francs in gold-from three to four hundred | the hopeless condition of the French navy thousand francs in valuables and diamonds, when he assumed the throne. The navy of and letters of credit for more than four mil- Louis XVI. was no longer in existence; lion of francs." Whether this immense the Republic possessed but four ships of the sum was overlooked by the extraordinary line; the taking of Toulon, the battle of negligence of those whose duty it was to the river Jenes in 1793-of Rochefort in fulfil the orders of government, or whether 1794, and finally, the battle of Aboukir, had their search was baffled, the narrative does given the death-blow to the navy. "Well, not disclose. But there can be no question notwithstanding the disaster of Trafalgar, that the suite were bound to deliver up all which I owe entirely to the disobedience of that they possessed; and there can be as Admiral Villeneuve, I left to France one little question that with such sums of money hundred ships of the line, and 80,000 sailat his disposal, Napoleon's subsequent com- ors and marines, and all this in a reign of plaints of poverty were ridiculous, and that ten years." The truth is, that the attempt the subsequent sale of his plate to supply his to make the French navy was one of the table was merely for the purpose of exciting pre-eminent blunders of Napoleon. France a clamour, and was charlatanish and con- is naturally a great military power, but her temptible. people are not maritime. England is not naturally a great military power, but her people are maritime. France has an immense land frontier which can be defended only by a land force. England has no land frontier at all. The sea is her only frontier, and it, of course, can be defended only by a fleet. A fleet is not a necessary of existence to France. A fleet is a necessary of existence to England. It is therefore selfevident that France only wastes her power in dividing it between her fleet and her army; and may be a great power, without having a ship; while England is compelled to concentrate her strength upon her fleet, and without her flect must be undone. Thus the law of existence, which is equivalent to a law of nature, gives the naval superiority to England. There are symptoms in France at the present day, of falling into Napoleon's blunder, and of imagining the possibility of her becoming the naval rival of England. That she may build ships is perfectly possible, and that she may crowd them with a naval conscription is equally possible. But the first collision will show her the utter folly of contending with her partial strength against the power on which England rests her defence-a struggle between a species of volunteer and adventurous aggression, and the stern and desperate defence in which the safety of a nation is supremely involved.

We pass rapidly over the details of the voyage. Napoleon spent a considerable part of his time on the quarter-deck, took opportunities of conversing affably with the officers, and even with the crew. On one occasion, after some conversation with the master, he invited him to dine at the admiral's table. The master declined the invitation, as a sin against naval etiquette. "Oh! in that case," said Napoleon," you must come and dine in my own cabin." The admiral, however, had the good sense to tell Napoleon, that any one invited by him to the honor of sitting at his table, was, by that circumstance alone, placed above all rule of etiquette, and that the master should be welcome to dinner next day. This conduct, of course, made him very popular on board; but the chief interest of these important volumes is in the conversation which he held from time to time with the officers, and especially in the long details of his military and imperial career, which he dictated at St. Helena, and which make the true novelty and value of the work. In one of those conversations which he had with them, he referred emphatically to his own efforts to make France a great naval power. Unfortunately," said he, "I found nobody who understood me. During the expedition to Egypt, I cast my eyes on Decrés. I reckoned on him for understanding and executing my projects in regard to the navy. I was mistaken; his passion was to form a police, and to find out, by means of the smugglers, every web which your ministers, or the intriguers of Hartwell, were weaving against me. He had no enlarged ideas; always the spirit of locality and insignificant detail-paralysing my views." He then proceeded to state

On crossing the Line, the triumph of Neptune was celebrated in the usual grotesque style. The Deity of the Sea requested permission to make acquaintance with Napoleon, who received him graciously, and presented him with five hundred Napoleons for himself and the crew, upon which he was rewarded with three cheers, and "Long live the Emperor Napoleon!"

the ocean.

