Stories of New Jersey, Frank R. Stockton [best novels in english txt] 📗
- Author: Frank R. Stockton
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It generally happens, when a sovereign is obliged to abdicate and to fly from his kingdom, that he arranges matters so that he shall not become a pauper when he arrives at the place of refuge. If he is not able to carry away anything more than a valise, he is much more likely to put his royal jewels into it than to fill it up with night clothes and hairbrushes; so when Bonaparte came to New Jersey, he came as a very rich man.
When his kingly mansion was ready to be supplied with art treasures, such as ornamented the palaces of Europe, the ex-king sent across the ocean for costly paintings and beautiful sculpture with which to fill his new house; and if any crowned heads had happened to visit him, he would not have been ashamed to welcome them beneath his roof. People of royal blood—that is, the same kind of royal blood that he had—did come over to visit him. Louis Napoleon, afterward Emperor of France, came, when a young man, and spent some weeks with his uncle. While there, it is said, this young man went out shooting on the estate, and, finding the birds near the house easier to hit than those at a distance, he blazed away at any feathered creatures he saw in the garden, so that the gardener made a complaint.
But even then this young Louis Napoleon had begun to have dreams in regard to his succession to the imperial throne of France, and he did not like to be snubbed and scolded by an uncle who had had all the regal honors he was ever likely to get, and who therefore had no right to put on airs in his dealings with the prospective wearer of a crown. So there was a quarrel between the two, and there are reports to the effect that Louis Napoleon took revenge upon his uncle by cutting his fruit trees with a hatchet, without, however, imitating Washington in regard to subsequent truthfulness.
Besides visitors from abroad, many distinguished Americans visited the ex-king. Among these were Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John Quincy Adams. General Lafayette, also, when he came to this country, was received with great state by the Count de Survilliers, the title under which Joseph Bonaparte lived at Bordentown.
This ex-king never became an American citizen by taking out naturalization papers; but the Legislature of New Jersey treated him very well, and passed a resolution which enabled him to hold property in this State, and to thus become, in fact, a Jerseyman.
But although our ex-king was now established on the free soil of America, he did not feel altogether safe. His family had come to grief; and there was reason to fear, that, as a member of that family, England, or France, or Spain, might demand him as a prisoner, to be taken across the ocean to answer the charge of unlawful occupation of a throne.
It is quite possible that the people of the neighborhood imagined that the ex-king was in greater fear of molestation from his former royal brethren than was really the case. Their reasons for supposing that he was anxious to defend himself against surprise and capture had some ground, for there were some strange things about that ex-royal estate,—things that were not known in any other part of New Jersey. There was a tall building called a belvedere, from which the country and the river might be surveyed for a long distance in every direction; but, stranger far than that, there were subterranean passages which led from the house to unfrequented parts of the grounds. These passages were well built, arched with brick, and high enough for people to walk upright in them; and although persons of quiet and unimaginative minds thought that they were constructed for the purpose of allowing the occupants to go down to the lake or to the other portions of the grounds without getting wet if it should happen to be raining, there were many people who believed that for sudden showers a good stock of umbrellas would be cheaper and quite as useful, and that these costly passages could be meant for nothing else than to give opportunity for escape, in case foreign emissaries or officers of the law should come in search of an ex-king who was wanted on the other side of the Atlantic.
For whatever reason these passages were built, the spectacle of an ex-king, carrying a crown and his royal robes in a hand bag, slipping out from among some bushes to tramp along the dusty road to Trenton or Burlington, was never seen. Nobody ever thought it worth while to come to New Jersey to demand him or his property.
During his residence at Bordentown, which continued for about fourteen years, Joseph Bonaparte was very popular with the people of the neighborhood. They looked upon him as a friend and neighbor; but at the same time they did not lose sight of the fact, that although he was now a country gentleman of New Jersey, with his lawn and his flower garden to look after, he had sat upon two thrones, and had been a sovereign of Naples and Spain. They called him "king," and his house was known as the "palace;" and for this reason the people of other States made some mild fun of New Jersey, calling it a foreign country.
