THE OLIGARCHY, THEIR AGENTS AND APOLOGISTS

It would be an easy task to enlarge on the excellent qualities of this wonderful man.  Volumes could be written about this phase of his dazzling career alone, and yet we have miscreants such as Talleyrand proclaiming to the Conference of “Christian Kings” and traitors that the greatest, most powerful, and most humane prince of the age “must be exterminated like a mad dog.”  The news of his flight from Elba and arrival in Paris, vociferously acclaimed by the French people as their lawful sovereign, threw this band of parasites into apoplectic terror; Talleyrand, of all creatures, dictating to the Conference as to the wording of the proclamation that should be issued outlawing his Emperor, whom he and they styled “Usurper.”  If it were not so outrageous a violation of decency, we would look upon it as the most comical incident notified in history.  Talleyrand, the most accomplished traitor and barefaced thief in Europe, except perhaps Bourrienne, he who could not prevent himself from fumbling in his sovereign’s and everybody else’s pockets whenever the opportunity occurred, to be allowed to sit in conference with the anointed rulers of Europe is really too comic.

Napoleon was styled “Usurper” by these saintly Legitimists, not one of whom attained kingship so honourably and legitimately as the man whom they had sworn to destroy, even though the whole of Europe were to be drenched in blood by the process of it.  They set themselves to disfranchise and usurp the rights of the French people, who had only just again ratified by millions of votes his claim to the throne, and the gallant and heroic response to their requisition that he should leave Elba and become their ruler again.  Surely it will never be contended that Napoleon’s claims were less legitimate than those of the Prince of Orange, or the Elector of Hanover, or Frederic William the great Elector, whose sole qualification for kingship consisted in having the instincts of a tiger.  Of the latter Lord Macaulay says, “His palace was hell, and he the most execrable of fiends.”  His sole ambition seemed to be to pay fabulous sums for giant soldiers, and he showed an inhuman aversion to his son, afterwards known as Frederic the Great, and his daughter Wilhelmina.  He was as ignorant and ill-conditioned a creature as could be found in the whole world, a cowardly rascal who found pleasure in kicking ladies whom he might meet in the street and ordering them “home to mind their brats.”  No more need be said of the father of the great Frederic, whose “Life” took Thomas Carlyle thirteen years in searching musty German histories to produce.  Carlyle says, “One of the reasons that led me to write ‘Frederic’ was that he managed not to be a liar and charlatan as his century was”; and indeed his adoration for Frederic is quite pardonable.  He had spent thirteen years of his life in the supreme effort of making him a hero, and his great work, contained in eight volumes, is a matchless piece of literature; but there is nothing in it to justify anyone believing that Frederic was neither a liar nor a charlatan.  It is true Frederic finished better than he began, but truthfulness and honesty were not conspicuous virtues of his.  He lied, broke faith, and plundered wherever and whenever it suited his purpose, and some of his other vices were unspeakable.  There is no doubt he was both a quack and a coward when he broke the Pragmatic Sanction and began to steal the territory of Maria Theresa.  The powers of England, France, Spain, Russia, Poland, Prussia, Sweden, Denmark, the Germanic body, all had agreed by treaty to keep it.  Had he been an honourable man and possessed of the qualities Carlyle credits him with, he would have stood by his oath.  Instead of defending his ally, he pounced upon her like a vulture, and plunged Europe into a devastating, bloody war, with the sole object of robbery; and all he could say for himself in extenuation of such base conduct was:  “Ambition, interest, the desire of making people talk about me, carried the day; and I decided for war.”

Truly Frederic was not a good man, and his reputation for being great was mainly acquired because the Powers and circumstances allowed him to succeed after seven long years of sanguinary conflict.

Indeed, there was not a single act in the whole of Napoleon’s career that approaches the lawlessness and cruelty of Frederic.  He really usurped nothing, and Frederic usurped everything that he could put his hands on, regardless of every moral law; but then he ignored all moral laws.  There is no need for comparison, but it is just as well to point out that the plea of legitimacy is very shallow, and the contention of the Allies is an amazing burlesque emanating from the brains of an industrious mediocrity.

These legitimate monarchs, through their Ministers, used barefacedly to inspire journalists to write the doctrine of waste of blood as being a natural process of dealing with the problem of overpopulation.  History is pregnant with proof that their cry for peace was an impudent hypocrisy.  They might have had it at any time, but this did not suit their policy of legitimacy.  Countless thousands of human beings were slaughtered to satisfy the aversion of kings and nobles to the plan of one man who towered above them, and insisted on breaking up the nefarious system of feudalism and kingship by divine right.  They loathed both him and his system.  They plotted for his assassination, and intrigued with all the ferocity of wild animals against his humane and enlightened government.  He trampled over all their satanic dodges to overthrow the power that had been so often enthusiastically placed in his hands by the sovereign people.  He constructed roads and canals, and introduced new methods of creating commerce.  He introduced a great scheme of expanding education, science, art, literature.  Every phase of enlightenment was not only initiated, but made compulsory so far as he could enforce its application.  He re-established religion, and gave France a new code of laws that are to this day notoriously practical, comprehensive, and eminently just.

He not only re-established religion, but he upheld the authority of the Pope as the recognised head of the Roman Church.  He built his “pyramids in the sea,” established a free press, and declared himself in favour of manhood suffrage.  He included in his system a unification of all the small continental States, and was declaimed against as a brigand for doing it.  Wherever his plans were carried out the people were prosperous and happy, so long as they were allowed to toil in their own way in their fields and in other industrial pursuits.

