We may hereby gauge the value which Napoleon laid on fidelity. For him it is the one priceless virtue. He esteems those who staunchly oppose him, and seeks to gain them over by generosity: for those who come over he ever has a secret contempt; for those who desert him, hatred. Doubtless that is why he heard the news of Ney's execution unmoved. Brilliantly brave as the Marshal was, he had abandoned him in 1814, and Louis XVIII. in the Hundred Days. The tidings of Murat's miserable fate, at the close of his mad expedition to Calabria, leave Napoleon equally cold.—"I announce the fatal news," writes Gourgaud, "to His Majesty, whose expression remains unchanged, and who says that Murat must have been mad to attempt a venture like that."—Here again his thoughts seem to fly back to Murat's defection in 1814. Later on, he says he loved him for his brilliant bravery, and therefore pardoned his numerous follies. But his present demeanour shows that he never forgave that of 1814.[556]
Meanwhile, thanks to the energy of Cockburn and his sailors, Longwood was ready for the party (December 9th, 1815), and the Admiral hoped that their complaints would cease. The new abode contained five rooms for Napoleon's use, three for the Montholons, two for the Las Cases, and one for Gourgaud: it was situated on a plateau 1,730 feet above the sea: the air there was bracing, and on the farther side of the plain dotted with gum trees stretched the race-course, a mile and a half of excellent turf. The only obvious drawbacks were the occasional mists, and the barren precipitous ravines that flank the plateau on all sides. Seeing, however, that Napoleon disliked the publicity of Jamestown, the isolation of Longwood could hardly be alleged as a serious grievance. The Bertrands occupied Hutt's Gate, a small villa about a mile distant.
The limits within which Napoleon might take exercise unaccompanied by a British officer formed a roughly triangular space having a circumference of about twelve miles. Outside of those bounds he must be so accompanied; and if a strange ship came in sight, he was to return within bounds. The letters of the whole party must be supervised by the acting Governor. This is the gist of the official instructions. Napoleon's dislike of being accompanied by a British officer led him nearly always to restrict himself to the limits and generally to the grounds of Longwood.
And where, we may ask, could a less unpleasant place of detention have been found? In Europe he must inevitably have submitted to far closer confinement. For what safeguards could there have been proof against a subtle intellect and a personality whose charm fired thousands of braves in both hemispheres with the longing to start him once more on his adventures? The Tower of London, the eyrie of Dumbarton Castle, even Fort William itself, were named as possible places of detention. Were they suited to this child of the Mediterranean? He needed sun; he needed exercise; he needed society. All these he could have on the plateau of Longwood, in a singularly equable climate, where the heat of the tropics is assuaged by the south-east trade wind, and plants of the sub-tropical and temperate zones alike flourish.[557]
But nothing pleased the exiles. They moped during the rains; they shuddered at the yawning ravines; they groaned at the sight of the red-coats; above all, they realized that escape was hopeless in face of Cockburn's watchful care. His first steps on arriving at the island were to send on to the Cape seventy-five foreigners whose presence was undesirable. He also despatched the "Peruvian" to hoist the British flag on the uninhabited island, Ascension, in order, as he wrote to the Admiralty, "to prevent America or any other nation from planting themselves [sic] there … for the purpose of favouring sooner or later the escape of General Bonaparte." Four ships of war were also kept at St. Helena, and no merchantmen but those of the East India Company were to touch there except under stress of weather or when in need of water.
These precautions early provoked protests from the exiles. Bertrand had no wish to draw them up in the trenchant style that the ex-Emperor desired; but Gourgaud's "Journal" shows that he was driven on to the task (November 5th). It only led to a lofty rejoinder from Cockburn, in which he declined to relax his system, but expressed the wish to render their situation "as little disagreeable as possible." On December 21st, Montholon returned to the charge with a letter dictated by Napoleon, complaining that Longwood was the most barren spot on the island, always deluged with rain or swathed in mist; that O'Meara was not to count as a British officer when they went beyond the limits, and had been reprimanded by the Admiral for thus acting; and that the treatment of the exiles would excite the indignation of all times and all people. To this the Admiral sent a crushing rejoinder, declining to explain why he had censured O'Meara or any other British subject: he asserted that Longwood was "the most pleasant as well as the most healthy spot of this most healthful island," expressed the hope that, when the rains had ceased, the party would change their opinion of Longwood, and declared that the treatment of the party would "obtain the admiration of future ages, as well as of every unprejudiced person of the present."
