"Some demanded," says an eloquent anonymous Captain in the Navy who has written an "Itinerary from Toulon to St.Helena," "that the coffin should be deposited under the bronze taken from the enemy by the French army--under the Column of the Place Vendome.The idea was a fine one.This is the most glorious monument that was ever raised in a conqueror's honor.This column has been melted out of foreign cannon.These same cannons have furrowed the bosoms of our braves with noble cicatrices; and this metal--conquered by the soldier first, by the artist afterwards--has allowed to be imprinted on its front its own defeat and our glory.Napoleon might sleep in peace under this audacious trophy.But, would his ashes find a shelter sufficiently vast beneath this pedestal? And his puissant statue dominating Paris, beams with sufficient grandeur on this place: whereas the wheels of carriages and the feet of passengers would profane the funereal sanctity of the spot in trampling on the soil so near his head."You must not take this description, dearest Amelia, "at the foot of the letter," as the French phrase it, but you will here have a masterly exposition of the arguments for and against the burial of the Emperor under the Column of the Place Vendome.The idea was a fine one, granted; but, like all other ideas, it was open to objections.You must not fancy that the cannon, or rather the cannon-balls, were in the habit of furrowing the bosoms of French braves, or any other braves, with cicatrices: on the contrary, it is a known fact that cannon-balls make wounds, and not cicatrices (which, my dear, are wounds partially healed); nay, that a man generally dies after receiving one such projectile on his chest, much more after having his bosom furrowed by a score of them.No, my love; no bosom, however heroic, can stand such applications, and the author only means that the French soldiers faced the cannon and took them.Nor, my love, must you suppose that the column was melted: it was the cannon was melted, not the column; but such phrases are often used by orators when they wish to give a particular force and emphasis to their opinions.
Well, again, although Napoleon might have slept in peace under "this audacious trophy," how could he do so and carriages go rattling by all night, and people with great iron heels to their boots pass clattering over the stones? Nor indeed could it be expected that a man whose reputation stretches from the Pyramids to the Kremlin, should find a column of which the base is only five-and-twenty feet square, a shelter vast enough for his bones.In a word, then, although the proposal to bury Napoleon under the column was ingenious, it was found not to suit; whereupon somebody else proposed the Madelaine.
"It was proposed," says the before-quoted author with his usual felicity, "to consecrate the Madelaine to his exiled manes"--that is, to his bones when they were not in exile any longer."He ought to have, it was said, a temple entire.His glory fills the world.
His bones could not contain themselves in the coffin of a man--in the tomb of a king!" In this case what was Mary Magdalen to do?
"This proposition, I am happy to say, was rejected, and a new one--that of the President of the Council adopted.Napoleon and his braves ought not to quit each other.Under the immense gilded dome of the Invalides he would find a sanctuary worthy of himself.Adome imitates the vault of heaven, and that vault alone" (meaning of course the other vault) "should dominate above his head.His old mutilated Guard shall watch around him: the last veteran, as he has shed his blood in his combats, shall breathe his last sigh near his tomb, and all these tombs shall sleep under the tattered standards that have been won from all the nations of Europe."The original words are "sous les lambeaux cribles des drapeaux cueillis chez toutes les nations;" in English, "under the riddled rags of the flags that have been culled or plucked" (like roses or buttercups) "in all the nations." Sweet, innocent flowers of victory! there they are, my dear, sure enough, and a pretty considerable hortus siccus may any man examine who chooses to walk to the Invalides.The burial-place being thus agreed on, the expedition was prepared, and on the 7th July the "Belle Poule"frigate, in company with "La Favorite" corvette, quitted Toulon harbor.A couple of steamers, the "Trident" and the "Ocean,"escorted the ships as far as Gibraltar, and there left them to pursue their voyage.
The two ships quitted the harbor in the sight of a vast concourse of people, and in the midst of a great roaring of cannons.Previous to the departure of the "Belle Poule," the Bishop of Frejus went on board, and gave to the cenotaph, in which the Emperor's remains were to be deposited, his episcopal benediction.Napoleon's old friends and followers, the two Bertrands, Gourgaud, Emanuel Las Cases, "companions in exile, or sons of the companions in exile of the prisoner of the infame Hudson," says a French writer, were passengers on board the frigate.Marchand, Denis, Pierret, Novaret, his old and faithful servants, were likewise in the vessel.It was commanded by his Royal Highness Francis Ferdinand Philip Louis Marie d'Orleans, Prince de Joinville, a young prince two-and-twenty years of age, who was already distinguished in the service of his country and king.
On the 8th of October, after a voyage of six-and-sixty days, the "Belle Poule" arrived in James Town harbor; and on its arrival, as on its departure from France, a great firing of guns took place.
First, the "Oreste" French brig-of-war began roaring out a salutation to the frigate; then the "Dolphin" English schooner gave her one-and-twenty guns; then the frigate returned the compliment of the "Dolphin" schooner; then she blazed out with one-and-twenty guns more, as a mark of particular politeness to the shore--which kindness the forts acknowledged by similar detonations.