On the 16th of October, 1815, the Nor- into his old boasting of his probable triumph thumberland cast anchor in the roads at in his great collision with the British army. St. Helena. The Count remarks that the" At Waterloo I ought to have been victo17th, the day on which he disembarked, rious-the chances were a hundred to one reminded him of a disastrous day. It was in my favor; but Ney, the bravest of the the anniversary of the last day of the battle brave, at the head of 42,000 Frenchmen, of Leipsig. If distance from all the habi- suffered himself to be delayed a whole day table parts of the globe were to be the by some thousands of Nassau troops. Had merits of Napoleon's prison, nothing could it not been for this inexplicable inactivity, have been more appropriate than the island the English army would have been taken of St. Helena. It was two thousand leagues flagrante delicto, and annihilated without from Europe, twelve hundred leagues from striking a blow. Grouchy, with 40,000 the Cape, and nine hundred from any con- men, suffered Bulow and Blucher to escape tinent. A volcanic rock in the centre of from him, and finally, a heavy fall of rain had made the ground so soft that it was imIn the month of April, the frigate Phae- possible to commence the attack at dayton anchored in the roads, having the new break. Had I been able to commence governor, Sir Hudson Lowe, with his family, early, Wellington's army would have been on board. Sir Hudson is now where nei-trodden down in the defiles of the forest bether praise nor blame can reach him, but fore the Prussians could have had time to the choice was unfortunate in the very arrive. It was lost without resource. The point for which probably he had been chos-defeat of Wellington's army would have en ;-he had been colonel of the Corsican been peace, the repose of Europe, the recogregiment in our service, had served much nition of the interests of the masses and of in the Mediterranean, and had already been the democracy. (as far as we remember) the object of Napoleon's bitterness in some of his Italian manifestoes. There can be no doubt that the mildest of governors would have been no favorite with the prisoner of Longwood. he must have known that Ney with his But in the present instance Napoleon's 40,000 men had been soundly beaten by blood boiled at the idea of being placed about half that number, and was thus ununder the jurisdiction of the colonel of the able to move a step beyond Quatre-Bras. Corsican rangers; and he, accordingly, took In the next, that Grouchy, instead of sufferevery opportunity of exhibiting his indigna-ing the Prussians to escape him, was galtion-a sort of feeling which, in a foreigner, lantly fought by their rear-guard, was unand especially one of southern blood, always amounts to fury.

Napoleon was always fluent on this subject; but the only true matter of surprise is, that so clever a personage should have talked such nonsense. In the first place,

able to make any impression whatever on them, and if he had not made his escape in the night, would unquestionably have been crushed to pieces the next day; and thirdly, as to the English armies being saved by the rain, the Duke of Wellington fought the French from eleven in the forenoon till seven in the evening without being driven an inch from the ground. If the French could not beat him in eight hours, they could not beat him in as many days. It was not until seven in the evening that the

We pass over a multitude of minor circumstances, though all characteristic, and all invaluable to the historian of the next century; but which would retard the more interesting conversations of the extraordinary captive. On the communication of the convention signed at Paris in August, 1815, declaring him the prisoner of the four allied powers, and the announcement of the commissioners under whose charge he was to be placed, Napoleon burst out into a pas-Prussian guns were heard coming into the sionate remonstrance, which, however, he addressed only to the people around him. On those occasions he always adopted that abrupt and decisive style which in a Frenchman passes for oracular.

"The expenses of my captivity will certainly exceed ten millions of francs a-year. It has not been the will of fate that my work should finish by effecting the social re-organization of Europe." He then ran

field. Even then they were a mile and a half from Wellington's position. The British then charged, swept the French before them, Napoleon himself running away amongst the foremost, leaving 40,000 of his troops on the field or in the hands of the enemy. It would have been much wiser to have said not a syllable upon the battle, or much manlier to have acknowledged that he was more thoroughly beaten than he had

The

ever seen an army beaten before; and that themselves, dispatched one of their colonels with 72,000 French veterans in the field, with a demand of independence. he had been routed and ruined by 25,000 chance, therefore, of invading Jamaica British, three-fourths of whom had never through their means was extinguished at fired a shot before in their lives. once, and France was punished by the loss of her greatest colony for ever.

In a conversation with Colonel Wilkes, the ex-governor, on taking his leave, he told him that India had been constantly an object of his policy-that he had constantly assailed it by negotiations, and would have reached it by arms, had he been able to come to an understanding with the Emperor of Russia on the partition of Turkey. He then talked of his constant wish for peace-a declaration which the colonel probably received with a smile; and next disclosed a transaction, which, on any other authority, would have been incredible, but which amounted to perhaps the boldest and broadest piece of bribery ever attempted with a distinguished minister.

We have from time to time some curious acknowledgments of the political treacheries which formed the actual system of Napoleon's government, whether consular or imperial. On dictating a note relative to St. Domingo to Count Montholon, he elucidated this policy in the most unequivocal manner. It will be remembered that, on the peace of Amiens, he had sent out a powerful fleet and an army of thirty thousand men to the West Indies. It will also be remembered, that in reply to the remonstrance of the British government, who naturally looked on so formidable an armament with considerable suspicion, the First Consul disclaimed in the most solemn manner all sinister views, pronounced, with every appearance of sincerity, that his sole object was the subjection of a French island then in revolt, and when this object was effected his whole purpose would be accomplished. But in St. Helena, where candor cost nothing, he amply acknowledged the treachery. "I had two plans," said he, "for St. Domingo. The first was that of "I said to Metternich, with indignaacknowledging the power of the blacks, tion," are the words of this singular confermaking Toussaint L'Ouverture governor, ence-"Is it my father-in-law who enterand in fact, making St. Domingo a West tains such a project? Is it he who sends Indian vice-royalty. This plan was my favorite, and why? The French flag would acquire a great development of power in the American waters, and a variety of expeditions might have been undertaken against Jamaica and all the Antilles, and against South America, with an army of thirty thousand blacks trained and disciplined by French officers."

