"Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God[405]." [Sidenote: Napoleon's sufferings.] Bonaparte, forgetting a thought of his which I have quoted ("not having given myself life, I shall not rob myself of it"), spoke of killing himself; he also did not remember his "order of the day" with regard to the suicide of one of his soldiers. He believed sufficiently in the attachment of his companions in captivity to hope that they would consent to suffocate themselves with him in the smoke from a brazier: the illusion was great. Such are the intoxications of a long domination; but, in the case of Napoleon's impatiences, we must consider only the degree of suffering to which he had attained. M. de Las Cases, having written to Lucien on a piece of white silk, in contravention of the regulations, received the order to leave St. Helena[406]: his absence increased the void around the exile. On the 18th of March 1817, Lord Holland[407], in the House of Lords, made a motion on the subject of the complaints forwarded to England by General Montholon: "It will not be considered by posterity," he said, "whether Bonaparte has been justly punished for his crimes, but whether Great Britain has acted in that generous manner which becomes a great country." Lord Bathurst[408] opposed the motion. Cardinal Fesch sent two priests[409] from Italy to his nephew. The Princess Borghese begged the favour of being allowed to join her brother: "No," said Napoleon, "I would not have her witness the degrading state to which I am reduced and the insults to which I am subjected." That beloved sister, _germana Jovis_, did not cross the seas: she died in the regions where Napoleon had left his reputation. Schemes of abduction were formed: a Colonel Latapie, at the head of a band of American adventurers, designed a descent on St. Helena. Johnson[410], a resolute smuggler, meditated an attempt to carry off Bonaparte by means of a submarine vessel. Young lords entered into these plans; people plotted to break the chains of the oppressor: they would have left the liberator of the human race to die in irons without a thought Bonaparte hoped for his delivery from the political movements of Europe. If he had lived till 1830, perhaps he would have returned to us; but what would he have done among us? He would have seemed infirm and out of date in the midst of the new ideas. Formerly his tyranny appeared liberty to our slavery; now his greatness would appear despotism to our littleness. At the present period, everything is decrepit in a day; who lives too long dies alive. As we advance in life, we leave three or four images of ourselves, different one from the other: we see them next in the haze of the past, like portraits of our different ages.