Through the Magic Door, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [audio ebook reader TXT] 📗

Cogniets and Bourgognes, with Marbots to lead them, and the great captain of all time in the prime of his vigour at their head, had made their landing in Kent? For months it was touch-and-go. A single naval slip which left the Channel clear would have been followed by an embarkation from Boulogne, which had been brought by constant practice to so incredibly fine a point that the last horse was aboard within two hours of the start. Any evening might have seen the whole host upon the Pevensey Flats. What then? We know what Humbert did with a handful of men in Ireland, and the story is not reassuring. Conquest, of course, is unthinkable. The world in arms could not do that. But Napoleon never thought of the conquest of Britain. He has expressly disclaimed it. What he did contemplate was a gigantic raid in which he would do so much damage that for years to come England would be occupied at home in picking up the pieces, instead of having energy to spend abroad in thwarting his Continental plans.

Portsmouth, Plymouth, and Sheerness in flames, with London either levelled to the ground or ransomed at his own figure--that was a more feasible programme. Then, with the united fleets of conquered Europe at his back, enormous armies and an inexhaustible treasury, swollen with the ransom of Britain, he could turn to that conquest of America which would win back the old colonies of France and leave him master of the world. If the worst happened and he had met his Waterloo upon the South Downs, he would have done again what he did in Egypt and once more in Russia: hurried back to France in a swift vessel, and still had force enough to hold his own upon the Continent. It would, no doubt, have been a big stake to lay upon the table--150,000 of his best--but he could play again if he lost; while, if he won, he cleared the board. A fine game--if little Nelson had not stopped it, and with one blow fixed the edge of salt water as the limit of Napoleon's power.

There's the cast of a medal on the top of that cabinet which will bring it all close home to you. It is taken from the die of the medal which Napoleon had arranged to issue on the day that he reached London. It serves, at any rate, to show that his great muster was not a bluff, but that he really did mean serious business. On one side is his head. On the other France is engaged in strangling and throwing to earth a curious fish-tailed creature, which stands for perfidious Albion. "Frappe a Londres" is printed on one part of it, and "La Descente dans Angleterre" upon another. Struck to commemorate a conquest, it remains now as a souvenir of a fiasco. But it was a close call.

By the way, talking of Napoleon's flight from Egypt, did you ever see a curious little book called, if I remember right, "Intercepted Letters"? No; I have no copy upon this shelf, but a friend is more fortunate. It shows the almost incredible hatred which existed at the end of the eighteenth century between the two nations, descending even to the most petty personal annoyance. On this occasion the British Government intercepted a mail-bag of letters coming from French officers in Egypt to their friends at home, and they either published them, or at least allowed them to be published, in the hope, no doubt, of causing domestic complications. Was ever a more despicable action? But who knows what other injuries had been inflicted to draw forth such a retaliation? I have myself seen a burned and mutilated British mail lying where De Wet had left it; but suppose the refinement of his vengeance had gone so far as to publish it, what a thunder-bolt it might have been!

As to the French officers, I have read their letters, though even after a century one had a feeling of guilt when one did so. But, on the whole, they are a credit to the writers, and give the impression of a noble and chivalrous set of men. Whether they were all addressed to the right people is another matter, and therein lay the poisoned sting of this most un-British affair. As to the monstrous things which were done upon the other side, remember the arrest of all the poor British tourists and commercials who chanced to be in France when the war was renewed in 1803. They had run over in all trust and confidence for a little outing and change of air. They certainly got it, for Napoleon's steel grip fell upon them, and they rejoined their families in 1814. He must have had a heart of adamant and a will of iron. Look at his conduct over the naval prisoners. The natural proceeding would have been to exchange them. For some reason he did not think it good policy to do so. All representations from the British Government were set aside, save in the case of the higher officers. Hence the miseries of the hulks and the dreadful prison barracks in England. Hence also the unhappy idlers of Verdun. What splendid loyalty there must have been in those humble Frenchmen which never allowed them for one instant to turn bitterly upon the author of all their great misfortunes. It is all brought vividly home by the description of their prisons given by Borrow in "Lavengro." This is the passage--