We now know that the Admiral's trust in the judicial impartiality of future ages was a piece of touching credulity, and that the next generation, like his own, was greedily to swallow sensational slander and to neglect the prosaic truth. But, arguing from present signs, he might well believe that Montholon's letter was a tissue of falsehoods; for that officer soon confessed to him that "it was written in a moment of petulance of the General [Bonaparte] … and that he [Montholon] considered the party to be in point of fact vastly well off and to have everything necessary for them, though anxious that there should be no restrictions as to the General going unattended by an officer wherever he pleased throughout the island."[558] On the last point Cockburn was inflexible.
The Admiral's responsibility was now nearly at an end. On April 14th, 1816, there landed at St. Helena Sir Hudson Lowe, the new Governor, who was to take over the powers wielded both by Cockburn and Wilks. The new arrival, on whom the storms of calumny were thenceforth persistently to beat, had served with distinction in many parts. Born in 1769, within one month of Napoleon, he early entered our army, and won his commission by service in Corsica and Elba, his linguistic and military gifts soon raising him to the command of a corps of Corsican exiles who after 1795 enlisted in our service. With these "Corsican Rangers" Lowe campaigned in Egypt and finally at Capri, their devotion to him nerving them to a gallant but unavailing defence of this islet against a superior force of Murat's troops in 1808.[559] In 1810 Lowe and his Corsicans captured the Isle of Santa Maura, which he thereafter governed to the full satisfaction of the inhabitants. Early in 1813 he was ordered to Russia, and thereafter served as attaché on Blücher's staff in the memorable advance to the Rhine and the Seine. He brought the news of Napoleon's first abdication to England, was knighted by the Prince Regent, and received Russian and Prussian orders of distinction for his services. At the close of 1814 he was appointed Quartermaster-General of our forces in the Netherlands and received flattering letters of congratulation from Blücher and Gneisenau, the latter expressing his appreciation of "Your rare military talents, your profound judgment on the great operations of war, and your imperturbable sang froid in the day of battle. These rare qualities and your honourable character will link me to you eternally." In 1822, when O'Meara was slandering Lowe's character, the Czar Alexander met his step-daughter, the Countess Balmain, at Verona, and in reference to Sir Hudson's painful duties at St. Helena, said of him: "Je l'estime beaucoup. Je l'ai connu dans les temps critiques."[560]
Lowe's firmness of character, command of foreign languages, and intimate acquaintance with Corsicans, seemed to mark him out as the ideal Governor of St. Helena in place of the mild and scholarly Wilks. And yet the appointment was in some ways unfortunate. Though a man of sterling worth, Lowe was reserved, and had little acquaintance with the ways of courtiers. Moreover, the superstitious might deem that all the salient events of his career proclaimed him an evil genius dogging the steps of Napoleon; and, as superstition laid increasing hold on the great Corsican in his later years, we may reasonably infer that this feeling intensified, if it did not create, the repugnance which he ever manifested to la figure sinistre of the Governor. Lowe also at first shrank from an appointment that must bring on him the intrigues of Napoleon and of his partisans in England. Only a man of high rank and commanding influence could hope to live down such attacks; and Lowe had neither rank nor influence. He was the son of an army surgeon, and was almost unknown in the country which for twenty-eight years he had served abroad.
His first visits to Longwood were unfortunate. Cockburn and he arranged to go at 9 a.m., the time when Napoleon frequently went for a drive. On their arrival they were informed that the Emperor was indisposed and could not see them until 4 p.m. of the next day, and it soon appeared that the early hour of their call was taken as an act of rudeness. On the following afternoon Lowe and Cockburn arranged to go in together to the presence; but as Lowe advanced to the chamber, Bertrand stepped forward, and a valet prevented the Admiral's entrance, an act of incivility which Lowe did not observe. Proceeding alone, the new Governor offered his respects in French; but on Napoleon remarking that he must know Italian, for he had commanded a regiment of Corsicans, they conversed in Napoleon's mother-tongue. The ex-Emperor's first serious observation, which bore on the character of the Corsicans, was accompanied by a quick searching glance: "They carry the stiletto: are they not a bad people?"—Lowe saw the snare and evaded it by the reply: "They do not carry the stiletto, having abandoned that custom in our service: I was very well satisfied with them." They then conversed a short time about Egypt and other topics. Napoleon afterwards contrasted him favourably with Cockburn: "This new Governor is a man of very few words, but he appears to be a polite man: however, it is only from a man's conduct for some time that you can judge of him."[561]