19th.—To-day[To-day] the Northumberland sailed for Europe.
This vessel had conveyed us to St. Helena; we had in the course of our voyage maintained a friendly intercourse with the officers; the crew had shewn us great kindness, and we had received attentions from Admiral Cockburn himself, towards whom we entertained more of ill-humour than absolute dislike, and whose conduct, after all, had not been of a nature to wound our feelings. Whether from all these circumstances combined, or some others which had escaped our notice, or whether owing to that powerful and natural inclination which leads us to attach ourselves to our fellow creatures, and to cherish social feelings with regard to each other, I know not; but it is certain that we did not feel indifferent to the departure of the Northumberland. It seemed as though we had lost something in thus bidding adieu to our old shipmates.
The Emperor had passed a very bad night; he bathed his feet to relieve a violent head-ache.
About one o’clock he went to take a walk in the garden, having in his hand the first volume of an English work, respecting his own life. He turned it over as he walked about. This work had evidently been written in a less malignant spirit than Goldsmith’s. It certainly exhibited less grossness; but it contained the same inventions, the same false statements, and displayed the same ignorance. The Emperor read the article relative to his childhood, and that period of his early life which he spent at College. The whole was a tissue of misrepresentation; and this led him to remark that I had been very right in suggesting that a narrative of the events of his early career should be prefixed to the campaign of Italy; and he added that what he had just read had fully confirmed him in favour of this idea.
I ought before to have mentioned that, after the dictation of the campaigns of Italy was concluded, and after it had all been arranged in chapters, the Emperor was still undecided as to the manner in which he should form an introduction to it. He had changed his mind frequently on this subject, and had conceived many different ideas, which he by turns abandoned and resumed. Sometimes he was inclined to commence with a few unimportant enterprises in which he had been engaged before the siege of Toulon; such as an expedition to Sardinia, which had failed, &c. At other times he determined to open the subject by describing the first events of the French revolution, the state of Europe and the movements of our armies. I always disapproved these ideas, which, I conceived, would carry him back to too remote a period. He had begun by dictating to me the siege of Toulon, and this I maintained to be the proper point of departure, and the most natural arrangement, since he had not undertaken to write a history, but only his private Memoirs. In this grand episode of the history of ages, he ought, I said, to appear all at once on the theatre of the world, and to occupy the fore-ground which he was destined never afterwards to quit. It was my place, as editor, to record, in any introduction which I might think proper to make, all the details of Napoleon’s early life, and of the events anterior to the period to which his own dictations referred. The Emperor approved this idea; and after discussing it one day at dinner, he decided on its adoption. The form that has been given to the campaigns of Italy was determined on by the above considerations, and to this subject the Emperor alluded in his remark just mentioned, respecting the introduction to the campaigns.
At three o’clock, the governor and the new admiral, Sir Pulteney Malcolm, were presented to the Emperor, who, though labouring under indisposition, was nevertheless very gracious and talkative.
Both before and after dinner, the Emperor amused himself by looking over a work on the Russian campaign, written by an officer who had formerly been one of the Viceroy’s aides-de-camp. The Emperor had heard it described as a most odious production; but he has been so accustomed to the attacks of libellers that declamation has but little effect upon him. In works of this kind he looks to facts only; and under this point of view he did not find the publication in question so bad as it had been represented to him. “An historian,” said he, “would select from it only what is good; he would take the facts and omit the declamation, which is only calculated to please fools. The author of this work proves that the Russians themselves burnt Moscow, Smolensko, &c.; he describes the French as having been victorious in every engagement. The facts that are to be found in this work,” continued the Emperor, "have evidently been described for the purpose of being published during my reign, in the period of my power. The declamatory passages have been interpolated since my fall. The author could not easily pervert the ground-work of his subject, though he has interspersed it with abusive remarks after the fashion of the day.
“As to the disasters of my retreat, I left him nothing to say any more than other libellers. My 29th bulletin plunged them into despair. In their rage they accused me of exaggeration. They were provoked to a pitch of madness. I thus deprived them of an excellent subject, I carried off their prey.”
The Emperor quoted several passages from the works of this and some other French authors, all of whom declaimed against their countrymen, and gave a false picture of their achievements. He could not refrain from observing that it was a circumstance unexampled in history to see a nation strive to depreciate her own glory, to see her own sons thus intent on destroying her trophies. “But from the bosom of France avengers will doubtless arise. Posterity will brand with disgrace the madness of the present day. Can these be Frenchmen,” he exclaimed, “who speak and write in this strain? Are their hearts dead to every spark of patriotism?—But no, they cannot be Frenchmen! They speak our language, it is true; they were born on the same soil with us; but they are not animated by the feelings and principles of Frenchmen!”