Napoleon Learning English

THE CONTRIBUTORS’ CLUB.

A RECENT exhibition of Napoleonic relics in Paris comprised, among numerous specimens of handwriting, — one of them the draft abdication of Fontainebleau, another the draft “Themistocles ” letter to the Prince Regent, — a lesson in translating French into English. Pitying Napoleon as we must, though conscious that captivity alone secured France and Europe against another Hundred Days, his attempt to learn English is irresistibly pathetic. We are reminded of Ovid learning to speak, and even to versify, in Dacian, but Napoleon does not seem to have mastered English sufficiently to be able to write in prose without numerous mistakes. He had been acquainted from his youth, by translations, with several English authors. He was fond of Ossian, and a collection of thirty-four books, given him by his sister Pauline to take with him to Egypt, included Bacon’s Essays, in which he marked in pencil two passages : one in the chapter Of Great Place, from the third sentence, “ It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty,” to the sentence preceding the lines from Seneca ; the other in the chapter Of Kingdoms and Estates, from “triumph amongst the Romans ” to the end. Patronized by the younger Robespierre and by Barras, he had already exemplified the saying, “ By indignities men come to dignities ; ” and he was destined, also, like Bacon himself, to find that “ the standing is slipping, and the regression is either a downfall or at least an eclipse.” He never, apparently, saw acted even an adaptation of Shakespeare, yet on the eve of the rupture of the treaty of Amiens he surprised his Council of State by diverging from a coinage question into a tirade against both Shakespeare and Milton. Too busy, even if inclined, to study English, he would, had he invaded England in 1803 and commissioned Sir Francis Burdett to organize a republic, have taken with him one hundred and seventeen interpreter guides, in red coats and white trousers, — a corps which he expected to recruit from Irish and other refugees. One of these refugees, the notorious Lewis Goldsmith, whose daughter, Lady Lyndhurst, is still living, read the London newspapers for him. But Napoleon was not fated to get nearer to English soil than William III.’s landing-place, Torbay.

Captivity afforded him the requisite leisure and also a strong inducement, for he was anxious, not to acquaint himself with English literature, but to see what was said of himself in the English press. Accordingly, on the six weeks’ voyage to St. Helena, he took two lessons from Las Cases, who, when himself an exile, had taught French and learned English in London. It seems likely that he had acquired just a smattering before Waterloo, if not before Elba ; for while waiting at Balcombe House till Longwood was ready for him, he occasionally spoke English (desiring her to correct his mistakes) to the lively Betsy Balcombe, that enfant terrible who coolly questioned him not only as to his supposed atheism, but as to the “ happy dispatch ” of the wounded French at Jaffa and as to the execution of the Duc d’Enghien. He sent, moreover, for some English books, one of them an edition of JEsop, and, pointing to the picture of the ass kicking the sick lion, he remarked in English, “ It is me [sic] and your governor ” (Sir Hudson Lowe). His accent then, and probably to the last, was very peculiar, and he usually talked and joked with Betsy in French, though her French was not of the best. He got her to translate to him Dr. Warden’s account of the voyage of the Northumberland. Though addicted to teasing, he had so won her affection that she shed many tears on quitting the island, where, according to a recent French visitor, the recollections of Napoleon have been effaced by a wild-beast show, a visitor quite as rare as an imperial captive. When settled at Longwood, Napoleon resolved on seriously renewing the study. Las Cases gave him a daily lesson; sometimes finding him a diligent scholar, at other times so inattentive that Napoleon would himself laughingly ask his teacher whether he did not deserve the rod, regarded by him as an essential adjunct to education. He even wrote several letters in English to Las Cases, but the irregular verbs overtaxed his patience. He managed, however, to read after a fashion, and, according to Las Cases, might at a push have made himself understood in writing ; but it does not appear that the lessons went on more than a few weeks. They had probably ceased long before December, 1816, when Las Cases had to quit the island. A scrap of paper, presented by him to a friend, and also included in the exhibition, is the only trace of these lessons. We read on it, in his pupil’s handwriting : “ Gone out, aller dehors, sortir. Opened, ouvert. To see, voire [sic], regarder.”

