My first step, after my arrival at Brussels, which I reached late in the evening, after a journey of three days, was to send to inform the police of my being in that city, and ask what had been the determination of the Minister relative to my case, in consequence of the letter which I had addressed to him from Ostend. The generous answer to my innocent confidence was, to send instantly to surround the inn where I was, and they waited with impatience the first dawn of day to signify to me that I must leave the kingdom of the Netherlands without the least delay. I was very much indisposed, and had some degree of fever about me; nevertheless, I vainly appealed to their compassion, and asked to be allowed to stay one day longer.
Very serious obstacles must certainly have existed to my being permitted to sojourn in Brussels, or a predisposition to treat me with cruelty, for I was not allowed even one hour. They placed me in a carriage between a police officer and a gendarme, and turned me on the high road. These people, who saw my condition, took compassion upon me, and after a few hours’ journey consented to stop, in order that I might procure a little rest and some requisite medical attendance; but under the express condition that I should resume my journey at an early hour on the following morning, in charge of the guards appointed to succeed them; a system that was strictly acted upon and repeated in every town, notwithstanding the repeated observations and the testimony of all medical men. This cruel treatment compelled me to complain to the French Ambassador at the court of the Netherlands, who I thought would warmly resist such a proceeding; for it was an insult to his public character to treat in this manner, without any just motive, and in direct violation of the laws, a Frenchman who was placed under his protection. I therefore informed him of the vexatious and inhuman conduct which was then exercised towards me.
I told him “that, upon landing at Ostend I had written to the French Minister of Police, to state to him my motives for remaining out of France; that I had also written at the same time to the Minister of the Police of the Netherlands, requesting he would allow me to sojourn a short time in Brussels, and that, having reached that city at a late hour, without having been guarded or placed under any superintendence, I had hastened to inform his Excellency of my arrival; but that I had been suddenly awaked before day-light on the following morning, and surrounded by four police officers and two gendarmes, who signified to me that I must instantly depart, notwithstanding the very precarious state of my health; that I had in vain demanded a physician to verify my case; that I had been told that I should be allowed one for form’s sake, but that I must depart, whatever might be his opinion; that, in fact, I had been removed to Louvain like a malefactor, and in the last stage of sickness, under the escort of a gendarme and of a police officer; that, having arrived in this town during the night, suffering from increased illness, covered with blisters, and in a state of fever, I had asked to be allowed to stop the following day; that the Burgomaster had been inhuman enough to refuse my request, in spite of two or three very strong medical certificates; that, having demanded that the physician at least might accompany me in the carriage, instead of the gendarme, who could follow on horseback, this favour had also been refused me; that all that could be allowed, they said, was that the physician should accompany me in another carriage. This was, no doubt, a piece of irony.”
I added, “that I was quite certain such treatment could not proceed from him who alone, however, on this occasion, would have a right to exercise any influence over my fate; that I was too well acquainted with the sentiments of the nation to which we belonged to suppose for a moment that his instructions could decree the proscription of a person towards whom there neither was, nor could be, any law or motive for such a proceeding; that the ill usage I experienced could therefore only proceed from the authorities of this country, where however, in common justice, I ought not to be considered in any other light than as a traveller; that as such I would demand of them what was my crime, and what were their rights over my person.” And I concluded by placing my interests under his care, as his situation made him their natural protector; and, with a view to call his attention more particularly to me, I gave him news of Madame Bertrand, his wife’s sister, which I had received just as I was leaving Dover, and I offered myself, in case Madame de Latour Dupin wished to say any thing to her sister, to whom it would afford the greatest pleasure, to take charge of it, as I proposed to write to Madame Bertrand regularly once a month, by the channel which the English regulations allowed, viz., under the very cover of Ministers.
His Excellency made no reply to this letter; his endeavours, no doubt, proved unavailing; the impulse, the very orders, perhaps, emanated at this time from the other side of the water.
