We turn, then, to take a brief glance at his last years. The first event that claims notice is the arrest of Las Cases. This subtle intriguer had soon earned the hatred of Montholon and Gourgaud, who detested "the little Jesuit" for his Malvolio-like airs of importance and the hints of Napoleon that he would have ceremonial precedence over them. His rapid rise into favour was due to his conversational gifts, literary ability, and thorough knowledge of the English people and language. This last was specially important. Napoleon very much wished to learn our language, as he hoped that any mail might bring news of the triumph of the Whigs and an order for his own departure for England. His studies with Las Cases were more persevering than successful, as will be seen from the following curious letter, written apparently in the watches of the night: it has been recently re-published by M. de Brotonne.
"COUNT LASCASES,
"Since sixt week y learn the English and y do not any progress. Sixt week do fourty and two day. If might have learn fivty word, for day, i could know it two thousands and two hundred. It is in the dictionary more of fourty thousand: even he could most twenty; bot much of tems. For know it or hundred and twenty week, which do more two years. After this you shall agree that the study one tongue is a great labour who it must do into the young aged."
How much farther Napoleon progressed in his efforts to absorb our language by these mathematical methods we do not know; for no other English letter of his seems to be extant. The arrest and departure of his tutor soon occurred, and there are good grounds for assigning this ultimately to the jealousy of the less cultured Generals. Thus, we find Gourgaud asserting that Las Cases has come to St. Helena solely "in order to get talked about, write anecdotes, and make money." Montholon also did his best to render the secretary's life miserable, and on one occasion predicted to Gourgaud that Las Cases would soon leave the island.[578]
The forecast speedily came true. The secretary intrusted to his servant, a dubious mulatto named Scott, two letters for Europe sewn up in a waistcoat: one of them was a long letter to Lucien Bonaparte. The servant showed the letters to his father, who in some alarm revealed the matter to the Governor. It is curious as illustrating the state of suspicion then prevalent at St. Helena, that Las Cases accused the Scotts of being tools of the Governor; that Lowe saw in the affair the frayed end of a Longwood scheme; while the residents there suspected Las Cases of arranging matters as a means of departure from the island. There was much to justify this last surmise. Las Cases and his son were unwell; their position in the household was very uncomfortable; and for a skilled intriguer to intrust an important letter to a slave, who was already in the Governor's black books, was truly a singular proceeding. Besides, after the arrest, when the Governor searched Las Cases' papers in his presence, they were found to be in good order, among them being parts of his "Journal." Napoleon himself thought Las Cases guilty of a piece of extraordinary folly, though he soon sought to make capital out of the arrest by comparing the behaviour of our officers and their orderlies with "South Sea savages dancing around a prisoner that they are about to devour."[579] After a short detention at Ross Cottage, when he declined the Governor's offer that he should return to Longwood, the secretary was sent to the Cape, and thence made his way to France, where a judicious editing of his "Memoirs" and "Journal" gained for their compiler a rich reward.
Gourgaud is the next to leave. The sensitive young man has long been tormented by jealousy. His diary becomes the long-drawn sigh of a generous but vain nature, when soured by real or fancied neglect. Though often unfair to Napoleon, whose egotism the slighted devotee often magnifies into colossal proportions, the writer unconsciously bears witness to the wondrous fascination that held the little Court in awe. The least attention shown to the Montholons costs "Gogo" a fit of spleen or a sleepless night, scarcely to be atoned for on the morrow by soothing words, by chess, or reversi, or help at the manuscript of "Waterloo." Again and again Napoleon tries to prove to him that the Montholons ought to have precedence: it is in vain. At last the crisis comes: it is four years since the General saved the Emperor from a Cossack's lance at Brienne, and the recollection renders his present "humiliations" intolerable. He challenges Montholon to a duel; Napoleon strictly forbids it; and the aggrieved officer seeks permission to depart.
Napoleon grants his request. It seems that the chief is weary of his moody humours; he further owes him a grudge for writing home to his mother frank statements of the way in which the Longwood exiles are treated. These letters were read by Lowe and Bathurst, and their general purport seems to have been known in French governmental circles, where they served as an antidote to the poisonous stories circulated by Napoleon and his more diplomatic followers. Clearly nothing is to be made of Gourgaud; and so he departs (February 13th, 1818). Bidding a tearful adieu, he goes with Basil Jackson to spend six weeks with him at a cottage near Plantation House, when he is astonished at the delicate reserve shown by the Governor. He then sets sail for England. The only money he has is £100 advanced by Lowe. Napoleon's money he has refused to accept.[580]
And yet he did not pass out of his master's life. Landing in England on May 1st, he had a few interviews with our officials, in which he warned them that Napoleon's escape would be quite easy, and gave a hint as to O'Meara being the tool of Napoleon. But soon the young General came into touch with the leaders of the Opposition. No change in his sentiments is traceable until August 25th, when he indited a letter to Marie Louise, asserting that Napoleon was dying "in the torments of the longest and most frightful agony," a prey to the cruelty of England! To what are we to attribute this change of front? The editors of Gourgaud's "Journal" maintain that there was no change; they hint that the "Journal" may have been an elaborate device for throwing dust into Lowe's eyes; and they point to the fact that before leaving the island Gourgaud received secret instructions from Napoleon bidding him convey to Europe several small letters sewn into the soles of his boots. Whether he acted on these instructions may be doubted; for at his departure he gave his word of honour to Lowe that he was not the bearer of any paper, pamphlet, or letter from Longwood. Furthermore, we hear nothing of these secret letters afterwards; and he allowed nearly four months to elapse in England before he wrote to Marie Louise. The theory referred to above seems quite untenable in face of these facts.[581]
How, then, are we to explain Gourgaud's conduct at St. Helena and afterwards? Now, in threading the mendacious labyrinths of St. Helena literature it is hard ever to find a wholly satisfactory clue; but Basil Jackson's "Waterloo and St. Helena" (p. 103) seems to supply it in the following passage:
"To finish about Gourgaud, I may add that on his reaching England, after one or two interviews with the Under-Secretary of State, he fell into the hands of certain Radicals of note, who represented to him the folly of his conduct in turning against Napoleon; that, as his adherent, he was really somebody, whereas he was only ruining himself by appearing inimical. In short, they so worked upon the poor weak man, that he was induced to try and make it appear that he was still l'homme de l'Empereur: this he did by inditing a letter to Marie Louise, in which he inveighed against the treatment of Napoleon at the hands of the Government and Sir H. Lowe, which being duly published, Gourgaud fell to zero in the opinion of all right-minded persons."