It was the perpetual spirit of war that overshadowed the whole of Europe which prevented his rule from solving a great problem.  He, in this, was invariably the aggrieved.  The plan which he had carried into practical solution was wrecked by the allies, and in less than a century after the great reformer had been removed from the sphere of enmity and usefulness, Prince Bismarck forced these small States into unification with the German Empire, thereby carrying into effect the very system Napoleon was condemned for bringing under his suzerainty.  What satire, what malignity of fate, that Bismarck, a positive refutation of genius in comparison with the French Emperor, should succeed in resurrecting the fabric that the latter had so proudly built up for France, only to be in a few short years the prize of Germany, recognised by the very Powers who fought with such embittered aggressiveness against the great captain and statesman who made not only modern France, but modern Europe; and who at any time during his reign could, by making a sign, as he has said, have had the nobles of France massacred.  These bloodsucking creatures were always in the road of reform, always steeped overhead in political intrigue, always concerned in plots against the life of Napoleon, and always shrieking with resentment when they and their accomplices were caught.  Some writers are so completely imbued with the righteousness of murdering Napoleon, they convey the impression that when any attempt failed, the perpetrators, instead of being punished, should have had the decoration of the Legion of Honour placed upon them by himself.  They are also quite unconscious that they are backing a mean revenge and an awful mockery of freedom when they eloquently shout “Hosanna!”

According to them St. Helena was the only solution of the problem, if it may be so called, and the Powers who sent him there must have had an inspiration from above.  They have no conception that the Allies perpetrated another crucifixion on the greatest and (if we are to judge him by reliable records) the best man of the nineteenth century.  Ah! fickle France! you are blighted with eternal shame for having allowed these cowardly vindictive conspirators, popularly called the Allies, to besmear you, as well as themselves, with the blood of a hero.

France had resources at her command which could and should have been used to drive the invaders beyond her boundaries.  Frenchmen can never live down the great blunder of abandoning their Emperor, forsaking themselves and the duty they owed to their native land.  They forsook in the hour of need all that was noble and honourable, and cast themselves into a cauldron of treason, such as has never been heard of in the world’s history.  They were soon disillusioned, but it was then too late.  The poison had done its work, and France was placed under the subjection of traitors, place-hunters and foreign Powers for many years to come.

I have already said that Louis XVIII. was put on the throne, not by the French people, but by their conquerors and their myrmidons.  He did not long survive his ignoble accession.  Then came Charles X., who had to fly to Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh because he governed so ill.  His qualification to rule was in putting down all reform and liberty; after him came Louis Philippe, but even he only governed on sufferance, though on the whole he occupied an onerous position with creditable success.  A monarch who rules under the tender mercies of a capricious people, and worse still, a capricious and not too scrupulous monarchy of monarchs, is not to be envied, and this was exactly the position of Louis Philippe.  He was beset by the noisy clamour of many factions, besides having to keep a shrewd eye on those lofty men to whom he had to look with perpetual nervous tension for the stability and endurance of his throne.  He knew the heart of the nation was centred on St. Helena, and that a wave of repentance was passing over the land.  The people wished to atone for the crime they allowed to be committed in 1815.

Louis Philippe showed great wisdom and foresight.  Nothing could have been done with more suitable delicacy than the negotiations which caused the British Government to consent to give the remains of the Emperor up to the French.  The air of importance and swagger put into it by Lord Palmerston is supremely farcical, but then the whole senseless blunder from beginning to end was a farce, which does not redound to our credit.  It is incredible that a nation so thickly stocked with men of ability in every important department should have had the misfortune to have her affairs entrusted to Ministers and officials who were childishly incompetent and ludicrously vindictive.  Men of meagre mental calibre, who hold office under the Crown or anywhere else, are invariably fussy, pompous, overbearing, and stifling with conceit.  This condition of things was in full swing during the Napoleonic regime and captivity, and that is the period we are concerned about.  There does not appear to have been a single man of genius in Europe but himself.  The population of France who were contemporary with him during his meteoric leadership remembered him as a matchless reformer and an unconquerable warrior.  Their devotion and belief in his great gifts had sunk deeply into their being.  A couple of generations had come into existence from 1815 to 1840, but even to those who knew him only as a captive, he was as much their Emperor and their hero and martyr as he was to his contemporaries.  The pride of race, the glory of the Empire and of its great founder, was suckled into them from the time of birth, and as they grew into manhood and womanhood they became permeated with a passionate devotion to his cause.  They claimed that his deliverance to the people “he loved so well” was a right that should not be withheld.  The spirit of sullen determination that he should be given up had taken deep root.  They had arrived at the point when the igniting of a spark would have created a conflagration.  There was to be no more chattering.  They meant business, and were resolved that they would stand no more red-tape fussy nonsense from either their Government or the Government who kept a regiment of British soldiers to guard his tomb, lest he should again disturb the peace of Europe.  They let it be known that no more of that kind of humbug would be tolerated without reprisals, and the hint was taken.  Louis Philippe grasped the situation, and formed an expedition with his son Prince Joinville as chief, who was accompanied by Baron Las Cases, member of the Chamber of Deputies; General Count Bertrand; M. l’Abbe Conquereau, almoner to the expedition; four former servants of Napoleon-viz., Saint Denis and Noverraz, valets-de-chambre; Pierron, officer of the kitchen; and Archambaud, butler-Marchand, one of the executors, and the quarrelsome and disloyal General Gourgaud, of whom we may have something more to say further on.  This same Gourgaud, who lied so infamously about his Imperial benefactor when he landed in London, has said that “he could not express what he felt when he again found himself near that extraordinary being, that giant of the human race, to whom he had sacrificed all and to whom he owed all he was.”  These thoughts, and many more not uttered, would come to him when he stood beside the sepulchre of the master whom he had so grievously wronged and who was now and henceforth to be recognised as having been the “legitimate ruler of his country.”

