Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume V

This deplorable and desperate course seems to have been adopted partly to spite Sir Hudson Lowe, partly in the reckless feelings of despondency inspired by his situation, and in some degree, perhaps, was the effect of the disease itself, which must necessarily have disinclined him to motion. Napoleon might also hope, that, by thus threatening to injure his health by forbearing exercise, he might extort the governor's acquiescence in some points which were disputed betwixt them. When the governor sent to offer him some extension of his riding ground, and Dr. O'Meara wished him to profit by the permission, he replied, that he should be insulted by the challenge of the sentinels, and that he did not choose to submit to the caprice of the governor, who, granting an indulgence one day, might recall it the next. On such grounds as these – which, after all, amounted just to this, that being a prisoner, and one of great importance, he was placed under a system of vigilance, rendered more necessary by the constant intrigues carried on for his escape – did he feel himself at liberty to neglect those precautions of exercise and medicine, which were necessary for the preservation of his health. His conduct on such occasions can scarce be termed worthy of his powerful mind; it resembled too much that of the froward child, who refuses its food, or its physic, because it is contradicted.

REMOVAL OF O'MEARA

The removal of Dr. O'Meara from Napoleon's person, which was considered by him as a great injury, was the next important incident in the monotony of his life. It seems, from quotations given elsewhere in this volume, that Dr. O'Meara had been for some time a confident of Sir Hudson Lowe, and was recommended by him to ministers as a person by whose means he could learn what passed in the family of Napoleon. But in process of time, Dr. O'Meara, growing, perhaps, more intimate with the prisoner, became unwilling to supply the governor with the information of which he had been formerly profuse, and a quarrel took place betwixt him and Sir Hudson Lowe. In describing the scenes which passed between him and the governor, we have already said that Dr. O'Meara writes with a degree of personal animosity, which is unfavourable to his own credit. But his departure from St. Helena was occasioned by a warmer mark of the interest which he took in Napoleon's fortunes, than could be inferred from his merely refusing to inform Sir Hudson of what was said at Longwood.

Dr. O'Meara seems not only to have taken the part of Napoleon in his controversies with the governor, but also to have engaged deeply in forwarding a secret correspondence with a Mr. Holmes, the Ex-Emperor's agent in London. This appears to have been clearly proved by a letter received from the agent, relating to large remittances of money to St. Helena, by the connivance of the physician.268 Under such suspicions, Dr. O'Meara was withdrawn by the governor's mandate from attending on the person of Napoleon, and sent back to England. Napoleon had never obeyed his medical injunctions, but he complained severely when he was recalled from his household; expressing his belief that the depriving him of the medical attendant, whose prescriptions he had never followed, was a direct and bold step in the plan contrived for murdering him. It is probable, however, he regretted Dr. O'Meara's secret services more than those which were professional.

Sir Hudson Lowe again offered the assistance of Dr. Baxter, but this was construed at Longwood into an additional offence. It was even treated as an offer big with suspicion. The governor tried, it was said, to palm his own private physician upon the Emperor, doubtless that he might hold his life more effectually in his power. On the other hand, the British ministers were anxious that every thing should be done which could prevent complaints on this head. "You cannot better fulfil the wishes of his Majesty's Government" (says one of Lord Bathurst's despatches to the Governor) "than by giving effect to any measure which you may consider calculated to prevent any just ground of dissatisfaction on the part of General Buonaparte, on account of any real or supposed inadequacy of medical attendance."

Dr. Stokoe, surgeon on board the Conqueror, was next called in to visit at Longwood. But differences arose betwixt him and the governor, and after a few visits his attendance on Napoleon was discharged.

After this period, the prisoner expressed his determination, whatever might be the extremity of his case, not to permit the visits of an English physician; and a commission was sent to Italy to obtain a medical man of reputation from some of the seminaries in that country. At the same time, Napoleon signified a desire to have the company of a Catholic priest. The proposition for this purpose came through his uncle, Cardinal Fesch, to the Papal government, and readily received the assent of the British ministry. It would appear that this mission had been thought by his Holiness to resemble, in some degree, those sent into foreign and misbelieving countries; for two churchmen were despatched to St. Helena instead of one.

