Napoleon's British Visitors and Captives, 1801-1815;

'A /( \J NAPOLEON'S BRITISH VISITORS NAPOLEON'S BRITISH VISITORS AND CAPTIVES 1801-1815 BY JOHN GOLDWORTH ALGER AUTHOR OF THE ' NEW PARIS SKETCH BOOK' ' 1 ENGLISHMEN IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 'GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION' AND 'PARIS IN 1789-94' ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY, LTD. 1904 ISAAC FOOT LIBRARY Edinburgh : T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE INTRODUCTORY, ...... 1 CHAPTER II THE VISITORS No Thoroughfare — Occasional Visitors — Negotiations — Fox—M.P.'s—Ex- and Prospective M.P.'s—Peers and their Families — Baronets — Soldiers — Sailors — Func- tionaries — Lawyers — Doctors — Clergymen — Savants — Artists — Actors — Inventors — Claimants and Men of — — — Business Writers— on France— Other Authors Residents — . Ancestors Fugitives Emigres, . .12 CHAPTER III AMUSEMENTS AND IMPRESSIONS Parisian Attractions — Napoleon — Foreign Notabilities — Mutual Impressions—Marriages and Deaths—Return Visits, ....... 126 CHAPTER IV CAPTIVITY — — The Rupture Detentions Flights and Narrow Escapes— Life at Verdun—Extortion—Napoleon's Rigour—M.P.'s —The Argus—Escapes and Recaptures—Diplomatists vii viii CONTENTS PAGE — Liberations — Indulgences — Women and Children — Captures in War—Runibold—Foreign Visitors—British Travellers—Deaths—The Last Stage—French Leave— Unpaid Debts, . .174 CHAPTER V TWO RESTORATIONS The Restoration—Aristocrats and Commoners—Unwelcome Guests—Wellington in Danger—Misgivings—Napoleonic Emblems—Spectacles—Visits to Elba—Egerton's Siege —St. Helena Eyewitnesses and Survivors, . 271 APPENDIX A. MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT, .... 316 B. PEERS AND THEIR FAMILIES, . .317 C. LORD J. RUSSELL AT ELBA (narrative nowfirst published), 319 INDEX OF NAMES, AND LIST OF OTHER VISITORS, . 325 INTRODUCTORY The French of which— re- Revolution, — philosophers garding it as still unfinished this book is really a chapter, produced a greater dislocation of individuals and classes than had been known in modern times. It scattered thousands of Frenchmen over Europe, some in fact as far as America and India, while, on the other hand, it attracted men of all nationalities to France. It was mainly a centrifugal, but it was partly a the never centripetal force, especially during Empire ; before or since was France so much as then the focus of political and social life. Men of all ranks shared in both these movements. If princes and nobles were driven from France there were some who were attracted thither even in the early stages of the Revolution, while Napoleon later on drew around him a galaxy of foreign satellites. To begin with the centrifugal action, history fur- nishes no parallel to such an overturn of thrones and flight of monarchs. With the exception of England, protected by the sea, Scandinavia and Russia by distance, and Turkey by Oriental lethargy, every dynasty of Europe was shaken or shattered by the A 2 NAPOLEON'S BRITISH VISITORS volcano. The Bourbons became wanderers on the face of the earth. Louis xvi.'s two brothers went hither and thither before finding a secure resting- soil. The 'Monsieur,' Comte place on British elder, fled from Paris de Provence (afterwards Louis xviil), more simultaneously with his crowned brother, but, fortunate than poor Louis, safely reached Belgium. Charles The younger, Comte d'Artois (afterwards x.), months. Both re-entered had preceded him by nine France in 1792 with the German and Royalist in- Monsieur vaders, but had soon to retreat with them. betook himself first to Ham in Westphalia, and next to Verona, but the Doge of Venice, fearful of displeas- 'invited' him to withdraw. ing revolutionary France, but in Russian hospitality likewise proved ephemeral, then at and England, first at Gosfield, Wanstead, lastly at Hartwell, he was able quietly to await the downfall of the Corsican usurper. D'Artois found halting-places at Venice, Mantua, Brussels, and St. Petersburg, and for a few days he was a second time on French soil in the island of Yeu; but the failure of the expedi- tion to western France soon obliged him to recross the Channel, where Holyrood and eventually London two afforded him a refuge. Of the jealousies of these and dissen- exiled princes, and of the mortifications sions of their retinues, it is needless to speak. The Duke of Orleans (the future Louis Philippe), deserting the Republican army along with Dumouriez, after a visit teaching in a school in Switzerland, and after to America, where he spent a night in an Indian wig- wam, also repaired to England. There he was doomed INTRODUCTORY 3 to long years of inactivity, though he would fain have joined the English forces in Spain, in which case, as having fought against France, he could scarcely have grasped the French crown. The Due de Bourbon likewise settled in England, and it would have been well had his unfortunate son, the Due d'Enghien, followed his example. The king's two aunts, one of them the reputed mother of the Comte de Narbonne, himself escorting