Count Montholon, the most devoted and most constant follower of Napoleon and his family, was not of the expedition.  He was engaged in helping the nephew of his hero to ascend the throne of his illustrious uncle, and the effort landed them both in the fortress of Ham.  Louis Philippe and his Ministers were very jealous of anyone sharing in any part of the glory of having Napoleon brought to the banks of the Seine.  Hence, when King Joseph and Prince Louis Napoleon offered the arms of the Emperor to the nation, the King refused them, but prevailed upon General Bertrand to give them to him, that he might give them to the nation.  Napoleon had given the sword he wore at Austerlitz and his arms to Bertrand when on his deathbed.  Prince Louis could not stand the great captain’s name being trumpeted about for other people’s glory.  He claimed that it belonged to him.  He was the legitimate heir to all its glory, and this too previous assumption got him imprisoned in Ham for asserting what he protested was his right.

Meanwhile the Bellepoule goes lumbering along, impeded by calms and gales, but anchored safely off Jamestown on October 8, 1840.  Of course many formalities had to be carried out, so that the exhumation did not commence until the 15th at midnight.  They came upon the coffin at ten in the forenoon, opened it, and found the body well preserved.  Thereon everyone was overcome with emotion.  After the coffin was deposited with profound solemnity and the national flag placed over it, the honours which would have been paid to the Emperor had he been living were paid to his remains on October 18, 1840.

The expedition set sail, and had only been a few days out when the captain of a passing vessel called the Hamburg informed Prince Joinville that war between France and Great Britain was imminent, and two or three days later this was confirmed by circumstantial information to him by a Dutch vessel called the Egmont.  Officers of the two other vessels of the expedition were ordered aboard the Bellepoule, a council of war held, and a determined resistance resolved upon.  The decks were cleared for action, guns were mounted, and every form of princely comfort dispensed with.  The son of Louis Philippe added lustre to the name of Bourbon by the heroic decision that, whatever the fortune of battle might be, he would sink his ship rather than allow the remains of the Emperor to fall into the hands of the British again.  The resolve was worthy of Napoleon himself.

Every precaution was taken to evade capture, but as the information proved to be unfounded, the expedition was not interrupted by hostile cruisers, nor even by contrary winds, and long before it was expected the historic frigate sailed quietly into the harbour of Cherbourg at 5.0 a.m. on November 30, 1840.  She had made the passage from St. Helena in forty-two days.  Then the great and unexampled triumph commenced.

Europe was a second time in mourning, bowing its head in reverence and shame.  Never have there been such universal tokens of condemnation of the captivity and the creatures who engineered it, and never such unequalled joy and homage as were paid to the memory of the great dead.  During the eight days the lying-in-state lasted, more than two hundred thousand people came to the Invalides daily.  Thousands never got within the coveted grounds, yet they came in increasing numbers each successive day, notwithstanding the rigour of the biting weather.

It may be said that the whole world was moved with the desire to show sympathy with this unsurpassed national devotion and worldwide repentance.  His remains are now in the church of the Invalides, where the daily pilgrimage still goes on.  The interest in the victim of the stupidity of the British Administration never flags.  Each day the dead Emperor is canonised, and his prophetic words that posterity would do him justice are being amply fulfilled.

The Christian Kings that made saintly war on Napoleon, and combined to commit an atrocious crime in the name of the founder of our faith, were dead.  God in His mercy had dispensed with their sagacious guidance in human affairs, and it may be they were paying a lingering penalty for the diabolical act at the very time their prisoner’s ashes reached the shores of his beloved country and convulsed it with irrepressible joy.  They and many of their accomplices were gone.  Four Popes had reigned and passed on to their last long sleep.  The Spanish nation, which contributed to his downfall, had been smitten with the plague of chronic revolution.  They had been deprived of the great guiding spirit who alone could administer that wholesome discipline which was so necessary to keep the turbulent spirits in restraint.  Only Bernadotte, whom Napoleon had put in the way of becoming King of Norway and Sweden, remained to represent the galaxy of Kings.  A few of the traitor Marshals were left, but Augereau had died soon after the banishment and Berthier had committed suicide a few day before the Battle of Waterloo by jumping out a window.  Soult, Oudinot, and the guilty Marmont were in evidence in these days of great national rejoicing.  Davoust, Jourdan, Macdonald, and Massena had passed behind the veil.  It was the defection of Berthier and Marmont, whom he regarded as his most trusted and loyal comrades-in-arms, that crushed the Emperor at the time of the first abdication.  It was a cruel stab, which sunk deep into his soul, and never really healed, but the most heartless incident in connection with this betrayal was the appointment of Marmont, the betrayer, by the Emperor Francis to be the military instructor of Napoleon’s son while he was held in captivity and ignorance at Vienna.

Fouche, whose treason and predatory misdeeds should have had him shot long before the dawn of disaster to the Empire came, joined the Ministry of Louis XVIII., whom he had arduously assisted to the throne, but in 1816 he was included in the decree against the murderers of Louis XVI., and had to make himself scarce.  He went to Prague, then to Trieste, and died there in 1820.

Talleyrand died at Paris in 1838.

