MY VISIT TO PLANTATION HOUSE.—SIR HUDSON LOWE’S INSINUATIONS.—HIS FIRST ILL-NATURED TRICK.—NAPOLEON’S PROCLAMATIONS.—HIS POLICY IN EGYPT.—HIS CONFESSION OF AN ILLEGAL ACT.
26th.—I went to pay my first visit to Plantation-House. I thought Lady Lowe a pretty and amiable woman, though there was something of the actress about her. Sir Hudson Lowe married a short time before his departure from Europe, for the express purpose, it is said, of having his wife to assist him in doing the honours of the colony. I understand that this lady was the widow of an officer of the regiment which Sir Hudson Lowe formerly commanded, and the sister of a colonel killed at Waterloo.
The Governor showed me the most marked politeness and attention. He remarked that we were old acquaintances, though I was not aware of the fact. He said he had been much gratified by the perusal of M. Lesage’s Atlas, though he had never dreamed that he should one day be introduced to the author. He had first seen the work in Sicily, where he got it smuggled from Naples; and he was inexhaustible in his praises of it. He had frequently read the account of the battle of Jena, with General Blucher, at the head-quarters where he was English commissioner, during the campaign of 1814. He said that he had always admired the liberal expressions and the spirit of moderation and impartiality which were observed towards England; but that at the period when he first examined the work, he had been forcibly struck by some equivocal passages which seemed to breathe hostility to, or censure of, him who then governed us. He added that he had accounted for these passages at the time, by my character and doctrines as an emigrant; but that now he thought it a singular contradiction, to find me here in the suite of that person.
Now we had just been informed that Sir Hudson Lowe was, when in Italy, a kind of Head Police Officer, and an active agent of the system of espionage. I could not help suspecting that a certain insinuation was intended to be conveyed in these remarks. If this were really the fact (and the Emperor entertained no doubt of it), then, at least, the business was cleverly managed on his part; and had I felt less self-respect than I did I could have given a smart retort, and the matter might have been carried to some length. I, however, merely replied that he had totally misunderstood the application of the equivocal passages in question, and that they could not have any reference to Napoleon, since I was now attached to his person.
On my return home, I found two French works which Sir H. Lowe had sent to me in the morning, accompanied by a note, in which he expressed a hope that their perusal would gratify the Emperor. Will it be credited? One of these works was the Abbé de Pradt’s Embassy to Warsaw. This I may note down as Sir Hudson Lowe’s first ill-natured trick. The work was a novelty, it is true; but it was a libel solely directed against Napoleon.
As to the other book, when I first saw it, I thought I had found a treasure. I imagined it would indemnify us for the want of the Moniteur, and furnish us with the materials which we stood so much in need of. Its title described it to be a collection of all the proclamations and official documents of Napoleon, as General, First Consul, and Emperor. But it was published by Goldsmith the libeller, and was very incomplete, the most striking bulletins being suppressed, the addresses to the Legislative Body mutilated, &c. But, even in this imperfect state, the collection still remains the noblest monument that any man ever left behind him.
After dinner the Emperor amused himself by reading, in Goldsmith’s publications, some of his own proclamations to the army of Italy. They produced a powerful impression on himself; they interested and excited him. “And yet,” said he, “they had the impudence to say that I could not write!”
He then turned to his proclamation to the army of Egypt, and joked much about that in which he represented himself as inspired and sent by God. “This was quackery,” said he; “but it was quackery of the highest order. Besides, the proclamation was composed only for the purpose of being translated into high-flown Arabic verse by one of the cleverest of the Sheiks. My French troops,” continued he, “merely laughed at it; and such was their disposition in this respect that, in order to induce them to listen to the bare mention of religion, I was myself obliged to speak very lightly on the subject, to place Jews beside Christians, and Rabbis beside Bishops, &c.”
The assertion made by Goldsmith of Napoleon’s having assumed the Mussulman dress, is totally false. If ever he entered a mosque, he said, it was always as a conqueror, and not as a worshipper. He was of too serious a turn, and had too much self-respect, to act in an equivocal way on this point.
“After all,” continued he, gaily, “it would not have been so very extraordinary, even though circumstances had induced me to embrace Islamism; and, as a good Queen of France once said, ‘You will talk to me so much about it!’... But I must have had good reasons for my conversion. I must have had possession of all as far as the Euphrates, at least. Change of religion for private interest is inexcusable; but it may be pardoned in consideration of immense political results. Henry IV. said, ‘Paris is well worth a mass.’ Will it then be said that the dominion of the East, and perhaps the subjugation of all Asia, were not worth a turban and a pair of trousers? And, in truth, the whole matter was reduced to this; for the grand Sheiks had studied how to render it easy to us. They had smoothed down the greatest obstacles; allowed us the use of wine, and dispensed with all corporeal formalities. We should therefore have lost only our small-clothes and hats. I say we; for the army, in the disposition in which it then was, would have entertained but few scruples on the subject, and would have made it a mere matter of jest and laughter. But what would have been the consequence? I should have turned my back on Europe, and the old civilization of the continent would have been bound up. And who would then have troubled themselves about the course of Fate in France, or the regeneration of the age!... Who would have attempted it! Who could have succeeded!”
Continuing his examination of Goldsmith’s book, the Emperor by chance cast his eyes on the Act of the Consuls, by which General Latour Foissac was cashiered for the surrender of Mantua. “This,” said the Emperor, “was, without doubt, an illegal and tyrannical act, but it was a necessary evil; it was the fault of the laws. The general was a hundred and a thousand times guilty, and yet it was doubtful whether we ought to have condemned him. His acquittal would have produced the most fatal effect. We therefore struck the blow with the combined arms of honour and opinion. But I say again, it was a tyrannical act, one of those severe strokes which are sometimes indispensably necessary in a great nation, and under important circumstances.”