The senior priest, Father Bonavita, was an elderly man, subject to the infirmities belonging to his period of life, and broken by a residence of twenty-six years in Mexico. His speech had been affected by a paralytic stroke. His recommendation to the office which he now undertook, was his having been father confessor to Napoleon's mother. His companion was a young abbé, called Vignali.269 Both were pious, good men, well qualified, doubtless, to give Napoleon the comfort which their Church holds out to those who receive its tenets, but not so much as to reclaim wanderers, or confirm those who might doubt the doctrines of the Church.

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS

Argument or controversy, however, were not necessary. Napoleon had declared his resolution to die in the faith of his fathers. He was neither an infidel, he said, nor a philosopher. If we doubt whether a person who had conducted himself towards the Pope in the way which history records of Napoleon, and who had at one time been excommunicated, (if, indeed, the ban was yet removed,) could be sincere in his general professions of Catholicism, we must at least acquit the Exile of the charge of deliberate atheism. On various occasions, he expressed, with deep feelings of devotion, his conviction of the existence of the Deity, the great truth upon which the whole system of religion rests; and this at a time when the detestable doctrines of atheism and materialism were generally current in France. Immediately after his elevation to the dignity of First Consul, he meditated the restoration of religion; and thus, in a mixture of feeling and of policy, expressed himself upon the subject to Thibaudeau, then a counsellor of state. Having combated for a long time the systems of modern philosophers upon different kinds of worship, upon deism, natural religion, and so forth, he proceeded. "Last Sunday evening, in the general silence of nature, I was walking in these grounds (of Malmaison.) The sound of the church-bell of Ruel fell upon my ear, and renewed all the impressions of my youth. I was profoundly affected, such is the power of early habit and associations; and I considered, if such was the case with me, what must not be the effect of such recollections upon the more simple and credulous vulgar? Let your philosophers answer that. The people must have a religion." He went on to state the terms on which he would negotiate with the Pope, and added, "They will say I am a Papist – I am no such thing. I was a Mahomedan in Egypt. I will be a Catholic here, for the good of the people. I do not believe in forms of religion, but in the existence of a God!" He extended his hands towards heaven – "Who is it that has created all above and around us?"270 This sublime passage proves, that Napoleon (unfortunate in having proceeded no farther towards the Christian shrine) had at least crossed the threshold of the temple, and believed in and worshipped the Great Father of the Universe.

The missionaries were received at St. Helena with civility, and the rites of mass were occasionally performed at Longwood. Both the clergymen were quiet, unobtrusive characters, confining themselves to their religious duties, and showing neither the abilities, nor the active and intriguing spirit which Protestants are apt to impute to the Catholic priesthood.

The same vessel which arrived at St. Helena on the 18th September, in 1819, with these physicians for the mind, brought with them Dr. F. Antommarchi, anatomic pro-sector (that is, assistant to a professor of anatomy) to the Hospital of St. Marie Neuve at Florence, attached to the University of Pisa, who was designed to supply the place about the prisoner's person, occupied by Dr. O'Meara, and after him provisionally by Dr. Stokoe. He continued to hold the office till Napoleon's death, and his Account of his Last Moments, a work in two volumes, though less interesting, and showing far less acuteness than that of Las Cases, or of O'Meara, is yet useful and entertaining, as relating to the last days of so extraordinary a person. Dr. Antommarchi seems to have been acceptable to Napoleon, and the rather that he was a native of Corsica. He brought also news from his family. The Princess Pauline Borghese had offered to come to attend him. "Let her remain where she is," said Napoleon; "I would not have her witness the degrading state which I am reduced to, and the insults to which I am subjected."

