Napoleon's Young Neighbor/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X
THE SERIOUS SIDE
AS Betsy grew to know Napoleon better, she sometimes observed in his conversation and manner a sadness that she had not noticed earlier. This slight melancholy was especially evident when the conversation touched on Josephine or the little King of Rome. Often Napoleon gazed intently at Mrs. Balcombe, explaining as he did so that it was because she reminded him strongly of Josephine. He loved to talk of Josephine, especially with Madame Bertrand, who was a native of Martinique and was said also to be a distant relative of the Empress.
One day, for example, Madame Bertrand, in Betsy's presence, brought out a miniature Of Josephine. The Emperor seemed deeply moved as he gazed at it.
"It is the most perfect likeness of her that I have ever seen."
"It is for you, sir," said Madame Bertrand simply.
Thanking her warmly, Napoleon added, "I will keep it until my death."
On this occasion the Emperor was especially inclined to talk about his first wife, and Betsy, hearing him, wondered that he had been willing to separate himself from her.
"Josephine," he said, "was the most feminine woman I have ever known—all charm and sweetness and grace. Era la dama la piu graziosa in Francia." Then he continued: "Josephine was the goddess of the toilet. All fashions came from her. Besides this she was humane and always thoughtful of others. She was the best of women. Although the English and the Bourbons allow that I did some good, yet they generally qualify it by saying that it was chiefly through the instrumentality of Josephine. But the fact is that she never interfered in politics. Great as my veneration was for her, I could not bear to have it thought that she in any way ruled my public actions."
Napoleon's praises of Josephine continued to flow on.
"She was the greatest patroness of the arts known in France for years; but though I loved to attend to her whims, yet I always acted to please the nation, and whenever I obtained a fine statue or valuable picture I sent it to the Museum for the people's benefit. Josephine was grace personified. She never acted inelegantly during the whole time we lived together. Her toilet was perfection, and she resisted the inroads of time, to all appearances, by exquisite taste."
Napoleon spoke with deep emotion, "She was the best of women!"
Then, as if in answer to Betsy's unspoken question, he said:
"It was only political motives that led me to give her up. Nothing else would have separated me from a wife so tenderly loved. Thank God, she died without witnessing my last misfortune!"
From Josephine Napoleon turned to Maria Louisa, his second wife, the mother of his son, of whom he spoke tenderly and affectionately:
"She was an amiable and good wife. She would have followed me here, but they would not let her."
Napoleon next called Betsy's attention to one or two portraits of Maria Louisa, but Betsy, though she made no criticism, thought then, as she had thought at other times when studying the face of Maria Louisa, that the Austrian Princess was at a disadvantage when contrasted with the members of Napoleon's family, all of whom were handsome and looked intellectual.
This conversation about Josephine and Maria Louisa was interrupted by the arrival of a visitor, Count Piontkowski, lately arrived from Europe. He was a Pole who had fought under Napoleon, and his love for his fallen leader had led him to follow into exile.
Napoleon himself had no clear remembrance of the Pole as an individual, and he was therefore the more deeply gratified by the spirit of devotion that had induced Piontkowski to make the long voyage to St. Helena for the sake of being near his old commander.
The long interview with the newcomer undoubtedly brought before Napoleon's mind many sad memories, and when he returned to them Betsy and the others noticed that he was in unusually low spirits. As he looked again at the portraits of Josephine and Maria Louisa he grew more and more dejected, and at last, excusing himself, he went to bed much earlier than usual, leaving the rest of the party under the influence of his melancholy.
When the second New Year came around, Napoleon was in less than his usual good spirits. It was not to Betsy, however, but to Dr. O'Meara that he said in reply to the physician's "Happy New Year":
"Perhaps the next one will find me better situated. Perhaps I shall be dead, which will be better still. Worse than this cannot be."
It was not the Emperor's habit to show his sadness for any great length of time. On this second New Year's the sisters were to go over to Longwood to carry their New Year greeting and to dine with Madame Bertrand.
When they first arrived at the house Betsy was disappointed that Napoleon was nowhere in sight and she wondered that no message or present came from him, for she knew that the French made a special festival of New Year's and recalled the generosity of the Emperor just a year before.
Still there was much to see and enjoy in Madame Bertrand's apartment, and she and Jane were examining with admiration the presents of Madame Bertrand and her family, when Napoleon himself entered the room. In each hand he was carefully carrying a beautiful Sèvres cup. As the girls drew near to look at them, they saw that on one was a portrait of Napoleon himself, representing him in Turkish costume, and on the other the figure of an Egyptian woman drawing water.
"Here, Mdlles. Betsee and Jane," he exclaimed, "are two cups for you. Accept them as a mark of the friendship I entertain for you both and for your kindness to Madame Bertrand."
Charmed with his beautiful presents, the girls thanked Napoleon warmly. Betsy, indeed, was so delighted with her cup that she would not let it go out of her hands, and when at last the time for her departure came she wrapped it in many folds of cotton to carry it home—at considerable risk even then, as the journey was made on horseback.
