MORE ROGUES IN OUTLINE.
The Sick Antiquary.
"Aspettar e non venire,
Star in letto e non dormire.
Son' due cose da morire."
Italian Proverb.
Three years are passed since we last visited Herr Ascherson, and we once more find ourselves, with considerably improved tact and knowledge, both as to virtuosi and virtu, ringing at the well-known bell! On the door being unbarred to us, we are sorry to hear that he is now a great invalid, and confined to bed. "I hope we don't disturb you, Mr Ascherson," said we, as a half-witted slattern of fifty opened the door of the sick man's room, and discovered to us something alarmingly like Cheops redivivus, reclining on a Codrus-looking couch, which was too short to receive his whole body save diagonally, in which position he accordingly lay. Upon hearing these words, the much-swathed object suddenly draws itself up in bed; and after looking keenly to make us out in the dusk, (as if he suspected a visit of cajoling rather than condolence.) his eye lost its anxious look, and his features gradually expanded, when he saw at a glance that we were come, not to cheat, but to cheer him. The first words he uttered were—"Ja, ja; dat is mein nobil freund the Doctor;" and then, falling back, he resigned himself to his pains, like a man who has been long trained to suffer. We ask after his health. The poor invalid shakes his head, and tells us, groaning, that he was "sehr krank, very ill indeed; had much dolors but no slipp;" apologising also for having sent for some 10 pi. which we owed him, and which "it was need," so he told us, "to pay his medicine mit." Really concerned to see one whom we had so recently known under worldly circumstances so unlike the present, so suffering, so poor, and so solitary, we told him that we had been intending to call on him that very day for that very purpose—observing, by way of consoling his feelings, that it was not to be expected "that a man who had laid out so much money of the present currency to procure fine specimens of one that was out of date, could be quite so well off in ready cash as those whose money was all in hard coin at their bankers. "Ja, ja," it was even so; and then, his pains remitting for a moment, he proceeded to explain, for our satisfaction, how he had become so short of the needful supplies. "Tis three monate seyne mein freund Vinhler went to Paris—(an honest and heart-good man, Mr Vinhler)—to whom this commission I consign:—'See you give a careful eye-blink to this 9000 ducats, which you must take mit you to Paris. There in the house of Furet you shall become some moneys, which you shall send to me directly; and mit these ducats you shall also pay their consignment.' Well, it was a simple direct, als any childer might do. So Vinhler takes my money, gets to Paris, calls and pays Mr Furet, and writes that he will be back in Neapoli in a week. So I stay! Drei monate I stay, and no Mr Vinhler come! Then lastly, when I hav begin to scold myself, two days seyne, comes eine briefe, and says, 'I hav been stopt here for three weeks by what I then foresaw not when I did write you lastly. I am promised to marry Herr Furet's daughter, and we mak the marriage in eine monate. I am sorry for the delay about your monete, but shall bring them mit Mrs Vinhler and myself to Neapoli, when we arrive!" So, while he is happy mit his Julia in Paris, I cannot become my Julias that I hav bought; and I hav lost much by this man's delay. Ah! (continued he,) whenever he had felt mein dolors," (the poor man had now wrought himself up into a painful excitement,) "my no slipp, this unendlich irritation, this torment to pay the Doctor, for no gute—my loss of practice, my loss of friends, my physique so bad, mein eine samkeit so dull—he should surely have sent me that cassetta of coins to make me a little more gay." Being obliged to quit Naples suddenly, we left him in the midst of his pains, which had been wholly unrelieved by our medication; fretting more and more daily at the non-arrival of his friend; with nobody to visit him but the needy Leech, who, having asked himself—
"And will my patient pay?
And can he swallow draughts until his dying day?"
thinks no further self-interrogatory needful; with none to inquire after him, save only the peasants, whose findings he is too ill to look at, and too poor to purchase; and Death's grim auctioneer, who undertakes for the district; and who, when he has made the daily inquiry at his door, not to lose further time, begins to ply his small hammer, and is tap-tap-tapping away for somebody else, till wanted. Oh! who would change places with a sick antiquary, whose conscience, though he sleeps, is awake to torment him, and whose dreams, if he dream, are of rifled tombs, profaned temples, Charon and his boat!
"Nocte, brevem si forte indulsit cura soporem,
Et toto versato toro, jam membra quiescunt,
Continuo templum et violati numinis aras,
Et quod præcipuis mentem sudoribus urget,
Se vidit in somnis!"
Old Ignazio.
"Oh dear! what can the matter be?
Oh dear! what shall I do?
Nobody coming to Jockey, and
Nobody coming to Jew!"
What quondam collector at Rome but must recollect that snuffy and gruffy old fellow, Ignazio Vesconali, who lives at the bottom of Scalirata, and has grown old with the Piazza itself! Go down at any hour of the day, and there he was sure to be, either blinking away through his blue goggle glasses, with his cap on, at his door, or at a little shabby table fumbling over curiosities; or creeping over to the coffee-house opposite, to toddle back again, with his cotton pocket-handkerchief, his snuff-box, and his key in hand, to re-arrange his treasures, and utter lamentations that nobody any longer comes to buy. On such occasions we have sometimes entered; and after a "buon giorno," and a remark on the weather, (which, if you abused it, however injuriously, always secured you his assent; for he quarrels now even with the calendar,) he expected you to hope he had sold something lately, to afford him an opportunity to say, "Ma ché, ma niente;" and then you had to sit and listen while he told you all his grievances—how once "a dozen English noblemen had stood all of a row there," and he showed you where, in his shop, fighting for his wares, and buying them almost quicker than he could register the purchases they made; and how sometimes he could sell 500 scudi worth of property before breakfast, and get an appetite by doing so! No! there was not a man of note in England, that had not some day or other been booked by him. All their kindness, no doubt—and then they came not to tease poor Ignazio, but to buy of him. Now a different set of customers dropt in one by one to look at his gems, and to find nothing good enough for them; some tumbling over his antiques, and offering a scudo for his best onyxes; "uno scudo, Santissima Maria Virgine!" others adventuring a whole paul! a price for his best Consular coins!—ah! gli avari! The earth too, once so bountiful, was now as avaricious of parting with her treasures as the English themselves. The fields had ceased to yield their former supplies; and the peasants about Rome would scarce stoop to picking up rubbish, for which, however, they always wanted Ignazio's money. "Ah, poor old man!—che vecchio? old man forsooth! say rather an old dotard, who is unfit to buy, to bargain, or to live!" And then he would ventriloquize once more to himself. "Ah, poor Ignazio! ah, poor old man! your day is indeed gone by." Such appeals were irresistible. So, whenever we had a few scudi to spare, (and it was not quite discreet to go into his shop without,) we used to beg to see some of his boxes of engraved stones; and having pored for a time over wares that had been examined by the most cunning eyes in Rome, would find one of better workmanship, and stop to inquire its price. "Quanto, Signor Ignazio?" and while Signor Ignazio was recollecting himself, we glanced on from one to the other, (the great rule in bargaining being never to appear to know what you are bargaining for!) "Per cinque scudi vi lo do." Viewed thus in the light of a donation, we would think it too high, and tell him so. "Take it for four, then—pigliate lo per quattro;" and at this fresh concession he would grunt a little, like a tame seal in a water-tub! Still we would hesitate, and dare to offer two. "For every body else, he had said impossible,—for us we were padronissimi to take it, as the old man's gift, on our own terms." So we would put it up, and then, elated at our bargain, and at his respect for us, we would remove another "intaglio" from the box; and this time, naming our own price, say with perfect nonchalance, "due scudi." The old fellow would then fumble it up in his snuffy old gloves, and bring it near his snuffy old nose; and having wiped his snuffy old magnifier, would bend his blue goggle glasses over it—and having screamed—"Che! due scudi? what do you mean by two scudi? A stone of this beauty! a living head of Medusa—a front face, too—for two scudi! The serpents in the hair were worth more money—one-half of such a head, were the stone in two, would be worth more money." And then would come in the antistrophe as before—"Ah, povero Ignazio! povero vecchio!"—and we would be shocked, and declare with compunction that we had no intention to cheat him; and he, already "persuasissimo of that," would beg us to say no more, but to put it into our pocket for three. After these preliminaries were settled and paid for, we would be contented to hear him once more recount the tale of his younger days, when he had the antiquity business all to himself; when he married his first wife; had dealings with Demidoff; and knew all that were worth knowing in Rome—both buyers and sellers. "Old age, Signor, is preparing me fast to give up both my business and my life! Buy, buy, now's your time, eccomi! an old man who wants to sell off every thing! name your prices! Don't be afraid, you may offer me any thing now." "Three scudi?" "Impossible I should let you have it for that. It cost me five; but never mind! there's the mask at three scudi. Take it! Any thing else?" "This intaglio?" "You are a capital judge, or you would not have thus picked out my best intaglio—will no colonnati suit?" "No." "Will you be pleased if I prove my friendship for you by sacrificing it at fifteen?" No! "There, take it as our third gift for twelve; but, oh that I should have lived to sell it for that, even to you! But you will come and see me again; I know you will, Dottore mio! And sure you might contrive to spend a few more fees with me than you do, and be all the richer for it into the bargain—what fine opportunities you must have of selling things to your patients, especially to the donne! I wish I was a doctor, that I might carry on my business for a year or two longer!"
Signor Dedomenicis.
"I have a hundred questions to ask," said we, turning into Dedomenicis' curiosity-shop, and casting a furtive glance behind his old armour and arras hangings, to see that there was no other confidant to whom we might be betraying our ignorance. "Dunque—well then, one at a time; è s'accommodi—make yourself at home," said the old dealer, pushing us a chair, and looking humanely communicative, as he adjusted to his temples a huge pair of spectacles, and stood at our side ready to be interrogated.
An old dealer, like a young beauty, when you are together, expects something flattering to be said about his eyes, so "we wished ours were as good as his." He said, "they were younger." "But what was the use of young eyes, or of any eyes," said we, disparaging our own, "that could not make out the wholesomeness of a coin, nor distinguish the patina of antiquity from vulgar verdigris?"
