The Life, Exile and Conversations with Napoleon - Emmanuel-Auguste-Dieudonné Las Cases

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      16th.—About three o’clock the Emperor desired me to come and converse with him whilst he was dressing himself; we afterwards took a few turns in the garden. He observed, accidentally, that it was a shame he could not yet read English. I assured him that, if he had continued his lessons after the two that I had given when we were off Madeira, he would now be able to read every kind of English books. He was thoroughly persuaded of this, and ordered me to oblige him henceforth to take a lesson every day. The conversation then led me to observe that I had just given my son his first lesson in mathematics. It is a branch of knowledge which the Emperor is very fond of, and in which he is particularly skilled. He was astonished that I could teach my son so much without the help of any work, and without any copy-book; he said, he did not know that I was so learned in this way, and threatened me with examining, when I did not expect it, both the master and the scholar. At dinner he attacked what he called the Professor of Mathematics, who was very near being posed by him: one question did not wait for another, and they were frequently very keen. He never ceased to regret that the mathematics were not taught at a very early age in the Lyceums. He said that all the intentions he had formed respecting the Universities had been frustrated, complained bitterly of M. de Fontanes, lamenting that, whilst he was obliged to be at a distance, carrying on the war, they spoiled all he had done at home, &c. This led the Emperor back to the first years of his life, to father Patrault, his Professor of Mathematics, whose history he gave us: I have already introduced it.

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      17th.—The Emperor took his first lesson in the English language to-day. And as it was my intention to put him at once in a situation to read the papers with readiness, this first lesson consisted of nothing more than getting acquainted with an English newspaper; in studying the form and plan of it; in learning the places that are always given to the different subjects which it contains; in separating the notices and gossip of the town from politics; and, in the latter, in learning to distinguish what is authentic from what is mere report or conjecture.

      I have engaged that, if the Emperor could endure being annoyed every day with such lessons, he would be able to read the papers in a month without the assistance of any of us. The Emperor wished afterwards to do some exercises; he wrote some sentences which were dictated to him, and translated them into English, with the assistance of a little table, which I made for him, of the auxiliary verbs and articles, and aided by the dictionary for other words which I made him look out himself. I explained to him the rules of syntax and grammar, as they came before us: in this manner he formed various sentences, which amused him more than the versions which we also attempted. After the lesson, at two o’clock, we took a walk in the garden.

      Several musquet shots were fired: they were so near us that they appeared to have been fired in the garden itself. The Emperor observed to me that my son (we thought it was he) seemed to have good sport: I replied that it was the last time he should enjoy it so near the Emperor. “Really,” said he, “you may as well go and tell him that he is only to come within cannon-shot of us.” I ran: we had accused him wrongfully, for the guns were fired by the people who were training the Emperor’s horses.

      After dinner, during coffee, the Emperor, taking me to the corner of the chimney-piece, put his hand upon my head to measure my height, and said, “I am a giant to you.”—“Your Majesty is a giant to so many others,” I observed to him, “that I am not at all concerned at it.” He spoke immediately of something else; for he does not like to dwell on expressions of this kind.

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      18th—20th. We led a life of great uniformity. The Emperor did not go out in the mornings. The English lesson was very regularly taken about two o’clock; then followed either a walk in the garden, or some presentations, which, however, were very rare; afterwards a little excursion in the calash, as the horses were at last arrived. Before dinner we proceeded with the revision of the Campaigns of Italy or Egypt: after dinner we read romances.

      On the 20th, the Emperor received Governor Wilks, with whom he had a profound discussion on the army, the sciences, government, and the Indies. Speaking of the organization of the English army, he dwelt much on the principles of promotion in it; expressing his surprise that, in a country in which equality of rights is maintained, the soldiers so seldom become officers.

      Colonel Wilks admitted that the English soldiers were not formed to become officers; and said that the English were equally astonished at the great difference they had remarked in the French army, where almost every soldier shewed the nascent talents of an officer. “That,” observed the Emperor, “is one of the great results of the Conscription; it has rendered the French army the best constituted that ever existed. It is an institution,” he continued, “eminently national, and already strongly interwoven with our habits; it had ceased to be a cause of grief, except to mothers; and the time was at hand, when a girl would not have listened to a young man who had not acquitted himself of this debt to his country. And it would have been only when arrived at this point,” added he, “that the Conscription would have manifested the full extent of its advantages. When the service no longer bears the appearance of punishment or compulsory duty, but is become a point of honour, on which all are jealous, then only is the nation great, glorious and powerful; it is then that its existence is proof against reverses, invasions—even the hand of time!

      “Besides,” continued he, “it may be truly said that there is nothing that may not be obtained from Frenchmen by the excitement of danger; it seems to animate them; it is an inheritance which they derive from their Gallic forefathers.... Courage, the love of glory, are, with the French, an instinct, a kind of sixth sense. How often in the heat of battle has my attention been fixed on my young conscripts, rushing, for the first time, into the thickest of the fight: honour and valour bursting forth at every pore.”

      After this, the Emperor, knowing that Governor Wilks was well informed in chemistry, attacked him on that subject. He spoke of the immense progress in all our manufactures occasioned by this science. He said, that both England and France, undoubtedly, possessed great chemists; but that chemistry was more generally diffused in France, and more particularly directed to useful results; that in England it remained a science, while in France it was becoming entirely practical. The Governor admitted that these observations were perfectly correct, and, with a liberality of sentiment, added that it was to him, the Emperor, that all these advantages were owing, and that, wherever science was led by the hand of power, it would produce great and happy effects upon the well-being of society. The Emperor observed that of late France had obtained sugar from the beet-root, as good and cheap as that extracted from the sugar-cane. The Governor was astonished; he had not even suspected it. The Emperor assured him that it was an established fact, opposed, as it was, to the rooted prejudices of all Europe, France itself not excepted. He added that it was the same with woad, the substitute for indigo, and with almost all the colonial produce except the dye-woods. This led him to conclude that if the invention of the compass had produced a revolution in commerce, the progress of chemistry bade fair to produce a counter-revolution.

      The conversation then turned on the present numerous emigrations of the artisans of France and England to America. The Emperor observed that this favoured country grew rich by our follies. The Governor smiled, and replied, that those of England would occupy the first place in the list, from the numerous errors of administration, which had led to the revolt and subsequent emancipation of the Colonies. The Emperor said that their emancipation was inevitable; that when children had attained the size of their fathers, it was difficult to retain them long in a state of obedience.

      They then spoke of India; the Governor had resided there many

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