The Tragedy of St. Helena

This decision was regarded by Josephine as highly satisfactory to herself. She made no fuss about it, but was greatly overjoyed at the prospect of the effect it would have on Napoleon, and for a time no more was openly heard of divorce; but the venom was insidiously eating its way to that end all the same, and as he grew in power, so did the conspiracy develop. His own family were eager that she should be put away, but there were influences more powerful than that of Madame Mère and her sons and daughters. Talleyrand and Fouché being the High Commissioners who founded the direct hereditary idea, they persistently worried him with the plea that the State claimed that he should make the sacrifice. They knew that this was the strongest and most effective reason they could put forward to a man who would have given his soul in the service of his country.

Leon, when he grew up, became a great source of trouble to all those with whom he was connected. His features and physical make up had a marked resemblance to his father's, but his mind was erratic. He had inherited none of the steady, sane genius of the Emperor, though but for a freak of nature which gave him a mental twist, he would have been as near his prototype as may be. He was always full of great schemes, which in the hands of a normally constituted person would have been fashioned into public usefulness.

The birth of Leon gives him a prominent place in the history of the political divorce, though so far as Napoleon was concerned or affected by it, there is strong evidence to show that he really thought it was a way out, and had he been left to his own inclinations, the probability is that there would have been no second marriage so long as Josephine lived. From 1807 to 1809 his brain was racked to pieces with the inevitable shadow he struggled to evade. He could not bring himself to sever the tie that bound them together in strong attachment for nearly fifteen years. He invented every conceivable device to try and find a more congenial solution than divorce.

The succession problem had been artfully revived, and the amiable Marie Walewska, who was living close to Schönbrunn, was about to give birth to a child which he knew to be his, and it is not improbable that this double assurance that he might reasonably expect to have an heir if he married again brought him to the definite decision to go on with the divorce; and the Emperor Francis of Austria made haste to form an alliance by offering his daughter Marie Louise in marriage.

Napoleon sought a delusive diversion at Trianon after Josephine had taken up her abode at Malmaison. His sympathetic and affectionate attentions from there could not have been more earnestly shown. Nothing that would appease her grief and add to her comfort was overlooked by him or allowed to be overlooked by others. An annual income of three million francs was settled on her for life, which, should he pre-decease her, was to be paid by his successors. She retained the title of Empress and every other appearance of sovereignty.

We can never fully estimate to what extent these impressions influenced their minds and actions and the part they played in hastening the great national humiliation. It is a pretty certain conclusion that it was only the colossal successes and magical personality of the Emperor that kept subdued the spirit of resentment which the marriage had caused.

And we have historic evidence before us which clearly shows that the well-balanced mind of Napoleon was torn and tattered between doubt and conviction, and he fell into the fatal error of allowing his judgment to be overruled either by circumstances or pride. Had he relied on his superstition even, the chances are that St. Helena would never have had the stigma of his captivity stamped upon it.

French and Austrian alliances have never, so far as they affected political history, been very successful. The stability of earthly things is governed, not by sentiment or theoretic doctrines, but by facts as hard as granite, and no one knew this more thoroughly than the man who fell a victim to the devices of the Austrians and their French allies.

A vivid justification of the opposition to another Austrian princess sharing the throne of France is embodied in the lofty ideals (?) of the Emperor Francis to his daughter Marie Louise at Schönbrunn after she had deserted Napoleon. He said to her:—"As my daughter, all that I have is yours, even my blood and my life; as a sovereign, I do not know you."

His nephew, Napoleon III., taking a lesson from his folly, refused to be buffeted into political matrimony by any of the matchmaking factions. When his turn came he acted with independence and wisdom by ignoring the blandishments of meddling advisers and royal conventionalism, and elected to marry the lady on whom he had set his affections.

In 1812, Europe was in a state of dammed convulsion. The wars, though always successful for France, had brought about no definite settlement of international affairs. Peace was transitory, and the dread of Napoleon's power and genius was the only check on rapacious designs on his dominion.

Had Josephine been possessed of a grain of discernment or a proper estimate of her dignity, she would have seen that this was part of a well-defined policy of striking a blow through her at the man she professed to love still, even with a greater passion now that he was the victim of combined and unrelenting hostility. Hortense, it would appear, refused at first to have any dealings with Alexander, but this sovereign's personal charms, winning manners, and homely ways soon fascinated and captured her. She may be excused, but her mother did not act the part of a nobleminded woman, and her memory must bear the reproach of it.

Apart from the respect she owed to herself, she should have remembered the duty and loyalty she owed to a vast French public, and to the victim of her guests, who had been to her the most forgiving, indulgent friend that ever a human soul was blessed with. He had been a father to her children, and even when he was overwhelmed with the consequences of great disaster, his tenderest and most generous thoughts were sent to her.