Betsy was a keen observer, and although she was fond of paying Napoleon back in his own coin when he teased her, she appreciated the depth of his feelings in his more serious moments.
One beautiful day, when she went over to Longwood, she was impressed by the brilliancy of the atmosphere, which is, indeed, one of the charms of St. Helena. Standing on the rocks she watched the waves breaking and sparkling at their base and noted the sea beyond, glistening like a sheet of quicksilver. With her spirits especially buoyant under the influence of the wonderful day, she went up to St. Denis, one of the Emperor's suite.
"Where is the Emperor?" she asked gayly. "I want to see him."
The Frenchman shook his head so gravely that for the moment the smile left Betsy's face and she wondered if any misfortune had happened. After a moment of silence, St. Denis replied:
"The Emperor is watching the Conqueror, which is now coming in." The Conqueror was the vessel bearing the flag of Admiral Pamplin, who was to succeed Admiral Malcom. "You will find the Emperor," continued St. Denis, "near Madame Bertrand's, but he is in no mood for badinage to-day."
If the Frenchman had meant to keep Betsy away from Napoleon, he was not successful. In spite of his warning Betsy went on toward the cottage. As soon as she saw the Emperor, she herself came under the influence of his mood. He was standing on a cliff with General Bertrand, looking out toward sea, where the Conqueror was still but a speck on the horizon. Betsy was impressed by the intense melancholy of the exiled Emperor's expression, as he stood there stern and silent. His eyes were bent sadly upon the vessel as it came in, beating up proudly to windward.
For some time not a word was uttered by any of the three. Even the talkative Betsy was silent. At last Napoleon spoke:
"They manage the vessel beautifully; the English are certainly kings upon the sea," he said. Then his melancholy tone changed to one of sarcasm. "I wonder what they think of our beautiful island! They cannot be much elated by the sight of my gigantic walls."
At this moment Betsy did not venture a retort, as was generally the case when Napoleon railed at her beloved St. Helena. Betsy was alive to all the beauties of the place, while Napoleon, naturally, saw only its faults. When Betsy defended the island and waxed eloquent over its beauties, sometimes he would simply laugh at her impertinence, while at others, pinching her ear in his favorite fashion, he would say:
"Mees Betsee, how can you possibly dare to have an opinion on the subject?"
This glimpse of Napoleon, sadly watching the Conqueror, was not the only occasion when Betsy had an opportunity to see the more serious side of the man whom she admired. Although she was only a young girl, she was able sometimes by her intelligent questions to draw from him an explanation of much discussed things in his past. There was, for example, the oft-repeated story that Napoleon had sanctioned the butchery of Turkish troops at Jaffa and the poisoning of the sick in the hospitals.
If the Emperor was vexed with Betsy for touching on forbidden ground, he did not show his feeling, but entered into an explanation that his young neighbor was able long afterwards to repeat in his own words. "Before leaving Jaffa," said Napoleon, "and when many of the sick had been embarked, I was informed that there were some in the hospital severely wounded, dangerously ill, and unfit to be moved at any risk. I desired my medical men to hold a consultation as to what steps had best be taken with regard to the unfortunate sufferers and to send in their opinions to me. The result of this consultation was that seven-eighths of the soldiers were considered past recovery, and that in all probability few would be alive at the expiration of twenty hours."
Betsy listened attentively, as Napoleon showed how difficult it was to decide whether it was not more cruel to leave these helpless men to the mercy of the Turks than to end their misery by a dose of opium: "I should have desired such a relief for myself under the same circumstances and I considered it would be an act of mercy to anticipate their fate by only a few hours. My physician did not enter into my views of the case, and disapproved of the proposal, saying it was his business to cure, not to kill. Accordingly I left a rear-guard to protect these unhappy men from the enemy. They remained until Nature had paid her last debt and released the expiring soldiers from their agony."
As his auditors did not look convinced of the correctness of his views, Napoleon turned to Dr. O'Meara, who was of the party.
"I ask you, O'Meara, to place yourself in the situation of one of these men. Were it demanded of you which fate you would select, either to be left to suffer the tortures of those miscreants or to have opium administered to you, which fate would you rather choose? If my own son—and I believe I love my son as well as any father loves his child—were in a similar situation, I should advise it to be done. If so situated myself I should insist upon it, if I had sense enough and strength to demand it."
Without waiting for comment from the others, Napoleon added that if he had been capable of secretly poisoning his soldiers or of the barbarity ascribed to him of driving his carriage over the mutilated bodies of the wounded, his troops would never have fought under him with the enthusiasm and reverence they uniformly displayed. No, no, I should have been shot long ago. Even my wounded would have tried to pull a trigger to despatch me.
The Emperor spoke so earnestly that no one could doubt he meant what he said. Even though they believed that the Turkish prisoners had been treated with great cruelty, his hearers saw that ambition or a feeling of necessity had been the impelling motive of the officers who sanctioned or ordered the cruelty.
