Memoirs of the life, exile, and conversations of the Emperor Napoleon. (Vol. IV)

by comte de Emmanuel-Auguste-Dieudonné Las Cases

With such precautions and under such circumstances, is not then the whole island a prison sufficiently secure? Can it be necessary to fill it incessantly with prisons within prisons? And if so many difficulties could be overcome, which is impossible, the immensity of the seas and almost every land remain still a new prison?

Now who would induce men in their sound senses to dream of such ridiculous attempts? Who at Longwood could entertain thoughts so madly desperate? Besides, the Emperor Napoleon has still the same views, the same desires, which he declared when he came with confidence freely and in good faith among you: ‘A retreat and repose under the protection of your positive laws, or those of America.’ This is what he wished, this is what he wishes still, what he always demands.

If then the island of St. Helena, from its nature, is not already a sufficient prison—if it has not the advantage of combining safety with indulgence, you have been deceived in your choice and your intentions. For what purpose send us to die miserably in a foreign climate? For what purpose all your additional expenses? For what purpose your numerous garrison and its large staff? For what purpose your naval establishment? For what purpose the restrictions imposed upon the commerce of that unfortunate isle? There were many points in your European dominions where you could have kept us without expense, and where we should have considered ourselves less unfortunate! If that island, on the contrary, from its nature, and with the aid of the precautions above stated, presented in itself every thing that human wisdom and prudence can conceive necessary, then would not all aggravating conditions be so many useless vexations, tyrannical and barbarous acts executed against your intention? For it was not your intention to torture Napoleon—to make him die by inches; and yet it is but too true that he is perishing from the incessant wounds of every day, of every hour, of every minute.

If you chose to behold in him a simple prisoner, and not the object of the ostracism of kings, a king himself—if you have designed to give him only a common prison, and not to choose[choose] for him a place where the asperities of his exile might be mitigated—if it was intended to commit him to a gaoler, and not to an officer of high rank, who, by his habits of business and of the world, would know how to unite what he owed to the safety of the captive with the respect and regard which he commands—if it was intended to pursue hatred and vengeance, and all the narrow and vulgar passions—if it was intended only, in fine, to intrust to the climate the death of the illustrious enemy, to charge nature with an act which no one durst execute himself—if all this was intended, I stop; I leave nothing more to say; I have already said too much.

But if, in the spirit of your Bill itself, you meant to accompany your political act, as you in fact did, with all the intentions of a great, noble, and honourable nation, I may continue: for you must have meant all the good that circumstances can permit; interdicted every ill that necessity did not command. You never meant that the prisoner should be deprived of all exercise, by the needless imposition of conditions or forms which would make that recreation a torment.

You have not wished that the nature of his words, the length of his sentences, should be prescribed to him, you have not wished that his original circuit should be abridged upon the pretence that he did not make daily use of its extent; you have not wished that he should be forced to confine himself to his chamber, that he might not find himself in the midst of intrenchments and palisades, with which his garden is ridiculously surrounded.

Now, all these things exist; they are renewed every day, although they are considered useless, and although a great many of your countrymen condemn and lament them.—You did not wish that, to the great detriment of his health and his comforts, he should be condemned to a wretched, small, inconvenient dwelling: while the government had large and fine houses both in town and country, which would have been much more commodious and more appropriate, and would have saved the sending of the famous palace, or to speak much more correctly, of the immense quantity of rough planks, now rotting unused upon the shore, because it has been found that it would require from seven to eight years to complete the intended edifice. You cannot have meant that, in spite of the sums which you have devoted to them, the necessaries of life, all the means of subsistence, furnished daily at Longwood, should be of the worst kind, while others could have those of the best quality; you did not mean that Napoleon should be so far outraged as to attempt to force him to discuss the little details of his own expenditure, that he should be called upon to produce a surplus when he had none; that, in default of his so doing, he should be threatened with insufferable reductions; that he should be forced to desire, in his indignation, ‘To let him be quiet; that he asked for nothing; that when he should be hungry he would go and seat himself among those brave fellows whose tents he perceived at a distance, who would not repulse the oldest soldier in Europe.’—You did not intend that Napoleon should find himself thereby constrained to sell his plate piece-meal, to supply the deficiency of every month, and that he should be reduced to the necessity of accepting what some faithful servants were happy enough to be able to lay at his feet.

O Englishmen! Is it thus they can treat in your name, him who has governed Europe, disposed of so many thrones, created so many kings! Do you not fear the loud complaint of history? Suppose it should hereafter say, ‘They deceived him to get possession of his person, and they afterwards grudged him the means of subsistence.’ Will you suffer your sentiments, your character, your honour, to be thus compromised?[compromised?] Is this then your Bill, your intentions? And what connexion have such unbecoming measures with security? You never intended that authority should make a puerile and barbarous study of incessantly recalling, by words, regulations, and acts, that which it would have been delicate never to mention; by repeating to us every day that we deceived ourselves strangely respecting our position; by rigidly interdicting all unusual respect; in even punishing, as we have been told, those whose habits had inadvertently led them to shew such respect; by restricting the journals furnished us to those which might be the most disagreeable; by voluntarily procuring us libels; and by removing or withholding[withholding], on the contrary, favourable works; in fine, by imposing upon us the literal form of the declaration by which we were to purchase the slavery and the happiness of attending a revered object; by compelling us to admit into it denominations contrary to our habits and to our laws, thus taking advantage of our own hands to degrade the august object whom we surrounded; and yet we were obliged to do it, because, upon our unanimous refusal, we were threatened with being all torn from our pleasing employment, instantly thrown on board ship, and carried to the Cape of Good Hope.—How can these cruel and tyrannical measures contribute to security?

It will be hardly believed that Napoleon, on inquiring if he might be allowed to write to the Prince Regent, was answered by authority that his letter would not be suffered to pass, unless it was open; or that it would be opened to ascertain its contents: a proceeding which reason rejects, as equally insulting to the two august persons.

St. Helena had been chosen for us, we were told, in order that we might be able to enjoy there a certain degree of liberty and some indulgence.—But we cannot speak to any one; we are forbidden to write to any one whomsoever; we are restricted in our most petty domestic affairs. Ditches and intrenchments surround our dwellings; an authority without control governs us. And St. Helena was chosen in order to allow us some indulgence! But what prison in England, then, could have been worse for us? Certainly, there is none there at this day that would not seem to us a blessing. We should find ourselves in a Christian land; we should breathe European air. The control of a superior authority would have sheltered us from personal resentments, from momentary irritation, or even an error in judgment.