Dedomenicis' cough convinced us that this sentiment of ours was not very far from what he himself believed to be the truth, only he was too polite to say so.
"There!" said we, "look at these bronze bargains of ours, these two counterfeit coins, which have not been a week in our possession, and which C—— has already declared to be false! Oh! would you not have deemed it a happier lot to put up with a blameless blindness, and all its evils, rather than, having eyes in your head, to have disgraced them by such a purchase?" Dedomenicis glances one glance at the false Emperors, and then passes a sentence which banishes them for ever from the society of the Cæsars; while he wonders how we could have hoped to buy a real Piscennius and a Pertinax in the same adventure, and both so well preserved too?
"Were we ignorant of the prices usually set upon the heads of all those emperors who had enjoyed but a few weeks' reign?" Did not every body, for instance, know that the African Gordians, both father and son, were, in bronze, worth their weight in gold? that a Vitellius in bronze was cheap at six pounds? and that he might be considered fortunate indeed who could convert his spare ten-pound notes into as many Pertinax penny-pieces, or come into the possession of a half-penny or a second module, as it is called, of Pescennius Niger, at the same price? Did not every body know that Domitia was coy at £20, and stood out for £25? That Matidia, Mariana, and Plotina smiled upon none who would not give £40 to possess them, and that Annia Faustina was become a priceless piece? Had we been so long returned to Rome and not yet heard of the Matidia now in the keeping of our gallant countryman, General A——, who was jealous (at least so B—— had told him) of showing her even to his best friends, lest she should prove too much for their virtue to withstand, and slept with her, and could not snore securely unless she was by his side? Well, he had paid £40 for her at Thomas's sale in London, and Rollin, on seeing her in Paris, would have gladly detained her there for £50, but the general was not to be bribed; "so you see, dottore mio, it costs a good deal to collect coins even in the baser metal." "So it would appear, indeed, Dedomenicis; and the next time a Pertinax in bronze turns up, we will most pertinaciously refuse to bid for him; or if another Pescennius should ever again cross our path, we will mutter 'Hic Niger est,' and remember to have nothing to do with him."
"And I think," said the old fellow, slily taking off his spectacles, and placing them on the table,—"I think you will not lose much if you adhere to your present intention."
"And yet it is annoying not to know the difference between the works of those Paduan brothers, of a recent century, and such as really belong to the old Roman mint;" saying which we began to study them afresh, as a policeman would do to a rogue, whom he expected to meet again. "Is this knowledge, dear Dedomenicis, to be acquired 'per càrita?' let us not waste our time, if it be not." "Lei lo sapra! it will come in good time. Pazienza! be patient! you know our proverb—'time and straw ripen medlars,' and your judgment will mature in time, just as the medlars do."
Crude as an unripe medlar though our judgment certainly then was, still the prospect of its mellowing into unsoundness at last was by no means consolatory; and so we told him, pocketing our false coins, and going home to consult the memorandum of their price,—here it is! Eccola! as it was most ingeniously registered by us at the time—"Nov. 7, 1840—Bought to-day of a peasant on his way from Ricci to Rome, two beautiful coins, a Pertinax and a Pescennius Niger, in perfect preservation! only paid £5 for the two!! the simple contadino, who can't read the epigraphes, asks whether they are not Nero's!!"[54]
A ring at the bell, and our courier has announced Signor Dedomenicis. "By all means, show him in then,"—for he had come, a year later, to see coins we had picked up during our summer trip to Sicily. "There," said we gaily, and to put him in a good humour at once, (for the remark showed we had made ourselves master of his physiognomy),—"there, Dedomenicis, is a Ptolemy Evergetes, who was, to judge by his coins, your very prototype—it is your nose—your chin—your"——
"Suppose you make it mine altogether then," said he slily; but we "prized it too much, on this very account, to part with it!" After which we go to the nearest cabinet in the room—unlock the door, take out drawer No. 1, marked Sicilian, and rare; and in the pride of our young beginnings, and little knowing what we were to bring upon ourselves in so doing,—
"Midst hopes, and fears that kindle hopes.
A pleasing anxious throng;
And shrewd suspicions often lull'd,
But now returning strong,"—
we hand over the tray to Dedomenicis, whose running commentary, as soon as he had brought it into the field of his spectacles, was really appalling; and he plied it as destructively as a Sikh battery, or a Perkins's steam gun.
Prepared to see him take out the first coin in the row, to subject it to his magnifier, to turn it round, now on this side, now on that, and then to pause, ere he could decide upon it, little could we have supposed that in a second his battery was to commence fire; and that in less than a minute, he would have passed a summary sentence upon every coin of the lot.
"One—two—three."—Thus it began; "roba commune—common as blackberries; (four, five, six,) niente di buono—good for what you can get for them; (seven, eight, nine,) Idem; (ten, eleven, twelve,) Idem; thirteen, not of Messina, as it pretended to be; and here had sold us a Neapolitan cat in place of a Sicilian hare!" "Come! a cat?" (for we called to mind what each of puss's nine lives had cost us, and determined to die game for it), "that coin a counterfeit?" "Sī—Sīg-nō-rĕ!" in that sort of sing-song gamut twang in which one Roman answers another's incredulity—"anzi falsīssimo," with a most provoking lengthening out of the second syllable of that most provoking superlative; he knew all about its fabrication; the gentleman who made these coins was an acquaintance—not a friend of his; the original coin being in request, and somewhat expensive, he had contrived to get up a new issue of the Messina Hare,[55] which was much in vogue, and seemed, like Gay's Hare, to court an extensive acquaintance, and many friends. "That Himera[56] hen is of a brood that never lays golden eggs, and the sooner you can get rid of her the better. Time was when such poultry fetched its price; now, thanks to the prolific process of our modern hatchings, we see her as often in the market as widgeon, snipe, or plovers. That's a fine lion; 'tis a pity you've no lioness to match him; but one such real Rhegium leone is worth a host of counterfeits,—'unus, sane, at Leo'. As to your Ptolemies' eagles here, at least they are well preserved, and that always should give a coin some claim to a place in a beginner's collection; though to us dealers, who see many of them, these eagles at last become somewhat uninteresting and vulgar birds. What a collection is here of Hieros[57] on horseback, all in good plight too! Well, I might have bought in or out of these ranks myself; but I should not, I think, like you, have purchased the whole troop—of course you paid but little for them." "Yes," said we timidly, "not overmuch, not more than they were worth perhaps, six pauls a-piece," and we coughed nervously, and expected him to speak encouragingly; but he said nothing, and proceeded with his scrutiny of our box. "Per Bacco! What a quantity of cuttlefish! Methinks Syracuse has rather overdone you with her Lobigo, but that at least is genuine, for 'tis too cheap to make money of by imitation. This of Naxos will do. This of Tarentum, va bene! this of Locri, corresponde." A faint "bravo!" escapes him on taking up an Athenian Tetradrachm, with the Archer's name on the field; but he takes no note, has no "winged words" to throw away upon our winged horses, though every nag of them, we know, came from Corinth or from Argos.
The bearded corn of Metapontus, with Ceres or Mars on the reverse: Arion on his dolphin—that beautiful, most beautiful of coins—were, together with sundry others, all too common for his antiquarian eye to take pleasure in; he sought something less frequently presented to it, and at last he found it in a Croton coin with a rare reverse, which, "would we sell him, he would take at twenty dollars, and pay us in living silver." A bow told him we were not disposed to part with it. And now he comes to what we consider to be our finest piece,—our Lipari bronze! And on it is a fat dolphin sporting on a green sea. Dedomenicis' manner is vastly discouraging, and we are prepared for new disappointment, yet we could have sworn that that coin was genuine. But if false, as he believes it to be, why then not have done with it? why put it down to take it up again? why ask whether we don't repute it false, when he knows we know nothing of the matter? And why mouse it so closely under his keen eye, and look round the rim of it, and examine the face of it, and appear as if he would penetrate into its very soul,[58] and get at its history? Oh! 'tis all right, then; if "he may be mistaken," doubtless he is so: and this is confirmed by his now proposing—thinking an exchange no robbery, of course—to exchange it for us. Ingenuous man! who hadst twice invoked the saints and the Madonna in our behalf when thou heardest the price we paid for our unlucky Hare; and when thou knewest how C—— had beguiled us into taking, and paying for a Roman, the price of an Etruscan "As;" and now thou wouldst have robbed us of our best coin, have deprived us of the very Delphin classic of our collection; it won't do! Our Messenian hare is welcome, but, old æruscator, we cannot let you swim away on our dolphin; and we rise to replace him in our monetaro accordingly.
A third interview with Dedomenicis is recorded in our entry-book of such matters.—"Here are the coins, Signor, which you gave me to clean last week: they are ten in number, for which you owe me as many pauls.—Eccole!" "Ah," said we, "you have not made much of them, I fear." "Look and see," was the laconic reply. By which time we had taken up the first, and were pleased to find that an Augustus, whose lineaments we could hardly recognise, when we gave him to Dedomenicis to scale, had come back to us perfectly restored. "Why, Dedomenicis," said we, "this is a restitution better than Trajan's, of this very Emperor's coinage; for that, after all, was but the imitation of an old mint; but yours the restoration of the old one itself. Henceforth I prefer Dedomenicis' restituit to Trajan's restituit." "Well, then, when you have looked over the others, you will, I dare say, pay these and them at the same rate, as if they had been the issues of that Emperor."[59] We were indeed surprised at what we saw, so much had all our coins gained by the process to which Dedomenicis had subjected them. The second we took up represented the Ostian harbour, (Portus Ostiensis.) We had given it to him with a foul bottom—it was restored to us with its basin cleared out, and with all its shipping, just as it used to look in the days of Nero; in another, the whole arena of the Colosseum had been disencumbered; in another, Antonine's column shone bright from top to bottom; here we saw Honos et Virtus (honour and military prowess) again taking the field; here the scales of Justice once more appeared, and librated freely in her hand; here Hope resumed her green trefoil; Pudicity unveils her face; and there sat Fecundity on a curule seat, with all her family about her; lastly, there were those three scandalous sisters of Caligula—the Misses Money (Moneta,)[60]—standing together with their arms intertwined, and their names at their backs. All these ten restitutions cost only ten pauls! "And how did you manage to clean then so well, Dedomenicis?" "Col tempo ed il temperino,"—with time and a penknife: "Ma ci vuo il genio,"—you must have a talent for it.