Both men were unscrupulous intriguers, without an atom of moral sense or loyalty, and both possessed ability, differing in kind, perhaps, which they used in the accomplishment of their own ends.  France can never overestimate the great evil these two men did to the national cause.  Napoleon’s power and penetrating vision kept them in check only when he could grasp the nettle.  Even when absent on his campaigns, they knew he was kept in close touch with what was going on.  It was not until treason became entangled within treason that their evil designs had fuller scope and more disastrous results.  Bourrienne, another rascal already referred to in this book, lost his fortune and his reason in 1830, and died in a lunatic asylum at Caen of apoplexy in February, 1834.  It is a notable fact that nearly the whole of the prominent figures in the drama of the Empire and its fall had passed beyond the portal before the great captain’s remains were brought back to France.  These individuals are only remembered now as uninspired small men, benighted in mind, who had wrought ignobly to bring about the fall of a powerful leader, and to the end of their days were associated with and encouraged a fiendish persecution of the Emperor while he lived, and of his family before and after his death.

But the pious care of his tomb by a regiment of British soldiers, paid for by British taxpayers, from 1821 until the patriotic exhumation in 1840; by stately and solemn permission of the British Government, excels the comic genius of a gang of plethoric parochial innkeepers.  If it were not so degrading to the national pride of race, we might regard it as taking rank amongst the drollest incidents of human life.  What a gang of puffy, mildewed creatures were at the head British affairs in those days!  Indeed, they expose the human soul at its worst, and a curious feature is their ingrained belief in the integrity of all their doings, which beggars the English vocabulary describe.  How the people tolerated the drain on human life and the material resources of country is also phenomenal.

Thousands of lives were sacrificed and millions of money squandered, with the sole object of destroying and humiliating one man, who, had he been handled discreetly, would have proved greater public asset than he was.  Sir Hudson Lowe would not be known to posterity but for the guilty part he played in the tragedy.  He left St. Helena on July 25, 1821, and was presented on the eve of his departure with an address from the inhabitants.  It has been said that document was inspired from Plantation House, but that is scarcely credible.  Besides, we are not inclined to discount any credit Lowe and his friends and accomplices can derive from it.  It does not glow with devotion nor regret at his resigning his command.  Indeed, it is nothing more nor less than a cold, polite way of bidding him farewell.  Forsyth makes much of this, with the object of proving his popularity with the islanders and the itinerant persons in the service of the Crown.  He only makes his case worse by embarking on so hopeless a task.  As a matter of fact, this extraordinary representative of the British Government had roused the whole population of St. Helena at one time and another to a pitch of passion and scorn that puts it beyond doubt that no genuine regret could have been consistently expressed by a single soul, except those few composing his staff, who were as guilty as himself and were always ready to lick his boots for a grain of favour; and yet it is quite certain, notwithstanding the heroic fooleries and the care to make Plantation House a sanctuary of guilty secrecy, there was nothing that transpired, either important or unimportant, concerning the inhabitants of Longwood, that was not promptly passed along.  Needless to say, these communications relieved the dull monotony of the exiles, and even Gourgaud was driven to cynical mockery by the ridiculous character of some of the piteous stories that filtered through.  There never was any difficulty in verifying the truth of them when it was thought necessary or useful to do so.  On the authority of Lowe’s biographer, we are told that this immortal High Commissioner was presented to his precious sovereign on November 14, 1821, and was on the point of kissing his hand, but His Majesty, overwhelmed with the preeminence of the great man who stood before him, indicated that there was to be no kissing of hands.  His services to his King and country demanded a good shake of the hand and hearty congratulations from His Christian Majesty.  Lowe’s arduous and exemplary task was admitted with tears in the kingly eyes, and so overcome was His Majesty that he took Lowe’s hand again, and shook it a second time, combining with the handshake a further flow of grateful thanks and the appointment to a colonelcy of the 93rd Regiment These compliments were well deserved, coming, as they did from a monarch whose will he had discharged with such brutal fidelity.  But what of the afterthought, the reaction which began to hum round his ears almost immediately after this fulsome display of enthusiastic approbation?  A vast public, never in favour of the Government’s vaunted policy of heroism over an unfortunate foe, swung round with a vengeance.  The indignation against the perpetrators of this cruel assassination had no bounds.  It was not confined to Britain.  The civilised world was shocked.  The willing tool of the Government got the worst of it, and the perfidy will cling to his name throughout eternity.

O’Meara’s book, “A Voice from St. Helena; or, Napoleon in Exile,” published in 1822, sold like wildfire.  In vain Bathurst, Castlereagh, and Liverpool tried to check the flood of public censure that poured in upon them from everywhere.  Sir Hudson Lowe, beside himself with apprehension, appealed to them for protection, but none was forthcoming.  Indeed, they were too busy searching out some means by which the blow could be eased off themselves, and with studious politeness left their accomplice to plan out his defence as best he could; and the world knows what a sorry job he made of it.  His coadjutors in the great tragedy were not the kind of people to share any part of the public censure that could be reflected on to their gaoler.  Pretty compliments had been paid to him by the King and some of his Ministers previous to the realisation of the full force of public indignation.  Bathurst sent him a letter in 1823 reminding him that his treatment had been beyond that of ordinary governors, that he was working out an idea of having him recommended to a West Indian governorship, and that he was not to suppose that this gracious interest in him was in order to silence the clamour that was being raised against him.  This communication was made in November, and in December Lowe was told that he was to go to Antigua as Governor.  For special reasons this favour was refused, and two years afterwards he accepted command of the forces at Ceylon, and was still there when Sir Walter Scott’s exculpation of the British Government appeared in 1828.  Scott was employed for that special purpose.