It is needless to resume the subject of these alleged insults. They consisted in the precautions which Sir Hudson Lowe deemed himself obliged to take for the security of his prisoner; particularly in requiring that a British officer should be regularly made assured of his being at Longwood, and that an officer, not under the rank of captain, should attend him on the excursions which he proposed to make through the island. On these subjects, Napoleon had made his mind up to a species of passive resistance; and had, as we have seen, already expressed himself determined to take no exercise, however indispensable to his health, unless the regulations of his confinement were entirely dispensed with, or modified according to his own pleasure. This was an argument ad misericordiam, which must have given the governor great distress and uneasiness; since, if the health of the prisoner should fail, even though it was through his own wilfulness, Sir Hudson could not expect that his conduct would escape censure. At the same time, if he yielded to this species of compulsory argument, it might be carried to an extent altogether inconsistent with the safe custody of the captive. His vigilance was also sharpened by constant reports of plots for the liberation of Napoleon; and the sums of money which he and his family had at their command, rendered it dangerous to trust to the natural securities of the island. It is remarkable, too, that, in demanding, as a matter of right, freedom from the restrictions of which he complained, Napoleon never proposed any concessions on his part, by offer of his parole or otherwise, which might tend to give any additional moral assurance, in place of those limitations which he desired to have removed. Yet, to accommodate himself, in some degree to his prisoner's obstinacy, Sir Hudson Lowe was content that the British officer, whose duty it was to report on the presence of Napoleon at Longwood, should only be required to satisfy himself of it by such indirect opportunities as his walking in the garden, or appearing at the window, permitted him to enjoy, and on such occasions he was enjoined to keep his own person concealed. In this way, there were days which passed without any regular report on this most important point, for which Sir Hudson Lowe would have been highly responsible if an escape had been effected. We beg to refer to Dr. Antommarchi's work for instances of the peculiar and grossly indelicate opportunities, which, to compound between the necessity of the case and the obstinacy of Napoleon, his attendants took to make his person visible when he was not aware of it.271

PLANS OF ESCAPE

Schemes for Napoleon's escape were not wanting. A Colonel Latapie, distinguished as a partisan officer, was said to be at the head of an attempt to carry him off from St. Helena, which was to be undertaken by a band of desperadoes from America. But Napoleon said, he knew too well the character of such adventurers to hope to profit by them. Government had other information of attempts to be made from America, but none of them seem to have proceeded to any serious length.

It was different with the undertaking of Johnstone, a smuggler of an uncommonly resolute character, and whose life had been a tissue of desperate risks. He had made a memorable escape from Newgate, and had afterwards piloted Lord Nelson's vessel to the attack of Copenhagen, when the ordinary masters of the fleet, and pilots, declined the task. Johnstone was also said to have meditated a bold attempt to carry off Buonaparte on a former occasion, when he trusted himself on the water for the purpose of visiting Flushing.272 And now he certainly engaged in a plot to deliver Napoleon from St. Helena, of a very singular kind. A submarine vessel – that is, a ship capable of being sunk under water for a certain time, and of being raised again at pleasure by disengaging certain weights, was to be the means of effecting this enterprise. It was thought that, by sinking the vessel during the daytime, she might escape the notice of the British cruizers, and being raised at night, might approach the guarded rock without discovery. The vessel was actually begun in one of the building-yards upon the Thames; but the peculiarity of her construction having occasioned suspicions, she was seized by the British Government.

These, and others which we could name, were very perilous and wild attempts, yet calculated to keep vigilance alive; for in every case in which great natural difficulties had been surmounted by such enterprises, it has been because these difficulties have been too much relied upon. But while such precarious means of escape were presented from time to time, the chance upon which Napoleon secretly relied for release from his present situation was vanishing from his eyes.

His case was mentioned in the House of Commons, but incidentally only, on the 12th July 1819.273 The subject was introduced into a debate on finance, when Mr. C. H. Hutchinson pointed out the yearly expense of detaining Napoleon at St. Helena, which he stated to amount to half-a-million sterling, as a useless expenditure of public money. In this statement, he received no countenance from any one except Mr. Joseph Hume. It was answered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and the expense was declared not to exceed a fifth-part of the sum alleged. The leading members of Opposition seemed to take no interest in the question; and it was believed at St. Helena, that Napoleon's disappointment in the hopes which he had entertained of their strong and overpowering interposition in his behalf, first led to his mental depression and total abandonment of hope.

The complexion of the times, indeed, had become such as to strengthen every reason which existed for detaining him in captivity. The state of England, owing to the discontent and sufferings of the manufacturing districts – and more especially that of Italy, convulsed by the short-lived revolutions of Naples and Savoy – rendered the safe custody of Napoleon a matter of more deep import than it had been at any time since his fall. What the effect of his name might have produced in that moment of general commotion, cannot be estimated, but the consequences of his escape must have been most formidable.