"What a strange appearance had those mighty casernes, with
their blank, blind walls, without windows or grating, and
their slanting roofs, out of which, through orifices where
the tiles had been removed, would be protruded dozens of
grim heads, feasting their prison-sick eyes on the wide
expanse of country unfolded from their airy height. Ah!
there was much misery in those casernes; and from those
roofs, doubtless, many a wistful look was turned in the
direction of lovely France. Much had the poor inmates to
endure, and much to complain of, to the disgrace of England
be it said--of England, in general so kind and bountiful.
Rations of carrion meat, and bread from which I have seen
the very hounds occasionally turn away, were unworthy
entertainment even for the most ruffian enemy, when helpless
and captive; and such, alas! was the fare in those casernes.
And then, those visits, or rather ruthless inroads, called
in the slang of the place 'straw-plait hunts,' when in
pursuit of a contraband article, which the prisoners,
in order to procure themselves a few of the necessaries
and comforts of existence, were in the habit of making,
red-coated battalions were marched into the prisons, who,
with the bayonet's point, carried havoc and ruin into every
poor convenience which ingenious wretchedness had been
endeavouring to raise around it; and then the triumphant
exit with the miserable booty, and worst of all, the accursed
bonfire, on the barrack parade of the plait contraband,
beneath the view of glaring eyeballs from those lofty roofs,
amid the hurrahs of the troops frequently drowned in the
curses poured down from above like a tempest-shower, or in
the terrific war-whoop of 'Vive l'Empereur!'"

There is a little vignette of Napoleon's men in captivity. Here is another which is worth preserving of the bearing of his veterans when wounded on the field of battle. It is from Mercer's recollections of the Battle of Waterloo. Mercer had spent the day firing case into the French cavalry at ranges from fifty to two hundred yards, losing two-thirds of his own battery in the process. In the evening he had a look at some of his own grim handiwork.

"I had satisfied my curiosity at Hougoumont, and was retracing
my steps up the hill when my attention was called to a group
of wounded Frenchmen by the calm, dignified, and soldier-like
oration addressed by one of them to the rest. I cannot, like
Livy, compose a fine harangue for my hero, and, of course, I
could not retain the precise words, but the import of them was
to exhort them to bear their sufferings with fortitude; not
to repine, like women or children, at what every soldier
should have made up his mind to suffer as the fortune of
war, but above all, to remember that they were surrounded by
Englishmen, before whom they ought to be doubly careful not
to disgrace themselves by displaying such an unsoldier-like
want of fortitude.

"The speaker was sitting on the ground with his lance stuck
upright beside him--an old veteran with thick bushy, grizzly
beard, countenance like a lion--a lancer of the old guard,
and no doubt had fought in many a field. One hand was
flourished in the air as he spoke, the other, severed at the
wrist, lay on the earth beside him; one ball (case-shot,
probably) had entered his body, another had broken his leg.
His suffering, after a night of exposure so mangled, must
have been great; yet he betrayed it not. His bearing was
that of a Roman, or perhaps an Indian warrior, and I could
fancy him concluding appropriately his speech in the words
of the Mexican king, 'And I too; am I on a bed of roses?'"

What a load of moral responsibility upon one man! But his mind was insensible to moral responsibility. Surely if it had not been it must have been crushed beneath it. Now, if you want to understand the character of Napoleon--but surely I must take a fresh start before I launch on so portentous a subject as that.

But before I leave the military men let me, for the credit of my own country, after that infamous incident of the letters, indicate these six well-thumbed volumes of "Napier's History." This is the story of the great Peninsular War, by one who fought through it himself, and in no history has a more chivalrous and manly account been given of one's enemy. Indeed, Napier seems to me to push it too far, for his admiration appears to extend not only to the gallant soldiers who opposed him, but to the character and to the ultimate aims of their leader. He was, in fact, a political follower of Charles James Fox, and his heart seems to have been with the enemy even at the moment when he led his men most desperately against them. In the verdict of history the action of those men who, in their honest zeal for freedom, inflamed somewhat by political strife, turned against their own country, when it was in truth the Champion of Freedom, and approved of a military despot of the most uncompromising kind, seems wildly foolish.

But if Napier's politics may seem strange, his soldiering was splendid, and his prose among the very best that I know. There are passages in that work--the one which describes the breach of Badajos, that of the charge of the Fusiliers at Albuera, and that of the French advance at Fuentes d'Onoro--which once read haunt the mind for ever. The book is a worthy monument of a great national epic. Alas! for the pregnant sentence with which it closes, "So ended the great war, and with