"Fox came to France immediately after the peace of Amiens. He was employed in writing a history of the Stuarts, and asked my permission to search our diplomatic archives. I gave orders that every thing should be placed at his disposal. I received him often. Fame had informed me of his talents, and I soon found that he possessed a noble character, a good heart, liberal, generous, and enlightened views. I considered him an ornament to mankind, and was very much attached to him. We often conversed together upon various topics, without the least prejudice; when I wished to engage in a little controversy, I turned the conversation upon the subject of the infernal machine; and told him that his ministers had attempted to murder me; he would then oppose my opinion with warmth, and invariably ended the conversation by saying, in his bad French, ‘First Consul, pray take that out of your head.’ But he was not convinced of the truth of the cause he undertook to advocate, and there is every reason to believe that he argued more in defence of his country, than of the morality of its ministers."
The Emperor ended the conversation, by saying: “Half a dozen such men as Fox and Cornwallis would be sufficient to establish the moral character of a nation.... With such men I should always have agreed; we should soon have settled our differences, and not only France would have been at peace with a nation at bottom most worthy of esteem, but we should have done great things together.”
HISTORY OF THE CONVENTION BY LACRETELLE.—STATISTICAL NOTICE OF THE OXEN OF THE ISLAND.—PUNS.—STATISTICS IN GENERAL.
Tuesday, 11th.—This has been one of those days of wind and rain so common here. The Emperor, about three o’clock, took advantage of a short interval to visit the garden. He sent for me; he had just been reading the history of the Convention by Lacretelle. It is, he observed, certainly not ill-written; but it is ill-digested, and makes no impression on the memory; the whole is a smooth surface without a single asperity to arrest attention. He does not thoroughly examine his subject: he has not done justice to many celebrated characters; he gives no adequate colouring to the crimes of several others, &c.
The rain obliged us to return, and we walked alone for a long time in the saloon and the dining room.
We had been informed, that there were four thousand oxen in the island, and that the annual consumption consisted of five hundred, of which number one hundred and fifty were appropriated to us, fifty to the colony, and three hundred to the shipping. It was added, that four years were requisite for the reproduction of the stock, and this formed a subject for our calculations; an employment for which the Emperor’s peculiar taste is well known.
The subsistence and consumption of these oxen are an important affair in the island. A single beast cannot be killed without the previous order of the governor, and it was stated by one of our people, that the owner of one of the houses or huts of the island, speaking to him on the subject, said: “It is reported, that you complain up yonder, and consider yourselves badly off; (he spoke of Longwood) but we are at a loss to make it out; for it is said that you have beef every day, while we cannot get it but three or four times a year, and even then we pay for it at the rate of fifteen or twenty pence a pound.” The Emperor, who laughed heartily at the story, observed, “You ought to have assured him, that it cost us more than a crown.”
I observed some time afterwards, that it was the only pun I had till then heard from the Emperor’s mouth, but the person to whom I made the remark, said he had heard of his having made a similar one, and on the same subject, in the isle of Elba. A mason employed in some buildings, which were to be constructed by the Emperor’s order, had fallen and hurt himself; the Emperor wishing to encourage him, assured him, that it would be of no consequence. “I have had,” said he, “a much worse fall than yours; but look at me, I am on my legs, and hearty, for all that.”
The Emperor’s attention was for a moment directed to political statistics. He highly extolled the progress and utility of that new science, so well adapted, he observed, to point out the path of truth, to establish and confirm opinions. He called it the budget of things, and “without budget,” said he gaily, “there is no safety.”
The singular application of the science by an Englishman or German, who had the patience and resolution to ascertain the number of times each letter of the alphabet occurred in the Bible, was then noticed by a person present. He also mentioned another application of it, less dull, but not less singular. It was that made by a German, eighty years of age, who amused himself with calculating[calculating] what he might have eaten, during his life, in beef, mutton, poultry, vegetables, &c. as well as what he had drunk. The estimate comprehended immense droves, flocks, and accumulations of all sorts. The public market-place was incapable of containing all he had devoured. This minute applicant of the science did not stop there. He had the curiosity to inquire how often he might have again swallowed the same things. For, he judiciously observed, their transmutation in his person ought necessarily to have contributed to their reproduction. The Emperor laughed much at the calculation, and more particularly at the whimsical repetition of the same eatables.