Ah, other travellers known to Napoleon had, in former days, appeared upon those shores!
After the explosion of the infernal machine[400], a senatus-consultus of the 4th of January 1801 decreed, without trial, by a simple police-order, the exile beyond-seas of one hundred and thirty Republicans: put on board the frigate Chiffonne and the corvette Flèche, they were taken to the Seychelle Islands and dispersed shortly afterwards in the archipelago of the Comores, between Africa and Madagascar: they nearly all died there. Two of the men transported, Lefranc and Saunois, having succeeded in escaping on board an American ship, touched at St. Helena in 1803: there, twelve years later, Providence was to imprison their great oppressor.
The too-famous General Rossignol[401], their companion in misfortune, a quarter of an hour before uttering his last breath, exclaimed:
"I die harassed by the most horrible pains; but I should die content if I could hear that the tyrant of my country was enduring the same sufferings[402]!"
Thus did freedom's imprecations await him who betrayed her, even in the other hemisphere.
Italy, roused from her long sleep by Napoleon, turned her eyes towards the illustrious offspring who wished to restore her to her glory, and with whom she had re-fallen beneath the yoke. The sons of the Muses, the noblest and most grateful of men, when they are not the vilest and most unthankful, looked on St. Helena. The last poet of the land of Virgil sang the last warrior of the land of Cæsar:
Tutto ei provò, la gloria
Maggior dopo il periglio,
La fuga e la vittoria,
La reggia e il triste esiglio:
Due volte nella polvere,
Due volte sull'altar.
Ei si nomo: due secoli,
L'un contro l'altro armato,
Sommessi a lui si volsero,
Come aspettando il fato;
Ei fè silenzio, ed arbitro
S'assise in mezzo a lor.
"He felt all," says Manzoni[403], "the greatest glory after peril, flight and victory, royalty and sad banishment: twice in the dust, twice on the altar.
"He stated his name: two centuries, one against the other armed, turned towards him, as though awaiting their fate; he was silent and seated himself as arbiter between them."
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