Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, August 1847Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, August 1847
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
The letter then proceeds to point out the object of the appeal. "These
sufferings may continue for a long time. There is still time to save
him: the moment seems very favourable. The Sovereigns are about to
assemble at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle--passions seem
calmed--Napoleon is now far from being formidable. In these
circumstances let your Majesty deign to reflect what an effect a great
step on your part would produce--that, for instance, of going to this
Congress, and there soliciting a termination to the Emperor's
sufferings, of supplicating your august father to unite his efforts with
yours, in order to have Napoleon confided to his charge, if policy did
not permit him to be restored to liberty; and how great would be your
Majesty's own happiness: It would be said, the sovereigns of Europe,
after having vanquished the great Napoleon, abandoned him to his most
cruel enemies, they conducted him towards his grave by the most
prolonged and barbarous torments, the continuation of his agony urged
him even to demand more active executioners; he seemed forgotten, and
without hope of aid; but Marie Louise remained to him, and he was
restored to life."
Whether this letter ever reached its address is not clear; but if it
did, it produced no discoverable effect.
But the absence of those confidants increased the troubles of the
unlucky Montholon in a formidable degree, and Napoleon's habit of
dictating his thoughts and recollections, (which he frequently continued
for hours together, and sometimes into the middle of the night,) pressed
heavily on the Count and Bertrand; the latter being excluded after six
in the evening, when the sentinels were posted for the night, as he
resided with his family, and thus devolving the task of the night on
Montholon. Those dictations were sometimes on high questions of state,
and on theories of war; sometimes on matters of the day, as in the
following instance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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