Napoleon's Poisoned Chalice

by Dr Martin Howard

  Unlike the aristocratic Count de Montholon, Gaspard Gourgaud was a born soldier. He joined the army at eighteen and fought through the great campaigns of Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland and Russia. He was ambitious and always keen to attract attention to himself. In Moscow, he discovered a mine which had been laid in the Kremlin, a service which earned him the title of Baron of the Empire. At the battle of Brienne in 1814 he saved Napoleon’s life by killing a Cossack who was intent on piercing the Emperor with his lance. As an experienced and capable officer, he might have survived the disaster of the Waterloo campaign and served under the Bourbon government, but he was entirely devoted to Napoleon. The Emperor must have been pleased to have an old soldier with him, but this brave, loyal man had none of the arts of the courtier. He had the unfortunate habit of humouring nobody and of saying exactly what he thought. He was self-assured and quick to criticise others. Napoleon was worn down by his sincerity: ‘Don’t worry me with your frankness’ he advised Gourgaud, ‘Keep it to yourself…’ This was painful for the Grande Armée veteran who, frustrated by the boredom and celibacy imposed by the exile, wanted to be all to the Emperor. Such relentless devotion also wearied Napoleon. He once snapped, ‘I am not his wife; after all I can’t go to bed with him.’7

  The Emperor commented to Gourgaud that whilst he was ‘so rough’, Las Cases had the ‘delicacy of a woman’. Emmanuel Auguste Diéudonné, Marquis de Las Cases, was the final member of Napoleon’s intimate entourage. Born in 1766 in the Languedoc, he belonged to the old nobility. He was only five feet and one inch tall and could be nervous and fidgety. Conversely, he was well travelled and cultured and the possessor of exquisite manners. He understood that the Emperor liked nothing more than subservience and he hung upon his master’s every word. Las Cases was, like Montholon, a chamberlain at the Élysée at the time of Napoleon’s banishment. He expected to accompany the Emperor to England or America and probably would not have volunteered if he had known the prisoner’s true destination. Nevertheless, he quickly accommodated himself to his fate. Like some of his fellow travellers, Las Cases had an ulterior motive. He was a man of letters – he had already published a famous historical atlas – and he saw a chance to link his name inextricably with his time. He was determined to write the definitive history of the captivity; to be the Homer of this new Iliad.8

  None of these men were fit companions for the greatest personality of the age. Bertrand was insignificant, Montholon and Las Cases were mere courtiers, and Gourgaud was an uncouth, self-seeking soldier. The Emperor was to lack congenial company but there was a more damaging omission from his immediate suite. Although he was healthy at the time of his departure for St. Helena, he needed a personal physician to tend to him should this change. He had always a favoured doctor in close attention during his military campaigns and his stays in Paris and yet he was now to be sent into exile with no expert medical help.

  The obvious choice of doctor for Napoleon was Fourreau de Beaurégard. Fourreau had been a talented student of the famous Baron Corvisart, Napoleon’s First Physician in the early years of his rule. Following Corvisart’s resignation due to poor heath, he was attached to the Emperor’s household and he accompanied him through the campaign of 1814, the captivity on Elba, and then the Hundred Days. Napoleon greatly valued his consultations with Fourreau and intended to retain his services. When the Emperor returned to Malmaison after Waterloo, he instructed the doctor to stay on in Paris in order that he could receive his prestigious election to the Chamber of Representatives before rejoining the Emperor at Rochefort. The loyal Fourreau tried to leave the capital but he was delayed by the Prussians and was unable to reach the Bellerophon in time.

  Deprived of his first choice of physician, Napoleon consulted the aging Corvisart who recommended another of his pupils, Louis-Pierre Maingault. The young doctor had recently obtained his diploma and was apparently willing to follow Napoleon to America where he had family connections. Maingault accepted his new employment on the Bellerophon but when he learnt of the actual destination of the exiles he had an abrupt change of mind. Bertrand tried to persuade him to stay, pointing out the embarrassment that the absence of a doctor would cause the Emperor. Maingault retorted that there had only been a verbal agreement and that he thought himself to be under no obligation. He had no intent of giving up a potentially lucrative private practice in Paris to spend much of the remainder of his days on a small rock in the South Atlantic. This was for the best as the Emperor would not have tolerated an unwilling attendant. Napoleon impulsively offered the vacant post to Barry O’Meara, an obscure naval surgeon aboard the Bellerophon. The seasoned sailor O’Meara had sympathetically tended the Imperial followers for sea-sickness and had also engaged the Emperor in conversation in fluent Italian.9

