Famous leaders among men

by Sarah Knowles Bolton

It was reported to Napoleon that the duke came over into France probably on political errands, and that he was corresponding with disaffected persons in France.

Napoleon sent some officers to seize the duke on the night of March 15, 1804; he was carried to Strasburg, and thence to the Castle of Vincennes, near Paris, arriving on the afternoon of Tuesday, March 20. He was aroused from sleep a little before six on the morning of the 21st, and innocently asked if he were to be imprisoned. He was conducted outside the castle; by the light of a lantern his sentence was read to him. He denied any complicity in the conspiracy against the life of the First Consul, which was doubtless true; requested to see Napoleon, which was refused; asked an officer to take a ring, a lock of hair, and a letter to his beloved, and was shot at six in the morning, by his open grave, his devoted dog by his side. Bourrienne says, "This faithful animal returned incessantly to the fatal spot.... The fidelity of the poor dog excited so much interest that the police prevented any one from visiting the fatal spot, and the dog was no longer heard to howl over his master's grave."

Josephine had heard of Napoleon's intention to send terror among the Bourbon conspirators, and had begged him, on her knees and with tears, to save the life of the young prince. It would have been well for him had he listened to her entreaties.

France, and Europe as well, were shocked at this death. The Russian court went into mourning for the Bourbon prince. No doubt Napoleon was incensed by the Bourbon plots, and after this death these ceased; but Las Cases, at St. Helena, said Napoleon always regretted it, saying, "Undoubtedly, if I had been informed in time of certain circumstances respecting the opinions of the prince, and his disposition, if, above all, I had seen the letter which he wrote to me, and which, God knows for what reason, was only delivered to me after his death, I should certainly have forgiven him."

Napoleon has been blamed for another matter,—the taking of Saint Domingo, and the imprisonment of Toussaint L'Ouverture. This remarkable colored man, who had been a slave, had acquired the control of the island by driving the French and Spanish troops out, and making it a republic, with a nominal dependence upon France. Napoleon, with a desire unfortunately shown and carried out by other nations, wished to enlarge his colonies and also to settle some dissensions in the island, and sent Dec. 14, 1801, General Leclerc, who had married his pretty sister Pauline, with 25,000 men to Saint Domingo to re-establish French sovereignty. He was to send back to France any who rebelled. Toussaint L'Ouverture, who was among them, was imprisoned in the fortress of Joux, near Besançon, in Normandy, and died in ten months, away from his own people, the victim of the spirit of conquest, which is not dead even in the nineteenth century. The climate destroyed the French army. Only two or three thousand ever returned. General Leclerc died, like the rest, of yellow fever.

Napoleon said at St. Helena, "I ought to have been satisfied with governing it [Saint Domingo] through the medium of Toussaint.... The design of reducing it by force was a great error."

Only a year after the treaty of Amiens was concluded, it became evident that it would not last. It was said that Napoleon's power was becoming too great for the security of Europe. England had determined not to give up Malta to the Knights as she had promised. Under Pitt's guidance she was arming and making herself ready for a great combat. The Royalists were using their pens in their English homes, to abuse the head of the French nation, held there by the votes of the French people. It was, of course, exasperating, and tended to produce revolt. Napoleon called attention to the terms of the treaty, which stipulated that neither of the two nations should give any protection to those who were injuring the other. Commercial tariffs bred dislike. English pride was stirred because Napoleon said, "England, single-handed, is unable to cope with France."

Finally in May, 1803, the war began. Alison says, and Scott agrees with him, "Upon coolly reviewing the circumstances under which the contest was renewed, it is impossible to deny that the British government manifested a feverish desire to come to a rupture, and that, as far as the transactions between the two countries are concerned, they are the aggressors."

Napoleon was determined to invade England,—Bourrienne thinks it was only a feint, and that his real motive "was to invade Germany and repulse the Russian troops,"—and he gathered an army of 150,000 in and around Boulogne, and an immense flotilla which should be able to transport these men ten leagues across the channel to the English coast.