Napoleon's Rabbit Farmer, page 4
‘Are they not bad people?’ he had asked.
‘They gave up the stiletto when serving with us,’ Lowe replied. ‘They were good soldiers and behaved well. I was very pleased with them.’
Napoleon liked the answer and asked Lowe how long he had been in the army. ‘Twenty-eight years sir.’
‘Well I have put in nearly 40. I am the older soldier,’ said Napoleon, exaggerating to assert his authority. Before the meeting ended they talked about Egypt, where Lowe had led his Corsicans during the British advance on Cairo. Napoleon had won decisive victories there against the Marmelukes, including the Battle of the Pyramids. He ended the meeting on a personal note. ‘I hear you are married?’
The new Governor looked down at the floor. ‘I married shortly before leaving for St Helena.’
‘You have a wife? You are well off,’ Napoleon said, seeking a little sympathy.
Both had felt the first meeting had gone well with Napoleon hoping that Lowe would now ease the restrictions imposed by Cockburn, including the scrutiny of all correspondence. The Emperor was ready to fight a long campaign. He was optimistic that political developments in Europe, changes of government and the deaths of monarchs, would see him recalled from his island prison within five years. For now he would call the world’s attention to the injustice of his situation and the terrible conditions that he was forced to endure.
***
Count Emmanuel de Las Cases examined the shelves of books at Plantation House, the palatial country residence of Sir Hudson Lowe, three and a quarter miles from Jamestown. ‘My library is at your disposal, feel free to take what you want,’ said the Governor. ‘I have brought with me 2,000 French books, which I shall put at the disposal of Longwood as soon as I have had a chance to sort them out.’
The Governor studied the small, balding French writer, who appeared nervous and fidgety.
‘Did you know that we are old friends,’ he continued.
Las Cases raised his wild, dark eyebrows.
‘I have long known you through your Historical Atlas, although I never thought that I would ever make the author’s acquaintance,’ said Lowe with an enthusiastic smile.
‘I would often read your description of the battle of Jena with General Blucher, when he was commissioner to England during the campaign of 1814. I always admired your fairness and moderation towards England and I was struck that certain passages seemed to be hostile towards Napoleon. You couldn’t imagine my surprise when I found out that you were in his suite at St Helena. I understand that you are helping General Bonaparte with his memoirs. You spend a great deal of time in his company?’
‘He dictates and I write,’ replied Las Cases, wiping sweat from his small forehead.
‘Your Historical Atlas was a great success.’
‘I am flattered,’ replied Las Cases, cradling the spine of a leather-bound volume in his left hand. ‘I wrote it during my time in England.’
Lowe stared at the aristocrat, whose tiny spectacles were balanced on his thin nose. ‘I hear you have been teaching General Bonaparte English.’
‘That is correct, but I am afraid he is a poor student when it comes to languages. You are very well informed.’
‘It is my business to be well informed and I would very much like you to help me,’ said Lowe scratching his face. ‘I need to know everything that happens at Longwood, no matter how trivial. I can assure you that you will be well rewarded.’
Las Cases was shocked: ‘I am sorry but that would not be possible. I would never betray the Emperor’s trust. I am a man of honour.’ Las Cases bowed and without another word turned and left the Governor’s library.
Lowe was establishing a network of spies across the island and had already made a similar request to Napoleon’s doctor, Barry O’Meara. ‘As a British officer, it is your duty to provide information,’ he bluntly told the former ship’s surgeon during a private dinner at Plantation House.
‘That would put me in a very difficult situation,’ replied O’Meara, whose face was turning a similar shade to the claret he was drinking. ‘I cannot betray the confidence of a patient. It is just not done.’
‘You must be my eyes and ears at Longwood,’ continued Lowe, undeterred. ‘Bear in mind that the life of one man cannot be put into comparison with the mischief Bonaparte might cause if he were to escape. He has been the cause of the loss of life of millions of men and might be again if he got loose. Think of your career. I can assure you that London will provide you with a very generous pension.’
