Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume V.

by Walter Scott

Yet, notwithstanding all we have said, we feel there was an awkwardness in approaching the individual who had been so preeminently powerful, with the familiarity applicable to one who had never stood more high above others than he would have done merely as General Buonaparte. A compromise was accordingly offered by Sir Hudson Lowe, in proposing to make use of the word Napoleon, as a more dignified style of addressing his prisoner. But an easy and respectable alternative was in the prisoner's own power. Napoleon had but to imitate other sovereigns, who, either when upon foreign travel, or when other circumstances require it, usually adopt a conventional appellative, which, while their doing so waves no part of their own claim of right to royal honours, is equally far from a concession of that right on the part of those who may have occasion to transact with them. Louis XVIII. was not the less the legitimate King of France, that he was for many years, and in various countries, only known by the name of the Comte de Lille. The conveniency of the idea had struck Napoleon himself; for at one time, when talking of the conditions of his residence in England, he said he would have no objection to resume the name of Meuron, an aide-de-camp who had died by his side at the battle of Arcola.[221] But it seems that Napoleon, more tenacious of form than a prince who had been cradled in it, considered this vailing of his dignity as too great a concession on his part to be granted to the Governor of St. Helena. Sir Hudson Lowe, at one time desirous to compromise this silly subject of dispute, would have been contented to render Napoleon the title of Excellency, as due to a field-mareschal, but neither did this meet with acceptation. Napoleon was determined either to be acknowledged by the governor as Emperor, or to retain his grievance in its full extent. No modifications could be devised by which it could be rendered palatable.

Whether this pertinacity in claiming a title which was rendered ridiculous by his situation, was the result of some feelings which led him to doubt his own title to greatness, when his ears were no longer flattered by the language of humility; or whether the political considerations just alluded to, rendered him obstinate to refuse all epithets, except one which might found him in claims to those indemnities and privileges with which so high a title is intimate, and from which it may be said to be inseparable, it is impossible for us to say; vanity and policy might combine in recommending to him perseverance in his claim. But the strife should certainly, for his own sake, have been abandoned, when the point remained at issue between the governor and him only, since even if the former had wished to comply with the prisoner's desires, his instructions forbade him to do so. To continue an unavailing struggle, was only to invite the mortification of defeat and repulse. Yet Napoleon and his followers retained so much sensibility on this subject, that though they must have been aware that Sir Hudson Lowe only used the language prescribed by his government, and indeed dared use no other, this unfortunate phrase of General Buonaparte occurring so often in their correspondence, seemed to render every attempt at conciliation a species of derogation and insult, and made such overtures resemble a coarse cloth tied over a raw wound, which it frets and injures more than it protects.

COCKBURN'S INSTRUCTIONS.

Whatever might be the merits of the case, as between Napoleon and the British Ministry, it was clear that Sir George Cockburn and Sir Hudson Lowe were left by their instructions no option in the matter at issue. These instructions bore that Napoleon, their prisoner, was to receive the style and treatment due to General Buonaparte, a prisoner of war; and it was at their peril if they gave him a higher title, or a different style of attention from what that title implied. No one could know better than Napoleon how strictly a soldier is bound by his consigne; and to upbraid Sir Hudson Lowe as ungenerous, unmanly, and so forth, because he did not disobey the instructions of his government, was as unreasonable as to hope that his remonstrances could have any effect save those of irritation and annoyance. He ought to have been aware that persisting to resent, in rough and insulting terms, the deprivation of his title on the part of an officer who was prohibited from using it, might indeed fret and provoke one with whom it would have been best to keep upon civil terms, but could not bring him one inch nearer to the point which he so anxiously desired to attain.

In fact, this trivial but unhappy subject of dispute was of a character so subtle, that it penetrated into the whole correspondence between the Emperor and the governor, and tended to mix with gall and vinegar all attempts made by the latter to cultivate something like civil intercourse. This unlucky barrier of etiquette started up and poisoned the whole effect of any intended politeness. While Sir George Cockburn remained on the island, for example, he gave more than one ball, to which General Buonaparte and his suite were regularly invited. In similar circumstances, Henry IV. or Charles II. would have attended the ball, and to a certainty would have danced with the prettiest young woman present, without dreaming that, by so doing, they derogated from pretensions derived from a long line of royal ancestors. Buonaparte and Las Cases, on the contrary, took offence at the familiarity, and wrote it down as a wilful and flagrant affront on the part of the admiral. These were not the feelings of a man of conscious dignity of mind, but of an upstart, who conceives the honour of preferment not to consist in having enjoyed, or in still possessing, a high situation, gained by superiority of talent, so much as in wearing the robes or listening to the sounding titles, which are attached to it.

A subject, upon which we are called upon to express much more sympathy with the condition of Napoleon, than moves us upon the consideration of his abrogated title, is, the screen which was drawn betwixt him, and, it may be said, the living world, through which he was not permitted to penetrate, by letter, even to his dearest friends and relatives, unless such had been previously communicated to, and read by, the governor of the island.

