Count de Las Cases
Mémorial de Sainte Hélène
London, 1823
My Residence with the Emperor Napoleon.

Volume 1, Part 2
page 91 – 160
1816, January 1 – 31.

New-years-day.—Fowling pieces, &c.—Colonel Wilks’s family.

January 1st—3d, 1816.  On new-year’s-day we all assembled about ten o’clock in the morning, to present the compliments of the season to the Emperor.  He received us in a few moments.  We had more need to offer him wishes than congratulations.  The Emperor wished that we should breakfast and spend the whole day together.  He observed that we were but a handful in one corner of the world, and that all our consolation must be our regard for each other.  We all accompanied the Emperor into the garden, where he walked about until breakfast was ready.  At this moment, his fowling-pieces, which had hitherto been detained by the Admiral, were sent back to him.  This measure, on the part of the Admiral, was only another proof of the new disposition which he had assumed towards us.  The guns could be of no use to the Emperor ;  for the nature of the ground, and the total want of game, rendered it impossible that he could enjoy even a shadow of diversion in shooting.  There were no birds except a few pigeons among the gum-trees, and these had already been killed, or forced to migrate, by the few shots that Gen. Gourgaud and my son had amused themselves in firing.

We observed that measures which seemed to be dictated by the best and kindest intentions on the part of the Admiral, always bore an appearance of restriction and colouring of caprice, which destroyed their effect.  Along with the Emperor’s fowling-pieces, were two or three guns belonging to individuals of his suite.  These were delivered to their owners ;  but on condition that they should be sent every evening to the tent of the officer on duty.  It may well be supposed that this proposition induced us, without hesitation, to decline the favour altogether ;  and the guns were not surrendered to us unconditionally, until after a little parleying.  And after all what were the important subjects under discussion ?  A few fowling pieces ;  and the owners of them were unfortunate men banished from the rest of the world, surrounded by sentinels, and guarded by a whole camp.  I mention this circumstance, because, though trifling in itself, it proves better than many others our real situation, and the mode in which we were treated.

On the 3d I breakfasted with Madame Bertrand, whom I was to accompany to dine at the Governor’s.  From Madame Bertrand’s abode to Plantation-House (the Governor’s residence), is an hour and a half’s journey in a carriage drawn by six oxen, for the use of horses on this road would be dangerous.  We crossed or turned five or six passes flanked with precipices several hundred feet high.  Four of the oxen were taken from the carriage in the rapid descents, and yoked again in ascending the hills.  We stopped when we had got about three parts of the way, to pay a visit to a good old lady of eighty-three years of age, who is very fond of Madame Bertrand’s children.  Her house is very pleasantly situated :  she had not been out of it for sixteen years, when, hearing of the Emperor’s arrival, she set out for the town, declaring that, if it cost her her life, she was resolved to see him :—She was happy enough to gain her object.

Plantation-House is the best situated, and most agreeable residence in the whole island.  The mansion, the garden, the out-offices, all call to mind the residence of a family possessing an income of 25, or 30,000 livres in one of the French provinces.  The grounds are cultivated with the greatest attention and taste.  A resident at Plantation-House might imagine himself in Europe, without ever suspecting the desolation that prevails over every other part of the Island.  Plantation-House is occupied by Colonel Wilks, the Governor, whose authority is now superseded by the Admiral.  He is a man of most polished manners ;  his wife is an amiable woman, and his daughter a charming young lady.

The Governor had invited a party of about thirty.  The manners and ceremonies of the company were entirely European.  We spent several hours at Plantation-House ;  and this, we may truly say, has been the only interval of oblivion and abstraction that we have enjoyed since we quitted France.  Colonel Wilks evinced particular partiality and kindness to me.  We mutually expressed the compliments and sympathy of two authors, pleased with each other’s merits.  We exchanged our works.  The Colonel overwhelmed me with flattering compliments ;  and those which I returned to him were of the sincerest kind ;  for his work contains a novel and interesting account of Hindostan, where he resided for a considerable time in a diplomatic capacity.  A spirit of philosophy, a fund of information, joined to singular purity of style, concur to render it a production of first-rate merit.  In his political opinions, Colonel Wilks is cool and impartial ;  he judges calmly and dispassionately of passing events, and is imbued with the sound ideas and liberal opinions of an intelligent and independent Englishman.

As we were on the point of sitting down to dinner, we were, to our great surprise, informed that the Emperor, in company with the Admiral, had just passed very near the gate of Plantation-House ;  and one of the guests (Mr. Doveton, of Sandy-Bay) observed, that Napoleon had, in the morning, honoured him with a visit, and spent three quarters of an hour at his house.

Life at Longwood.—The Emperor’s ride on horseback.—Our nymph.—Nicknames.—On islands, and the defence of them.—Great fortresses ;  Gibraltar.—Cultivation and laws of the Island.—Enthusiasm, &c.

4th—8th.  When I entered the Emperor’s apartments to give him an account of our excursion on the preceding day, he took hold of my ear, saying :  “ Well, you deserted me yesterday ;  I got through the evening very well, notwithstanding.  Do not suppose that I could not do without you.”  Delightful words ! rendered most touching by the tone which accompanied them, and by the knowledge I now possess of him by whom they were uttered.

The weather has every day been fine, the temperature dry ;  the heat intense, but abating suddenly, as usual, towards five or six o’clock.

The Emperor, since his arrival at Longwood, had left off his usual dictations :  he passed his time in reading in his cabinet, dressed himself between three and four o’clock, and afterwards went out on horseback, accompanied by two or three of us.  The mornings must have appeared to him longer ;  but his health was the better for it.  Our rides were always directed towards the neighbouring valley, of which I have already spoken ;  we either passed up it, taking the lower part of it first, and returning by the Grand Marshal’s house ;  or, on the contrary, went up that side first, in order to descend returning :  we even went beyond it once or twice, and crossed other similar valleys.  We thus explored the neighbourhood, and visited the few habitations which it contained ;  the whole of which were poor and wretched.  The roads were sometimes impassable ;  we were even occasionally obliged to get off our horses.  We had to clear hedges, to scale stone-walls, which we met with very frequently ;  but we suffered nothing to stop us.

In these our customary rides we had for some days fixed on a regular resting-place in the middle of the valley.  There, surrounded by desert rocks, an unexpected flower displayed itself :  under an humble roof we discovered a charming young girl, of fifteen or sixteen years of age.  We had surprised her the first day in her usual costume :  it announced any thing but affluence.  The following morning we found she had bestowed the greatest pains on her toilette ;  but our pretty blossom of the fields now appeared to us nothing more than a very ordinary garden-flower.  Nevertheless, we henceforth stopped at her dwelling a few minutes every day ;  she always approached a few paces to catch the two or three sentences which the Emperor either addressed, or caused to be translated to her as he passed by, and we continued our route, discoursing on her charms.  From that time she formed an addition to the particular nomenclature of Longwood she became our nymph.  Among those who were intimate with him, the Emperor used, without premeditation, to invent new names for every person and object that attracted his notice.  Thus the pass through which we were proceeding at the moment of which I am now writing, received the name of the Valley of Silence;  our host at Briars was our Amphitryon ;  his neighbour, the Major, who was five feet high, was our Hercules ;  Sir George Cockburn was my Lord Admiral, as long as we were in good spirits, but, when ill-humour prevailed, there was no title for him but such as the shark, &c.

Our nymph is the identical heroine of the little pastoral with which Doctor Warden has been pleased to embellish his Letters ;  although I corrected his error, when he gave me the manuscript to read before his departure for Europe, by telling him :  “ If it is your intention to form a tale, it is well ;  but if you wish to depict the truth, you must alter this entirely.”  It should seem that he thought his tale possessed far more interest ;  and he has preserved it accordingly.  But to return to our nymph :  I have been informed, that Napoleon brought her great good fortune.  The celebrity which she acquired through him, attracted the curiosity of travellers, and her own charms effected the rest :  she is become the wife of a very rich merchant, or captain, in the service of the East India Company.

On returning from our rides, we used to find assembled the persons whom the Emperor had invited to dine with him.  He had, successively, the Colonel of the 53d, several of the officers and their ladies, the Admiral, the beautiful and amiable Mrs. Hodson, the wife of our Hercules, whom the Emperor went one day to visit in the valley of Briars, and whose children he had taken so much notice of, &c. &c.

After dinner, the Emperor joined one party at cards, and the rest of the company formed another.

The day the Admiral dined at Longwood, the Emperor, whilst taking his coffee, discoursed for a few minutes upon the affairs of the Island.  The Admiral said that the 66th regiment was coming to reinforce the 53d.  The Emperor laughed at this ;  and asked him, if he did not think himself already strong enough.  Then continuing his general observations, he said that an additional seventy-four would be of more use than a regiment ;  that ships of war were the security of an Island ;  that fortifications produced nothing but delay ;  that the landing of a superior force was a complete success, although its effects might be deferred for a time ;  provided, however, the distance did not admit of succour arriving.

The Admiral having asked him which, in his opinion, was the strongest place in the world, the Emperor answered, it was impossible to point it out, because the strength of a place arises partly from its own means of defence, and partly from extraneous and indeterminate circumstances.  He, hwvever, mentioned Strasburg, Lille, Metz, Mantua, Antwerp, Malta, and Gibraltar.  The Admiral having told him that he had been suspected in England, for some time, of entertaining a design to attack Gibraltar :  “ We knew better than that,” replied the Emperor ;  “ it was our interest to leave Gibraltar in your possession.  It is of no advantage to you ;  it neither protects nor intercepts any thing ;  it is only an object of national pride, which costs England very dear, and gives great umbrage to Spain.  It would have been very injudicious in us to destroy such arrangements.”

