Broken in spirit, Napoleon spent the evening in moody speculation, weighing and balancing, but never deciding. Should he appear at dawn before the Tuileries, summon the troops already in Paris, and prorogue the hated chambers, or should he not? The notion remained a dream. Early in June the court apothecary, Cadet de Gassicourt, had been ordered by the Emperor to prepare an infallible poison. This was done, and during this night of terrible vacillation the dose was swallowed by the desperate fugitive. But, as before at Fontainebleau, the theory of the philosopher was weaker than his instincts. In dreadful physical and mental agony, the would-be suicide summoned his pharmacist, and was furnished with the necessary antidotes. But the morning brought no courage, and when the chambers met at their accustomed hour, on the motion of an obscure member they demanded the Emperor's abdication. The message was borne by the military commander of the Palais Bourbon, where the legislature, which had now usurped the supreme power, was sitting, and he asserted of his own motion that, if compliance were refused, the chambers would declare Napoleon outlawed. The Emperor at first made a show of fierce wrath, but in the afternoon he dictated his final abdication to Lucien. No sooner was this paper received than the wild excitement of the deputies and peers subsided, and at once a new Directory, consisting of Carnot, Fouché, Caulaincourt, and Quinette, took up the reins of government. The city acquiesced, and hour after hour nothing interrupted the deep seclusion of the Élysée, except occasional shouts from passing groups of working-men, calling for Napoleon as dictator.
But there was a change as the stragglers from Waterloo began to arrive, vowing that they still had an arm for the Emperor, and denouncing those whom they believed to have betrayed him. The notion of sustaining Napoleon by force began to spread, and when the soldiers who were coming in, after suppressing the insurrection in Vendée, added their voices to those of their comrades from Waterloo, the new authorities feared Napoleon's presence as a menace to their power. Davout had been the first to suggest an appeal to force, but when Napoleon recurred at last to the idea, the marshal opposed it. On June twenty-fifth, therefore, the fallen man withdrew to Malmaison; where, in the society of Queen Hortense and a few faithful friends, during three days he abandoned himself for long intervals to the sad memories of the place. But he also wrote a farewell address to the army, and, in constant communication with a committee of the government, completed a plan for escaping to the United States, "there to fulfil his destiny," as he himself said. For this purpose two frigates were put at the disposal of "him who had lately been Emperor." All was ready on the twenty-ninth. That day a passing regiment shouted, "Long life to the Emperor," and, in a last despairing effort, Napoleon sent an offer of his services, as a simple general, to save Paris, and defeat the allies, who, though approaching the capital, were now separated. Fouché returned an insulting answer to the effect that the government could no longer be responsible for the petitioner's safety. Then, at last, Napoleon knew that all was over in that quarter. Clad in civilian's clothing, and accompanied by Bertrand, Savary, and Gourgaud, he immediately set out for Rochefort. General Becker led the party as commissioner for the provisional government.
It was the exile's intention to hurry onward, but at Rambouillet he halted, and spent the evening composing two requests, one for a supply of furniture from Paris, the other for the library in the Petit Trianon, together with copies of Visconti's "Greek Iconography" and the great work on Egypt compiled from materials gathered during his ill-starred sojourn in that country. Next morning a courier arrived from Paris with news. "It is all up with France," he exclaimed, and set out once more. Crowds lined the highways; sometimes they cheered, and they were always respectful. Such was the enthusiasm of two cavalry regiments at Niort that Becker was induced to send a despatch to the government, pleading that an army, rallied in Napoleon's name, might still exert an important influence in public affairs. Just as the general was closing the document there arrived the news of the cannonade heard before the capital on the thirtieth. Napoleon dictated a postscript: "We hope the enemy will give you time to cover Paris and bring your negotiations to an issue. If, in that case, an English cruiser stops the Emperor's departure, you can dispose of him as a common soldier."
By a strange coincidence, English cruisers had, as a matter of fact, appeared within a few days in the offing before Rochefort. Whatever the relation between this circumstance and his suggestion, Napoleon studied every possible means of delaying his journey, and actually opened a correspondence with the commanders in Bordeaux and the Vendée, with a view to overthrowing the "traitorous" government. It was July third when he finally reached Rochefort. Again for five days he procrastinated. But the allies were entering Paris; Wellington was bringing Louis XVIII back to his throne; in forty-eight hours the monarchs of the coalition would arrive. Blücher had commissioned a Prussian detachment to seize and shoot his hated opponent, wherever found. On the eighth, therefore, the outcast Emperor embarked; but for two days the frigates were detained by unfavorable winds. On the tenth, English cruisers hove in sight, and on the eleventh Las Cases, who had been appointed Napoleon's private secretary, was sent to interview Captain Maitland, of the Bellerophon, concerning his instructions from the British government. The envoy returned, and stated that the English commander would always be ready to receive Napoleon, and conduct him to England, but he could not guarantee that the ex-Emperor could settle there, or be free to betake himself to America.
