaud. It embodies, we believe, the truth as it appeared to the writer from day to day. It throws a strange light on the author, but a still newer light on his master. But when we have read it we feel a doubt of all the other records, and a conviction that this book is more nearly the unvar^

THE LITERATURE

nished truth than anything else that has been put forth.

For there is one rule, to which we fear we can scarcely make an exception, which applies to all the Longwood publications : they are none of them wholly reliable. If we did make an exception, it would certainly be in favor of Gourgaud. And it may further be said that their veracity increases in proportion to the remoteness of their publication from the events to which they relate. Gourgaud, who is published in 1898, is more truthful than Montholon, who publishes in 1847; and Montholon, again, is more truthful than Las Cases, who publishes in 1823. Least of all, perhaps, to be depended on is O'Meara, who published in 1822. In all these books, except, perhaps, the latest, there are gross instances of misrepresentation and fabrication. And yet to accuse all these authors of wanton unveracity would not be fair. It was rarely, if ever, wanton. Partly from idolatry of Napoleon, partly to keep up a dramatic representation of events at St. Helena, and so bring about his liberation, facts were omitted or distorted which in any way reflected on their idol or tended to mar the intended effects. There seems to have been something in the air of St. Helena that blighted exact truth; and he who collates the various narratives on any given point will find strange and hopeless contradictions. Truth probably lurks in Forsyth, but the crushing of the ore is a hideous task; and, for various other reasons, it is equally difficult to find in the more contemporary narratives. There is a strange mildew that rests on them all, as on the books and boots in the island. One has to weigh each particle of evidence and bear in mind the character of the witness. Sometimes, indeed, we may be charged with having quoted from sources which we have described as tainted. We could scarcely quote from any others. But where the testimony seems of itself probable, and where no object but truth is perceptible in it, we have no choice but to cite from what documents there are.

One striking circumstance remains to be noticed. Of the last three years of Napoleon's life we know scarcely anything. From the departure of Gourgaud, in March, i8i8, to the end of May, 1821, we know practically nothing. We know what the English outside reported. We have an authorized, but not very trustworthy, record from within. But, in reality, we know nothing, or next to nothing.

Chapter II Las Cases, Antommarchi, And Others

The book of Las Cases, which is the most massive, and perhaps the most notorious, is not without a certain charm of its own. First pubhshed in eight volumes, it was subsequently compressed, and under the title of Mofwrial of St. Helena, adorned with the quaint and spirited designs of Charlet, has obtained a world-wide circulation. Las Cases is said, indeed, though no doubt with much exaggeration, to have realized from it no less a sum than eighty thousand pounds. It is alleged to have been written in daily entries, and to supply an exact report of Napoleon's conversation. Much, however, is declared by the author to have been lost, partly from want of time for transcription ; something, perhaps, from the vicissitudes of his papers. What he narrates is told with spirit, and even eloquence, and when corroborated by other authority may be taken to be a faithful transcript of the Emperor's talk as he wished it to be reported, or at any rate of his dictations. But, when uncorroborated, it is wholly unreliable. For, putting on one side the usual exaggerations about diet, restrictions, and so forth, and making full allowance for the author's being too dazzled by Napoleon (whom he sincerely adored) to see quite clearly, there is a fatal blot on his book. It is an arsenal of spurious documents. How this has come about, whether from the fertile invention of Las Cases, or by the connivance and inspiration of Napoleon, it is not possible definitely to pronounce. At any rate, four such fabricated letters are printed at length in Las Cases's book, and he must be held responsible for a fifth, which is nowhere printed, and which probably had but a transient existence.

