IV
CAPTIVITY
The Rupture—Detentions—Flights and Narrow Escapes—Life at Verdun—Extortion—Napoleon’s Rigour—M.P.’s—The Argus—Escapes and Recaptures—Diplomatists—Liberations—Indulgences—Women and Children—Captures in War—Rumbold—Foreign Visitors—British Travellers—Deaths—The Last Stage—French Leave—Unpaid Debts.
It is not my purpose to discuss the causes of the renewal of the war. M. Martin Phippson, in the Revue Historique, March to June 1901, contends that though England, owing to Addington’s incapacity, was seemingly the aggressor, Napoleon was really so, albeit desirous at the last moment of postponing the rupture till his armaments were completed. Of all the explanations of the rupture the strangest, yet the most recent, is that of M. Albert Sorel, who, quoting some anonymous English writer, represents the renewal of the war as necessary to the English ruling classes in order to avert the establishment of a government like the French.[160] The truth is that all reflecting Englishmen perceived Napoleon to be a tyrant, and Paine, as we have seen, regarded Frenchmen as worse off than the slaves of Constantinople.
The treaty of Amiens, moreover, had never been more than a truce. Whitworth had never appeared to instal himself for a permanency, and English visitors consequently complained of his want of hospitality. On the 13th March 1803 Napoleon rudely apostrophised him at Joséphine’s reception. Whitworth’s own account of this has been published by Mr. Oscar Browning, but Napoleon’s version addressed to Andréossi, which seems to have been overlooked in England, is to be found in his correspondence. It reads thus:—
‘The First Consul being at the presentation of foreigners which took place to-day at Madame Bonaparte’s, and finding Lord Whitworth and M. de Markoff side by side, said to them, “We have been fighting fifteen years (sic). It seems that a storm is brewing at London, and that they want to fight another fifteen years. The King of England says in his message that France is preparing offensive armaments. He has been misled. There is no considerable armament in the French ports, all having started for St. Domingo. He says that differences exist between the two Cabinets; I know of none. It is true that England should evacuate Malta. His Majesty is pledged to this by treaty. The French nation may be destroyed but not intimidated.”
‘Going round and finding himself alone with M. de Markoff, he said in a low tone that the discussion related to Malta, that the British Ministry wanted to keep it seven years, and that you should not sign treaties when you would not execute them. At the end of the circle, the English minister being near the door, he said to him: “Madame Dorset has spent the bad season at Paris; I ardently hope that she may spend the fine one; but if it is true that we are to have war, the entire responsibility in the eyes of God and man will be on those who repudiate their own signature and refuse to execute treaties.”’
This storm blew over, and on the 30th March the young Duke of Dorset, the Harrow schoolboy, set off to spend Easter with his mother, his two little sisters, and his step-father at Paris. It was also stated that the Embassy was about to be newly furnished. But in April matters again looked threatening. Madame de Rémusat tells us that people collected outside the British Embassy, to judge by the preparations for departure whether there was to be peace or war. Whitworth[161] left Paris on the 12th May and landed at Dover on the 20th. His staff met with some obstacles. Talbot, on his way to Calais, was stopped at St. Denis because his passport had expired. He acknowledged that he ought to have renewed it, but the Prefect of Police, on being consulted, said he was exempt from the decree, and after a few hours’ delay Talbot, who admitted that he had been courteously treated, proceeded on his journey.[162] Mandeville not being allowed, probably for the same informality, to embark at Calais, returned temporarily to Paris. Hodgson, the chaplain, and Maclaurin, the physician to the Embassy, also encountered difficulties. On the 6th May it had been announced in the House of Commons that Andréossi had asked for his passports. On the 17th messages to both Houses and a notification in the London Gazette dated the 16th announced an embargo on all French and Dutch vessels in British ports, together with the issue of letters of marque. On the 19th two French vessels laden with timber and salt were captured off Brest. On the 23rd a decree was communicated to the French Chambers providing that all Englishmen enrolled in the militia or holding commissions in the army or navy should be detained as reprisals for this embargo and capture prior to the declaration of war on the 18th. The decree was even extended by being made applicable to all persons between eighteen and sixty, even if, like clergymen and others, not enrolled in the militia. Talbot before leaving wrote a letter of remonstrance to Talleyrand, who stated that Talbot having no longer any official status he could not reply.