Scaling a Coin.
"Ci vuo il genio,"—he was right; and think you 'tis so easy or simple a thing to clean a coin? to unmask an empress, pertinacious in her disguise, or to scrape acquaintance with emperors? Try it;—not that you will succeed; but that the difficulties which you are thus made to encounter in the attempt, will dispose you the more readily to do justice to the skill of those who succeed in this delicate process, which, like the finer operations of surgery, requires at once precision and address, great nicety in the handling of your instrument; while the importance attached to the operation itself makes the successful performance of it not a little desirable. The penknife, guided by a dexterous hand, may light upon a discovery that has been buried for ages; and a pin's point may make revelations sufficient to adjust some obscure point in history. Who knows what face may now lie hid (facies dicatur an ulcus?) under some obscure coating of paste? What an it be a Vitellius; what if a Pertinax should reveal himself? or suppose, when you have removed the foul larvæ, you undermine a Matidia! a Plotina!! an Annia Faustina!!! and your fortune is made! 'Tis a lottery, we admit. But the very principle of the excitement—the charm is, that you know not what may turn up; for a less chance, you may possibly have bought a "Terno" in a Frankfort lottery, the chance of an estate on the Moselle! But there are small prizes to be picked up occasionally—and here's a case in point:—"I was one day sauntering," said our friend C——, "by the tomb of Cecilia Metella, when a peasant came up with a handful of very dirty-looking coins, so firmly encrusted with mortar, that it seemed absurd to attempt its removal. Having nothing particular to do, and liking the wild quiet of the spot, I gave some 'baiocchi' to the man; and taking my seat on a bit of the old aqueduct, I opened my penknife, and began to scrape away. At first I saw the trace of a letter; and digging round it, I at length disinterred a large M——a Roman M! It was probably Maximin, or his son Maximus, that I then had under my thumb; but it might be a Marinus, in which case it was a valuable coin; so I wrought on with renewed vigour, and presently an L was in the field. A better prospect this than the last; for if it turned out to be an Æmilianus, I should have made a good morning's work of it—and it was so! Little by little, line by line, grain by grain, I opened the field, till C. Julius Æmilianus, Pontif: Max: in a full epigraphe, shone forth with the imperial head in full relief, all in a bright emerald patina. I have seen several Æmilianuses, but none like that; and it cost me only a penny."
Now, touching the difficulties in your way—should you still fancy them to be imaginary—take any dirty coin nigra moneta sordibus, and try to clean it; oil it, and scrub it as you may; pick into, poke at, finally, waste your whole morning over it, till your back aches, and your penknife is blunted; you will have to confess at last that your labour has been lost! Your only chance, then, is the fire; and if the actual cautery fails, there is no longer any hope. As in learning to scale properly, you must come to sacrifice a great many coins before you can hope to succeed, fiat experimentum in corpore vili—begin with those that are worthless. Never mind scratching a Faustina's face; set no store by Nero; you may, if you like, mutilate as many Domitians as that emperor mutilated flies. For why?—they cost nothing; unless, indeed, there were something to be gained by reversing the picture. But this only while learning, and to learn; for when you know how to clean a coin properly, you will hardly waste your time in adding new Trajans to the ten thousands already in existence; nor whet your curiosity or steel upon an empress, known to be as common in bronze as she was wont to be in the flesh! When you have a really valuable coin, on which your pains will not be thrown away, your mode of procedure is, first to scrape, with extreme caution, on some small spot by the margin, till you have taken your proper soundings, and come down to the patina. Your next step must be, to ascertain whether that patina is hard, or soft and friable; in which latter case you will have to use all diligence not to poke your penknife in Crispina's eyeball, nor to wound her husband, with a few days' beard upon his chin. No healing process can help you here to undo your clumsy surgery and want of skill. He will remain cicatrised, and she lippa for life. Each separate feature requires renewed care. When your minute manipulations have brought out the eyeball unspecked, then comes the nose; and to remove the closely sticking plaster from its side, and expose uninjured the curling nostril underneath, requires more than Taliacotian sleight of hand to manage properly. You must not trifle with Faustina's hair, nor with Philip's beard. The "flava coma," which we do not consider as ornamental at any time, looks far worse in brass than in golden tresses. You must be an aurist when you come to the ear. Deal with the ear, and remember that it has its portio mollis as you gently probe your way into its tube. Need we insist upon the necessity of respecting a lady's lips? and yet you will wound them, unless you are careful. And when all is done, you may find that your coin is no sooner cleaned, than it is seized with the smallpox,[61] which will become confluent and spread, unless properly instructed. You have probed each cicatrix to the bottom, and filled the minute holes with ink. Thus you will see that patience, tact, and care are all required in scaling a coin; or, as Dedomenicis said, ci vuo il genio!
The collecting coins is a pleasant way of learning the chronology of the royal families of antiquity; and if you are culpably negligent in their arrangement, the first dealer who sees your cabinet takes care to apprize you of your mistakes, and will generally rate you soundly as he does so. The first time Dedomenicis visited our collection of the Roman emperors, he was in a great taking on detecting (which he did not fail to do at a glance) various anachronisms in our arrangement. "By all that should be, if here is not Agrippina the wife of Germanicus, and Claudius's Agrippina, in next-door neighbourhood! the two Faustinas (che scandalo, dottore mio!) lying side by side with strange husbands! Philip junior deposing his own father—ci avevano questa consuetudine, so let that pass; but here is a more serious affair. Pray separate all these Julias a little, my dear sir, caro lei, (looking at us very reproachfully;) here, in this one tray, you have mixed, introduced, and confounded together all the Julias of the Roman empire! Julia, the daughter of Titus, alone in her right place beside her first consort Domitian. But Julia Pia and Julia Domna are but the aliases of the same empress, the wife of Septimius Severus; and here you have placed by mistake Julia Paula, the wife of Eliogabalus, after Julia Mammæa, who you must remember married Maximin. Pray attend to these things; and whenever your series is deficient, leave vacant spaces in your trays to mark the deficiencies. Don't crowd your emperors thus together, when time has separated them in history," &c. &c. &c. We promised faithfully to attend to these hints; but it was all to no purpose, for in one week our friends, to whom we used to show our collection properly arranged, would again involve our chronology in inextricable confusion, especially certain dear young ladies of our acquaintance, who, by no means showing the same respect for old Time that old Time continued to demonstrate towards them, would make light of whole centuries; and we have known them so regardless of all dates, except perhaps their own, as to bring up a Constantine or Maxentius, and to place them under the very nose of Augustus!
THE LAST RECOLLECTIONS OF NAPOLEON.[62]
There are few things more striking than the analogy in civil and physical changes of the world. There have been in the history of man periods as distinctive as in the history of nations. From these periods society and nations have alike assumed new aspects, and the world has commenced a new career. The fall of the Roman Empire was the demarcation between the old world and the new. It was the moral deluge, out of which a new condition of man, new laws, new forms of religion, new styles of thought, almost a totally new configuration of human society, were to arise. A new settlement of the civil world took place: power absorbed by one race of mankind was to be divided among various races; and the development of principles of government and society, hitherto unknown, was to be scarcely less memorable, less unexpected, or less productive, than that voyage by which Columbus doubled the space of the habitable globe.
The Reformation was another mighty change. It introduced civil liberty into the empire of tyranny, religion into the realm of superstition, and science into the depths of national ignorance. The French Revolution was the last, and not the least powerful change within human experience. Its purpose is, like its operation, still dubious. Whether it came simply for wrath, or simply for restoration—whether, like the earthquake of Lisbon, it came only to destroy, and leave its ruins visible for a century to come; to clear the ground of incumbrances too massive for the hand of man, and open the soil for exertions nobler than the old, must be left to time to interpret. But there can be no question, that the most prominent agency, the most powerful influence, and the most dazzling lustre, of a period in which all the stronger impulses of our being were in the wildest activity, centred in the character of one man, and that man—Napoleon.
It is evidently a law of Providence, that all the great changes of society shall be the work of individual minds. Yet when we recollect the difficulty of effecting any general change, embracing the infinite varieties of human interests, caprices, passions, and purposes, nothing could seem more improbable. But it has always been the course of things. Without Charlemagne, the little principalities of Gothic Europe would never have been systematised into an empire;—without Luther, what could have been the progress of the Reformation?—without Napoleon, the French Revolution would have burnt itself out, vanished into air, or sunk into ashes. He alone collected its materials, combined them into a new and powerful shape, crowned this being of his own formation with the imperial robe, erected it in the centre of Europe, and called the nations to bow down before a new idol, like the gods of the Indian known only by its mysterious frown, the startling splendour of its diadem, and the swords and serpents grasped in its hands.
That the character of Napoleon was a singular compound of the highest intellectual powers with the lowest moral qualities, is evidently the true description of this extraordinary being. This combination alone accounts for the rapidity, the splendour of his career, and the sudden and terrible completeness of his fall. Nothing less than pre-eminent capacity could have shot him up through the clouds and tempests of the Revolution into the highest place of power. A mixture of this force of mind and desperate selfishness of heart could alone have suggested and sustained the system of the Imperial wars, policy, and ambition; and the discovery of his utter faithlessness could alone have rendered all thrones hopeless of binding him by the common bonds of sovereign to sovereign, and compelled them to find their only security for the peace of Europe in consigning him to a dungeon. He was the only instance in modern history of a monarch dethroned by a universal conviction; warred against by mankind, as the sole object of the war; delivered over into captivity by the unanimous judgment of nations; and held in the same unrelaxing and judicial fetters until he died.
