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Updated: May 6, 2025
His displeasure, however, was much more seriously excited by the appearance of Count Montholon with the information that all was ready at Longwood within a few minutes after receiving the contrary accounts from Bertrand and Gourgaud. He probably perceived that he was trifled with by his attendants, who endeavoured to make him believe that which suited their own convenience.
His ashes were not to remain in that desolate nook: in a clause of his will he expressed the desire that they should rest by the banks of the Seine among the people he had loved so well. In 1840 they were disinterred in presence of Bertrand, Gourgaud, and Marchand, and borne to France.
They had their differences, their petty jealousies, and at times bemoaned their hard fate, and this oft-times caused the Emperor to quickly rebuke them. Gourgaud was the Peter of the family, and a great source of trouble. He may justly be accused at times of lapsing into disloyalty.
A third time, in the Rue Rohan, General Gourgaud, who even promised the abdication of the King, met with the same utter defeat, and hastily fled from the fury of the monster now thoroughly roused. At twelve o'clock the rumor sped with lightning rapidity through the streets of Paris that the troops, who had ostensibly been ordered to their quarters, were, in fact, concentrated around the palace.
Gourgaud was loyal and devoted on a sort of sliding scale, which led him to do great injustice to the stricken hero. Montholon's devotion was consistent and abiding under all circumstances, while Gourgaud's fluctuated with his moods.
They dined between eight and nine, Madame Montholon being seated on Napoleon's right; Las Cases on his left, and Gourgaud, Montholon, and Las Cases' son sitting opposite. The smell of the paint not being yet gone off, they remained not more than ten minutes at table, and the dessert was prepared in the adjoining apartment, where coffee was served up and conversation commenced.
Needless to say, these communications relieved the dull monotony of the exiles, and even Gourgaud was driven to cynical mockery by the ridiculous character of some of the piteous stories that filtered through. There never was any difficulty in verifying the truth of them when it was thought necessary or useful to do so.
It would be absurd to affirm that Napoleon said these things without sound foundation, and although, when his personal vanity and abnormal jealousy was aroused by some fancied injury to himself, Gourgaud would resort to the most remarkable fibbing, what he relates as to his master's opinion of the Governor may be relied on, being, as it is, confirmed in a more complete form by O'Meara, Las Cases, Montholon, Bertrand, Antommarchi, and each of the Commissioners.
General Gourgaud attracted our attention by the trembling care with which he re-read a perfect mountain of notes in a feminine hand, which he burnt one by one in a basin, gathering up the ashes and preserving them in a bottle not a bad way of keeping tender memories quite safe from any inquisitiveness But all these warlike preparations were thrown away.
His displeasure, however, was much more seriously excited by the appearance of Count Montholon with the information that all was ready at Longwood within a few minutes after receiving the contrary accounts from Bertrand and Gourgaud. He probably perceived that he was trifled with by his attendants, who endeavoured to make him believe that which suited their own convenience.
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