  Having described Napoleon’s close entourage, we should consider the main British players on St. Helena. It is logical to start with Rear-Admiral Sir George Cockburn, as he commanded the squadron taking the Emperor into exile and was then entrusted with the governorship of the island and the surveillance of the prisoner for the first six months of the captivity. Cockburn entered the navy in 1786 as a captain’s servant at the age of fourteen. He had fought under Nelson and played a prominent role in the war against the United States including the attack on Washington. He was a typical old sea dog, fair but strict and determined to follow the Government’s instructions to the letter. When the Emperor became seasick and Bertrand asked for a larger cabin for him, Cockburn replied, ‘Tell the General it is contrary to the ship’s regulations to lend the Admiral’s cabin to anyone, much less a prisoner of war.’ He did, however, for the most part treat Napoleon with civility and respect and Las Cases summed up the ambivalent French attitude towards the Admiral when he described him as a good gaoler but a poor host. The veteran sailor no doubt believed that it was inappropriate to be overly hospitable to a state prisoner. 10

  On 14th April 1816, Cockburn was replaced as Governor by Sir Hudson Lowe. The vitriolic relationship that developed between the French exiles and Lowe is the central theme of the St. Helena story. Whilst French historians are almost universally antagonistic towards the Governor, the British literature is largely defined by its pro- or anti-Lowe stance. This was particularly so in the nineteenth century when a number of authors rallied to the defence of the pilloried British officer. The Dutch historian Peter Geyle has written a classical double-edged account of Napoleon’s life entitled For and Against and it would be possible to produce an equally judgemental synthesis of Lowe’s St. Helena service.

  The object of all this vitriol and praise was born in 1769, the same year as Napoleon and Wellington. He belonged to an old Lincolnshire family and his father was a surgeon who served in Germany in the Seven Years War. Becoming an Ensign at eighteen, the young Lowe participated in all the operations against France in the Mediterranean during the Revolution and Empire. He was an ambitious and scholarly officer, who learnt French, Spanish and Italian in his leisure time. During the British occupation of Corsica he was stationed at Ajaccio. He went on to Elba and then to Minorca where he organised a unit of Corsican refugees called the Corsican Rangers whom he led in Egypt. After service in Portugal and Capri, he obtained the rank of Colonel in 1812. Now, unusually for a British officer, he had the opportunity to view the continental Allies at first hand. Following a diplomatic mission to Scandinavia and Russia, he was present at the Battle of Bautzen in 1813 where he saw Napoleon for the first time. Attached to the Prussian army, he followed Blucher to Leipzig and then into France – it was Lowe who carried the news of Napoleon’s first abdication to London, an act which brought him a knighthood and a promotion to Major-General.

  After the Waterloo campaign, Lowe was awarded the governorship of St. Helena with the local rank of Lieutenant General and a salary of £12,000 per annum. He was surprised at this offer but he did appear to be very well qualified to serve as Napoleon’s gaoler. Apart from his fluency in several languages, he had obtained his senior rank entirely by his
own efforts, he was an experienced Governor of islands in the Mediterranean, he had knowledge of Corsica, and he was well acquainted with kings, statesmen and generals on the continent. Napoleon himself at first believed Lowe to be a sensible choice.

  I am glad of it; I am tired of the Admiral [Cockburn] and there are many points I should like to talk over with Sir Hudson Lowe. He is a soldier and has served …

  The Emperor knew of his connections with his home island and that he had been a participant in the campaigns of 1813 and 1814; surely this was a man with whom he would be able to discuss his former grandeur.

