From every quarter came the word that, with the Grand Army destroyed, the French Cæsar must now yield; his system, it was said, had expired on the plains of Russia. The hostile spirit of a subject population was seen as the straggling French passed through Prussia; soldiers who dropped out of the ranks were disarmed by the peasants, insulted and badly handled. The Prussians and Austrians made separate arrangements with the Russians, by which hostilities, so far as each were concerned, were to be suspended. Most of Prussia was abandoned; there were only 40,000 French left to oppose a revolted Germany. Even Murat, Napoleon’s brother-in-law, abandoned the failing cause and retired suddenly to Naples, to make from there arrangements on his own account with the Austrian Prime Minister Metternich.
The activity of Napoleon in such a desperate situation was marvelous. As to money, he collected nearly $100,000,000 by using his own private treasury and selling large amounts of communal estates. Every available man was placed under arms, including the National Guard and even by anticipation the conscripts of 1814—there were already 140,000 of the conscripts of 1813 under training—the sailors in the seaports were enrolled as soldiers; and many regiments were taken from Spain. Altogether there was collected and sent in detachments to Germany an army of 500,000 men, mostly made up of youths less than twenty years of age. In order to give them discipline and stability, veterans were incorporated in the new regiments.
Napoleon was not so alert as he had been; he was suffering from an internal disease, and sometimes for weeks he was incapable of effort. There were frequent attacks also of drowsiness, all indicative of exhaustion of his powers. He was more intolerant than ever of criticism, refused to take advice, was suspicious of his counselors, and contemptuous of the ability of his commanders, an attitude somewhat justified by the fact that many of his best marshals were now replaced by men of second-rate ability, while others, who were fitted to command, were unwilling from jealousy to work together. Marbot declared that, “if the Emperor had wished to punish all those who were lacking in zeal, he would have been obliged to dispense with the services of nearly all his marshals.”
The service of supplies for the army was most defective. In the beginning of the year 1813, by the carelessness of the administrative work in this department, the Prussians got possession of over $6,000,000 worth of supplies, intended for the French armies. The consequence was that the soldiers depended on pillage; even the officers lived on what they could get from the country. Worse than all was the inability of the Emperor himself to gauge the changed conditions produced by his defeat. He still behaved as if he were invincible, and refused to make terms with Prussia or to conciliate Austria by well-timed territorial concessions. To the end he would not believe that his father-in-law, the Emperor of Austria, would take up arms against him. If, at this time, he had accepted a smaller, compact France, confined to its natural limits, he might have avoided the disasters of 1813 and 1814, and yet ruled over a territory larger than that ever held by Louis XIV.
In the new coalition Prussia was most anxious to restore her prestige; the uprising against the French was a national movement common to all classes of the population. Finally, even the timorous King was induced to side with the Russians and to issue an appeal to his people. There were 150,000 Prussians under arms, and in order to receive the help of other German states, proclamations were issued under Russian auspices, making generous promises of national independence and personal liberty. So were transplanted to German soil the watchwords of the French Revolution. Austria made many open professions of fidelity to the alliance with France, but Metternich was actively intriguing with the smaller German courts. He even tried to detach Jerome of Westphalia and Murat of Naples from the French, and he did all in his power to urge Frederick William, the Prussian king, to take up arms in behalf of the independence of Europe.
In the military operations of 1813, while the French were opposed only by the allied forces of Prussia and Russia, the advantage continued on the side of the French Emperor; by the autumn, however, Austria and many of the German vassal states had joined the coalition and the defeat of Napoleon was the certain outcome. As a result of a series of battles around Dresden, the cause of the allies was in a critical position; both sides had lost heavily but Napoleon was much chagrined that there had been no signal positive advantage from the constant butchery of his men. He was weak in cavalry, and so could not follow up his successes; the terrible loss of horses in Russia had not been made up. But at any rate he was steadily getting back the territory in Germany he had previously held. On the other side, the Russian and Prussian generals were blaming one another for their failures, and so making the continuance of the coalition problematical.
At this point Metternich intervened after an armistice had been signed at Pressnitz early in July, 1813. He agreed to support the coalition, unless the French consented to give up Holland, Switzerland, Spain, the Confederation of the Rhine, Poland, and the larger part of Italy. Napoleon was indignant when Metternich laid down these terms during a personal interview at Dresden. “You want war,” he said; “well, you will get it. I will meet you at Vienna. How many allies have you got, four, five, six, twenty? The more you have the less disturbed I am. What do you want me to do? Disgrace myself? Never. I can die, but I shall never give up an inch of territory. Your sovereigns who are born on a throne can let themselves be beaten twenty times, and always return to their capital. I cannot do it, because I am an upstart soldier. You are not a soldier, and you do not know what takes place in a soldier’s soul. I grew up on battlefields, and a man such as I am cares little for the lives of a million men.”