The fabrication of the first of these has been clearly and categorically set forth by Count Murat in his excellent book, Murat, Lieutenant de V Empereur en Espag7ie. The charge is there established that Las Cases, in order to lay the blame of his hero's Spanish policy on Murat, inserted in his book a fabricated letter of the date of March 29, 1808. By whom the letter was composed does not appear. But that it is a fabrication is certain, and the responsibility for its production rests on Las Cases. Count Murat accumulates damning proofs. He points out the irresolution of the despatch, and the orders that the French armies should perpetually retreat before the Spaniards, as wholly alien to the Napoleonic character. He points out the incessant inconsistencies with passages of authentic despatches written at the same time. On the 27th of March Napoleon had written to Murat to bid him make an imposing display of force in Madrid. In the spurious despatch, dated the 29th, he disapproves of his being in Madrid at all. It is known, moreover, that the news of Murat's occupation of Madrid did not reach the Emperor till the 30th. The despatch is not in the form with which Napoleon addressed Murat. The drafts, or minutes, of practically all Napoleon's despatches are in existence. There is no minute of this. Na-

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LAS CASES, ANTOMAIARCHI, ETC.

poleon, in his other despatches, never alhides to this one. ]\Iurat never acknowledges its receipt. Murat's minute register of letters received and sent contains no alhision to it. How, in any case, did it suddenly make its appearance at St. Helena? It seems useless to accumulate proofs that a more audacious fabrication has seldom been presented to the public. The editors of the imperial correspondence, indeed, blush as they print it, for ihey append a note stating that neither the draft, nor the original, nor an3" authentic copj", is discoverable. Savarj^, Beausset, and Thibaudeau blindl}^ accept the letter on the authority of Las Cases. ^leneval, who was at the time Napoleon's private sccretar3", anticipates the doubts of Count IMurat, and details some material circumstances which vitiate the letter, one of them being that, though the letter is dated from Paris, Napoleon at that time was at St. Cloud. IVIeneval says that he cannot solve the nwstery, though his arguments all point irresistibh^ to fabrication; his only argument the other wa}" — a very dangerous one — is that no one but Napoleon could have composed it. The perplexit}" of Aleneval, when his confidential position is considered, is extremel}" significant, if not conclusive. Thiers thinks that Napoleon wrote it, and wrote it on the professed date, but admits that the letter was never sent. His reasons for this strange theory- cannot be examined here, but the3^ appear to be the mere result of a desperate effort to prove the authenticity^ of the letter, in spite of overwhelming difficulties stated by himself. ]\Iontholon prints it among a number of other letters which he says were handed to him b^^ the Emperor. This casts doubt on the narrative of IVIontholon as welL

II NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE j

But the primary and original responsibility must ; rest with Las Cases. And it is a little unfortunate , that Las Cases piqued himself on his skill in composition. He tells us that he drew up Napoleon's protest at Plymouth. He drew up innumerable protests of his own. "Once a correspondence established with Sir H. Lowe," he says, with ominous pleasantry, "1 did not remain idle.'' He rained ; documents on the governor. Deported to the Cape, ji he never stopped writing : the governor of that set- \ tlement, the ministers, the Prince Regent — all had to endure him. Returning to Europe, he bombards « every sovereign or minister that he can think of. ; Last of all, the patient reader who ploughs through ■ his eight volumes has ample reason to feel that Las j Cases would like nothing better than to pen a few \ Napoleonic despatches to keep himself in exercise. ' We should not, on this instance alone, definitely pro- ; nounce that Las Cases deliberately fabricated the j letter to Murat; for it might have been an academi- j cal exercise, or there might have been confusion ■ among his papers, or lapse of memory. There are strange freaks of this kind on record. !

But, unfortunately, this is by no means the only : effort or lapse of Las Cases in this direction. In the fifth part of his journal he gives in much the same ; way a letter from Napoleon to Bernadotte, dated \ August 8, i8il. It is entirely ignored by the editors I of the imperial correspondence. It is, however, in- j serted in the Lettres inedites de Napoleon I., but j "with every reserve," for the editors do not know its ; source. Had they known it, they would no doubt j have rejected it, as had the former editors. They |

take it at second hand from Martel's CEuvres Litt4- '

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LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, ETC.

raires de Napoleon Bonaparte. Martel, who does not name his authority, evidently took it from Las Cases.

Again, in his sixth volume. Las Cases generously produces from his occult and unfailing store another state document. This time it is a letter addressed by Napoleon to his brother, Louis, King of Holland, on April 3, 1808, from the palace of Marrac. It bears all the mint marks of the others. It is found for the first time in Las Cases's book. No draft of it is in existence, a fact which is in itself fatal. Unluckily, too. Napoleon did not arrive at Marrac till fourteen days after April 3. The editors of the Emperor's correspondence print it with this dry remark, and with an ominous reference to Las Cases as the sole authority. M. Rocquain, in his Napoleon et le Roi Louis (p. 166, note), unhesitatingly dismisses it as in the main, if not wholly, a fraud. We see no reason for accepting any part as genuine, nor, indeed, does M. Rocquain supply any.

