1200. Benjamin Robert Haydon to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 45–48.
London
April 2. 1843
The Rock [1] was melancholy!—but it was poetical!– It surrounded his latter days with a halo of Romance, that dying on the Throne never could have given!– Besides it was just though cruel, it was that even handed justice, which held the poisoned chalice to his own lips [2] & made him drink the dregs, as he had made poor Toussaint do before!– [3] There was nothing Napoleon in the wanton[n]ess of power inflicted on others, was not in the end inflicted on himself–
Security of his person was the first object after 25 years war—his word of honor was nothing—his genius, every thing—if he fretted against his bars, what was to be done—if he refused consolation, it could not be forced: suppose he had come to England, when the morbidity, of democrats, & the hatred all Men feel at being obliged to submit to a Government at all, would have made him, a very convenient handle to torment the powers that be: [4] it was a very extraordinary dilemma, for which the mind of the Foreign Secretary [5] was not fit, & there was not poetry enough in any Minister to relish or enter into Napoleon’s allusion to Themistocles!– [6] Do you, can you believe his sudden change from deep rooted hatred of England, to manly candour of submission, was honest?—you cannot– By remaining here, he would have soon had a party of ardent jeune [7] Englands, & all the discontented would have made him a bye word & rallying point & focus of opposition– I never can believe that so good a Man as Lord Liverpool, [8] or so upright a Man as the Duke had any motive in sending him to St Helena, than security. £20,000 was spent in sending him out every comfort on Earth, on a fit out—for I saw the greater part of the Articles, but if he got sulky & proud & captious, & irritable, these things were not intended– At the very time he was affecting to be poor & broke up his plate, to sell, Gorgeaux told Lord Bathurst I (believe, it was him) [9] he Napoleon had 10,000 Napoleons in his chest!– [10]
The fact is, My dearest Friend, he found himself compelled to surrender, as a finesse to escape being made a Prisoner of War—whether the Government were justified in taking advantage of his surrender in the way they [did] is a nice question of honor, but what would the Nations of Europe have said if they had let him go, on such a principle, especially one too, who never regarded any principle, where his policy or ambition was concerned– Posterity must decide—but I know, if I had suffered such anxiety for years as all the Governments of Europe had suffered, from this Man’s genius, I would not have [been] very scrupulous as to keeping him, when once in my power.
With respect to the private characters of the Duke & Napoleon, can they be compared?– During the Duke’s absence in India, old Lord Mulgrave [11] told me, some disease so affected the Woman he was engaged to, that she released the Duke from his engagement—he said—no—he would keep it—& he did– [12] Would he have divorced Josephine? In comparing Henry VIII with Napoleon, of course Napoleon shines—in this case—but was it noble to lacerate the Woman’s heart, who had loved him when he was poor, & shared his Throne & Crown when he was rich? & for what—a thick-lipped—thick hearted—thick headed Austrian! [13] —would Josephine have left him like Lady Byron at the moment his household Gods were shivered on the hearth? [14] —not she—he should have married a Russian Princess, that was the mistake, said Lord John Russell when he was sitting to me, no said I, he should have married a fine French Woman, My Lord, this shocked a leetle his aristocracy, and he hesitated out, yes indeed, or, a fine French Woman! [15]
But in his heart he cursed me for saying it before him–
Napoleon threw the cause of Genius, 100 years back—the good he did was accidental, the Evil certain; the Whigs stuck to him, because they looked on him, as the representative of the Great Cause, let him do what he would; Despot or not, it was no matter, the fact, that there he was, a Sous lieutenant of Artillery on the Throne of the greatest Country on the Continent was evidence of the success of the Cause– I say no— It is an injury to have him remain as representative of that Cause, that Glorious cause, who has betrayed in the remotest way, one iota of the professed principles of that Cause—& therefore I gloried in his ruin–
Hazlitt & I, Decadant Tories, used to fight it, out, till his lips got blue with rage—but he never could answer the above– Did he, or did he not betray the cause?—he did, but the fact of his dying on the Throne, would have been a glory & a good, the evil would have died with him, the good remained [16] —let it both perish I used to say, if such a character be its pillar!–
I used to maintain less injury would accrue to the cause of liberty in France by the return of the Bourbons than by the permanence of Napoleon, & has it not been so??
Posterity can never properly estimate the state of the World’s feeling about that Man while he was living.
I remembered him from 1796 [17] —& never lost sight of him, I visited his haunts within 3 weeks after his abdication, saw the extinguisher on the last candle he read by, at Fontainbleau, the ashes in his grate, the Volume of Hume he had been reading!—staid 14 days at the Palace, there; [18] went on parade, got acquainted with officers & men of his guard, heard the Crash of his terrific band of drums, at 9 oClock—in the warm summer evenings, as I lay musing in his Jardin Anglais, with his little Column built against the setting Sun, topped by a Golden Eagle grappling the Earth!– I sketched his bed, his column, his Garden, [19] I doated on his Genius;—saw his Salon de repos, [20] & staid in it, musing—where none went but the Empress—touched Marie Louise’s piano, & made it strike out an harmonious tone!—found the King of Rome’s play things at Rambouillet, [21] just as he had left, when hurried away, with his Mother [&] the Dutchess of Montebello[.] [22] In fact, I dreamt away half a Summer, forgot the Louvre & the Transfiguration—the Cossacs & the Allies and drank deep of all those great emotions which crowd the heart & Brain, at the sudden hurling down a grand Military Hero, when one stands on the very hearth, he has hallowed, by his gigantic tread.