It is another striking feature of this catastrophe, that the whole family of Napoleon sank along with him. They neither possessed his faculties, nor were guilty of his offences. But as they had risen solely by him, they perished entirely with him. Future history will continually hover over this period of our annals, as the one which most resembles some of those fabrications of the Oriental genius, in which human events are continually under the guidance of spirits of the air; in which fantastic palaces are erected by a spell, and the treasures of the earth developed by the wave of a wand—in which the mendicant of this hour is exalted into the prince of the next; and while the wonder still glitters before the eye, another sign of the necromancer dissolves the whole pageant into air again. Human recollection has no record of so much power, so widely distributed, and apparently so fixed above all the ordinary casualties of the world, so instantly and so irretrievably overthrown. The kings of earth are not undone at a blow; kingdoms do not change their rulers without a struggle. Great passions and great havoc have always preceded and followed the fall of monarchies. But the four diadems of the Napoleon race fell from their wearers' brows with scarcely a touch from the hand of man. The surrender of the crown by Napoleon extinguished the crowns actually ruling over millions, and virtually influencing the whole Continent. They were extinguished, too, at the moment when the Imperial crown disappeared. It had no sooner been crushed at Waterloo, than they all fell into fragments, of themselves;—the whole dynasty went down with Napoleon into the dungeon, and not one of them has since returned to the world.
The name of General Count Montholon is well known to this country, as that of a brave officer, who, after acquiring distinguished rank in the French army by his sword, followed Napoleon to St Helena; remained with him during his captivity; and upon his death was made the depositary of his papers, and his executor. But his own language, in a letter dated from the Castle of Ham in June 1844, gives the best account of his authority and his proceedings.
"A soldier of the Republic, a brigadier-general at twenty years of age, and minister-plenipotentiary in Germany in 1812 and 1813, I could, like others, have left memoirs concerning the things which I saw; but the whole is effaced from my mind in presence of a single thing, a single event, and a single man. The thing is Waterloo; the event, the fall of the Empire; and the man, Napoleon."
He then proceeds to tell us, that he shared the St Helena captivity for six years; that for forty-two nights he watched the dying bed of the ex-monarch; and that, by Napoleon's express desire, he closed his eyes. But to those duties of private friendship were affixed official services, which looked much more like tyranny than the tribute of personal regard, and which we should think must have worn out the patience, and tried the constitution, of the most devoted follower of this extraordinary captive.
Napoleon, though apparently contemptuous of the opinions of mankind, evidently felt the strongest anxiety to make out a favourable statement for himself. And all his hours, except the few devoted to exercise on horseback and to sleep, and to his meals, were employed in completing the narrative which was to clear up his character to mankind.
During the last years passed in St Helena, Napoleon sent for the Count every night at eleven o'clock, and continued dictating to him until six in the morning, when he went into the bath, dismissing the count with—"Come, my son, go and repose, and come to me again at nine o'clock. We shall have breakfast, and resume the labours of the night." At nine, he returned, and remained with him till one, when Napoleon went to bed. Between four and five, he sent for the count again, who dined with him every day, and at nine o'clock left him, to return at eleven.
The world little knew the drudgery to which these unfortunate followers of the Ex-Emperor were thus exposed, and they must all have rejoiced at any termination of a toil so remorseless and so uncheering.
Napoleon was fond of the Turkish doctrine of fatality. Whether so acute a mind was capable of believing a doctrine so palpably contradicted by the common circumstances of life, and so utterly repugnant to reason, can scarcely be a question; but with him, as with the Turks, it was a capital doctrine for the mighty machine which he called an army. But the count seems to have been a true believer. He, too, pronounces, that "destiny is written," and regards himself as being under the peculiar influence of a malignant star, or, in his own words: "In fact, without having sought it, my destiny brought me into contact with the Emperor in the Elysée Bourbon, conducted me, without my knowing it, to the shores of Boulogne, where honour imposed upon me the necessity of not abandoning the nephew of the Emperor in presence of the dangers by which he was surrounded. Irrevocably bound to the misfortunes of a family, I am now perishing in Ham; the captivity commenced in St Helena."
Of Count Montholon, it must be acknowledged, that he was unstained by either the vices or the violences which scandalized Europe so frequently in the leaders of the French armies. He appears to have been at all times a man of honourable habits, as he certainly is of striking intelligence. But we have no faith in his doctrine of the star, and think that he would have acted much more wisely if he had left the stars to take care of themselves, avoided the blunder of mistaking the nephew of Napoleon for a hero and a genius, and stayed quietly in London, instead of risking himself with an invasion of valets to take the diadem off the most sagacious head in Europe.
The narrative commences with the return of Napoleon to Paris after his renown, his throne, and his dynasty were alike crushed by the British charge at Waterloo. He reached Paris at six in the morning of the 21st. It is now clear that the greatest blunder of this extraordinary man was his flight from the army. If he had remained at its head, let its shattered condition be what it might, he would have been powerful, have awed the growing hostility of the capital, and have probably been able to make peace alike for himself and his nation. But by hurrying to Paris, all was lost: he stripped himself of his strength; he threw himself on the mercy of his enemies; and palpably capitulated to the men who, but the day before, were trembling under the fear of his vengeance.
Nobleness of heart is essential to all true renown; and perhaps it is not less essential to all real security. Napoleon, with talents which it is perfectly childish to question, though the attempt has been made since the close of his brilliant career, wanted this nobleness of heart, and through its want ultimately perished. Of the bravery of him who fought the splendid campaigns of Italy, and of the political sagacity of him who raised himself from being a subaltern of artillery to a sovereign of sovereigns, there can be no doubt. But his selfishness was so excessive that it occasionally made both contemptible, and gave his conduct alike the appearance of cowardice, and the appearance of infatuation. His flight from Egypt, leaving his army to be massacred or captured, disgraced him in the face of Europe. His flight from Russia, leaving the remnant of his legions to be destroyed, was a new scandal; but hitherto no evil had been produced by this gross regard of self. The penalty, however, must be paid. His flight from the army in Belgian, leaving it without counsel or direction, to be crushed by a victorious enemy, was the third instance of that ignoble preference of his own objects which had characterised and stained his Egyptian and Russian career. But retribution was now come, and he was to be undone. The slaughter of Waterloo had been tremendous, but it was not final. The loss of the French army had been computed at forty thousand men, killed, wounded, and dispersed. He had come into the field with seventy-two thousand men, independent of Grouchy. He had thus thirty thousand remaining. Grouchy's force of thirty thousand was still untouched, and was able to make its way to Paris. In addition to these sixty thousand, strong garrisons had been left in all the fortresses, which he might without difficulty have gathered upon his retreat. The Parisian national guard would have augmented this force, probably, on the whole, to one hundred thousand men. It is true that the allied Russian and Austrian forces were on the frontier. But they had not yet moved, and could not prevent the march of those reinforcements. Thus, without reckoning the provincial militia of France, or calculating on a levée en masse, Napoleon within a fortnight might have been at the head of one hundred and fifty thousand men, while the pursuing army could not have mustered half the number. He would thus have had time for negotiation; and time with him was every thing. Or let the event be what it might, the common sense of the Allies would have led them to avoid a direct collision with so powerful a force fighting on its own ground under the walls of the capital, and knowing that the only alternatives were complete triumph or total ruin.
Count Montholon makes a remark on the facility with which courtiers make their escape from a falling throne, which has been so often exemplified in history. But it was never more strikingly exemplified than in the double overthrow of Napoleon. "At Fontainbleau, in 1814," says the Count, "when I hastened to offer to carry him off with the troops under my command, I found no one in those vast corridors, formerly too small for the crowd of courtiers, except the Duke of Bassano and two aides-de-camp." His whole court, down to his Mameluke and valet, had run off to Paris, to look for pay and place under the Bourbons. In a similar case in the next year, at the Elysée Bourbon, he found but two counts and an equerry. It was perfectly plain to all the world but Napoleon himself that his fate was decided.
There certainly seems to have been something in his conduct at this period that can scarcely be accounted for but by infatuation. His first act, the desertion of his army, was degrading to his honour, but his conduct on his arrival was not less degrading to his sagacity. Even his brother Lucien said that he was blinded with the smoke of Waterloo. He seems to have utterly lost that distinct view and fierce decision which formerly characterised all his conduct. It was no more the cannon-shot or the thunder-clap, it was the wavering of a mind suddenly perplexed by the difficulties which he would once have solved by a sentence and overwhelmed by resistance—which he would have once swept away like a swarm of flies. The leader of armies was crushed by a conspiracy of clerks, and the sovereign of the Continent was sent to the dungeon by cabal of his own slaves.
While Napoleon was thus lingering in the Elysée Bourbon, the two chambers of the Legislature were busily employed between terror and intrigue. The time was delicate, for the Bourbons and the Allies were approaching. But, on the other hand, the fortunes of Napoleon might change; tardiness in recognising the Bourbons might be fatal to their hopes of place, but the precipitancy of abandoning Napoleon might bring their heads under the knife of the guillotine. All public life is experimental, and there never was a time when the experiment was of a more tremulous description.
At length they began to act; and the first precaution of the Chamber of Deputies was to secure their own existence. Old Lafayette moved a resolution, that the man should be regarded as a traitor to the country who made any attempt to dissolve the Chamber. This was an obvious declaration against the authority of the Empire. The next motion was, that General Beker should be appointed commandant of the guard ordered to protect the Legislature. This was a provision against the mob of Paris. The Legislature was now safe on its two prominent perils. In the mean time, Napoleon had made another capital blunder. He had held a council of the ministers, to which he proposed the question, whether he should proceed in person to the Chamber of Deputies, and demand supplies, or send his brothers and ministers to make the communication. Three of the ministers approved of his going in person, but the majority disapproved of it—on the plea of its being a dangerous experiment, in the excited state of the public passions. If Napoleon had declined this counsel, which arose from either pusillanimity or perfidy, it is perfectly possible that he might have silenced all opposition. The known attachment of the troops, the superstition connected with his fortunes, the presence of the man whom they all so lately worshipped, as the Indians worship the serpent for the poison of its fang, might have produced a complete revulsion. Napoleon, too, was singularly eloquent—his language had a romantic splendour which captivates the artificial taste of the nation; and with an imperial figure before them, surrounded with more powerful incidents than the drama could ever offer, and threatening a fifth act which might involve the fate of France and Europe, the day might have finished by a new burst of national enthusiasm, and the restoration of Napoleon to the throne, with all his enemies in the Legislature chained to its footstool.
