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From Blackwood's Magazine.

THE LAST RECOLLECTIONS OF NAPOLEON.*

pleteness of his fall. Nothing less than preeminent capacity could have shot him up through the clouds and tempests of the Revolution into the highest THERE are few things more striking than the place of power. A mixture of this force of mind analogy in civil and physical changes of the world. and desperate selfishness of heart could alone have There have been in the history of man periods as suggested and sustained the system of the imperial distinctive as in the history of nations. From these wars, policy, and ambition; and the discovery of periods society and nations have alike assumed new his utter faithlessness could alone have rendered all aspects, and the world has commenced a new career. thrones hopeless of binding him by the common The fall of the Roman empire was the demarkation bonds of sovereign to sovereign, and compelled between the old world and the new. It was the them to find their only security for the peace of moral deluge, out of which a new condition of Europe in consigning him to a dungeon. He was man, new laws, new forms of religion, new styles the only instance in modern history of a monarch of thought, almost a totally new configuration of dethroned by a universal conviction; warred human society were to arise. A new settlement against by mankind, as the sole object of the war; of the civil world took place: power absorbed by delivered over into captivity by the unanimous one race of mankind was to be divided among vari-judgment of nations; and held in the same unreous races; and the development of principles of laxing and judicial fetters until he died. government and society, hitherto unknown, was to be scarcely less memorable, less unexpected, or less productive, than that voyage by which Columbus doubled the space of the habitable globe.

The Reformation was another mighty change. It introduced civil liberty into the empire of tyranny, religion into the realm of superstition, and science into the depths of national ignorance. The French Revolution was the last, and not the least powerful change within human experience. Its purpose is, like its operation, still dubions. Whether it came simply for wrath, or simply for restoration-whether, like the earthquake of Lisbon, it came only to destroy, and leave its ruins visible for a century to come; to clear the ground of incumbrances too massive for the hand of man, and open the soil for exertions nobler than the old, must be left to time to interpret. But there can be no question, that the most prominent agency, the most powerful influence, and the most dazzling lustre of a period in which all the stronger impulses of our being were in the wildest activity, centred in the character of one man, and that man-Napoleon.

It is evidently a law of Providence, that all the great changes of society shall be the work of individual minds. Yet when we recollect the difficulty of effecting any general change, embracing the infinite varieties of human interests, caprices, passions and purposes, nothing could seem more improbable. But it has always been the course of things. Without Charlemagne, the little principalities of Gothic Europe would never have been systematized into an empire;-without Luther, what could have been the progress of the Reformation-without Napoleon, the French Revolution would have, burnt itself out, vanished into air, or sunk into ashes. He alone collected its materials, combined them into a new and powerful shape, crowned this being of his own formation with the imperial robe, erected it in the centre of Europe, and called the nations to bow down before a new idol, like the gods of the Indian known only by its mysterious frown, the startling splendor of its diadem, and the swords and serpents grasped in its

hands.

That the character of Napoleon was a singular compound of the highest intellectual powers with the lowest moral qualities, is evidently the true description of this extraordinary being. This combination alone accounts for the rapidity, the splendor of his career, and the sudden and terrible com

*History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St. Helena. By GENERAL COUNT MONTHOLON. 2 vols. London: Colburn.