When a congress met at Prague to arrange the terms of peace, they proved far more favorable to France than those first proposed, for she was granted her natural frontiers and Italy in addition. It was nothing short of madness on Napoleon’s part to refuse such concessions; only a portion of them had even been dreamed of as possibilities under the Bourbon monarchs at the height of their ambition. Even from his own point of view, he might have trusted to the certainty of future jealousies between the central European powers and Russia, by which his place as the arbiter of Europe could be regained. Metternich, indeed, was as insincere in his profession on behalf of peace as Napoleon himself, because the congress closed before a special messenger with the French counter proposals reached Vienna. War was resumed on August 11th.
The situation was now as follows: the French were about to be surrounded by three great armies; 130,000 Austrians, 240,000 Russians, and a mixed host, composed of various contingents from all the allies great and small, under the former French marshal, Bernadotte, numbering 180,000 men. Moreover, there were 200,000 combined English and Spanish soldiers ready to cross the Pyrenees. Altogether 1,000,000 men were ranged in arms against the French Emperor. The plan as developed by Bernadotte, now King of Sweden, was to wear Napoleon out. A decisive battle would be avoided, but his lieutenants would be destroyed in detail. Moreau, the victor of Hohenlinden, was brought from the United States, where he had been living in exile, to assume the command of the allies.
To oppose the vast allied forces, Napoleon had altogether no more than 550,000 men, of whom 330,000 were in Germany. At Dresden, at the end of August, an attack on the place was successfully resisted, and Moreau, the generalissimo of the allies, lost his life. But Napoleon’s scattered marshals fared badly, and the French army suffered heavy losses just at a time when no man could be spared. The enveloping plan was successfully carried out. Napoleon, at Leipzig, realized his hopeless position, for he tried there to arrange an armistice. With his 155,000 men he had against him 330,000 of the coalition. The situation was rendered worse because the German troops serving with the French deserted and joined the enemy; some, like the Saxons, during the very course of the terrible battle which raged for three days around Leipzig (October, 1813). At the end, 15 French generals and 25,000 men were made prisoners, and 350 cannon were taken; 13,000 of the French were massacred in the houses of Leipzig. The losses on both sides were frightful, for 130,000 was the sum total of the killed and wounded, 50,000 of whom were French.
In the retreat which followed, the demoralization was so great that only 40,000 men reached the Rhine, yet nearly 200,000 men were left, by Napoleon’s orders, in various German fortresses, most of them, too, experienced troops who were unable to take further part in the war when their country was invaded in the next year’s campaign. Some attempt was made to arrange terms of peace now that everywhere the Napoleonic system had fallen to pieces. The French armies were driven out of Holland. In Italy alone Eugène Beauharnais was manfully and loyally supporting the Emperor’s cause, but he had only 30,000 men.
The people of France had no heart for more warfare, and the allies let it be known that they were fighting Napoleon and not France. But still the great mass of the people had no wish for a change of dynasty; the war was unpopular, but not its author. As soon as it became known that the cause of the allies meant a restoration of the Bourbons, and that France would be invaded, in order to displace Napoleon, the answer of the country, exhausted though it was and drained of its male population, was spontaneous and unmistakable. From the autumn of 1813, to March, 1814, France placed in the field under Napoleon’s orders, 350,000 men. This is a marvelous record, not to mention the tremendous financial drain caused by the equipment of a fresh army.
