The Tragedy of St. Helena Part 8

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 n.o.bles to the plan of one man who towered above them, and insisted on breaking up the nefarious system of feudalism and kings.h.i.+p by divine right.

They loathed both him and his system. They plotted for his a.s.sa.s.sination, 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 ca.n.a.ls, 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 n.o.bles of France ma.s.sacred. 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 n.o.ble 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 ign.o.ble 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 pa.s.sing 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 leaders.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sionate 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 a.s.sumption got him imprisoned in Ham for a.s.serting what he protested was his right.

Meanwhile the _Bellepoule_ goes lumbering along, impeded by calms and gales, but anch.o.r.ed 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 pa.s.sing 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 circ.u.mstantial 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 l.u.s.tre to the name of Bourbon by the heroic decision that, whatever the fortune of battle might be, he would sink his s.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sage 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 unsurpa.s.sed 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. G.o.d 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 sh.o.r.es of his beloved country and convulsed it with irrepressible joy. They and many of their accomplices were gone. Four Popes had reigned and pa.s.sed 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 Ma.s.sena had pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sisted 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 pa.s.sed 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 ign.o.bly to bring about the fall of a powerful leader, and to the end of their days were a.s.sociated 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 a.s.set 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 doc.u.ment 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 pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sa.s.sination 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 governors.h.i.+p, 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 publis.h.i.+ng 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 governors.h.i.+p should occur and he might lose his opportunity. He was a.s.sured 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 a.s.sa.s.sination 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 governors.h.i.+p 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 governors.h.i.+p 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 governors.h.i.+p 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 encompa.s.sed 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 att.i.tude 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[22] 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--s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 Blucher." When he heard the firing, "That is old Blucher 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 circ.u.mstances: 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sured 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 exact.i.tude, 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 doc.u.ments 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 att.i.tude of England's guest. He should have received his treatment, harsh and arbitrary though it was, with Christian fort.i.tude, 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.