It is another striking feature of this catastrophe, that the whole family of Napoleon sank along with him. They neither possessed his faculties, nor were guilty of his offences. But as they had risen solely by him, they perished entirely with him. Future history will continually hover over this period of our annals, as the one which most resembles some of those fabrications of the oriental genius, in which human events are continually under the guidance of spirits of the air; in which fantastic fallacies are erected by a spell, and the treasures of the earth developed by the wave of a wand in which the mendicant of this hour is exalted into the prince of the next; and while the wonder still glitters before the eye, another sign of the necromancer dissolves the whole pageant into air again. Human recollection has no record of so much power, so widely distributed, and apparently so fixed above all the ordinary casualties of the world, so instantly and so irretrievably overthrown. The kings of earth are not undone at a blow; kingdoms do not change their rulers without a struggle. Great passions and great havoc have always preceded and followed the fall of monarchies. But the four diadems of the Napoleon race fell from their wearers' brows with scarcely a touch from the hand of man. The surrender of the crown by Napoleon extinguished the crowns actually ruling over millions, and virtually influencing the whole continent. They were extinguished, too, at the moment when the imperial crown disappeared. It had no sooner been crushed at Waterloo, than they all fell into fragments, of themselves;-the whole dynasty went down with Napoleon into the dungeon, and not one of them has since returned to the world.

The name of General Count Montholon is well known to this country, as that of a brave officer, who, after acquiring distinguished rank in the French army by his sword, followed Napoleon to St. Helena; remained with him during his captivity; and upon his death was made the depositary of his papers, and his executor. But his own language, in a letter dated from the Castle of Ham in June, 1844, gives the best account of his authority and his proceedings.

"A soldier of the republic, a brigadier-general at twenty years of age, and minister-plenipotentiary in Germany in 1812 and 1813, I could, like others, have left memoirs concerning the things which I saw; but the whole is effaced from my mind in presence of a single thing, a single event, and a single man. The thing is Waterloo; the event, the fall of the empire; and the man, Napoleon."

He then proceeds to tell us, that he shared the St. Helena captivity for six years; that for forty

two nights he watched the dying bed of the exmonarch; and that, by Napoleon's express desire, he closed his eyes. But to those duties of private friendship were affixed official services, which looked much more like tyranny than the tribute of personal regard, and which we should think must have worn out the patience, and tried the constitution, of the most devoted follower of this extraordinary captive.

the morning of the 21st. It is now clear that the greatest blunder of this extraordinary man was his flight from the army. If he had remained at its head, let its shattered condition be what it might, he would have been powerful, have awed the growing hostility of the capital, and have probably been able to make peace alike for himself and his nation. But by hurrying to Paris, all was lost: he stripped himself of his strength; he threw himself on the mercy of his enemies; and palpably capitulated to the men who, but the day before, were trembling under the fear of his vengeance.

Napoleon, though apparently contemptuous of the opinions of mankind, evidently felt the strongest anxiety to make out a favorable statement for himself. And all his hours, except the few devoted to exercise on horseback and to sleep, and to his meals, were employed in completing the narrative which was to clear up his character to man-perfectly childish to question, though the attempt kind.

During the last years passed in St. Helena, Napoleon sent for the count every night at eleven o'clock, and continued dictating to him till six in the morning, when he went into the bath, dismissing the count with-" Come, my son, go and repose, and come to me again at nine o'clock. We shall have breakfast, and resume the labors of the night." At nine, he returned, and remained with him till one, when Napoleon went to bed. Between four and five, he sent for the count again, who dined with him every day, and at nine o'clock left him, to return at eleven.

The world little knew the drudgery to which these unfortunate followers of the ex-emperor were thus exposed, and they must all have rejoiced at any termination of a toil so remorseless and so uncheering.

