The Tragedy of St. Helena

make his ruin complete. They dare not run the risk of putting him to death outright, but they engineered, by means of willing tools, a plan that was unheard-of in its a

or was dismissed because he secretly told him something of his father's fame. Treated as a prisoner, spied upon by Metternich's satellites, not allowed to have any visitors without this immortal Chancellor's permission, not allowed to communicate with his father's family or with Fren

ed him, and now he is become the Duke's confidant and instructor. The Prince says that his cousin asked to be told about the deeds that his father had done, his fall, and exile. There does not appear to be any record in existence as to what

anguage, and his reply was: "This advice has not fallen on an unfruitful or an ungrateful soil. Every imaginable motive inspires me with the desire to perfect myself in, and to overcome the difficulties of, a language which at the present moment forms the most essential part of my studies. It is the language in which my father gave the word o

memory." The Chancellor replies, "I will speak to the Duke about his father as I should wish myself to be spoken of to my own son." What irony! Whatever attempts were made at any time to depreciate the Emperor, his son's loyalty to him never flinched. He regarded his father in

ite clearly that he never under-estimated his importance. He was fully alive to and appreciated the growing devotion to himself, his cause, and to the great name he bore. We learn from Marshal Marmont that the Prince received him with marked cordiality when the Emperor Francis gave him permission to relate to him his father'

ung man subdued his prejudices and encouraged the Marshal in his visits to his apartments, in order that he might learn all that Marmont could tell him of his father's qualities and accomplishments. The young Nap

culpable Chancellor, Metternich, whose clumsy and heartless treatment is so apparent to all students of history. Probably this is the policy that prevailed up to 1830 which Prince Napoleon complains of. Be that as it may, we are persuaded that the Duke was not only well informed, but took a keen interest in the events of his own and of his father's life, long before the advent of Marmont as his tutor. For instance, on one occasion his friend, Count Prokesch, dined with his grandfather in 1830, and at table the Prince was afforded great pleasure in having the opportunity of conversing with this distinguished man. The young Duke

perceived the immoral relations between Neipperg and Marie Louise, the Duke never seems to have divulged it; but taking into account the passionate love and devotion he had for his father's memory, it is barely likely that he knew either of the amorous connection or marriage having taken place between the Count and his mother, otherwise he would have had something to say about it, not only to Neipperg himself, but certainly to his friends P

votion of a large public in Europe, and especially in France, and had his life been preserved a few more

raging the project of making the Duke Emperor of the French. His subtle game was to use him as

husiastic than the loyal and devoted Count Montholon, Bertrand, the petulant and penitent Gourgaud, and Savary, Duke of Rovigo. These were joined to thousands of other brave men who would have considered it an honour to shed their last drop of blood for the cause, and in memory of him whom they had loved so well. The two first-named were executors to his father's will, in which Napoleon enjoins his son not to attempt to avenge his death but to profit by it. He reminds him that things have changed. He was obliged to daunt E

g man from the tragic rock whose memories will ever defame the name of

onstrous in the history of its perfidy, should be illumined by the g

ion for his son. It is doubtful whether Montholon ever succeeded in conveying it t

this was their ostensible plea, but the real reason was his determination to exterminate feudalism and establish democratic institutions as soon as he could bring the different factions into harmony. He f

he Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle by the allied sovereigns who declared him an outlaw, and spent their time in allocating

and hated by the oligarchy, left behind him a constitution

adopted some of its laws long after his death, and we might go on copying to our advantage. He was a real progressor, but his team was difficult to guide. Had he been conciliated and allowed to remain at peace, he would have democratised t

eless or incompetent medical treatment. It is even asserted that this heir to the throne of France, ushered in twenty-one years before as the herald of Peace, was to be regarded as a source of infinite danger, and for that barbaric reason his health was allowed to be slowly and surely undermined until death took him from the restraining influences and crimeful policy of the Courts of Europe. Great efforts have been made to convince a sce

Paris a report was put about that he had been poisoned by the Court of Vienna. This opinion ha

s declaring the most loyal friendship. He admits this, nay, even boasts of it, in his memoirs, and his shameful conduct has its reward by having won for him the stigma of wishing for, and hastening on, the death of an unfortunate young man for whom ordinary manliness should have claimed compassion. This moral assassin of father and so

eld up his hands and said to me, "Oh! what a blunder the criminal affair was. Had the Powers beheld the mission of this man aright, what a blessing it would have been to the w

e up of libels. Metternich may here be dismissed as being only one of many whose highest ambition was to destroy the man whom the French nation had made their monarch. Thei

t may never be cleared up, though the actions of the high commissioners in the nauseous drama cause lingering doubts to prevail as to their innocence. It is certain that several determined attempts were made to t

d eccentric female made her way uninterruptedly to Vienna, found her cousin on the doorstep, made a rush for him and seized his hand, then shouted, "Who can prevent my kissing my sovereign's hand?" She also found means to convey letters to him. There is not much said about this Napoleonic dash, but from

ighteen years it mounted to over six million francs. She died

strian Prince, imbued with Austrian methods and policy, and therefore dangerous to the best interests of France. This Prince went so far as to hail with pleasure the crowning of Louis Philippe. He died in 1831. In the following year his Imperial cousin passed on too, and his demise was a great blow to the Bonapartists' cause, and it well-nigh killed the ag