In his seventh volume, again, there is a fourth letter, of the authorship of which it may confidently be said, Aut Las Cases, aut Diabolus. It purports to be instructions for an anonymous plenipotentiary on a mission in Poland, and it is dated April 18, 18 1 2. This composition is absolutely ignored by the official editors of the imperial correspondence. It is, as usual, suddenly produced by Las Cases as a revelation of the real motives of the Russian expedition. The real motive of that disastrous war, it seems, was the reconstruction of the ancient kingdom of Poland. When we consider that at that juncture, when the revival was passionately sought by the Poles, eagerly desired by his own army, and by some of his most devoted servants, when it was vital to his strategy and to his policy, when it was clearly dictated by the commonest gratitude and humanity towards Poland, Napoleon resolutely refused it, we may judge of the value and authenticity of this document.

The fifth fabrication, which we are not privileged even to see, is the most remarkable, and the most impudent, of all. In a moment of disinterested friendship Las Cases drew from his manuscript hoards, to show to Warden, a letter from the Due d'Enghien to Napoleon which was written on the eve of his execution, and which was suppressed by Talleyrand for fear Napoleon should be moved by it to spare him. Las Cases appears to have had a monopoly of this document, for no one except himself and those to whom he showed it ever had the singular good fortune to see or even to hear of it. His own statement with regard to the Enghien affair is, perhaps, the most nebulous in his whole book, and he only makes a timid and transient allusion to the letter which he had shown so exultantly to Warden. Warden's language is so remarkable that it deserves quotation: " I saw a copy of this letter in possession of Count de Las Cases, which he calmly represented to me as one of the mass of documents formed or collected to authenticate and justify certain mysterious parts of the history which he was occasionally employed in writing under the dictation of the hero of it." Let us follow up for a moment the subsequent history of the letter of the Due d'Enghien intercepted by Talleyrand and providentially preserved by Las Cases. In the Letters from the Cape, composed, inspired, or revised by Napoleon, this letter is mentioned, for the author had "frequent opportunities of cursorily running over manuscripts of the greatest interest relative to the

LAS CASES, ANTOMMARCHI, ETC.

memorable events of the last twent3^ years, a part of which was even written from the dictation of Napoleon himself"; in other words. Napoleon, who is the author of the Letters, has access to manuscripts dictated by himself. "When the Due d'Enghien had arrived at Strasburg, he wrote a letter to Napoleon, in which he stated 'that his rights to the crown were very distant; that for a length of time his family had lost their claims: and promised, if pardon was granted to him, to discover everything he knew of the plot of enemies of France, and to serve the First Consul faithfully. ' This letter was not presented by Talleyrand to Napoleon until it was too late. The young prince was no more." The author goes on to say that in the manuscript, which he had been privileged to see. Napoleon states that " perhaps, if this letter had been presented in time, the political advantages which would have accrued from his declarations and his services would have decided the First Consul to pardon him." This extract is interesting as containing the only portion of the text of this remarkable document which has been preserved. Rumors of this precious letter appear to have been cautiously spread about Longwood, and to have excited the curiosity of that portion of the household which had not been admitted to the confidence of Las Cases. O'Meara appears especially to have distinguished himself by a pertinacious spirit of investigation. In January, 1817, he represents himself as asking the Emperor questions with regard to it. " I now asked if it were true that Talleyrand had retained a letter from the Due d'Enghien to him until two days after the Duke's execution? Napoleon's reply was: 'It is true; the Duke had written a letter, offering his services, and asking a command in the army from me, which that scelerato Talleyrand did not make known until two days after his execution/ I observed that Talleyrand, by his culpable concealment of the letter, was virtually guilty of the i death of the Duke. ' Talleyrand, ' replied Napoleon, i ' is a briccone, capable of any crime/ '' j