But if this ex-king had been a rich country gentleman of the neighborhood, he could not have made himself more popular. He was hospitable, and frequently gave entertainments, and he sent flowers and fruits from his gardens to his friends and neighbors. He made roads, and contributed in many ways to the improvement of the country round about his home. In winter time the boys of Bordentown came to skate upon his ponds; and at such times he nearly always offered them refreshments, which consisted of quantities of chestnuts, which he scattered on the ice so that the youngsters might scramble for them.
In many ways his kind and sociable disposition made him so much liked, that it is very probable that if the officers of the law had come to take him back to Europe, he would have received such timely notice of their approach that it would not have been necessary for him to hurry away through his underground passages. New Jersey is a reasonable and hospitable State, and when an ex-king comes to reside within her borders, he will be as well treated, so long as he behaves himself, as if he were a poor immigrant from Europe, coming with his wife and family to clear away the forest, and make himself a home.
Just before Joseph started for America, the affairs of his family were at their lowest ebb. His great brother, the emperor, had fallen from his high state, and could look forward to nothing but imprisonment by the European countries, whose thrones he had for so long been in the habit of upsetting or threatening. In his last interview with Napoleon, when on his way to the ship which was to take him to America, Joseph generously offered to change places with his brother, and to let the ex-emperor fly to America instead of the ex-king. It was very difficult for any one of the Napoleon family to get away from France at that time; but Joseph had made a very excellent plan by which passports were provided for two persons coming to America on business, and his brother could have used one of those as well as himself.
But the great Napoleon declined to run away in this manner. He remained, and was sent to St. Helena. What would have occurred in the neighborhood of Bordentown, N.J., had Napoleon Bonaparte, conqueror of Europe, ruler of nations, and disposer of crowns, the hero of Austerlitz, Marengo, and Wagram, taken up his residence at Point Breeze, and established himself as a citizen of the State, cannot easily be imagined. The geniality, sociability, and hospitality of the ex-king could hardly have been expected from the ex-emperor; and, surrounded as he would have been in time by devoted followers who would have exiled themselves from their country for his sake, there might have been a little empire in New Jersey which would have been exceedingly interesting to tourists.
Moreover, if the allied powers of Europe had sent over a fleet to bring back their great enemy, who knows but that they might have found, when they reached Bordentown, not a tall lookout tower and underground passages for escape, but a fort with ramparts, redoubts, a moat, a drawbridge, and mounted cannon ready to sweep the Delaware and the surrounding country? However this might have been, it is certain that Napoleon's refusal to take his brother's place must ever be a source of satisfaction to the people of Bordentown and the rest of the country.
As a proof that Joseph Bonaparte had had enough of royalty, and not enough of New Jersey, it is stated that a delegation of prominent men from Mexico, which country was then in a very disturbed condition, came to him during his residence at Bordentown, and offered him the throne of Mexico. In making answer to this proposition, our ex-king did not hesitate a moment. He told the delegation, that, having already worn two crowns, he desired never again to wear another. The old fable of the fox which had lost its tail did not probably come into his mind; but if it had, he might well have spoken of it to his Mexican visitors.
After years had elapsed without any attempt on the part of European powers to arrest him, our ex-king, Joseph, began to feel safe, and he made a visit to England. He returned to America, but went back again, and died in Italy in 1844, having given to New Jersey the peculiar and unique position of being the only State in the Union which ever numbered among her citizens the owner of a royal crown and regal robes.
To be sure, there is nothing in this for the people of a republican State to be proud of; but New Jersey may be allowed to say that there never was a royal person who was of less injury to the people among whom he dwelt than her ex-king at Bordentown, and she may add that there have been very few of his class who have been of as much advantage to his neighbors.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
THE DEY, THE BEY, AND SOME JERSEY SAILORS.New Jersey is very intimate with the ocean. For nearly the whole of her length, from Cape May to Sandy Hook, the waves of the Atlantic roll and roar. Wherever one may be in this State, it is not necessary to travel very far in order to smell the fresh sea air.
It is true that but few of the great commercial vessels leave and arrive at the ports of New Jersey, and that the presence of naval vessels in her waters is due to the fact that she is part owner of the Bay of New York; but it is also true, that, although she has not sent forth ships to fight the battles of her country upon the ocean wave, she has sent out to
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