218 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



It is to the credit of Napoleon, that, in spite of this rebuff, he 

 treasured no rancour against Pons. They became fast friends. At 

 times, Pons acted as Napoleon's secretary. The Emperor had practi- 

 cally forgotten how to write and called upon any one at hand to take 

 down his words. Pons was distressed that he could not write fast 

 enough but Bertrand told him that his own practice was to catch the 

 sense of what the Emperor said and to put it in his own words, a lib- 

 erty that shocked Pons. Yet he rather delighted in exhibiting to the 

 Emperor his stiff republicanism. But Pons, like so many others, was 

 conquered by the fascination of the master -will and he followed Napo- 

 leon back to France. 



It is Pons who has recorded the most elaborate notes of Napo- 

 leon's life in Elba. He declares that only in this narrower scene could 

 the Emperor be really studied. The result of this study is certainly 

 the drawing of a complex character. Taine said that Napoleon had 

 the moral outlook of an Italian of the fifteenth century, that is of a 

 Borgia or of a Lorenzo de Medici. Side by side with this we should 

 remember that the early Napoleon was undoubtedly a young man of 

 austere life, who made great sacrifices in his honourable poverty to 

 help the other members of his family, sacrifices which received from 

 them but scant recognition. It is, of course, prosperity and not ad- 

 versity which chiefly tries character and the prosperous Napoleon 

 suffered a moral decline. Pons, a man of rigorous virtue, finds some- 

 thing, but not much, to blame in Napoleon. He only hints at sexual 

 vices. Oddly enough Pons is most emphatic in blaming Napoleon's 

 love of petty gossip, his eagerness to know what people are saying and 

 his weakness in being influenced by it. He had, too, no mastery over 

 his temper. There is a story that when he was annoyed in Elba at 

 the binding of some books which had not been properly decorated with 

 the imperial "N", he flew into a furious passion and even called in 

 soldiers to tear the books in pieces with their bayonets. Both Pons 

 and Campbell agree in saying that Napoleon had no control of his 

 tongue. Often he spoke such biting words that some of his victims 

 could never forgive him; on the other hand, he showed contrition 

 after such outbursts and seemed anxious to make amends. He could 

 not bear to be beaten at anything, even at cards; that would be, to 

 his singular superstition, an omen of disaster; accordingly he cheated 

 in order to win. He showed a truly Corsican parsimony in money 

 matters; spoiled flour which his soldiers would not eat he forced, in 

 spite of the protests of Pons, on the miners at Rio ; one hundred of them 

 fell ill, and all were bitterly indignant. For the rights of property he 

 cared nothing. A sister had a furnished palace at Piombino. He sent 

 over a vessel and stripped the house for his own use in Elba. His 



