Ettore Paratore selected episodes from Virgil'sAeneid for this striking contemporary editionwhich was specially commissioned to com-memorate the bimillennium of Virgil's death.The episodes which contain the original Latintext facing the Italian translation by FrancescoVivona, are illustrated by 13 high-quality silk-screen prints by the contemporary Italianartist, Pericle Fazzini. This book, printed in alimited edition of 350 copies intended forexport (of which this is copy no. 341), is housed

in a striking holder formed by two cast bronzepanels which were also designed and cast byPericle Fazzini. The two bronze panels, whichare in bas relief, depict Aeneas's flight fromTroy and Dido and Aeneas. The spine of theholder contains an attractive dolphin to il-lustrate the device of the printers, EdizioniDelfino. The cast bronze holder is embeddedin a heavy base of Roman Travertine.

C. i8o.k. 12.

A MEMENTO OF NAPOLEON

Morna Daniels

O N 5 May 1821 Napoleon died in exile on hisisland prison of St Helena. Amongst thoseEnglishmen particularly affected by the newswas John Cam Hobhouse, the eldest son of SirBenjamin Hobhouse. His mother was a dis-senter, and Hobhouse himself had attended aschool run by a Unitarian before going on toWestminster. It was not surprising, therefore,that his anti-Establishment sympathies inclinedhim to radicalism. While an undergraduate atCambridge he became a close friend of Byron,with whom he travelled to Spain, Albania,Greece and Constantinople. In 1819, supportedby Sir Francis Burdett and the radical tailorFrancis Place, he unsuccessfully contestedWestminster as a radical against George Lamb,the official Whig candidate. In December thatyear the House of Commons committed him toprison until the end of the session for breach ofprivilege by his assertion in a pamphlet thatonly troops prevented Parliament being dis-solved by popular protest. Despite this, in theGeneral Election of 1820 he defeated Lamband was returned for Westminster.

Hobhouse had first-hand experience of theconsequences of the Napoleonic Wars. In 1813he toured Germany and saw the terribledevastation wrought by the campaign which

had culminated in the 'Battle of the Nations'near Leipzig. However, when in 1814 thevictorious allies entered Paris, Hobhouse'spatriotism - his brother was in the triumphantBritish army - warred with his sorrow at thefall of a great man and sympathy for Napoleon'srevolutionary ideals. Lord Sidmouth, theHome Secretary, and a friend of Hobhouse'sfather, had provided Hobhouse with a pass tovisit Paris and see the entry of the Bourbons.On the news of Napoleon's escape from Elba in1815, Hobhouse hurried back to the Continent.On 16 April he saw the Emperor review hisarmy and admired his rapport with the troops,and the way he left the saluting base to marchfor a while beside each column. 'I cannot helpwishing that the French may meet with asmuch success as will not compromise themilitary character of my own countrymen,' hewrote. 'As an Englishman, I will not be witnessto their triumphs; as a lover of liberty, I wouldnot be spectator of their reverses.'^ In thesubsequent fighting which led to Waterloo,Hobhouse's brother was killed, shot in the neckat Quatre Bras.

In 1816 Hobhouse published his ownaccount of'The Hundred Days', The Substanceof some letters written by an Englishman resident

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at Paris., during the last reign of the emperorNapoleon. Checked in proof by BenjaminConstant and Charles de Flahaut, who hadbeen the lover of Josephine's daughter,Hortense de Beauharnais, it showed Hob-house's dislike of the Bourbons and passionatehatred of the British Foreign Secretary,Castlereagh. It was translated into French andpublished in Paris, where both its translatorand publisher were imprisoned. Hobhouse senta copy to St Helena inscribed 'ImperatoriNapoleon'. Sir Hudson Lowe, the Governor,refused to pass it on to his prisoner because ofits sentiments and because Hobhouse had usedthe forbidden title of'Emperor'. However, oneof Napoleon's staff saw the book while visitingLowe and, after a protest, it was delivered.Napoleon was delighted and dictated notes onit, though these were never forwarded toHobhouse. Las Cases, Napoleon's secretary onSt Helena, later congratulated him on writing'the first good book' on Napoleon.^

After Napoleon's death, Henri-Gratien deBertrand and Charles de Montholon, theEmperor's companions in exile, visited Lon-don, where Hobhouse was introduced to themon 15 September 1821. He described Bertrandas 'a small, plain-looking man, with lively eyesbut a mild expression and mild manner, not soFrench as most Frenchmen'.^ Hobhouse ob-viously envied Lady Holland her bequest of asnuffbox by the late Emperor, which they haddelivered, and was anxious to acquire somememento for himself. In 1822 he was to note inhis Diary, 'this afternoon heard . . . thatMontholon was making a book of his Emperor. . . so that I have little chance of getting anynotes or any letters from Paris'.^ On 8 March1823 David Baillie wrote to him from Paris, ' Ihad an interview with M. de Montholon theday before yesterday & as you predicted itwas an unsuccessful one.''' The mass ofNapoleon's papers had not yet been dividedbetween Bertrand and Montholon, and al-though Montholon promised that 'if they fell

to his lot they should be transmitted to you',this promise was never fulfilled.