Napoleon’s next professor, after how long an interval we cannot tell, was Countess Bertrand, daughter of General Arthur Dillon by Anne Laure Girardin, cousin to the Empress Josephine. She had never even visited England, but her father, guillotined when she was eight years of age, had probably taught her his native tongue. Napoleon, disposing of rich heiresses with Oriental despotism, had required her to marry Bertrand, one of his generals ; and though the poor girl was at first in despair and refused to see her suitor, she speedily became attached to him, and they lived happily ever after. One of their children, named Arthur, — not, as one of the St. Helena narratives states, after the Duke of Wellington, but after the grandfather, — was born on the island in January, 1817, and archly introduced by the mother to Napoleon us “ the first Frenchman who had entered Longwood without a pass from Sir Hudson Lowe.” She was extremely fond of society, and though, with her husband, she had accompanied the Emperor to Elba, she was so averse to St. Helena that she stormed at Napoleon for involving Bertrand and his family in his banishment, and even tried to throw herself overboard. This, unlike some of her other antipathies, she never overcame, and at the time of Napoleon’s death she was arranging for a return to France, on the plea of getting her children educated. One of those children, whose ears were bored in Napoleon’s presence that he might present her with earrings, survived, as Madame Thayer, widow of one of Napoleon III.’s senators, till 1890. Madame Bertrand, apparently, gave a specimen of Napoleon’s lessons to Madame Junot, whose granddaughter, Madame de la Ferrière, lent it to the recent exhibition. A sheet of letter paper, yellow with age, contains alternate lines of French and English ; but it will be more convenient to give first the theme, and then the translation, which has never yet been published. The italics in brackets indicate the erasures.

“ Quand serez-vous sage ?

“ Quand je ne serai plus dans cette île. Mais je le deviendrai après avoir passé la ligne.

“ Lorsque je ddbarquerai en frauee, je serai très content. Ma femme viendra près de moi, mon fils sera grand et fort, il pourra boire sa bouteille de vin à dîner, je triuquerai avec lui. Ma mère sera vieill, mes sceurs seront laides, ce qui ne leur sera pas agréable, elles seront toujours coquettes, car les femmes se croient toujours jolies.”

“ When will you be wise ?

“Never [then that] as long as I [should] could be in this isle, but I shall become vise after [have] having passed the line. When I shall [landed] land in france I shall be very content. Mi [wive] wife shall come [after, bef-] near me. Mi son shall be great and [fort] strong. He [shall get] will be able to take his bottle of wine at diner. I shall trink with him. Mi mother shall be olde, mi sisters shall . . . for the women believe they ”...

The pronoun I is uniformly written j. The corrections are mostly inserted above the line, but some are a continuation of the line, showing that the translation was written in Madame Bertrand’s presence. The first sentence, it is evident, had been playfully uttered by her on account of Napoleon’s teasing her for being boisterously gay ; for it is the question addressed to obstreperous or fretful children, and Napoleon himself used to say to Betsy Balcombe, “ Quand seras-tu sage ? ” Sage does not here mean wise, but good or well behaved. Madame Bertrand passed over this and some other obvious blunders, either because her own English was defective, or because she would not discourage her pupil by too many corrections. At one corner of the sheet is a rude drawing of a ship, the imaginary ship in which Napoleon was to return to France, and in another corner is a sketch apparently meant for a line of muskets extended for firing. There are also the words, “ Q.ui vous a apporté cette lettre ? ” (Who has brought you this letter ?) The writing is small and cramped, but fairly legible; much more so than other specimens at the exhibition, such as the audit of Napoleon’s accounts. The allegation that he wrote a scrawl to conceal his bad spelling seems far-fetched. Like many people, he had a hasty scrawl for drafts, which he was sometimes himself unable to decipher, and a plainer hand for his correspondents. Louis XVI.’s very plain, roundhand signature to the admission of “ Napoleon Buonaparté ” (observe the “ and the accented é ) to Brienne college and to his appointment to a lieutenancy shows good penmanship to be no proof of mental vigor.