Napoleon's conversations with Betsy were of course carried on largely in French, and but for the little girl's fluency in this language she would probably have seen much less of the great man. Napoleon himself made a real effort to learn English. Not only did he study with Las Cases, but he tried to practise the language with Betsy and her sister. In conversation, however, he never became very proficient, his pronunciation was droll, and he was inclined to translate things very literally. Betsy was less patient than her sister with Napoleon's English. By his expressed desire she and Jane were always to correct his mistakes, yet often, in the midst of his efforts, she would run off without deigning to help him.
"Ah, Mdlle. Betsee," he would then cry in French, "you are a stupid little creature; when will you become wise?"
Although Napoleon persevered with his English lessons with Las Cases, he never proceeded much further than to read the newspapers. English books presented many difficulties, and yet much of the literature that came his way was in this language. Here again Betsy was able to make herself very useful by translating books or newspapers for him, and sometimes she went further and gave him in condensed form the contents of a great many pages. Even after he went to Longwood, when Betsy went over there to call on Madame Bertrand, Napoleon would summon her to help him understand some newly arrived English book.
From Napoleon's own admission to one of his own suite, after he had been in St. Helena a year or two, we can judge that his progress in English had not been very rapid. One morning, after the arrival of a number of French books, he said:
"What a pleasure I have enjoyed! I can read forty pages of French in the time that it would require to read two of English."
The Emperor enjoyed talking with Betsy, for the little girl was a great reader herself, and he had the faculty of drawing from her whatever information she had on a given subject. Occasionally she thoughtlessly questioned Napoleon on topics that she might better have avoided.
One Sunday, for example, at Madame Bertrand's, he found the girls poring over a book.
"What are you doing?" he asked abruptly.
"Learning the collect," replied Betsy. "My father is always very angry if I do not know it." Then she added, not very courteously, "I suppose you never learned a collect or anything religious in your life, for I know that you do not believe in the existence of a God."
"You have been told an untruth," replied Napoleon impatiently, evidently displeased with Betsy. "When you are wiser you will understand that no one can doubt the existence of a God."
"But you believe in predestination?"
"Whatever a man's destiny calls him to do, that he must fulfil," was the Emperor's response.
Young though she was, Betsy understood the seriousness that underlay the superficial gayety most in evidence when Napoleon met her. She decided that he was not the cold, calculating man that most people thought him, but rather a man of deep feeling, capable of strong attachments.
One day, not long after he had left The Briars, a lady approached Betsy, who was in the grounds outside the house.
As she dismounted from her horse Betsy had recognized her as a French woman of high position, whose husband was one of the diplomatists then at St. Helena.
"Will you be so good," she said almost timidly to the little girl, "as to show me the part of the cottage occupied by the Emperor?"
"With pleasure," responded Betsy, leading the way to the Pavilion. The lady looked about her with great interest.
"Look!" said Betsy, pointing to the spot where the marquee had stood. "Look at this crown in the turf!"
The lady gazed for some minutes at this empty symbol of the power once held by the Emperor. The thoughts that it brought up overpowered her. Losing all self-control, she sank to her knees, sobbing hysterically. Forgetful of Betsy, she continued to weep so bitterly that the little girl started for the cottage that she might get her mother, or some one else of the household, to bring restoratives.
"Stop, stop!" cried the lady, as if realizing her purpose. "Do not call any one. I shall be myself in a moment." Then, in a voice still filled with emotion, she added, "Please do me the favor of never mentioning this to any one. All French people feel as I do. They all treasure Napoleon's memory as I do, and would willingly die for him."
Betsy gave the required promise and waited patiently until the lady had recovered her self-possession. Then the latter asked innumerable questions of the little girl about the life of Napoleon and his suite at The Briars.
Several times the visitor repeated, "How happy it must have made you to be with the Emperor!"
When she rode away after her long interview, she put a thick veil over her face to hide the fact that she had been weeping.
Betsy was true to her word, and although her family, one after another, asked her why the visitor had made so long a stay, she merely replied that she had been interested in the Pavilion. But the scene made a deep impression on the little girl, as showing the remarkable hold of Napoleon on the hearts of those who had been his subjects. Moreover she judged, and truly too, that a man for whom such deep feeling was shown must himself have been of a kind and sympathetic nature.
It is true that she did not need the testimony of any outsider to assure her of Napoleon's amiability. She was well acquainted with his general kindliness; she knew of many of his gracious acts, and the charm of his manner toward all young people had made a deep impression upon her.
Another thing that she noticed convinced Betsy of the softer qualities of Napoleon's nature. This was the firm devotion of the little band of Frenchmen and French women who had followed him to St. Helena. They had made great sacrifices in sharing the exile of Napoleon. There was so little to hope for, in the way of reward for this devotion, that no reasonable person could doubt their disinterestedness.