‘When Napoleon departed for his second campaign in Russia, Corvisart gave him some poison of so subtle a nature, that in a few minutes, even in a few seconds, it would produce death. This poison was the same as that treated of by Cabanis, and consisted of the prussic acid which has subsequently been ascertained to be so fatal in its effects. It was with this same poison that Condorcet terminated his existence. Napoleon constantly carried it about him. It was enclosed in a little bag hermetically sealed, and suspended round his neck. As he always wore a flannel waistcoat next his skin, the little bag had for a long time escaped the observation of Marchand, and he had forgotten it. Napoleon was confident in the efficacy of this poison, and regarded it as the means of being master of himself. He swallowed it on the night above mentioned, after having put his affairs in order and written some letters. He had tacitly bade farewell to the Duke of Bassano and some of his other friends, but without giving them cause for the slightest suspicion.
‘The poison was, as I have already observed, extremely violent in its nature; but, by reason of its subtlety, it was the more liable to lose its power by being kept for any length of time. This happened in the present instance. It caused the Emperor dreadful pain, but it did not prove fatal. When the Duke of Bassano perceived him in a condition closely resembling death, he knelt down at his bedside and burst into tears: “Ah! Sire!” he exclaimed, “what have you done?” The Emperor raised his eyes and looked at the Duke with an expression of kindness; then, stretching to him his cold and humid hand, he said: “You see, God has decreed that I shall not die. He, too, condemns me to suffer!”’
CHAPTER LV.
NAPOLEON LEAVES FOR ELBA—HIS RECEPTION THERE.
After a sad parting with his old guard at Fontainebleau, on April 20, Napoleon left for Elba, embarking on board an English frigate on the 28th. We can now resume the caricatures.
Rowlandson produced (April 12, 1814) ‘Bloody Boney, the Carcass Butcher; left off Trade and retiring to Scarecrow Island.’ Napoleon and the Empress, together with a bag of brown bread, are mounted on a donkey—he wears a fool’s cap, and she belabours the ass with a ‘Baton Marechale’; the young King of Rome precedes them on a Corsican dog. The usual direction-post (a gallows) shows the road to Elba, and ravens are hankering after him, saying, ‘We long to pick your bones.’ A heavy-booted postilion is calling out, ‘Be Gar, you Cocquin, now I shall drive my old Friends and bonne customers de English. Vive le Roi et le Poste Royale.’
Rowlandson plagiarised Gillray by almost slavishly copying ‘Death of the Corsican Fox’ ([Vol. I. p. 204]), only he substituted Blücher for George the Third, and changed the names on the dogs’ collars to Wellington, Swartzenberg, Kutusoff, Duke of York, and Crown Prince. This etching is called ‘Coming in at the death of the Corsican fox. Scene the Last’ (April 12, 1814).
‘A Grand Manœuvre! or, the Rogues march to the Island of Elba,’ G. Cruikshank (April 13, 1814). Here Napoleon is shewn weeping bitterly at his own disgrace. His hands are bound behind him, his tattered uniform is put on wrong side in front, his boots have no soles nor toes, and his spurs are strapped in front; some gamins are tugging at a halter which is round his neck, and are dragging him to a boat, in which sits the Devil, waiting for him; Talleyrand is doing all in his power to expedite matters by pushing him behind with an ‘Allied broom,’ and he goes to his doom amidst universal execrations. The little King of Rome is in one of his coat-tail pockets, and calls out, ‘By Gar, Papa, I have von grand manœuvre in your pocket.’