On the 6th I was invited, with Madame Bertrand and my son, to dine at Briars, where our old host had assembled much company.  We returned very late, and not without having been exposed to danger, from the difficulties of the road, and the darkness of the night, which obliged us to perform part of the journey on foot, from consideration for Madame Bertrand.

On the 7th the Emperor received a visit from the Secretary of the Government and one of the members of the Council.  He asked them a great many questions, as usual, concerning the cultivation, the prosperity, and the improvements of which the Island might be capable.  In 1772 a system had been adopted for furnishing meat at half price to the inhabitants from the magazines of the Company ;  the consequence of which was, great idleness, and neglect of agriculture.  This system was altered five years ago ;  which, added to other circumstances, has revived emulation, and carried the prosperity of the Island to a pitch far beyond what it ever enjoyed before.  It is to be feared that our arrival may prove a mortal blow to this growing prosperity. Saint-Helena, which is seven or eight leagues in circumference, (about the size of Paris,) is subject to the general laws of England and the local ones of the Island :  these local laws are drawn up by a Council, and are sanctioned in England by the Court of Directors of the East India Company.  The Council is composed of a Governor, of two civil members, and a Secretary, who keeps the registers ;  they are all appointed by the Company, and are subject to be removed at pleasure.  The members of the Council are legislators, administrators, and magistrates ;  they decide without appeal, with the aid of a jury, upon civil and criminal matters.  There is neither advocate nor attorney in the Island ;  the Secretary of the Council legalizes all acts, and is a kind of unique notary.  The population of the Island amounts at this moment to about five or six thousand souls, including the blacks and the garrison.

I was walking one afternoon in the garden with the Emperor, when a sailor, about twenty-two or twenty-three years of age, with a frank and open countenance, approached us with gestures expressive of eagerness and joy, mingled with apprehension of being perceived from without.  He spoke nothing but English, and told me in a hurried manner, that he had twice braved the obstacle of sentinels and all the dangers of severe prohibition, to get a close view of the Emperor.  He had obtained this good fortune, he said, looking steadfastly at the Emperor, and should die content ;  that he offered up his prayers to Heaven that Napoleon might enjoy good health, and be one day more happy.  I dismissed him ;  and on quitting us, he hid himself again behind the trees and hedges, in order to have a longer view of us.  We frequently met with such unequivocal proofs of the good-will of these sailors.  Those of the Northumberland, above all, considered themselves as having formed a connexion with the Emperor.  While we were residing at Briars, where our seclusion was not so close, they often hovered on a Sunday around us, saying they came to take another look at their shipmate.  The day on which we quitted Briars, I was with the Emperor in the garden, when one of the sailors presented himself at the gate, asking me if he might step in without giving offence.  I asked him of what country he was, and what religion he professed.  He answered by making various signs of the cross, in token of his having understood me, and of fraternity.  Then looking steadfastly upon the Emperor, before whom he stood, and raising his eyes to Heaven, he began to hold a conversation with himself, by gestures, which his stout jovial figure rendered partly grotesque and partly sentimental.  Nevertheless it would have been difficult to express more naturally, admiration, respect, kind wishes, and sympathy ;  whilst big tears started in his eyes.  “ Tell that dear man,” said he to me, “ that I wish him no harm, but all possible happiness.  So do most of us.  Long life and health to him ! ”  He had a nosegay of wild flowers in his hand, which he seemed to wish to offer to us ;  but either his attention was taken up, or he felt restrained by the Emperor’s presence, or his own feelings, and he stood wavering, as if contending with himself for some time ;  then suddenly made us a bow, and disappeared.

The Emperor could not refrain from evincing some emotion at these two circumstances ;  so strongly did the countenances, accents, and gestures of these two men bear the stamp of truth.  He then said, “ See the effect of imagination !  How powerful is its influence !  Here are people who do not know me—who have never seen me ;  they have only heard me spoken of ;  and what do they not feel ! what would they not do to serve me !  And the same caprice is to be found in all countries, in all ages, and in both sexes !  This is fanaticism !  Yes, imagingtion rules the world ! ”

Vexatious treatment of the Emperor.—Fresh misunderstandings with the Admiral.

9th.—The grounds round Longwood, within which we have the liberty of taking the air, admit of only half an hour’s ride on horseback, which has induced the Emperor, in order to extend his ride, or to occupy more time, to descend into the ravines by very bad, and indeed dangerous ways.

The Island not being thirty miles in circumference, it would have been desirable to have the circuit extended to within a mile of the seacoast ;  then we might have had our rides, and even varied them, within a space of fifteen or eighteen miles.  The watching of our movements would neither have been more troublesome nor less effectual, had sentinels been placed upon the sea-shore and at the openings of the valleys ;  or even had they traced all the Emperor’s steps by signals.  It is true it had been observed to us, that the Emperor was at liberty to go over the whole of the Island under the escort of an English officer ;  but the Emperor had decided that he would never go out, if deprived of the pleasure of being either entirely by himself, or in the society of his friends only.  The Admiral, in his last interview with the Emperor, had with great delicacy settled, that whenever he (the Emperor) wished to go beyond the prescribed limits, he was to inform the English Captain on duty at Longwood of the circumstance ;  that the latter should go to his post to open the passage for the Emperor ;  and that the observation, if any, should thenceforth be continued in such a manner that the Emperor, during the remainder of his excursion, whether he entered any house or took advantage of any fine situation for proceeding with his works, might perceive nothing that could for a moment distract his mind from meditation.  According to this arrangement, the Emperor proposed this morning to mount his horse at seven o’clock :  he had ordered a slight breakfast to be prepared, and intended to go in the direction of Sandy Bay, to see a spring of water, and to pass the morning amongst some fine vegetation, (an advantage which we did not possess at Longwood) ;  and in this spot he proposed to dictate for a few hours.

Our horses were ready ;  at the moment when we were about to mount them, I went to acquaint the Captain with our intention, who, to my great astonishment, declared his determination of riding beside us ;  saying that the Emperor could not take it ill, after all, that an officer would not act the part of a servant by remaining behind alone.  I replied that the Emperor doubtless would approve this sentiment ;  but that he would immediately give up his party of pleasure.  “ You must,” said I, “ think it very natural, and by no means a ground of offence, that he feels a repugnance to the company of a person who is guarding him.”  The officer evinced much concern, and told me that his situation was extremely embarrassing.  “ Not at all so,” I observed to him, “ if you only execute your orders.  We ask nothing of you ;  you have nothing to justify or explain to us.  It must be as desirable to you as to us to get the limits extended towards the sea-shore :  you would thereby be freed from a troublesome duty, and one which can do you no honour.  The end proposed would not be the less effectually accomplished by such an arrangement.  I will venture to say, it would be more so whenever we wish to watch a person, we must guard the door of his room, or the gates of the enclosure which surrounds him ;  the intermediate doors are only sources of unavailing trouble.  You lose sight of the Emperor every day when he descends into the deep hollows within the circuit, and you ascertain his existence only by his return.  Well, then, make a merit of a concession which the nature of things demands.  Extend the limits to within a mile of the sea-shore ;  you may then also trace the Emperor constantly by means of your signals, from your heights.”

To all this the officer replied only by repeating that he wanted neither look nor word from the Emperor ;  that he would be with us, as if he were not present.  He seemed, and indeed he was, unable to comprehend that the mere sight of him could be offensive to the Emperor.  I told him that there was a scale for the degrees of feeling, and that the same measure did not apply to all the world.  He appeared to think that we were putting our own interpretations on the Emperor’s sentiments, and that, if the reasons which he gave me were explained to him (the Emperor), the latter would accede to them.  He was inclined to write to him.  I assured him that as far as related personally to himself, he would not be able to say so much to the Emperor as I myself should :  but that I would go and repeat to the Emperor, word for word, the conversation which had passed between us.  I went :  I soon returned, and confirmed to him what I had before advanced.  The Emperor from that moment gave up his intended jaunt.

Wishing, however, on my own account, to avoid every misunderstanding which might add to discussions at all times disagreeable, I asked him whether he had any objection to shew me the account he intended to give the Admiral.  He told me he had none ;  but that he should only give a verbal one.  Then resuming our long conversation, I reduced it in a few words, to two very positive points :  on his part, that he had told me he wished to join the party of the Emperor ;  and on mine, that I had replied that the Emperor from that moment gave up his party, and would not go beyond the limits assigned to him.  This statement was perfectly agreed upon by both of us.  The Emperor ordered me to be called into his room.  Brooding in profound silence over the vexation he had just experienced, he had undressed again, and was in his morning-gown.  He detained me to breakfast, and observed that the sky seemed to threaten rain ;  that we should have had a bad day for our excursion.  But this was a poor consolation for the cruel restraint which lead just deprived him of an innocent pleasure.

The fact is, that the officer had received fresh orders ;  but the Emperor had only grounded the project of his little excursion upon the anterior promises of the Admiral, at which the Emperor had felt a pleasure in expressing his satisfaction to him.  The present alteration, of which nothing had been said to the Emperor, must necessarily have been extremely unpleasant to him.  Either the word given him was broken, or an attempt had been made to impose on him.  This affront which he experienced from the Admiral, is one of those which have considerably hurt the feelings of the Emperor.

The Emperor took a bath, and did not dine with us.  At nine o’clock he ordered me to be called into his room :  he was reading Don Quixote, which turned our conversation upon Spanish literature, the translation of Le Sage, &c.  He was very melancholy, and said little ;  he sent me away in about three quarters of an hour.

Marchand’s room.—Linen, Garments, &c. of the Emperor.—Spurs of Champaubert, &c.