Nobleness of heart is essential to all true renown; and perhaps it is not less essential to all real security. Napoleon, with talents which it is has been made since the close of his brilliant career, wanted this nobleness of heart, and through its want ultimately perished. Of the bravery of him who fought the splendid campaigns of Italy, and of the political sagacity of him who raised himself from being a subaltern of artillery to a sovereign of sovereigns, there can be no doubt. But his selfishness was so excessive that it occasionally made both contemptible, and gave his conduct alike the appearance of cowardice, and the appearance of infatuation. His flight from Egypt, leaving his army to be massacred or captured, disgraced him in the face of Europe. His flight from Russia, leaving the remnant of his legions to be destroyed, was a new scandal; but hitherto no evil had been produced by this gross regard of self. The penalty, however, must be paid. His flight from the army in Belgium, leaving it without counsel or diNapoleon was fond of the Turkish doctrine of rection, to be crushed by a victorious enemy, was fatality. Whether so acute a mind was capable the third instance of that ignoble preference of his of believing a doctrine so palpably contradicted by own objects which had characterized and stained the common circumstances of life, and so utterly his Egyptian and Russian career. But retribution repugnant to reason, can scarcely be a question; was now come, and he was to be undone. The but with him, as with the Turks, it was a capital slaughter of Waterloo had been tremendous, but it doctrine for the mighty machine which he called an was not final. The loss of the French army had army. But the count seems to have been a true been computed at forty thousand men, killed, believer. He, too, pronounces, that "destiny is wounded, and dispersed. He had come into the written," and regards himself as being under the field with seventy-two thousand men, independent peculiar influence of a malignant star, or, in his of Grouchy. He had thus thirty thousand remainown words: "In fact, without having sought it, ing. Grouchy's force of thirty thousand was still my destiny brought me into contact with the em- untouched, and was able to make its way to Paris. peror in the Elysée Bourbon, conducted me, with- In addition to these sixty thousand, strong garriout my knowing it, to the shores of Boulogne, where sons had been left in all the fortresses, which he honor imposed upon me the necessity of not aban-might without difficulty have gathered upon his redoning the nephew of the emperor in presence of the dangers by which he was surrounded. Irrevocably bound to the misfortunes of a family, I am now perishing in Ham; the captivity commenced in St. Helena."

treat. The Parisian national guard would have augmented this force, probably, on the whole, to one hundred thousand men. It is true that the allied Russian and Austrian forces were on the frontier. But they had not yet moved, and could Of Count Montholon, it must be acknowledged, not prevent the march of those reinforcements. that he was unstained by either the vices or the Thus, without reckoning the provincial militia of violences which scandalized Europe so frequently France, or calculating on a levée en masse, Napo in the leaders of the French armies. He appears leon within a fortnight might have been at the head to have been at all times a man of honorable habits, of one hundred and fifty thousand men, while the as he certainly is of striking intelligence. But we pursuing army could not have mustered half the have no faith in his doctrine of the star, and think number. He would thus have had time for negothat he would have acted much more wisely if he tiation; and time with him was everything. Or had left the stars to the care of themselves, avoided let the event be what it might, the common sense the blunder of mistaking the nephew of Napoleon of the allies would have led them to avoid a direct for a hero and a genius, and stayed quietly in Lon-collision with so powerful a force fighting on its don, instead of risking himself with an invasion of valets to take the diadem off the most sagacious head in Europe.

The narrative commences with the return of Napoleon to Paris after his renown, his throne, and his dynasty were alike crushed by the British charge at Waterloo. He reached Paris at six in

own ground under the walls of the capital, and knowing that the only alternatives were complete triumph or total ruin.

Count Montholon makes a remark on the facility with which courtiers make their escape from a falling throne, which has been so often exemplified in history. But it was never more strikingly exem

plified than in the double overthrow of Napoleon. duced a complete revulsion. Napoleon, too, was "At Fontainbleau, in 1814," says the count, singularly eloquent-his language had a romantic "when I hastened to offer to carry him off with splendor which captivates the artificial taste of the the troops under my command, I found no one in nation; and with an imperial figure before them, those vast corridors, formerly too small for the surrounded with more powerful incidents than the crowd of courtiers, except the Duke of Bassano drama could ever offer, and threatening a fifth act and two aides-de-camp.' His whole court, down which might involve the fate of France and to his Mameluke and valet, had run off to Paris, to Europe, the day might have finished by a new look for pay and place under the Bourbons. In a burst of national enthusiasm, and the restoration similar case in the next year, at the Elysée Bour- of Napoleon to the throne, with all his enemies in bon, he found but two counts and an equerry. It the legislature chained to its footstool. was perfectly plain to all the world but Napoleon himself that his fate was decided.

