SPIRIT OF THE INHABITANTS OF THE ISLE OF FRANCE.
17th.—An English Colonel, arrived from the Cape on his return from the Isle of France, came in the morning and addressed himself to me, to try to get an introduction to the Emperor. The Admiral had only allowed his vessel to remain two or three hours in the road. Having prevailed on the Emperor to receive him at four o’clock, he assured me that he would rather miss his vessel than lose such an opportunity. The Emperor was not very well, he had passed several hours in his bath; at four he received the Colonel.
The Emperor put many questions to him concerning the Isle of France, lately ceded to the English; it seems that its prosperity and its commerce suffer from its change of sovereignty.
After the departure of the Colonel, being alone with the Emperor in the garden, I told him that his person seemed to have remained very dear to the inhabitants of the Isle of France; that the Colonel had informed me that the name of Napoleon was never pronounced there but with commiseration. It was precisely on the day of a great festival in the colony, that they learned his departure from France and his arrival at Plymouth; the theatre was to be particularly attractive: the news having arrived during the day, in the evening there was not a single colonist, either white or of colour, in the house: there were only some English, who were exceedingly confused and irritated at the circumstance. The Emperor listened to me. “It is quite plain,” said he, after some moments’ silence; “this proves that the inhabitants of the Isle of France have continued French. I am the country; they love it: it has been wounded in my person, they are grieved at it.” I added that the change of dominion restraining their expressions, they durst not propose his health publicly; but that the Colonel said they never neglected it notwithstanding; they drank to him, this word had become consecrated to Napoleon. These details touched him. “Poor Frenchmen!” he said with emphasis—"Poor People! Poor Nation! I deserved all that, I loved thee! But thou, thou surely didst not deserve all the ills that press upon thee! Ah! thou didst merit well that one should devote himself to thee! But what infamy, what baseness, what degradation, it must be confessed, I had about me!" And, addressing himself to me, he added: “I do not speak here of your friends of the Fauxbourg-Saint-Germain; for with respect to them it is another matter.”
There frequently reached us incidents and expressions which, like those from the Isle of France, were calculated to excite emotion in the heart. The Island of Ascension, in our neighbourhood, had always been desert and abandoned; since we have been here, the English have thought proper to form an establishment there. The captain who went to take possession of it told us, on his return, that he was much astonished on landing to find upon the beach, May the great Napoleon live for ever!
In the last papers that reached us, among many good-natured sallies, it was remarked, in several languages, that Paris would never be happy till his Helen should be restored to him: these were a few drops of honey in our cup of wormwood.
HIS INTENTIONS RESPECTING ROME.—HORRIBLE
FOOD.—BRITANNICUS.
18th—19th. The Emperor was on horseback by eight o’clock. He had abstained from it for a long time: want of space to ride over was the cause. His health suffers visibly in consequence, and it is astonishing that the want of exercise is not still more hurtful to him, who was in the daily habit of taking it to a violent degree. On our return, the Emperor breakfasted out of doors; he detained us all. After breakfast, the conversation fell on Herculaneum and Pompeii; the phenomenon and epoch of their destruction, the time and the accident of their modern discovery, the monuments and the curiosities, which they have since afforded us. The Emperor said that if Rome had remained under his dominion, she would have risen again from her ruins: he intended to have cleared away all the rubbish; to have restored as much as possible. He did not doubt that, the same spirit extending through all the vicinity, it might have been in some degree the same with Herculaneum and Pompeii.
Breakfast being concluded, the Emperor sent my son to bring the volume of Crevier which contains this event; and he read it to us, as well as the death and character of Pliny. He retired about noon to take some rest. Towards six o’clock we took our usual round in the carriage. The Emperor took with him Mr. and Mrs. Skelton, who were come to visit him.
On our return, the Emperor, driven from the garden by the damp, went to see General Gourgaud, who was recovering rapidly. After dinner, on leaving the table and returning to the drawing-room, we could not help reverting to the meal we had just made;—literally nothing was fit to eat: the bread bad, the wine not drinkable, the meat disgusting and unwholesome: we are frequently obliged to send it back again. They continue in spite of our remonstrances, to send it to us dead, because by that method they can put us off with such animals as have died naturally.