10th.—About four o’clock the Emperor desired me to be called into his room :  he was dressed, and had his boots on ;  his intention was either to get on horseback, or to take a walk in the garden ;  but a gentle shower of rain was falling.  We walked about in conversation, waiting for the weather to clear up.  He opened the door of his room leading to the topographical cabinet, in order that we might extend our walk the whole length of this cabinet.  As we approached the bed, he asked me if I always slept in it.  I answered, that I had ceased to do so from the moment that I became acquainted with his wish of going out early in the morning.  “ What has that to do with it ?” said he :  “ return to it ;  I shall go out when I please, by the backdoor.”  The drawing-room door stood half open, and he entered it ;  Montholon and Gourgaud were there.  They were endeavouring to fix a very pretty lustre, and a small glass over the chimney-piece :  the Emperor desired the latter might be set straight, as it inclined a little on one side.  He was much pleased at this improvement in the drawing-room furniture ;  a proof that every thing is relative !  What could these objects have been in the eyes of a man, who, some years ago, had furniture to the value of forty millions in his palaces ?

We returned to the topographical cabinet :  the rain continued to fall, he gave up his promenade ;  but he regretted that the Grand Marshal had not arrived ;  he felt himself this day inclined for work, which he had discontinued for fifteen days.  He endeavoured to kill time, whilst waiting for Bertrand.  “Let us go and see Madame de Montholon,” said he to me.  I announced him ;  he sat down, made me do the same ;  and we talked about furniture and housekeeping.  He then began to form an inventory of the articles in the apartment, piece by piece ;  and we all agreed that the furniture was not worth more than thirty Napoleons.  Leaving Madame de Montholon he ran from room to room, and stopped in front of the staircase in the corridor which leads to the servants’ room above ;  it is a kind of very steep ship-stair.  “ Let us look at Marchand’s apartment,” said he ;  “ they say that he keeps it like that of a petite maitresse.”  We climbed up ;  Marchand was there ;  his little room is clean ;  he has pasted paper upon it, which he has painted himself.  His bed was without curtains :  Marchand does not sleep so far from his master’s door ;  at Briars, he and the two other valets de chambre constantly slept upon the ground, across the Emperor’s doorway, so close, that whenever I came away late, I was obliged to step over them.  The Emperor ordered the presses to be opened ;  they contained nothing but his linen and his clothes :  the whole was not considerable, and he, nevertheless, was astonished to find himself still so rich.  “ How many pair of spurs have I ? ” said he, taking up a pair.  “ Four pair,” answered Marchand.  “Are any of there more remarkable than the rest ?”  “ No, Sire.”  “ Well, I will give a pair of them to Las Cases.  Are these old ?”  “Yes, Sire, they are almost worn out ;  your Majesty wore them in the campaign of Dresden, and in that of Paris.”—“ Here,” said he, giving them to me ;  “ these are for you.”  I could have wished that he would have permitted me to receive them on my knees.  I felt that I was really receiving something connected with the glorious days of Champaubert, Montmirail, Nangis, Montereau !  Was there ever a more appropriate memorial of chivalry, in the times of Amadis ?  “ Your Majesty is making me a knight,” said I ;  “ but how am I to win these spurs ?  I cannot pretend to achieve any feat of arms ;  and as to love and devotion, Sire, all I have to bestow, have long since been disposed of.”

Still the Grand Marshal did not arrive, and the Emperor wished to set to work.  “ You cannot write any longer then ? ” he said to me.  “Your eyesight is quite gone.”  Ever since we had been here I had given up work entirely ;  my eyesight failed me, which made me extremely melancholy.  “ Yes, Sire,” I replied, “ it is entirely gone, and I am grieved that I lost it in the Campaign of Italy, without enjoying the happiness and glory of having served in it.”—He endeavoured to console me, by telling me, that I should recover my eye-sight beyond a doubt by repose, adding, “ Oh why did they not leave us Planat ? that good young man would now be of great service to me.”  And he desired General Gourgaud to come, that he might dictate to him.

Admiral Taylor, &c.

11th.—As I was walking after breakfast, about half-past twelve, before the gate, I saw a numerous cavalcade approaching, preceded by the Colonel of the 53d :  it was Admiral Taylor, who had arrived the evening before with his squadron from the Cape, and was to leave us the next day but one for Europe.  Among his captains was his son, who had lost his arm at the battle of Trafalgar, where his father commanded the Tonnant.

Admiral Taylor said, he was come to pay his respects to the Emperor ;  but he had just received for answer that he was unwell ;  at which the Admiral was much disappointed.  I observed to him, that the climate of Longwood was very unfavourable to Napoleon.  I chose an unlucky time for making this observation, as the sky was beautiful, and the place displayed at this moment all the illusion which it is capable of producing :  the Admiral did not fail to remark that the situation was charming.  I replied in a tone of genuine sorrow.  “ Yes, Admiral, to-day, and for you, who only remain a quarter of an hour in it.”  At this he seemed quite disconcerted, began to make excuses, and begged me to pardon him for having made use of what he called an impertinent expression.  I must render justice to the peculiar urbanity of manner which he evinced on this occasion.

The Emperor aimed at by a Soldier.—Our Evening Amusements.—Novels.—Political sally.

12th—14th.  The Emperor had now for several days left off his excursions on horseback.  The result of his attempt to resume them, on the 12th, was neither calculated to revive his partiality for this amusement, nor to render it once more habitual to him.  We had cleared our valley as usual, and were re-ascending it at the back part opposite Longwood, when a soldier from one of the heights, where there had hitherto been no post, called out several times, and made various signs to us.  As we were in the very centre of our circuit, we paid no attention to him.  He then came running down towards us, out of breath, charging his piece as he ran.  General Gourgaud remained behind, to see what he wanted, while we continued our route.  I could see the General, after dodging the fellow many times, collar and secure him :  he made him follow him as far as the neighbouring post of the Grand Marshal, which the General endeavoured to make him enter, but he escaped from him.  He found that he was a drunken corporal, who had not rightly understood his countersign.  He had frequently levelled his piece at us.  This circumstance, which might have been very easily repeated, made us tremble for the Emperors life :  the latter looked upon it only as an affront, and a fresh obstacle to the continuance of his exercises on horseback.

Napoleon had left off giving invitations to dinner :  the hours, the distance, the dressing, were inconvenient to the guests :  to us these parties produced only trouble and constraint, without any pleasure.

The Emperor had unconsciously resumed his regular work.  He now dictated daily to the Grand Marshal upon the expedition to Egypt ;  some time before dinner he ordered me and my son to be called to him, in order to read the different chapters of the Campaigns of Italy over again, and separate them into paragraphs.  Cards had gone out of fashion ;  the Emperor had given them up.  The time after dinner was henceforth devoted to the reading of some work :  the Emperor himself read aloud ;  when he was tired, he handed the book over to some other person ;  but then he never could bear their reading more than a quarter of an hour.  We were now reading novels, and we began many which we never finished.  Manon l’Escaut we soon rejected as fit only for the anti-chamber ;  then followed the Memoirs of Grammont, which are so full of wit, but so little honourable to the morals of the great of that period :  the Chevalier de Faublas, which is only to be endured at the age of twenty years, &c.  Whenever these readings could be protracted to eleven o’clock, or midnight, the Emperor seemed truly rejoiced.  He called this making conquests over time ;  and he found such victories not the most easy to gain.

Politics had also their turn.  Every three or four weeks or thereabouts, we received a large packet of journals from Europe ;  this, like the cut of a whip, set us going again for some days, during which we discussed, analyzed, and re-discussed the news ;  and afterwards fell again insensibly into our usual melancholy.  The last journals had reached us by the corvette La Levrette, which had arrived some days before.  They occupied one of the evenings, and gave rise to one of those moments, wherein that ardour and inspiration burst forth from the Emperor, which I have sometimes witnessed in the Council of State, and which escape him from time to time even here.

He took large strides as he walked amongst us, becoming gradually more animated, and only interrupting his discourse by a few moments of meditation. “ Poor France,” said he, “ what will be thy lot !  Above all, what is become of thy glory ! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .”  I suppress the rest, which is of very great length :  I must suppress it.

The papers seeming to say that England desired the dismemberment of France, but that Russia had opposed it, the Emperor said that he expected this ;  that it was the natural system that Russia must be dissatisfied at seeing France divided ;  whilst, on the other hand, the English aristocracy must be desirous of reducing France to the extreme of weakness, and of establishing despotism upon her ruins.  “ I know,” said he, “ that this is not your opinion,” addressing himself to me ;  “ you are an Englishman.”  I replied, that it was very difficult to dispute with him ;  but that it appeared to me that in this same English aristocracy, it must be allowed, that there might possibly exist, sufficiently clear heads, as well as hearts just enough to understand that, after having overthrown that which threatened their existence, it might prove advantageous to raise up that which was no longer to be dreaded.  That circumstances were now singularly favourable for establishing a new system, which might for ever unite the two nations in their dearest interests ;  might render them necessary to each other ;  instead of keeping them in perpetual enmity, &c.  The Emperor concluded the conversation by saying, that he must be very perverse without doubt ;  but that, with every consideration he could give the subject, he could foresee nothing but catastrophes, massacres, and bloodshed.

On the Secret History of the Cabinet of Bonaparte, by Goldsmith.—Details, &c.

