last interview with Stuermer, the Austrian Commissioner at St.
Helena, Gourgaud said, in reference to this topic: "However unhappy he
[Napoleon] is here, he secretly enjoys the importance attached to his
custody, the interest that the Powers take in it, and the care taken
to collect his least words." Napoleon also once remarked to Gourgaud
that it was better to be at St. Helena than as he was at Elba.[585] Of
the same general tenour are his striking remarks, reported by Las
Cases at the close of his first volume:

"Our situation here may even have its attractions. The universe is
looking at us. We remain the martyrs of an immortal cause:
millions of men weep for us, the fatherland sighs, and Glory is in
mourning. We struggle here against the oppression of the gods, and
the longings of the nations are for us.... Adversity was wanting
to my career. If I had died on the throne amidst the clouds of my
omnipotence, I should have remained a problem for many men:
to-day, thanks to misfortune, they can judge of me naked as I am."

In terseness of phrase, vividness of fancy, and keenness of insight
into the motives that sway mankind, this passage is worthy of
Napoleon. He knew that his exile at St. Helena would dull the memory
of the wrongs which he had done to the cause of liberty, and that from
that lonely peak would go forth the legend of the new Prometheus
chained to the rock by the kings and torn every day by the ravening
vulture. The world had rejected his gospel of force; but would it not
thrill responsive to the gospel of pity now to be enlisted in his
behalf? His surmise was amazingly true. The world was thrilled. The
story worked wonders, not directly for him, but for his fame and his
dynasty. The fortunes of his race began to revive from the time when
the popular imagination transfigured Napoleon the Conqueror into
Napoleon the Martyr. Viewed in this light, and thrown up into telling
relief against the sinister policy of the Holy Alliance of the
monarchs, the dreary years spent at St. Helena were not the least
successful of his career. Without them there could have been no second
Napoleonic Empire.

Not that his life there was a "long-drawn agony." His health was
fairly good. There were seasons of something like enjoyment, when he
gave himself up to outdoor recreations. Such a time was the latter
part of 1819 and the first half of 1820: we may call it the Indian
summer of his life,