But he sent his brother Joseph to the Chamber of Peers, and received the answer to his mission next morning, in a proposal which was equivalent to a demand for his abdication.
A council of ministers was again held on this proposal. The same three who had voted for his presence in the Chamber, now voted for his rejection of the proposal. The majority, however, were against them. Napoleon yielded to the majority. He had lost his opportunity—and in politics opportunity is every thing. He had now nothing more to lose. He drew up an acknowledgment of his abdication; but appended to it the condition of proclaiming his son, Napoleon Second, emperor of the French. This was an artifice, but it was unworthy even of the art of Napoleon. He must have been conscious that the Allies would have regarded this appointment as a trick to ensure his own restoration. His son was yet a child; a regent must have been appointed; Napoleon would have naturally been that regent; and in six months, or on the first retreat of the Allies, he would as naturally have reappointed himself emperor. The trick was too shallow for his sagacity, and it was impossible to hope that it could have been suffered by the Allies. Yet it passed the Chamber, and Napoleon Second was acknowledged within the walls. But the acknowledgment was laughed at without them; the Allies did not condescend to notice it; and the Allies proceeded to their work of restoration as if he had never existed. In fact, the dynasty was at an end; a provisional government was appointed, with Fouché at its head, and the name of Napoleon was pronounced no more.
Count Montholon gives a brief but striking description of the confusion, dismay, and despair, into which Waterloo had thrown the Bonapartists. He had hurried to the Elysée a few hours after the arrival of Bonaparte from the field. He met the Duke of Vicenza coming out, with a countenance of dejection, and asked him what was going on. "All is lost," was the answer. "You arrived to-day, as you did at Fontainbleau, only to see the emperor resign his crown. The leaders of the Chambers desire his abdication. They will have it; and in a week Louis XVIII. will be in Paris. At night on the 19th, a short note in pencil was left with my Swiss, announcing the destruction of the army. The same notice was given to Carnot. The last telegraphic dispatch had brought news of victory; we both hastened to the Duke of Otranto; he assured us with all his cadaverous coldness that he knew nothing. He knew all, however, I am well assured. Events succeeded each other with the rapidity of lightning; there is no longer any possible illusion. All is lost, and the Bourbons will be here in a week."
The Count remained forty-eight hours at the palace. The fallen Emperor had now made up his mind to go to America, and the Count promised to accompany him. A couple of regiments, formed of the workmen of the Faubourg St Germain, marching by the palace, now demanded that Napoleon should put himself at their head, and take vengeance on his enemies. But he well knew the figure which the volunteers of the mob would make in front of the bayonets which had crushed his guard at Waterloo, and he declined the honour of this new command. A few courtiers, who adhered to him still, continued to talk of his putting himself at the head of the national force. But Waterloo had effectually cured him of the passion for soldiership, and he constantly appealed to his unwillingness to shed the blood of Frenchmen. It was at least evident that he intended to tempt the field no more, but after being the cause of shedding the blood of two millions of the people, his reserve was romantic.
The Count was sent to dismiss the volunteers, and they having performed their act of heroism, and offered to challenge the whole British army, were content with the glory of the threat, and heroically marched home to their shops.
But Montholon, on returning again, addressed Napoleon on the feasibility of attacking Wellington and Blucher with the battalions of the Messrs Calicot, upon which the Ex-Emperor made the following solemn speech: "To put into action the brute force of the masses, would without doubt save Paris, and ensure me the crown, without having recourse to the horrors of a civil war. But this would be also to risk the shedding of rivers of fresh blood. What is the compressive force which would be sufficiently strong to regulate the outburst of so much passion, hatred, and vengeance? No, I never can forget one thing, that I have been brought from Cannes to Paris in the midst of cries for blood, 'Down with the priests!' 'Down with the nobles!' I would rather have the regrets of France than possess its crown."
There is no country in the world, where Napoleon's own phrase, that from the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step, is more perpetually and practically realised than in France. Here was a man utterly ruined, without a soldier on the face of the earth, all but a prisoner, abandoned by every human being who could be of the slightest service to him, beaten in the field, beaten on his own ground, and now utterly separated from his remaining troops, and with a hundred thousand of the victors rushing after him, hour by hour, to Paris. Yet he talks as if he had the world still at his disposal, applauds his own magnanimity in declining the impossible combat, vaunts his own philosophy in standing still, when he could neither advance nor retreat, and gives himself credit as a philanthropist, when he was on the very point of being handed over to the enemy as a prisoner. Some unaccountable tricks of a lower description now began to be played on the goods and chattels of the Elysée Bourbon. A case containing snuff-boxes adorned with portraits set in diamonds, was laid by Bertrand on the mantel-piece. He accidentally turned to converse with General Montholon at the window. Only one person entered the room. The Count does not give his name,—he was evidently a person of rank. On turning to the mantel-piece again, the case was gone.
One of the ministers had brought some negotiable paper to the amount of several millions of francs into the Emperor's chamber. The packet was placed under one of the cushions of the sofa. Only one person, and that one a man of rank who had served in Italy, entered the chamber. Napoleon went to look for the money, calculated a moment, and a million and a half of francs, or about £60,000 sterling, had been taken in the interim. Those were times for thievery, and the plunderers of Europe were now on the alert, to make spoil of each other. The Allies were still advancing, but they were not yet in sight; and the mob of Paris, who had been at first delighted to find that the war was at an end, having nothing else to do, and thinking that, as Wellington and Blucher had not arrived within a week, they would not arrive within a century, began to clamour Vive l'Empereur! Fouché and the provisional government began to feel alarm, and it was determined to keep Napoleon out of sight of the mob. Accordingly they ordered him to be taken to Malmaison; and on the 25th, towards nightfall, Napoleon submissively quitted the Elysée, and went to Malmaison. At Malmaison he remained for the greater part of the time, in evident fear of being put to death, and in fact a prisoner.—Such was the fate of the most powerful sovereign that Europe had seen since Charlemagne. Such was the humiliation of the conqueror, who, but seven years before, had summoned the continental sovereigns to bow down to his footstool at Erfurth; and who wrote to Talma the actor these words of supreme arrogance—"Come to Erfurth, and you shall play before a pit-full of kings."
From this period, day by day, a succession of measures was adopted by the government to tighten his chain. He was ordered to set out for the coast, nominally with the intention of giving him a passage to America. But we must doubt that intention. Fouché, the head of the government, had now thrown off the mask which he had worn so many years. And it was impossible for him to expect forgiveness, in case of any future return of Napoleon to power. But Napoleon, in America, would have been at all times within one-and-twenty days of Paris. And the mere probability of his return would have been enough to make many a pillow sleepless in Paris. We are to recollect also, that the English ministry must have been perfectly aware of the arrest of Napoleon; that St Helena had been already mentioned as a place of security for his person; and that if it was essential to the safety of Europe,—a matter about which Fouché probably cared but little; it was not less essential to the safety of Fouché's own neck,—a matter about which he always cared very much, that the Ex-Emperor should never set foot in France again.
The result was, an order from the minister at war, Davoust, Prince of Eckmuhl, couched in the following terms. We give it as a document of history.
"General, I have the honour to transmit to you the subjoined decree, which the commission of government desires you to notify to the Emperor Napoleon: at the same time informing his majesty, that the circumstances are become imperative, and that it is necessary for him immediately to decide on setting out for the Isle of Aix. This decree has been passed as much for the safety of his person as for the interest of the state, which ought always to be dear to him. Should the Emperor not adopt the above mentioned resolution, on your notification of this decree, it will then be your duty to exercise the strictest surveillance, both with a view of preventing his majesty from leaving Malmaion, and of guarding against any attempt upon his life. You will station guards at all the approaches to Malmaison. I have written to the inspector-general of the gendarmerie, and to the commandant of Paris, to place such of the gendarmerie and troops as you may require at your disposal.
"I repeat to you, general, that this decree has been adopted solely for the good of the state, and the personal safety of the Emperor. Its prompt execution is indispensable, as the future fate of his majesty and his family depends upon it. It is unnecessary to say to you, general, that all your measures should be taken with the greatest possible secresy.
(Signed) "Prince of Eckmuhl,
Marshal and Minister of War."
Those documents, which have now appeared, we believe, for the first time authentically, will be of importance to the historian, and of still higher importance to the moralist. Who could have once believed that the most fiery of soldiers, the most subtle of statesmen and the proudest of sovereigns, would ever be the subject of a rescript like the following? It begins with an absolute command that "Napoleon Bonaparte" (it has already dropped the emperor) "shall remain in the roads of the Isle of Aix till the arrival of passports." It then proceeds:—"It is of importance to the well-being of the state, which should not be indifferent to him, that he should remain till his fate, and that of his family, have been definitively regulated. French honour is interested in such an issue; but in the mean time every precaution should be taken for the personal safety of Napoleon, and that he must not be allowed to leave the place of his present sojourn.
(Signed) "The Duke of Otranto.
"The Prince of Eckmuhl."
A similar document was issued to General Beker, signed by Carnot and Caulaincourt. Count Montholon remarks, with sufficient justice, on the signature of Caulaincourt to this paper, that the Emperor would have been extremely astonished to see that name subscribed to a letter in which he was called Napoleon—if any thing could have astonished the former exile of Elba, and the future exile of St Helena.
This must have been a period of the deepest anxiety to the imperial prisoner. He evidently regarded his life as unsafe; thought that he discovered in the project of his journey a determination to throw him either into the hands of assassins or of the French king, and formally announced his refusal to leave Malmaison "until informed of his fate by the Duke of Wellington." He was now reduced to the lowest ebb. He acknowledged himself powerless, hopeless, and utterly dependent on the will of his conqueror. The bitterness of heart which dictated such words must have been beyond all description. He was now abandoned by the few who had followed him from the Elysée.