If I can find my 3 letters on Paris, I published 1814—I will send to [sic] them to you— [23]
I write this Sunday evening, put them both in the fire—& believe me
Ever your affectionat[e] fr[iend]
B R Haydon
Miss B. Barrett–
Address: Miss B. Barrett / 50. Wimpole St.
Publication: EBB-BRH, pp. 58–61.
Manuscript: University of Vermont.
1. i.e., St. Helena.
2. Cf. Macbeth, I, 7, 10–12.
4. Cf. Romans, 13:1.
5. Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh (1769–1822).
6. In his request for asylum in England (see letter 1197, note 9).
7. “Young.”
8. Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (1770–1828), was Prime Minister at the time of Napoleon’s final defeat. While agreeing to his exile, Liverpool wrote privately to Castlereagh “we wish the king of France would hang or shoot Buonaparte as the best termination of the business” (DNB).
9. Sic, for (I believe, it was him).
10. Refused access to funds in Europe, “Napoleon had an opportunity, at the sacrifice of a parcel of old silver plate, to amuse his own moments of languor, by laughing at and turning into ridicule the inconsistent qualities of the English nation,—at one time sending him a house and furniture to the value of L.60,000, or L.70,000; at another obliging him to sell his plate, and discharge his servants, and all for the sake of a few bottles of wine, or pounds of meat.... We copy the words in which it is reported to Lord Bathurst: ‘General Gourgaud stated himself to have been aware of General Buonaparte having received a considerable sum of money in Spanish doubloons, viz. L.10,000, at the very time he disposed of his plate’ … Whatever sympathy Buonaparte may claim for his other distresses at St Helena, it was made plain … that want of funds could be none of them” (Walter Scott, The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, 1827, IX, 190–193). Baron Gaspar Gourgaud (1783–1852) was with Napoleon at St. Helena and assisted in the preparation of his Mémoires. Lord Bathurst was Minister for War in Liverpool’s administration.
11. Henry Phipps, 1st Earl of Mulgrave (1755–1831), served in William Pitt’s second administration, and in the cabinets of the Duke of Portland, Spencer Perceval, and Lord Liverpool.
12. Before going to serve in India in 1796, Wellington, then plain Arthur Wellesley with less than dazzling prospects, had been refused permission to marry Catherine Sarah Dorothea Pakenham, Lord Longford’s sister, although he apparently considered himself pledged to her. When she contracted smallpox during his absence, she offered to release him from his engagement, but when he returned to England in 1805, as Sir Arthur Wellesley, he renewed his suit and married her in April 1806 (see DNB and Richard Aldington, Wellington, 1946, p. 99).
13. Napoleon’s obsession with siring an heir led him to divorce Josephine in 1809 and on 11 March 1810 he married Marie Louise (1791–1847), daughter of Francis I, Emperor of Austria; she subsequently bore him a son.
14. Lady Byron gave birth to a daughter on 10 December 1815, and left Byron’s London house on 15 January 1816; a formal deed of separation was signed in April 1816. (See Contemporary Account of the Separation of Lord and Lady Byron, by John Cam Hobhouse, Baron Broughton, 1870.)
15. See Haydon’s diary entry of 2 November 1832 for a report of this conversation (Pope, III, 659–660).
16. Cf. Julius Cæsar, III, 2, 75–76.
17. In 1796–97, Napoleon won his first military victories against the Austrian forces in northern Italy.
18. See Pope, I, 352–382 for details of Haydon’s visit to France.
19. Haydon sent these sketches to EBB with letter 1223.
20. “Never shall I forget my sensations as I entered his salle de repos secret. Here was a compleat illustration of this extraordinary man’s feelings. It was a small room, with a satin couch & pillows under an arch.... over this arch was painted Austerlitz, Marengo, & Friedland. On each side were the arms of the states tributary to France, and under each were groups of warlike arms & instruments. Here he used to retire when exhausted, or when he wished for extreme & silent reflection.... Here I stood, as it were, in the very midst of his soul.... I almost trembled to look round & reflect that I stood in the secret sensations of one that made the world shake” (Pope, I, 368–369).
21. Rambouillet was acquired by Louis XVI and it was here that Marie Antoinette amused herself with a model dairy. Napoleon stayed at Rambouillet 25–26 June 1815, after his defeat at Waterloo. For Haydon’s comments on his visit, see Pope, I, 368–369.
22. The widow of Jean Lannes, Duke of Montebello (1769–1809), Marshal of France, was Marie Louise’s Lady-in-Waiting.
23. Dated June 1814, these were published in The Examiner (21 and 28 August and 4 September 1814, pp. 530–533, 547–548 and 562–564).
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