While the French army was still on the right bank of the Elbe, the offer of the Austrian mediation was brought by Prince Metternich, demanding, as a preliminary, the abandonment of the great German fortresses which still remained in French hands.

you to me? How much has England given you, to induce you to play this game against me? Have I not done enough for your fortune? It is of no consequencebe frank-what is it you wish? If twenty millions will not satisfy you, say what you wish?”

He adds, that on this scandalous offer of corruption, Metternich's sudden sullenness We are to remember that at this time he and total silence recalled him to a sense of was at peace with both England and Spain, what he had just expressed, and that thencewhose territories he was thus about to dis- forth he had found this great minister member; for we cannot believe that the wholly impracticable. Who can wonder affairs of St. Domingo were suffered greatly that he did so, or that the offer was regardto occupy his mind. In the busy days ed as the deepest injury by a man of honor? from Marengo to the loss of Egypt, and the But Napoleon's conception of the matter, conclusion of peace, he had intended to to the last, was evidently not that he had have raised an universal negro insurrection committed an act of bribery, but that he had in our islands. Upon the colors of his ne- " mistaken his man." "It was," as Fouché gro army he was to have inscribed "Brave observed, "worse than a crime, it was a blacks, remember that France alone recog-blunder." nizes your liberty"-which would have been, in fact, a manifesto, calling upon all the negroes of the West Indies to revolt without delay. But the negroes of St. Domingo, having formed plans of liberty for

One of the absurdities of the crowd who collected anecdotes of Napoleon, was a perpetual affectation of surprise that he should not have terminated his imprisonment by his own hand. He was conscious

"I have always regarded it," said he, as a maxim, that a man exhibits more real courage by supporting calamities, and resisting misfortunes, than by putting an end to his life. Self-destruction is the act of a gambler who has lost all, or that of a ruined spendthrift, and proves nothing but a want of courage."

of the imputation, and it seems to have form- stain, which was the act of the Commune ed the occasional subject of his thoughts. of Paris, a rival power of the Legislature, But his powerful understanding soon saw which built its strength upon the dregs of through the sophistry of that species of the passions of the people. dramatic heroism, by which a man escapes We must acknowledge, that there has been "with a bare bodkin" all the duties and re- no political change without a fit of popular sponsibilities of his being. vengeance, as soon as, for any cause whatever, the mass of the people enter into action. * General rule:-No social revolution without terror! Every revolution is in principle a revolt, which time and success ennoble and render legal; but of which terror has been one of the inevitable phases. How, indeed, can we understand, that one could say to those who possess forThe attempts to prove that Napoleon tune and public situations, Begone, and wanted personal intrepidity were at all leave us your fortunes and your situations,' times childish. His whole career in his without first intimidating them, and renderItalian campaigns was one of personal ex-ing any defence impossible? The Reign posure, and from the period when he rose of Terror began, in fact, on the night of into civil eminence, he had other responsi- the 4th of August, when privileges, nobilibilities than those of the mere general. ty, tithes, the remains of the feudal system, His life was no longer his own; it was the and the fortunes of the clergy, were done keystone of the government. Whether as away with, and all those remains of the old consul or as emperor, his fall would have monarchy were thrown to the people. Then brought down along with it the whole fabric only did the people understand the Revoon which the fate of so many others imme- lution, because they gained something, and diately depended. It is, however, certain, wished to keep it, even at the expense of that his courage was not chivalric, that no blood" This language is memorable It gallant fit of glory ever tempted him beyond ought to be a lesson to England. Napothe necessary degree of peril, and that he leon here pronounces, that the great stimucalculated the gain and loss of personal en-lant of political revolution is public robbeterprise with too nice a view as to the bal- ry. Privileges may be the pretence, but ance of honor and advantage. A man of higher mind-an emperor who had not forgot that he was a general, would never have deserted his perishing army in Poland; an emperor who had not forgot that he was a soldier, would never have sent his Imperial guard, shouting, to massacre, and stayed himself behind. But to expect this devotion of courage is to expect a spirit which Napoleon never exhibited; and which is singular among the military exploits of the south. Napoleon might have commanded at Platea, but he would never have died at Thermopyla.