There certainly seems to have been something in his conduct at this period that can scarcely be accounted for but by infatuation. His first act, he desertion of his army, was degrading to his honor, but his conduct on his arrival was not less degrading to his sagacity. Even his brother Lucien said that he was blinded with the smoke of Waterloo. He seems to have utterly lost that distinct view and fierce decision which formerly characterized all his conduct. It was no more the cannon-shot or the thunder-clap, it was the wavering of a mind suddenly perplexed by the difficulties which he would once have solved by a sentence and overwhelmed by resistance-which he would have once swept away like a swarm of flies. The leader of armies was crushed by a conspiracy of clerks, and the sovereign of the continent was sent to the dungeon by a cabal of his own slaves.

While Naploeon was thus lingering in the Elysée Bourbon, the two chambers of the legis lature were busily employed between terror and intrigue. The time was delicate, for the Bourbons and the allies were approaching. But, on the other hand, the fortunes of Napoleon might change; tardiness in recognizing the Bourbons might be fatal to their hopes of place, but the precipitancy of abandoning Napoleon might bring their heads under the knife of the guillotine. All public life is experimental, and there never was a time when the experiment was of a more tremulous description

At length they began to act; and the first precaution of the chamber of deputies was to secure their own existence. Old Lafayette moved a resolution, that the man should be regarded as a traitor to the country who made any attempt to dissolve the chamber. This was an obvious declaration against the authority of the empire. The next motion was, that General Becker should be appointed commandant of the guard ordered to protect the legislature. This was a provision against the mob of Paris. The legislature was now safe from its two prominent perils. In the mean time, Napoleon had made another capital blunder. He had held a council of the ministers, to which he proposed the question, whether he should proceed in person to the chamber of deputies, and demand supplies, or send his brothers and ministers to make the communication. Three of the ministers approved of his going in person, but the majority disapproved of it-on the plea of its being a dangerous experiment, in the excited state of the public passions. If Napoleon had declined this counsel, which arose from either pusillanimity or perfidy, it is perfectly possible that he might have silenced all opposition. The known attachment of the Toops, the superstition connected with his fortunes, the presence of the man whom they all so lately worshipped, as the Indians worship the serpent for the poison of its fang, might have pro

But he sent his brother Joseph to the chamber of peers, and received the answer to his mission next morning, in a proposal which was equivalent to a demand for his abdication.

A council of ministers was again held on this proposal. The same three who had voted for his presence in the chamber, now voted for his rejection of the proposal. The majority, however, were against them. Napoleon yielded to the majority. He had lost his opportunity-and in politics opportunity is everything. He had now nothing more to lose. He drew up an acknowl edgment of his abdication; but appended to it the condition of proclaiming his son, Napoleon Second, emperor of the French. This was an artifice, but it was unworthy even of the art of Napoleon. He must have been conscious that the allies would have regarded this appointment as a trick to ensure his own restoration. His son was yet a child; a regent must have been appointed; Napoleon would have naturally been that regent; and in six months, or on the first retreat of the allies, he would as naturally have reäppointed himself emperor. The trick was too shallow for his sagacity, and it was impossible to hope that it could have been suffered by the allies. Yet it passed the chamber, and Napoleon Second was acknowledged within the walls. But the acknowledgment was laughed at without them; the allies did not condescend to notice it; and the allies proceeded to their work of restoration as if he had never existed. In fact, the dynasty was at an end; a provisional government was appointed, with Fouché at its head, and the name of Napoleon was pronounced no more.

