Napoleon's Young Neighbor/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII
THOUGHTLESS BETSY
SOMETIMES, without intending to hurt Napoleon's feelings, heedless Betsy must often have come near wounding him. One day, for example, she showed him a toy that had lately come to St. Helena from Europe. It represented a toy emperor climbing a ladder, each rung of which was a country. When he reached the top he sat for an instant astride the world, and then went headlong down the other side, until he landed at last on St. Helena.
Napoleon himself did not reprove Betsy for her rudeness, but Mr. Balcombe was disturbed and angry when he heard of it. Betsy, he decided, was altogether too fond of playing foolish tricks, and he resolved to teach her a lesson that she could not forget.
Calling her to him, after he had expressed his displeasure for what she had done, "Betsy," he said in his severest tone, "you are to spend the night in the cellar, and every night for a week you shall sleep there. You must be taught respect for your elders. It is to punish you for your rudeness to Napoleon that I am resolved to punish you in this way."
Poor Betsy shivered at her father's words. Bold though she was in the face of danger by day, darkness always had great terrors for her, and to spend the night underground was a punishment she felt she could hardly bear. Her protests, however, were useless. Her father locked her in the dark cellar and left her there. Betsy's experiences that night were terrible. Rats made the cellar their home, and, as they jumped about in the darkness, they tumbled the bottles of wine about, making a terrible noise. Betsy was so frightened that to defend herself from them she picked up bottle after bottle to hurl against them. At last they were driven away, but there was no sleep for Betsy on the bed that had been prepared for her. At dawn a faint light came through the windows, just enough to show her what havoc she had made. Broken bottles lay about her everywhere and in every direction ran rivulets of wine.
At last she fell into a heavy stupor, and in this condition a slave, who had been sent with her breakfast, found her. Alarmed at the sight of Betsy, apparently half dead, the slave ran to summon Mr. Balcombe. When he hurried to the cellar, Mr. Balcombe was naturally shocked by what he saw. He had not thought of rats, and he was only too thankful that Betsy had escaped serious injury. He not only did not reprove her for the destruction of the claret, but forgave her for her offence against Napoleon.
As to Napoleon, "It was too great a punishment," he said, "for so little an offence."
Then he laughed heartily as the lively Betsy, now quite herself again, gave a vivid account of her battle with the rats. "Ah, the rats!" he added; "a big one jumped out of my hat one day, as I was about to put it on. It startled me."
Some time after this adventure in the cellar, Mr. Balcombe again had occasion to punish Betsy and again he thought of the cellar.
"No, not the cellar!" remonstrated Napoleon. But Mr. Balcombe was obdurate. He had decided that Betsy should have a week's imprisonment there, staying by day but released at night that she might sleep in her own room.
So Betsy went daily to her cell. She managed to vary the monotony of her prison life by sitting close to the grating of the open window, and while she sat there, the picture of dejection, Napoleon, approaching the window, daily expressed a half-mocking sympathy with her. For a time Betsy maintained an appearance of dignity and injured innocence, but in the end the Emperor, by mimicking her doleful expression, usually succeeded in making her laugh.
"Sewing!" he exclaimed in surprise, when he visited Betsy on the third day of her imprisonment.
"Yes," responded Betsy; "I am making a dress for myself."
"Ah, they indeed are cruel—"
Like all Betsy's acquaintances, Napoleon knew that she had no strong love for sewing and the ordinary domestic duties. She was at the age when boyish sports were much more fun than the occupations that older people prescribed for girls.
"But no one required me to sew. I am sewing because I wish to."
The Emperor expressed his surprise at this announcement.
"Yes," continued Betsy; "I did not know what else to do. It is frightfully dull here, so I begged old black Sarah to find me some work, and this is what she brought." Betsy held up the partly made dress with considerable pride.
It is to Betsy's credit that she finished the dress old Sarah had brought her, although her fit of industry did not outlast her week's imprisonment.
"You should keep Mees Betsee's prison livery," said Napoleon to Mrs. Balcombe, "and show it to her occasionally, when you think that she is on the point of doing something foolish that ought to be punished."
"Prison livery" was Napoleon's name for the dress that Betsy had made during her week in the cell.
Betsy, however, was only one of many persons who had disagreeable experiences with the rats of St. Helena. A sleeping slave, for example, had a part of his leg bitten off. One of Count Bertrand's horses in the stable had been severely bitten, and Dr. O'Meara had once had to defend himself from the rodents by hurling his bootjack repeatedly at them. Other tales of fierce rats had been told, and in consequence Betsy, when she thought of her escape from real harm, had good cause for congratulation.
