He said to Countess Montholon, at St. Helena, "On receiving into my arms
that infant, so many times fervently implored of Heaven, could I have
believed that one day he would have become the source of my greatest
anguish? Yes, madame, every day he costs me tears of blood. I imagine to
myself the most horrid events, which I cannot remove from my mind. I see
either the potion or the empoisoned fruit which is about to terminate
the days of that young innocent by the most cruel sufferings."
The boy worshipped his father. "Tell him," said the little King of Rome,
then four years old, when Meneval, Napoleon's former secretary, left
Marie Louise in Austria, "that I love him dearly." He looked like his
father, had his ambition, and, as he grew to manhood, longed to return
to France. When Charles X. was overthrown in 1830, he said, "Why was I
not there to take my chance?" He was then nineteen. Napoleon had
foreseen the fall of the Bourbons, as he said at St. Helena, "They will
not maintain their position after my death; a reaction in my favor will
take place everywhere, even in England."
Napoleon II. died at Vienna, July 22, 1832, at the age of twenty-one, of
consumption, at Schönbrunn, the summer home of the Emperor. He expired
upon the same narrow bed on which his father slept when he came as the
conqueror of Austria. General Hartmann said, "Having passed my life on
battle-fields, I have often seen death, but I never saw a soldier die
more bravely."
When near death, Napoleon II. said, "So young, and is there no remedy?
My birth and my death will be the only points of remembrance." He lies
buried in the plain Church of the Capucines, beside his mother. His
heart is in a small silver urn in St. Augustine's Church.
For six years Napoleon lived in this prison at St. Helena, dictating his
memoirs and commentaries to Count Montholon, Baron Gourgaud, and Count
Las Cases. His health failed rapidly after the first year. Not taking
exercise, on account of the constant espionage, he was finally prevailed
upon by the physician to work a little in a garden, which he found a
relief.
At the end of a year, Las Cases was banished with his son to England,
because he had forwarded a letter to Lady Clavering, telling how badly
the Emperor was treated, and it had not passed through the hands of Sir
Hudson Lowe. This was a great blow to Napoleon, as he was the only one
who could read, speak, and understand English. Dr. O'Meara was also
obliged to leave St. Helena on account of Sir Hudson Lowe's treatment of
him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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