This language was almost fatal to the notion of a final refuge in England, which Napoleon had begun to discuss and consider during the days spent in Rochefort; so Las Cases sought a second interview. According to his account, Maitland then changed his tone, remarking that in England the monarch and his ministers had no arbitrary power; that the generosity of the English people, and their liberal views, were superior to those entertained by sovereigns. To the speaker this was a platitude; to the listeners it was a weighty remark. A prey to uncertainty, Napoleon entertained various schemes. He bought two small, half-decked fishing-boats, with a view to boarding a Danish ship that lay outside, but the project was quickly dropped. Two young officers of the French frigate suggested sailing all the way to New York in the little craft. Napoleon seriously considered the possibility, but recalling that such vessels must get their final supplies on the coasts of Spain or Portugal, rejected the plan, for he dared not risk falling into the hands of embittered foes. Word was brought that an American ship lay near by, in the Gironde. General Lallemand galloped in hot haste to see whether an asylum for the outlawed party could be secured under her flag. He returned with a reply that the captain would be "proud and happy to grant it."
But in the interim Napoleon had determined to throw himself on the "generosity of England." On the thirteenth Gourgaud was sent to London, with a request to the Prince Regent that the Emperor should be permitted to live unknown in some provincial English place, under the name of General Duroc. On the fifteenth Napoleon embarked on the Bellerophon, where he was received with all honors; next day the vessel sailed, and on the twenty-fourth she cast anchor in Torbay. During the voyage the passenger was often somnolent, and seemed exhausted; but he was affable in his intercourse with the officers, and to Maitland, who unwisely yielded the expected precedence. To his kindly keeper, in a sort of beseeching confidence, the prisoner showed portraits of his wife and child, lamenting with tender sensibility his enforced separation from them. The scenes in Torbay were curious. Crowds from far and near lined the shores, and boats of all descriptions thronged the waters; the sight-seers dared everything to catch a glimpse of the awful monster under the terrors of whose power a generation had reached manhood. If, perchance, they succeeded, the air was rent with cheers. After two days the ship was ordered round into Plymouth Sound, but the reckless sensation-seekers gathered there in still greater numbers.
Many have wondered at Napoleon's surrender of his person to the English. There was no other course open which seemed feasible to a broken-spirited man in his position. His admirers are correct in thinking that it was more noble for him to have survived his greatness than to have taken his own life. To have entered on a series of romantic adventures such as were suggested—concealment on the Danish vessel, flight in open boats, concealment in a water-cask on an American merchantman, and the like—would have been merely the addition of ignominy to his capture; for his presence under the American flag would have been reported by spies, and at that day the standard of the United States would have afforded him little immunity. It is possible that on the morrow of Waterloo Napoleon might, with Grouchy's army, the other survivors, and the men from Vendée, have reassembled an army in Paris, but it is doubtful. Nothing in Revolutionary annals can surpass the horror of royalist frenzy, known as the White Terror, which broke out in Provence and southern France on receipt of the news from Waterloo. The ghastly distemper spread swiftly, and when Napoleon embarked the tricolor was floating only at Rochefort, Nantes, and Bordeaux; his family was proscribed, Ney and Labédoyère were imprisoned and doomed to execution. To have surrendered either to Wellington or Blücher would have been seeking instant death; to have collected such desperate soldiers as could be got together would have been an attempt at guerrilla warfare. To take refuge with the officers of England's navy was the only dignified course with any element of safety in it, since Great Britain was the only land in Europe which afforded the privileges of asylum to certain classes of political offenders. Naturally, the negotiators did not proclaim their extremity. Considering the date of Gourgaud's embassy, it is clear they were in no position to demand formal terms, and Maitland's character forbids the conclusion that he made them. It is unfortunate that he did not commit to writing all his transactions with Lallemand, Savary, and Las Cases; perhaps he was injudiciously polite, but it is certain that, contrary to their representations, he made no promise, even by implication, that under England's flag Napoleon should find a refuge, and not a prison.
CHAPTER XIX
St. Helena[27]
Embarrassment of the English Ministry — A Strange Embassy — Napoleon's Attitude — The Transportation — The Prison and its Governor — Occupations of the Prisoner — Napoleon's Historical Writings — Failing Health and Preparations for Death — His Last Will and Testament — The End — Imprisoned Genius — The St. Helena Period — The Insatiate Curiosity of Europe — First Communications from the Island — Napoleon's Appeal — Gourgaud in Europe — His Undeserved Notoriety — Futile Efforts of Las Cases — O'Meara's Activities — Confusion During the Last Years — Documentary Evidence — The Legend as a Historical Force.