18 - NAPOLEON (Bonaparte)

NAPOLEON (Bonaparte) [Longwood, Saint Helena], April 3, 1819. Autograph letter in pencil to Governor Hudson Lowe. 1 folio page, in pencil. Napoleon refused to accept any correspondence that was not addressed to him with his title of Emperor. The British government had established strict rules regarding how to address him. Since it had never recognized him as emperor, he was not permitted to receive letters or items that mentioned that title. For his part, Napoleon never wished to relinquish this title, not even when, having fallen ill in early 1819, he received packages from the Governor addressed to “Napoleon Bonaparte”: he refused to open them. For his part, Hudson Lowe neither opened nor replied to letters that referred to the “Emperor.” This unopened correspondence infuriated Napoleon. He asked General Montholon to write to the Governor using the wording of a draft he had composed. It is this document, written hastily and in a fit of anger (as evidenced by numerous cross-outs and barely legible words), that we present here. “April 3 [1819] Sir I have returned to you the letters from Sir Thomas Reade dated the 1st, as well as your other letters, 1) because you returned mine to me, and 2) because the Emperor has never wished—and does not wish—to receive letters that are not signed in your own hand. You have returned them to me again; I have placed them with the two packages you handed over to me on March 21 and 25, which the Emperor refused to review because he felt insulted by the salutation, and since the format contravenes what has been established for the past four years, I have consequently returned them to you and have since set them aside. All such correspondence is therefore null and void. These letters have been set aside and remain at your disposal. Any other packages or letters you send me that do not conform to the established practices of the past four years will meet the same fate. The Emperor will never read them, you will never receive a reply, and they will be deemed null and void. Therefore, please refrain from writing them, for one writes to be read and to receive a reply. As far as he is concerned, these letters that do not follow the proper form might as well be written in Chinese. I have fallen ill again; Dr. [Warling] has ordered me to rest and not to get out of bed; please contact Count Bertr[and]. It is not fair that I alone should bear the burden of this unusual correspondence. Besides, my health does not permit it. Anything addressed to me during my relapse, I will not open. It upsets me, causes me pain, and hinders my recovery.” This letter did not resolve the issue, and on April 4, Hudson Lowe wrote again; Napoleon instructed Montholon to reply on the 8th: “I have received your letter of the 4th, to which my last letter was attached—the one you returned to me; please forgive me for following your example and returning your letter to you. It is impossible to claim to write to someone while at the same time refusing to receive their replies. Since your arrival, Count Bertrand or I have written more than eighty letters; all of them bear the title ‘Emperor Napoleon’; you have replied to all of them, using, it is true, the title ‘Napoleon Bonaparte,’ which I have disguised for him in the translation. This was an arrangement that had become customary, and from which I shall never deviate; I made this clear to you in my letter of last December 17; that while it is easy to kill the Emperor, it is impossible to strip him of the sacred and inalienable character imprinted upon his person; you may believe yourself authorized by your position to insult him, but I will never allow myself such cowardice. […]” The question of whether to grant Napoleon the title of emperor during his captivity was never resolved, not even at the time of his burial on Saint Helena. His entourage could not reach an agreement with the Governor regarding the inscription to be placed on his tombstone: it remained blank. The document was preserved by Montholon, then by his daughter, who donated it to Monsieur Gros de Veaud, as attested by a handwritten note in ink at the bottom of the page. A very beautiful and extremely rare document that sheds light on the tense relations between the Emperor and his English captors. Provenance – Count Charles Tristan de Montholon (1783–1853), a loyal supporter of Napoleon on Saint Helena. – Napoléone Marie Hélène Charlotte, Countess of Lapeyrouse (1816–1907), married to Léonard Léonce de Bonfils de Rochon de Lapeyrouse (1808–1895). – Monsieur Gros de Veaud. – Auction, Sotheby’s, 1985. Bibliography Montholon, Accounts of Emperor Napoleon’s Captivity on Saint Helena