The ex-Governor searched the pages of this extraordinary work for a vindication of himself, but never a word that could be construed into real approval was there.  He obtained leave of absence from the Governor of Ceylon and made his way to England, ostensibly to vindicate his character.  He landed at St. Helena, paid a visit to Longwood, otherwise known as the “Abode of Darkness” since the Imperial tenant named it so when he gave O’Meara his benediction on the occasion of his last parting from him, when he was banished from the island.  Sir Hudson was shocked at seeing the place reverted back to a worse state than it was previous to the exiles being forced into it.  Then it was a dirty, unwholesome barn, overrun with vermin; now it was worse than a piggery.  The aspect touched a tender chord in this man who had been the cause of making the Emperor’s compulsory sojourn a sorrowful agony.

Reflections of all that happened during those five memorable years must have crowded in upon him and racked him with feelings of bitter remorse for his avoidable part in the cruel drama; and as he stood upon the spot that had been made famous by England’s voluntary captive, it was not unnatural that he should have been overcome by a strange and possibly a purifying sadness.  All of that which he had regarded in other days, under different conditions, as unjustifiable splendour had vanished.  The Imperial bedroom and study were now made use of to accommodate and give shelter to cows, horses, and pigs.  Other agricultural commodities were strewn about everywhere.  Nothing was left that would indicate that it was consecrated to fame and everlasting pity.  The triumph of death came to it only some six years before.  And now Sir Hudson Lowe, we doubt not, filled with pensive regret, looked down on the nameless tomb of the great captain, guarded by sentinels with fixed bayonets, ready to thrust them into any unauthorised intruder into the sacred precincts of the Valley of Napoleon, or the Geranium Valley, which is also known by the name of Punch Bowl.

Ah! what thickly gathering memories must have come to him in that solemn hour on that smitten rock of bitter and brutal vengeance!  All we shall ever know of that melancholy visit as it really affected Lowe has been told by his biographer.  We are left to imagine a good deal, and therefore must conclude that he would be less than human if he did not realise that the shadow of retribution was pursuing him.  If his thoughts of himself were otherwise, he was soon to be disillusioned.

He spent three days on the Rock, and had a good reception and send-off, and ere long made his appearance in London and presented himself to his quasi-friend, Bathurst, who, with an eye to his own and his colleagues’ interests, discouraged the idea of publishing an answer to Sir Walter Scott’s book.  Bathurst, in fact (with unconscious drollery), advised Lowe to hurry back to Ceylon without delay, lest meanwhile a vacancy of the governorship should occur and he might lose his opportunity.  He was assured of the Government’s appreciation of him as their most trusted and loyal public servant, while as a matter of fact it was ludicrously obvious that his presence was quite as objectionable to them in England as it was to the exiles in St. Helena.  He was fully alive to, and did not underestimate, the amount of dirty work he had done for them, and very properly expected to be amply rewarded.  It never occurred to him that retribution was over-shadowing them as well as himself, and that they could not openly avow their displeasure at the odium he was the cause of bringing on the Government and on the British name by reason of his having so rigidly carried out their perfidious regulations.  Had public opinion supported them, their action would have been claimed as a sagacious policy, but it didn’t, so this poor, wretched, tactless, incompetent tool became almost as much their aversion as the great prisoner himself.  In fact, things went so ill with them that they would have preferred it had Lowe indulged every whim of his prisoner, granted him full liberty to roam wherever he liked, recognised him as Emperor, and even been not too zealous in preventing his escape; and they must have wished that, in the first instance, they had not thought of St. Helena, but wisely and generously granted him hospitality in our own land.  This last would have been the best thing that could have happened for everybody concerned.

Ill-treatment of the most humble prisoner or assassination of the most exalted can never be popular with the British people.  Sir Hudson got a cold douche when he obtained an interview with the Duke of Wellington.  His Grace in so many words told him that they wished to have nothing to do with him.  He could not recommend him for a post in the Russian army.  He could not hold out hopes of him getting the governorship of Ceylon should a vacancy occur.  He had been hardly used, but there was no help for it.  Parliament would not grant him the pension he asked for.  Lowe replied that he would stand or fall by its decision, but the Duke snapped him off by stating that Mr. Peel would never make such a proposal to the House of Commons.  No other course was open to him now but to return to Ceylon.  He did not get the vacancy which occurred in 1830, and returned to England, but never got a public appointment again.

He presented a wordy memorial in 1843, complaining of having been kept out of employment for twelve years.  The governorship of Ceylon had been vacant three times, the Ionian Islands four times; he had been Governor there in 1812.  In other parts of the Empire appointments that he supposed he could have filled were given to others.  Poor creature!  He died in 1844, a broken and ruined man.

He lacked every quality that is essential in an administrator, and was utterly void of humour, imagination, or the capacity to manage men.  His suspicious disposition and lack of judgment made it eminently impossible for him to fulfil any delicate position, and it was a monstrous libel on the knowledge of the fitness of things to entrust him with the governorship of St. Helena.

