Napoleon's Rabbit Farmer, page 3
Smarting from the reprimand, Poppleton halted while Bertrand returned to Napoleon. The young officer watched the three riders cross a dry, stony ditch and then turn a corner in the road.
‘Let’s gallop,’ Napoleon told Gourgaud and Bertrand. ‘Ride as hard as you can.’ They spurred their horses and raced along a deserted track that skirted Rock Rose Hill towards Sandy Bay.
When Poppleton crossed the ditch and rounded the bend he froze in horror. ‘Oh hell, oh hell,’ he said out loud. He galloped wildly in every direction looking for Napoleon and his companions without success before deciding to raise the alarm at the closest signal station. Poppleton was on his way to report to the island’s senior officer when he came across the 53rd’s light company. ‘I will be court martialed,’ he kept saying to himself. ‘My career is ruined.’
Captain Mansel pulled a brass telescope from inside his scarlet woolen jacket and scanned the jagged landscape to the mountainous cliffs that dropped hundreds of feet to the sea. Green ravines cut sharply into the black rock, making it impossible to get a clear view. ‘We have orders to go straight to Sandy Bay and assist the picket at the beach there,’ he told Poppleton. ‘It is the only landing point.’
‘I have just come from Sandy Bay and seen the sentinels,’ said Poppleton in despair. ‘General Bonaparte is not there.’ Mansel’s 60 men were resting in a long line across the slope, swigging water from their blue wooden canteens. They had already covered more than three miles of very rough terrain but he ordered them up and forward at the same frantic pace.
***
Napoleon had a wry smile on his face. He was seated on a large brown stone near Bertrand and General Gourgaud at the summit of Rock Rose Hill, two miles from the raging Atlantic. Their horses were tethered to a small, wind-bent pine tree, one of many on the hill. ‘This will keep them on their toes,’ Napoleon said. ‘They will have a thousand men looking for me. Did you hear the cannon?’
The Emperor pulled his grey coat around him against the strong trade wind that whipped across the summit. They studied two valleys that led to the sea. ‘There is no guard stationed there,’ said Bertrand pointing towards a small inlet. Napoleon nodded.
‘I think it is called Powell Bay,’ said Gourgaud, studying a map. ‘It is a possible landing place, Sire.’
Napoleon shielded the sinking sun from his eyes.
‘You must not say where we have been today,’ he told his companions.
The Emperor had decided to test the enemy’s defences and at the same time look for a possible escape route. This would be the first salvo in the psychological campaign he planned to wage against the British.
‘We will use every weapon we can against them,’ Napoleon continued. ‘We will let Europe know how the English make us suffer. We are martyrs in an immortal cause. Millions of human beings are weeping for us.’
Gourgaud was smiling. ‘Your Majesty gave them a little scare after we landed in Jamestown,’ he reminded the Emperor.
‘I was only trying my new horse,’ Napoleon replied. ‘She rode very well… a fine animal, though a little temperamental.’ On their second day on the island Napoleon had been presented with a spirited black mare which had been transported from the Cape colony. They were to ride out to inspect Longwood, the run-down farm and grain store at the centre of the island which had been chosen as a home for them.
The Emperor mounted and without a word galloped off through the crowd of curious towns folk who had come to see him. He raced along the thread of a road which climbed steeply inland until it branched in two. Not sure which direction to take, he pulled up sharply. Turning and taking in the view of the ribbon of a town that was squeezed tightly into the floor of the narrow valley below, he rode back slowly, examining the wood and white plaster houses that were dotted along the road.
Rear-Admiral Sir George Cockburn, who had brought the French exiles to St Helena on the Northumberland, was extremely agitated when Napoleon finally returned and a report was immediately prepared for his political masters in London. The Admiral, who had been appointed commander in chief of the Royal Navy’s Cape and St Helena station, was responsible for the prisoner of war until a new governor was appointed to replace the present incumbent. Colonel Mark Wilks, a genial grey-haired administrator of 55, had been taken out by boat to be presented to Bonaparte when the Northumberland dropped anchor in Jamestown roads. The Emperor had been impressed by the Governor’s crew of black rowers, dressed in white with red sashes around their waists.