Count Montholon gives a brief but striking description of the confusion, dismay, and despair, into which Waterloo had thrown the Bonapartists. He had hurried to the Elysée a few hours after the arrival of Bonaparte from the field. He met the Duke of Vicenza coming out, with a countenance of dejection, and asked him what was going on. "All is lost," was the answer. "You arrived today, as you did at Fontainbleau, only to see the emperor resign his crown. The leaders of the chambers desire his abdication. They will have it; and in a week Louis XVIII. will be in Paris. At night, on the 19th, a short note in pencil was left with my Swiss, announcing the destruction of the army. The same notice was given to Carnot. The last telegraphic dispatch had brought news of victory; we both hastened to the Duke of Otranto; he assured us with all his cadaverous coldness that he knew nothing. He knew all, however, I am well assured. Events succeeded each other with the rapidity of lightning; there is no longer any possible illusion. All is lost, and the Bourbons will be here in a week."

The count remained forty-eight hours at the palace. The fallen emperor had now made up his mind to go to America, and the count promised to accompany him. A couple of regiments, formed

of the workmen of the Faubourg St. Germain, | went to look for the money, calculated a moment, marching by the palace, now demanded that Na- and a million and a half of francs, or about poleon should put himself at their head and take £60,000 sterling, had been taken in the interim. vengeance on his enemies. But he well knew the Those were times for thievery, and the plunderers figure which the volunteers of the mob would make of Europe were now on the alert, to make spoil of in front of the bayonets which had crushed his each other. The allies were still advancing, but guard at Waterloo, and he declined the honor of they were not yet in sight; and the mob of Paris, this new command. A few courtiers, who adhered who had been at first delighted to find that the war to him still, continued to talk of his putting him- was at an end, having nothing else to do, and self at the head of the national force. But Water- thinking that, as Wellington and Blucher had not loo had effectually cured him of the passion for arrived within a week, they would not arrive soldiership, and he constantly appealed to his un- within a century, began to clamor Vive l'Emperwillingness to shed the blood of Frenchmen. It eur! Fouché and the provisional government bewas at least evident that he intended to tempt the gan to feel alarm, and it was determined to keep field no more, but after being the cause of shedding Napoleon out of sight of the mob. Accordingly the blood of two millions of the people, his reserve was romantic.

The count was sent to dismiss the volunteers, and they having performed their act of heroism, and offered to challenge the whole British army, were content with the glory of the threat, and heroically marched home to their shops.

But Montholon, on returning again, addressed Napoleon on the feasibility of attacking Wellington and Blucher with the battalions of the Messrs. Calicot, upon which the ex-emperor made the following solemn speech: "To put into action the brute force of the masses, would without doubt save Paris, and ensure me the crown, without having recourse to the horrors of a civil war. But this would be also to risk the shedding of rivers of fresh blood. What is the compressive force which would be sufficiently strong to regulate the outburst of so much passion, hatred, and vengeance? No, I never can forget one thing, that I have been brought from Cannes to Paris in the midst of cries for blood, Down with the priests!''Down with the nobles!' I would rather have the regrets of France than possess its crown."

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ey ordered him to be taken to Malmaison; and on the 25th, towards nightfall, Napoleon submissively quitted the Elysée, and went to Malmaison. At Malmaison he remained for the greater part of the time, in evident fear of being put to death, and in fact a prisoner.-Such was the fate of the most powerful sovereign that Europe had seen since Charlemagne. Such was the humiliation of the conqueror, who, but seven years before, had summoned the continental sovereigns to bow down to his footstool at Erfurth ; and who wrote to Talma the actor these words of supreme arrogance-" Come to Erfurth, and you shall play before a pit-full of kings."

From this period, day by day, a succession of measures was adopted by the government to tighten his chain. He was ordered to set out for the coast, nominally with the intention of giving him a passage to America. But we must doubt that intention. Fouché, the head of the government, had now thrown off the mask which he had worn so many years. And it was impossible for him to expect forgiveness, in case of any future return of Napoleon to power. But Napoleon, in America, would have been at all times within oneand-twenty days of Paris. And the mere probability of his return would have been enough to make many a pillow sleepless in Paris. We are to recollect also, that the English ministry must have been perfectly aware of the arrest of Napoleon; that St. Helena had been already mentioned as a place of security for his person; and that if it was essential to the safety of Europe-a matter about which Fouché probably cared but little; it was not less essential to the safety of Fouché's own neck-a matter about which he always cared very much, that the ex-emperor should never set foot in France again.

