Chapter I · (continued 2)

Montholon says that "some of the officers entreated to be allowed the honour of pressing to their lips the cloak of Marengo which covered the Emperor's feet." Lowe must have felt a pang of remorse when he saw these simple men pouring out in their sailorly and soldierly way tokens of profound sorrow. Everything that could had been done to cause their captive to be regarded as a menace to human safety, and to be forgotten altogether; but how futile to attempt such a task while the world of civilisation is swayed by human instinct and not by barbarity!

The report of Napoleon's death did not relieve the anxieties of the European Cabinets. They knew the danger of being overwhelmed by a revulsion of feeling, and the difficulty of stopping the masses once they are set in motion, and there were strong manifestations of the popular indignation breaking loose, with all the terrible consequences of a reign of terror. The feeling of grief was universal and intense. A spark might have caused a great conflagration. Lord Holland declared in Parliament that the very persons who detested this great man had acknowledged that for ten centuries there had not appeared upon earth a more extraordinary character.... "All Europe," he added, "has worn mourning for the hero"; and those who contributed to that great sacrifice are destined to be the objects of the execrations of the present generation as well as to those of posterity.

Just at the time the great spirit of the hero was passing on to the Elysian Fields, there, as he used to fancifully foreshadow, to meet his brave comrades in arms who had preceded him, a tempest of unusual severity broke over "the abode of darkness and of crimes." Houses were shaken to their foundation; the favourite willow-tree, where he had often sat and enjoyed the fresh breezes, was torn up by the hurricane, as indeed were the other trees round about Longwood. This terrible disturbance of the elements was characteristically interpreted as being the voice of the living God proclaiming to the world that the Emperor was being thundered into eternity to meet his Creator, and to be judged by Him for the wrongs his political and other opponents said he was guilty of towards themselves and the human race generally. In true British orthodoxy, the Great Judge is always claimed as a fellow-countryman, and Sir Walter Scott is not singular in attributing this phenomenal disturbance as an indication of coming vengeance against England's prisoner. The Scottish bard is not altogether impartial in the send-off of the exile. He associates another colossal personage with the great Corsican. The Lord Protector, we are reminded, was similarly borne from time into eternity on the wings of a devasting tornado. Poor Oliver! whose war-cry was "The Lord of Hosts," and who never doubted that he was the high commissioner sent by the Almighty to clean the earth of mischievous Royalists, traitors, Papists, and other ungovernable creatures in Ireland and elsewhere.

It does not appear to have struck these gentlemen, with their thoughts centred on Holy Writ and finding comfort in the support it gave to their contention, that the Great God, instead of making nature break out with such terrible violence to indicate His displeasure against this wonderful man, made in His own image and sent by Him to serve both a divine and a human purpose, was using accumulated natural forces to show His wrath at the culmination of the most atrocious tragedy that had ever been perpetrated.

The good Sir Walter and the unctuously pious biographer of Sir Hudson are obviously overcome by the coincidence of the storm and Napoleon's death coming simultaneously. To them it is the voice of God shouting forth gladness that the enemy of the British race is being made to pay the penalty of all the evil he has wrought. This is a very comforting conclusion to arrive at after having kept your victim on the rack for six years and made war on him for twenty, but did it never occur to them that the greatest sacrifice ever offered culminated in just such natural disturbances and that at the same time "the veil of the temple was rent in twain"?

Happily for the fair fame of human rights, many writers of Napoleonic history have got over national prejudices and timidity, and are chronicling very different views from those of Sir Walter and the uninteresting defender of Lowe; and the more impartial the minds who inquire into the first as well as the last phase of this extraordinary career, the more will it appear that he was not an enemy, but a powerful reforming agency of mankind. He vowed over and over again that he "never conquered unless in his own defence, and that Europe never ceased to make war upon France and her principles." And again he asserted: "One of my grand objects was to render education accessible to everybody. I caused every institution to be formed upon a plan which offered instruction to the public, either gratis or at a rate so moderate, as not to be beyond the means of the peasant. The museums were thrown open to the canaille. My canaille would have become the best educated in the world. All my exertions were directed to illuminate the mass of the nation instead of brutifying them by ignorance and superstition." These ideals are in striking contrast to the policy of the oligarchy of Europe, who were fighting to suppress knowledge and to re-establish the worst form of superstition and despotism.

It is a deplorable thought that the nations (and especially Great Britain) who allied themselves against this man of the people and sent him to an inhuman death might have saved themselves the eternal condemnation of future ages had they made their peace with him, as the sagacious Charles James Fox would have done had he lived. Had they been wise, they would have made use of his matchless gifts and well-balanced mind to help forward the regeneration of the human chaos which was both the cause and the result of the Revolution. Above all, had the "Liberty loving" British nation been true to her declared principles, she would either have kept aloof from the conflict that was raging or found some honourable means of co-operating with him, and thereby earned a share of the glory that will be eternally attached to his name in the great effort of extinguishing thraldom and ameliorating the condition of the masses.

