In the course of the afternoon, I attended General Savary and Lallemand on board the Northumberland, where they went for the purpose of taking a last farewell of their master. I had very little conversation with him myself, but they remained with him a considerable time. When I was about to return to my ship, I went into the cabin to tell them they must accompany me. They approached him in the after-cabin, where he was standing, when he embraced each of them most affectionately, after the French manner, putting his arms round them, and touching their cheeks with his. He was firm and collected; but, in turning from him, the tears were streaming from their eyes. On getting on board, all the squadron got under weigh, the Tonnant and Bellerophon to return to Plymouth, the Northumberland, with two troop ships in company, to proceed to St Helena. The following day she was joined by a frigate and several sloops of war from Plymouth, when she made sail to the westward.
Having now brought my narrative down to the period of Buonaparte's quitting the ship, it only remains for me to give some account of his person and character, as far as it fell under my view. In doing so, I shall endeavour, as far as possible, in the same spirit with which the foregoing narrative is written, to avoid being biassed, either by favourable or unfavourable feelings towards him. What he may have been when at the head of the French Empire, with the destiny of the greater part of Europe under his control, I have no peculiar means of knowing; all I can pretend to do is, to describe him as he was on board the Bellerophon; adding a few anecdotes, which have been omitted in the course of the narrative, as serving to throw some further light upon his character.
Napoleon Buonaparte, when he came on board the Bellerophon, on the 15th of July, 1815, wanted exactly one month of completing his forty-sixth year, being born the 15th of August, 1769. He was then a remarkably strong, well-built man, about five feet seven inches high, his limbs particularly well-formed, with a fine ancle and very small foot, of which he seemed rather vain, as he always wore, while on board the ship, silk stockings and shoes. His hands were also very small, and had the plumpness of a woman's rather than the robustness of a man's. His eyes light grey, teeth good; and when he smiled, the expression of his countenance was highly pleasing; when under the influence of disappointment, however, it assumed a dark gloomy cast. His hair was of a very dark brown, nearly approaching to black, and, though a little thin on the top and front, had not a grey hair amongst it. His complexion was a very uncommon one, being of a light sallow colour, differing from almost any other I ever met with. From his having become corpulent, he had lost much of his personal activity, and, if we are to give credit to those who attended him, a very considerable portion of his mental energy was also gone. It is certain his habits were very lethargic while he was on board the Bellerophon; for though he went to bed between eight and nine o'clock in the evening, and did not rise till about the same hour in the morning, he frequently fell asleep on the sofa in the cabin in the course of the day. His general appearance was that of a man rather older than he then was. His manners were extremely pleasing and affable: he joined in every conversation, related numerous anecdotes, and endeavoured, in every way, to promote good humour: he even admitted his attendants to great familiarity; and I saw one or two instances of their contradicting him in the most direct terms, though they generally treated him with much respect. He possessed, to a wonderful degree, a facility in making a favourable impression upon those with whom he entered into conversation: this appeared to me to be accomplished by turning the subject to matters he supposed the person he was addressing was well acquainted with, and on which he could show himself to advantage. This had the effect of putting him in good humour with himself; after which it was not a very difficult matter to transfer a part of that feeling to the person who had occasioned it. Lord Keith appears to have formed a very high opinion of the fascination of his conversation, and expressed it very emphatically to me, after he had seen him: speaking of his wish for an interview with the Prince Regent, "D——n the fellow," he said, "if he had obtained an interview with his Royal Highness, in half an hour they would have been the best friends in England."[11] He appeared to have great command of temper; for, though no man could have had greater trials than fell to his lot during the time he remained on board the Bellerophon, he never, in my presence, or as far as I know, allowed a fretful or captious expression to escape him: even the day he received the notification from Sir Henry Bunbury, that it was determined to send him to St Helena, he chatted and conversed with the same cheerfulness as usual. It has been asserted that he was acting a part all the time he was on board the ship; but still, even allowing that to be the case, nothing but great command of temper could have enabled him to have sustained such a part for so many days, in his situation.
