executions of Ney in France and Murat in Italy, there was the
humiliation of the patrie itself. The victorious Allies had rampaged
through France like Huns or Vandals, looting the treasury at the
Tuileries with fixed bayonets, billeting one million occupiers on the
provinces and levying ten million francs war indemnity. Blucher, whose
sole reaction to a visit to London was to remark what a pleasure it would
be to sack it, headed the first of several brutal German occupations Paris
was to experience in her history. Exploitation was the only appropriate
term for the orders for compulsory billeting, whereby each householder
had to take in a minimum of ten soldiers, each of whose beds had to have
a pillow, a mattress, a blanket and two linen sheets and each of whom had
to be given a daily ration of one pound of meat, two pounds of bread,
butter, rice, a bottle of wine, brandy and tobacco.
Outwardly, Napoleon seemed to accept the hand dealt by Fate with
resignation, but the anger evident in his dealings with Hudson Lowe was
also in part an anger directed at the tormenting Furies generally. Did he
never think of escape? Various plans for getting to America were
discussed, and some very serious snatch attempts were devised in the
United States. It is sometimes said that as there were only a few beaches
where landings could be attempted, and the Royal Navy squadron
patrolled them ceaselessly, all hopes of escape were chimerical. But it is
by no means certain that an assault in strength by a number of American
privateers, under cover of night, could not have succeeded. The main
obstacle was Napoleon himself. He always refused to countenance any
such attempt and explained why in a dictated letter to Montholon on
I November r8zo: 'I would not survive six months in America before
being assassinated by the comte d' Artois's contract killers. In America I
would be either assassinated or forgotten. I'm better off in St Helena.'
Eighteen months of good health and new-found energy came to an end
in July r8zo, when a fresh cycle of illness began. Once again Napoleon
suffered headache, nausea, fevers, shivering fits, a dry and troublesome
cough, vomiting of bile, pain in the liver, painful breathing and swollen
legs and feet. He seemed to be recovering, then relapsed in September
r8zo and remained on a plateau of invalidism for five months,
complaining of exhaustion and permanently cold feet. These months saw
his last real encounters with the external world. On zo September he
composed a letter to Lord Liverpool, requesting a period of recuperation
at a spa in England or some other part of Europe; the request simply
brought another clash with the implacable Hudson Lowe. On 4 October
he ventured outside the grounds of Longwood for the last time, when he
had an alfresco lunch with his neighbour Sir William Doveton.
marcin
(Marcin)
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