Frigates had been waiting for him in the Rochefort road-stead stead since the first of July: hopes which never die, memories inseparable from a last farewell kept him back. How he must have regretted the days of his childhood, when his clear eyes had not yet known the first rain-drops! He left time for the English fleet to approach. He was still able to embark on two luggers which were to join a Danish ship at sea (this was the course which his brother Joseph took); but decision failed him when he looked at the coast of France. He felt an aversion for a republic; the liberty and equality of the United States were repugnant to him. He inclined towards asking shelter of the English:
"What disadvantage do you see in that course?" he asked of those whom he consulted.
"The disadvantage of dishonouring yourself," answered a naval officer; "you must not fall, even dead, into the hands of the English. They will have you stuffed and show you at a shilling a head."
*
The letter to the Regent.
Notwithstanding these observations, the Emperor resolved to give himself up to his conquerors. On the 13th of July, when Louis XVIII. had already been five days in Paris, Napoleon sent the captain[361] of the English ship Bellerophon the following letter for the Prince Regent:
"Royal Highness,
"A victim to the factions which distract my country and to the enmity of the greatest powers in Europe, I have terminated my political career, and I come, like Themistocles[362], to throw myself upon the hospitality of the British people. I put myself under the protection of their laws; which I claim from Your Royal Highness as the most powerful, the most constant and the most generous of my enemies.
"Rochefort, 13 July 1815."
If Bonaparte had not, during twenty years, overwhelmed with outrages the British people, its government, its King, and the heir of that King, one might find a certain propriety of tone in this letter; but how had this "Royal Highness," so long despised, so long insulted by Napoleon, suddenly become "the most powerful, the most constant and the most generous" of enemies by the mere fact that he was victorious? Napoleon could not be persuaded of what he was saying; and that which is not true is not eloquent. The phrase setting forth the fact of a fallen greatness addressing itself to an enemy is fine; the well-worn instance of Themistocles is superfluous.
The step taken by Napoleon shows something worse than a lack of sincerity; it shows neglect of France: the Emperor busied himself only with his individual catastrophe; when the fall came, we no longer counted for anything in his eyes. Without reflecting that, by giving the preference to England over America, his choice became an outrage to the mourning of the country, he begged a shelter of the government which, for twenty years, had kept Europe in its pay against ourselves, of the government whose commissary with the Russian Army, General Wilson[363], urged Kutuzoff[364], in the retreat from Moscow, to exterminate us completely: the English, successful in the final battle, were encamped in the Bois de Boulogne. Go then, O Themistocles, to seat yourself quietly by the British hearth, while the soil has not yet finished drinking in the French blood shed for you at Waterloo! What part would the fugitive, feasted may-be, have played on the banks of the Thames, in the face of France invaded, of Wellington become dictator at the Louvre? Napoleon's high fortunes served him better: the English, allowing themselves to be carried towards a narrow and spiteful policy, missed their final triumph; instead of undoing their supplicant by admitting him to their fortresses or their banquets, they rendered more brilliant for posterity the crown which they believed they had snatched from him. He grew greater in his captivity through the enormous affright of the Powers; the Ocean enchained him in vain: Europe in arms camped on the shore, her eyes fixed upon the sea.
*