There is no country in the world, where Napoleon's own phrase, that from the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step, is more perpetually and practically realized than in France. Here was a man utterly ruined, without a soldier on the face of the earth, all but a prisoner, abandoned by every human being who could be of the slightest service to him, beaten in the field, beaten on his own ground, and now utterly separated from his remaining troops, and with a hundred thousand of the victors rushing after him, hour by hour, to Paris. Yet he talks as if he had the world still at his disposal, applauds his own magnanimity in declining the impossible combat, vaunts his own philosophy in standing still, when he could neither The result was, an order from the minister at war advance nor retreat, and gives himself credit as a Davoust, Prince of Eckmuhl, couched in the followphilanthropist, when he was on the very point of ing terms. We give it as a document of history. being handed over to the enemy as a prisoner. "General, I have the honor to transmit to you Some unaccountable tricks of a lower description the subjoined decree, which the commission of now began to be played on the goods and chattels government desires you to notify the Emperor Naof the Elysée Bourbon. A case containing snuff-poleon at the same time informing his majesty, boxes adorned with portraits set in diamonds, was that the circumstances are become imperative, and laid by Bertrand on the mantel-piece. He acci- that it is necessary for him immediately to decide dentally turned to converse with General Montho- on setting out for the Isle of Aix. This decree lon at the window. Only one person entered the room. The count does not give his name-he was evidently a person of rank. On turning to the mantel-piece again, the case was gone.

One of the ministers had brought some negotiable paper to the amount of several millions of francs into the emperor's chamber. The packet was placed under one of the cushions of the sofa. Only one person, and that one a man of rank who had served in Italy, entered the chamber. Napoleon

has been passed as much for the safety of his person as for the interest of the state, which ought always to be dear to him. Should the emperor not adopt the above mentioned resolution, on your notification of this decree, it will then be your duty to exercise the strictest surveillance, both with a view of preventing his majesty from leaving Malmaison, and of guarding against any attempt upon his life. You will station guards at all the approaches to Malmaison. I have written to the inspector-gen

eral of the gendarmerie, and to the commandant | answer, the simple fact that the Prussians were of Paris, to place such of the gendarmerie and troops as you may require at your disposal.

"I repeat to you, general, that this decree has been adopted solely for the good of the state, and the personal safety of the emperor. Its prompt execution is indispensable, as the future fate of his majesty and his family depends on it. It is unnecessary to say to you, general, that all your measures should be taken with the greatest possible

secrecy.

(Signed) "PRINCE OF ECKMUHL,

"Marshal and Minister of War." Those documents which have now appeared, we believe, for the first time authentically, will be of importance to the historian, and of still higher importance to the moralist. Who could have once believed that the most fiery of soldiers, the most subtle of statesmen, and the proudest of sovereigns, would ever be the subject of a rescript like the following? It begins with an absolute command that "Napoleon Bonaparte" (it has already dropped the emperor)" shall remain in the roads of the Isle of Aix till the arrival of passports." It then proceeds: It is of importance to the well-being of the state, which should not be indifferent to him, that he should remain till his fate, and that of his family, have been definitely regulated. French honor is interested in such an issue; but in the mean time every precaution should be taken for the personal safety of Napoleon, and that he must not be allowed to leave the place of his present sojourn.

(Signed)

"THE DUKE OF OTRANTO. "THE PRINCE OF ECKMUHL." A similar document was issued to General Beker, signed by Carnot and Caulaincourt. Count Montholon remarks, "with sufficient justice, on the signature of Caulaincourt to this paper, that the emperor would have been extremely astonished to see that name subscribed to a letter in which he was called Napoleon-if anything could have astonished the former exile of Elba, and the future exile of St. Helena.'