15th.—When I was on board the Northumberland, I had heard the Secret History of the Cabinet of Bonaparte, by Goldsmith, spoken of, and, in my first leisure moments here, I felt an inclination to skim it over ;  but I met with great difficulty in obtaining it, as the English excused themselves from putting it into my hands for a considerable time, saying, it was such an abominable libel that they were afraid to let me have it ;  and were themselves ashamed of it.  I was for a long time under the necessity of urging them incessantly, repeating that we were all proof against such civilities ;  that he who was the object of them only used to laugh at such things, when chance brought them before his eyes ;  and moreover, that if this work was so bad as it was said to be, it must have failed in its end, and ceased to be hurtful at all.  I asked who this Goldsmith, the author, was.  I was told, he was an Englishman who . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . at Paris, and who, upon his return to England, had endeavoured to avoid . . . . and at the same time to gain more money, by loading with insults and imprecations that idol to whom he had so long offered incense.  I at last obtained the work.  It must be confessed that it would be difficult to collect together more horrible and ridiculous abominations than are presented to us in the first pages of this book :  rapes, poison, incest, assassination, and all that belongs to them, are heaped by the author upon his hero, and that from his earliest childhood.  It is true, that the author appears to have given himself little concern about bestowing on these calumnies any air of probability ;  and that he himself sometimes demonstrates their impossibility, and sometimes refutes them by anachronisms, alibi’s, and contradictions of every kind ;  mistakes in the names, persons, and the most authentic facts, &c.  Thus, for example, when Napoleon was only about ten or twelve years of age, and was confined within the bounds of the Military School, he causes him to commit outrages which would require at least the age of manhood, and a certain degree of liberty, &c.  The author makes him undertake what he calls the robberies of Italy, at the head of eight thousand galley-slaves, who had escaped from the bagnio at Toulon.  Afterwards, he makes twenty thousand Poles abandon the Austrian ranks to join the standard of the French General, &c.  The same author makes Napoleon arrive at Paris in Fructidor, when all the world knows that he never quitted his army.  He makes him treat with the Prince of Condé, and ask the hand of the Princess Royal as the price of his treachery.  I omit a number of other things equally absurd and impudent.  It is evident that, with respect to the loose and ridiculous anecdotes particularly, he only collected all he could hear ;  but from what source has he drawn his information ?  The greater part of the anecdotes have certainly had their rise in certain defamatory and malevolent circles of Paris ;  but, as long as they were on that ground, they still preserved the appearance of some wit, salt, point, colour, some grace in the relation ;  whilst the stories in this book have evidently descended from the drawing-rooms into the streets, and have only been picked up after rolling in the kennel.  The English allowed it was so coarse, that, with the exception of the most vulgar classes of society, the work was a poison which carried its own antidote along with it.

It may probably excite astonishment that I did not lay aside such a production upon reading the first page of it ;  but its coarseness and vulgarity are so gross that it cannot excite anger :  on the other hand, there is no disgust which may not be got over in order to amuse the heavy hours at Saint-Helena.  We consider ourselves fortunate in having any thing to run over.  “ Time,” said the Emperor, a few days ago, “ is the only thing of which we have too much here.”  I therefore continued the work.  And besides, I may perhaps be allowed to say, that it is not without some pleasure that I now read the absurd tales, the lies, and calumnies, which an author pretends to derive, as usual, from the best authority, relating to objects which I am now so perfectly well acquainted with, and which have become as familiar to me as the details of my own life ;  and it is likewise gratifying to lay down pages filled with the falsest representations, and exhibiting a portrait purely fantastical, to go and study truth by the side of the real personage, in his own conversation ever full of novelties and grand ideas.

The Emperor having desired me to come to him this morning after breakfast, I found him in his morning-gown extended upon his sofa.  The conversation led him to ask me what I was reading at this moment.  I replied, that it was one of the most notorious and scurrilous libels published against him, and I quoted to him upon the spot some of its most abominable stories.  He laughed greatly at them, and desired to see the work.  I sent for it, and we went over it together.  In passing from one horrid calumny to another, he exclaimed, “Jesus ! ” crossing himself repeatedly, a custom which I have perceived is familiar with him, in his little friendly circle, whenever he meets with monstrous, impudent, or obscene assertions ;  or such as excite his indignation and surprise without stirring up his anger.  As we were going on, the Emperor analyzed certain facts, and corrected points of which the author might have known something.  Sometimes he shrugged up his shoulders out of compassion ;  at others, he laughed heartily ;  but he never betrayed the least sign of anger.  When he read the article which speaks of his great debaucheries and excesses, the violences and the outrages which he is made to commit, he observed that the author, doubtless, wished to make a hero of him in every respect ;  that he willingly left him to those who had charged him with impotency ;  that it was for these gentlemen to agree among themselves ;  adding, merrily, “ that every man was not so unlucky as the pleader of Toulouse.”  They were in the wrong, however, he continued, to attack him upon the score of morals ;  him, who, as all the world knew, had so singularly improved them.  They could not be ignorant that he was not at all inclined, by nature, to debauchery ;  and that, moreover, the multiplicity of his affairs would never have allowed him time to indulge in it.  When we came to the pages where his mother was described as acting the most disgusting and abject part at Marseilles :  he stopped, and repeated several lines with an accent of indignation, and something approaching to grief, “ Ah ! Madame ! —Poor Madame !—with her lofty character ! if she were to read this !—Great God ! ”

We thus passed more than two hours, at the end of which he began to dress.  Doctor O’Meara was introduced to him :  it was the usual hour of his being admitted.  “ Dottore,” said the Emperor to him in Italian, whilst he was shaving himself “ I have just read one of your fine London productions against me.”  The Doctor’s countenance indicated a wish to know what it was.  I shewed him the book at a distance ;  it was himself who had lent it to me :  he was disconcerted.  “ It is a very just remark,” continued the Emperor, “ that it is the truth only which gives offence.  I have not been angry for a moment ;  but I have frequently laughed at it.”  The Doctor endeavoured to reply, and puzzled himself with high-flown sentences :  it was, he said, an infamous, disgusting libel ;  every body knew it to be such ;  nobody paid any attention to it :  nevertheless, persons might be found who would believe it, from its not having been replied to.  “ But how can that be helped ? ” said the Emperor.  “ If it should enter any one’s head to put in print that I had grown hairy, and walked on four paws, there are people who would believe it, and would say that God had punished me as he did Nebuchadnezzar.  And what could I do ?  There is no remedy in such cases.”  The Doctor came away, hardly able to believe the gaiety, the indifference, the good-nature of which he had just been witness ;  were now accustomed to it.

The Emperor resolves to learn English, &c.

16th.—About three o’clock the Emperor desired me to come and converse with him whilst he was dressing himself ;  we afterwards took a few turns in the garden.  He observed, accidentally, that it was a shame he could not yet read English.  I assured him that, if he had continued his lessons after the two that I had given when we were off Madeira, he would now have been able to read every description of English books.  He was perfectly persuaded of this, and ordered me to oblige him henceforth to take a lesson every day.  The conversation then led me to observe, that I had just given my son his first lesson in mathematics.  It is a branch of knowledge which the Emperor is very fond of, and in which he is particularly skilled.  He was astonished that I could teach my son so much without the help of any work, and without any copy-book ;  he said, he did not know I was so learned in this way, and threatened me with examining, when I did not expect it, both the master and the scholar.  At dinner he undertook what he called the Professor of Mathematics, who was very near being posed by him :  one question did not wait for another, and they were frequently very keen.  He never ceased to regret that the mathematics were not taught at a very early age in the Lyceums.  He said that all the intentions he had formed respecting the Universities had been frustrated, complained greatly of De Fontanes, lamenting, that whilst he was obliged to be at a distance, carrying on the war, they spoiled all he had done at home, &c.  This led the Emperor back to the first years of his life, to father Patrault, his Professor of Mathematics, whose history he gave us :  I have already introduced it ;  and it will have been read in the foregoing pages.

First English lesson, &c.

17th.—The Emperor took his first lesson in the English language to-day.  And as it was my intention to put him at once in a situation to read the paper with readiness, this first lesson consisted of nothing more than getting acquainted with an English newspaper ;  in studying the form and plan of it ;  in learning the placing, which is always uniform, of the different subjects which it contains ;  in separating the notices and gossip of the town from politics ;  and, in the latter, in learning to distinguish what is authentic from what is mere report or conjecture.

I have engaged, that, if the Emperor could endure being annoyed every day with such lessons, he would be able to read the papers in a month without the assistance of any of us.  The Emperor wished afterwards to do some exercise ;  he wrote some sentences which were dictated to him, and translated them into English, with the assistance of a little table, which I made for him, of the auxiliary verbs and articles, and aided by the dictionary for other words, which I made him look out himself.  I explained to him the rules of syntax and grammar according as they came before us ;  in this manner he formed various sentences, which amused him more than the versions which we also attempted.  After the lesson, at two o’clock, we went and took a walk in the garden.

Several musquet-shots were fired :  they were so near us, that they appeared to have been fired in the garden itself.  The Emperor observed to me, that my son (we thought it was he) seemed to have good sport :  I replied, that it was the last time he should enjoy it so near the Emperor.  “ Really,” said he, “ you may as well go and tell him that he is only to come within cannon-shot of us.” I ran :  we had accused him wrongfully, for the guns were fired by the people who were training the Emperor’s horses. After dinner, during coffee, the Emperor, taking me to the corner of the chimney-piece, put his hand upon my head to measure my height, and said, “ I am a giant to you.”—“ Your Majesty is that to so many others,” I observed to him, “ that I am not at all affected by it.”  He spoke immediately of something else ;  for he does not like to dwell on expressions of this description.

Our daily habits.—Conversation with Governor Wilks.—Armies.—Chemistry.—Politics.—Remarks on India.—Delphine, by Mme. de Staël.—Necker, Calonne.

