“I am not afraid of rendering myself importunate: my excuse and my pardon are in the generosity of your soul.
“Sire, to recal, at this moment, to your recollection, and to that of your high Allies, the august captive, whom you, a long time, called your brother and your friend; to seek to divert your thoughts and theirs to that victim whose cruel suffering is always present to me; this is, I know it, to make the knell of death heard amidst joy and feasting. But therein, Sire, I trust that, even in the eyes of your Majesty, I fulfil an honourable and pious duty, the performance of which must remain always sweet to me, however perilous it may be!
“Sire,—reduced to a state of infirmity and weakness which leaves me scarcely able to connect a few ideas, I follow the instinct of my heart in default of the faculties of my head, in merely repeating literally here to your Majesty the note which I presumed to address to you at Aix-la-Chapelle; for, the circumstances having remained the same, no change having since taken place in that respect, what could I do better than to place under the eyes of your Majesty the same picture, the same facts, the same reasoning, the same truths.
“Only if, in spite of that which I then thought was certain, the illustrious victim, contrary to my expectation and that of the faculty, still breathes; if he has not yet fallen, I shall dare to observe to your Majesty that this unexpected prolongation of his life, which has been to him only a continuation of torment, is perhaps, to your Majesty, a blessing from heaven, which Providence reserves for your heart and for your memory.... Ah! Sire, there is then time still!... But the precious opportunity may every moment escape from all your power!... And what would be then the tardy, impotent regrets which could neither appease your heart, nor restore to your memory an act magnanimous, generous—a glory of a nature the most soothing, the most moral, the most commendable in the eyes of posterity, the best understood, perhaps, with which you could have embellished your glorious life? I mean oblivion of injuries, disdain of vengeance, remembrance of old friendship; in fine, the respect due to royal majesty—to one of the Lord’s anointed!!!
“Sire,—since my return to Europe, separated from the society of men, a prey to hopeless sufferings originating in St. Helena itself, belonging for the future and unalterably much more to another life than to this, I ardently raise every day in my retreat my hands to the Almighty, praying that he will deign to touch the heart of your Majesty, and to enlighten it upon so essential a part of its interests and its glory.
“I am, &c.
“COUNT DE LAS CASES.”[[45]]
How prophetic were many of these lines! Alas, they were scarcely before the eyes of the monarchs when he was no more!—He had ceased to live, to suffer!—On opening the Moniteur, I found there the fatal announcement. Though it could not surprise me, having been a long time certain to my understanding, I was not the less struck, overcome as at an unexpected event that was never to happen.
The next day I received a melancholy letter from London with circumstantial details, and conjectures for which these details might furnish matter; and this letter concluded by saying, “It was on the fifth of May, at six o’clock in the evening, at the very instant when the gun was firing at sunset, that his great soul quitted the earth.”
How strange the coincidences that sometimes happen!—When about the person of Napoleon, and under his influence, I had contracted the habit of keeping a diary, and he frequently expressed his regret that he had not done the same. “A line to assist the memory,” said he, “merely two or three indicatory words.” I had continued this practice ever since; and, as it may easily be imagined, I hastened to turn to the fifth of May, to see where I was, what I had been doing, and what had happened to me at that fatal moment. And what should I find?—Sudden storm; shelter under a shed; awful clap of thunder. Taking a ride, towards evening, in the country beyond Malines, the weather being delightful, there came on suddenly one of those summer storms, of such violence that I was obliged to seek shelter on horseback beneath a shed; and while in this situation there was a thunder-clap so tremendous that it seemed to be close to me. Alas! and what was passing elsewhere, at such a distance, at the same moment!—The circumstance may perhaps appear more than strange, but no doubt there are at Malines, or in its environs, naturalists or meteorologists who keep an account of the weather: it is for them to confirm or to contradict my statement.