Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica by John Kendrick Bangs (good non fiction books to read TXT) 📖

forces of the enemy were placed under Wellington. Bonaparte led his own in person, buying a new uniform for the purpose. "We can handle them easily enough," said he, "if I can only keep awake. My situation at present reminds me so much of the old Bromide days that I fall asleep without knowing it by a mere association of ideas. Still, we'll whip 'em out of their boots."

"What boots?" demanded Fouche.

"Their Wellingtons and their Bluchers," retorted the Emperor, thereby showing that, sleepy as he was, he had not lost his old-time ability at repartee.

For once he was over-confident. He fought desperately and triumphantly for three or four days, but the fates held Waterloo in store. Routing the enemy at Ligny and Quatre Bras, he pushed on to where Wellington stood in Belgium, where, on the 18th of June, was fought the greatest of his battles.

"Now for the transformation scene," said Bonaparte on the eve of the battle. "If the weather is good we'll make these foreigners wish they had worn running-shoes instead of Wellingtons."

But the weather was not clear. It was excessively wet, and by nightfall Bonaparte realized that all was over. His troops were in fine condition, but the rain seemed to have put out the fires of the Commander's genius. As the Imperial Guard marched before him in review the Emperor gazed upon them fondly.

"They're like a picture!" he cried, enthusiastically. "Just see that line."

"Yes," returned Ney. "Very like a picture; they remind me in a way of a comic paper print, but that is more suitable for framing than for fighting."

The Emperor making no response, Ney looked up and observed that his Majesty had fallen asleep. "That settles it," he sighed. "To-day is the Waterloo of Napoleon Bonaparte. When a man sleeps at a moment like this his friends would better prepare for a wake."

And Ney was right. Waterloo was the Waterloo of Napoleon Bonaparte. The opposing armies met in conflict, and, as the world knows, the star of the great soldier was obscured forever, and France was conquered. Ruined in his fortunes, Bonaparte at once returned to Paris.

"Is there a steamer for New York to-night, Fouche?" he asked, as, completely worn out, he threw himself upon his throne and let his chin hang dejectedly over his collar.

"No, Sire," returned Fouche, with an ill-concealed chuckle. "There is not. You've missed your chance by two days. Then isn't another boat for ten days."

"Then I am lost," sobbed Napoleon.

"Yes, Sire, you are," returned Fouche. "Shall I offer a reward to anybody who will find you and return you in good order?"

"No," replied the Emperor. "I will give myself up."

"Wise man!" said Fouche, unsympathetically. "You're such a confounded riddle that I wonder you didn't do it long ago."

"Ah, Fouche!" sighed the Emperor, taking his crown out of his wardrobe and crushing it in his hands until the diamonds fell out upon the floor, "this shows the futility of making war without preparing for it by study. When I was a young man I was a student. I knew the pages of history by heart, and I learned my lessons well. While I was the student I was invincible. In mimic as in real war I was the conqueror. Everything I undertook came about as I had willed because I was the master of facts--I dealt in facts, and I made no mistakes. To-day I am a conquered man, and all because I have neglected to continue the study of the history of my people--of my adopted native land."

"Humph!" retorted Fouche. "I don't see how that would have helped matters any. All the history in creation could not have won the battle of Waterloo for you."

"Fool that you are!" cried Napoleon, desperately, rising. "Can't you see? Anybody who knows anything about the history of France knows that the battle of Waterloo resulted fatally for me. Had I known that, do you suppose I'd have gone there? Not I! I'd have gone fishing in the South of France instead, and this would not have happened. Leave me! I wish to be alone."

Left to his own reflections Bonaparte paced his room for hours. Then, tapping his bell, he summoned one of his faithful adherents.

"Monsieur le B-," he said, as the attendant entered, "you have heard the news?"

"Yes, Sire," sobbed Le B-.

"Do I not carry myself well in the hour of defeat?"

"You do, Your Majesty."

"Am I pale, Le B-?"

"No--no--oh, no, not at all, Sire."

"Tell me the truth, Le B-. We must not let the enemy find us broken when they arrive. How do I look? Out with it."

"Out of sight, Sire!" replied Le B-, bending backward as far as he could, and gazing directly at the ceiling.

"Then bring on your invader, and let us hear the worst," ordered Napoleon, encouraged by Le B-'s assurances.

A few days later, Bonaparte, having nothing else to do, once more abdicated, and threw himself upon the generosity of the English people.

"I was only fooling, anyhow," he said, with a sad smile. "If you hadn't sent me to Elba I wouldn't have come back. As for the fighting, you all said I was outside of the pale of civilization, and I had to fight. I didn't care much about getting back into the pail, but I really objected to having it said that I was in the tureen."

