On the evening of the same day, as the sun was sinking in the Mediterranean, the mountains of the island of Elba rose upon the sight of the crew of the British vessel, the Undaunted, and Napoleon had his first glimpse of his little realm in the sea.
His journey from Fontainebleau to Fréjus, on the French coast, had been, at first, soothed by many expressions of kindness and of sympathy from the people who thronged the line of travel; but as the fallen Emperor reached the province where the White Terror had once raged, and was to rage again, popular expressions underwent a complete change. Mobs of hooting royalists surrounded his carriage, and dinned into his ears the most brutal insults. Only his escort saved him from being torn to pieces. At Avignon he missed, almost by miracle, the dreadful fate which overtook Marshal Brune there, after Waterloo. Napoleon believed that these royalist mobs were set upon him by Talleyrand’s provisional government, and perhaps his suspicion was correct. It is certain that a certain nobleman, Maubreuil by name, afterward charged Talleyrand with having employed him to kill Napoleon; and when Talleyrand denied the story, Maubreuil took the first occasion to beat him—a beating which Talleyrand was wise enough not to endeavor to punish by prosecution.
Surrounded by savage mobs who jeered him, insulted him, threatened him, and made desperate efforts to seize him, Napoleon is said to have lost his nerve. Unfriendly witnesses allege that he trembled, paled, shed tears, and cowered behind Bertrand, seeking to hide. What is more certain, is that he disguised himself in coat and cap of the Austrian uniform, mounted the horse of one of the attendants, and rode in advance of the carriages to escape recognition. Courage, after all, seems to be somewhat the slave of habit: a soldier may brave death a hundred times in battle, and yet become unnerved at the prospect of being torn to pieces by a lot of maddened human wolves. It should be remembered, however, that the only real evidence we have of Napoleon’s terror was the wearing of the disguise. If this makes him a coward, he falls into much distinguished company, for history is full of examples of similar conduct on the part of men who are admitted to have been brave.
Napoleon had banished from court his light sister Pauline, because of some impertinence of the latter to the Empress Maria Louisa. This light sister was now living at a château which was on his route to the coast, and he spent a day and a half with her. Shocked to see her imperial brother in the Austrian uniform, she refused to embrace him until he had put it off and put on his own.
While Napoleon was staying at the château, a crowd of people from the surrounding country gathered in the courtyard. He went down and mingled with them. Soon noticing an old man who wore a red ribbon in his button-hole, Napoleon went up to him and said:—
“Are you not Jacques Dumont?”
Too much surprised to reply at once, the veteran at length faltered, “Yes, my lord; yes, General; yes, yes, sire!”
“You were with me in Egypt?”
“Yes, sire!” and the hand was brought to the salute.
“You were wounded; it seems to me a long while ago?”