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2024-03-07Barry Edward O'Meara: Napoleon at St. Helena
CHAPTER III
(continued)
March 16. — Saw the Emperor In the drawingroom. He was in extremely good spirits, laughed repeatedly, joked with me on a supposed attachment to a fair damsel, and endeavoured to speak some English. Said that he had seen Lady Bingham the day before, that she could not speak French, but that she 'looked good-tempered.'
' Bertrand,' said Napoleon, ' has told me that the Governor has at last sent up his answers. I have not read them myself, but from what Bertrand tells me, they are a very poor production, and would make one pity the writer who covers over so many pages without arriving at any conclusion.'
Napoleon spoke again about Talleyrand. 'The triumph of Talleyrand,' said he, ' is the triumph of immorality. A priest united to another man's wife, and who has paid her husband a large sum of money to leave her with him! A man who has sold everything, betrayed everybody and every side ! I forbade Madame Talleyrand the Court, first, because she was a disreputable character, and because I found out that some Genoese merchants had paid her four hundred thousand francs, in hopes of gaining some commercial favours through her husband. She was a very fine woman, English or East Indian, but sotte and grossly ignorant.
' I sometimes asked Denon, whose works I suppose you have read, to breakfast with me, as I took pleasure in his conversation, and conversed very freely with him. Many intriguers and speculators 'paid their court to Denon, with the view of inducing him to mention their projects or themselves in the course of his conversations with me, thinking that even being mentioned by such a man as Denon, for whom I had a great esteem, might materially serve them. Talleyrand, who was a great speculator, invited Denon to dinner. When he went home to his wife he said, " My dear, I have invited Denon to dine. He is a great traveller, and you must say something handsome to him about his travels, as he may be useful to us with the Emperor." His wife being extremely ignorant, and probably never having read any other book of travels than that of Robinson Crusoe, concluded that Denon could be nobody else than Robinson. Wishing to be very civil to him, she, before a large company, asked him divers questions about his man Friday!
(...)
His astonishment and that of the company cannot be described, nor the peals of laughter which it excited in Paris as the story flew like wildfire through the city, and even Talleyrand himself was ashamed of it.^
* Dr. Warden has said, continued he, that I turned Mahometan in Egypt. Now it is not the case. I never followed any of the tenets of that religion. I never prayed in the Mosques. I never abstained from wine, or was circumcised, neither did I ever profess it. I said merely that we were the friends of the Mussulmen, and that I respected Mahomet their prophet, which was true ; I respect him now.^
(...)
Therefore, when it is necesssary to fire at all, it ought to be done with ball at first. It is mistaken humanity to use powder only at that moment, and instead of saving the lives of men, ultimately causes an unnecessary waste of human blood.'
March 17. — Napoleon walked round the house for a short time.
A letter written by Captain Poppleton to Sir Hudson Lowe, informing His Excellency that the horses of the establishment had been three days without receiving any hay, and that for a length of time they had had no litter. Also, that the stuff sent as hay was grass recently cut, with occasionally a large portion of cow-grass ^ mixed with it. That upon allowing fifty pounds of the said miscalled hay to dry for two days, it only weighed, with the rope which bound it, twenty pounds, according to a very accurate trial made by himself. That in consequence, he had directed the grooms to go and cut some grass if they could find any, as the horses were starving.
March 18. — Napoleon joked with me for some time about St. Patrick, and endeavoured to speak some English, in which he succeeded better than I had ever observed before. I said, that I had remarked divers of his expressions in some of the French bulletins.
(...)
March 20. — Saw Napoleon in his bedroom in his dressing-gown. He spoke at length about some statements in Warden's book. * At one time I had appointed Talleyrand,' said he, 'to proceed on a mission to Warsaw, in order to arrange and organise the best method of accomplishing the separation of Poland from Russia. He had several conferences with me respecting this mission, which was a great surprise to the Ministers, as Talleyrand had no official character at the time. Having married one of his relations to the Duchess of Courland, Talleyrand was very anxious to receive the appointment, that he might revive the claims of the Duchess's family. However, some money transactions of his were discovered at Vienna, which determined me not to employ him on the intended mission. I had intended at one time to have made him a cardinal, with which he refused to comply. Madame Grandt threw herself twice upon her knees before me, in order to obtain permission to marry him, which I refused ; but through the entreaties of Josephine, she succeeded on the second application.
Barry Edward O'Meara, Napoleon at St. Helena, R.Bentley & son, London 1888.
Fot. Pixabay
