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

by comte de Emmanuel-Auguste-Dieudonné Las Cases

COUNT LAS CASES.

The period of the meeting of the Congress having arrived, I went to Frankfort, and happened to reach that place on the very day on which the Emperor Alexander made his entry. This was no doubt a very favourable opportunity to solicit the favour of being presented to that Sovereign; and his well known affability, the facility with which he grants admission into his presence, and perhaps also the peculiar[peculiar] circumstances relating to me, were so many encouragements to the hope of easily obtaining an audience, and I was consequently strongly advised by every body to attempt it. It was the surest way, they said, to accomplish the object I had in view, and I was much blamed for refusing to make the trial. But I had maturely weighed within my own breast the advantages and disadvantages of such a step, and I was far from sharing the general opinion as to the probability of its result. To what, had I said to myself, could such a high favour lead me? Could I expect to touch the heart of this Sovereign by my eloquence? And if my words had produced some effect upon him as a man, was not the final decision to proceed from the concurrence of many others? And was I certain, in an interview of so little duration, and of so much embarrassment, to speak with as much method and precision as I could write? Was it right for me to deliver to him, before the proper time had arrived, authentic documents, which I intended only for the Sovereigns assembled, as if it were an ordinary petition? And, if the Emperor Alexander had happened to express himself in my presence, respecting the Emperor Napoleon, in terms which I could not but have contradicted, as it was but too probable that he would express himself, might it not turn out that I had irritated and indisposed, instead of conciliating, him? This latter consideration had chiefly led to my determination not to seek for an audience, which presented so many objections and offered but a single advantage, and that one personal to me, viz., the signal favour of seeing the first of monarchs, and of conversing with him of whom Napoleon had said on his rock; “If I die here, he will be my heir in Europe.”

Besides, the Emperor Alexander knew that I was at Frankfort. I was told that he had mentioned it in one of his circles, and I was almost certain that he had been spoken to about me. The circumstance from which I obtained this information is singular enough to be mentioned here. My room at the hotel where I had alighted happened to be next to that of one of his generals, who possessed his intimate confidence, and who was admitted into his presence at all times. The second or third evening after my arrival, the master of the hotel came into my room to inform me that the General was ready to receive me, and that he would have much pleasure in granting me the interview which I had asked for. In the first moment of surprise, my immediate answer was to bid him go and say it was a mistake; but, suddenly reflecting that this was, perhaps, a fortunate circumstance, brought about by the intervention of Providence, I ran after the man who was already delivering his message, and explained myself from the door of the apartment, that there was probably some error, since I had not the honour of asking such a favour; upon which the General ran towards me, as if to detain me, and dismissing his Aide-de-camp, said to me, with an air of affability and politeness, that, whether it was through mistake or not, he should be happy to avail himself of this opportunity to become acquainted, and have some conversation with me. And we then had a very long conversation together, and, as it will be easily believed, wholly relating to St. Helena.

I had only come to Frankfort to deposit, in due form, all my documents in the respective legations, and that done, I returned immediately to Manheim, in order to escape from the bustle and from the intrigues of Frankfort. Several persons came thither and offered to serve me at the Congress, assuring me that their services might be of very great importance, and proposing to become very zealous agents in my cause. For this assistance I should of course have been obliged to pay very largely, and it has been seen that I had scarcely wherewith to supply the first wants of him for the uncertain interests of whom large sums were demanded of me. During the sitting of the Congress, and whilst I was waiting in the hope of a favourable decision from the Sovereigns, I was destined to receive, even in my solitude at Manheim, fresh proofs of the perverseness of Sir Hudson Lowe, and of the ill treatment which he continued to inflict upon his victims. An unfortunate gunner of an East Indiaman found me out at Manheim, and about the same time I received a large packet from General Bertrand. The history of the gunner and of all the vexations to which he was exposed from the Governor and his confidents, for having been the bearer of a bust of young Napoleon, from which he hoped to derive some advantage, by offering it at Longwood, is detailed at some length in Mr. O’Meara’s work. This bust, which the Governor had at first intended to throw into the sea, and the existence of which he afterwards attempted to conceal by taking possession of it, under pretence of making a present of it to Napoleon himself, was, however, at last sent to Longwood, in consequence of the expression of public indignation; and Count Bertrand sent to the gunner, as well for the value of the bust as to indemnify him for all the vexations and losses which it had occasioned him, one of the bills which I left with him at my departure, amounting to 300l. Count Bertrand, on sending the bill to the gunner, requested him to acknowledge the receipt of it; but the poor fellow, so far from being enabled to acknowledge the receipt of the bill, had not even heard of Count Bertrand’s Letter, and had been obliged to pursue his voyage to India, after having delivered the bust, with the following verbal information given to him by Sir Hudson Lowe: “That the people of Longwood had destined some gratuity for him, and that he would hear of it in the course of time.” On his return from India, the unfortunate gunner was not allowed to go on shore during the whole time the ship stayed at St. Helena, and he was merely told once more that what had been mentioned to him concerning his interests was at the Admiralty in London. When he reached England, he at last, upon inquiry, got the bill; and it was the first time he had heard of it; but upwards of eighteen months had elapsed; the persons on whom it was drawn no longer had the necessary funds, and he was obliged to leave London with the melancholy persuasion that he had lost both his bust and his money. This gunner was an inhabitant of Dalmatia, and was going through Germany on his return home, by way of Trieste, when he heard, by the greatest chance in the world, at Frankfort, that he should find at Manheim the drawer of the bill which he held; he therefore came to me, and his joy was as lively as his imprecations against Sir Hudson Lowe were abundant, on receiving that sum which, as he said, was a little fortune to him, and would render him happy for the remainder of his life.