the real object is plunder; and the progress of reason may be alleged as the instrument, but the true weapon is terror. In England, we are preparing the way for a total change. The groundwork of a revolution is laid from hour to hour; the Aristocracy, the Church, the landed proprietors, are made objects of popular libel, only preparatory to their being made objects of popular assault. The League has not yet taken upon it the office of the Commune of Paris, nor have the nobles, the clergy, and the bankers, been massacred in the prisons; but when once the popular passions are kindled by the hopes of national plunder, the revolution will have begun, and then farewell to the constitution. The habits of England, we willingly allow, are opposed to public cruelty; and in the worst excesses, the France of 1793 would probably leave us behind. But the principle in every nation is the same-the possessors of property will resist, the plunderers of property will fight; "To-day," said he, "is the anniversary conflicting banners will be raised, and, afof a hideous remembrance, the St. Bartho- ter desperate struggles, the multitude will lomew of the French Revolution-a bloody | be the masters of the land.

In days like ours, which begin to familiarize men with the chances of political convulsion, it may be well worth while to listen to the conceptions of one who better knew the nature of the French Revolution than perhaps any among the great actors of the time. Napoleon was sitting by his fireside, in St. Helena, on the 3d of September:

ment was essential to the peace of Europe; and no precaution could be justly regarded as severe, which prevented an outbreak so hazardous to the quiet of the world. Among those precautions, was the strictest prohibition of carrying on any correspondence with Europe, except through the hands of

There can be nothing more evident, than that some of the leaders in these new movements contemplate the overthrow of the monarchy. There may be mere dupes in their ranks, the spirit of money-making may be. the temper of others; but there are darker minds among them which scarcely condescend to conceal their intentions. the governor. The whole household were The presidentship of a British republic would be not without its charms for the demagogue; and the bloody revolution of 1641 might rapidly find its still more sanguinary counterpart in the revolution of the nineteenth century. We have the history in the annals of France, and the commentator is the "child and champion of Jacobinism"-Napoleon.

His impression that revolution always fixed its especial object in plunder, found another authority in one of the peculiar agents of public disturbance. " Barrère," said Napoleon, "affirmed, and truly, Le peuple bat monnaie sur la place Louis XV. ("The people coin money in the square of Louis XV.")-alluding to the guillotine, which enriched the treasury by the death of the nobles, whose wealth became the property of the nation.

distinctly pledged to the observance of this order, and any infraction of it was to be punished by instant arrest and deportation from the island.

An order had been sent from England to reduce the number of the household by four domestics; and it seems not improbable that Napoleon's craft was suddenly awakened to the prospect of establishing a confidential intercourse with the faction whom he had left behind. But the four domestics were obviously inadequate to this object, and some person of higher condition was necessary.

Las Cases some time before had attempted to send a letter to Europe by the mulatto. The fellow had been detected, and was threatened with a flogging if he repeated the experiment; yet it was to this same mulatto that Las Cases committed another letter, which the mulatto immeHe proceeded with equal decision and diately carried to the governor, and Las truth: "A revolution is always, whatever Cases was arrested in consequence. Nasome may think, one of the greatest misfor-poleon was instantly indignant, and vented tunes with which the Divine anger can punish a nation. It is the scourge of the generation which brings it about; and for a long course of years, even a century, it is the misfortune of all, though it may be the advantage of individuals."

would fain make impenetrable, in order to hide criminal conduct. This peculiar care to conceal matters gives room to suspect the most odious intentions." This was ob viously a hint that the governor's purpose was to put him secretly to death: a hint which neither Napoleon nor any other human being could have believed.

his rage against the cruelty of the arrest, at the same time expressing his scorn at the clumsiness of Las Cases in delivering his letter to so awkward a messenger. But whatever might be his pretended wonder at the want of dexterity in the Count, it was Napoleon spent the chief portion of his exceeded by his indignation at the conduct time in dictating the recollections of his of the governor. "Longwood," he writes government, and general defences of his in a long and formal protest against his deconduct. Those dictations were some- tention, "is wrapped in a veil which he times written down by Montholon, and sometimes by Las Cases. But in November, 1816, an order was issued for the arrest of Las Cases, and his dismissal from the island, in consequence of his attempting to send, without the knowledge of the governor, a letter to Prince Lucien, sowed up in the clothes of a mulatto. This arrest made a prodigious noise among the household of Napoleon, and was turned to good advantage in England, as an instance of the cruelty of his treatment. Yet it seems per- 66 I looked through the window," he said, fectly probable that the whole was a trick" and saw them taking you away. A nuof the Ex-emperor himself, and a mere merous staff pranced about you. I imacontrivance for the purpose of sending to gined I saw some South Sea Islanders Europe Las Cases as an agent in his dancing round the prisoners whom they service. were about to devour!" After this Italian The security of Napoleon's imprison- extravaganza, he returns to his object.

But in alluding to the arrest of the Count, he touches closely on the acknowledgment of the intrigue.