The new recruits were not trained, well armed, or sufficiently clothed; there was not time to prepare them for warfare, for the allies crossed the frontiers of France in midwinter (1813). There was no resistance to their progress until Napoleon with an army of 122,000 began to conduct his last extended campaign in the neighborhood of Châlons. By reason of a success gained near Rotheise the allies hoped soon to be in Paris. This over-confidence exposed them to a series of defeats, inflicted upon several of their generals in succession, by Napoleon, in a remarkable exposition of his strategy that recalled the early days of his career in Italy. By the end of February the principal army of the allies retired near Troyes, afraid, though numbering 150,000 men, to face a stand-up fight with Napoleon, who had only 70,000 men. Public confidence was restored in France, especially among the country people, indignant at the brutal treatment they received at the hands of the foreign soldiers. There was now stirred up a spirit of national resistance, which recalled the early days of the French Revolution. The peasantry arose, and inflicted severe losses on the marauding troops. Attempts were made in the spring to arrange terms of peace, but on neither side was there a sincere belief that the war could be brought to an end by mutual concessions. The Congress of Châtillon lasted from the 4th of February to the 19th of March; it was only a concession to public opinion, for the allies really wished for a Bourbon restoration, while Napoleon, depending on his marriage with the daughter of Francis I of Austria, felt certain that he could ultimately detach the Austrians from the coalition. At one time the allied armies were so discouraged, after fighting ten battles on French soil, that they contemplated a retreat eastward.
Confidence was restored to them, not by their military successes, but by the capture of some private despatches from various officials to the French Emperor, which spoke in no uncertain terms of the discontent of the people of Paris and of the general depression throughout a country that was no longer able to bear the material exhaustion caused by the war. So encouraged, the allies marched to Paris; Napoleon anticipated this step, and had ordered the government to withdraw towards the Loire, feeling sure that in time he could drive his foes from French territory. Yet he realized to the full the bad effect of the seizure of his capital.
In approaching the city the allies had only to deal with the marshals, not with the master hand of the Emperor, who first heard of their march westward three days after it had begun. The end soon came; there was a murderous engagement near the city, after which the arrangements for an armistice were made with Joseph Bonaparte, acting for the regent, the Empress Marie Louise. When Napoleon heard the news of the capitulation, he indignantly prepared to annul the action of his brother, and to call the people to arms for a hand-to-hand struggle in the streets of Paris with the foreign soldiery. In a few days, owing to the shrewd persuasions of Talleyrand, who induced Alexander of Russia to accept no alternative government for the country but a Bourbon restoration, Napoleon found himself forced to abdicate.
This step was not taken until after long hesitations, for even to the last he believed in the possibility of continuing hostilities. The troops were still enthusiastically loyal, and eagerly listened to his appeal to them to march upon Paris. But his marshals insisted that he must abdicate. This he finally did in a conditional form, reserving the rights of Napoleon II, and the regency of Marie Louise. This form, owing to the refusal of the Czar to accept it, was finally altered until it read as follows: “The allied powers having proclaimed that the Emperor Napoleon was the sole obstacle to the restoration of peace in Europe, the Emperor Napoleon, loyal to his oaths, declares that he renounces in behalf of himself and his heirs the thrones of France and Italy, because there is no personal sacrifice, even to the extent of his life, that he is not ready to make in the interest of France.”...
For several days after abdicating, Napoleon remained in Fontainebleau practically deserted by his old comrades in arms, who were anxious to make peace with the new government, now that Louis XVIII had been proclaimed king. On the night of the 12th of April he tried to poison himself, but the attempt failed, for the toxic drug, which he had always carried on his person since the retreat from Moscow, had lost its power. He soon recovered, however, from his depression, and on the 20th of April, 1814, signed the treaty of Fontainebleau, by which he was given the sovereignty of the island of Elba, and retained the title of Emperor.
The story of the Spanish campaign, which had a potent influence in causing Napoleon’s ruin, is marked by many brilliant feats of arms on the part of the French, but the country could no longer be held. Finally, by the successful advance of Wellington, the Spanish war became merged in the general defense of French territory, when France was invaded by the coalition in 1814. On Spanish soil the final disaster came at the battle of Vitoria, June 21, 1813, where the French lost 7000 men, 180 pieces of artillery, and nearly all their baggage trains. One of the great mistakes of the Peninsular War was Soult’s refusal to give battle to Wellington in 1812, when all the advantages in numbers were on his side. Later on, though he was in a far inferior position, he proved a most obstinate opponent, contesting Wellington’s march north at every step with an army inferior to that under his opponent. He gave way slowly, and while Napoleon was fighting the allies in his last campaign before his abdication, Soult had been forced to withdraw from Bayonne, and then from Toulouse, which Wellington entered on the 12th of April, 1814.