This must have been a period of the deepest anxiety to the imperial prisoner. He evidently regarded his life as unsafe; thought that he discovered in the project of his journey a determination to throw him either into the hands of assassins or of the French king, and formally announced his refusal to leave Malmaison" until informed of his fate by the Duke of Wellington." He was now reduced to the lowest ebb. He acknowledged himself powerless, hopeless, and utterly dependent on the will of his conqueror The bitterness of

heart which dictated such words must have been beyond all description. He was now abandoned by the few who had followed him from the Elvsée.

But time was pressing; Wellington was advancing with rapid steps, and there was a possibility that he might capture Napoleon at Malmaison. Troops were sent to burn the neighboring bridge, and precautions were taken to prevent the catastrophe. A division of the army coming from the Vendée halted before the palace, and insisted on seeing Napoleon, and on being led by him to battle. This was rodomontade, with the advanced troops of the whole army now within sight of Paris. But it was enough to betray him into the absurdity of proposing to try another chance for his crown. Beker was sent to Paris to try the effect of this communication. Fouché gave for

advancing on Versailles. The sitting of the provisional government would have been worth the hand of a great painter. Fouché, after sharply rebuking the general for bringing in his proposal from Malmaison, made him sit down at his side, while he wrote a peremptory and decided refusal. Carnot was walking gloomily up and down the room. Caulaincourt, Baron Quinette, and General Grenier, sat silently around the table. Not a word was uttered except by the Duke of Otranto. The general received his dispatch and departed. On passing through the anterooms, he found them filled with generals and high civil officers, who all expressed but one opinion on the necessity of getting rid of Napoleon. "Let him set off, let him go, was the universal cry. "We can undertake nothing for either his personal good or Paris." There was now no alternative. Napoleon must either remain and fall into the hands of Louis XVIII., who had already proclaimed him a traitor and an outlaw, or he must try to make his escape by sea. On the 29th of June, at five o'clock in the evening, he entered the carriage which was to convey him to the coast, leaving Paris behind, to which he was never to return alive, but to which his remains have returned in a posthumous triumph, twenty-six years after, on the 15th of September, 1840.

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On his arrival at Rochfort, all the talent of the French for projects was immediately in full exercise. Never was there so many castles in the air built in so short a time. Proposals were made to smuggle the prisoner to the United States in a Danish merchant vessel, in which, in case of search, he was to be barrelled in a hogshead perforated with breathing holes.

Another project was, to put him on board a kind of fishing-boat manned by midshipmen, and thus escape the English. A third project proposed, that the two French frigates anchored under the guns of the Isle of Aix should put to sea together; that one of them should run alongside Captain Maitland's ship, and attack her fiercely, with the hope of distracting her attention, even with the certainty of being destroyed, while the other frigate made her escape with Napoleon on board. This is what the French would call a grande pensée, and quite as heroic as anything in a melodrama of the Porte St. Martin. But the captain of the leading frigate declined the distinction, and evidently thought it not necessary that he and his crew should be blown out of the water, as they certainly would have been if they came in contact with the Bellerophon; so this third project perished.

After a few days of this busy foolery, the prisoner, startled by the new reports of the success of the allies everywhere, and too sagacious not to feel that the hands of the French king might be the most dangerous into which the murderer of the Duc D'Enghien could fall; looking with evident contempt upon the foolish projects for his escape, and conscious that his day was done, resolved to throw himself into the hands of Captain Maitland, the commander of the Bellerophon, then anchored in Basque roads. On the night of the 10th, Savery and Las Cases were sent on board the English ship, to inquire whether the captain would allow a French or neutral ship, or the frigates with Napoleon on board, to pass free? Captain Maitland simply answered, that he had received no orders except those ordinarily given in case of war; but

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