‘Gorgo my boy, help me into the saddle,’ said Napoleon, who was ready to descend Rock Rose Hill. ‘We shall visit the house we passed a little while back for refreshments before returning to Longwood.’
Napoleon and Bertrand watched the young general, who was wearing his dark blue uniform with gold epaulettes, bring the horses. Gourgaud had been the Emperor’s premier ordnance officer and was responsible for the last French cannon shots when the retreat started at Waterloo.
‘We have work to do, gentlemen,’ said Napoleon leading the way down the hill.
Bertrand and Gourgaud were glad to have the Emperor’s confidence after he had chosen Count Las Cases and his scholarly son to share his first residence on the island.
Napoleon had moved into a garden pavilion at a country house called the Briars while Longwood was being fitted out by Royal Navy carpenters. He had hated the confined lodgings he had been given on his arrival in Jamestown, which offered no privacy. Napoleon even feared assassination and ordered his valets to sleep at the foot of the barred door.
The Briars, a private estate with pleasant shady walks among orange and peach trees, date palms and banana plants, belonged to William Balcombe, an official of the East India Company who had two lively teenage daughters and two small sons of five and six. The Bertrands, Montholons, Gourgaud and Doctor O’Meara were forced to stay at a boarding house in the town a mile and half away while Las Cases occupied one of two garrets in the pavilion, the other being used by the first two valets. The intellectual count, who stood at 5ft 1', was put to work straight away writing his history.
Thirteen-year-old Betsy Balcombe and her sister Jane, who was two years older, had watched the Emperor’s arrival with a mixture of fear and awe. In their garden was the ‘ogre’ of Europe, the man who had brought terror to the Continent. They curtsied and answered Napoleon’s questions politely in their schoolgirl French. He rubbed the heads of the little boys and in the following days took a childish delight in joining their activities. ‘Your name is Boney,’ said one of the boys bluntly after a game of blind man’s bluff.
‘What does he mean?’ said Napoleon, asking Las Cases to translate.
‘He means you are very thin and skinny, Sire.’
Napoleon laughed loudly. Of the four children, the mischievous Betsy became his favourite and the Emperor let her take every liberty, one day pinning him in the corner of the pavilion with his sword. On another occasion she had taunted him over his defeat at Waterloo and when her father found out, he locked her in a cellar where she was forced to defend herself against rats by smashing bottles of wine. Napoleon did not think the punishment fitted the crime and made a fuss of his young friend.
But he soon grew tired of his cramped quarters in the garden summer house and encouraged his companions to complain about their conditions to Admiral Cockburn. He was keen for them to move to Longwood and had worked hard to make them comfortable as possible while keeping a careful watch. ‘Their requests and complaints increase with every favour shown them.’ he told Colonel Wilks.
Napoleon was reluctant to move to Longwood until he was sure that the smell of fresh paint, which always made him feel sick, had gone. Las Cases was sent first up the steep hill in a carriage pulled by six oxen, then Montholon, Bertrand and Gourgaud. None could say that the offensive odour had completely disappeared but the Emperor decided it was time to go to his new home, where he could establish his court and receive visitors.
***
Longwood was infested with brown rats. They crawled in the ceiling and scurried noisily in the cavities of the walls. They even made an appearance in the dining room, with one jumping out from beneath the Emperor’s hat and down between his legs. ‘They couldn’t have chosen a better prison,’ Napoleon said shortly after taking up residence at the single-storey farm, which had been hastily enlarged to accommodate his entourage. ‘It is a prison within an island prison.’ On the day of their arrival Napoleon’s horse had reared at the gate and stubbornly refused to enter – an omen that was not lost on the exiles.
Longwood, a former cattle shed with no water supply, was 1,600 feet above the sea on a barren plateau that could be lashed by a biting wind. In winter it was often shrouded in a grey cloud and the damp penetrated everything. Napoleon had fires burning in every room but still the T-shaped building felt like a cellar to him. In the grounds there were few trees to give shade when the sun broke through and these had been twisted and bent by the wind.