The British Ministry, aware of the power of such a spirit to work among the troubled elements, anxiously enjoined additional vigilance to the governor of St. Helena:

"The overthrow of the Neapolitan government, the revolutionary spirit which more or less prevails over all Italy, and the doubtful state of France itself, must excite his attention, and clearly show that a crisis is fast approaching, if not already arrived, when his escape would be productive of important consequences. That his partisans are active, cannot be doubted; and if he be ever willing to hazard the attempt, he will never allow such an opportunity to escape. You will, therefore, exert all your attention in watching his proceedings, and call upon the admiral to use his utmost vigilance, as upon the navy so much must ultimately depend."274

INCREASED ILLNESS

The alarm was natural, but there was no real cause for apprehension. Politics and war were never more to know the powerful influence of Napoleon Buonaparte. His lost hopes aggravating the progress of the cruel disease, which had its source in the stomach, it now affected the whole frame, and undermined the strength of the constitution. Death was now finally to terminate the fretful and degrading discussions, by which he inflicted, and from which he received, so much pain, and to open the gates of a prison, for which Hope herself could scarce present another key. The symptoms of disorganisation in the digestive powers became more and more apparent, and his reluctance to take any medicine, as if from an instinctive persuasion that the power of physic was in vain, continued as obstinate as ever. On one of the many disputes which he maintained on this subject, he answered Antommarchi's reasoning thus: – "Doctor, no physicking. We are, as I already told you, a machine made to live. We are organised for that purpose, and such is our nature. Do not counteract the living principle. Let it alone – leave it the liberty of defending itself – it will do better than your drugs. Our body is a watch, that is intended to go for a given time. The watchmaker cannot open it; and must, on handling it, grope his way blindfolded and at random. For once that he assists and relieves it by dint of tormenting it with his crooked instruments, he injures it ten times, and at last destroys it."275 This was on the 14th of October, 1820.

As the Ex-Emperor's health grew weaker, it cannot be thought extraordinary that his mind became more and more depressed. In lack of other means of amusing himself, he had been somewhat interested in the construction of a pond and fountain in the garden of Longwood, which was stocked with small fishes. A mixture of copperas in the mastick employed in cementing the basin, had affected the water. The creatures which had been in a good measure the object of Napoleon's attention, began to sicken and to die. He was deeply affected by the circumstance, and, in language strongly resembling the beautiful verses of Moore, expressed his sense of the fatality which seemed to attach itself to him. "Every thing I love – every thing that belongs to me," he exclaimed, "is immediately struck.276 Heaven and mankind unite to afflict me."277 At other times he lamented his decay of energy. The bed, he said, was now a place of luxury, which he would not exchange for all the thrones in the universe. The eyes, which formerly were so vigilant, could now scarcely be opened. He recollected that he used to dictate to four or five secretaries at once. "But then," he said, "I was Napoleon – now I am no longer any thing – my strength, my faculties, forsake me – I no longer live, I only exist."278 Often he remained silent for many hours, suffering, as may be supposed, much pain, and immersed in profound melancholy.

About the 22d January, 1821, Napoleon appeared to resume some energy, and to make some attempt to conquer his disease by exercise. He mounted his horse, and galloped, for the last time, five or six miles around the limits of Longwood, but nature was overcome by the effort. He complained that his strength was sinking under him rapidly.279

The governor had already transmitted to Britain accounts of Napoleon's decay of health, without having it, however, in his power to ascertain how far it was real, or how far the appearances were assumed. The patient would neither receive the visit of any English surgeon or physician, nor would he authorise the communication of Dr. Antommarchi with Sir Hudson Lowe. The governor was obliged to state accounts of the prisoner's declining health as reports, the reality of which he had no means of ascertaining. The generous feelings of the great personage at the head of the British Government were naturally deeply interested in the fate of the prisoner, and prompted him, by every means in his power, and especially by expressions of his own sympathy, to extend such hope and comfort to Napoleon as he could be supposed to receive, under the necessity of his continued captivity. The following is Lord Bathurst's despatch to Sir Hudson Lowe on this interesting subject, dated 16th February, 1821: —

