In the early years of the nineteenth century, when all England was in daily anticipation of a French invasion, Norwich was not behindhand in publicly demonstrating its hatred of the Corsican tyrant.

At a celebration of his defeat in 1813 an effigy of Buonaparte was burned in the market-place, whilst a year later another effigy, loaded with fetters, was paraded in processions both at Yarmouth and Thetford. On the restoration of the Bourbons there was a great demonstration in the market-place at Norwich, the church bells being rung and bonfires lit, whilst amidst uproarious cheering the Chevalier de Bardelin, for some twenty years an exile from France who had supported himself by giving drawing and French lessons at Thurgar’s school, took his seat on the mail coach, free, as he said, once more to return to his beloved France. He received a real old English farewell, horses, guard, coachman, and passengers being decorated with the emblem of the Bourbons, the white cockade. Before he came to Norwich (where he was universally popular) the Chevalier de Bardelin had been a garde du corps of Louis XVI., in which capacity he acted at Versailles on that memorable day, October 6, 1789, when the mob from Paris nearly assassinated the King and Queen. In 1816 M. de Bardelin married a Norfolk lady, Miss Sutton, and until his death in 1852, at the age of eighty-five, he kept in constant communication with his Norwich friends, whom he always delighted to welcome on their visits to France. His daughter became the Baroness de Fabry.

As late as 1843 there died at Lynn a man who had been a schoolfellow of Napoleon, and who in the days of his boyhood was said to have taken part in many a rough and tumble with him. This was Mr. Peter Lewis Dacheux, who, having many years before immigrated into England, had, as a Roman Catholic priest, long attended to the religious wants of such of his co-religionists as resided in the old Norfolk town.

There are a good many relics of Napoleon in England. At Hertford House is the table on which was signed the Treaty of Tilsit, whilst in the library of Highclere Castle, the beautiful home of Lord Carnarvon, is shown the table and chair used by the Emperor when putting his signature to the act of abdication at Fontainbleau. On the right arm of the chair is an “N,” roughly cut as if with a penknife, said to be the work of Napoleon himself, it having been a well-known habit of his to cut almost mechanically an initial upon the arm of his chair whilst pondering over the various schemes which perpetually occupied his mind.

My father possessed a very fine bust of the Emperor by Canova, but what has now become of it I am quite unable to say. I also remember at Wolterton a print of Napoleon, given to my uncle, General Walpole, by the lovely Pauline Borghese—this, fortunately, my nephew, the present Lord Orford, still retains.

It is curious to read of the difference which Napoleon showed in his treatment of Marie Louise and Josephine. The former he sometimes allowed to enter his cabinet de travail, whereas Josephine would never have been permitted to set foot in it. The Emperor in all probability allowed his Austrian consort more latitude on account of her royal birth, for of the two women Josephine without question was the better loved of the two.

MARIE LOUISE

Oddly enough, I can say that in a sort of way I once saw the Empress Marie Louise. In 1843, when travelling on the Continent with my parents, we stopped an evening at Villach, a town in Germany just on the Italian frontier. There was at that time no railway, and the very evening we arrived the ex-Empress Marie Louise was expected at seven o’clock, having sent on orders for horses to be in readiness. I remember that the postillions in the courtyard were in a great state of excitement, being helped to don their state liveries by the bustling damsels of the inn. Everybody, indeed, was eagerly expectant, but all had to wait till nine o’clock before Marie Louise arrived, and when she did come all our hopes of seeing her were dashed to the ground, for it was too dark to see much, except the four exceedingly dusty carriages which conveyed her and her suite.

A certain number of the numerous portraits of the Emperor were drawn from life whilst he was at Mass. This was said to be the best time to catch his expression. Couder sketched him thus in 1811, and Girodet twice in 1812, whilst many other portraits of him are known to have been inspired during this religious function. During Mass Napoleon stood, according to the military custom, with his arms folded and his eyes glancing in all directions. He made little pretence of following the service or taking any especial interest in it, never knelt, but stood, grave, serious, and meditative. In front of him, at a prie-dieu, knelt the Empress, to whom he would occasionally stoop down and address a remark. On the whole his attitude was in no way irreverent, and contrasted very favourably with that which Louis XVI. is reported to have adopted in the Chapel of Versailles, where some English visitors were scandalised at seeing the King laughing and joking with the Comte d’Artois.

THE EMPEROR AT MASS