Absolute seclusion.
Infallible destruction.
The remainder of Napoleon’s existence will only be a cruel and prolonged agony.
It has already been seen that the arrival of a new Governor became for us the signal of the commencement of a life of misery. A few days had sufficed to unfold his disposition; and, soon afterwards, the annoyances and insults of which he made himself the instrument, or which he himself created, were carried to the highest pitch. He rendered us an object of terror to the inhabitants—he subjected us to the most cruel vexations—he forbade us to write, without a previous communication with him, even to those persons with whom he did not prevent us from conversing without restraint—he invited General Bonaparte to dine at his table, to shew him to a lady of rank who was for a short time on the island—he arrested one of our servants.
He now produces a despatch, in pursuance of which he endeavours to oblige the Emperor to go into “the meanest details of his wants,” as Napoleon expressed it, and to discuss them with him; he importunes the Emperor to give money which he does not possess; and, by dint of reductions in the common necessaries of life, obliges him to break up and sell his plate, determining at the same time, by his authority as Governor, the rate at which it is to be sold, and the person who is to purchase it. He ridiculously restricts us to one bottle of wine per head, including the Emperor. “He cheapens our existence,” said the Emperor; “he grudges me the air I breathe, and what he sends to us for our subsistence is sometimes, nay frequently, so bad that we are obliged to apply for provisions to the neighbouring camp!!” &c.
He lays a snare for Napoleon, and exults in the hope of being able to impart to him, personally and pompously, a communication which he calls a ministerial order, but which is so outrageous that he refuses to leave a copy of it; he prescribes to the Emperor the most absurd regulations; he capriciously, and with bitter irony, contracts the space of his usual limits; chalks out the trace of his footsteps; and even goes so far as to attempt to regulate the nature of his conversations and the tenour of his expressions; he surrounds us with trenches, palisadoes, and redoubts; he obliges each of us individually, in order to be allowed to remain with the Emperor, to sign a declaration that we submit to all these restrictions; he makes use of us as instruments to degrade the Emperor, by obliging us to call him Bonaparte, under pain of being immediately removed from his person and instantly sent out of the island, &c.
The Emperor, provoked by such disgraceful usage and such gratuitous insults, opens his mind without reserve to Sir Hudson Lowe; his words know no restraint; he frees himself for ever from his odious presence, and declares that he never will see him again. “The most unworthy proceeding of the English ministers,” said the Emperor to him, “is not to have sent me here, but to have delivered me into your hands. I complained of the admiral your predecessor; but he at least had a heart!... You are a disgrace to your nation, and your name will for ever be a stain upon its character!... This Governor,” the Emperor would frequently say to us, “has nothing of an Englishman in his composition; he is nothing but a worthless sbire of Sicily. I at first complained that a gaoler had been sent to me; but I now affirm that they have sent me an executioner,” &c.
I have recorded these expressions, and I might mention many more, however harsh they may be. 1st, Because I heard them uttered. 2dly, Because Napoleon used them in speaking to Sir Hudson Lowe in person, or caused them to be repeated to him. 3dly and lastly, Because they were deserved, on account of the arbitrary, oppressive, and brutal manner, in which the Governor, to the great scandal of the English themselves who were on the spot, and who then manifested their disgust at his conduct, abused the power with which he was invested in the name of a Nation so eminently distinguished all over the globe, of a Prince so universally respected in Europe, and of a Cabinet in which there were still some honourable characters, men personally known by their moderation and their elegant manners.
The vexations by which Napoleon was assailed were incessant; they pursued him at every moment of his existence. Not a day passed without the infliction of a fresh wound; and one of the torments recorded in fabulous history may be said to have been thus realized.
Ah! if, during that period of affliction for so many generous hearts, the Genius of Europe, the Genius of Truth, and the Genius of History, have ever turned even involuntarily towards St. Helena, and the great Napoleon; if they have sought for him in that island which they thought it would be right to attempt, at least, to turn into a kind of Elysium for him; what must have been their indignation to see him, in the bright glory of so many immortal actions, chained like Prometheus to a rock, and, like him, under the claws of a vulture, which delights in tearing him to pieces!!! O infamy! O eternal disgrace!...