"I am aware how difficult it is to make any communication to the General which will not be liable to misrepresentation; and yet, if he be really ill, he may derive some consolation by knowing, that the repeated accounts which have of late been transmitted of his declining health, have not been received with indifference. You will, therefore, communicate to General Buonaparte the great interest which his Majesty has taken in the recent accounts of his indisposition, and the anxiety which his Majesty feels to afford him every relief of which his situation admits. You will assure General Buonaparte that there is no alleviation which can be derived from additional medical assistance, nor any arrangement consistent with the safe custody of his person at St. Helena, (and his Majesty cannot now hold out any expectation of his removal,) which his Majesty is not most ready and desirous to afford. You will not only repeat the offer which has already been more than once made, of such further medical assistance as the island of St. Helena affords, but you will give him the option of procuring the attendance of any of the medical gentlemen who are at the Cape, where there is one, at least, of considerable eminence in his profession; and in case of any wish being expressed by the General to receive such assistance, you will consider yourself authorised to make a communication to the Cape, and take such other measures as may be necessary to secure the immediate attendance of the person whom the General may name."

Napoleon had not the satisfaction to know the interest which his Majesty took in his illness, which would probably have afforded him some gleam of consolation. The tenor of the letter might, perhaps, have induced him to think, that his own system of pertinacious contest with the authorities under whose charge he was placed, had been so far injudicious, as to lead to doubts of the reality of the disorder under which he was dying; and had therefore been one great cause of intercepting the sympathy, and perhaps the relief, which must otherwise have extended itself to a situation so well deserving of commiseration.

LAST ILLNESS

Towards the end of March the disease assumed a character still more formidable, and Dr. Antommarchi became desirous of obtaining a consultation with some of the English medical men. The Emperor's aversion to their assistance had been increased by a well-meant offer of the governor, announcing that a physician of eminence had arrived at the island, whom he therefore placed at General Buonaparte's devotion.280 This proposal, like every other advance on the part of Sir Hudson Lowe, had been received as a meditated injury; "He wants to deceive Europe by false bulletins," said Napoleon; "I will not see any one who is in communication with him."281 To refuse seeing every physician but his own, was certainly an option which ought to have been left in Napoleon's choice, and it was so left accordingly. But in thus obstinately declining to see an impartial medical man, whose report must have been conclusive respecting his state of health, Napoleon unquestionably strengthened the belief, that his case was not so desperate as it proved to be.

At length the Ex-Emperor consented that Dr. Antommarchi should consult with Dr. Arnott, surgeon of the 20th regiment.282 But the united opinion of the medical gentlemen could not overcome the aversion of Napoleon to medicine, or shake the belief which he reposed in the gloomy doctrines of fatalism. "Quod scriptum scriptum," he replied in the language of a Moslem; "All that is to happen is written down. Our hour is marked, and it is not in our power to claim a moment longer of life than Fate has predestined for us."283

Dr. Antommarchi finally prevailed in obtaining admittance for Dr. Arnott into the apartment and presence of the patient, who complained chiefly of his stomach, of the disposition to vomit, and deficiency of the digestive powers. He saw him, for the first time on 2d April, 1821, and continued his visits regularly. Napoleon expressed his opinion that his liver was affected. Dr. Arnott's observations led him to think, that though the action of the liver might be imperfect, the seat of the disease was to be looked for elsewhere. And here it is to be remarked, that Napoleon, when Dr. Antommarchi expressed doubts on the state of his stomach, had repelled them with sharpness, though his own private belief was, that he was afflicted with the disease of his father. Thus, with a capricious inconsistency, natural enough to a sick bed, he communicated to some of his retinue his sense of what disease afflicted him, though, afraid perhaps of some course of medicine being proposed, he did not desire that his surgeon should know his suspicions.284 From the 15th to the 24th of April, Napoleon was engaged from time to time in making his testamentary bequests, of which we shall have occasion to make some mention hereafter, as illustrative of his peculiar character and sentiments. On the day last mentioned, he was greatly exhausted by the fatigue of writing, and showed symptoms of over-excitation. Among these may be safely included, a plan which he spoke of for reconciling all religious dissensions in France, which he said he had designed to carry into effect.