Instead of this, she basely linked her destiny with the traitors of France and the allies of Europe to dethrone the monarch elected by the French people, and to place in his stead a king who was forced upon them by the Allies, and not the people of France. This is a strange travesty of "Liberty loving" government. Had the great Quaker been kept in power, instead of Pitt, who was always in a chronic state of scare and whining that he could never survive the downfall of his country, the rivers of British blood that were shed and the eight hundred million pounds sterling of debt need not have been squandered. All this was done at the bidding of a few men who were entrusted with the government of a great nation, and either by odious deception, or sheer incapacity to judge of the fitness of things, caused it to be believed that they were bound to maintain the balance of power or status quo which was endangered, and that the one man who had upset their nerves and incurred their hatred should be removed at all costs.

It is pretty certain that England could easily have kept out of the continental embroil had the Government been composed of men of talent and free from oligarchal prejudices, whereas all we got out of it, plus the loss of life and treasure, was a share in the questionable glory of Waterloo, the custody of the great figure who was betrayed by some of his own subjects, "the odium of having his death bequeathed to the reigning family of England," and the fact that Louis XVIII., by his own admission to the French nation, was put on the throne by our own precious Prince Regent.

These are only a few of the results that should not make us proud of that part of our history. But we have travelled far since those days of vicious actions. Nothing approaching the perfidy of it could happen in the present age. It is unthinkable that either the sagacious, peaceloving, peacemaking monarch on the throne or his Ministers and people would lend themselves to committing the senseless blunders that disgraced our name at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Even allowing that it was inevitable we should wage war against the head of the French nation, nothing can ever blot out the stain of having refused him the asylum he asked for, after we had taken so large a share in bringing about his downfall. He asked in the following letter to the Prince Regent to be the guest of England, and England made him its prisoner. Here is the document:—

"The sport of those factions which divide my country and an object of hostility to the greatest Powers of Europe, I have finished my political career, and come, like Themistocles, to sit down by the hearth of the English people. I place myself under the protection of their laws, which I claim from your Royal Highness as the most powerful, the most constant, and most generous of my enemies." Had it been left to the English people instead of to the Government and His Royal Highness, I do not think this dignified appeal would have been altogether ignored, as Napoleon's quarrel was not with the people.

They knew that it was the oligarchy that feared and detested him. It has been said that even His Royal Highness would have granted hospitality, and it would have saved the nation over which he ruled the blight of eternal execrations had he been strong enough to stand against the blundering decision of a revengeful Ministry.

No impartial student of the part played by Napoleon during twenty years of warfare will deny that the institutions he founded, the laws that he made, and his mode of government wherever established, were beneficent, and entirely aimed at the adjustment of inequalities that had culminated in a great national uprising. His dictatorship was wielded with a wholesome discipline without unnecessarily using the lash. He had no cut-and-dried maxim of dealing with unruly people, but his awful power made them feel that he distinguished between eternal justice and tyranny. He knew, and he made everybody else know, that under the circumstances too much liberty would be like poison to some people. When he said, "No more of this," the aggressors realised that the doctrine of fraternity as they understood it must not be stretched further.

Notwithstanding his methods of reproof and restraint, he was idolised by the masses, even by those he led his armies against and so often conquered. Even in our own country, where enmity against him was assiduously nursed by the press and other agencies, there was an important section who believed we were putting our money on the wrong horse. This idea was not confined to the poorer classes. Many of our best and wisest statesmen were strongly opposed to this policy of hostility against him.

He had starved in the streets of Paris, sold his precious books and other belongings to provide the means of buying bread to sustain himself and his much beloved brother Louis, who in after years behaved to him with base ingratitude. He suffered dreadful privations during the keen frosty nights, owing to the want of fire, light, and sometimes sufficient clothing. No wonder that he thought of ending his woes by plunging into the Seine.

But a glimmering of light came and lifted him out of a numbing despair. He was made to see in his hour of trial that lassitude must cease, and that he was meant for other things, and in order to accomplish them he must be strong and audacious. Fate, fortune, and a mysterious Providence found in him an indomitable chief whose genius was intended to change the face of Europe. Like all big men who spring from obscurity and the deadliness of poverty, and are launched on the scene to create order out of tumult and chaos, his enemies, in the nature of things, were both numerous and prolific. At the outset he adopted the method he so often thundered into his soldiers when on the eve of battle, viz.: "You must not fear Death, my lads. Defy him, and you drive him into the enemy's ranks."

One of the charges made against him by serene critics who have been desirous of showing his weak points is that he was too careless and forgiving towards the squabbling nest of paid and unpaid murderers who prowled about in disguise, thirsting after his blood. It is certain that he carried clemency to a fault in many instances, and this no doubt contributed to his undoing; but at the same time there is ample proof that he knew well enough where his foes were to be found, and whenever the dignity and safety of the State were imperilled, he was not slow to punish. His habit was not weakness, but only a too careless regard for his own personal safety.

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