A small thing in itself, the refusal of his title became important to him because of the spirit which actuated those who refused it. They meant to degrade him in the eyes of the world, to wound his pride by an exertion of authority; and he resented it as all self-respecting men must resent the smallest of affronts when inflicted with the meanest of motives.
“Let us compromise,” urged Napoleon; “call me General Duroc or Colonel Muiron.” “No!” said Great Britain; “we will call you General Bonaparte, for that hurts you.” In simple words, such was England’s attitude throughout his captivity to this lonely, broken, most wretched man. A book which an Englishman, Byron’s friend Hobhouse, wrote on the Hundred Days, and which would have given the exile immense pleasure, was not delivered because in sending it the author had written on the fly-leaf “To the Emperor Napoleon.” And when the prisoner died, and his friends wished to inscribe on his coffin-lid the word, “Napoleon,” Great Britain, speaking through Sir Hudson Lowe, refused the privilege,—Napoleon was the imperial name; it could not be permitted. The white face of the dead man, the folded hands, the frozen sleep of Death, made no appeal to his captor which could soften this inexorable enmity. Hounding him to his very grave they demanded that “Bonaparte” be added to “Napoleon,” to prove to all the world that England, ungenerous to the living captive who had come to her for generosity, had been implacable even unto death, and after death. So it was that the coffin of this greatest of men went unmarked to the tomb. Save in anonymous burial there was no escape from the malignancy which had made his last years one long period of torture.
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Napoleon’s household at St. Helena consisted of General Bertrand and wife and children, Count Montholon and wife, Las Casas and son, General Gourgaud, and Doctor O’Meara, the Irish surgeon of the English battleship Bellerophon, who had asked and been granted by his government permission to attach himself to the Emperor as his physician. Besides these, there was a staff of domestics, and, toward the end, a Corsican doctor Antommarchi and a couple of priests.
Organizing his little establishment with the same love of system which he had shown throughout his career, Napoleon preserved at St. Helena the etiquette of the Tuileries. He had his great household officers, as at Elba; his servants wore the imperial livery; intercourse between himself and the friends who attended him was as ceremonious as it had ever been. Nobody was admitted to his presence save after audience asked and granted. In his shabby little room this fallen monarch imposed his will upon those about him to such an extent that none of his friends entered until summoned, or left until dismissed. Not till general conversation was in full current did any of his companions address him unless first spoken to by him. No matter how long he might feel inclined to talk, they stood throughout, never daring to sit unless he graciously invited them to do so. He would read to the company, and they were expected to listen attentively. A yawn was an offence, and was rebuked on the spot. A nod was an aggravation, and it would be broken into by such prompt admonitions as, “Madame Montholon, you sleep!”
Those were dreary days at St. Helena, and the nights were drearier still. He ceased to ride, so hateful was the sight of his jailers. He tried to get some amusement out of planting trees, making a garden, and digging a fish pond. Sometimes he romped with the children; often he played chess, and cards, and billiards. In the pathetic attempt to get the benefit of horseback exercise without having to ride out in custody of an English officer, he rigged up a wooden contrivance in the house and worked away on this make-believe horse for a while.
But books and composition were his great resources. He read much, dictated a great deal; and when these tired him, he called in his companions and tried conversation.
As was natural, his talk touched every epoch of his past,—his home and family in Corsica, his childhood, his school days, his early struggles, his first triumphs, his campaigns and battles, his numberless plans and undertakings, his mistakes and failures. He spoke of himself, generally, in the third person, as of one long since dead; and spoke of the events of his career as some one, seated upon a mountain top, might calmly describe the panorama below.
In alluding to those who had served him, in any capacity, his was the tone of a chemist reporting the result of some analysis.
He rarely showed much temper either way, for or against, but spoke with a curious indifference, as of remote historical characters. Even when stating his bad opinion of Fouché, Talleyrand, Augereau, Emperor Francis, or Czar Alexander, he manifested no rancor.