1815-1821-1895
It is with St. Helena that all biographies of Napoleon Bonaparte hitherto published have ended, and perhaps it is just as well that these entertaining works, prepared by purely finite minds, should end there. It is well for an historian not to tell more than he knows, a principle which has guided our pen from the inception of this work to this point, and which must continue to the bitter end. We shall be relentless and truthful to the last, even though in so doing we are compelled to overthrow all historical precedent.
Bonaparte arrived at St. Helena in October, 1815. He had embarked, every one supposed, with the impression that he was going to America, and those about him, fearing a passionate outbreak when he learned the truth, tried for a time to convince him that he had taken the wrong steamer; then when they found that he could not be deceived in this way, they made allusions to the steering-gear having got out of order, but the ex-Emperor merely smiled.
"You cannot fool me," he said. "I know whither I am drifting. Iwent to a clairvoyant before leaving Paris, who cast a few dozen horoscopes for me and they all ended at St. Helena. It is inevitable. I must go there, and all these fairy tales about wrong steamers and broken rudders and so on are useless. I submit. Icould return if I wished, but I do not wish to return. By a mere speech to these sailors I could place myself in command of this ship to-day, turn her about and proclaim myself Emperor of the Seas; but Idon't want to. I prefer dry land and peace to a coup de tar and the throne of Neptune."All of which shows that the great warrior was weary.
Then followed a dreary exile of uneventful years, in which the ex-Emperor conducted paper campaigns of great fierceness against the English government, which with unprecedented parsimony allowed him no more than $60,000 a year and house rent.
"The idea of limiting me to five thousand dollars a month," he remarked, savagely, to Sir Hudson Lowe. "It's positively low.""It strikes me as positively high," retorted the governor. "You know well enough that you couldn't spend ten dollars a week in this place if you put your whole mind on it, if you hadn't insisted on having French waiters in your dining-room, whom you have to tip every time they bring you anything.""Humph!" said Bonaparte. "That isn't any argument. I'm a man used to handling large sums. It isn't that I want to spend money; it's that I want to have it about me in case of emergency. However, Iknow well enough why they keep my allowance down to $60,000.""Why is it?" asked Sir Hudson.
"They know that you can't be bought for $60,000, but they wouldn't dare make it $60,000 and one cent," retorted the captive. "Put that in your cigarette and smoke it, Sir Harlem, and hereafter call me Emperor. That's my name, Emperor N. Bonaparte.""And I beg that you will not call me Sir Harlem," returned the governor, irritated by the Emperor's manner. "My name is Hudson, not Harlem.""Pray excuse the slip," said the Emperor, scornfully. "I knew you were named after some American river, I didn't know which. However, I imagined that the Harlem was nearer your size than the Hudson, since the latter has some pretensions to grandeur. Now please flow down to the sea and lose yourself, I'm getting sleepy again."So, in constant conflict with Sir Hudson, who refused to call him by his title, and whom in consequence he refused to call by his proper name, answering such epithets as "Corporal" and "Major" with a savagely-spoken "Delaware" or an ironically respectful "Mohawk,"Bonaparte dwelt at St. Helena until the 5th of May, 1821, when, historians tell us, he died. This is an error, for upon that date Bonaparte escaped. He had fought death too many times to succumb to him now, and, while the writers of history have in a sense stated the truth when they say that he passed away in the night, their readers have gained a false impression. It is the fact that Napoleon Bonaparte, like Dante and Virgil, passed over the dark river Styx as the honored leader of the rebellious forces of Hades. He did pass away in the night, but he went as he went from Elba, and, as we shall see, with more successful results.
For years the Government of Erebus had been unsatisfactory to many of its subjects, mainly on account of the arbitrary methods of the Weather Department.
"We are in a perpetual broil here," Caesar had said, "and I for one am getting tired of it. The country demands a change. This administration doesn't give us anything but dog-days."For this the Roman warrior had been arrested and kept in an oven at the rear of the Erebian Tuileries, as Apollyon's Palace was called, for two centuries.
"The next rebel gets a gridiron, and the third will be served to Cerberus en brochette," cried Apollyon.
Thus matters had gone on for five or six hundred years, and no one had ventured to complain further, particularly in view of Caesar's comments upon the horrid details of his incarceration published several years after his release, under the title of "Two Centuries in an Oven; or, Four Thousand and Six in the Shade."At the end of the eighteenth century, however, the aspect of affairs had changed. Apollyon had spent a great deal of his time abroad, and had failed to note how the revolution in America, the Reign of Terror in France, and the subsequent wars in Europe had materially increased the forces of the Republican Party in Hades. The French arrivals alone should have been sufficient to convince Apollyon that his attention to domestic affairs was needed, and that the Americanization of his domain was gaining a most considerable headway. All the movement really needed was a leader, but there was none to lead.
"Caesar's book has made us timid. I don't want any of it," said Alcibiades.
"I've had enough of public life," said Charlemagne.
"It's hot enough for us as it is," said all four of the "Three Musketeers.""We'll have to get somebody who is not aware of the possibilities of our climate," observed Frederick the Great.