me, I have never ceased to entertain towards him the devotion of a mother. In him I still found an object of some consolation, but to my great age, and to my incessant and pai

ate the bitterness of my grief. Be sure that it will remain with me all my life. My condition precludes me f

hts of the great martyr whom the woman she was writing to had wronged. There is not a syllable of open reproach, though there runs through it a polite,

o her strength and nobility of character, but the stupid old King who succeeded her son to the throne of France got it into his head that she was harbouring agents in Corsica to excite rebellion, and he thereupon had a compla

did, I should not employ them to foment troubles in Corsica, or to gain adherents for my son in France, since he already has enou

reverently an

rebuff both to Pius VII. an

dy by H. Noel Williams. It appears she persisted after the f

"Europe bowed to the dust before my son's arms for

version, was excited to indignation, so letting down the window she exclaimed to them, "What, gentlemen, is your pleasure? If it is to see the mother of the Emperor Napoleon, here she is!" The officers w

hough courteous, appeal for justice and magnanimity, and above all the echo of motherly love which characterises it, stamp it as a document worth cherishi

s, and posterity, which forgets nothing, admire

f they had obviated the necessity of writing it. The testimony of Pius VII. is that sh

and comforted herself with a few words of sad humour, remarking that if she could have been in Paris as in former days, God would have given her strength to climb to the top of the column to assure herself that it was there. She refused to separate her lot from that of her children, and would not accept the proposal that the sentence of banishment should be repealed

ld have witnessed the humiliating spectacle of her father's successor being forced to abdicate his throne in favour of the nephew of her Imperial husband, whose memory all noble hearts revere, and whose sufferings, domestic and public, will ever lie at the door of this woman who allowed herself to be the base accomplice of a great assassination. The most fitting reference to her death appeared in the Times newspaper, which said that "nothing in her life

llied satellites have made for me, and yet I keep these incomparable warriors of Europe in a state of alarm. I wish you joy of your allies, who have behaved so nobly to your husband in captivity. I have often thought in my solitude, Louise, that it would have been a more popular national union had I carried out my intention of taking for my second wife a Frenchwoman. It may be that my marriage with you, consummated by every token of peace and goodwill, was really the beginning of my downfall. Ah! how much more noble of you to have followed me in my adversity to Elba. You might have done great service to France and to your native land, to say nothing of the possibility of breaking up the coalition against me and saving rivers of blood. Waterloo might never have been fought had you emulated your matchless sister-in-law, Catherine of Westphalia, in her attitude of supreme womanhood, and your fame might have surpassed that of Joan of Arc, and been handed down to distant ages as an example of heroic firmness and devotion, and then you would have been beatified by the Church and acclaimed a saint by the people to which you belong. You shared with me the unequalled grandeur of the most powerful throne on earth. I was devoted to you and you betrayed me. Your father insisted that you should break your marriage vow and found in you a willin

man probability. The remarkable thing is that he should have made any reference at all to this erotic woman in his will. It puzzled his companions in exile, who knew well enough that she was the cause of much mental anguish to him. It afflicted him so keenly

t, Augereau, Talleyrand, and La Fayette. I forgive them-may the posterity of France forgive them as I do." Then in the seventh paragraph he pardons his brother Louis for the libel he published in 1820, although, as he states, "It is replete with false assertions and falsified documents." He heaps coals of

ous fear had made it an important part of their policy that Marie Louise should be the pivot on which the complete ruin of Napoleon should centre, so Neipperg was fixed upon as a fit and proper person to mould the ex-Empress into passive obedience to t

ness on the part of her Imperial husband, read books and pamphlets manufactured and exactly suited for the purpose he ha

lirium as that of forcing a weak woman to forsake her husband, sacrifice the interests of her child, and tempt her to break her marriage

ade some courteous and consoling observations, she says "that all the efforts of art were powerless, for it is impossible to fight against the Divine Will. You are very right in saying that time and religion can alone diminish the bitterness of such a loss. Alas! the former, far from exercis

by her marriage in 1833 to a Frenchman called De Bombelles, who was in the service of her native land, and is said to have had English blood in his veins. In spite of the loyal effort o

n and he became the victim of persecution, this good woman forgot her prejudices, sent for Meneval, and said to him that she had had cause to regard Napoleon at one time as an enemy, but now that he was in trouble she forgot the past. She declared that if it was sti

l marriage of her granddaughter to the French Emperor was ill-assorted and tragic, but the deed having been done, she upheld the divine law of marriage. Besides, she knew that Napoleon had been an indulgent, kind husband to the uneven-minded girl, and that, whatever his faults may have been, it was her duty to comfort him and share in his sorrow as she

y family, without a change of feature-not the slightest emotion or alteration of countenance would

over men and himself, he had a real womanly supply of human tenderness. Once he was seen weeping before the portrait of his much beloved son, whom he called "Mon pauvre petit chou." "I do

TNO

nce de Napoléon,"

Wertheimer's "Duke o

ee "Me

ee "Me