Napoleon's British visitors and captives, 1801-1815

NAPOLEON’S BRITISH VISITORS




                              NAPOLEON’S

                     BRITISH VISITORS AND CAPTIVES

                               1801–1815

                        BY JOHN GOLDWORTH ALGER

                 AUTHOR OF THE ‘NEW PARIS SKETCH BOOK’
                 ‘ENGLISHMEN IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION’
                  ‘GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION’
                        AND ‘PARIS IN 1789–94’


                               New York
                        JAMES POTT AND COMPANY
                                 1904


        Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty




                               CONTENTS


                               CHAPTER I

                                                                PAGE

    INTRODUCTORY,                                                  1


                              CHAPTER II

                             THE VISITORS

    No Thoroughfare--Occasional Visitors--Negotiations--Fox
    --M.P.’s--Ex- and Prospective M.P.’s--Peers and their
    Families--Baronets--Soldiers--Sailors--Functionaries--
   Lawyers--Doctors--Clergymen--Savants--Artists--Actors--
   Inventors--Claimants and Men of Business--Writers on
   France--Other Authors--Residents--Ancestors--Fugitives--
   Emigrés,                                                       12


                              CHAPTER III

                      AMUSEMENTS AND IMPRESSIONS

    Parisian Attractions--Napoleon--Foreign
    Notabilities--Mutual Impressions--Marriages and
    Deaths--Return Visits,                                       126


                              CHAPTER IV

                               CAPTIVITY

    The Rupture--Detentions--Flights and Narrow Escapes--Life
    at Verdun--Extortion--Napoleon’s Rigour--M.P.’s--The
    _Argus_--Escapes and Recaptures--Diplomatists
    --Liberations--Indulgences--Women and Children--Captures
    in War--Rumbold--Foreign Visitors--British
    Travellers--Deaths--The Last Stage--French Leave--Unpaid
    Debts,                                                       174


                               CHAPTER V

                           TWO RESTORATIONS

    The Restoration--Aristocrats and Commoners--Unwelcome
    Guests--Wellington in Danger--Misgivings--Napoleonic
    Emblems--Spectacles--Visits to Elba--Egerton’s Siege--St.
    Helena Eyewitnesses and Survivors,                           271


                               APPENDIX

    _A._ MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT,                                  316

    _B._ PEERS AND THEIR FAMILIES,                               317

    _C._ LORD J. RUSSELL AT ELBA (_narrative now first
          published_),                                           319

    INDEX OF NAMES, AND LIST OF OTHER VISITORS,                  325




                                   I

                             INTRODUCTORY


The French Revolution, of which--philosophers regarding it as still
unfinished--this book is really a chapter, produced a greater
dislocation of individuals and classes than had been known in modern
times. It scattered thousands of Frenchmen over Europe, some in fact as
far as America and India, while, on the other hand, it attracted men of
all nationalities to France. It was mainly a centrifugal, but it was
partly a centripetal force, especially during the Empire; never before
or since was France so much as then the focus of political and social
life. Men of all ranks shared in both these movements. If princes and
nobles were driven from France there were some who were attracted
thither even in the early stages of the Revolution, while Napoleon
later on drew around him a galaxy of foreign satellites.

To begin with the centrifugal action, history furnishes no parallel to
such an overturn of thrones and flight of monarchs. With the exception
of England, protected by the sea, Scandinavia and Russia by distance,
and Turkey by Oriental lethargy, every dynasty of Europe was shaken or
shattered by the volcano. The Bourbons became wanderers on the face of
the earth. Louis XVI.’s two brothers went hither and thither
before finding a secure resting-place on British soil. The elder,
‘Monsieur,’ Comte de Provence (afterwards Louis XVIII.),
fled from Paris simultaneously with his crowned brother, but, more
fortunate than poor Louis, safely reached Belgium. The younger, Comte
d’Artois (afterwards Charles X.), had preceded him by nine
months. Both re-entered France in 1792 with the German and Royalist
invaders, but had soon to retreat with them. Monsieur betook himself
first to Ham in Westphalia, and next to Verona, but the Doge of Venice,
fearful of displeasing revolutionary France, ‘invited’ him to withdraw.
Russian hospitality likewise proved ephemeral, but in England, first
at Gosfield, then at Wanstead, and lastly at Hartwell, he was able
quietly to await the downfall of the Corsican usurper.