The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-06-01
CRONJE'S KEEPER.
[From the Matin (Paris). ]

I looked at the company At the
table opposite me were the officers, clad
smoking jackets. The menu was passed
around Terrible moment! 1 know
nothing of English dishes
''Win you allow me to help you, sir2
I have lived much in France. and
might be able to tell you to what dishes
Of your country ours correspond
harp playing on stormy night
would not cause me greater joy. 1t is
my neighbor on the left who addresses
me thus, with just that slight nsp.Gg
so becoming to foreigners.
] pour out nv thanks.
'',)hi the least thing we can do IS to
help You, since you are the only French
man here"
do not repent it.
= would wager" says my sfeigs1bor,
that you believe in English pride, in
their contempt Of the French, and in
British sans gene"
try in my turn to find some amiabIe
phrases; then, Are you going to the
Cape, madam"
No. sir; to ST. Helena"
Profound establishment on my part.
'Ah, all England, it seems. is going to
st. Helena I say to myself
"And you, sir?''
Z, too. am going to st. Helena,
madam
"Ah, what surprfse!'
"I am going to see the grave of Ma
poleon.''
you are right to do so; he was
great figure. 1 am going to rejoin my
husband, who has command of the ISL
and
'Oh, the hazard of the voyage! am
sitting s4ext the Countess Bathurst,
| whose husband is in command at St
! Helena, and who is descended from the
very minister that sent Napoleon into
| exile. The father of Lady Bathurst is
/ the proprietor of The Morning Post.
How odd it isl" she says with a
smile; sit was the great-grandfather Of
my husband who eXiled your emperor.
and it is my husband who is charged
with guarding Cronje. But rest assured
that he will be better treated than Ma
poleon.'
you think then, that Napoleon was
| badly treated?"
'Oh, don't speak of it! It is one of
the most deplorable pages of our his
tory. It was the fault of that stupid
| Hudson Lowe, whom they ought never
to have selected, and who was so little
| of a gentleman. He wrote lying letters
| to London. hid the real state of the
emperor. and deceived all the world
/ This unfortunate man has contributed
moro than anything else to give us the
reputation of being cnHel.'
The Countess stopped. Then, excit-
edly: "It was like that idea of calling
| him General Bonaparte.' It was stupid,
| and so mean and uselesSl Just as if
he had not the right, more than any
one, to bf: treated as an emperor to the
end, he who was so nobly vanquished
That Hudson Lowe is a disgrace to US
! Unfortunately, Cronje is not the equal
of the other, and his exile will be less
talked about"
The conversation continues about Ma
poleon. and in the course of it the
Countess reveals to me that the man
uscript of the Memorial of st. Helena
belongs to her husband.
But how said she, are you going
to put up at St. Helena?"
''At the hotel"
''But there isn't one!"
She laughed very gaily. ''Well, yoI
must go and put up at Longwood. Be
sides, there you will be on French soil
''What?'
Didn't you know it? I didn't before
the journey Longwood was given Il
France under Napoleon III wanted
to buy it when my husband was sen
there, and it was thus that 1 learned
the fact
Then I shall still be in France"
ITO be sure you will