straint served but to
tighten the inclosing grasp, and how the attempts of his misguided
friends in America and Europe changed a fairly lax detention into
actual custody. It is a vain thing to toy with the "might-have-beens"
of history; but we can fancy a man less untamable than Napoleon
frankly recognizing that he had done with active life by assuming a
feigned name (_e.g._, that of Colonel Muiron, which he once thought
of) and settling down in that equable retreat to the congenial task of
compiling his personal and military Memoirs. If he ever intended to
live as a country squire in England, there were equal facilities for
such a life in St. Helena, with no temptations to stray back into
politics. The climate was better for him than that of England, and the
possibilities for exercise greater than could there have been allowed.
Books there were in abundance--2,700 of them at last: he had back
files of the "Moniteur" for his writings, and copies of "The Times"
came regularly from Plantation House: a piano had been bought in
England for L120. Finally there were the six courtiers whose jealous
devotion, varying moods, and frequent quarrels furnished a daily
comedietta that still charms posterity.

What then was wanting? Unfortunately everything was wanting. He cared
not for music, or animals, or, in recent years, for the chase. He
himself divulged the secret, in words uttered to Gallois in the days
of his power: "_Je n'aime pas beaucoup les femmes, ni le jeu--enfin
rien: je suis tout a fait un etre politique!_"--He never ceased to
love politics and power. At St. Helena he pictured himself as winning
over the English, had he settled there. Ah! if I were in England, he
said, I should have conquered all hearts.[576] And assuredly he would
have done so. How could men so commonplace as the Prince Regent,
Liverpool, Castlereagh, and Bathurst have made head against the
influence of a truly great and enthralling personality? Or if he had
gone to the United States, who would have competed with him for the
Presidency?

As it was, he chose to remain indoors, in order to figure as the
prisoner of Longwood,[577] and spent his time between intrigues
against Lowe and dictation of Memoirs. On the subject of Napoleon's
writings we cannot here enter, save to say that his critiques of
Caesar, Turenne, and Frederick the Great, are of great interest and
value; that the records of his own campaigns, though highly
suggestive, need to be clos