But time was pressing; Wellington was advancing with rapid steps, and there was a possibility that he might capture Napoleon at Malmaison. Troops were sent to burn the neighbouring bridge, and precautions were taken to prevent the catastrophe. A division of the army coming from the Vendée halted before the palace, and insisted on seeing Napoleon, and on being led by him to battle. This was rodomontade, with the advanced troops of the whole army now within sight of Paris. But it was enough to betray him into the absurdity of proposing to try another chance for his crown. Beker was dispatched to Paris to try the effect of this communication. Fouché gave for answer, the simple fact that the Prussians were advancing on Versailles. The sitting of the provisional government would have been worth the hand of a great painter. Fouché, after sharply rebuking the general for bringing in his proposal from Malmaison, made him sit down at his side, while he wrote a peremptory and decided refusal. Carnot was walking gloomily up and down the room. Caulaincourt, Baron Quinette, and General Grenier, sat silently around the table. Not a word was uttered except by the Duke of Otranto. The general received his dispatch and departed. On passing through the anterooms, he found them filled with generals and high civil officers, who all expressed but one opinion on the necessity of getting rid of Napoleon. "Let him set off, let him go," was the universal cry. "We can undertake nothing for either his personal good or Paris." There was now no alternative. Napoleon must either remain and fall into the hands of Louis XVIII., who had already proclaimed him a traitor and an outlaw, or he must try to make his escape by sea. On the 29th of June, at five o'clock in the evening, he entered the carriage which was to convey him to the coast, leaving Paris behind, to which he was never to return alive, but to which his remains have returned in a posthumous triumph twenty-six years after, on the 15th of September 1840.
On his arrival at Rochfort, all the talent of the French for projects was immediately in full exercise. Never were there so many castles in the air built in so short a time. Proposals were made to smuggle the prisoner to the United States in a Danish merchant vessel, in which, in case of search, he was to be barrelled in a hogshead perforated with breathing holes.
Another project was, to put him on board a kind of fishing-boat manned by midshipmen, and thus escape the English. A third project proposed, that the two French frigates anchored under the guns of the Isle of Aix should put to sea together; that one of them should run alongside Captain Maitland's ship, and attack her fiercely, with the hope of distracting her attention, even with the certainty of being destroyed, while the other frigate made her escape with Napoleon on board. This is what the French would call a grande pensée, and quite as heroic as any thing in a melodrama of the Porte St Martin. But the captain of the leading frigate declined the distinction, and evidently thought it not necessary that he and his crew should be blown out of the water, as they certainly would have been if they came in contact with the Bellerophon; so this third project perished.
After a few days of this busy foolery, the prisoner, startled by new reports of the success of the Allies every where, and too sagacious not to feel that the hands of the French king might be the most dangerous into which the murderer of the Duc D'Enghien could fall; looking with evident contempt upon the foolish projects for his escape, and conscious that his day was done, resolved to throw himself into the hands of Captain Maitland, the commander of the Bellerophon, then anchored in Basque roads. On the night of the 10th, Savary and Las Cases were sent on board the English ship, to inquire whether the captain would allow a French or neutral ship, or the frigates with Napoleon on board, to pass free? Captain Maitland simply answered, that he had received no orders except those ordinarily given in case of war; but that he should attack the frigates if they attempted to pass; that if a neutral flag came in his way, he would order it to be searched as usual. But that, in consequence of the peculiar nature of the case, he would communicate with the admiral in command.
A circumstance occurred on this occasion, which brought M. Las Cases into no small disrepute afterwards. The captain hospitably asked Las Cases and Savary to lunch with him, and, while at table, inquired whether they understood English. He was answered that they did not; and the captain, though of course relying upon the answer, made his observations in English to his officers, while he addressed the Frenchman in his own tongue. It was afterwards ascertained that Las Cases, who had been an emigrant for some years in England, understood English perfectly. Nothing could therefore be more pitiful than his conduct in suffering the captain to believe that he was ignorant on the subject, and thus obtain a confidence to which he had no right. The circumstance, as Count Montholon says,—"was afterwards made a bitter reproach against Las Cases; the English charging him with a violation of honour; because, as they affirmed, he had positively declared that he was unacquainted with their language, when the question was put to him at the commencement of the conference. This, however," says Count Montholon, "is not correct." And how does he show that it is not correct? "The question," says he, "was put collectively, that is, to both alike, and Savary alone answered in the negative." Of course the answer was understood collectively, and comprised M. Las Cases as well as M. Savary. In short, the conduct was contemptible, and the excuse not much better. Las Cases, of course, should not have allowed any other person's word to be taken, when it led to a delusion. It is possible that Savary was unacquainted with his companion's knowledge of English,—though when we recollect that Savary was minister of police, and that Las Cases was about the court of Napoleon, it is difficult to conceive his ignorance on the subject. But in all instances, there could be no apology for his fellow-Frenchman's sitting to hear conversations of which he was supposed, on the credit of Savary's word, and his own silence, to comprehend nothing.
It happily turns out, however, that all this dexterity had only the effect of blinding the parties themselves.
"This mystification and piece of diplomatic chicanery"—we use the language of the volume—"proved, in fact, rather detrimental than useful; for, no doubt, the information thus gained by surprise from Captain Maitland and his officers, contributed to induce the Emperor to decide on surrendering himself to the English." The captain was too honourable a man to think of practising any chicane on the subject; but if the two employés overreached themselves, so much the better.
But events now thickened. On the 12th, the Paris journals arrived, announcing the entrance of the Allies into Paris, and the establishment of Louis XVIII. in the Tuileries! All was renewed confusion, consternation, and projects. On the next day Joseph Bonaparte came to the Isle of Aix, to propose the escape of his fallen brother in a merchant vessel from Bordeaux, for America, and remain in his place. This offer was generous, but it could scarcely be accepted by any human being, and it was refused. But delay was becoming doubly hazardous. It was perfectly possible that the first measure of the new government would be an order for his seizure, and the next, for his execution. On that evening he decided to accept the offer of the chasse-marées, to go on board before morning, and trust to the young midshipmen and chance for his passage across the Atlantic.
We know no history more instructive than these "last days" of a fugitive Emperor. That he might have escaped a week before, is certain, for the harbour was not then blockaded; that he might have made his way among the channels of that very difficult and obstructed coast even after the blockade, is possible; that he might have found his way, by a hundred roads, out of France, or reached the remnant of his armies, is clear, for all his brothers escaped by land. But that he still hesitated—and alone hesitated; that this man—the most memorable for decision, famed for promptitude, for the discovery of the true point of danger, daring to the height of rashness, when daring was demanded—should have paused at the very instant when his fate seemed to be in his own hand, more resembles a preternatural loss of faculty than the course of nature. His whole conduct on the shore of France is to be equalled only by his conduct among the ashes of Moscow,—it was infatuation.
Again the man of decision hesitated; and at four in the morning General Lallemand and Las Cases were sent on board the Bellerophon under the pretext of waiting for the admiral's answer, but in reality to ascertain whether the captain would express officially any pledge or opinion relative to Napoleon's favourable reception in England; which Las Cases had conceived him to express in his conversation with his officers, and of which this M. Las Cases was supposed not to have understood a syllable.
Captain Maitland's answer was distinct and simple. It was, "that he had yet received no information, but hourly expected it; that he was authorized to receive Napoleon on board, and convey him to England, where, according to his own opinion, he would receive all the attention and respect to which he could lay any claim." But, to prevent all presumptions on the subject, adding—"I am anxious that it should be well understood, that I am expressing only my personal opinion on this subject, and have in no respect spoken in the name of the government, having received no instructions from either the admiralty or the admiral."
It is almost painful to contemplate these scenes. What agonies must have passed through the heart of such a man, so humbled! What inevitable contrasts of the throne with the dungeon! What sense of shame in the humiliation which thus placed him at the disposal of his own few followers! What sleepless anxiety in those midnight consultations, in those exposures to public shame, in this sense of utter ruin, in this terrible despair! If some great painter shall hereafter rise to vindicate the pencil by showing its power of delineating the deepest passions of our nature, or some still greater poet shall come to revive the day of Shakspeare, and exhibit the tortures of a greater Macbeth, fallen from the highest elevation of human things into a depth of self-reproach and self-abasement to which all the powers of human language might be pale,—what a subject for them were here!
The theatrical habits of the French are singularly unfortunate for a nation which assumes to take an influential rank in the world. They deprive them of that capacity for coping with real things which is essential to all substantial greatness. With them the business of the world must be all melodrame, and the most commonplace, or the most serious actions of life, must be connected with scene-shifting, trap-doors, and the mimic thunders of the stage. Napoleon was now in a condition the most deeply calculated to force these stern realities of life on the mind. Yet even with him all was to be dramatic; he was to throw himself on the clemency of his conqueror, like one of the heroes of Corneille. England was to stand in admiration of his magnanimous devotedness. The sovereign was to receive him with astonishment and open arms, and, after an embrace of royal enthusiasm, he was to be placed in secure splendour, cheered by the acclamations of a people hastening to do him homage. In this false and high-coloured view of things, he wrote the famous and absurd note, in which he pronounced himself another Themistocles, come to sit by the hearth of the British people. A manlier, because a more rational view of things, would have told him that a war, expressly begun with a determination to overthrow his dynasty, could not be suffered to conclude by giving him the power of again disturbing the world—that his utter faithlessness prohibited the possibility of relying on his pledges—the security of the Bourbon throne absolutely demanded his being finally disabled from disturbing its authority—England owed it to her allies to prevent a repetition of the numberless calamities which his reign had inflicted upon Europe, and owed it to herself to prevent all necessity for the havoc of a new Waterloo.
The national passion for a coup de théâtre rendered all this knowledge of no avail, and he flung himself at the feet of the Prince Regent, with the flattering phraseology of claiming protection "from the most powerful, the most constant, and the most generous of his enemies."