In July 1823 Hobhouse visited the field ofWaterloo, nearly missing the chance to acquirea souvenir of Napoleon. On 22 July Sotheby'sauctioned the remaining part of the Emperor'slibrary, which had been brought from StHelena in an attempt by the government torecoup some of the cost of Napoleon's im-prisonment. Lot 18 was the Emperor's owncopy of Correspondance ine'dite officielle etconfidentielle de Napole'on Buonaparte . . .(Paris, i8o9[i8i9]-2o). A footnote in thecatalogue states: 'the volume containing theItahan campaign has corrections and referencesto the mss of his memoirs. Some of the latterhave been marked out by Napoleon as notauthentic - at p. 141 are three lines written byhim.' On hearing this, Hobhouse at once wroteto the younger Francis Place, the eldest son otthe radical tailor who had taken over hisfather's shop. Place's reply is among Hob-house's Papers.**

16 Charing Cross LondonSir,

Your letter of yesterday came to hand only at 12to day owing to my absence in the city - I wentimmediately to Sothebys and got there just in timeto bid for lot 18. the books you mentioned entitled- Correspondence inedite &&. de Nap" Bonaparteand for which I gave £c) - I know not whether youare quite aware of the state and quality of the books,being unbound and four of them duplicates, in facthad 1 had the time to review them before bidding Ishould have felt some doubt about the propriety ofmy giving so much - will you say where I shall sendthem to you.

The annotated second volume on the Italiancampaign from this imperfect set of theCorrespondance ine'dite which Place bought forHobhouse at the Sotheby's sale has recentlybeen incorporated into the British Library'scollections with the pressmark C. i9o .e . io .The description in the 1823 Sale Catalogueshows that Sotheby probably thought that thewriting in ink in the Italian volume was by

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Napoleon. In fact, it is Montholon's handcopying out Napoleon's faint pencil markings.Hobhouse has noted in the front of the bookthat the annotations are by Napoleon, so it maywell be that he admired Montholon's hand-writing as that of his hero and ignored thepencil markings altogether. However, Napo-leon's annotations in this volume of theCorrespondance ine'dite help date the writing ofhis memoirs of his first Italian campaign andshed light on his working methods.

In 1815 Napoleon had dictated an account ofthis Italian campaign to Las Cases, revising itthe following year. Parts were published inNapoleon's dictated memoirs, the Recueil depieces autheniiijues sur le captifde Sainte-He'lene(Paris, 1821-5) and in Las Cases's Memorial deSainte-He'lene (London, 1823). Napoleon dic-tated a second and fuller account of thecampaign to Montholon. Montholon's Re'cits dela captivite' de PEmpereur Napole'on a Sainte-He'lene were not published until 1847 and arenot reliable. Philippe Gonnard hazards thatthis second, more formal version was writtenbetween 1818 and 1819,' but the evidence ofHobhouse's book suggests a later date.Napoleon only received the first five volumes ofthe Correspondance ine'dite in January 1820, sohe must have worked on his second accountbetween January and the autumn of that year,when he became too ill to continue.

His usual method when dictating memoirswas to give numbers to particular events anduse these numbers to identify relevant passagesin the books and periodicals he was using torefresh his memory. In volume iii of Napo-leon's Me'moires pour servir a Phtstotre de Francesous Napole'on, e'crites a Sainte-Helene par lesgeneraux qui ont partage' sa captivite' (Paris,1822-5), Montholon transcribes Napoleon'sinstructions. ' I ask you to ink in everythingI've pencilled in; either notes or the number ofthe chapter into which each letter should go.Make a booklet of 18 pages in which to note thepage numbers in the correspondence to be used

for each chapter.'^ He also says he has crossedout the letters not used (not, as surmised bySotheby, letters which were not authentic).Napoleon, who was never entirely well, mayhave used pencil for convenience when in bedor resting on a couch. On the eighth pageMontholon was to note the page numbersrelating to the twelfth chapter of volume ill ofthe Me'moires, which describes the Battle ofArcola, and against the relevant letters involume II of the Correspondance inedite we seethe inscription 'ch. 12'. In his final versionMontholon divided up his material on Arcola,chapter 12 dealing with military affairs andchapter 13 with diplomacy.

