The time had been when the word “chivalry” counted for something in Great Britain, though, to be sure, its influence had been fitful. A king like Edward III. and a prince like Edward’s son, who were knights, might exhaust generosity in their dealings with a captive king of France, who was likewise a knight; but the severed limbs and gory head of Scottish Wallace were quite enough to have caused Napoleon to doubt whether John of France received the benefit of a rule or of an exception.
Between the Black Prince, to whom John trusted, and the Prince Regent, to whom Napoleon wrote his manly and touching appeal, the difference in character was considerably wider than the chasm of the years which separated them. To this Prince Regent, known to history as King George IV., the fallen Emperor of the French wrote: “My political career is ended, and I come to sit down at the fireside of the British people. I place myself under the protection of their laws, and I claim this protection from your Royal Highness as the most powerful, most constant, most generous of my foes!”
Surely a manly appeal! Surely a noble confidence! The soldier who had wielded what an Englishman has recently called “the most splendid of human swords,” turned to the chief of his foes and said, “The battle has gone against me; my public life is at an end; I offer you my sword; let me sit down under your protection and spend the evening of my life in peace!”
He was a broken man; he had refused to make any further strife in France when thousands of the people implored him, to the moment of his departure, to stay and fight again. “No. I am tired out—tired of myself and of the world.” He was ill, could no longer ride horseback in comfort, could no longer concentrate his mind for prolonged effort. And he who had been so restless now lay abed, or lolled with a novel in his hand, and gossiped or dozed by the hour.
Never in Napoleon’s career had the prayer of a vanquished foe fallen upon ears which heard not. The battle ended; he was ready for peace. He bore no malice, took no revenge. Splendid acts of generosity lit his progress from first to last. During the Hundred Days when he was so much occupied and in such straits for money, he had sought out the Dowager-Duchess of Orleans, and renewed her large pension; she had delivered him a prize when he was a schoolboy. In the dreadful strain of the hours between Ligny and Waterloo, he had remarked the critical condition of a captive English officer, Colonel Elphinstone, and had sent his own surgeon to give immediate attention to the wounded man, thus saving his life. To the Belgian peasants he had threatened the terrors of hell if they neglected to succor the Prussian wounded.
It is folly to say that noble deeds like these spring from hearts that are base. Natural kindness, inborn nobility, must be the source from which such conduct flows. Generous himself to the vanquished, magnanimous to those who threw themselves upon his generosity, it is easy to understand how it was that Napoleon trusted confidently to the liberality of Great Britain. Just as the pallid face of the dead is the flag of truce which hushes the angry voice of feud, just as the lowered point of lance or sword threw around the weaker man the invisible armor which no gallant knight would ever pierce, so this greatest captain of modern times believed that he had only to say to England: “Enough! I am beaten! I throw myself on your clemency!” in order to win the same immunity from insult, harsh treatment, and continued warfare.
So, when British officials at length came on board the ship and read to him the decision of the English ministry, that he was to be taken to St. Helena as prisoner of war; when British officials searched his trunks, took charge of his cash, and demanded his sword, his amazement, grief, horror, and indignation were profound. He had made for himself a Fool’s Paradise; he had seen himself living in England, at one of her quiet, lovely homes; had surrounded himself with books and friends, and was to spend the remainder of life as a private gentleman whose passion was literature. When the horrible reality came upon him, he seemed desperate, and contemplated suicide.
Lord Liverpool, English Prime Minister, had, in official despatches, expressed the opinion that the very best way to deal with Napoleon was to treat him as a rebel and have him hanged or shot. Lord Wellington’s opinion ran along on parallel lines to this, he being one of those warriors to whom generosity was a myth. In this spirit the British government conveyed Napoleon to St. Helena; in this spirit he was treated as long as he lived; and in this spirit his dead body was pursued to the grave. In the same spirit men who never met him personally, and who studied him from the point of view of Toryism only, have blackened his memory from that day to this, seeing his faults, and nothing but his faults; trumpeting his sins, and nothing but his sins, just as though Napoleon Bonaparte were not a son of Adam, like any other, and wonderfully made out of the mixed elements of good and bad.
Even yet, royalism, absolutism, fetichism in Church and State, have a horror of Napoleon Bonaparte, so rudely did he smash their idols, so truly did he clear the way for modern liberalism. One can hardly escape the conclusion that even yet books of a certain type, written against Napoleon, are little more than briefs for the defendants in the case which the modern world makes against the kings, the nobles, and the priests for the manner in which they crushed democracy for a time on the false plea of crushing Napoleon.
Passing from the custody of Captain Maitland to that of Sir George Cockburn, Napoleon was made to feel the change of status as well as the change of ship. Sir George was a typical commander of a battle-ship,—a small monarch, a despot on a limited scale. His own Diary exhibits him as no other writing could. It shows him to have felt that he must make “Bonaparte” know his real position; make “Bonaparte” come down from his lofty perch and look up to the eminence of Sir George. If “Bonaparte” presumed to put on airs around Sir George, Sir George would soon teach him better. If “Bonaparte” showed the slightest inclination to act the Emperor, Sir George would promptly convince him that “I cannot allow it.” If “Bonaparte” grew tired of sitting at the dinner table an hour and a half, having never been accustomed to spend more than twenty minutes in that manner, Sir George would resent his leaving the table while the others guzzled wine; and would, as Napoleon left the room, make sneering remarks to “Bonaparte’s” friends about “Bonaparte’s” manners.