bon homme que ça, disait-il, il a même du talent; travaille-t-il beaucoup ?' I told him I believed he dedicated 6 hours a day to business. 'On peut faire beaucoup en six heures,' was his reply. 'Monsieur est un gentilhomme avec des manières fort gracieuses, mais il ne sait pas travailler. Les Ducs d'Angoulême et de Berri ne sont pas grande chose des riens'-too true-He then enquired about the Duke of Orleans. I told him he was a man of the first rate talent, a firm decided character, a deep mathematician, and digne de gouverner la France. This he seemed amazingly surprised to hear, and betrayed some emotion-he said, 'avec ce qualité sûrement il en est capable.' It appeared to me most extraordinary that he should be so ignorant of this Duke's character, and to me it appeared clear that he had built hopes upon his imbecility and unfitness to govern. He then talked of the Emperor Alexander. Ce n'est qu'un léger que ça, mais vous n'avez pas une idée comme il est fin et faux. Le roi de Prusse, c'est un bon homme; il se croit sage, mais ce n'est qu'un imbécille, un caporal-mais pourtant un bon homme.' Talleyrand he described as a very fiend, 'ce vieillard, cet évêque qui a épousé it was he that proposed to me to convey the Bourbons from England by means of smugglers and to murder them all. It was he that was the cause of the death of the Duc d'Enghien-he wore me out with his sollicitations to have him destroyed. I at last consented. The young Duke begged to see me. I sent for Talleyrand to arrange the audience-car c'était un brave jeune homme, et son sort m'a vraiement touché. To my great surprise Talleyrand told me it was too late-the deed was done. I hated him ever since, for I do believe I should have spared the Duke's life.' It is very well for him to say so now, but 'credat Judæus non ego.'

une

Apropos of Jews, Ebrington asked him why he had been so anxious about the wellbeing of the Jews in Paris. 'I had two reasons,' he said, 'first I had then an eye to the conquest of Russia, and my aim was to ingratiate myself with the numerous and opulent tribe of Hebrews that inhabit Poland, to induce them to provide my armies with necessaries in the campaigns; secondly I was ashamed of the intolerant system that had prevailed so long in Paris, which had made all the Jews slaves. Universal tolerance is the very soul of happiness to a populous and enlightened nation. I built churches for all sects, two for you Protestants,' addressing himself to Lord Ebrington. He

asked me several questions on the subject of the many and hard restrictions we labour under as Catholics and he seemed to consider the policy as little, and as he said, 'c'est indigne d'une grande nation comme la vôtre.' He said he neither murdered Wright nor Pichegru, they both died in Prison. Wright's name he did not at first remember. 'Ah oui,' he at last said, 'c'était un suivant de Smith-non, non, pourquoi le tuer, je l'avais en prison, il ne pouvait pas me faire aucun tort-ça aurait été un crime inutile, c'était un des plusieurs mensonges à vos gazzettiers. Pichegru non plus, c'était un homme sans talent, sans tête-il est mort en prison comme Wright. Moreau à la bonne heure-il m'aurait pu faire repentir ma clémence, mais non, je ne voudrais pas lui ôter la vie.' He then said, 'I have been far too merciful —had I spilt more blood, I might have been now, where I was, on the throne of France.' He spoke of the English ministers-of both Pitt and Fox he had the highest opinion. Lord Grenville's talents he prized particularly. He then said, Connaissez-vous Addington? Oui, Sire, c'est un pauvre que ça.' But I am sure you must now be tired of Buonaparte and I could go on for 8 days more, but will not bore you any longer.

CHARLES STANDISH.

The mention of Lord Ebrington enables us to fix the precise day of the interview. That young nobleman, who was then a member of the House of Commons and had somewhat distinguished himself in the previous session, was at Elba during the first week in December and was twice admitted to an audience with Napoleon, on the 6th and on the 8th; on the latter date he was honoured with an invitation to a dinner where General Drouot was the only other guest, a fact which settles the conversation recorded by Mr. Standish as having taken place on the 6th. Even had his letter contained no reference to Lord Ebrington, the most cursory comparison of the two narratives would establish the fact of their substantial identity. Lord Ebrington's pamphlet contains everything recorded by Mr. Standish-minus the chronological blunders-and a good deal more beside. Next to Sir Neil Campbell's Diary it is the main English authority on Napoleon at Elba.

But it must be admitted that there was a great sameness in the table talk with which the deposed Emperor regaled his English ''C'est un bigot que ce Milord Sidmouth' appears in Lord Ebrington's narrative.

visitors. About a fortnight after Lord Ebrington's departure-to be strictly accurate, on Christmas Day-that adventurous traveller Lord John Russell, who had followed as an amateur in the wake of Wellington's armies in the Peninsula, arrived at Porto Ferrajo and was admitted to an audience at which he received the highest mark of imperial favour-Napoleon pulled his ear.

His manner (wrote Lord John) is very good-natured and seems studied to put one at one's ease by its familiarity; his smile and his laugh are very agreeable he asks a number of questions without object and often repeats them, a habit which he no doubt acquired during fifteen years of supreme command. To this I should also attribute the ignorance he seems to show at times of the most common facts. When anything that he likes is said he puts his head forward and listens with great pleasure.

Lord John was not so favourably impressed with Napoleon's exterior as was Mr. Standish.

He appears very short, which is partly owing to his being very fat; his hands and legs being quite swollen and unwieldy. That makes him appear awkward and not unlike the whole-length figure of Gibbon the historian. Besides this, instead of the bold-marked countenance that I expected, he has fat cheeks and rather a turn-up nose, which, to bring in another historian, makes the shape of his face resemble the portraits of Hume. He has a dusky grey eye which would be called vicious in a horse, and the shape of his mouth expresses contempt and decision.