  Lowe had good points. A number of witnesses testify to his intense sense of duty, his honesty and humanity. He was capable of making and keeping good friends. However, he also easily made enemies. He was narrow-minded, irritable and, despite his cosmopolitan background, strikingly ignorant. Crucially, for a man placed in such a sensitive situation, he lacked tact. The humanity witnessed by some was not always demonstrated and others found him unsympathetic. His introverted nature made him awkward in company and he often seemed ill at ease; he did not have the unconscious grace of a gentleman. Napoleon commented on first seeing him that his expression was that of ‘a hyena caught in a trap’.

  One of Lowe’s assets, his extreme conscientiousness, became a handicap on St. Helena. Strained by the responsibility of the guardianship of such a notorious figure, he became preoccupied by minutiae, endlessly exploring the smallest events and generating copious amounts of turgid correspondence. This characteristic worsened during his time on the island such that his behaviour displayed profound pedantry; one author has reasonably suggested that he had developed a psychiatric illness termed obsessive-compulsive disorder in which everyday tasks are repeated ritually and the sufferer becomes a hapless slave to his self-imposed routine. Worse still, Lowe became gradually more suspicious of all around him. The foreign Commissioners on St. Helena dealt closely with the Governor and were shocked at his demeanour. The Austrian wrote:

  I know not by what fatality Sir Hudson Lowe ends up by quarrelling with everybody. Overwhelmed with the weight of his responsibility, he harasses and worries himself unceasingly and feels a desire to worry everybody else … He makes himself odious … everyone agrees that he is half crazy.

  The Russian Commissioner agreed.

  The Governor is not a tyrant but he is troublesome and unreasonable beyond endurance … Lowe can get on with nobody and sees everywhere nothing but treason and traitors.

  The man most tested by the Governor’s irrational tempers and bloody-mindedness was his Military Secretary, Major Gideon Gorrequer, who was in almost constant close contact with him.

  Mach’s [Lowe’s] endeavoured to awe, by the severity of his tone and the strangeness of his aspect and his black frown, ragged and brutal manners. He wished to be surrounded by mean slaves, like a cruel Eastern tyrant. Gloomy, unsocial and ferocious … His countenance, his gesture, his tone of voice were all subjects of aversion. Darting glances of reproach; breaking out in sharp rebukes and overwhelming you with angry, bitter, wanton taunts.

  Behind this austere façade, Gorrequer sensed that a gentler person existed, or might have existed.

  Mach [Lowe] is but a machine – he is what his nature and circumstances have made him. He slogs the machine which he cannot control. If he is corrupt, it is because he has been corrupted. If he is unamiable, it is because he has been marked and spitefully treated. Give him a different education, place him in other circumstances, and treat him with as much gratefulness and generosity as he has experienced of harshness, and he would be altogether a different nature. A man who would be anxious to be loved rather than feared, and instead of having the accusation of being a man who was satisfied to spread around him anguish and despair, one who has an instinct for kindness.

  Gorrequer’s description is the best psychoanalysis of Lowe. In simpler terms, he may be judged to be a fundamentally decent man who was promoted beyond his capacity and was then destroyed from within by his deficiencies.

  Before taking up his new role, Lowe dallied long enough in London to marry. His new wife accompanied him to St. Helena. Lowe’s right hand man on the island was the Deputy Adjutant-General Sir Thomas Reade; Lady Lowe liked to say that he was the real Governor. Reade performed all his duties with zeal and was an enthusiastic proponent of all the measures designed to ensure the safe custody of Napoleon. He was probably the only man on the island who thought Lowe to be too lenient. The French, who grew to detest Reade, believed his perpetual smile to be one of malevolence. The only other member of the British party who is worthy of introduction at this stage is Dr Alexander Baxter who was appointed as Deputy Inspector of Hospitals on St. Helena at the request of the Governor. The 39-year-old Baxter had previously served under Lowe in the capacity of Surgeon to the Corsican Rangers. A tall, heavily built, distinguished man, he was for a time one of the favoured few on the island and he frequently dined with the Governor and Lady Lowe.11

