His demand on fortune was too great, and notwithstanding the knowledge he had of human nature, he could not check the torrent of treason that had been sedulously nursed against him by his enemies until it ignited the imagination of those whom he had a right to expect would stand loyally by him in an hour of tribulation such as no other man had ever experienced.
It is true that he made history (brilliant history if you like) in those latter days, but oh! the anguish and the baseness of it all.
Cæsar made history too; neither did this ruler succeed altogether. Brutus, his friend, forsook and dispatched him, and possibly that was the most enviable finish to a great career. Did Napoleon fare better than his prototype, inasmuch as he was not the victim of the assassin's dagger? Intoxicated with the spirit of charity, his conquerors decreed that he should be deported to a secluded place of abode on a barren and unhealthy rock, there to be maintained at a cost to the nation of £12,000 a year, and succumb as quickly as possible like a good Christian gentleman.
The presumption of Lord Keith in observing to Napoleon that it was preferable for him to be sent to St. Helena than to be confined in a smaller space in England or sent to France or Russia, and the Emperor's supposed reply—"Russia! God preserve me from it!"—is almost unbelievable, and in the light of what he constantly asserted while England's captive, this expression may be regarded as a fabrication.
Whether it was an innate belief that Alexander of Russia was his friend, or the fact that Francis of Austria was his father-in-law, he certainly avowed—according to the St. Helena chroniclers—that if he had surrendered to either of them he would have been treated, not only with kindness, but with a proper regard as befitted a monarch who had governed eighty-three millions of people, or more than the half of Europe. But even if he were merely soliloquising, or wished to convince himself and those he expressed this opinion to, it is hard to think that any of the continental Powers would have risked the certain consequences of having him either shot or ill-treated, and it is extremely doubtful whether even in France there could have been found a soldier that would have obeyed an order to shoot his former Emperor, who had been requisitioned to return from Elba, and who so recently, with only six hundred soldiers, made war against Louis with his two hundred thousand and defeated and dethroned him.
Nothing so magnificent has ever been known. This great man had complete hold of the imagination and devotion of his common people and soldiers. Even in the hour of defeat their loyalty was amazing.
Various instances are given of this deep-rooted loyalty and affection. Some of his Imperial Guards who were wounded at Waterloo killed themselves on hearing that he had lost the battle, and many, who had been thought to be dead, when brought to consciousness shouted "Vive l'Empereur." The hospitals were full of dying men who uttered the same cry. One was having his leg amputated, and as he looked at the blood streaming from it, said that he would willingly give it all in the service of Napoleon. Another, who was having a ball extracted from his left side near the heart, shouted, "Probe an inch deeper and there you will find the Emperor."
The story of the old woman whom he and Duroc met during the second campaign in Italy, and while climbing Mont Tarare, is a striking illustration of how he was regarded by the poorer classes. She hated the Bourbons and wanted to see the First Consul. Napoleon answered, "Bah! tyrant for tyrant—they are just the same thing." "No, no!" she replied; "Louis XVI. was the king of the nobles, Bonaparte is the king of the people." This idea of the old woman was the universal feeling of her class right through his reign. No writer has been able to give proof that it was withdrawn, even when he was overwhelmed with disaster which drained his empire of vast masses of its population. No cruel inhuman despot could magnetise with an enduring fascination multitudes of men and women as he did. It was not his incomparable genius, nor his matchless military successes in battle. He was loved because he was lovable, and was trusted because he inspired belief in his high motives of amelioration of all down-trodden people. He ruled with a stern but kindly discipline, and put a heavy hand on those who had despotic tendencies.
The Duchess of Abrantès, who smarted under some severe comments he had made about her husband (Junot), the Duke of Abrantès, while at St. Helena, has been generous enough to say many kind things of him in her memoirs. One of her references to him is to this effect:—"All I know of him" (and she knew him well from childhood) "proves that he possessed a great soul which quickly forgets and forgives." She is very fond of repeating in her memoirs that Napoleon proposed marriage to her mother, Madame Permon, who was herself a Corsican and knew the Bonaparte family well.
Madame Junot relates another story which is characteristic of Bonaparte. Such was the enthusiasm of the people on his march towards Paris after landing from Elba, that when he was holding a review of the National Guard at Grenoble, the people shouldered him, and a young girl with a laurel branch in her hand approached him reciting some verses. "What can I do for you, my pretty girl?" said the Emperor. The girl blushed, then lifting her eyes to him replied, "I have nothing to ask of your Majesty; but you would render me very happy by embracing me." Napoleon kissed her, and turning his head to either side, said aloud, with a fascinating smile, "I embrace in you all the ladies of Grenoble."