‘They have guards everywhere,’ Napoleon remarked to his valet Marchand, gazing from the window of his small bedroom, which faced the afternoon sun. ‘In the day there are 125 redcoats in the grounds and at night 72 of them line the perimeter. Am I still such an opponent for them? Do they think I will run away?’
Above the fireplace he had placed two portraits of his wife Marie-Louise and seven of his young boy, taken away from him at the age of three. Longwood was encircled by two walls, one of four miles, and overlooked Deadwood camp, which provided the sentries who kept a constant watch on the house. Anyone approaching on the single road was stopped and questioned. If they did not have written authority they were sent away. A two-storey semaphore tower with a view of both the house and the ships at anchor in Jamestown bay sent hourly signals to the Admiral, reporting on Napoleon’s movements and welfare. Although a prisoner, he had the freedom to decide how he spent his time. For someone whose every waking hour had been filled with the demands of empire and the trials of constant campaigning, his challenge now was to fill the endless hours in front of him. He would be woken at six by his valet and dressed. On fine days he would ride within the 11-mile boundary set by the British. After lunch at 10 he would spend three hours dictating his memoirs. To calm the jealousies of his companions, Napoleon had assigned an episode of his life to each of them.
But his decision to put Montholon in charge of the household and its provisions, ahead of the more senior Bertrand, caused a rift. He was living separately in a rented cottage a mile away with his family, a fact Napoleon resented. ‘You have your wife and children to return to,’ he would remind Bertrand, who was slight in figure, of medium height and bald. ‘I have no one.’ The Emperor also became angry that Madame Bertrand would often dine with Admiral Cockburn or stay at home for meals. ‘The Bertrands think only of themselves,’ he complained to Gourgaud. ‘They treat my house as an inn. They should come to dine always or not at all.’
Gourgaud was given responsibility for the stables, including a carriage with six horses, and would accompany the Emperor on his early-morning rides. He had been awarded the title Baron in 1812 while still a captain for the first occasion he saved Napoleon’s life in Moscow. Gourgaud had discovered and put out a fuse lit by the retreating Russians that was about to ignite 500,000 pounds of gunpowder. At Longwood, he and Dr O’Meara were given tents to live in while their adjoining rooms were being prepared at the back of the house.
‘I did not come to St Helena to camp,’ Gourgaud would grumble.
The ambitions of Napoleon’s companions surfaced very quickly when they had adjusted to their new situation. Montholon, Gourgaud and Las Cases complained to the Emperor that they would find neither fortune nor position with him in exile. Gourgaud began to feel that he was the least favoured companion, ignored by Napoleon when the others were around. The Emperor promised them all large sums in his will, especially Gourgaud, his impoverished former aide-de-camp who was worried about his widowed mother in Paris. ‘Gourgaud, I will give you 300,000 francs,’ said the Emperor. ‘We will soon be living in the United States or England where I will find you a wealthy wife.’
But Gourgaud kept pestering the Emperor about money. ‘It is not fair, Sire, that Montholon gets double the allowances that I do.’
‘Montholon has a wife and children to support,’ said Napoleon, becoming annoyed.
‘I have an elderly mother to worry about.’
‘You are mad to love your mother so. How old is she?’
Gourgaud was puzzled. ‘Sixty-seven, Sire.’
‘Well you will never see her again. She will be dead by the time you return to France.’
Tears appeared in Gourgaud’s eyes and he stormed off, bumping into the Grand Marshal in the dining room. ‘What is the matter Gourgaud?’
‘The Emperor treats me so callously. He has no heart.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘He has just told me that I will never see my beloved mother again.’
‘My dear Gourgaud, the Emperor is what he is. We cannot change his character. It is because of that character that he has no friends, that he has so many enemies, and indeed that we are at St Helena.’
***
It was a bright, sunny afternoon in late summer when Napoleon called for his carriage to be made ready for a short excursion from Longwood. ‘Faster, make them go faster,’ Napoleon ordered the coachman next to him. ‘Hand me the whip, Archambaud.’ The team of six horses tore along a precipitous track that ran in a semi-circle alongside a deep crater called the Devil’s Punchbowl, sending rocks and stones sliding hundreds of feet below.