18th—20th.  We led a life of great uniformity.  The Emperor did not go out in the mornings.  The English lesson was very regularly taken about two o’clock ;  then followed either a walk in the garden, or some presentations, but which were very rare ;  afterwards a little excursion in the calash, as the horses were at last arrived.  Before dinner, we proceeded with the revision of the Campaigns of Italy or Egypt :  after dinner we read romances.

On the 20th, the Emperor received Governor Wilks, with whom he had a profound discussion on the army, the sciences, government, and the Indies.  Speaking of the organization of the English army, he dwelt much on the principles of promotion therein, expressing his surprise, that, in a country in which equality of rights is maintained, the soldiers so seldom become officers.

Colonel Wilks admitted that the English soldiers were not formed to become so ;  and said, that the English were equally astonished at the great difference they had remarked in the French army, where almost every soldier shewed the nascent talents of an officer.  “That,” observed the Emperor, “ is one of the great results of the Conscription ;  it had rendered the French army the best constituted that ever existed.  It was an institution,” he continued, “ eminently national, and already strongly interwoven with our habits ;  it had ceased to be a cause of grief, except to mothers ;  and the time was at hand, when a girl would not have listened to a young man who had not acquitted himself of this debt to his country.  And it would have been only when arrived at this point,” added he, “ that the conscription would have manifested the full extent of its advantages.  When the service no longer bears the appearance of punishment or compulsory duty, but is become a point of honour, on which all are jealous, then only is the nation great, glorious, and powerful ;  it is then that its existence is proof against reverses,  invasions—even the hand of time !

“ Besides,” continued he, “ it may be truly said, that there is nothing that may not be obtained from Frenchmen by the excitement of danger ;  it seems to animate them ;  it is an inheritance they derive from their Gallic predecessors. . . . . Courage, the love of glory, are, with the French, an instinct, a kind of sixth sense.  How often in the heat of battle has my attention been fixed on my young conscripts, rushing, for the first time, into the thickest of the fight :  honour and valour bursting forth at every pore.”

After this, the Emperor, knowing that Governor Wilks was well informed in chemistry, attacked him on that subject.  He spoke of the immense progress in all our manufactures occasioned by this science.  He said, that both England and France, undoubtedly, possessed great chemists ;  but that chemistry was more generally diffused in France, and more particularly directed to useful results ;  that in England it remained a science, while in France it was becoming entirely practical.  The Governor admitted that these observations were perfectly correct, and, with a liberality of sentiment, added, that it was to him, the Emperor, that all these advantages were owing, and that wherever science was led by the hand of power, it would produce great and happy effects upon the well-being of society.  The Emperor observed, that of late France had obtained sugar from the beet-root, as good and cheap as that extracted from the sugar-cane.  The Governor was astonished ;  he had not even suspected it.  The Emperor assured him that it was an established fact, opposed, as it was, to the rooted prejudices of all Europe, France itself not excepted.  He added, that it was the same with woad, the substitute for indigo, and with almost all the colonial produce, except the dye-woods.  This led him to conclude, that if the invention of the compass had produced a revolution in commerce, the progress of chemistry bade fair to produce a counter-revolution.

The conversation then turned to the present numerous emigrations of the artisans of France and England to America.  The Emperor observed that this favoured country grew rich by our follies.  The Governor smiled, and replied, that those of England would occupy the first place in the list, from the numerous errors of administration, which had led to the revolt and subsequent emancipation of the Colonies.  The Emperor said that their emancipation was inevitable ;  that when children were come to the size of their fathers, it was difficult to retain them long in a state of obedience.

They then spoke of India ;  the Governor had resided there many years, and had filled high situations ;  he had made important researches ;  he was enabled to reply to a multitude of questions proposed to him by the Emperor, respecting the laws, the manners, the usages of the Hindoos, the administration of the English, the nature and construction of the existing laws, &c.

The English are governed according to the laws of England ;  the natives by local acts made by the several Councils in the service of the Company, with whom it is a fundamental principle to render them as nearly similar as possible to the laws of the people themselves.

Hyder Aly was a man of genius ;  Tippoo, his son, was arrogant, ignorant, and rash.  The former had upwards of 400,000 men ;  the latter scarcely ever more than 50,000.  These people are not deficient in courage, but they do not possess our physical strength, and have neither discipline nor any knowledge of tactics.  Forty-seven thousand men in the English service, of whom only 4,000 were Europeans, were sufficient to destroy the empire of Mysore.  It was, however, to be presumed, that sooner or later the national spirit would rescue these regions from the dominion of the Europeans.  The intermixture of European blood with that of the natives, was producing a mixed race, whose numbers and disposition certainly prepared the way for a great revolution.  Nevertheless, in their actual condition, the people were happier than they had been previously to the dominion of the English :  an impartial administration of justice, and the mildness of the government were, for the present, the strongest supports of the power of the parent state.  It was also considered expedient to prohibit the English and other Europeans from buying lands there, or forming hereditary establishments, &c.

Madame de Staël’s Delphine was at this time a subject of conversation at our evening parties.  The Emperor analyzed it :  few things in it escaped his censure.  The irregularity of mind and imagination which pervades it, excited his criticism :  there were throughout, said he, the same faults which had formerly made him keep the author at a distance, notwithstanding the most pointed advances and the most unremitting flattery on her part.  No sooner had victory immortalized the young General of the Army of Italy, than Madame de Staël, unacquainted with him, from the mere sympathy of glory, instantly professed for him sentiments of enthusiasm worthy of her own Corinne ;  she wrote him long and numerous epistles, full of wit, imagination, and metaphysical erudition :  it was an error, she observed, arising only from human institutions, that could have united him with the meek, the tranquil Madame Bonaparte ;  it was a soul of fire like her’s (Madame de Staël’s) that nature had undoubtedly destined to be the companion of a hero like him.

I refer to the Campaigns in Italy, to shew that this forwardness on the part of Madame de Staël was not checked by the circumstance of meeting with no return.  With a perseverance never to be disheartened, she succeeded, at a later period, in forming some degree of acquaintance, so far even as to be allowed to visit ;  and she used this privilege, said the Emperor, to a disagreeable extent.  It is unquestionably true, as has been reported, that the General, wishing to make her sensible of it, one day caused her to be told, by way of excuse, that he was scarcely dressed ;  and that she replied promptly and earnestly, that it was unimportant, for that genius was of no sex.

From Madame de Staël we were naturally led to her father, M. Necker.  The Emperor related, that at Geneva, in his way to Marengo, he received a visit from him, wherein he made known, in an awkward manner enough, his desire to be admitted again to the Administration—a desire, by the by, which M. Calonne, his rival, subsequently came to Paris to express with a degree of levity beyond conception.  M. Necker afterwards wrote a dangerous work upon the policy of France, which he attempted to prove could no longer exist either as a monarchy or a republic, and in which he called the First Consul l’homme nécessaire.

The First Consul proscribed the work, which, at that time, might have been highly prejudicial to him, and committed the task of refuting it to the Consul Lebrun, “ who in his elegant prose,” said the Emperor, executed prompt and ample justice upon it.  The Necker coterie was irritated, and Madame de Staël, engaging in some intrigues, received an order to quit France :  thenceforth she became an ardent and strenuous enemy.  Nevertheless, on the return from the Island of Elba, she wrote or sent to the Emperor, to express, in her peculiar way, the enthusiasm which this wonderful event had excited in her ;  that she was overcome ;  that this last act was not that of a mortal ;  that it had at once raised its author to the skies.  Then, returning to herself, she concluded by hinting, that if the Emperor would condescend to allow the payment of the two millions, for which an order in her favour had already been signed by the King, her pen and her principles should be devoted for ever after to his interest.—The Emperor desired she might be informed, in answer, that nothing could flatter him more highly than her approbation, because he fully appreciated her talents ;  but that he really was not rich enough to purchase it at that price.

My new lodging described.—Morning visit, &c.

21st.—I had at length taken possession of the new lodging built for me instead of my former stoving-room.  Upon a soil constantly damp had been placed a floor eighteen feet long by eleven wide ;  this was surrounded by a wall of a foot and half in thickness, composed of a sort of loam, and which might have been destroyed with a kick of the foot :  at the height of seven feet it was covered with a roof of boards, defended by a coating of paper and tar.  Such were the construction and the outline of my new palace, divided into two apartments, one of which contained two beds separated by a chest of drawers, and would only afford room for a single chair ;  the other, at once my saloon and my library, had a single window strongly fastened up on account of the violence of the winds and rain ;  on the right and left of it two writing-tables, for me and my son ;  on the opposite side a couch and two chairs :  this was the whole of the furniture and accommodations :  add to this, that the aspect of the two windows is towards a wind constantly blowing from the same quarter, and generally accompanied with rain, often very heavy, and which, previously to our taking possession, already forced its way through the cracks, or soaked through the walls and the roof.  I was to pass the first night in these new quarters ;  I was indisposed, and my change of bed prevented me from sleeping.  I was informed about seven o’clock, that the Emperor was going out on horseback ;  I replied, that not feeling myself well, I should endeavour to take some rest ;  but only a few minutes had elapsed when a person hastily entered my apartment, opened my curtains with an air of authority, found fault with me for being so idle, and pronounced that this ailment must be shaken off ;  then, struck with the smell of the paint, the extreme smallness of the room, and the closeness of the two beds, decided that we could no longer be suffered to sleep huddled together in that way ;  that it was far too unwholesome ;  and that I must return to the bed in the topographical cabinet, which I ought not to abandon through false delicacy ;  and that, if I occasioned any inconvenience there, I should be told of it.  It will have been guessed, that this person was the Emperor.  I was, of course, soon out of bed, dressed, and well.  The Emperor was, however, already far off :  I had to seek him in the park.  After I had overtaken him, our conversation turned on the long audience he had given to Governor Wilks the day before.  He dwelt, with much good humour, on the great importance which my work seemed to have given me in the Governor’s eyes, and the extreme good-will towards me with which it seemed to have inspired him.  “ Of course,” continued he, “ it is understood that these sentiments are to be mutual ;  the usual regard and fraternity of authors, as long as they do not criticize each other.  And is he aware of your relationship to the venerable Las Casas ?”  I answered that I knew nothing of the matter ;  but General Gourgaud, who was on the other side of the Emperor, replied in the affirmative.  “ And how do you know it yourself ? ” said the Emperor to me ;  “ Are you not romancing with us ? ”  “ The following, Sire, are my proofs.  Our family had been two hundred years in France, when Barthelemi de Las Casas flourished in Spain ;  but the Spanish historians all describe him as a native of the same city from which we ourselves came, that is to say, Seville.  They all mention him as of an ancient family of French origin, and state his ancestors to have passed into Spain precisely at the time when our family went there.”—“ What, then, you are not Spanish ?  He was French, as well as you ! ”—“ Yes, Sire.”—“ Let us hear all about it ; come, Sir Castellan, Sir Knight-errant, Sir Paladin, let us see you in your glory ;  unroll your old parchments ;  come, enjoy yourself.”—“ Sire, one of my ancestors followed Henry Count of Burgundy, who, at the head of a few crusaders, achieved the conquest of Portugal, about the year 1100.  He was his standard-bearer at the famous battle of Ourique, which founded the Portuguese monarchy.  Afterwards we returned to France with Queen Blanche, when she came to be married to the father of Saint Louis.  Sire, this is the whole.”

