Prospero | Napoleon and Mr Pickwick

Two great little men

By N.M.

A WEEK after being routed at Waterloo, Napoleon left Paris for the last time. “My political life is over,” he wrote in a terse statement of abdication. The man who had ruled over most of Europe was suddenly homeless. He headed for the Chateau de Malmaison on the outskirts of Paris, the elegant home of his recently dead first wife and great love, Josephine.

His implausible plan was to wait there for a passport and a guarantee of safe-passage, and then sail as an asylum-seeker to the United States. And what will you do in America, asked an aghast general. “I shall live off the products of my fields and flocks,” Napoleon replied.

At Malmaison, his anxious stepdaughter Hortense welcomed him. It was an extremely dangerous time. The Prussians were closing in, determined to shoot the Corsican outlaw; the English too were in hot pursuit. And for their part the French government couldn’t wait to rid itself of its meddlesome ex-Emperor—what if he staged another coup?

But something had happened to Napoleon. He seemed to have switched off, or at least switched in another direction. For four days, he sat in the chateau’s magnificent teak-clad library immersed in Alexander von Humboldt's books, including "Journey to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent". As Apollo and Minerva gazed down from the high ceiling, he escaped into the leather-bound volumes written by the most celebrated explorer-scientist of the age. Humboldt had spent four years in the New World climbing volcanoes, studying the Chyama Indians, catching electric eels, and comparing his collection of mammoths’ teeth with Thomas Jefferson’s. His books were engorged with minutiae on the flora and fauna of Latin America. They had nothing to do with battlefields, and that, it seemed, was just how Napoleon wanted it.

No one could understand what had come over him. But it was quite simple really. He had always loved mathematics and science—even choosing 167 scientists for his Egyptian expedition—and now it had become his place of greater safety. He retreated into its arms, and in doing so, Europe's great military strategist was transformed into Mr Pickwick.

Samuel Pickwick, Esq., that equally immortal, diminutive, and egotistical gentleman—the coat buttons of the members of the Pickwick Club were stamped with their estimable founder’s bust—was still two decades away from being created. (In fact Charles Dickens was only three in 1815, and didn't produce "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club" until 1836.) But just as that plump knight-errant of science would one day quiver with excitement over his "Theory of Tittlebats" and the "Source of the Hampstead Ponds", so too did Napoleon marvel at descriptions of the quinine tree and the way the Alistonia’s dried leaves made a healthful tea. And just as Pickwick and his three boon companions would set off on a stagecoach ramble to gather scientific data for “the advancement of knowledge and diffusion of learning”, Napoleon dreamed that he and a comrade would “survey the new continent from Canada to Cape Horn, and in this immense journey we will study all the great phenomena of the world.”

In his valet, Louis Manchard, he had his own Sam Weller—not as witty perhaps, but just as loyal. He even had a tentative band of volunteers: brothers Lucien, Jerome, and Joseph; and Gaspard Monge, the most Pickwickian of the party. A brilliant mathematician and founder of the École Polytechnique, Monge had accompanied Napoleon to Egypt. Aboard the L’Orient, they had debated the big questions of science. Was there life on other planets, Napoleon asked. How old was the earth? Would it end in flood or fire?

It was to Monge that he wrote: “Now that I am without an army and an Empire, I see science alone capable of imposing itself strongly on my mind. But to learn what others have done is not enough for me. I want to make a new career, to leave works, discoveries worthy of me. I want a companion who can make me rapidly cognizant of the present state of science.” Although 69, Monge, who fancied himself an Argonaut striving to spread the flame of reason—his wife called him an old fool—volunteered to follow his friend into exile. His offer left Napoleon deeply moved.

Hundreds of francs were spent on purchasing the latest scientific instruments. Unlike Mr. Pickwick, Napoleon wasn’t about to potter around with an earthen jar and pocket telescope. Even during his short-lived fantasy, he was driven by the uncontrollable desire to conquer—not a country, but the reputation of the great Humboldt.

Both men had been born in 1769. One grew up to be called the Little Apothecary, the other the Little Corporal. That the latter was now immersed in Humboldt’s discoveries was hugely ironic, for the only time they had met, Napoleon had asked, “So, monsieur, you collect plants?” When Humboldt smiled in assent, Napoleon replied, “So does my wife,” and walked away.

With the Prussians approaching, Napoleon was forced to leave Malmaison. Climbing into his unmarked getaway carriage the 46-year-old fugitive wore a brown frockcoat and round hat, much as Mr Pickwick might have done. Nothing came of his dream of course. Brothers Lucien and Jerome deserted him; Monge was too old; Joseph was the only one to reach America. Napoleon spent his last years not amidst the botanical riches of the New World, but as a prisoner of the English on the “loathsome rock” of St. Helena. There he introduced two specimens from Josephine’s garden, the Sydney Golden Wattle and the Australia Golden Everlasting. Both survive, but his most lasting naturalist legacy is the endemic St. Helena pest unflatteringly named in his honour—the Napoleon Jumping Spider.

Correction: We originally said that both Napoleon and Humboldt were born in 1869, a century too late. This has now been corrected: sorry.

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