A hat-less Napoleon gripped his seat tightly with one hand, while cracking the long leather whip with the other. The carriage strained and creaked as the large wooden wheels bounced along the dangerous road, swerving perilously close to a drop that could kill them all. Screams of terror were coming from inside, making the Emperor smile. Fanny Bertrand and a pregnant Albine de Montholon were unable to stay in their seats. As they were thrown around they cried for Napoleon to stop the carriage and let them out. He ignored their pleas. The danger thrilled him and for a few brief moments he once again felt the force of life.
Chapter Four
April 1816
Napoleon was soaking neck-deep in his copper bath, talking to Bertrand. ‘I gave the Admiral a slap in the face and at the same time welcomed the new governor to Longwood,’ he boasted to the Grand Marshal, smacking the steaming water with the palm of his hand and laughing.
‘It was pure theatre. I wouldn’t have missed it for a million francs. You should have seen the look on Lowe’s face when the footman shut the door on the Admiral.’
Bertrand watched the valet top up the bath, a mixture of fresh and salt water.
‘Admiral Cockburn was very angry, Sire. He went purple and was swearing under his breath. He said that it was protocol that he presented the new Governor to you.’
‘Cockburn was not invited to the meeting,’ snapped Napoleon. ‘He’s a rough old sailor, a shark who deserved his punishment. His rules and restrictions are ridiculous. Why should we have a guard each time we ride out? Why should I have sentries outside my window and door? He landed me on St Helena like a convict at Botany Bay.’
Admiral Cockburn had first taken Sir Hudson Lowe to meet Napoleon the day after the new Governor’s arrival on St Helena. Without notice, they had ridden up to Longwood before 9am. Climbing the porch steps in a torrential storm, they knocked at the front door and were let into the parlour, where they were met by Bertrand.
‘I am sorry, gentlemen, but the Emperor does not receive visitors at this hour,’ he informed them. ‘He cannot be disturbed. Besides, you must have an invitation.’
‘Then please tell us when it will be convenient to see General Bonaparte,’ replied Lowe, barely hiding his annoyance. ‘I will send notice to you, sir,’ said Bertrand, equally annoyed that the Governor had not referred to Napoleon as the Emperor. Bertrand signalled for the footman to show them out.
The next day Lowe and Cockburn returned to Longwood, this time with an afternoon appointment for Lowe to be presented to the Emperor. They were again greeted by Bertrand, who screened all of Napoleon’s visitors.
The footman, in the green and gold-braided uniform of the imperial household, opened the door to the Emperor’s study. ‘His Majesty will see you now,’ he announced. Lowe stepped forward first, followed by Cockburn three paces behind. But before the Admiral could enter, the footman closed the door in his face with a swing of his white-gloved hand. Cockburn reeled back in surprise. ‘You must have an invitation, sir,’ the footman informed him.
Cockburn immediately protested to Bertrand, who was also standing outside the study. ‘This is an insult,’ complained the Admiral. ‘It is a breach of etiquette and reflects badly on all of you.’ Bertrand could only repeat that Cockburn needed a personal invitation. The Admiral, who was shortly to leave St Helena having had Napoleon in his custody for seven months, stormed out of the house. ‘I have shown him every kindness and courtesy,’ he said.
***
The Emperor stepped out of the bath and into the towels held for him by St Denis and Marchand, who screened his plump, hairless body. ‘Lowe reminds me of a Sicilian policeman,’ he said to Bertrand as his valets rubbed eau de Cologne all over him. ‘I hope his character is different from his looks.’ At 46, Lowe was the same age as Napoleon but this was their only similarity. Under a stern brow and greying sandy hair, the Governor had a gaunt, freckled face and severe expression. ‘He doesn’t look you straight in the eye,’ continued Napoleon, who had quizzed Lowe in French and Italian, trying to get a measure of his new jailer. ‘He commanded a regiment of Corsicans, my own people, against me.’
For years Lowe had been in charge of the Royal Corsican Rangers, composed of exiles fighting French rule. Napoleon had tried to trip Lowe by asking about the Corsicans’ love of carrying stiletto blades.