O’Meara looked down at his half-eaten plate of roast lamb. ‘I will do what I can,’ he whispered, ‘but remember, I am a physician first.’
***
Napoleon was fuming. ‘Throw it away, it has been poisoned. That man has poisoned it,’ he told Marchand. ‘His evil eye has poisoned it.’ The valet took the cup of coffee from a small table in the middle of the bedroom, opened the large sash window and poured the cold black liquid onto the shrubs below. Moments earlier Marchand had shown Sir Hudson Lowe to the door at the end of a stormy meeting with the Emperor.
‘Did you ever see such a sinister face?’ Napoleon asked Las Cases, who had just entered the room carrying quills and paper. ‘Lowe’s face made such a bad impression on me that I thought his evil eye had poisoned the coffee on the table between us. I could not have swallowed it for the world.’
The Emperor was suffering a cold and stomach upset and had been in no mood to entertain Sir Hudson Lowe that afternoon. Unshaven and in his dressing gown, he had granted the Governor an audience in his bedroom. Napoleon was lying on a velvet sofa while Lowe was seated on a small chair opposite him.
‘It is impossible to keep fit,’ the Emperor complained. ‘I need to ride outside the Longwood estate to exercise properly - and I don’t need an English chaperone every time I go out.’
‘The rules are laid down by Lord Bathurst in London,’ replied Lowe calmly. ‘It is my duty to enforce them, just as Admiral Cockburn has done.’
‘There is nothing here but boredom, eternal, endless boredom,’ continued Napoleon. ‘There is no life, no water, trees or people.’
‘Then we will build you a new house,’ said Lowe examining the bedroom furniture including the mahogany table bearing a small cup of steaming coffee.
‘Am I free to choose the location?’ asked the Emperor.
‘Yes, unless I see any objection.’
‘Then it is of no interest to me,’ snapped Napoleon. ‘Let them send me a coffin, a couple of balls in the head is all that is necessary.’
Lowe fiddled nervously with the gold lace on the navy cuff of his scarlet jacket.
‘I am afraid there is something else,’ he said, his heavy brows knitting together. ‘Your people will all have to sign a declaration submitting to the same regulations that apply to your custody on St Helena. If they refuse, they will be forced to leave.’
Napoleon struggled to contain the rage growing inside him, adding to the dull ache in his stomach.
‘Since you landed, you have plagued me more than Admiral Cockburn ever did in six months. Cockburn may be blunt but at least he has a kind heart. But you – if your Prime Minister has ordered you to poison us all, do it as soon as possible. I’ve governed in my time and I know that men can always be found for dishonourable missions.’
‘Sir, I have not come here to be insulted but to discuss the building of a new house, a matter more of interest to you than me.’
‘You can do nothing for me. I have nothing more to say to you. I ask only to be left in peace.’
‘I am not aware that I have troubled you unduly. Good day to you, Sir.’
Lowe bowed, collected his cocked hat, and left. The arrival of HMS Newcastle at St Helena brought another person the Emperor was determined to avoid. The elderly Marquis de Montchenu was one of three allied commissioners charged by their governments to see with their own eyes that Napoleon was truly on the island. The pompous Montchenu, representing the restored French regime, wanted to send his first report via HMS Northumberland, which was leaving in two days. ‘The peace of Europe depends on me seeing Bonaparte,’ he told the British authorities. But they were not in any hurry to share their prisoner with the commissioners of France, Russia and Austria.
‘I shall not see Montchenu,’ Napoleon told his companions. ‘I know him. He is an old woman, a gossip, an armchair gentleman who has never smelt gunpowder. Does the Austrian commissioner Sturmer bring news of my wife and son?’
But two others in Napoleon’s entourage were very keen to see Montchenu for news from Paris. The Countess Bertrand and Count Las Cases had learned that the Marquis had seen both their families in France before departing.
‘It is not fair that the Emperor does not want to see Montchenu,’ the countess complained to her husband. ‘He has seen my mother. She is so poorly that she could be on her death bed.’
