[wrong] ELBA, A HUNDRED YEARS AFTER 219 



brother-in-law, Prince Borghese, sent south by ship the furniture of 

 a palace at Turin. When the ship was driven into Porto Longone by 

 a storm Napoleon took all the furniture. "It does not go out of the 

 family," he said. But even when he was a robber his love of order 

 appeared; he caused accurate inventories of his stealings to be made. 

 For the rest, here, according to Pons, is a truly admirable man. 

 He has a devouring mental curiosity. When he sees a ship drawn up 

 on the shore, he wants to know how it has been brought there, how it is 

 put in the water, how it is handled in a storm. He has the will to 

 create; "We shall see," he says, when Pons speaks doubtfully about 

 doing anything considerable for fisheries, commerce, agriculture and 

 forestry in the island. He is magnanimous; he treasures no rancour 

 against those who oppose him honestly. For England, his great foe, 

 he has, in Elba, words of generous praise, and he likes Englishmen; it 

 was St. Helena which embittered him against the island state. At 

 Elba Napoleon believed that he had many supporters in England : 

 "Upright Englishmen honour me. If I went to England the Govern- 

 ment would fear my influence and would force me to leave." In this 

 saying Napoleon showed the lack of imagination which was, perhaps, 

 the chief cause of his ruin, for, owing to this defect, he could never 

 realize the vigour of national feeling. He took too seriously the 

 party cries of the Morning Chronicle and other Whig utterances 

 in which he was only a weapon to smite the Tories. Himself a man 

 almost ^thout a country, he could not understand that, against the 

 foreigner, all Englishmen would unite. To our surprise we find 

 Napoleon emotional. When his mother and his sister Pauline arrive 

 in Elba he sheds tears of joy; Pons adds admiringly that he had shed 

 no tear of grief when he lost an empire. One day, in turning over a 

 bundle of newly-arrived prints, he comes upon portraits of Marie 

 Louise and their son, and is moved so deeply as to startle every one 

 in the room. Perplexing or bad news makes him morose and silent; 

 when, on the other hand, he is merry or interested, he has the con- 

 tagious enthusiasm of an eager boy; on one day he sits through dinner 

 without a word ; on the next he talks volubly of his campaigns. When 

 work is being done in his house, he is among the workmen from 

 morning to night. He cannot wait for the plaster to dry at the 

 Mulini but moves in despite the protests of his physician. It is the 

 sign of a fine spirit that he takes delight in the beauties of nature. He 

 has singular dislikes. Black he cannot endure; it is the colour of 

 death; white too he detests; it is in white that the victim for the 

 sacrifice is arrayed. Though without religious emotion he still thinks 

 the attending of mass has somehow a bearing on his own well-being. 



