"It would not be doing justice to Napoleon to omit the case of Captain Fane. That gallant officer had been taken prisoner in an attack that he had made upon some town on the coast of Spain. He had landed with the greater part of his crew, and carried the place with great bravery; but success was fatal to the discipline of his force. Unaccustomed as they were to fighting on shore, not all the efforts of Captain Fane could keep them together. They dispersed in all directions, plundering, and looking for wine. The French who had watched the whole proceedings from the heights, sent a force down, which, unobserved, got between them and the sea, cut off their retreat and took the whole party prisoners.
"Captain Fane, who was a true English sailor, had some dispute with the officer into whose hands he was committed on the French frontier. The latter thereupon refused to accept his parole, so that Fane was conducted to Verdun by the gendarmes, treated with considerable harshness, and lodged in prison at the end of each day's march. This treatment was not calculated to produce a favourable impression on his already prejudiced mind, and not unnaturally there was not in the whole depôt a more violent anti-Gallican than was Captain Fane.
"But his residence at Verdun was not long. A circumstance had occurred in the earlier part of his career which his friends justly thought likely to be of service to him in the unfortunate situation in which he now found himself. At the time of the Egyptian campaign, he had been midshipman on board a man-o'-war employed on the coast of Egypt. One day some French prisoners had been in danger of being drowned, when Fane jumped overboard and saved their lives at the risk of his own. The circumstance had at the time come to the knowledge of General Bonaparte, and he had expressed his high sense of the bravery of the young English officer.
"Now under the changed circumstances in which Captain Fane found himself, his friends did but justice to the Emperor in believing that if the occurrence were but recalled to the memory of Bonaparte, coupled with the knowledge that that once gallant midshipman was now a prisoner in his dominions, it would at least militate in favour of the captive. The information, of which Captain Fane himself would have scorned to make use, was therefore conveyed to Bonaparte, and not a moment did the Emperor hesitate. He at once ordered Captain Fane's unconditional liberation.—It is with great pleasure that I record this trait of magnanimity in Napoleon; similar instances of which more than once came under my notice."
Of Jerome Bonaparte, on the contrary, John Stanhope gives a very different description. He was one morning for a considerable time in the same room with the King of Westphalia, in fact, for over an hour, while the latter was occupied with the consumption of a lengthy breakfast, and his impression of the man whom he thus watched closely is summed up briefly:- "A more insignificant personage," he says, "I have never yet beheld!" After which he dismisses Jerome as undeserving of further comment.
After a long and dreary residence at Verdun, John Stanhope heard by chance that a French lady was desirous of having any English prisoners of undoubted respectability en pension at her Château de D., near Ligny. He therefore applied to the commandant for permission to pass there what was termed la belle saison; and this was granted on condition that he reported himself at Verdun at the end of the month. Much delighted at the prospect of such a change in his surroundings, he therefore set out for Ligny, with his gig, two horses, and an old field captain, who attended him in the capacity of servant. His experiences are not without interest while thus resident in a French country family who were singularly typical of the period in which they lived.
The family, of whom he purposely suppresses the names, consisted of Monsieur V., a kind-hearted man, about fifty years of age. Madame V., whom he describes as "one of the most singular specimens of a French woman that it ever was my lot to meet with"; and her son-in-law and married daughter, Monsieur and Madame M.
"Madame V.," he wrote long after, "was a thorough intrigante, never quiet for a moment, but always with some project in her head, a constant prey to all sorts of sharpers, who flattered her, fed upon her and converted her schemes into an abundant source of profit to themselves. The great object of her ambition at this moment was to obtain the post of governess to the King of Rome. Madame!—I have only to represent to myself that little round figure, nearly as large as it was long and much the shape of a ball, with her Parisian graces grafted on to her pretension to the manners of the vieille Cour, to enjoy, even now, a hearty laugh at her vanity in supposing that it was in her power to supersede and triumph over a Montesquieu. "As it may seem extraordinary that people in the position of the V.s should have admitted English prisoners en pension, I ought to mention that it was entirely a galanterie on the part of Monsieur. He stipulated it should be no expense to him, excepting in the article of wine, which he would freely give; that whatever benefit arose from the money paid by us, should belong entirely to Madame V.; and a considerable profit she must undoubtedly have made, as little was the addition on our account to their domestic expenditure.
"The daughter of this couple was married to a man of talent, who, however, had a brusquerie of manner which rendered him rather forbidding. He seemed to aim rather at the rough independence of Revolutionary France than at the politesse which marked the vieille Cour of which Madame was an exponent. He treated me, however, with the utmost kindness and attention. Originally he had been but clerk to Monsieur V. and lived in the house. As is not unusually the case under such circumstances, an attachment grew up between him and Mlle. V.; but when did the course of true love run smoothly? Madame V. had other designs for her daughter; she destined her to the arms of one of Napoleon's generals, and had already opened negotiations with a view of carrying these intentions into effect. The father, unable to resist the daughter's tears, joined with her in endeavouring to extort from Madame V. a reluctant consent; but the latter remained inflexible. After all other arguments had been exhausted in vain, Monsieur M., her daughter and even her husband threw themselves on their knees before her in tears, and entreated her to yield to their wishes. Such a scene was too much for a Frenchwoman. She yielded, and abandoning her ambitious project, gave her daughter to Monsieur M.!
"Monsieur V. thereupon built a nice house for the young couple at the extremity of the garden, so that his daughter had the advantage of being perfectly independent, and yet of living as much as she chose with her father and mother. In general they formed but one family, and great was their contentment, though this was not, in reality, increased by the circumstance of Monsieur M. having recently been raised to the dignity of Mayor of D. and Secretary to the Prefect of the Department, a situation which gave him considerable power, and made him a person of greater consequence than his father-in-law.