The Emperor’s readings.—Madame de Sevigné.—Charles XII.—Paul and Virginia.—Vertot.—Rollin.—Velly.—Garnier.

22d—26th.  These days were rendered unpleasant by almost incessant rain.  The Emperor was only twice able to ride out—in the park one morning, and once in the afternoon through our usual valley, which the weather had rendered almost impassable.  Nor was it more practicable to make use of the calash ;  we were therefore compelled to confine ourselves to a few turns in the garden, and to share in the gloom of the weather.  We worked, however, the more on this account.  The Emperor regularly took excellent and long lessons in English.  It is his custom to pass all the morning in reading ;  he reads whole works of very considerable extent regularly throughout, without feeling in the least fatigued ;  he always read some part of them to me before he began his English lessons. One of them was the Letters of Madame de Sevigné, the style of which is so easy, and depicts so faithfully the manners of the time.  Reading the death of Turenne, and the trial of Fouquet, he observed with respect to the latter, that Madame de Sevigné seemed to evince too much warmth, too much earnestness and tenderness, for mere friendship.

Another was Charles XII ;  in reading whose defence of his house, at Bender, against the Turks, he could not help laughing, and repeating, as they did, “ Iron-head !  Iron-head !”  He asked me whether the nature of this monarch’s death was a settled point.  I told him I had it from the mouth of Gustavus III. himself, that he had been assassinated by his followers.  Gustavus had examined his body in the vault ;  the ball was a pistol-bullet ;  it had been fired very near, and behind him, &c.

At the beginning of the Revolution, I was well acquainted with Gustavus III. at the waters of Aix-la-Chapelle ;  and though I was then very young, I had more than once the honour of conversing with him :  he even promised me a place in his navy, if our affairs in France should turn out unfavourably.

Another day the Emperor was reading Paul and Virginia ;  he gave full effect to the touching passages, which were always the most simple and natural ;  those which abounded with the pathos, the abstract and false ideas so much in fashion when the work was published, were all, in the Eulperor’s opinion, cold, bad, spoiled.  He said he had been infatuated with this book in his youth ;  but he had little personal regard for its author :  he could never forgive him for having imposed on his generosity on his return from the Army of Italy.  “ Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s sensibility and delicacy,” said he, “ were little in harmony with his charming picture of Paul and Virginia.  He was a bad man ;  he used his wife, Didot the printer’s daughter, very ill ;  he was always ready to ask charity, without the least shame.  On my return from the Army of Italy, Bernardin came to see me, and almost immediately began to tell me of his wants.  I, who in my early youth had dreamed of nothing but Paul and Virginia, and felt flattered by a confidence which I imagined was reposed in me alone, and which I attributed to my great celebrity, hastened to return his visit, and, unperceived by any one, left on the corner of his chimney-piece a little rouleau of five-and-twenty louis.  But how was I mortified on seeing every one laugh at the delicacy of my proceeding ;  and on learning that such ceremony was entirely superfluous with M. Bernardin, who made it his trade to beg of all comers, and to receive from every body.  I always retained some little resentment towards him, for having thus imposed upon me.  It was otherwise with my family.  Joseph allowed him a large pension, and Louis was costantly making him presents.”

But though the Emperor liked Paul and Virginia, he laughed, for very pity, at the Studies of Nature, by the same Author.  “ Bernardin,” said he, “ though versed in Belles Lettres, was very little of a geometrician ;  this last work was so bad, that scientific men disdained to answer it ;  Bernardin complained loudly of their not noticing him.  The celebrated mathematician Lagrange, when speaking on this subject, always said, alluding to the Institute, ‘ If Bernadin were one of our class—if he spoke our language, we would call him to order ;  but he belongs to the Academy, and his style is out of our line.’ ” Bernardin was complaining as usual, one day, to the First Consul of the silence of the learned with respect to his works :  Napoleon asked, “ Do you understand the differential method, M. Bernardin ?”—“ No.”—“ Well, go and learn it, and then you will be able to answer yourself.”  Afterwards, when Emperor, every time he perceived Saint-Pierre, he used to say to him, “ M. Bernardin, when are we to have any more Paul and Virginias, or Indian Cottages ?  You ought to supply us every six months.”

In reading Vertot’s Roman Revolutions, of which in other respects the Emperor thinks highly, he found the declamations much too diffuse.  This was his constant complaint against every work he took up ;  he had in his youth, he said, been much to blame in this respect himself.  He may justly be said to have thoroughly reformed afterwards.  He amused himself with striking out the superfluous phrases in Vertot ;  and the result was that after these erasures, the work appeared much more energetic and animated.  “ It would certainly be a most valuable and successful labour,” said he, “ if any man of taste and discernment would devote his time to reducing the principal works in our language in this manner.  I know nobody but Montesquiou who would escape these curtailments.”  He often looked into Rollin, whom he thought diffuse, and too credulous.  Crevier, his continuator, seemed to Napoleon detestable.  He complained of our classical works, and of the time which our young people are compelled to lose in reading such bad books.  They were composed by rhetoricians, and mere professors, he said ;  whereas such immortal subjects, the basis of all our knowledge throughout life, ought to have been written and edited by statesmen and men of the world.  The Emperor had excellent ideas on this subject :  the want of time alone prevented him from carrying them into execution.

The Emperor was still more dissatisfied with our French historians ;  he could not bear to read any of them.  “ Velly is rich in words, and poor in meaning :  his continuators are still worse.  Our history,” said the Emperor, “ should either be in four or five volumes, or in a hundred.”  He had been acquainted with Garnier, who continued Velly and Villaret ;  he lived in the basement of Malmaison.  He was an old man of eighty, and lodged in a small set of apartments on the ground-floor, with a little gallery.  Struck with the officious attention which this good old man always evinced whenever the First Consul was passing, the latter enquired who he was.  On learning that it was Garnier, he comprehended his motives.  “ He, no doubt, imagined,” said the Emperor pleasantly, “ that a First Consul was his property, as historian.  I dare say, however, he was astonished to find Consuls where he had been accustomed to see Kings.”  Napoleon told him so, himself, laughing, when he called him one day, and settled a good pension on him.  “ From that time,” said the Emperor, “ the poor man, in the warmth of his gratitude, would gladly have written any thing I pleased, with all his heart.”

A difficulty overcome.—The Emperor’s pensonal danger at Eylau, Jena, &c.—Russian, Austrian, and Prussian troops.—Young Guibert.—Corbineau.—Marshal Lannes.—Bessieres.—Duroc.

27th.—About five o’clock the Emperor went out his calash ;  the evening was very fine ;  we drove rapidly, and the distance to be traversed is very short.  The Emperor made the servants slacken their pace, in order to prolong the ride.  As we returned, the Emperor, casting his eyes on the camp, from which we were only separated by the ravine, asked why we could not pass that way, which would double the length of our ride.  He was told it was impossible ;  and we continued our way homeward.  But on a sudden, as if roused by this word impossible, which he had so often said was not French, he ordered the ground to be reconnoitred.  We all got out of the carriage, which proceeded empty towards the difficult points ;  we saw it clear every obstacle, and returned home in triumph, as if we had just doubled our possessions.

During dinner, and afterwards, the conversation turned on various deeds of arms.  The Grand Marshal said, that what had most struck him in the life of the Emperor, happened at Eylau, when, attended only by some officers of his staff, a column of four or five thousand Russians came almost in contact with him.  The Emperor was on foot ;  the Prince of Neufchatel instantly ordered up the horses :  the Emperor gave him a reproachful look ;  then sent orders to a battalion of his guard to advance, which was a good way behind, and standing still.  As the Russians advanced, he repeated several times, “ What audacity !  what audacity !”  At the sight of the grenadiers of the guard, the Russians stopped short.  It was high time they should, as Bertrand said.  The Emperor had never stirred ;  all who surrounded him had been much alarmed.

