The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-10-08
FRENCH EXILES IN ALABAMA,
 THE VINE AND OLIVE COLONY
Story of the Bonapartists and San Domingans Unsuccessful Colony in Marengo County. The Most Picturesque Chapter of
 Alabama History.
BY WILL T. sHEEHAN.
 CHAPTER L

rocky shore of St. Helena find watched
 a red sun go down in sea of gloom,
 It was the old pose, the old attitude, the hands clasped behind him. the feet | apart. the head sunk forward as if | bowed with the weight of the great
 brain housed in that tall and massive brow. How many thousands of the
 flower of French manhoods had seen 1t and stirred by an enthusiastic devotion | had gone to their deaths shouting 'vive le Empreur." It had been the | mightiest figure on score of battle- l fields. In serenity and in confident calm the figure had stood thus and watched the dreadful struggle when armies met in a life and death grapple and men died faster than leaves fall | in an autumn gale. Serene and confi- dent was the motionless figure, while the terrible game was played out as well 1t might. for was it not the figure of the greatest master of that game the world has ever known? Back and forth in retreat and in as- sault the embattled lines might strug- ble over a blood soaked field. but the luminous eyes, dark and large shone out from the overhanging brow and saw beyond the pondemonium of death the map of Europe changing like the figures of a Kaleidoscope. They saw thrones tumble. scepters vanish and  fabric of dream. He had willed it, so, this strange and wonderful genius. His brain had held within it the awful field of battle and all that was in it. He had mapped the plan. he had said that 1t was complete; he had given the word for the start. and calm and in scrutible, he awaited the assured time he was to take the mighty stakes. The Games Mighty Master. The wonderful little sub-lieutenant, dark morose and melancholy contem- plating suicide. did the big dark eyes see that time when he would be the Imperial Napoleon and make beggars of Emperors and Emperors of beggars Did he fancy the time when he would be not only the first captain of his time, but the first captain of all time. | when he should be a leader of leaders | a commander of kings and when at his | nod every throne trembled. The sal low Respondent sub-1ieutenant. as he 1 looked forward might not see these | things. but when the solitary man stood with folded hands, with the monstrous | despairing beat of the waves upon the | rock bound shore of St. Helena looked | backward in memory he saw all tnis | and more the saddest retrospect that man ever looked upon. Broken ana l hopeless he saw the darkness. black and I stifiing, shut in his island prison, while
 
 ment gnawed at his heart.
 H He had touched the height of every II human joy and sounded the depth or every human sorrow. An Emperor. in H purple and power, or prisoner in-sol- H itary grandeur he was grand, gloomy and peculiar" H But what of the band of choice spirits that rode with him in the whirlwind Of glory? Ney, Mtfrat, Bernadotte. Lefavre, | Raoul and a score of others. who had | ridden stirrup to stirrup with death and glory, where were they when the splendor or the empire faded away and dimmed into the gloom of St. Helena? rare band they were, daring and dashing, the spoiled favorites of Fortune. her pet ted favorites on whom she lavished her every caress.
 The foot soldier was the king of to- morrow, for had not the Emperor said
 that every soldier carried marshars | baton in his knapsack? What fantasy of glory. 1t all was. Empires were crumbling established orders. centuries old, fell apart like a house of cards. What a world of booty there was. In no time, in no age were such prizes. for the good sword. for the brave sword in the joust with danger in the
 tilt with death. Splendid spur and beau sabreur each had felt the accalade of Fortunes knightship, to what fate | did they ride when Waterloo ended the wild dash they took side by side with death and glory?
 The Fallen Fortunes.
 In lesser degree Alabama, pioneer
 Alabama. has the interest of pathetic
 figure, like that which stood on St.
 Helena and watched the sun go down
 into the ocean, and saw no star of hope
 rise. The Prisoner of St. Helena was
 but little more pathetic and but little
 more sorrowful than the Ferryman of
 Big Creek in the Alabama woods. St.
 Helena held Napoleon. and the proud
 spirit weakened and grew sick Nicholas
 Raoul, friend and ally, confidant and
 fellow soldier of fortune sharer of the
 Emperors glories and sharer of his
 misfortunes transformed into an hum-
 ble ferryman lived the arduous lonely
 life of an Alabama pioneer. The sol
 dier of fortune who had ridden with
 Napoleon and charged with Ney lived
 to see the day when a log cabin was
 his home. and to obey the shrill whistle
 of a pioneer or half breed to pole the
 ferry boat across the creek. The man
 who had felt the thrill of the gripped
 saber with the battle cry of the Grand
 Army ringing his ears came to know
 the feel of the ferry boat pole in his
 hand. in the lonely hard days on Big
 Creek. He who had sat with Napoleon
 
 pires. haggled with wayfarers over
 few cents ferriage.
 Raul, 1t was, who led the French sol
 diers with Napoleon on that famous
 return from Elba. On Elba, the Bour-
 bons believed that they had caged the
 fierce lion. The announcement that
 he had escaped and had set foot on
 French soil occasioned no general or
 widespread alarm, for he was without
 an army and without resources.
 The French army under the flag Of
 the Borubons was sent to stop and ar
 rest the insolent Napoleon, but no Bour- bon that ever lived or died so appealed
 to the French soldier as Napoleon and
 he had but to show himself to his old
 soldiers, for them to rush to him with
 d shout of joyous welcome, struggling
 for the privilege of touching his gar
 ments. What was the entire Bour-
 bon dynasty to man who was an
 Emperor in everything but birth
 Raoul was in that pandemonium or
 joy and devotion which followed the
 appearance of Napoleon. He led the
 Grenadiers. 200 of them, who made UP
 the advance guard of the Emperor
 triumphal march to Paris. Ana yet ne
 came to be a ferryman in country
 that was a solitude and a wilderness.
 He dreamed dreams, though. In the
 winter nights as he sat before the hre
 of his log cabin home. He dreaned'
 perhaps, as he waited the tardy com
 ing of the occasional travellers. LOOK
 ing out in the long summer 9ayS