The Emperor, shocked at this representation, could not refrain from saying, with warmth: “No doubt there are people whose physical situation is still worse; but that circumstance does not deprive us of the right of giving an opinion on our own condition, or on the infamous manner in which we are treated. The injustice of the English government, not content with sending us hither, has extended to the selection of the individuals to whom our persons and the supply of our wants are intrusted! For my part, I should suffer less if I were sure that it would one day be divulged to the whole world in such a way as to brand with infamy those who are guilty of it. But let us talk of something else,” said he—“what is the day of the month?” He was told it was the 19th of March: “What!” he exclaimed, “the eve of the 20th of March!” And a few seconds afterwards: “But let us talk of something else.” He sent for a volume of Racine, and at first began to read the comedy of the Plaideurs: but, after a scene or two, he turned to Britannicus, which he read to us. When the reading was concluded, and the due tribute of admiration had been paid, he said that Racine was censured for making the dénouement of this piece too sudden, that the poisoning of Britannicus was not expected so early in the play as it ought to have been. He highly praised the truth of the character of Narcissus, observing that it was always by wounding the self-love of princes that their determinations were most influenced.
20TH OF MARCH.—THE ACCOUCHEMENT OF THE EMPRESS.
20th.—After dinner one of us observed to the Emperor that he had been less solitary, less quiet, that day twelve-month at the same hour. “I was sitting down to table at the Tuileries,” said the Emperor. “I had found it difficult to get thither: the dangers I went through in that attempt were at least equal to those of a battle.” In fact he had been seized, on his arrival, by thousands of officers and citizens; one party had snatched him from another; he had been carried to the palace, and, amidst a tumult like that of a mob about to tear a man to pieces, instead of the orderly and respectful attendance of a multitude intent on shewing their veneration for an individual. But we ought to look at the sentiment and intention in this case: it was enthusiasm, and love, carried to a pitch that resembled rage or madness.
The Emperor added that in all probability more than one person in Europe would talk of him that evening; and that, in spite of all observation, many a bottle would be emptied on his account.
The conversation then turned on the King of Rome; that day was the anniversary of his birth; the Emperor reckoned that he must be five years old. He then spoke of the accouchement of the Empress, and seemed to take some pleasure in boasting that he had proved himself, on that occasion, as good a husband as any in the world. He assisted the Empress to walk about all night. We who were of the household knew something of the matter; we had all been called together at the palace at ten in the evening; we passed the night there; and the cries of the Empress sometimes reached our ears. Towards morning the accoucheur having told the Emperor that the pains had ceased, and that the labour might yet be tedious, the Emperor went to the bath, and sent us away, desiring us, however, not to go from home. The Emperor had not been long in the bath, when the pains came on again; and the accoucheur ran to him, almost out of his wits, saying he was the most unfortunate of men; that out of a thousand labours in Paris there was not one more difficult. The Emperor, dressing himself again as fast as he could, encouraged him, saying that a man who understood his business ought never to lose his presence of mind; that there was nothing in this case that he ought to be uneasy about; that he had only to fancy he was delivering a citizen’s wife of the Rue Saint-Denis: that nature had but one law; that he was sure he would act for the best; and, above all, that he need not fear any reproach. It was then represented to the Emperor that there was great danger either for the mother or the child. “If the mother lives,” said he, without hesitation, "I shall have another child. Act in this case as if you were attending the birth of a cobbler’s[cobbler’s] son."
When he reached the Empress she really was in danger; the child presented itself in an unfavourable posture, and there was every reason to fear that it would be stifled.[[2]]
The Emperor asked Dubois why he did not deliver her. He excused himself, being unwilling to do it, he said, except in the presence of Corvisart, who had not yet arrived. “But what can he tell you?” said the Emperor. “If it is a witness, or a justification, you want to secure, here am I.” Then Dubois, taking off his coat, commenced the operation. When the Empress saw the instruments, she cried out in a piteous manner, exclaiming that they were going to kill her. She was firmly held by the Emperor, Madame de Montesquiou, Corvisart, who had just come in, &c. Madame de Montesquiou dexterously took an opportunity to encourage her, by declaring that she herself had more than once been in the same situation.
The Empress, however, still persuaded herself that she was treated differently from other women, and often repeated, “Am I to be sacrificed because I am an Empress?” She declared, afterwards, to the Emperor, that she really had entertained this fear. At length she was delivered. The danger had been so imminent, said the Emperor, that all the etiquette which had been studied and ordered was disregarded, and the child put on one side, on the floor, whilst every one was occupied about the mother only. The infant remained some moments in this situation, and it was thought he was dead: it was Corvisart who took him up, chafed him, and brought him to utter a cry.[[3]]