The Emperor had heard this account without making any observation ;  but, when it was finished, he said that one of the finest manoeuvres he remembered was that which he executed at Eckmulh.  Unfortunately he did not proceed, or give any particulars.  “ Success in war,” said he, “ depends so much on quicksightedness, and on seizing the right moment, that the battle of Austerlitz, which was so completely won, would have been lost if I had attacked six hours sooner.  The Russians shewed themselves on that occasion such excellent troops as they have never appeared since ;  the Russian army of Austerlitz would not have lost the battle of the Moscowa.”

“ Marengo,” said the Emperor, “ was the battle in which the Austrians fought best :  their troops behaved admirably there ;  but that was the grave of their valour.  It has never since been seen.

“ The Prussians, at Jena, did not make such a resistance as was expected from their reputation.  As to the multitudes of 1814 and 1815, they were mere rabble compared to the real soldiers of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena.”

The night before the battle of Jena, the Emperor said, he had run the greatest risk.  He might then have disappeared without his fate being clearly known.  He had approached the bivouacs of the enemy, in the dark, to reconnoitre them ;  he had only a few officers with him.  The opinion which was then entertained of the Prussian army kept every one on the alert :  it was thought that the Prussians were particularly given to nocturnal attacks.  As the Emperor returned, he was fired at by the first sentinel of his camp ;  this was a signal for the whole line ;  he had no resource but to throw himself flat on his face until the mistake was discovered.  But his principal apprehension was that the Prussian line, which was very near him, would act in the same manner.

At Marengo the Austrian soldiers had not forgotten the conqueror of Castiglione, Arcole, and Rivoli ;  his name had much influence over them ;  but they were far from thinking he was present ;  they believed he was dead ;  care had been taken to persuade them that he had perished in Egypt that the First Consul, of whom they heard talk, was only his brother.  This report had gained so much credit every where, that Napoleon was under the necessity of appearing in public at Milan, in order to refute it.

After these anecdotes, the Emperor proceeded to mention a great number of his officers and aides-de-camp, distributing praise and censure amongst them as he went on ;  he knew them all thoroughly.  Two of the circumstances which had most affected him on the field of battle, he said, were the deaths of young Guibert and General Corbineau.  At Aboukir, a bullet went quite through the breast of the former, without killing him instantly :  the Emperor, after saying a few words to him, was obliged, by the violence of his feelings, to leave him.  The other was carried away, crushed, annihilated by a cannon-ball, at Eylau, before the Emperor’s face, whilst he was giving him some orders.  The Emperor spoke also of the last moments of Marshal Lannes, the valiant Duke of Montebello, so justly called the Orlando of the army, who, when visited by the Emperor on his death-bed, seemed to forget his own situation, and to care only for him, whom he loved above every thing.  The Emperor had the highest esteem for him.  “ He was for a long time a mere fighting man,” said he, “ but he afterwards became an officer of the first talents.”  Some one then said, he should like to know what line of conduct Lannes would have pursued in these latter times, if he had lived.  “We have learned,” said the Emperor, “ not to swear to any thing.  Yet I cannot conceive that it could have been possible for him to deviate from the path of duty and honour.  Besides, it is hard to imagine that he could have existed.  With all his bravery, he would unquestionably have got killed in some of the last affairs, or at least sufficiently wounded to be laid up out of the centre and influence of events.  And if he had remained disposable, he was a man capable of changing the whole face of affairs by his own weight and influence.”

The Emperor next mentioned Duroc, on whose character and private life he dwelt some time.  “ Duroc,” concluded he, “ had lively, tender, and concealed passions, little corresponding with the coldness of his manner.  It was long before I knew this, so exact and regular was his service.  It was not until my day was entirely closed and finished, and I was enjoying repose, that Duroc’s work began.—Chance, or some accident, could alone have made me acquainted with his character.  He was a pure and virtuous man, utterly disinterested, and extremely generous.”

The Emperor said, that on the opening of the campaign at Dresden, he lost two men who were extremely valuable to him, and in the most foolish manner in the world :  these were Bessieres and Duroc.  When he went to see Duroc, after he had received his mortal wound, he attempted to hold out some hopes to him ;  but Duroc, who did not deceive himself, only replied by begging him to make them give him opium.  The Emperor, excessively affected, could not venture to remain long with him, and tore himself from this distressing spectacle.

One of the company then reminded the Emperor, that on leaving Duroc, he went and walked up and down by himself before his tent :  no one durst accost him.  But, some essential measures being requisite against the following day, some one at length ventured to go and ask him where the battery of the guard was to be placed.  “ Ask me nothing till to-morrow,” was the Emperor’s answer.

At this recollection, the Emperor, with an apparent effort, began abruptly to talk of something else.

Duroc was one of those persons whose value is never known till they are lost :  this was, after his death, the common expression of the court and city, and the unanimous sentiment every where.

He was a native of Nancy, in the department of La Meurthe.  The origin of his fortune has been related above.  Napoleon found him in the train at the siege of Toulon, and immediately interested himself for him.  His attachment to him increased every day, and it might be said that they never more separated.  I have elsewhere mentioned that I have heard the Emperor say, that throughout his career, Duroc was the only person who had possessed his unreserved confidence, and to whom he could freely unburden his mind.—Duroc was not a brilliant character ;  but he possessed an excellent judgment, and he rendered essential services, which, owing to their nature as well as to his reserve, were little heard of.

Duroc loved the Emperor for himself :  it was rather to the individual, personally, that his devotion was attached, than to the monarch.  In being made the confidant of his prince’s feelings he had acquired the art, and perhaps the right, of mitigating and directing them.  How often has he whispered to people struck with consternation by the anger of the Emperor :—“ Let him have his way :  he speaks from his feelings, not according to his judgment ;  nor as he will act to-morrow.”  What a servant ! what a friend ! what a treasure !  How many storms he has soothed ;  how many rash orders, given in the moment of irritation, has he omitted to execute, knowing that his master would thank him the next day for the omission.  The Emperor had accommodated himself to this sort of tacit arrangement ;  and on that account gave way the more readily to those violent bursts of temper, which relieve by the vent they afford to the passions.

Duroc died in the most deplorable manner, at a very critical moment ;  his death was another of the fatalities of Napoleon’s career.

The day after the battle of Wurchen, towards evening, the skirmish of Reichenbach had just ended, the firing had ceased.  Duroc was on the top of an eminence, apart from the troops, conversing with General Kirchener, and observing the retreat of the last ranks of the enemy.  A piece was levelled at this glittering group, and the fatal ball killed both the generals.*

Duroc had more influence over the Emperor’s resolutions than is imagined.  His death was probably, in this respect, a national calamity.  There is reason to think, that if he had survived, the armistice of Dresden, which ruined us, would not have taken place ;  we should have pushed on to the Oder, and beyond it.  The enemy would then have instantly acceded to peace, and we should have escaped their machinations, their intrigues, and, above all, the tedious, base, and atrocious perfidy of the Austrian Cabinet, which has ended in our destruction.

At a subsequent period Duroc might still have exerted an influence over other great events, and probably changed the face of affairs.  Finally, even at a later conjuncture, at the time of Napoleon’s fall, he would never have separated his destiny from that of the Emperor :  he would have been with us at Saint-Helena ;  and this aid alone would have sufficed to counterbalance all the horrible vexations with which Napoleon was studiously oppressed.

Bessieres, of the department of the Lot, was thrown by the Revolution into the career of arms.  He commenced as a private soldier in the constitutional guard of Louis XVI.  Afterwards having attained the rank of captain of chasseurs, he attracted the Commander-in-chief of the army of Italy by acts of extraordinary personal bravery ;  and, when the general formed his corps of guides, he chose Bessieres to take the command of them.  Such was the beginning of Bessieres, and the origin of his fortunes.  From that instant we find him always at the head of the Consular or Imperial guard, in charges of the reserve, deciding the battle, or profiting by the victory.  His name is gloriously connected with all our great battles.  Bessieres rose with the man who had distinguished him, and shared abundantly in the favours which the Emperor distributed.  He was made a marshal of the Empire, Duke of Istria, colonel of the cavalry of the guard, &c.

His qualities developing themselves as he rose, proved him always equal to his fortune.  Bessieres always continued good, humane, and generous ;  of antique loyalty and integrity ;  and, whether considered as a citizen or as a soldier, an honest worthy man.  He often made use of the high favour in which he stood, to do extraordinary services, and acts of kindness even to people of very different ways of thinking to his.  I know people, who, if they have a spark of gratitude in them, will confirm my assertion, and can bear testimony to his noble elevated sentiments.

Bessieres was adored by the Guards, in the midst of whom he passed his life.  At the battle of Wagram a ball struck him off his horse, without doing him any farther injury.  A mournful cry arose from the whole battalion ;  upon which Napoleon remarked, the next time he saw him : “ Bessieres, the ball which struck you drew tears from all my Guard.  Return thanks to it ;  it ought to be very dear to you.”

He was less fortunate at the opening of the campaign of Saxony.  On the very eve of the battle of Lutzen, a trifling engagement occurred, in which having advanced into the very midst of the skirmishers, he was shot dead on the spot by a musquet-ball in the breast.  Thus, after living like Bayard, he died like Turenne.

I had conversed with him a little before this fatal event.  Chance had brought us together by ourselves in a private box at the theatre.  After talking of public affairs which deeply interested him, for he idolized his country, his last words, as he left me, were, that he was to set out for the army that night, and hoped we should meet again.  “ But at the present crisis,” said he, “ with our young soldiers, we leaders must not spare ourselves.”  Alas ! he was never to return.