Lord Teynham made a violent attack on Lowe in the House of Lords in 1833.  The Duke of Wellington was bound to defend his satellite, and did so with some vigour, as the attack was really on him and certain members of his Government.  Lord Teynham replies with equal vigour:  “He had no intention of aspersing the private character of Sir Hudson, but as regards his conduct while Governor of St. Helena, he maintained, and always would, that Lowe was cried out upon by all the people of Europe as a person unfit to be trusted with power.”  Lord Teynham a few days afterwards made a sort of apology, no doubt inspired by interested persons, for personal plus international reasons.  They were high of heart, these dauntless confederates, in the early and middle stages of the captivity, and, indeed, they bore themselves with braggart defiance of public opinion, until many strong manifestations of inevitable trouble encompassed them, and, like all despots, who are invariably cowards, they lived in mortal terror lest this creature of theirs should break out into St. Helena leprosy again and impose further humiliation upon them.  Lowe had talked of actions for libel against Barry O’Meara, and in a whimsical, half-hearted way worried his employers to give battle, and the law officers of the Crown stated a case but advised against taking action, and so it was never brought, though O’Meara kept telling them in so many words to come on.  “I am anxious that you should have the opportunity of defending the charges I have brought against you.  I am anxious too that the public should know more than I have written.”  That in effect was the attitude of the gallant doctor, who was the first to call serious attention to the goings on in the “Abode of Darkness.”  Needless to say, no action was ever taken, and, in face of all the incriminating facts, it was never intended that any should be taken.  Even High Toryism became alarmed at the consequences.  The Duke of Wellington, brave and gallant soldier though he was, shrank from so impossible an ordeal.  The best he could say of him was, “He was a stupid man,” “A bad choice,” “and totally unfit to take charge of Bonaparte.”

Wellington may have been a brave and skilful general, but he did not know how to be generous to an unfortunate enemy who was himself always kind and considerate in the hour of victory.  Wellington’s expressions about Lowe are more than significant, though his conduct towards the poor cat’s-paw is characteristic of a mean, flinty soul.  But his behaviour towards Napoleon would have put any French Jacobin to the blush, and has belittled him for all time in the eyes of everybody who has a spark of human feeling in him.

Meneval says that Waterloo was won by the French in the middle of the day of that fateful battle, but a caprice of fortune-the arrival of Bulow’s corps and Blucher’s army, and the absence of Grouchy’s corps-snatched from Napoleon’s hands the triumph which was within his grasp.  Wellington had even said to General Hill, who came to take his orders at the most critical moment of the battle:  “I have no orders to give you.  There is nothing left for us but to die here.  Our retreat is even cut off behind us.”

Wellington’s despairing words have been handed down in various forms.  Notably he is reported to have said, “Oh! for night or Bluecher.”  When he heard the firing, “That is old Bluecher at last!” &c.  That he was in a tight place there is little doubt, and many authorities have stated that had Grouchy come up according to orders, the allied forces would have been cut to pieces.

Whether it was “caprice of fortune” or not, Wellington claimed to have won the battle.  “Caprice of fortune” had nothing to do with it.  It was a hard-fought battle.  Treachery and desertion at an important juncture undoubtedly weakened the chances of French success.  Meneval adds that “in no encounter of such importance did the French army display more heroism and more resolution than at the Battle of Waterloo.”  Napoleon at St. Helena attributed his defeat to a variety of circumstances:  to treachery, and to his orders not being carried out as they should have been by some of his generals, and often concludes:  “It must have been Fate, for I ought to have succeeded.”  He was accustomed to say that “One must never ask of Fortune more than she can grant,” and possibly he erred in this.

Though nearly a century has passed since the catastrophe to France, the cause of it is still controversial.  It is certain that the conduct of Marshal Soult, who was second in command, gave reason for suspicion.  An old corporal told the Emperor that he was to “be assured that Soult was betraying him.”  General Vandamme was reported to have gone over to the enemy.  It was also reported to the Emperor by a dragoon that General Henin was exhorting the soldiers of his corps to go over to the Allies, and while this was going on the General had both legs blown away by a cannon shot.  Lieutenants, colonels, staff officers, and, it is said, officers who were bearing despatches deserted, but it is significant that there is not a single instance given of the common soldier forsaking his great chief’s cause.  Lord Wolseley declares that if Napoleon had been the man he was at Austerlitz, he would have won the Battle of Waterloo.  Wolseley is supported in this view by many writers.

After Lutzen, Bautzen, and Dresden, Byron said that “bar epilepsy and the elements, he would back Napoleon against the field.”  It is well known the odds he had to battle with, including the vilest treachery within his own circle.

Marshal Grouchy’s conduct will always remain doubtful, even to the most friendly critics.  High treason bubbling up everywhere must have had a dulling effect on the mind of the great genius, though he battled with the increasing vigour of it with amazing courage.  He saw the current was running too strong for him to stem unless he determined to again risk the flow of rivers of blood.  This he shrank from, and abdicated the throne a second time.  And then the barbarous, crimeful story began.

Sir Hudson Lowe’s appointment was a national calamity, but he was the nominee of Wellington’s coadjutors, and carried out their wishes with a criminal exactitude, and they should have stood by him in his dire distress, instead of which they allowed him to die in poverty, broken in spirit, and a victim to calumny which they ought to have been manly enough to share.

Whatever may be said in exculpation of them and him, they were undoubtedly too seriously involved to enter upon a fight that would have ended disastrously for all of them, and so, with unusual wisdom, they never got further than threats.

Sir Hudson was dead something like nine years before Forsyth burst upon the public with his eccentric vindication of the unamiable and unfortunate ex-Governor.  The zealous biographer’s research for material favourable to his deified hero caused him to ransack prints that were written by unfriendly authors and vindictive critics of the great captive.  Even the State Papers, the most unreliable of all documents on this particular subject, were used to prove the goodness of Sir Hudson, and when quotations were unavailing, the author proceeded to concoct the most amazing ideas in support of the task he had set himself to prove.

Writers of anti-Napoleonic history who take in the St. Helena period are filled with wonder and contempt of the Emperor, who, according to their refined and accurate judgment of the fitness of things, should have been eternally grateful to the British Government that they did not have him shot.  Why should he complain in the fretful way he does of his treatment and his condition?  A great man would have shown his appreciation of all the money that was being spent on the needs for his existence and for the better security of his person.  It ill becomes him to complain of improper treatment after all the trouble and commotion he has caused at one time and another.  Indeed, a great man would bear the burden of captivity with equanimity and praise the men who gave him the opportunity of showing how a great soldier could carry himself in such unequalled adversity.