But the magnetism of the Emperor's personality had done its work on the Whig statesman, and we find him at Westminster in June of the following year, five days before Waterloo, moving a resolution strongly condemnatory of the war with France.

The account of Napoleon's conversation which Lord John afterwards printed differs very little from that recorded by Lord Ebrington and Mr. Standish, and the three narratives taken together should be compared with the long interview with Sir Neil Campbell which appears in the latter's Diary under the date of December 4. It is sufficiently obvious that Napoleon's outpourings were no simple unpremeditated lay. The curiosity to which Lord John Russell alludes was apparent on the surface, but the desire to create a favourable impression and to put the best colour on some of the most dubious actions in an unscrupulous career is the dominant motive. Yet it is not difficult to discern that, though the general outline of Napoleon's conversation was prepared beforehand, he permitted himself to be carried away into expressions and into a line of thought which revealed more of his inner self than strict prudence would have dictated.

Sir Neil Campbell's journal was published in 1869, and is easily accessible: it was utilised in manuscript both by Sir Walter Scott and Sir Archibald Alison. Lord Ebrington's pamphlet is comparatively rare, and I may be pardoned if I supplement Mr. Standish's letter by extracts from it.

After some questions about myself and my family he asked eagerly about France, saying: 'Tell me frankly, are they contented?' I said 'Comme ça.' He replied: They cannot be; they have been too much humbled by the peacethey have had a king imposed upon them, and imposed by England. Lord Wellington's appointment must be very galling to the army, and so must the great attentions shewn him by the King, as if opposing his own feelings to those of the country.'

The Bourbons, Napoleon said, were not calculated to be popular with a people like the French. Madame d'Angoulême, he had heard, was plain and awkward. For the angel of peace a witty or a pretty woman was required at least.' He had always felt that France wanted an aristocracy, but for that it required time. I have made Princes and Dukes, and given them large estates, but I could not make real noblemen of them.' He had intended to inter-marry them with the old nobility, and in some instances had done so, and if the twenty years I demanded for the grandeur of France had been granted me, I would have done a good deal but fate has determined otherwise.' The King, he thought, ought to follow the same plan, instead of showering his favours on men who for the last twenty years had been 'buried in the garrets of London.'

Napoleon's verdict on his fellow-monarchs is given with greater fulness by Lord Ebrington than by Mr. Standish.

I asked him what he thought of the Emperor Alexander. Oh he is a true Greek! one cannot rely on him. He is however intelligent, and has certain liberal ideas with which he was imbued by one of our French philosophersLaharpe, who brought him up. But he is so fickle that one can never know whether the sentiments he utters proceed from his real conviction or from a species of vanity, to put himself in contrast with his real position.' During the fortnight that they were at Tilsit the two Emperors dined together nearly every day, but we rose early from table to get rid of the King of Prussia who bored us. About nine o'clock the Emperor Alexander returned in plain clothes (en frac) to drink tea with me, and remained conversing very agreeably on different subjects, for the most part philosophical or political, till two or three o'clock in the morning." The Emperor Francis, he said, had more honesty but less capacity.

1 According to Creevey, Napoleon was in the habit of summing up the merits of the two sovereigns in very different language to General Köller, the Austrian commissioner at Elba. 'Now I'll tell you the difference between the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia. The Emperor thinks himself a very clever

The Archduke Charles was 'un esprit très-médiocre' who had, however, on some occasions shown himself not to be without military talent. Ferdinand, the King of Spain,' was not without natural parts, but ignorant and bigoted from the faults of his education, which had been left entirely to priests. Moreover, the most dissimulating character I ever knew.'

Napoleon spoke lightly of the talents of his marshals, but having once elevated them it had been his system to maintain them.' Murat he called 'un magnifique Lazzarone.' Augereau was a 'mauvais sujet,' but Masséna had behaved well in the latter days, as did also Soult and Davoust.

I asked if he was not surprised at Berthier having been among the first to welcome the King's arrival. He answered, with a smile, 'I have been told he has committed some follies of the kind, but his head is not a strong one. I had promoted him more than he deserved because I found his pen useful. Besides, I assure you, he is a good fellow, and if he saw me he would be the first to express regret for what he has done with tears in his eyes.' 2

2

Napoleon asked what would happen to him if he went to England. Que ferait-on avec moi si je venois en Angleterre ? serais-je lapidé ?' Lord Ebrington reassured him, and said that the violent feeling excited against him was rapidly subsiding now that the two countries were no longer at war. Napoleon smiled and replied: Je crois pourtant qu'il y auroit toujours quelque risque de la part de votre mob de Londres.'

Lord Ebrington relates the Jaffa and El Arisch incidents in almost the same words as Mr. Standish, but he makes one interesting addition. After quoting Napoleon's reflection that 'it is always better to suffer a man to finish his destiny, be it what it may,' he reports the Emperor as saying:

I judged so afterwards in the case of Duroc, who, when his bowels were falling out before my eyes, repeatedly cried out to me to have him put out of his misery. I said to him: 'I pity you, my friend, but there is no help for it-you must suffer on to the end.'3

fellow, and he is a damned fool; whereas the King of Prussia thinks meanly of his own talents, and he is a very sensible man.'-Creevey Papers, vol. i. p. 195.

The father of Queen Isabella who died only the other day.

2 It is generally believed that the defection of Berthier was felt more keenly by Napoleon than that of any other of the marshals. But Berthier had never recovered from the physical shock of the retreat from Moscow. On learning of his old master's return from Elba he retired to Germany, and while a Russian regiment was passing through the town threw himself out of the window of a house in Bamberg. Rumour spoke of assassination, but it is certain that his mind was unhinged.

Duroc, Duc de Friuli, was mortally wounded by a cannon-shot on the