Two months later, in March, O'Meara mentions to | Napoleon that a book has been published respecting | him, by Warden, which was exciting great interest. 1 The book had not then arrived, but there were ex- \ tracts from it in the newspapers. Napoleon sits down ■ to read the newspapers, asks the explanation of a | few passages, and at once inquires what Warden had said of the affair of the Due d'Enghien, " I replied that he asserted that Talleyrand had detained a letter from the Duke for a considerable time after his execution, and that he attributed his death to Talleyrand. 'Di questo non c'e dubbio ' (of this there is no doubt), replied Napoleon. "' Later in the month \ Napoleon reiterates this statement to O'Meara. "When he (the Due d'Enghien) arrived at Stras- ! burg, he wrote a letter to me in which he offered j to discover everything if pardon were granted to i him, said that his family had lost their claims ^ for a long time, and concluded by offering his services to me. The letter was delivered to Talleyrand, who concealed it until after his execution." This seems succinct enough, but O'Meara wished to make assurance doubly sure. So in April he "asked Napoleon again, as I was anxious to put the matter beyond a doubt, whether, if Talleyrand had delivered the Due d'Enghien's letter in time to him, he would have pardoned the writer. He replied, 'It is prob-

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able that I might, for in it he made an offer of his services; besides, he was the best of the family.' " It is noteworthy that, although Napoleon speaks more than once to Gourgaud about the Enghien affair, he never mentions the letter to that critical and incredulous officer. Finally, the whole bubble, blown assiduously by Warden, O'Meara, and the Letters from the Cape, ignominiously bursts. The letter disappears, and with it the charge against Talleyrand. The -narrative is brought back to historical truth by placing on record the well-known note of the Due d'Enghien written on the report of his trial. Montholon has to engineer this remarkable metamorphosis. It is, of course/ impossible to perform this task with success, but the hapless equerry extracts himself from it with something less than grace or probability. He tells us that after O'Meara's departure the surgeon's journal was left with him, and that he was in the habit of reading it aloud to his master. The Emperor, he says, pointed out some errors in the manuscript. And it seems a pity that Montholon does not place on record what these errors were, for the only statement which is corrected is that thrice solemnly made by O'Meara on the authority of Napoleon himself. We must quote textually what is said about it: "M. O'Meara dit que M. de Talleyrand intercepta une lettre ecrite par le Due d'Enghien quelques heures avant le jugement. La verite est que le Due d'Enghien a ecrit sur le proems verbal d'interrogatoire, avant de signer: ' Je fais avec instance la demande d'avoir une audience particuliere du premier consul. Mon nom, mon rang, ma fagon de penser et I'horreur de ma situation, me font esperer qu'il ne refusera pas ma demande.'" B 17

This, of course, is what the Due d'Enghien did actually write. Then Montholon proceeds, "Malheureusement I'Empereur n'eut connaissance de ce fait qu'apres Texecution du jugement. L'intervention de M. de Talleyrand dans ce drame sanglant est deja assez grande sans qu'on lui prete un tort qu'il n'a pas eu."

We regret to declare that we do not consider this contradiction as any more authentic than the letter from the Due d'Enghien, written at Strasburg, offering his services, and asking for a command of the army, which Talleyrand intercepted for fear it should melt Napoleon's heart. The fact and purport of that letter are clearly set forth by Warden, who saw the letter; by Las Cases, who showed it to him; by O'Meara, who twice asked Napoleon about it; by Napoleon himself, in the Letters from the Cape; and the main point of the story is not the appeal of the Duke, but the infamy of Talleyrand, who suppressed it. Warden published the first statement in i8i6; the Cape Letters appeared in 1817; O'Meara in 1822; Las Cases in 1824. At last, in 1847, thirty years after the statement was first published, appears Montholon 's book. By this time the whole story has been hopelessly exploded. A host of elucidatory pamphlets have been published. What has not been published is the document itself, which, so assiduously advertised, has never seen the light. So Montholon has to make the best of a bad job, and get rid somehow of this abortive fiction. As we have said, he conjures up an episode in which he reads O'Meara's composition to the Emperor, when the Emperor corrects several errors. Montholon, however, only records one correction, which is