The Tragedy of St. HelenaRunciman, Walter Runciman, Baron
History
The Tragedy of St. Helena
Runciman, Walter Runciman, Baron
Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821 -- Captivity, 1815-1821
The Governor was then confronted with what to him was another knotty
point. The Emperor had desired that a few gold coins struck during his
reign should be buried with him. After serious consideration this was
graciously allowed, but not without forebodings of trouble arising
therefrom! What the British Government or their idiotic Governor
wanted with Napoleon's stomach, or why they refused to allow his body
to be embalmed, or his heart preserved and sent to his wife, Heaven
only knows. They had monstrously violated all human feeling by
ignoring appeals made to them from all parts of the world to be
merciful to a much afflicted man. They were well informed by the best
medical authorities on the island that the climate was deadly to a
constitution such as his. They ignored reports of his declining health
even up to a few weeks of his death, and then when the Arch-enemy
claimed him, they flooded Europe with the intelligence that he had
succumbed to the malady from which his father died, and that their
tender and benevolent care for him was unavailing. The progress of his
inherited disease could not be checked.
The world is fast beginning to realise the infamy of it all. Not a
thought ever entered their heads but that of torture, veiled or open,
and the appalling clumsiness of their endeavours to conceal their
Satanic designs, so that they might appear in the light of beneficent
hosts, shows that they cowered at the possibility of public vengeance.
Happily for them, Napoleon's death came too near to the terrific
commotion caused by the French Revolution.
Tumult raged round the Emperor during the whole of his public career,
and powerful agencies were constantly proclaiming against him and his
methods. His advent had brought with it a new form of democracy, which
cast down oligarchies and despotisms everywhere. His system destroyed
and affected too many interests not to leave behind it feelings of
revenge, but this revenge did not exist among the common people. Those
who persecuted the common people felt his heavy hand upon them. The
populace entered into his service in shoals, only to betray him when
the time of trial came. He knew the risk he ran, but did not shrink
from it. He hoped that he might bring them to adopt the great
principles he held and the plan he had in view.
His ambition was to seek out all those who had talent and character
and give them the opportunity of developing their gifts for the
benefit of the race. Humble origin had no deterrent effect on him. His
most brilliant officers and men of position sprang from the middle and
lower middle class, and taking them as a whole, their devotion never
gave way, even during the most terrible adversity that ever befell
mortal man. One small instance of admiration and sympathy is evidenced
by the beautiful reverence shown by the officers and men of the
English army and navy, who defiled before the dead hero's remains and
bent their knees to the ground.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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