The only precedents for this detention were the arrest in 1746, without any apparent reason, of all the English in Paris on the return of the Young Pretender, and that of all Englishmen in France in 1793 as hostages for Toulon. Thomas Moore heard Lord Holland in 1819 justify Napoleon, but Mackintosh maintained that the seizure of vessels was warranted by international law, and a French jurist, Miot de Mélito, describes the detention as a ‘violent measure unusual even in the bitterest wars,’ while Henri Martin, the French historian, charges both Governments with having violated international law. The truth is that Napoleon acted in a passion, and as in the case of the Duc d’Enghien was too proud ever to acknowledge a mistake. As to an embargo, he himself as early as the 13th May had despatched orders for the seizure of British vessels in Holland, Genoa, and Tuscany. If, moreover, we are to believe Madame Junot, Napoleon’s decree was due to his having been informed that Colonel James Green had in a café threatened in his cups to assassinate him, and though Junot, being acquainted with Green, vouched for his having left Paris prior to the date of the alleged threat, Napoleon refused to cancel the decree. So swiftly was it enforced that the Prince of Wales packet and the cutter Nancy, which had made their usual passage from Dover to Calais, were seized and their crews detained. When a few weeks afterwards Napoleon visited Calais, Captain Sutton, of the Prince of Wales, petitioned him for release, but he met with a peremptory refusal, and Napoleon, on the two vessels being pointed out to him in the harbour, said, ‘You have plenty of mud there; let them lie and rot.’
The aggregate number of the British captives, represented by the French as seven thousand five hundred, was really only seven hundred, four hundred of them, according to Sturt, being small tradesmen. Napoleon, according to Maclean, was much disappointed at the smallness of the haul. Everything indeed had been done to induce the visitors to stay. The Argus had on the 10th May remonstrated against any fear of detention as in 1793, France, it said, being no longer under a Robespierre, and provincial authorities had given assurances that expulsion with reasonable notice was the worst that could befall. It was unfair, however, to accuse Napoleon of having ‘enticed’ the English to remain. His assurances of safety were probably sincere at the time, but his moral sense did not impress upon him the sacredness of such a virtual pledge. He had no scruples as to suddenly changing his mind to the detriment of persons who had trusted him. Most of the visitors, however, had deemed it prudent to return home while the issue was still uncertain. As late indeed as May arrivals in Paris had continued. From May 10th to 19th there were 48, and from the 20th to the 29th there were 38, but in the next ten days the number fell to 17 and in the following ten days to 6. Most of these visitors, moreover, must have come up from the provinces on their way home, while others came to fetch relatives. There were some narrow escapes. Sir William Call was just in time to leave Geneva, and Miss Berry and Mrs. Damer, warned by Lord John Campbell, hurried away from that city, forgetting or possibly not thinking it safe to pass on the warning to others. The Duke of Bedford, the Duchess of Gordon and her daughter, and Sir Harry Featherstonehaugh left Paris four days after Whitworth. The son of Sir G. Burrell and a companion escaped by making their valet pass for an American and themselves for his servants. Young Edgeworth, on the other hand, received his father’s letter of warning just too late, and was detained till 1814, though his companions, Roget as a Swiss and the Philips boys as below the age, obtained exemption. Yet not only had men been detained when over sixty, but some youths of ten or twelve, and therefore well under the limit of sixteen, had been stopped on the plea of their producing no certificates of birth. Augustine Sayer, aged thirteen, whom his parents had apparently placed in a school, was not allowed to return home, but was forced to maintain himself by tuition. He was eventually physician to the Duke of Kent and to the Lock Hospital, dying in 1861. He may have been one of the English boys sent to Dubufe’s school, for Dubufe, a member of the London Society of Arts, contradicting a statement that Protestants were refused admission to French schools, mentioned that he had received such pupils. John Charles Tarver, the future educationist and teacher of French at Eton, might surely, however, have been sent to his parents in London between 1794 and 1802, even if this was impossible after 1803. Farel, the engineer, in whose care he had been left by them on their release from captivity at Dieppe after the Terror, had virtually adopted him. Born at Dieppe in 1790, he had practically been naturalised, and Farel in 1805 got him into the French civil service. He remained in it till March 1814, when, obtaining leave of absence, he went to London and found his mother, brothers, and sisters still living; but he returned to France during the Hundred Days, intending apparently to resume his official post. Disappointed in this hope, he recrossed the Channel and found a more distinguished career open to him.
Before entering into details respecting the captives, I should speak of the unusual bitterness given to the war by Napoleon. Anglophobia, indeed, had been displayed by him even during the peace. The publishers of the Almanach National were sharply rebuked for proposing to insert ‘Angleterre’ with its royal family at the head of the alphabetical list of foreign powers. They had to relegate it lower down as ‘Grande Bretagne,’ and curiously enough British representatives at international Congresses are to the present day seated according to this nomenclature. Napoleon, moreover, during his tour in Normandy scolded his minister Chaptal for speaking of ‘jardins anglais.’ ‘Why,’ he vehemently exclaimed, ‘do you call them English gardens? Do you not know that this style of gardening came to us from China, that it was brought to perfection in France, and that no good Frenchman can credit England with it? Bear in mind that “French gardens” is the only proper term for them, and never again grate on my ears with “English gardens.”’[163]