"And, after all, how could another line of policy have prevented that which ruined me? I have been betrayed by M—— whom I might call my son, my offspring, my own work; him to whom I had committed my destinies, by sending him to Paris, at the very moment that he was putting the finishing hand to his treason and my ruin. I have been betrayed by Murat, whom I had raised from a soldier to a king; who was my sister’s husband. I have been betrayed by Berthier, a mere goose, whom I had converted into a kind of eagle. I have been betrayed in the senate, by those very men of the national party who owe every thing to me. All that, then, did not in any way depend upon my system of internal policy. Undoubtedly I should have been exposed to the charge of too readily employing old enemies, whether nobles or emigrants, if a Macdonald, a Valence,[[5]] a Montesquiou had betrayed me; but they were faithful: let them object to me the stupidity of Murat, I can oppose to it the intelligence of Marmont. I have, then, no cause to repent of my system of internal policy."
Map
—of the—
Island of Saint Helena.
Drawn for the
Memorial de Sainte Hélène,
By an Engineer formerly of
Napoleon’s Cabinet from the information
contained in the work itself, and from
particulars furnished by
Messrs. Marchand, St Denis, Pierron,
and others in Napoleon’s service.
CHANCE OF DANGER IN BATTLE, &C.—THE BULLETINS
VERY CORRECT.
28th.—The Emperor during dinner was speaking of the probability of danger in the Chinese ships, of which one in thirty perished, according to the accounts he had received from some captains. This led him to the chances of danger in battle, which he said were less than that. Wagram was pointed out to him as a destructive battle; he did not estimate the killed at more than 3,000, which was only a fiftieth: we were there 160,000. At Essling they were about 4000, we were 40,000: this was a tenth; but it was one of the most severe battles. The others were incomparably lower.
This brought on a conversation on the bulletins. The Emperor declared them to be very correct: assured us that, excepting what the proximity of the enemy compelled him to disguise, that when they came into their hands they might not derive any information prejudicial to him from them, all the remainder was very exact. At Vienna and throughout Germany they did them more justice than among us. If they had acquired a bad character in our armies—if it was a common saying, as false as a bulletin, it was personal rivalships, party spirit, that had established it: it was the wounded self-love of those who were not mentioned in them, and who had, or fancied they had, a right to a place there: and still more than all, our ridiculous national defect of having no greater enemies to our successes and our glory than ourselves.
The Emperor after dinner played some games at chess. The day had been very rainy: he was unwell and retired early.
UNHEALTHINESS OF THE ISLAND.
26th. The weather was still bad; it was impossible to set foot out of doors. The rain and the damp invaded our pasteboard apartments. Every one of us suffered in his health in consequence. The temperature here is certainly mild, but the climate is among the most unwholesome. It is a thing ascertained in the island, that few there attain the age of fifty; hardly any that of sixty. Add to this, exclusion from the rest of the world, physical privations, bad moral treatment, and it will result that prisons in Europe are far preferable to liberty in St. Helena.