The large packet which I received from the Grand Marshal consisted of a long letter from him, written by order of the Emperor, and of sundry authentic documents which had arrived out of the regular channel. But, to my great surprise, the very day when I received that letter, I read its contents in the Netherland newspapers, as extracted and re-translated from the English papers. Guessing what had been the intentions at Longwood, I nevertheless sent an official copy of that letter to Lord Liverpool, as will be seen presently. I insert here all those documents, because Count Bertrand’s letter, giving a rather detailed account of the ill treatment which the Emperor experienced from the moment I had left him, lays before the reader a further period of eighteen months of the history of Longwood. Some of these documents, besides, have postscripts in Napoleon’s own hand-writing, and are too remarkable to be left unnoticed.

LETTER OF COUNT LAS CASES TO LORD LIVERPOOL.

My Lord,—I have this instant received a long letter from Count Bertrand; and at the same moment, to my great surprise, have seen that letter printed in the Vrai Liberal, of Brussels, re-translated from the Morning Chronicle of London.

To inform your Lordship how that has happened is beyond my power; but I can assure you, with great truth, that it is without my participation, and that I sincerely regret the circumstance. I can only explain it by supposing that one of your countrymen only consented to take charge of the packet from Longwood, upon condition of receiving it open, and being assured that it concerned the honour of his country; and that, on his arrival in London, he communicated its contents to the public, and forwarded it to me at the same time. Things would not have been so, my Lord, if, agreeably to my continued solicitations, I had obtained permission to reside in England. Persuaded as I am, and as Count Bertrand seems to suspect, that the atrocious vexations and the indignities which are daily inflicted upon Longwood may be unknown to the Administration, it would have been to you, my Lord, who are at the head of that Administration, and to you alone, that I should immediately have applied to inform you of such unheard-of grievances; thus furnishing you with the means, and leaving to you the merit, of redressing them.

I entreat your Lordship to believe that it would have been only after I had in vain exhausted every step required by decorum, after I had, in vain, applied, in the order of their rank, to the different authorities, that I should have adopted the extreme measure of addressing myself at last to public opinion, which will only be appealed to and pronounced[pronounced] in the last instance. I gave a proof of this disposition, my Lord, when, after eight months of absolute silence on the part of Lord Bathurst, to the statement which I addressed to his Lordship of various grievances, of which I had the honour of asking redress at his hands, and which I should, at least, have been justified in publishing, I did not however do so, until some ill-timed observations of one of your Members of the House of Commons rendered it a matter of positive necessity. I gave a proof of it, my Lord, at the period of the earnest entreaties which my heart prompted me to make at Aix-la-Chapelle, when I carefully transmitted to Lord Castlereagh himself a copy of the solicitations and complaints which I respectfully laid at the feet of the Allied Sovereigns. Lastly, my Lord, it is to give, as much as lies in my power, an additional proof of that disposition, that I hastily cause a copy to be made of the letter of Count Bertrand, in order that your Lordship may possess direct and authentic knowledge of that document, and lay it before his Royal Highness the Prince Regent.

A prey to bodily sufferings, caused by the insalubrious climate of St. Helena, as well as to the moral sufferings by which my separation was aggravated; the deplorable state of my health is such that every kind of application is forbidden to me by the faculty. I cannot, therefore, add any thing to the letter, of which I have the honour of addressing you a copy. Besides, what commentary could equal the bare recital of the facts which it contains?