Some writers have endeavoured to give Josephine credit for having influenced Alexander in a way that secured for Napoleon better terms than he would have otherwise got at the first abdication. The suggestion is ludicrous. Presumably the alternative was that he should be shot or confined in a fortress for the balance of his life. Either of these ideas of disposing of his person would have created reaction and public vengeance. The Allies shied at this, though some of the most ferocious, but by no means the bravest, of the set clamoured for shooting, which is always the way with spurious heroes.

The diplomats amongst them devised the more subtle plan of exiling him first to Elba with the title of Emperor, and a pension of £200,000 per annum, never a penny of which was paid, or, in the light of history, was ever intended to be paid.

They had preconceived the notion of masking the St. Helena plan until they thought they had cheated the public into believing that they were inspired by humane motives and the necessity for the peace of Europe. They laboriously studied out the most ingenious plots so that they might be glorified for ridding Europe of a "monster."

The campaign which followed—ending with the Battle of Waterloo—enabled the Allies, after his defeat, to satisfy the cravings of their savage instincts by carrying out their plan as mentioned above and sending him to martyrdom.

But one of their most brutal acts was in refusing the request that his wife and child should accompany him to Elba. These are the ultimate "better terms" that Josephine is said to have secured by coquetting with Alexander of Russia!

Josephine's moral qualities cannot be accurately judged by her frequent outpourings of admiration and affection for Napoleon to Eugene and Hortense. In the letters to each which are extant, she declares it would be impossible for anyone to be kinder, more amiable, or considerate than he has always been, and even after the divorce she writes that if she loved him less sincerely, he could not show more anxiety to mitigate anything that might be painful to her.

That there was a flirtation there can be little doubt, but the Prince's object may have been part of the political intrigue, rather than carnal intercourse with a woman of nearly fifty years of age. Josephine, always sorry for herself, a sieve of the first water, susceptible to flattery, blind to device, yearning for admiration and pity, was rejoiced to find attention extended to her from any quarter, but coming from the Royal House of Prussia or any other royal personage it was a dazzling compliment to the high esteem in which she believed she was held, and enhanced the luxury of feeling that she was the centre of international sympathy.

It was not that she had any malicious intent to do deliberate wrong to Napoleon, or any thought of degrading herself. Her mind did not work in these grooves. She was merely carried off her feet by vain love of self-approbation, which led her far beyond the bounds of honourable prudence. She was interred at Rueil amidst quiet solemnity, and in 1825 Eugene and Hortense erected a monument in her memory.

His unexampled personality and fame is spreading and inspiring everywhere. His faults are being put in the limelight of public opinion, and the growing desire to treat even these with proper generosity is an indication that reason and knowledge are taking the place of stereotyped international prejudice, political and personal. We are beginning to see more clearly through the fog of enmity that he had rare virtues, besides having unparalleled genius. The divorce of Josephine was unquestionably political, though had he been the ferocious creature he has been made to appear, the opportunities she gave him so frequently would have justified the divorce at a much earlier stage on other than political grounds.

It ill becomes a nation which knew George I., George IV., and Henry VIII. to take such unctuous exception to the gentle and benevolent attitude of Napoleon before and after the annulment of the marriage.

RELIGIOUS NOTIONS OF NAPOLEON

In contrast with members of the oligarchy, who threw all moral restraints to the winds, Napoleon towers above them. Take any grounds—administrative, strategical, religious, domestic—he was preeminent above his contemporaries. On religious grounds alone, those thoughts of his which have been recorded not only disclose the insight of a man of affairs, but reveal the thinking mind of a deeply religious being. His conversations with Gourgaud on religious subjects, some of which are quoted in Lord Rosebery's admirable book, "The Last Phase," are so contradictory that they cannot be taken as authentic beliefs. It greatly depended to whom he was talking as to the line he took.

Montholon is more to the writer's liking than Gourgaud, even though Gourgaud's authenticity is backed by Lord Rosebery, and we shall see later what he says about his Emperor's religious beliefs. It was he who endeavoured to mitigate his master's mental and physical sufferings, and it was he whom he desired should close his eyes in death when the nefarious assassination had been completed. It was he, too, who got himself locked up in the fortress of Ham for seven years by adhering steadfastly to the cause of the great exile's nephew. Gourgaud was loyal and devoted on a sort of sliding scale, which led him to do great injustice to the stricken hero. Montholon's devotion was consistent and abiding under all circumstances, while Gourgaud's fluctuated with his moods.

In the first clause of his will he declares: "I die in the Apostolic Roman religion, in the bosom of which I was born more than fifty years since." If any other proof were needed that he believed in the divinity of Jesus Christ, this avowed declaration on the eve of the great transformation may be confirmed by the fact that the cardinal doctrine of the Roman religion centres in the divinity of Christ. Again, in the course of his public and private duties, you frequently come across passages in his letters and official documents such as "May God have you in His holy keeping." It may be said that this is a mere form or figure of speech but then unbelievers do not use such phrases.