I continued in this manner, without intermission, transferred from town to town, from one police officer to another, from gendarme to gendarme, across the whole kingdom of the Netherlands; and when I occasionally asked, in the height of my sufferings, what could be the motive for such harsh treatment, I was simply told, in reply, that such were the orders that had been given; and, in fact, this was all that appeared to be known on the subject. Arrived at Aix-la-Chapelle, on the Prussian territory, I was there exchanged by the Agents of the Netherlands for a receipt, as might have been done with a bale of goods; and the Prussians, in their turn, hurried me along with equal rapidity from place to place, from officer to officer, and from one gendarme to another; and when I enquired of them also the motive of all this, they candidly answered that they did not know; but that I had been thrown into their country, and that they were going to throw me out of it. If I asked to stop, they politely replied that they would not keep me upon their territory; and some friends, for it will hereafter be seen that I found friends every where, whispered in my ear that I ought to thank God for it, and above all things, to take immediate advantage of this piece of good fortune, as some exiled Frenchmen had lately been forced to the shores of the Baltic, and shut up in fortresses. I then declared that I desired to go to Frankfort, an expression which appeared to give pleasure to my hosts, the Prussians, as they said it would no longer concern them. After what I had just learnt, I was equally rejoiced at this upon my own account.
After having described, but very feebly, all the savage brutality that had just been exercised upon me, all the vexations and sufferings that I had endured, it would be unjust and ungrateful in me, and I should be depriving myself of the most gratifying sensation, were I to omit mentioning the kind of compensation which I found at every step of my journey.
My story had made a great noise; it had spread in every direction; it preceded me; the public papers had laid hold of it. It was known whom I had served, to whom I had wished to devote my care, for whom I suffered; and all endeavoured to mark their sense of my conduct. All classes were eager to evince every mark of attention and sympathy towards me; and open demonstrations, or secret offers, awaited me every where. It was then that those words of Napoleon’s occurred to my mind, which I have, by the way, had many subsequent occasions to recal to my recollection: “My dear friends, when you shall have returned to Europe, you will find that, from this spot, I still bestow crowns.” And can there be a nobler, a more precious one, than the esteem, the affection, the sympathy, of those even who know you not, and have never seen you! What hand, however powerful, can bestow any thing of equal value! These feelings manifested themselves at inns, upon the high-roads, every where. Postboys, gendarmes, all that I met with on my journey, addressed me with a kind of pride and exultation. One said, “I belonged to the Imperial Guard;” another, “I was a French gendarme;” a third, “I have been a soldier under Napoleon.” These recollections, and the feelings of good-will to which they gave rise, appeared in all classes and conditions. Twice, in Belgium, offers were made to rescue me, every thing having been, I was informed, carefully prepared beforehand; the same offer had already been made to me at the Cape, by an American Captain; and a similar proposal was made to me at a later period, on the part of some Englishmen, to whom I was quite unknown, and who had resolved to come from London in order to carry me off from Frankfort, where they thought me in a much worse situation than I really was. But I invariably replied—“What end would it answer? Why should I injure so noble a cause?”
The very agents of authority felt an anxiety concerning my fate, and a kind of interest for me. One of them, although appointed to watch me, offered to take charge of any paper that I would venture to intrust to his care; I availed myself of his offer, as I did not see any inconvenience in so doing, even if he had some bad intention, as he might possibly have, and I addressed, to a person of high rank in England, a letter of half a dozen lines, describing with warmth the ill usage which the British Ministers had made me suffer for the last twelve months, and requesting that he would publish my statement, if he saw no objection to it. I enclosed, with the same view, that part of the Emperor’s letter which I had been allowed to copy, adding that I should have continued to to keep it to myself, had not the ridiculous and insulting reports, which were inserted in the newspapers, rendered it imperative upon me to make it public. I, however, left to his discretion to decide what should be done.
How great was my surprise to see the whole published in the Belgic papers two days afterwards! I was extremely mortified at it; it was not at all consistent with my disposition to wish to make so much noise. I was, above all, especially hurt that the person in England to whom I addressed my letter, and to whom I was unknown, should receive it only through the public press: this mode of proceeding was also totally inconsistent with my manners. I was at a loss to conceive how the thing could have happened. I have since learnt that my confident, in the warmth of his zeal, had consulted with two or three persons of the same way of thinking, and that, the papers having been read in their little council, they had decided that, instead of losing time in sending them to England, where, perhaps, no use would be made of them, it would be better to publish them instantly upon the spot, where indeed they created a very lively sensation. Notwithstanding the trouble that I then suffered from them, they proved eventually of the most signal advantage to me.