This in effect is what these high-minded men of letters say should have been the attitude of England’s guest.  He should have received his treatment, harsh and arbitrary though it was, with Christian fortitude, and ought to have borne in mind that he was in the custody of a Christian King and a Christian people.  Dr. Max Lenz, who has written a most interesting and on the whole moderate account of Napoleon, considering his nationality, drifts into the same stereotyped closing phraseology of how Napoleon worried and almost wore out the good Sir Hudson Lowe, who only did his duty, and gave in to Napoleon whenever he could see his way to do so.

But on the authority of Gourgaud, whom Lord Rosebery would appear to regard as the most truthful of all the St. Helena chroniclers, this eulogy is totally unwarranted, for truly there is no reliable contemporary writer who would have risked his reputation by making so reckless a statement that could so easily be proved to be a deliberate fabrication.  This is not to say that fabrication was an uncommon trick, but the Governor’s reputation in relation to Napoleon was so well and widely known, that no person who claimed to have a clear, balanced judgment could defend his silly, vicious conduct.

Napoleon never altered his opinion of Lowe’s perfidy towards him.  On one occasion, in conversation with the truthful Gourgaud, he exclaims, “Ah!  I know the English.  You may be sure that the sentinels stationed round this house have orders from the Governor to kill me.  They will pretend to give me a thrust with a bayonet by mistake some day.”  Gourgaud reports him as saying on another occasion, “Hudson Lowe is a Sicilian grafted on a Prussian; they must have chosen him to make me die under his charge by inches.  It would have been more generous to have shot me at once.”

It would be absurd to affirm that Napoleon said these things without sound foundation, and although, when his personal vanity and abnormal jealousy was aroused by some fancied injury to himself, Gourgaud would resort to the most remarkable fibbing, what he relates as to his master’s opinion of the Governor may be relied on, being, as it is, confirmed in a more complete form by O’Meara, Las Cases, Montholon, Bertrand, Antommarchi, and each of the Commissioners.  The former sacrificed everything rather than be a party to what he termed treatment that was an “outrage on decency.”

These are only a few of the men who bear witness against Sir Hudson being termed “good”; and I may add one other to the galaxy, poor Dr. Stokoe, who shrank from having the abominable indignity of inquisitor and spy tacked on to his high office and distinguished profession.  He refused, as O’Meara had done, to sacrifice his manhood or his sense of honour.  Tricked into a false position by Lowe and the virtuous (?) Sir Robert Plampin, Dr. Stokoe, who had only paid five professional visits to Longwood, was deprived of his position and all its advantages, after twenty-five years’ service in the Navy, because he refused to become a sneak and a rascal at the bidding of these two unspeakable Government officials, the one disgracing the service of his country in the capacity of Governor and the other the name of a sailor and an Admiral.

In 1819 Stokoe resigned his position on the Conqueror, and sailed for England.  Lowe sent a report addressed to the Lords of the Admiralty by the same vessel, and Stokoe had scarcely landed when he was bundled back to St. Helena.  He rejoined the Conqueror under the impression that his conduct had been approved, but was disillusioned by being forthwith put under arrest.  A bogus court-martial was instituted in the interests of Lowe, and Plampin and these packed scallywags sentenced him to dismissal from the Navy.  The charges against Stokoe were that he failed to report himself to Plampin at the Briars after a visit to Longwood, and that in his report he had designated the patient as the Emperor instead of General Bonaparte.  This is a sample of the “good old times” that a certain species of creature delights to show forth his wisdom in talking about.  I believe the immortal John Ruskin indulged occasionally in reminding a twentieth-century world of these days that were so blissful.

Forsyth, the self-reputed impartial historian, neglects to insert in his work in defence of Lowe’s conduct the following amazing charges, which shall be fully given.  They have been published before, but they are so unique, so unmanly, and so perfidious, I think they ought to be given to the public again, so that the amiable reader may know the depth of infamy to which England had sunk in the early part of the nineteenth century.  Here is the whole story on which Dr. Stokoe was condemned.  His bulletin about Napoleon’s health asserted that “The more alarming symptom is that which was experienced in the night of the 16th instant, a recurrence of which may soon prove fatal, particularly if medical attendance is not at hand.”  The Governor and the worthy Admiral were incensed at such unheard-of arrogance in making a report not in accordance with their wishes and that of the Government and the oligarchy, so the indictment of Stokoe, based on this bulletin, proceeds:  “Intending thereby, contrary to the character and duty of a British officer, to create a false impression or belief that General Bonaparte was in imminent or considerable danger, and that no medical assistance was at hand, he, the said Mr. John Stokoe, not having witnessed any such symptom, and knowing that the state of the patient was so little urgent that he was at Longwood four hours before he was admitted to see him, and further, knowing that Dr. Verling was at hand, ready to attend if required in any such emergency or considerable danger.  He had knowingly and willingly designated General Bonaparte in the said bulletin in a manner different from that in which he was designated in the Act of Parliament for the better custody of his person, and contrary to the practice of His Majesty’s Government, of the Lieutenant-General Governor of the island, and of the said Rear Admiral, and he had done so at the especial instance and request of the said General Bonaparte or his attendants, though he, Mr. John Stokoe, well knew that the mode of designation was a point in dispute between the said General Bonaparte and Lieutenant-General Sir Hudson Lowe and the British Government, and that by acceding to the wish of the said General Bonaparte he, the said Mr. John Stokoe, was acting in opposition to the wish and practice of his own superior officers, and to the respect which he owed them under the general printed instructions.”  The very idea of any grown man being expected to have “respect” for superior officers who had no more sense of justice, dignity, or self-respect than to produce such a blatant document for the supreme purpose of covering up a sample of mingled folly and rascality, and ruining a poor man who was at their ill-conditioned mercy!

