And I really believe he would have succeeded in persuading her, when the Governor unfortunately came to interrupt so pleasant a scene; he made his appearance, and the Emperor to avoid receiving him, hastily took shelter in the bottom of the wood. We were joined in a few moments by M. de Montholon, who acquainted the Emperor that the Governor and the Admiral earnestly requested the honour of speaking with him. He thought that some communication was to be made on their part, and returned to the garden, where he received them.
We remained behind, with the Governor’s officers. The conversation soon became animated on the part of the Emperor, who, as he walked between the Governor and the Admiral, almost uniformly addressed himself to the latter, even when he spoke to the former. We continued at too great a distance to hear any thing distinctly; but I have since learned, that he again repeated, and with, perhaps, more energy and warmth, all that he said to him in the preceding conversations.
In consequence of the favourable explanations, which the Admiral, who acted the part of mediator, laboured to give of the Governor’s intentions, the Emperor observed: “The faults of M. Lowe proceed from his habits of life. He has never had the command of any but foreign deserters, of Piedmontese, Corsicans, and Sicilians, all renegadoes, and traitors to their country; the dregs and scum of Europe. If he had commanded Englishmen; if he were one himself, he would shew respect to those who have a right to be honoured.” At another time, the Emperor declared, that there was a moral courage, as necessary as courage on the field of battle; that M. Lowe did not exercise it here with regard to us, in dreaming only of our escape, instead of employing the only real, prudent, reasonable, and sensible means for preventing it. The Emperor also told him that, although his body was in the hands of evil-minded men, his soul was as lofty and independent as when at the head of 400,000 men, or on the throne, when he disposed of kingdoms.
To the article respecting the reduction of our expenses, and the money which was required of the Emperor, he answered: “All those details are very painful to me; they are mean. You might place me on the burning pile of Montezuma or Guatimozin without extracting from me gold, which I do not possess. Besides, who asks you for any thing? Who entreats you to feed me? When you discontinue your supply of provisions, those brave soldiers, whom you see there,” pointing, with his hand, to the camp of the 53d, “will take pity on me; I shall place myself at the grenadiers’ table, and they will not, I am confident, drive away the first, the oldest soldier of Europe.”
The Emperor having reproached the Governor with having kept some books, which were addressed to him, he answered, that he had done so in consequence of their having been sent under the address of Emperor. “And who,” replied the Emperor, with emotion, “gave you the right of disputing that title? In a few years, your Lord Castlereagh, your Lord Bathurst, and all the others—you, who speak to me—will be buried in the dust of oblivion, or if your names be remembered, it will be only on account of the indignity with which you have treated me, while the Emperor Napoleon shall, doubtless, continue for ever the subject, the ornament of history, and the star of civilized nations. Your libels are of no avail against me; you have expended millions on them; what have they produced? Truth pierces through the clouds, it shines like the sun, and like it, is imperishable.”
The Emperor admitted that he had, during this conversation, seriously and repeatedly offended Sir Hudson Lowe; and he also did him the justice to acknowledge, that Sir Hudson Lowe had not precisely shewn, in a single instance, any want of respect; he had contented himself with muttering, between his teeth, sentences which were not audible. He once said that he had solicited his recal, and the Emperor observed, that that was the most agreeable word he could possibly have said. He also said, that we endeavoured to blacken his character in Europe, but that our conduct, in that respect, was a matter of indifference to him. The only disrespect, perhaps, said the Emperor, on the part of the Governor, and which was trifling, compared with the treatment he had received, was the abrupt way in which he retired, while the Admiral withdrew slowly, and with numerous salutes. “The Admiral was precisely then,” observed the Emperor, in a gay tone of voice, “what the Marquis de Gallo was at the time of my rupture of Passeriano.”—An allusion to one of the chapters of the Campaign in Italy, which he had dictated to me.
The Emperor remarked that, after all, he had to reproach himself with that scene. “I must see this officer no more; he makes me fly into a violent passion; it is beneath my dignity; expressions escape me which would have been unpardonable at the Tuileries; if they can at all be excused here, it is because I am in his hands and subject to his power.”
After dinner, the Emperor caused a letter to be read, in answer to the Governor, who had officially sent the treaty of the 2nd of August, by which the allied Sovereigns stipulated for the imprisonment of Napoleon. Sir Hudson Lowe, by the same conveyance, asked to introduce the foreign Commissioners to Longwood. The Emperor had, in the course of the day, dictated the letter to M. de Montholon. It was his wish, that every one of us should make his objections, and state his opinions. It seemed to us a master-piece of dignity, energy, and sound reasoning.
THE CONVERSATION WITH THE GOVERNOR AGAIN NOTICED, &C.—EFFECT OF THE LIBELS AGAINST NAPOLEON.—TREATY OF FONTAINEBLEAU.—THE WORK OF GENERAL S——N.
19th.—The weather continued as dreadful as we had ever seen it. It has been, for several days, like one of our equinoctial storms in Europe. The Emperor exposed himself to it, to come to my apartment about ten o’clock; in going out, he struck one of his legs against a nail near the door; his stocking was torn halfway down the leg; luckily the skin was only scratched. He was obliged to return to change. “You owe me a pair of stockings,” he said, while his valet de chambre was putting on another pair; “a polite man does not expose his visitors to such dangers in his apartments. You are lodged too much like a seaman; it is true, that is not your fault. I thought myself careless about these matters, but you actually surpass me.”—“Sire,”[“Sire,”] I answered, “my merit is not great, no choice is left me. I am truly a hog in its mire, I must confess; but as your Majesty says, it is not altogether my fault.”