‘Well if the Emperor does not want to see him there is very little we can do,’ said Bertrand. The Countess decided to take matters into her own hands. She gave her servant a letter inviting Montchenu to her cottage at Hutt’s Gate, where he could also give Las Cases news of his wife. But the message was intercepted by the Governor’s staff and the Countess was placed under investigation for smuggling correspondence. She had also been entertaining officers of the 53rd regiment and Lowe made clear that this should not continue. ‘I hate it here,’ screamed the Countess one morning to her husband. ‘I wish to return to Europe, to society and see my family again. The children will need a proper education.’
‘We shall stay here for six months and then return to England to put the children in school,’ said Bertrand, trying to console his wife.
***
A daily bottle of sweet sherry was one of the few comforts available to Lady Lowe at Plantation House, which occupied the most pleasant spot on the island. She had done her best to turn the Governor’s country residence into one fitting her aristocratic background, but was increasingly frustrated.
‘I didn’t want to come here,’ she confided to Captain Den Taaf, a handsome officer on her husband’s staff as they strolled in the large tropical garden before an official dinner.
‘It is impossible to keep a good table. The food that I have ordered arrives rotten after the long voyage.’
‘It is certainly not London,’ agreed Captain Taaf, gazing admiringly at Lady Lowe, who had a noble prettiness despite being 15 years his senior.
‘We thought Sir Hudson was a rising star, having served with Wellington at Waterloo,’ he said. ‘You don’t know how angry I was when he told me we were coming here,’ said Lady Lowe. ‘I would never have agreed to marry him. It is difficult being a widow but to come thousands of miles to keep guard over the man who put me in that situation was very hard indeed, I can assure you. I hope this isn’t a prison sentence for me as well.’
Lady Lowe’s first husband, Colonel William Johnson, had been killed fighting Napoleon in 1811. From then on she had hated the French leader with a vengeance.
‘You must not be soft on him,’ she told Sir Hudson Lowe that night after the dinner celebrating his decision to emancipate St Helena’s slaves. ‘Bonaparte is lucky he was not shot or hanged after Waterloo. I hear he keeps a finer table than we do and that he wants for nothing.’
***
Napoleon crouched next to the spring and cupped his hands to drink the cool, clear water. ‘It is good,’ he told Las Cases. ‘So fresh and pure. A servant must fetch some for my use every day.’
The two were resting on a patch of grass at the bottom of a small valley in the shade of two weeping willows after climbing down from a ridge near the Bertrands’ rented cottage at Hutt’s Gate. They had been on a long walk and the Emperor was captivated by the peaceful spot surrounded by craggy peaks and with a view of the endless wild sea.
‘I want to be buried in this valley, beneath these willows, should the English government refuse to return my remains to my native land,’ Napoleon told his companion. ‘I must on no account be buried in the churchyard next to Plantation House, where my enemies can triumph over me. My friend, they mean to kill me here, that is certain.’
Napoleon had been spending an increasing amount of time in the Count’s company and had even offered him the use of his bath, which had been constructed by carpenters on the Admiral’s orders. ‘My dear Las Cases, fellow prisoners should accommodate each other,’ he had told him.
The Count politely declined. His continued close friendship with the Emperor had aggravated Gourgaud and Montholon. Las Cases had been ranked above the generals and his ability to speak with authority on science and history and translate the English newspapers for Napoleon cemented his position as the favoured companion. Gourgaud was listening one morning when Las Cases was recording Napoleon’s account of a battle in the Italian campaign. ‘It is finer than the Iliad, Sire,’ said the count, with aristocratic manners.
‘That’s rubbish,’ sneered Gourgaud. ‘I can see Achilles well enough, but not Las Cases as Homer.’
Montholon, who was in charge of domestic details at Longwood, clashed with the count as Napoleon had made Las Cases responsible for furniture and fittings. But the Emperor soon lost patience with his squabbling companions. Assembling them at the dinner table, he rebuked them. ‘You have accompanied me to this rock to make yourself agreeable to me,’ he said before the meal was served. ‘Act like brothers, otherwise you are only a torment. Am I no longer the object of your consideration? I want you all to be happy around me.’
