Julia Sayers, who had been a visitor in 1802, was allowed in 1805 to come over and marry Pougens, the blind author,[235] natural son of the Prince de Conti, to whom she had been introduced in London in 1786. His fortune had disappeared in the Revolution, and he had turned bookseller. She was a niece of Admiral Boscawen and of the Duchess of Beaufort.
Wives were sometimes, however, refused permission to come over and join their captive husbands. Margaret Stuart, who in 1806 had married Hingston Tuckey, both having been captured at sea, on returning in 1810 from a visit to England was unceremoniously shipped back. Sir Thomas Lavie, stranded on the French coast in 1806, was refused his wife’s company, whereupon England forbade the wives of French prisoners to land in England. This retaliation apparently brought the French to reason, for as late as January 1813—so little was Napoleon’s fall foreseen—Englishwomen landed at Morlaix.[236]
Nor did women always escape imprisonment. A Mrs. Moore was arrested in 1810 on the charge of facilitating her husband’s escape from Bitche. She was, however, soon released. Again in 1812 an Englishwoman named Taylor, living at Rouen, returning to Morlaix after a visit to England, met at the inn three sailors who had just been liberated from British pontoons. ‘Ah,’ said she, ‘you only come from one prison to enter another. You will be forced to serve in the French navy, and will be no better off than in English prisons. You will never be better off till Bonaparte’—here she made a gesture indicating the guillotine. On being arrested for this imprudent speech she at first denied everything, but on being confronted with the sailors admitted all except the remark on Bonaparte. She was ordered to be sent back to England.[237]
The banker Coutts wrote in 1810 to Lafayette, asking him to obtain passports for the south of France for his invalid daughter, Lady Bute, her husband[238] and two children, a doctor and two servants. Lafayette, in endorsing the application, stated that Coutts was banker (he should have said son-in-law) to Burdett, who had rendered service to the French prisoners. Lady Bute and her sister had been educated in Paris previously to the Revolution by Madame Daubenton. Lord Bute died at Geneva in November 1814, and his remains were conveyed to England. Coutts also obtained permission for another son-in-law, Lord Guilford, to revisit France, but Guilford died before being able to profit by it. He had long suffered from injury to the spine, occasioned by a fall from his horse in the act of presenting a basket of fruit to his future wife. His brother, who succeeded to the title, established himself at Corfu during the Greek struggle for independence, and was attired like a Greek professor.
J. Cleaver Bankes was allowed, on the recommendation of Benjamin Constant, to come and examine Sanscrit manuscripts at the National Library. In 1813 Sir Humphry Davy and his wife, with his secretary young Faraday, passed through Paris on their way to Italy. They visited the laboratory of Chevreul (not the future centenarian) at the Jardin des Plantes, and at Malmaison were shown by Josephine books and extracts relating to Cromwell, marked in pencil by Napoleon. The institute had in 1809 awarded Davy the £60,000 prize for electrical improvements.
Mrs. Bathurst and her brother, George Call, were allowed to pass through France in 1810, on their search for her husband. Call on his way back solicited an audience of Napoleon,[239] whose portrait adorned his snuff-box, a request which shows that he had not the slightest idea of accusing Napoleon. His belief, indeed, and that of the widow, was that Bathurst had been wrecked in the Baltic.[240] Colonel Macleod of Colbeck, uncle of Lord Moira, after being liberated, actually in 1810 asked leave to settle in France. He was described by the police bulletin as honest but weak-minded, and as having incurred unpleasantness in Scotland by his liking for France and his advocacy of peace.
Shirley, a Jamaica planter, was also allowed in 1806 to settle in the south, and Colonel Vesey, on the recommendation of the King of Prussia, was permitted to go to Barèges on account of his wound. The British blockade of course barred the way by sea. The Marquis of Douglas in 1808 was allowed to pass through France on his way home from Russia, his health being unequal to a sea passage. Talleyrand had recommended him as favourable to France. Father Gordon in 1810 solicited leave to return to Paris to urge his reinstatement as head of the Scots College. He apparently did not know that that institution had been fused with the Irish College, where Walsh had, it seems, been reinstated, for in 1807 Walsh had asked permission for some students to come over from Ireland. Walsh himself, however, along with other Irish priests, was not allowed by the British Government to return in 1811 to Ireland, such journeys to and fro being considered suspicious. Five quasi-Britons—Admiral Alexis Greig, born in Russia of Scottish parents; Admiral Robert Elphinstone, a native of Plymouth; Captain Thomas Candler, of Dublin; Moffat, of Dalkeith; and William Crowe—all in the Russian navy, were authorised in 1808 to pass through France on their way back from Lisbon.
Turning to involuntary visitors, precedence is due to Lord Blayney, who, sent with troops to Malaga in 1810, imprudently allowed himself to be captured by the French immediately on landing. His book gives an interesting account of his journey across Spain and France to Verdun. He was treated with great respect, and in Spain could hunt and make excursions without restriction. He does not tell us much, however, of life at Verdun, where he passed three years. In 1812 England offered to exchange for him General Simon, who had been wounded and required mineral waters, but Napoleon apparently did not consider him equal in rank to Blayney, although assured by General Clarke that the latter had not held a high military post.[241] Another general captured in Spain was Sir Edward Paget, who had previously lost his right arm in battle, but was able, after about three years’ detention, to resume active service. He had in 1806 resigned his seat for Carnarvon. Lord John Murray seems likewise to have been captured in Spain. Sir Thomas Lavie, as already mentioned, who was wrecked on the French coast, was for some months confined in the citadel of Montmédy and debarred writing materials. He was very kind to his fellow-captives at Verdun, and was allowed to go to Melun. Governor of the Royal Naval Asylum, he died in 1821.
Roger Langton, captured at sea in 1808, made an unsuccessful attempt to escape, and remained at Verdun till 1814.[242] Aytoun, an Edinburgh man, captured in an Austrian vessel in 1806 and sent to Verdun, was probably a kinsman—perhaps Richard the father—of William Edmonstoune Aytoun, the champion of Mary Stuart.
Another involuntary visitor was Captain Donat Henchy O’Brien, of the Hussars, who was wrecked off Brest in February 1804, and was sent first to Bitche and ultimately to Verdun. Two unsuccessful attempts to escape—the first time he was recaptured at Étaples, and the second, after crouching among a drove of oxen to pass the Rhine, he was given up by the German authorities at Lindau—entailed incarceration in filthy and stifling casemates, but in a third attempt in 1808 he reached the Austrian frontier and was able to resume service. He published a full account of his adventures,[243] which was reprinted in 1902. Another sailor, Miller, captured in 1804 in the man-of-war Wolverine, escaped in 1811, and published an anonymous narrative. Moir, a naval surgeon captured at sea, was joined by his wife, who in 1808 gave birth to a son, destined to become the ‘father’ of the Royal College of Physicians, and to reach the age of ninety-one. That son, John Moir, a prominent Free Churchman, remembered being taken in his mother’s arms or by her hand when she waited on Napoleon to entreat her husband’s liberation, but we are not told whether she was successful. Moir on regaining his liberty settled in Edinburgh. Francis Milman, brother of the future Dean, was captured in Spain, and detained at Verdun till January 1814,[244] when Jenner obtained his release. Edward Boyse, midshipman of the Phœbe, was captured in July 1803 in a boat off Toulon, and conducted first to Verdun and then to Valenciennes; but with two comrades he escaped from the latter fortress.[245]