It is generally held by critics that the war in Spain was a most serious mistake from start to finish, and was the chief cause of Napoleon’s ruin. Whatever share in the failure of the imperial policy in the Peninsula may be assigned to the mediocre capacity of Joseph and to the confused strategy of the French armies due to the jealousies of the marshals, a large part of the responsibility falls to the account of Napoleon himself. He left his work half done in the Peninsula, where he underrated the difficulties of conquest. He reckoned that it would cost him but 12,000 men! As a matter of fact, it kept a large number of his best troops occupied at a time when they were most needed. It was sheer folly to undertake the Russian campaign while Spain was still far from being pacified. It was also culpably bad tactics to allow Wellington to destroy the prestige of French soldiers and generals, and it was close to madness, in 1813, not to withdraw altogether from Spain, when every man was needed in France to defend its frontiers from the coalition. On the other hand, while Spain’s resistance to French arms was a glorious record of patriotism, modern Spain has paid very dear for its glory. All the elements of reaction were interested in the downfall of the Napoleonic régime, and in no other country, not even Italy, did the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty produce such deplorable maladministration and civil disorder.
The dramatic farewell of the Emperor to his troops at Fontainebleau makes a picturesque “mise-en-scène” for the close of a tragedy; it is unfortunate that the spectacular instincts of his genius induced him to accept the ridiculous rôle of sovereign of the island of Elba. It would have been more dignified for him to have refused the offer of the allies, and to have exchanged the rôle of a “roi fainéant” for that of a private individual. Nothing illustrates the parvenu traits of his character more than his desire to preserve the shadow of the royal dignity, even if he had to accept bounty from the hands of a Bourbon king to maintain it.
The allies fully realized the danger of his proximity in Elba, and unofficially there were various plans discussed with a view to rid themselves of their dangerous neighbor. Talleyrand was plotting to have him imprisoned, while the English urged deportation to an inaccessible island. Napoleon, who was an admirable actor, accommodated himself to his Lilliputian kingdom and to his mimic court, and adopted the pose of a modern Timoleon. “I wish to live henceforth,” he said, “like a justice of the peace. The Emperor is dead, I am no longer anything. I think of nothing outside of my small island. I exist no longer for the world. Nothing now interests me but my family, my cottage, my cows, and my mules.” His demands were not so modest as his words appear, for he spent nearly 2,000,000 francs at Elba in eight months.
He complained bitterly at being separated from his son and his wife, both of whom Francis kept in Vienna. There was no intention that they should be allowed to rejoin the Emperor; indeed, Marie Louise, who was of a very passive disposition, was content not to see her husband again, especially after Metternich had supplied her with an admirer, General Neippberg. It might have been wiser, certainly it would have been more humane, if the allies had adopted a less stringent policy of isolation. Whatever one may think of the sincerity of Napoleon’s sentiments, he struck a true note, when he wrote the words “my son has been taken from me, as were formerly the children of the vanquished, to adorn the triumph of their conqueror. One cannot find in modern times an example of such barbarity.” He was not entirely dejected, for he was visited by his mother and his youngest sister, and though the king of Rome was withheld from him, an irregular heir was brought to Elba by the Countess Walinska, whom Napoleon had met some years before in Poland.
There were financial embarrassments, which made impossible the idyllic life the exiled monarch had mapped out for himself; the income stipulated by the treaty of Fontainebleau was not paid. But there were more weighty reasons for the flight from Elba, which occurred early in 1815 (February 26). For some time Napoleon had been in secret communication with Murat, probably with a view to restoring the kingdom of Italy, through coöperation from Naples. This scheme promised more difficulties than a return to France, where the Bourbon restoration was not popular, and where the army and its generals were far from being satisfied with their new situation, under a king who favored the lifelong supporters of his cause. Plans had been concocted during the winter to dethrone Louis XVIII, in which both the Bonapartist sympathizers and some of the old revolutionary leaders had acted together. On hearing of this, Napoleon considered that the moment was opportune for his reappearance on French soil. With 1100 of his veterans who had acted as his guard at Elba, he reached southern France in safety. As the prevailing sentiment in this region was royalist, he made his way with his small band through the Alps to Grenoble, marching sometimes as much as thirty miles a day. By the peasants of the country he was welcomed everywhere with enthusiasm. From Paris orders were sent to treat him as an outlaw.
The critical time came at Grenoble, when Napoleon’s dramatic qualities helped him to secure the allegiance of his old troops. He marched impressively at the head of his veterans to within gunshot distance of a regiment drawn up in his way. “Soldiers,” he said, “look well at me. If there is among you one soldier who wishes to kill his Emperor he can do it. I come to offer myself for you to shoot.” The effect was instantaneous, and the answer to his appeal was the old familiar cry, “Long live the Emperor.”
