It is at your feet, Sire, that my heart prompts me to seek for an alleviation of my affliction, for encouragement to my hope.
Your treaty of the 2nd August, 1815, with your illustrious Allies, stipulates that Napoleon is your prisoner, and abandons to England the possession of his person, and the care and necessary measures of his detention.
I shall not say any thing against that treaty, Sire; I shall not even complain of the manner in which the British Ministers execute that part of the treaty which you have intrusted to their care.
The high interests of politics, the great grievances, however they may weigh upon my heart, are at this moment far from my thoughts; domestic cares alone occupy my breast.
I therefore implore your Majesty, as I have implored your high Allies,[[32]] to deign to protect the request which I address to the English Government, to be allowed to devote myself in London to the care of procuring for the illustrious captive, through the means allowed by the laws and regulations, some moral enjoyments, and some physical comforts, which will not be a burden to any body.
My request, Sire, is an innocent favour, natural and simple, and against which no reasonable objection can be raised; indeed, I am not without strong claims on your Majesty’s attention. You are far from being a stranger to them.
In abandoning to others the custody and detention of the captive, your Majesty has certainly not renounced your right of superintendence over the marks of attention and respect due to his sacred person. In renouncing all political interposition, your Majesty has not intended to preclude yourself from contributing to the consolations approved by your individual sentiments, and to those alleviations which do not interfere with the principal object, in view.
Every day, Sire, at St. Helena, chains are imposed, and their weight is aggravated in your name. Can you, Sire, have allowed your name to reach that spot, only to authorize odious and intolerable acts of severity?
He upon whom these acts are inflicted, Sire, is the same to whom you long gave the name of brother. Your royal heart cannot forget it, it cannot remain insensible. I therefore appeal, in order to obtain a small favour, to your sympathy, to your recollections, and even to your dignity. Your magnanimous mind, Sire, has shewn itself too much the friend of public morality, it has displayed too much private delicacy and generosity in its various bearings, to allow me to doubt for an instant of success.
And what is, Sire, once more, the object for which I require your protection? Merely to be allowed to be near the place of communication and conveyance, that is, on the spot the most favourable, and in the situation the most proper, to be able, according to the prescribed forms and regulations, to continue from afar those domestic cares which I am no longer allowed to exercise in the prison itself: that is all.