them and destined to ten years of exile, found their way to Rome, but driven thence by the French, after many buffetings they ended their wander- ings and their lives at Trieste. These banished French princes had the doubtful consolation of seeing other regal or princely personages equally storm-tost. The Statthalter of Holland had to pass many years of banishment in England, and even stooped to soliciting a pecuniary indemnity from Napoleon. The Austrian and Prussian monarchs, though not actually driven out of their dominions, saw their capitals occupied by French armies, and had to bow to the stern dictates of the Conqueror. The rulers of German principalities were swept away by the hurricane. The Spanish royal family were consigned to the custody of Talleyrand at Valen9ay. The Portuguese princes took refuge in Brazil. Italian monarchs fared no better. The sovereigns of Piedmont had to retire to the island of Sardinia, the only possession remaining to them. The King of Naples was likewise driven from his continental dominions, British protection ensuring him a footing in Sicily. Italian dukes were rudely supplanted by Napoleon's relatives or other puppets. 4 NAPOLEON'S BRITISH VISITORS Ferdinand in. of Tuscany was driven to Vienna, though subsequently assigned a duchy in Germany. Even the Papacy, which had long been unscathed by war or revolution, was overwhelmed by the current. Forced away from Rome, one Pope died in the French fortress of Valence, while another became a prisoner at Savona. In France not merely the princes, but almost the entire nobility, were fugitives. England, Germany, Switzerland, and Russia were inundated with aristocrats, who at first, counting on a speedy and triumphant return, formed little colonies, in one of which Fanny found a husband but the exhaustion of their Burney ; resources soon scattered them hither and thither. Some were descendants of Jacobite refugees, who found shelter in the very country whence their ancestors had fled. Adversity, in this as in other cases, brought out the best qualities of some and the worst of others. - Frivolity and gravity, self denial and selfishness, heroism and poltroonery, intrigue and probity, honour and unscrupulousness, existed side by side. Some formed royalist corps subsidised by foreign governments, or actually joined foreign armies, persuading themselves that they were thus fighting not against France but against a usurpation. The few who went to America, whether from choice, like the epicure Brillat Savarin, or from compulsion like Talleyrand, were spared this sad necessity of accepting foreign alms or serving foreign states. The Comte d'Estaing took office under an Indian rajah. Reduced to penury, those who remained in the Old World resorted to every INTRODUCTORY 5 conceivable expedient. The women were naturally the greatest sufferers. Delicate fingers which had never done a stroke of work had to busy themselves in dress- in ing dolls, embroidery, in flower or portrait painting, in nursing the sick, and even in milking cows and making butter for sale. Men brought up in luxury deemed themselves fortunate if they could earn a livelihood as journalists, translators, or teachers. More frequently they had to become book-keepers or tailors, to keep wine shops, to sing at music-halls, to act as prompters at theatres, and even to be water-carriers. Some, alas ! with the connivance at least for a time of their princes, forged assignats. Welcomed in some quarters, mobbed or even expelled as vagabonds in others, they had to exchange palaces for cottages, sumptuous diet for the roughest fare, jewels and finery for rags. No wonder that humiliation and anguish drove some to suicide, and the lives of many others must have been shortened by . privations. Yet many, with the traditional light-heartedness of Frenchmen, ' Laughed the sense of misery away.' Besides the noblesse, which included the episcopate, there were thousands of priests and hundreds of nuns, who, fleeing from relentless persecution, found succour from Protestant governments and Protestant philan- thropy. There were also ex-deputies and publicists, the whom dungeon, and probably the guillotine, would otherwise have claimed. Lally Tollendal, the younger Mirabeau, Mounier, and Montlosier, had sat in the National or Constituent Assembly. Mallet du Pan, 6 NAPOLEON'S BRITISH VISITORS Etienne Dumont, Antraigues, driven to suicide, Lafay- ette, consigned to an Austrian fortress, and Dumouriez, offering military counsels to the English, may also be mentioned. It need hardly be said that wealthy foreigners like Quintin Craufurd, who had become numerous in Paris before the Revolution, were frightened away, leaving their property to be confiscated, for the Jacobins did not even recognise their right to quit France, which had become not merely inhospitable but dangerous. Not until the Consulate and the Empire did France again attract wealthy foreigners, or recover a portion of its then much impoverished nobility. As for the immigration, though far less important in numbers and quality, it was not inconsiderable.

Load more