This jest completely won the hearts of the English who were used to just such humor, who loved it, and who, many years later, showed that love by the establishment of a comic journal as an asylum for bon- mots similarly afflicted. The result was, not death, but a new Empire, the Island of St. Helena.

"This," said Wellington, "will serve to make his jokes more far- fetched than ever; so that by sending him there we shall not only be gracious to a fallen foe, but add to the gayety of our nation."



CHAPTER XII: 1815-1821-1895

It is with St. Helena that all biographies of Napoleon Bonaparte hitherto published have ended, and perhaps it is just as well that these entertaining works, prepared by purely finite minds, should end there. It is well for an historian not to tell more than he knows, a principle which has guided our pen from the inception of this work to this point, and which must continue to the bitter end. We shall be relentless and truthful to the last, even though in so doing we are compelled to overthrow all historical precedent.

Bonaparte arrived at St. Helena in October, 1815. He had embarked, every one supposed, with the impression that he was going to America, and those about him, fearing a passionate outbreak when he learned the truth, tried for a time to convince him that he had taken the wrong steamer; then when they found that he could not be deceived in this way, they made allusions to the steering-gear having got out of order, but the ex-Emperor merely smiled.

"You cannot fool me," he said. "I know whither I am drifting. I went to a clairvoyant before leaving Paris, who cast a few dozen horoscopes for me and they all ended at St. Helena. It is inevitable. I must go there, and all these fairy tales about wrong steamers and broken rudders and so on are useless. I submit. I could return if I wished, but I do not wish to return. By a mere speech to these sailors I could place myself in command of this ship to-day, turn her about and proclaim myself Emperor of the Seas; but I don't want to. I prefer dry land and peace to a coup de tar and the throne of Neptune."

All of which shows that the great warrior was weary.

Then followed a dreary exile of uneventful years, in which the ex- Emperor conducted paper campaigns of great fierceness against the English government, which with unprecedented parsimony allowed him no more than $60,000 a year and house rent.

"The idea of limiting me to five thousand dollars a month," he remarked, savagely, to Sir Hudson Lowe. "It's positively low."

"It strikes me as positively high," retorted the governor. "You know well enough that you couldn't spend ten dollars a week in this place if you put your whole mind on it, if you hadn't insisted on having French waiters in your dining-room, whom you have to tip every time they bring you anything."

"Humph!" said Bonaparte. "That isn't any argument. I'm a man used to handling large sums. It isn't that I want to spend money; it's that I want to have it about me in case of emergency. However, I know well enough why they keep my allowance down to $60,000."

"Why is it?" asked Sir Hudson.

"They know that you can't be bought for $60,000, but they wouldn't dare make it $60,000 and one cent," retorted the captive. "Put that in your cigarette and smoke it, Sir Harlem, and hereafter call me Emperor. That's my name, Emperor N. Bonaparte."

"And I beg that you will not call me Sir Harlem," returned the governor, irritated by the Emperor's manner. "My name is Hudson, not Harlem."

"Pray excuse the slip," said the Emperor, scornfully. "I knew you were named after some American river, I didn't know which. However, I imagined that the Harlem was nearer your size than the Hudson, since the latter has some pretensions to grandeur. Now please flow down to the sea and lose yourself, I'm getting sleepy again."

So, in constant conflict with Sir Hudson, who refused to call him by his title, and whom in consequence he refused to call by his proper name, answering such epithets as "Corporal" and "Major" with a savagely-spoken "Delaware" or an ironically respectful "Mohawk," Bonaparte dwelt at St. Helena until the 5th of May, 1821, when, historians tell us, he died. This is an error, for upon that date Bonaparte escaped. He had fought death too many times to succumb to him now, and, while the writers of history have in a sense stated the truth when they say that he passed away in the night, their readers have gained a false impression. It is the fact that Napoleon Bonaparte, like Dante and Virgil, passed over the dark river Styx as the honored leader of the rebellious forces of Hades. He did pass away in the night, but he went as he went from Elba, and, as we shall see, with more successful results.

For years the Government of Erebus had been unsatisfactory to many of its subjects, mainly on account of the arbitrary methods of the Weather Department.

"We are in a perpetual broil here," Caesar had said, "and I for one am getting tired of it. The country demands a change. This administration doesn't give us anything but dog-days."

For this the Roman warrior had been arrested and kept in an oven at the rear of the Erebian Tuileries, as Apollyon's Palace was called, for two centuries.

"The next rebel gets a gridiron, and the third will be served to