Bessieres was sincerely attached to the Emperor ;  he almost worshipped him ;  he, like Duroc, would certainly never have abandoned his person or his fortunes.  And one would really think that Fate, which proved so decidedly hostile to Napoleon in his latter days, had resolved to deprive him of the sweetest consolation, by thus removing two such valuable friends ;  and at the same time to prevent these faithful servants from acquiring the very highest claim to glory, that of gratitude to the unfortunate.

The Emperor caused the remains of these two men whom he so much esteemed, and by whom he knew himself to be beloved in return, to be carried to the Invalides at Paris.  He intended extraordinary honours for them, of which subsequent events deprived them.  But History, whose pages are far more imperishable than marble or bronze, has consecrated them, and secured them for ever from oblivion.**

Study of English.—Reflections.—Ride.—Mired horse.

31st.—Our days passed, as may be supposed, in an excessive stupid monotony.  Ennui, reflection, and melancholy, were our formidable enemies ;  occupation our great and only refuge.  The Emperor followed his pursuits with great regularity.  English was become an affair of importance to him.  It was now near a fortnight since he took his first lesson, and from that moment he had devoted some hours, every day, beginning at noon, to that study ;  sometimes with truly admirable ardour, sometimes with visible disgust ;  an alternative which kept me in the greatest anxiety.  I considered success as of the greatest importance, and I every day dreaded to see him abandon the ground gained on the day preceding ;  and consequently that I should be regarded as having wearied him with the most tedious labour, without having produced the fortunate result I had promised myself.  On the other hand, I was also daily spurred on by the consciousness that I was approaching the goal at which I aimed.  The attainment of the English language was a real and serious conquest to the Emperor.  Formerly, he said, it had cost him a hundred thousand crowns a year, merely for translations ;  and how did he know whether he had them exact—whether they were faithful ?  Now that we were imprisoned, as it were, in the midst of this language, surrounded by its productions, all the great changes and questions which the Emperor had given rise to on the Continent, had been taken up by the English on the opposite side ;  and in their works presented so many new faces to him, to which he had hitherto been a stranger.

It may be added, that French books were scarce with us ;  that the Emperor knew them all, and had read them even to satiety ;  whilst we could easily procure a multitude of English ones altogether new to him.  Besides, to learn the language of a foreigner, always prepossesses him in our favour ;  it is a satisfaction to one’s self ;  it facilitates intercourse, and forms in a certain degree the commencement of a sort of connexion between the parties.  However this may be, I began to perceive the limits of our difficulties ;  I anticipated the moment when the Emperor would have got through all the inevitable disagreeables incident to beginners.  But let any one form all idea, if possible, of what the scholastic study of conjugations, declensions, and articles must have been to him.  It could never have been accomplished, without great courage on the scholar’s side, and some degree of artifice on the part of the master.  He often asked me whether he did not deserve the ferula, of which he now comprehended the vast utility in schools ;  he declared, jestingly, that he should have made much greater progress himself, had he stood in fear of correction.  He complained of not having improved, but, in reality, the progress he had made would have been extraordinary in any one.

The more grand, rapid, and comprehensive the mind is, the less it is capable of dwelling on regular minute details.  The Emperor, who discovered wonderful facility in apprehending all that regarded the philosophy of the language, evinced very little capacity for retaining its material mechanism.  He had a quick understanding and a very bad memory :  this vexed him much ;  he conceived that he did not get on.  Whenever I could subject the matters in question to any regular law or analogy, they were classed and comprehended in an instant ;  the scholar even preceded the master in his applications and deductions ;  but as to learning by heart, and retaining the gross elements of the language, it was a most difficult affair.  He was constantly confounding one thing with another ;  and it would have been thought too fastidious to require too scrupulous a regularity at first.  Another difficulty was, that with the same letters, the same vowels as ours, a totally different pronunciation is required :  the scholar would allow of none but ours ;  and the master would have rendered the difficulties and disagreeables tenfold, had he required any better.  Besides the scholar, even in his own language, was incorrigibly addicted to maiming proper names and foreign words ;  he pronounced them quite at his own discretion, and when once they had passed his lips, they always remained the same, in spite of every thing, because he had thus got them, once for all, lodged, as it were, in his head.  The same thing happened with respect to most of our English words ;  and the master found it best to have the prudence and patience to let it pass ;  leaving it to time to rectify by degrees, if it should ever be possible, all these defects.  From these concurring circumstances actually sprang a new language.  It was understood by me alone, it is true ;  but it procured the Emperor the pleasure of reading English, and he could, in the strictest sense, make himself understood by writing in that language.  This was a great deal ;  it was every thing.

In the mean time, the Emperor regularly continued his Campaigns of Egypt with the Grand Marshal.  My Campaign of Italy had long been finished ;  we were always touching and retouching it, with respect to its typographical form, the arrangement of the chapters, the division of the paragraphs, &c.  The small part of it that remained in my hands will be seen in the course of this work.

From time to time he also dictated separate parts to Messrs. Gourgaud and Montholon.  To all this work he added very little exercise :  a walk now and then, sometimes a ride in the calash, scarcely ever on horseback.  On the 30th, however, he chose to return to our valley of Silence, which we had long deserted.  We were near the middle of the vale ;  the passage was stopped up with dead bushes, and a kind of bar to restrain cattle.  The servant (the faithful Aly) dismounted, as usual, to clear the way for us.  We passed on ;  but, whilst the servant was engaged in assisting us, his horse had strayed from him, and, when he attempted to catch him, ran away.  A great quantity of rain had fallen, and the horse sank into a quagmire similar to that in which the Emperor, a few days after our arrival at Longwood, had stuck so tenaciously as to make it doubtful whether he would not remain in it.  The servant ran after us to say, that he must remain for the purpose of disengaging his horse.  We were in a very difficult narrow road, riding one by one.  It was not until some time after, that the Emperor heard us mention to one another the accident of the servant.  He found great fault because we had not waited for him, and desired the Grand Marshal and General Gourgaud to return for him.  The Emperor dismounted to wait for them, and ascended a little elevation, on which he looked like a figure on a pedestal in the midst of ruins.  He had the bridle of his horse passed round his arm, and began to whistle an air ;  mute nature echoed the strains, but only to the barren desert.  “ Yet,” thought I, “ a short time ago, how many sceptres he wielded ! how many crowns belonged to him ! how many kings were at his feet !  It is true,” said I, “ that in the eyes of those who approach him, who daily see and hear him, he is still greater than ever !  This is the sentiment, the opinion of all about him.  We serve him with no less ardour ;  we love him with greater affection than ever.”

But now the Grand Marshal and Gourgaud arrived ;  they assisted the Emperor to mount again, and we went on.  These gentlemen acknowledged that without their assistance the horse could never have been saved ;  the united efforts of all three had barely sufficed to disengage him.  A considerable time afterwards, turning an elbow of the road, the Emperor observed that the servant had not followed, and said they ought to have remained till they had found he was in a condition to come on.  They thought he had staid behind to clean his horse a little.  In the course of our ride, at several other turnings the Emperor repeated the same observation.  We arrived at the Grand Marshal’s, went in, and rested there a few minutes :  as we came out, the Emperor asked whether the servant had passed on ;  no one had seen him.  When we arrived at Longwood, his first question was whether the man had returned.  He had been at home some time, having returned by a different road.

I may perhaps have dwelt somewhat too much on this trifling circumstance ;  but I did so because it appeared to me perfectly characteristic.  In this domestic solicitude, the reader will find it difficult to recognise the insensible, obdurate, wicked, cruel monster, the tyrant, of whom he has so often and so long been told.

N.B.  I have mentioned, above, that I should introduce the fragments of the Campaign of Italy which have remained in my hands.  Having now arrived at the end of a month, I will insert a few chapters of them.

On my return to France, through that fatal event which placed me at my own disposal, my motives for retaining to myself alone the fragments of the Campaign of Italy, which I had preserved by the Emperor’s consent, no longer existing, and the detention of my papers by the English ministry leaving me no means of publishing any thing on Saint-Helena, I distributed some of these fragments, attaching no other condition to their being made public than that of distinctly declaring that they were mere rough drafts, first dictations, which have, no doubt, subsequently undergone great alterations.  Now that the restoration of my Papers has enabled me to publish the Journal of Saint-Helena, I have thought of collecting all these fragments of the Campaign of Italy, conceiving that they will not be uninteresting to those who like to compare the first sketch with the more deliberate ideas ;  and particularly as I learn from the depositaries of the manuscript of these Campaigns, that it was the Emperor’s will that the whole should be splendidly published, with maps, plans, &c. and dedicated to his Son, and have every reason to believe that it will still be a long time before society can be gratified with this publication.  I shall therefore insert the little I possess, which is seven chapters out of twenty-two, either at the conclusion of the months, or in the course of the Journal itself, if I find it flag.

I now present the first of these fragments :  Vendemiaire, the Battle of Montenotte, and part of the third chapter, on the Topography of Italy.

* General Kirchener was a very distinguished officer of engineers ;  he was brother-in-law to Marshal Lannes, who had chosen him on account of his courage and capacity.

** The following is extracted from the Campaign of Saxony in 1813, by Baron Odeleben, an eye-witness of the circumstance ;  under date of the 10th of August, at the time of the resumption of hostilities, two or three months after the death of Duroc.
      “ During the march from Reichenbach to Gorlitz, Napoleon stopped at Makersdorf, and shewed the King of Naples the place where Duroc fell.  He summoned to his presence the proprietor of the little farm on which the Grand Marshal died, and made over to him the sum of 20,000 francs ;  4000 of which were for a monument in honour of the deceased, and 16,000 for the proprietor of the house and his wife.  The donation was consummated in the evening, in the presence of the rector and the judge of Makersdorf :  the money was counted out before them, and they were charged to get the monument erected.”