The enthusiasm increased as he proceeded farther north. Nothing could arrest it or prevent the defection of the troops, not even the appeals for loyalty to the Bourbon king, addressed to their men by the marshals, who strove to outdo one another in their official abuse of the enterprise. Soult spoke of Napoleon as an adventurer; others called him a public enemy or a mad brigand, while Ney undertook to bring him to Paris in an iron cage. The army cared nothing for these criticisms or warnings; even Ney himself joined the movement and turned over his troops to the “man from Elba.” By the 20th of March Napoleon was in Paris at the Tuileries; his marvelous progress was a restoration, not based on diplomacy, but made possible by the enthusiastic loyalty of the population, and the rank and file of the army. Not a gun had been fired. At Grenoble it had been the soldiers who had refused to obey their officers’ command, when told to shoot. Afterwards there was no officer found willing to repeat the command.
The question of establishing a new government was solved by inaugurating a liberal constitutional rule. Napoleon seemed once again to remember that he was the creation of the Revolution. As an evidence of his sincerity to the tradition of the Republic, he selected as his chief adviser, Benjamin Constant, the old Jacobin leader, whose independence a few years before Napoleon had so much resented when Constant had led the opposition in the Tribunate. All these things were now forgotten. “Public discussions, free elections, responsible ministers, liberty of the press; I want all this. I am a man of the people! If the people want liberty, I am bound to give it.” Under the new government, which was accepted by a small vote, owing to the number of those who stayed away from the polls, the elections returned a majority of liberals and republicans, who were not in sympathy with the restored empire. Many preferred to have a regency with Napoleon’s son or the Duke of Orléans. But the real hopelessness of the situation came from the implacable attitude of the allies. At the Congress of Vienna, where the great powers were rearranging the map of Europe amidst much jealousy and intrigue, they at least agreed on one subject: the refusal to allow Napoleon to rule France. That devoted country was put under an interdict. The four powers agreed to fight the French Emperor with a coalition army of more than 1,000,000 men. To oppose this immense force Davout, acting under Napoleon’s directions, had in a few weeks got together for the purpose of national defense 500,000 men to be ready by the end of June. Elaborate plans were made to protect the frontiers, and Napoleon proposed to take the offensive without waiting for the allies to invade the country.
The nearest allied army was in Belgium, composed of 100,000 English and Dutch under Wellington, and 150,000 Prussians under Blücher. Napoleon set out to oppose these forces with 180,000 men, intending to get between the English and the Prussians and beat them separately, trusting to the well-known rapidity of his movements to keep them from joining. Strategically the plan was a brilliant one, but it was not capably executed. Ney, at Quatre Bras, did not win a complete victory over the English because the engagement was begun too late. At Ligny, Napoleon attacked Blücher, who fought obstinately, though he lost 20,000 men, and was not completely crushed as had been planned. Instead of withdrawing in confusion, as had been expected, Blücher set out to join Wellington’s troops. Grouchy, who was sent in pursuit of the Prussians, did not know of this operation and was under the impression that he was carrying out properly his instructions to pursue the Prussians alone, whereas the greater part of the Prussian army had already come in touch with Wellington, and Grouchy failed, therefore, to bring his men back in time to Waterloo where they were needed. Wellington was strongly intrenched and all attempts to take his position failed. The battle, begun at 11 A.M. on June 18, 1815, was not decided until five o’clock, when Blücher effected his junction with the English forces. It was a most desperate engagement, for Napoleon realized what depended on it. The losses were 32,000 French and 22,000 of the allies.
A second act of abdication was now imposed upon Napoleon, who accepted it, resigning in favor of his son. He even offered to serve as a simple general to prevent the allies from capturing Paris. This was not an absolutely chimerical proposal, for there was an enormous mass of men gathered by Davout, ready to fight even after the defeat of Waterloo. But the elected representatives would not hear of continuing the struggle. Napoleon lingered for several days near Paris, at Malmaison, and it was only when he was advised by the temporary government that they could not be responsible for his personal safety, that he traveled towards the west, where his friends were arranging that he should be taken on an American vessel to the United States. The sea coast was watched by British cruisers, so the defeated conqueror decided to surrender himself to the British, intending to claim their hospitality and protection as a guest, not as a prisoner. Apparently, Napoleon rejected the plan to cross the Atlantic “incognito,” for the more spectacular one of throwing himself on the mercy of his most bitter antagonists, because he counted on finding a protection under the constitutional régime of Great Britain, and especially on the ability of the liberal opposition to prevent him from being treated with exceptional harshness. He realized, too, that it would be most dangerous for him to fall into the hands of any of the allied Continental Powers, who might have had him condemned to death by a court-martial or immured in close confinement. It is known that the British premier, Castlereagh, hoped that Napoleon would fall into the hands of Louis XVIII and be treated as a rebel. Therefore, when the vessel which carried him reached the English coast, there was some hesitation as to the treatment he would receive.