He praised many of the virtues of the Mohammedan religion, such as honesty, cleanliness, temperance, and devoutness, and denounced with scathing sarcasm, not Christ, but professing Christians whose conduct towards himself was beneath the dignity of the pagan. But this in no way detracts from his admiration of the genuine follower of Christ. He says that "religious ideas have more influence than certain narrow-minded philosophers are willing to believe; they are capable of rendering great services to humanity." Again, he says that "the Christian religion is the religion of a civilised people; it is entirely spiritual, and the reward which Jesus Christ promises to the elect is that they shall see God face to face; and its whole tendency is to subdue the passions; it offers nothing to excite them."

Dr. Alexander Mair published in the Expositor, some twenty years ago, a critical study of the authenticity of the declarations imputed to Napoleon when at St. Helena on the subject of the Christian religion, from which I make the following extract:—

"One evening at St. Helena," says M. Beauterne, "the conversation was animated. The subject treated of was an exalted one; it was the divinity of Jesus Christ. Napoleon defended the truth of this doctrine with the arguments and eloquence of a man of genius, with something also of the native faith of the Corsican and the Italian. To the objections of one of the interlocutors, who seemed to see in the Saviour but a sage, an illustrious philosopher, a great man, the Emperor replied:—

"'I know men, and I tell you that Jesus Christ is not a man.

"'I see in Lycurgus, Numa, Confucius, and Mahomet merely legislators; but nothing which reveals the Deity. On the contrary, I see numerous relations between them and myself. I make out resemblances, weaknesses, and common errors which assimilate them to myself and humanity. Their faculties are those which I possess. But it is different with Christ. Everything about Him astonishes me; His spirit surprises me, and His will confounds me. Between Him and anything of this world there is no possible comparison. He is really a Being apart.

"'The nearer I approach Him and the more clearly I examine Him, the more everything seems above me; everything continues great with a greatness that crushes me.

"'His religion is a secret belonging to Himself alone, and proceeds from an intelligence which assuredly is not the intelligence of man. There is in Him a profound originality which creates a series of sayings and maxims hitherto unknown.

"'How the horizon of His empire extends, and prolongs itself into infinitude! Christ reigns beyond life and beyond death. The past and the future are alike to Him; the kingdom of the truth has, and in effect can have, no other limit than the false. Jesus has taken possession of the human race; He has made of it a single nationality, the nationality of upright men, whom He calls to a perfect life.

"'The existence of Christ from beginning to end is a tissue entirely mysterious, I admit; but that mystery meets difficulties which are in all existences. Reject it, the world is an enigma; accept it, and we have an admirable solution of the history of man.

"Here the Emperor's voice assumed a peculiar accent of ironical melancholy and of profound sadness: 'Yes, our existence has shone with all the splendour of the crown and sovereignty; and yours, Montholon, Bertrand, reflected that splendour, as the dome of the Invalides, gilded by us, reflects the rays of the sun. But reverses have come; the gold is effaced little by little. The rain of misfortunes and outrages with which we are deluged every day carries away the last particles; we are only lead, gentlemen, and soon we shall be but dust. Such is the destiny of great men; such is the near destiny of the great Napoleon.

A more beautiful panegyric on the divinity of Christ has never been pronounced. The thrilling and convincing conclusions evolved from the mind of a great reader, a great thinker—a man, in fact, who had studied and knew the human side of life, and could describe it with flawless accuracy—are a complete refutation of the opinions expressed either from prejudice or personal and political motives. Napoleon conversed about religion with other men in a critical way, not always with orthodox reverence, but certainly with the conviction that he had a thorough knowledge of every phase of the subject. Perhaps he derived pleasure from showing that he did not accept the popular doctrine unreservedly.

The basis for such an attitude towards an accepted institution of the Roman Catholic Church was Napoleon's belief that "Faith is beyond the reach of the law and the most sacred property of man, for which he has no right to account to any mortal if there is nothing in it contrary to social order."

Unquestionably he had pride in impressing his auditors with the vastness of his information, acquired by reading and study. He had, moreover, a kind of childlike vanity in making men feel that he was not only extraordinary, but greatly their superior, even when they got him to talk on their own subjects. This habit was especially pronounced at St. Helena.

But this in no way impairs the evidences of his spiritual character. One of his first acts when his authority was established in France was to face the most hostile declamation against the Concordat, but believing that no good government could be assured without religion, he carried his convictions through in spite of it being a reversion of one of the cardinal doctrines of the Revolution, and there is abundance of proof that when he was faced with the last great problem, he accepted it without a sign of superstitious dread, believing in the immortality of the soul which should reveal all things.

LIST OF SOME OF THE BOOKS REFERRED TO OR CONSULTED BY THE AUTHOR