Indeed, we need no further justification for Napoleon’s statements as to what the official intention was towards him.  Without a doubt Dr. Max Lenz is too reckless in his generosity towards Lowe, for his actions from beginning to end of his career prove that he was a dreadful creature.  The thought of him and of those incarnate spiders who kept spinning their web, and for six mortal years disgracing humanity, is in truth enough to unsettle one’s reason.  Vainly they had ransacked creation in search of persons in authority to support them in the plea of justification, but never a soul came forth to share what is now regarded as ingrained criminality.

Perhaps the virulent treatment of Byron ranks with the meanest and most impotent actions of the militant oligarchists because of his shocking (?) sympathy with England’s enemy.  The fierce though exquisite weaver of rhymes, who had been the idol of the nation and the drawing-room, was sought after by the highest and most cultured in the land.  Byron had fallen a victim to public displeasure partly because he gave way to excesses that shocked the orthodoxy of a capricious public.  He had reached a pinnacle of fame such as no man of his years had ever attained, and suddenly without warning he fell, a victim to unparalleled vituperation.  His faults, if the meagre accounts that have been handed down are true, were great, but many of them were merely human.  His marriage was not compatible, and his love entanglements embarrassing.  His temper and habits were very similar to those of other geniuses, and great allowances should be made for personalities whose mental arrangements may be such as to nullify normal control.

It is all very well to say that these men should be compelled to adhere to a conventional law because ordinary mortals are expected to do so, but a man like Byron was not ordinary.  In his particular line he was a great force with a brain that took spasmodic twists.  It is absurd to expect that a being whose genius produced “Childe Harold” and “Manfred” could be fashioned into living a quite commonplace domestic life.  Miss Milbanke, who married him, and the public who first blessed and then cursed and made him an outcast, were not faultless.  Had they been possessed of the superiority they piously assumed, they would have seen how impossible it was for this eccentric man of stormy passions to be controlled and overridden by conventionality.

It is possible the serene critic may take exception to this form of reasoning and produce examples of genius, such as Wordsworth, who lived a strictly pious life, never offending any moral law by a hairbreadth; but Wordsworth was not made like Byron; he had not the personality of the poor wayward cripple who at one time had brought the world to his feet, neither had Wordsworth to fight against such wild hereditary complications as Byron.  Wordsworth never caught the public imagination, while Byron had the power of inflaming it.  But, alas! neither his magnetic force nor his haughty spirit could stem the whirlwind of hatred, rage, and calumny that took possession of the virtuous and capricious public.  The story of cruelty to his wife grew in its enormity, his reported liaisons multiplied beyond all human reason.  The bleached, white hearts of the oligarchal party had been lashed into fury by his withering ridicule and charge of hypocrisy, but the climax came like a tornado when the poet’s sense of fair play caused him to satirise the Prince Regent and eulogise the Emperor Napoleon with unique pathos and passion.

This was high treason!  He had at last put himself beyond the mercy of the chosen people.  They had twaddled and stormed about his immorality, but his praise of Napoleon sent them into diabolic frenzy.  He was proclaimed an outlaw and hounded out of the country.  The beautiful and rich Lady Jersey, a leader of society, convinced that he was misunderstood and was being treated with unreasonable severity, defended him with all the strength of her resolute character, but malignity had sunk too deep even for her power and influence to avert the disaster.  So intense was the feeling engendered against him that it became dangerous for him to drive out without risking an exhibition of virulent hostility.  Had he merely abused the Prince Regent, it is improbable that any exception would have been taken to it; but to praise and show compassion for the Man of the French Revolution, who had fought for a new condition of things which threatened the fabric on which their order held its dominating and despotic sway, was an enormity they were persuaded even God in heaven could not tolerate; why then, should they be expected to do so?-they were only human.  Both public and private resentment ran amok, and thus it was that the immortal poet’s belauding of the immortal Emperor became linked to the ignominy of being accused of gross immorality.  The reaction against this eccentric being was a fanaticism.  There was neither sense nor reason in it, and as he said, “If what they say of me be true, then I am not fit for England; but if it be false, then England is not fit for me”; and with this thought thrilling in his mind he left his native land, never more to see it.

Caught without a doubt by the spirit of the great man whose eulogy had given such offence in certain quarters, he embarked on the crusade of emancipating the Greeks, was stricken with fever, and died at Missolonghi.

Adhering to human tradition, the nation which had so recently cast him out became afflicted with grief.  Men and women cast reflection on themselves for their misguided judgment of him, and he became a god in memory again, his wife being a singular exception in the great demonstration of national penitence.  The incomparable poet had sinned grievously, if rumour may be relied upon, but he was made to suffer out of all proportion to his sinning.  His faults were only different from other men’s.  It may be said quite truly that one of his defects was in having been born a genius, and allowing himself to be idolised by a public whose opinions and friendships were shifty.  Second, he erred in disregarding and satirising puritanical conventionalisms.  Thirdly, and probably the most provocative of all, was his defiance of the fiery patriotism of some of the ruling classes in lauding him whom they stigmatised as the enemy of the human race and lampooning the precious Prince Regent.  His extraordinary talents did not shield him, any more than they did the hero of fifty pitched battles whose greatness he had extolled.