I shall here relate a circumstance that occurred during the passage to England, which will show in a strong point of view the freedom that subsisted between him and those of his attendants in whom he had confidence. A conversation took place respecting the relative state of cultivation in France and in England. My opinion being asked, I said, that though the climate of France was much superior to that of England, I believed that agriculture had arrived at a greater state of perfection with us than in France. Most of the Frenchmen treated the idea with ridicule; upon which I said, let us refer to Monsieur Las Cases, who has lived several years in England. "You are right," said he; "there can be no doubt, that agriculture has arrived to much greater perfection in England than in France; but what I admire most in England, are the country-seats of your noblemen and gentlemen; there you surpass France very much." General Bertrand then took up the conversation, and said, that he was assured, that thirty thousand pounds sterling was annually expended on the park and grounds of Blenheim. Buonaparte immediately reduced that sum into livres; and observed, "The thing is impossible: the English people are not fools; they know the value of money, and no individual either could or would expend such a sum for such a purpose." He then spoke of the expense of keeping up Malmaison, one of the country palaces in France; stating the sum it cost annually, which did not exceed five thousand pounds. Bertrand still persisted in his statement, and made a reference to me. I, however, could give no information further than saying, that from what I had heard of the Duke of Marlborough's finances, he could not possibly lay out any such sum on Blenheim. Monsieur Bertrand would not give up the point, but repeated his assertion. On which Buonaparte said, with quickness, "Bah! c'est impossible." "Oh!" said Bertrand, much offended, "if you are to reply in that manner, there is an end of all argument;" and for some time would not converse with him. Buonaparte, so far from taking umbrage, did all he could to soothe him and restore him to good-humour, which was not very difficult to effect.
One morning he began to talk of his wife and child, and desired Marchand to bring two or three miniature pictures to show me: he spoke of them with much feeling and affection. "I feel," said he, "the conduct of the allied sovereigns to be more cruel and unjustifiable towards me in that respect than in any other. Why should they deprive me of the comforts of domestic society, and take from me what must be the dearest objects of affection to every man—my child, and the mother of that child?" On his expressing himself as above, I looked him steadily in the face, to observe whether he showed any emotion: the tears were standing in his eyes, and the whole of his countenance appeared evidently under the influence of a strong feeling of grief.
There were two pictures of young Napoleon: one in the dress of a Polish lancer, and the other with long curly flowing ringlets: they both represented a fair, strong, chubby boy, with features very much resembling those of his father. That of his mother, a very fair woman, with good features, but by no means handsome.
From the observations I was enabled to make, I very much doubt Monsieur Savary's statement, that the passion of ambition was so completely overcome in his bosom, "that had it been proposed to him again to ascend the throne of France, he would have declined it"; and I do think, that if he had succeeded in eluding the British cruisers and arrived in America, he would always have looked forward to returning to France. In all his conversations, he spoke of ambition as a quality absolutely necessary to form the character of a soldier. On one occasion, Savary spoke of Kleber, (who was left by Napoleon in command of the army when he quitted Egypt,) in terms of high encomium; this brought on a discussion upon the respective merits of that officer and Dessaix, whose aid-de-camp Savary had been during the negotiation of the convention of El Arish. Buonaparte, speaking of Kleber, bestowed upon him great praise as an officer; but he added, "He was deficient in one of the most necessary qualifications of a soldier,—ambition. He was indolent, and required constant spurring. Dessaix, on the contrary, had all his abilities, which were kept in constant activity by a mind whose ambition there was no satisfying; and, had they both lived to the present period, he would have been much the greater man of the two."
It does not appear from the statement of Buonaparte's attendants, that he had made any very considerable provision for the future, in the event of a reverse of fortune. They often regretted his poverty; and Madame Bertrand assured me that he was not possessed of more than a million of francs—forty-two thousand pounds of our money[12]; which, if correct, is certainly not a very large sum for a man who had had so many millions at his disposal. "The Emperor has always declared," she said, "that he would rise or fall with the country, and never would enrich himself out of the public property." He also upon one occasion, when there was some intention of leaving Madame Bertrand with her children in England, after stating Bertrand's poverty as an objection to that arrangement, said to me, "My finances are not such as to enable me to give him much assistance."
Buonaparte's carriage, which was taken at the battle of Waterloo by the Prussian cavalry, contained many articles of great value. In it was a necessaire, in which all the instruments, bason, &c. were composed of gold; a sword set with diamonds, and a diamond necklace, estimated at a very large sum of money, which one of his sisters (I think, the Princess of Borghese) put round his neck the night he took leave of her at Paris, on his setting out to join the army previous to the battle of Waterloo, and which he had taken off and deposited in a secret place in the carriage; Marchand, his valet de chambre, being so nearly taken by the Prussian hussars, that he quitted the carriage without having time to secure it. But I have since learned from Las Cases's Memoirs, that the necklace alluded to was saved, and that Las Cases had it concealed about his person all the time he was on board the Bellerophon.
It has been stated in many of the public prints, that had not the Marquis of Anglesea received a wound when he was leading on a charge, Buonaparte must have fallen into his hands. In consequence of observing this assertion, I asked Generals Bertrand and Gourgaud whether they knew if any such occurrence had taken place: both of whom replied, "Certainly not; the Emperor was frequently in the midst of the British troops (pêle-mêle avec les troupes Angloises); but at no time during the battle was he in danger of being captured by a charge of cavalry."