The Emperor lapsed into a moody silence. Later he summoned Montholon and Gourgaud to his study. ‘Las Cases is a man of great merit,’ he told them. ‘You must make friends with him.’
‘The chamberlain is too much of a Jesuit for me,’ replied Gourgaud.
Napoleon became angry. ‘If we are talking about character, you have less than a child.’
‘Then by my calculation Las Cases’s young son should come before me, since at 33 years of age and after 17 years of service, I am treated like a child.’
Montholon was also defiant. ‘I have been a minister, general and chamberlain and have also served my country for 17 years and will not give way to Las Cases.’
The Emperor was seething. ‘Well after Bertrand and Las Cases comes Madame de Montholon. You two are children who together count as one person.’
Napoleon backed down when a little later he found Madame de Montholon in tears. ‘I did not mean what I said to your husband,’ he told her. At the dinner table Napoleon paid special attention to Montholon and a triumphant Gourgaud. That evening the generals were allowed to take precedence over Las Cases and when the Emperor was not looking Gourgaud taunted the secretary. ‘You are merely a valet with a title,’ he told him.
On his return from the trip to the spring, Las Cases had been consumed by homesickness for his wife and family in France. He and his sickly son, who had a heart complaint, had been given the worst rooms at Longwood. The young man was forced to sleep in a cramped attic that was sweltering on summer evenings and flooded when it rained.
‘I am not sure how much longer I can bear this,’ he would tell young Emmanuel. Las Cases’s consolation was that he was the closest companion of a man who, at a glance, had ordered battles that decided the fate of empires. ‘I could better serve him back in France where I could campaign for his release. I now have enough material for several volumes.’
***
The Emperor was spoiling for a fight and he could see the enemy approaching. The Governor had just entered the barren Longwood garden with a party of officers. Among them was Admiral Sir Pulteney Malcolm, Cockburn’s replacement.
‘The expenses at Longwood are too high. They must be reduced,’ said Lowe opening proceedings without pleasantries.
Napoleon did not respond but looked out towards the Deadwood camp.
‘I have tried to raise the issue with Bertrand but he has refused to discuss it,’ continued Lowe. ‘This was most disrespectful. To save money we might have to cut down on the food supplied to Longwood.’ The Emperor held his fire, continuing to walk around the garden. Lowe was getting increasingly agitated, thinking he would not speak. When Napoleon finally broke his silence he ignored Lowe and addressed the Admiral. ‘General Bertrand is man who has commanded armies and the Governor treats him like a lowly corporal. In fact, he treats us all like deserters from his Royal Corsican Regiment. He has been sent out here as a hangman, an executioner. General Bertrand does not want to see him. None of us do. We would rather live on bread and water.’
Lowe was sweating. ‘I did not apply for this job it was offered to me and I considered it my sacred duty to accept it.’
‘Then if the order was given to assassinate me you would accept it?’ said Napoleon, knowing that he had won this skirmish.
‘No sir, I would not.’
Chapter Five
October 1816
The crashing of hammer on metal shattered the peace of the courtyard at the back of Longwood House. Cipriani, the maître d’hotel, and the footman Jean Santini were smashing the Emperor’s silverware, bashing off the eagles and coats of arms of the imperial household. The fragments glinted in the sunlight as the pair tossed them into wicker baskets. ‘I shall get a good price for this lot,’ said Cipriani, pushing his curly black hair away from his dark eyes. ‘I have already arranged the sale. The whole of Europe will hear of it – how the Emperor is being forced to sell his silver to put food on his table.’
General Montholon watched the work from a wooden bench, his fingers shielding his ears from the noise. He was in charge of the budget for food and drink at Longwood and no expense was spared. Fine dining was a solace for the endless boredom. As well as Napoleon’s immediate circle there were 32 servants, helped by eight locals, who had to be fed. Each day he ordered 17 bottles of wine, 88lbs of meat, nine chickens and the best butter. Fresh fruit and vegetables were in short supply and very expensive but were ordered nonetheless.