  If the St. Helena episode is a ‘Greek tragedy’ of the early nineteenth century, then we have just met the dramatis personae. The extras are conveniently divided up into five groups: the remainder of Napoleon’s entourage; the British military; the officers of the East India Company; the Foreign Commissioners; and the local population. At Plymouth, Napoleon had been allowed to take twelve servants with him. Most of these were to remain peripheral figures but two are worthy of mention as they were close to the Emperor and were valuable witnesses of events. Louis Marchand, the Emperor’s First Valet, had accompanied his master at Elba and through the Hundred Days. He was twenty-four years old, handsome, cultivated and talented. He wrote a fluent memoir and was also an able artist. More importantly, he was entirely loyal to Napoleon and a valuable friend to the end. The Second Valet, Louis Étienne Saint-Denis (also known as Ali), was equally devoted to his employer and also left a detailed memoir of St. Helena. In addition to his duties as valet, he was an outrider when Napoleon drove in his carriage and a copyist and amanuensis. He was given charge of the books in the Emperor’s library.

  Prior to Napoleon’s arrival on St. Helena, there were round 1,000 British soldiers on the island. This number was nearly doubled to guard the prisoner. The detailed comings and goings of troops do not need description here but, essentially, Hudson Lowe brought with him a battalion of the 66th Foot to join a battalion of the 53rd already encamped at Deadwood, a large plateau in the centre of the island. The 20th Foot arrived in spring 1819. All these regiments had served in the Peninsular War and they included all the usual officers, including the ‘medical gentlemen’. By all accounts, the soldiers had an uneasy relationship with the sailors of the vessels stationed off St. Helena. Any attempt by the Army to lord it over the Navy was much resented. Among these professional military men, questions of seniority and rank were not easily resolved. For instance, Lowe was the Governor of the island but he was only a Major General with the temporary and local rank of Lieutenant General, whereas Cockburn, and his successor Lambert, had full right to their rank and, in different circumstances, would have had precedence over their army compatriot. Walter Henry, Assistant Surgeon in the 66th Foot, comments that the better pay of the soldiers in garrison ‘could scarcely fail of exciting some slight soreness and envy in the minds of our friends afloat’.

  The bolstering of the Army establishment also caused resentment among the staff of the East India Company. The Company had controlled the island since the seventeenth century and its officials continued to be responsible for its civil administration during the captivity. They did not easily adapt to the sudden influx of 1,500 Europeans who immediately fell upon the limited provisions and conscripted the local workforce. Although the imprisonment of Napoleon had been entrusted to Britain, three continental powers – Russia, Austria and France – decided to send a Commissioner to St. Helena to watch over the common enemy and to ensure that the Governor was not duped by him as had happened at Elba. The British disapproved of these appointments and the C
ommissioners proved to be an ill-disciplined group only united in their hostility to Lowe, their belief that their salaries were inadequate, and the poor state of their health. ‘Far from acclimatising myself to this horrible rock,’ wrote the Russian, Balmain, ‘I suffer constantly from my nerves.’ Sturmer, the Austrian, developed a sort of hysteria. His nervous attacks became so violent that he had to be held down by four men and to be calmed with opium. The French representative, Montchenu, was an object of ridicule; his eagerness to accept any form of hospitality was such that he was known as ‘Monsieur Monter-chez-vous’.12

  It was to this cosmopolitan but incestuous world that Napoleon set out on board the Northumberland on 9th August. The Emperor was given a cabin nine feet wide and twelve feet long – quite appropriate for a ‘distinguished general’. He quickly developed a routine. Cockburn describes this in his diary.

  General Bonaparte, since on board the Northumberland, has kept nearly the same hours: he gets up late (between ten and eleven); he then has his breakfast (of meat and wine) in his bedroom, and continues in his déshabillé until he dresses for dinner, generally between three and four in the afternoon; he then comes out of his bed cabin and either takes a short walk on deck or plays a game of chess with one of his Generals until the dinner hour (which is five o’clock). At dinner, he generally eats and drinks a great deal and talks but little; he prefers meats of all kinds highly dressed and never touches vegetables. After dinner, he generally walks for about an hour or an hour and-a-half, and it is during these walks that I usually have the most free and pleasant conversations with him. About eight he quits the deck, and we then make up a game at cards for him, in which he seems to engage with considerable pleasure and interest until about ten, when he retires to his bedroom, and I believe goes almost immediately to bed. Such a life of inactivity, with the quantity and description of his food, makes me fear he will not retain his health through the voyage; he however as yet does not appear to suffer any inconvenience from it.