The step was now taken. On the 15th of July, at daybreak, he left the Isle of Aix, and entered one of the boats which was to convey him on board the Bellerophon. He had still a parting pang to undergo. As he looked round the shore, a white flag was flying on all the ships and batteries. All the rest of this curious narrative has been already given to the world. We have no desire to repeat the details.
Count Montholon, in his fondness for excitement, here states that a privy council was held on the question, whether the terms of the Congress of Vienna prevented England from giving up Napoleon to the vengeance of Louis XVIII., adding that "the dispatches of the Duke of Wellington urged them to adopt bloody and terrible determinations." This we utterly disbelieve; and, if we required additional reasons for our disbelief, it would be in the Count's telling us that the energetic opposition of the Duke of Sussex alone prevented the delivery of the prisoner—there not being perhaps any prince, or any individual of England, less likely to have weight in the councils of the existing government.
Without presuming to trace the steps of Providence, it is natural and not unwise to follow them in those leading transactions which give character to their times, or which complete events decisive of the fates of eminent men or nations. One of the most characteristic and abhorred acts of the entire life of the French Emperor, was his imprisonment of the English who were travelling in his country at the commencement of his reign. The act was the most treacherous within human record—it was perfidy on the largest scale. Europe had been often scandalised by breaches of political faith, but the agents and the sufferers were sovereigns and nations. But in this instance the blow fell upon individuals with the most sudden treachery, the most causeless tyranny, and the most sweeping ruin. Twelve thousand individuals, travelling under the protection of the imperial laws, wholly incapable of being regarded by those laws as prisoners, and relying on the good faith of the government, were seized as felons, put under duress, separated from their families in England, suddenly deprived of their means of existence, stopt in the progress of their professions, plundered of their property, and kept under the most vigilant surveillance for eleven years.
The retribution now fell, and that retribution exactly in the form of the crime by which it was drawn down. We give a few extracts of the document by which Napoleon protested against his detention, as a most complete, though unconscious indictment against his own act eleven years before.
Protest at sea, on board the Bellerophon, August 1815—"In the face of God and man, I solemnly protest against the injury which has been committed upon me, by the violation of my most sacred rights, in forcibly disposing of my person and liberty.
"I came freely on board the Bellerophon, and am not a prisoner,—I am the guest of England.
"I presented myself in good faith, and came to place myself under the protection of the laws of England. As soon as I set my foot on board the Bellerophon, I felt myself on the soil of the British people. If the orders issued by the government to receive myself and my suite were merely intended as a snare, then they have forfeited their bond. If such an act were really done, it would be in vain for England in future to speak of her faith, her laws, and her liberty.
"She pretended to offer the hand of hospitality to an enemy, and when he had trusted to her fidelity, she immolated him."
If the detenus at Verdun, and scattered through the various fortresses of France, had drawn up a petition against the desperate act which had consigned them to captivity, they might have anticipated the language with which Napoleon went to the dungeon, that was never to send him back again amongst mankind.
There was but one preliminary to his departure now to take place. It was the execution of an order from the Government to examine the baggage in the strictest manner, and to require the surrender of all money or jewels of value in the possession of Napoleon and his suite. Necessary as this act was, for the prevention of bribery, and attempts to escape from St Helena, not for any undue seizure of private property, for a most ample allowance was already appointed by the government for the expenses of the prisoner, this duty seems to have been most imperfectly performed. As the Count tells us, "the grand-marshal, gave up 4000 Napoleons, as constituting the Emperor's chest. We kept secret about 400,000 francs in gold—from three to four hundred thousand francs in valuables and diamonds, and letters of credit for more than four million of francs." Whether this immense sum was overlooked by the extraordinary negligence of those whose duty it was to fulfil the orders of government, or whether their search was baffled, the narrative does not disclose. But there can be no question that the suite were bound to deliver up all that they possessed; and that there can be as little question that with such sums of money at his disposal, Napoleon's subsequent complaints of poverty were ridiculous, and that the subsequent sale of his plate to supply his table was merely for the purpose of exciting a clamour, and was charlatanish and contemptible.
We pass rapidly over the details of the voyage. Napoleon spent a considerable part of his time on the quarter-deck, took opportunities of conversing affably with the officers, and even with the crew. On one occasion, after some conversation with the master, he invited him to dine at the admiral's table. The master declined the invitation, as a sin against naval etiquette. "Oh! in that case," said Napoleon, "you must come and dine in my own cabin." The admiral, however, had the good sense to tell Napoleon, that any one invited by him to the honour of sitting at his table, was, by that circumstance alone, placed above all rule of etiquette, and that the master should be welcome to dinner next day. This conduct, of course, made him very popular on board; but the chief interest of these important volumes is in the conversations which he held from time to time with the officers, and especially in the long details of his military and imperial career, which he dictated at St Helena, and which make the true novelty and value of the work. In one of those conversations which he had with them, he referred emphatically to his own efforts to make France a great naval power. "Unfortunately," said he, "I found nobody who understood me. During the expedition to Egypt, I cast my eyes on Decrés. I reckoned on him for understanding and executing my projects in regard to the navy. I was mistaken; his passion was to form a police, and to find out, by means of the smugglers, every web which your ministers, or the intriguers of Hartwell, were weaving against me. He had no enlarged ideas; always the spirit of locality and insignificant detail—paralysing my views." He then proceeded to state the hopeless condition of the French navy when he assumed the throne. The navy of Louis XVI. was no longer in existence; the Republic possessed but four ships of the line; the taking of Toulon, the battle of the river Jenes in 1793—of Rochefort in 1794, and finally, the battle of Aboukir, had given the death-blow to the navy. "Well, notwithstanding the disaster of Trafalgar, which I owe entirely to the disobedience of Admiral Villeneuve, I left to France one hundred ships of the line, and 80,000 sailors and marines, and all this in a reign of ten years." The truth is, that the attempt to make the French navy was one of the pre-eminent blunders of Napoleon. France is naturally a great military power, but her people are not maritime. England is not naturally a great military power, but her people are maritime. France has an immense land frontier which can be defended only by a land force. England has no land frontier at all. The sea is her only frontier, and it, of course, can be defended only by a fleet. A fleet is not a necessary of existence to France. A fleet is a necessary of existence to England. It is therefore self-evident that France only wastes her power in dividing it between her fleet and her army; and may be a great power, without having a ship; while England is compelled to concentrate her strength upon her fleet, and without her fleet must be undone. Thus the law of existence, which is equivalent to a law of nature, gives the naval superiority to England. There are symptoms in France at the present day, of falling into Napoleon's blunder, and of imagining the possibility of her becoming the naval rival of England. That she may build ships is perfectly possible, and that she may crowd them with a naval conscription is equally possible. But the first collision will show her the utter folly of contending with her partial strength against the power on which England rests her defence—a struggle between a species of volunteer and adventurous aggression, and the stern and desperate defence in which the safety of a nation is supremely involved.
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!"
Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Peru. Reiseskizzen aus den Jahren 1838-1842. Von J. J. von Tschudi. St Gall: 1846.
[2] Untersuchungen über die Fauna Peruana. St Gall: 1846.
[3] An Historical and Descriptive Narrative of Twenty Years' Residence in South America. Containing Travels in Arauco, Chili, Peru, and Columbia; with an account of the Revolution, its rise, progress, and results; by W. B. Stevenson. London: 1825.
[4] Europeans are apt to attach the idea of some particular colour to the word Creole. It is a vulgar error. Creole (Spanish, Criollo) is derived from criar, to breed or produce, and is applied to native Americans descended from 'Old World' parents. Thus there are black Creoles as well as white, and a horse or a dog may be a Creole as well as a man, so long as the European or African blood is preserved unmixed.
[5] The day and the event strangely coincide with the passage in Schiller's "Wilhelm Tell"—
"'s ist Simon und Judä
"Da rast der See und will sein Opfer haben."
[6] Marlborough to Mr Secretary Boyle, 17th December 1708. Disp. iv. 362.
[7] Disp. iv. 315, 323, 345. Marlborough to Duke de Mole, 10th Dec. 1708. Ibid. 346. Coxe, iv. 278.
[8] Marlborough to Mr Secretary Boyle, 3d January 1709, Disp. iv. 389.
[9] "'Can I do more than I do now?' said the King. 'I make treaties, but the Emperor breaks his word with me, as well as Holland, every moment. Besides it is impossible, without great inconvenience, to give more than three battalions; and he is a wretch who would advise me otherwise.' I said he was a wretch who should advise him not to do it. He replied, 'You speak very boldly, and may perhaps repent it, if your arguments are not conclusive.'"—General Grumbkow to Marlborough, March 9, 1709. Coxe, iv. 341.
[10] King of Prussia to Marlborough, March 9, 1709. Coxe, iv. 346.
[11] In communicating the thanks of the House of Lords, the Chancellor said,
"I shall not be thought to exceed my present commission, if, being thus led to contemplate the mighty things which your Grace has done for us, I cannot but conclude with acknowledging, with all gratitude, the providence of God in raising you up to be an instrument of so much good, in so critical a juncture, when it was so much wanted." Coxe, iv. 375.
[12] Coxe, iv. 352, 366, 377.
[13] "M. de Torcy has offered so much, that I have no doubt it will end in a good peace." Marlborough to Godolphin, 19th May 1707.
"Every thing goes on so well here, that there is no doubt of its ending in a good peace. Government have in readiness the sideboard of plate, and the chairs of state and canopy; and I beg it may be made so as to form part of a bed when I am done with it here, which I hope may be by the end of this summer, so that I may enjoy your dear society in quiet, which is the greatest satisfaction I am capable of having." Marlborough to the Duchess, 19th May 1709. Coxe, iv. 393.
[14] Mémoire, M. de Torcy, ii. 104-111.
[15] Swift's Conduct of the Allies, 72; Coxe, iv. 395-415.