The battle of the rats happened while Napoleon was still living at The Briars, and though Betsy long remembered it, it cannot be said that she altogether profited by the lesson that it should have conveyed to her. Later, when Napoleon was living at Longwood, Betsy, visiting at Madame Bertrand's, occupied herself with practising a song that was a favorite with one of the ladies of the garrison.
Betsy sang and played very well, and Napoleon, hearing the new song, praised the air though he did not understand the words. Now it happened that the song was a monody on the death of the Duc d'Enghien, for whose death Napoleon had been greatly blamed by friends as well as by foes.
"What is the song?" Napoleon asked.
A tactful girl would have devised some answer to spare Napoleon's feelings. But thoughtless Betsy, without a word, turned to the front page of the sheet of music, on which was a picture of a man standing in a ditch, his eyes bandaged and a lantern hanging from his waist, while soldiers were aiming their muskets at him.
"What is it?" asked Napoleon, to whom the picture conveyed no meaning.
"It represents the murder of the Duc d'Enghien," replied Betsy.
Napoleon examined the picture more closely. Then, turning to the young girl:
"What do you know of the Duc d'Enghien?"
"That you are considered the murderer of that illustrious prince," replied Betsy, with great lack of consideration.
"It is true," responded Napoleon, "that I ordered his execution, for he was a conspirator and had landed troops in the pay of the Bourbons to assassinate me. In the face of such a conspiracy, the most politic thing was to put a Bourbon prince to death so that the Bourbons would not again try to take my life. The prisoner was tried for having taken arms against the Republic, and was executed according to law. But he was not shot in a ditch nor at night. All was open and known to the public."
This talk about the Duc d'Enghien led Napoleon to tell Betsy of many thrilling experiences of his own in escaping death at the hands of would-be assassins.
At another time Betsy ran up to Napoleon, crying, "Why is your face so swollen and inflamed?"
"Oh," replied Napoleon, assuming a doleful look, "Dr. O'Meara has just drawn a tooth and I have had much pain."
"What!" exclaimed Betsy in the role of mentor. "You to complain of pain—the pain of so trifling an operation, though you have gone through battles innumerable with storms of bullets whizzing, some of which must have touched you. I am ashamed. But give me the tooth, and I will get Mr. Solomon to set it as an ear-ring."
Napoleon, listening to Betsy, was evidently amused by her tone of assumed severity, and laughing heartily, replied: "See how I laugh, even while I suffer. Ah, Mees Betsee, I fear you will never cut your wisdom tooth."
Although Betsy saw more of Napoleon than the other children, they were all fond of him; but it is to be feared that Betsy's example was not the best in the world for her little brothers, who were much younger than she. One day, for example, Napoleon had given little Alexander a pretty box made by Piron, filled with his delicious bonbons.
"When my brother had eaten all his sugarplums," said Betsy, "and was grieving over his exhausted store, he unluckily chanced to espy a pill-box. He thereupon took some pills from the box and offered them to the Emperor. Napoleon helped himself, thinking they were sugar-plums, and began eating. He soon ejected them with coughing and nausea."
Las Cases, it is needless to say, reported this to Mr. Balcombe, who whipped Alexander soundly. Nobody can deny that the little boy merited the punishment.
A favorite jest of Napoleon was to cry, "Now, Mdlle. Betsee, I hope you have been a good child and learned your lessons."
Then Betsy would redden and toss her head, for, like most girls in their early teens, she wished to be thought older than she was. This habit of teasing was one that Napoleon had found time to indulge in even when he was at the height of his power. He was very fond of children, and some one has said that no case is known in which he refused to grant a favor when a child was asked to be the messenger. He was fond of his nieces and nephews, and devoted to his step-children. Few brothers have ever been kinder to their brothers and sisters than Napoleon to his. When he was only sixteen, he began to take a great interest in the education of his brother Lucien, who was six years younger. When he was a lieutenant in the army, he made real sacrifices for Louis, who was twelve years old. Yet, in spite of his love for them, he teased them just as he teased Betsy. Every one knows how he used to fondle the little King of Rome and carry him around in his arms while he was dictating to his secretaries. One who knew him writes:
"It used to be a real holiday for the Emperor when Queen Hortense came to see her mother, bringing her two children. Napoleon would take them in his arms, caress them, often tease them, and burst into laughter as if he had been of their own age, when, according to his custom, he had smeared their faces with jam or cream."
Sometimes, however, he went too far, even with his young relatives. Once when he had playfully pulled the ears of his nephew, little Achille Murat, the boy protested, "You are a naughty, wicked man," to the great amusement of his uncle.