Finally, at the end of July, the problem was solved by arranging to send the prisoner to the Island of St. Helena, because, on account of its isolation, there would be little chance of escape. The climate was healthy, close confinement would not be necessary, and Napoleon was permitted to take a suite of servants and friends with him. During his residence at Elba, the plan of a removal of the Emperor to St. Helena had been discussed by the Powers at the Congress of Vienna; perhaps the knowledge of this fact may have contributed largely to induce the flight from Elba and the short-lived attempt to restore the empire.
Acting under international agreement, England became responsible for the guardianship of Napoleon, who was called the prisoner of the Powers. In October, 1815, began the captivity at St. Helena. It was naturally a trying experience to a man who had lately played so great a rôle in the world, and Napoleon did not have the temperament to endure so conspicuous a change in fortune. He instantly began a campaign to secure his release from captivity. Reckoning on the action of public opinion in England working in his behalf, he left nothing undone to exaggerate the onerous conditions under which he lived as an exile. On its side, the British government, which was being administered by men who represented a selfish oligarchy, and who had to their credit a long record of inefficiency, corruption, and attacks on popular rights, was not likely to show especial consideration to a fallen antagonist at St. Helena. A regular system of persecution, inane and petty, was invented, and in applying it the governor of the island, Sir Hudson Lowe, a man of morose temper, whose character is admirably indicated by his name, showed himself a master.
There were various plans for aiding an escape, many of them originating in the United States. Even an attack on St. Helena was discussed by Napoleon’s followers, some of whom were on the American continent as participants in the Brazilian war of independence against Portugal. But Napoleon refused to consider any such methods of relief. “I could not be in America six months,” he said, “without being attacked by the murderers, whom the royalist committees, that returned to France in the train of the Count d’Artois, have hired against me. In America I see nothing but murder and oblivion, so I prefer to stay on at St. Helena.” He saw truly that, in a life of freedom on the other side of the Atlantic, there would be little chance of posing as the victim of misfortune and maltreatment, and it was on the maintenance of this pose that he built his hope of relief from captivity, perhaps even of a return to his old place as ruler of France, for he counted on the expulsion of the Bourbons and a reaction of popular feeling in his behalf. A change of ministry in England also he looked forward to as the opening of an avenue of escape to Europe. He refused to take exercise because, in his walks, according to regulations, he had to be accompanied by an English officer; therefore, he blamed his bad health on the British government. Care was taken by publications in London to detail at length the sufferings of the captive. Incessant complaints were made of the trying climate of the island, the aim being to represent the banishment to St. Helena as nothing but a plan to get rid of Napoleon by the toxic effects of a tropical atmosphere. Indeed, the bad climate of St. Helena has become an inseparable part of the Napoleonic legend, yet we know that Napoleon said to members of his own suite, that if he had to live an exile, St. Helena was, after all, the best spot.
As the years passed, nothing was changed, for the Whigs in England were not strong enough to get any measures though Parliament favorable to Napoleon, and in 1818 the five Great Powers issued a signed statement that they approved of the strict treatment of the prisoner by the British government, and resolved that all correspondence with Napoleon, such as sending money or other communications, which was not submitted to the inspection of the governor, must be regarded as an attack on the public safety and punished accordingly.
Under the régime of no exercise imposed upon himself by Napoleon, his health became impaired; his manner of life accentuated the symptoms of a disease, cancer of the stomach, which had appeared long before the period of his exile. It was an inherited malady, for his father had died of it, also his eldest sister. Some relief was secured by his adopting a more active life in 1819; but with the beginning of the year 1821, the progress of the disease was rapid; exercise was no longer possible, and even occasional dictation was found to be an exhausting task. In April the condition of the prisoner was evidently hopeless, and after he was assured on this point by a surgeon of the British army, Napoleon dictated his testament to Montholon, one of his faithful companions. After his death, which took place on May 5, 1821, the body of the great captain was buried not far from Longwood, his residence. Nearly a generation elapsed before it was carried to its present resting place beneath the dome of the Invalides at Paris.