It is no doubt true, that this is an inconvenience to which prisoners of war are, in all cases, subjected; nor do we know any country in which their parole is held so sacred as to induce the government to dispense with the right of inspecting their letters. Yet the high place so lately occupied by the fallen monarch might, we think, have claimed for him some dispensation from a restriction so humiliating. If a third person, cold-blooded at best, perhaps inclined to hold up to scorn the expressions of our grief or our affection, is permitted to have the review of the effusions of our heart towards a wife, a sister, a brother, or a bosom-friend, the correspondence loses half its value; and, forced as we are to keep it within the bounds of the most discreet caution, it becomes to us rather a new source of mortification, than the opening of a communion with those absent persons, whose friendship and attachment we hold to be the dearest possession of our lives. We the rather think that some exercise of this privilege might have been left to Napoleon, without any risk of endangering the safe custody of his person; because we are pretty well convinced that all efforts strictly to enforce this regulation did, and must have proved, ineffectual, and that in some cases by means of money, and at other times by the mere influence of compassion, he and his followers would always acquire the means of transmitting private letters from the island without regard to the restriction. Whatever, therefore, was to be apprehended of danger in this species of intercourse by letter, was much more likely to occur in a clandestine correspondence, than in one carried on even by sealed letters, openly and by permission of the government. We cannot help expressing our opinion, that, considering the accurate attention of the police, which would naturally have turned in foreign countries towards letters from St. Helena, there was little danger of the public post being made use of for any dangerous machinations. Supposing, therefore, that the Exile had been permitted to use it, it would have been too dangerous to have risked any proposal for his escape through that medium. A secret correspondence must have been resorted to for that purpose, and that under circumstances which would have put every well-meaning person, at least, upon his guard against being aiding in it; since, if the ordinary channels of communication were open to the prisoner, there could have been no justifiable reason for his resorting to private means of forwarding letters from the island. At the same time, while such is our opinion, it is founded upon reasoning totally unconnected with the claim of right urged by Napoleon; as his situation, considering him as a prisoner of war, and a most important one, unquestionably entitled the government of Britain to lay him under all the restrictions incident to persons in that situation.

Another especial subject of complaint pleaded upon by Napoleon and his advocates, arose from a regulation, which, we apprehend, was so essential to his safe custody, that we are rather surprised to find it was dispensed with upon any occasion, or to any extent; as, if fully and regularly complied with, it would have afforded the means of relaxing a considerable proportion of other restrictions of a harassing and irritating character, liable to be changed from time to time, and to be removed and replaced in some cases, without any very adequate or intelligible motive. The regulation which we allude to is that which required that Buonaparte should be visible twice, or at least once, in the day, to the British orderly officer. If this regulation had been submitted to with equanimity by the Ex-Emperor, it would have given the strongest possible guarantee against the possibility of his attempting an escape. From the hour at which he had been seen by the officer, until that at which he should again become visible, no vessel would have been permitted to leave the island; and supposing that he was missed by the officer at the regular hour, the alarm would have been general, and, whether concealed in the town, or on board any of the vessels in the roadstead, he must necessarily have been discovered. Indeed, the risk was too great to induce him to have tried an effort so dangerous. It might easily have been arranged, that the orderly officer should have the opportunity to execute his duty with every possible respect to Napoleon's privacy and convenience, and the latter might himself have chosen the time and manner of exhibiting himself for an instant. In this case, and considering how many other precautions were taken to prevent escape—that every accessible path to the beach was closely guarded—and that the island was very much in the situation of a citadel, of which soldiers are the principal inhabitants—the chance of Napoleon's attempting to fly, even if permitted the unlimited range of St. Helena, was highly improbable, and the chance of his effecting his purpose next to an impossibility. But this security depended upon his submitting to see a British officer at a fixed hour; and, resolute in his plan of yielding nothing to circumstances, Napoleon resisted, in every possible manner, the necessity of complying with this very important regulation. Indeed, Sir Hudson Lowe, on his part, was on many occasions contented to wink at its being altogether neglected, when the orderly officer could not find the means of seeing Napoleon by stealth while engaged in a walk, or in a ride, or as it sometimes happened, through the casement. This was not the way in which this important regulation ought to have been acted upon and enforced, and the governor did not reap a great harvest of gratitude from his conduct in dispensing with this act of superintendence upon his own responsibility.

We have seen that a circuit of twelve miles and upwards was laid off for Buonaparte's private exercise. No strangers entered these precincts without a pass from Bertrand, and the Emperor had uninterrupted freedom to walk or ride within them, unaccompanied by any one save those in his own family. Beyond these privileged bounds, he was not permitted to move, without the attendance of a British officer; but under the escort of such a person he was at liberty to visit every part of the island. To this arrangement Napoleon was more averse, if possible, than to that which appointed that a British officer should see him once a-day.

Other subjects of complaint there were; but as they chiefly arose out of private discussions with Sir Hudson Lowe—out of by-laws enacted by that officer—and restrictions of a more petty description, we limit ourselves for the present to those of a general character, which, however inconvenient and distressing, were, it is to be observed, such as naturally attached to the condition of a prisoner; and which, like the fetters of a person actually in chains, are less annoying when submitted to with fortitude and equanimity, than when the captive struggles in vain to wrench himself out of their gripe. We are far, nevertheless, from saying, that the weight of the fetters in the one case, and the hardship of the personal restrictions in the other, are in themselves evils which can be easily endured by those who sustain them. We feel especially how painful the loss of liberty must have been to one who had not only enjoyed the freedom of his own actions, but the uncontrolled right of directing those of others. Impatience, however, in this, as in other instances, has only the prerogative of injuring its master. In the many hours of meditation which were afforded to Buonaparte by his residence in St. Helena, we can never perceive any traces of the reflection, that he owed his present unhappy situation less to the immediate influence of those who were agents in his defeat and imprisonment, than to that course of ambition, which, sparing neither the liberties of France, nor the independence of Europe, had at length rendered his personal freedom inconsistent with the rights of the world in general. He felt the distresses of his situation, but he did not, or could not, reason on their origin. It is impossible to reflect upon him without the idea being excited, of a noble lion imprisoned within a narrow and gloomy den, and venting the wrath which once made the forest tremble, upon the petty bolts and bars, which, insignificant as they are, defy his lordly strength, and detain him captive.