But if Napoleon was inclined to tease the young people at The Briars, he was also ready to do pleasant things for them. He certainly entered into the feelings of young people. With them he became a child, and an amusing one. Many were the games he played with Betsy and her brothers and sister, not only blindman's buff but puss in the corner and other quieter games.
Betsy was not the only one of the Balcombe family whom Napoleon loved to tease. Jane, the elder sister, was the more dignified and it was therefore easier to embarrass her. Toward the end of her stay at St. Helena, an English surgeon, Dr. Stokoe, was sent to the island. He was much the senior of Jane, but, because the two were seen much together, the gossips of St. Helena thought that he wished to marry her.
Napoleon himself occasionally teased Jane about Dr. Stokoe, and professed to think that Mr. Balcombe was a cruel father, standing in the way of his daughter's happiness. "Why have you refused your daughter to the surgeon of the flagship?" he would ask mischievously, adding, "C'est un brave homme."
Napoleon's capacity for seeing the humorous side of things kept up his spirits wonderfully during his first year or two of exile. Betsy's enjoyment of a joke, even of a practical joke, was perhaps the strongest bond between the Emperor and his little neighbor.
"Come," he would say, "come, Mees Betsee, sit down and sing like our dear departed friend." By this term Napoleon referred to a certain lady who believed herself to be the possessor of a very fine voice. To exhibit her prowess this lady would sit down and sing Italian airs in an affected style. At the end of a performance the lady expected, and received, the Emperor's compliments; but when at last she was away and out of hearing, he roared with laughter as Betsy, at the piano, imitated the lady's affectations.
With his eyes closed he would pretend that he really believed he was listening to the operatic lady, and end by thanking Betsy gravely for the pleasure she had given.
Napoleon himself was a good mimic. He amused the Balcombe family greatly by his imitation of London cockney street cries.
"Mees Jane," he asked one evening, "have you ever heard the London cries?"
"No, sir, never," she replied. "Then I must let you hear them;" and without waiting further, he began to make a series of shrill sounds. At first it was difficult to distinguish the words, for Napoleon's droll accent could hardly be called good English. His intonation, however, was perfect, and exactly represented the street venders crying their wares.
"You must have been in London, unknown to any one," cried Jane; "for if you haven't been there, I don't see how you could have got those cries so perfectly."
In suggesting that Napoleon might have been in London incognito, Jane was only repeating what then had wide currency—that Napoleon in the height of his power had slipped away from Paris, letting no one know that he was to cross the Channel, to spend a few days in London, studying the English and their ways.
To the inquisitive Jane, however, Napoleon gave no information as to the truth of this belief.
"I was much entertained," he said, "by one of my buffos, who introduced London street cries into a comedy that he got up in Paris."
This mention of the theatre led Napoleon to speak of Talma. "He was the truest actor to nature that ever trod the boards," he said.
"Talma?" repeated Betsy, catching the actor's name. "Oh, I remember; they used to say that you took lessons from him how to sit on the throne."
"I have often heard that myself," responded Napoleon, "and I even mentioned it once to Talma himself as a sign that I was considered to hold myself well on it."
Napoleon often displayed his powers of mimicry, to the great entertainment of the children.
A large ball, given by Sir George Bingham in return for the civilities that had been shown the Fifty-third Regiment, took place not far from Longwood, and practically every one on the island was invited.
"It was the very prettiest affair I ever saw," said Betsy, "and you ought to have seen it."
Glancing at Napoleon, she thought she caught a certain meaning in the smile with which he greeted her remark. "I really believe you were there," she exclaimed. "Some one told us you were going to take a peep at us incognito, but I did not see you."
Without deigning to reply, Napoleon began an ungraceful imitation of the saraband, a dance that had been seen at this ball for the first time in St. Helena. The young lady who waltzed in this dance had been very awkward, and Napoleon's imitation of her movements was so perfect that the girls were sure he had really seen her. Moreover he had so many accurate criticisms to make of the people at the ball, and of the ball in all its details, that no doubt was left in their minds that he had been an actual looker-on.
Napoleon thoroughly appreciated the humor of others, and was much amused, for example, by a remark of Madame Bertrand's that he repeated to Betsy.
Madame Bertrand's son, Arthur, was about a month old when Napoleon asked Betsy if she had seen the little fellow, adding, "You must hear the clever way in which Madame Bertrand introduced the baby to me: 'Allow me to present to your Majesty a subject who has dared to enter the gates of Longwood without a pass from Sir Hudson Lowe.'"