[16] "I have as much mistrust for the sincerity of France as any body living can have; but I will own to you, that in my opinion, if France had delivered the towns promised by the plenipotentiaries, and demolished Dunkirk and the other towns mentioned, they must have been at our discretion; so that if they had played tricks, so much the worse for themselves." Marlborough to Lord Godolphin, June 10, 1709. Coxe, iv. 405.
[17] Coxe, iv. 401.
[18] Ibid. v. i. 5.
[19] Mém. de Villars, ii. 63. Marlborough to Godolphin, June 27, 1709. Coxe, iv. 5, 6.
[20] Marlborough to Mr Secretary Boyle, 27th June 1709. Disp. iv. 520. Coxe, v. 7, 8.
[21] Marlborough to Lord Galway, 4th July 1709; and to the Queen, 29th July 1709. Disp. iv. 530 and 556. Coxe, v. 8, 13. Marlborough's private letters to the Duchess at this period, as indeed throughout all his campaigns, prove how he was tired of the war, and how ardently he sighed for repose at Blenheim. "The taking of the citadel of Tournay will, I fear, cost us more men and time than that of the town; but that which gives me the greatest prospect for the happiness of being with you, is, that certainly the misery of France increases, which must bring us a peace. The misery of the poor people we see is such, that one must be a brute not to pity them. May you be ever happy, and I enjoy some few years of quiet with you, is what I daily pray for." Marlborough to the Duchess, July 30, 1709. Coxe, v. 12.
[22] Dumont's Military History, ii. 104. Coxe, v. 15, 16.
[23] A very striking incident occurred in the siege, which shows to what a height the heroic spirit with which the troops were animated had risen. An officer commanding a detachment, was sent by Lord Albemarle to occupy a certain lunette which had been captured from the enemy; and though it was concealed from the men, the commander told the officer he had every reason to believe the post was undermined, and that the party would be blown up. Knowing this, he proceeded with perfect calmness to the place of his destination; and when provisions and wine were served out to the men, he desired them to fill their calashes, and said, "Here is a health to those who die the death of the brave." The mine in effect was immediately after sprung; but fortunately the explosion failed, and his comrades survived to relate their commander's noble conduct.
[24] Marlborough to Mr Secretary Boyle, 31st August and 3d September 1709. Disp. iv. 585, 588. Coxe, v. 14, 18. Dumont's Military History, ii. 103.
[25] Mackenzie's brigade, which joined Wellington's army after the battle of Talavera, marched sixty-two English miles in twenty-six hours. Napier, ii. 412.
[26] Coxe, v. 20, 25. Marlborough to Mr Secretary Boyle, 7th September 1709. Disp. iv. 590.
[27] A similar incident occurred in the British service, when Sir Henry, now Lord Hardinge, and Governor-general of India, served as second in command to Sir Hugh Gough, his senior in military rank, but subordinate in station, at the glorious battles of Ferozepore and Sobraon, with the Sikhs. How identical is the noble and heroic spirit in all ages and countries! It forms a freemasonry throughout the world.
[28] Coxe, v. 24, 25. Disp. iv. 588, 595.
[29] Marlborough to Mr Secretary Boyle, 7th and 11th September 1709. Disp. iv. 591, 592. Coxe, v. 25, 26.
[30] Mém. de Villars, ii. 167, 184. Coxe, v. 26, 28.
[31] Coxe, v. 29, 30. The author has passed over the ground, and can attest the accuracy of the description here given.
[32] Viz. Artagnan, Maréchal de Montesquieu; De Guiche, Maréchal de Grammont; Puysegur, Montmorenci, Coigny, Broglio, Chaulnes, Nangis, Isenghien, Duras, Houdancourt, and Sanneterre. The monarchy never sent forth a nobler array.
[33] Coxe, v. 32. Mém. de Villars, ii, 280.
[34] Coxe, v. 34, 37; Dumont's Military History, ii. 381-7.
[35] Marlborough's General Orders, Sept. 10, 1709.
[36] Coxe, v. 40, 44.
[37] Lediard, Life of Marlborough, ii. 172, 180. Coxe, v. 45, 47.
[38] The regiments of Tullibardine and Hepburn were almost all Atholl Highlanders.
[39] Coxe, v. 54, 63; Disp. v. 592, Marlborough to Mr Secretary Boyle, Sept. 11, 1709, and to Mr Wauchope, same date, v. 598.
[40] "The Eugenes and Marlboroughs ought to be well satisfied with us during that day; since till then they had not met with resistance worthy of them. They may now say with justice that nothing can stand before them; and indeed what shall be able to stay the rapid progress of these heroes, if an army of one hundred thousand men of the best troops, strongly posted between two woods, trebly entrenched, and performing their duty as well as any brave men could do, were not able to stop them one day? Will you not then own with me that they surpass all the heroes of former ages?"—Letter of a French Officer who fought at Malplaquet; Coxe, v. 65.
[41] At Waterloo, there were sixty-nine thousand six hundred and eighty-six men in Wellington's army, and the loss was twenty-two thousand four hundred and sixty-nine, or one in three nearly; at Malplaquet, it was one in five; at Talavera, one in four—five thousand being killed and wounded out of nineteen thousand eight hundred engaged.—Siborne's Waterloo, ii. 352 and 519.
[42] Marlborough to Marshal Villars, 13th September 1709, and to Mr Secretary Boyle, 16th September 1709; Disp. v. 596, 599.—Coxe, v. 64.
[43] Marlborough to Mr Secretary Boyle, October 21, 1709. Disp. v. 617, 621.
[44] "Be assured that Mrs Masham and Mr Harley will, underhand, do every thing that can make the business uneasy, particularly to you the Lord Treasurer, and me, for they know well that if we were removed every thing would be in their power. This is what they labour for, believing it would make them both great and happy; but I am very well persuaded it would be their destruction." Marlborough to Godolphin, Nov. 1, 1709; Coxe, v. 105.
[45] Coxe, v. 105, 111.
[46] Coxe, v. 115, 116.
[47] Swift, Mem. on Queen's Change of Ministry in 1710, p. 37. Coxe, v. 117-118.
[48] Coxe, v. 124, 133.
[49] Duchess of Marlborough to Maynwaring, January 18, 1710. Coxe, v. 134
[50] Marlborough to Queen Anne, January 19, 1710.
[51] "On Wednesday sennight I waited upon the Queen, in order to represent the mischief of such recommendations in the army, and before I came away I expressed all the concern for her change to me, that is natural to a man that has served her so faithfully for many years, which made no impression, nor was her Majesty pleased to take so much notice of me as to ask my Lord Treasurer where I was upon her missing me at Council. I have had several letters from him since I came here, and I cannot find that her Majesty has ever thought me worth naming; when my Lord Treasurer once endeavoured to show her the mischief that would happen, she made him no answer but a bow." Marlborough to Lord Somers, January 21, 1710.
[52] "If this unfortunate king had been so well advised as to have made peace the beginning of this summer, he might in a great measure have influenced the peace between France and the Allies, and made other kingdoms happy. I am extremely touched with the misfortunes of this young king. His continued successes, and the contempt he had of his enemies, have been his ruin." Marlborough to Godolphin, August 26, 1709. Disp. v. 510.
[53] The Earl of Gowrie; a Tragedy. By the Rev. James White. London: 1845.
The King of the Commons; a Drama. By the Same. 1846.
A Book of Highland Minstrelsy. By Mrs D. Ogilvy. Illustrated by R. R. M'Ian. London: 1846.
Morning, and other Poems. By a Member of the Scotch Bar. London: 1846.
[54] It is worth noting, because one does not see why it is so, that the only imperial birbone of the lot universally known and execrated at Rome is Nero. One is much better able to understand (with Capri in front of one's windows) why a like exclusive and unenviable popularity at Naples attaches to Tiberius.
[55] The hare was first introduced into Sicily by Anaxilaus of Rhegium, and was adopted by the Messenians on their coins, as was also the chariot, in commemoration of his victory in the mule races at Olympia.
[56] On the urbic coins of Aquinum, Suessa, and Tiano, which are generally of bronze, the cock figures on one side, the subject on the other varying; on those of Himera (a silver currency,) chanticleer is always confronted on the reverse by Dame Partlett.
[57] Hiero the Second, tyrant of Syracuse, who flourished 216 B.C., and was contemporary with Archimedes. The face is one expressive of refinement, and the coin of a very fine style of art, as indeed are all those that ever issued from the old and original mint of Sicily; but alas! there are now many small and illicit mints to which the travelling public that buys coins, is, without always knowing it, vastly more indebted. "Roba Siciliana"—Sicilian trash, exclaims the indignant Neapolitan, when you show him a modern forgery by which you have been duped. "Sciochezza di Napoli" retorts the dealer at Messina or Palermo, vindicating at once his own honour, which seems aspersed, and that of his Trinacrian associates. To reconcile these two statements, which are both true, the reader has only to be informed that there are mints every where, and coiners as cunning at Pozzuoli as at Palermo.
[58] By the word anima, or soul of a coin, numismatists designate the interior of the metal, as opposed to its superficies or field.
[59] The restitution of the coinage of one Emperor by his successor, consisting of a smaller issue of pieces than the original from which it is taken, has become comparatively scarce; hence such restitutions fetch a much higher price than those of the earlier currency, and Dedomenicis's remark was not without its meaning.
[60] Moneta, one of the many epithets or aliases of Juno, borrowed by the Emperor Caligula for his three sisters, Agrippina, Drusilla, and Livilla, who are represented standing in a row, each with her cornucopia and scales, and her name behind her back.
[61] "La petite verole" is the name employed by French numismatists to designate this disease. They could not have hit upon a happier. A finely characteristic specimen of it is to be seen at present in the bronze impersonation of George IV. which stands on the Steym at Brighton, where the whole face looking seaward has become balafré and pock-marked. It is strange that under the epithet of pustular, as applied to silver, the ancients appear to have meant the purest and most refined quality of that metal, when it is the alloy mixed with the bronze that makes it pustular.
[62] History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St. Helena. By General Count Montholon. 2 vols. London: Colburn.