On p. 246 of the Correspondance the note'ch. 12' marks a letter from Napoleon to theDirectory dated 14 November 1795, reportingthat the French were on the point of losingItaly. His men are retreating exhausted andpanic-stricken and he has no reinforcements.At this stage of the war, French forces werebesieging Mantua and Napoleon was trying toprevent Austrian armies from raising the siege.Montholon, in retelling the story to tnaximizeNapoleon's glory, emphasizes the bad weatherand minimizes the failures of the French army.He reports the large number of wounded andNapoleon's rousing speech to his men. This'darkness before dawn' serves to highlightNapoleon's victory at Arcola on 15—17November 1795, which was eventually to leadto the surrender of Mantua on 2 February1796.

A diplomatic letter marked 'ch. 12' byNapoleon is that of 21 October 1796 to CardinalMattei, the Pope's representative. Napoleonwrote that if the Pope wanted war, he shouldhave it: ' Vous connaissez les forces et lapuissance de l'armee que je commande. Pourdetruire la puissance temporelle du Pape, il neme faudrait que le vouloir.' ('You know thestrength of my army. If I wish it I can destroythe temporal power of the Pope.') SinceNapoleon later obtained a reconciliation with

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Home et toutes ses provinces , Trieste et le Frioulmeme line panic du royaume de Naples deviendroiit notre proiej mais, pour se souteuir, il faut des

C.i9o.e.io, p. 141 (detail)

the Papacy, Montholon rendered this in chap-ter 13 as 'il le fit partir pour Rome, porterdirectement au pape des paroles de paix'. ('Hesent him [Cardinal Mattei] to Rome to take amessage of peace to the Pope.') The Pope wassufficiently intimidated to send Napoleonchests of money, sculptures and pictures, andto cede Bologna, Ferrara and Ancona to theCisalpine Republic. Napoleon in his letters tothe Directory constantly boasts of the loot he issending back to France. The Directors, in turn,ask him to send an Italian art expert to evaluatethe treasures.

The only extensive manuscript note byNapoleon in the volume of Correspondance isunder a letter of 17 October 1796 in whichNapoleon asks the Directory for reinforce-ments. He comments that neither the 57th(formerly 83rd) brigade nor the 40th arrived intime for the Battle of Arcola. This contradictsa published letter from VignoUes confirmingthat a battalion of the 40th arrived on 6

November from the Vendee, where it had beenfighting a royalist revolt. Montholon in theMe'moires repeats this information in spite ofNapoleon's note. Possibly the brigade wassplit, part arriving before and part after thebattle. Or perhaps Montholon's revision wascut short by Napoleon's final illness.

Montholon had obtained a post during thefirst restoration of Louis XVIII before Water-loo, and his contemporaries suspected that hisreal reason for going to St Helena was to act asa royalist spy. Some historians have evenaccused him of poisoning Napoleon." Never-theless, Montholon received a considerablebequest from Napoleon and helped his nephew,Louis Napoleon, seize power as President andlater Emperor of France. Perhaps his motivewas Napoleon Ill 's promise to pay in full hisuncle's bequest, of which Monthoion had onlyreceived a part, since Napoleon had over-estimated his remaining assets.

The annotated volume of the Correspondance

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ine'dite reached the British Library by anindirect route. Hobhouse led a successfulpolitical career and was twice appointed Presi-dent of the Board of Control for India. He wascreated Baron Broughton de Gyfford in 1851,and died at his house in Berkeley Square on 3June 1869 aged eighty-three. Two daughterssurvived him. He bequeathed his correspon-dence and memoranda to the British Museum,with instructions that they were not to beopened till 1900. (The major part of his Diaryhas been acquired subsequently.) The an-notated second volume of Napoleon's Cor-respondance ine'dite, however, passed to theBoard of Trade Library. The Board wasinterested in the economic life of the coloniesand it seems likely that Hobhouse's daughterspresented a large number of his books on thetrade of India to it. The Napoleonic volumewas probably overlooked, sandwiched perhapsbetween these books on India. In 1873 the postof Librarian to the Board of Trade wasabolished and it was planned to discard much

of the stock. Fortunately, the Foreign OfficeLibrarian retained the 10,000 surplus volumesuntil they were returned to the Board of TradeLibrary in 1908. When this moved to smallerpremises in 1938-9, it disposed of much of theantiquarian material to the British Museum,which consigned it to outhousing. It is amongthis deposit that the present volume has nowcome to light.

1 Michael Joyce, My Friend H.John Cam Hob-house (London, 1948), p. 86.

2 In a letter fron:i Liege, 20 Apr. 1820; Add. MS.36458, f 254.

3 John Cam Hobhouse, Recollections of a Long Life(London, 1909-11), vol. ii, p. 159.

4 28 Dec. 1822; Add. MS. 56547, f 18.5 Add. MS. 36460, f. 15.6 Ibid., f 67; letter of 23 July 1823.7 Les Origines de la le'gende napole'onienne (Paris,

[I9O71X P- 55-8 Pp. 391-3; author's translation.9 For example, Ben Weider and David Hapgood,

The Murder of Napoleon (London, 1982).

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