NAPOLEON’S BRITISH VISITORS
NAPOLEON’S
BRITISH VISITORS AND CAPTIVES
1801–1815
BY JOHN GOLDWORTH ALGER
AUTHOR OF THE ‘NEW PARIS SKETCH BOOK’
‘ENGLISHMEN IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION’
‘GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION’
AND ‘PARIS IN 1789–94’
New York
JAMES POTT AND COMPANY
1904
Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty
CONTENTS
| CHAPTER I | |
|---|---|
| PAGE | |
| INTRODUCTORY, | [1] |
| CHAPTER II | |
| THE VISITORS | |
| No Thoroughfare—Occasional Visitors—Negotiations—Fox—M.P.’s—Ex- andProspective M.P.’s—Peers and their Families—Baronets—Soldiers—Sailors—Functionaries—Lawyers—Doctors—Clergymen—Savants—Artists—Actors—Inventors—Claimantsand Men of Business—Writers on France—Other Authors—Residents—Ancestors—Fugitives—Emigrés, | [12] |
| CHAPTER III | |
| AMUSEMENTS AND IMPRESSIONS | |
| Parisian Attractions—Napoleon—Foreign Notabilities—MutualImpressions—Marriages and Deaths—ReturnVisits, | [126] |
| CHAPTER IV | |
| CAPTIVITY | |
| The Rupture—Detentions—Flights and Narrow Escapes—Lifeat Verdun—Extortion—Napoleon’s Rigour—M.P.’s—TheArgus—Escapes and Recaptures—Diplomatists—Liberations—Indulgences—Women and Children—Capturesin War—Rumbold—Foreign Visitors—BritishTravellers—Deaths—The Last Stage—French Leave—UnpaidDebts, | [174] |
| CHAPTER V | |
| TWO RESTORATIONS | |
| The Restoration—Aristocrats and Commoners—UnwelcomeGuests—Wellington in Danger—Misgivings—NapoleonicEmblems—Spectacles—Visits to Elba—Egerton’s Siege—St.Helena Eyewitnesses and Survivors, | [271] |
| APPENDIX | |
| A. MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT, | [316] |
| B. PEERS AND THEIR FAMILIES, | [317] |
| C. LORD J. RUSSELL AT ELBA (narrative now first published), | [319] |
| INDEX OF NAMES, AND LIST OF OTHER VISITORS, | [325] |
I
INTRODUCTORY
The French Revolution, of which—philosophers regarding it as still unfinished—this book is really a chapter, produced a greater dislocation of individuals and classes than had been known in modern times. It scattered thousands of Frenchmen over Europe, some in fact as far as America and India, while, on the other hand, it attracted men of all nationalities to France. It was mainly a centrifugal, but it was partly a centripetal force, especially during the Empire; never before or since was France so much as then the focus of political and social life. Men of all ranks shared in both these movements. If princes and nobles were driven from France there were some who were attracted thither even in the early stages of the Revolution, while Napoleon later on drew around him a galaxy of foreign satellites.