Preparations for departure for Corsica.

expectation and neutrality between events, and where the numerous creeks, the impracticable roads, the forests, the mountains, the sacred hospitality of the inhabitants presented a thousand means of flight, of inaccessible retreats, or of temporary security for an outlaw. By the care of the Marquis Giuliano, of Macirone, of the Count of Mosbourg, and of a lady in Paris, whom he had loved before he was a King, and who preserved for him that remembrance of love which is the tenderest and most courageous of friendships, he had received from Paris, clothes, linen, jewels, arms, and a sum of 200,000 francs, to assist him in his plans of flight. He commissioned the Duke of Rocca-Romana, Colonel Bonafoux, and the Marquis Guiliano, his aides-de-camp, less disturbed and less suspected at Toulon from being strangers to the civil discords of the country, to freight a light vessel for him, to make the passage from the French coast to the island of Corsica. These faithful friends, assisted by the officers of the French navy of whom we have already spoken, succeeded without much difficulty, in a few days, to arrange their preparations with the greatest secrecy. The treasure, the equipments, the arms, the servants, and even the clothing of the King were embarked on board the hired vessel, which now only awaited Murat himself.

VI.

The vigilance of the police at the gates of Toulon, or in the port of the city, and the sanguinary menaces of which he was the object as a presumed accomplice of the 20th March, did not permit him to embark in the harbour at the same time as his officers and his servants, for the hand of a hired assassin or a commotion of the people might seize and strike him at his last step on the shore of his country. It was therefore agreed that the vessel should put to sea without him, that it should stand off and on in the roads, at a certain distance from Toulon. and that, approaching the land towards a point agreed on where the King would be during the night, the captain should send a boat ashore, and embark the fugitive monarch under cover of the darkness and the solitude.

Murat misses the vessel.

On the day fixed for their departure, the 2nd of August, all was accomplished which concerned the vessel that had been engaged The Duke of Rocca-Romana, Colonel Bonafoux, two domestics, and the King's equipage, sailed out of the harbour without exciting suspicion, and the vessel which bore them, cruised slowly till the close of day in the roads. The boat was then lowered, approached the shore towards the point agreed on, and the sailors who rowed it searched a long time for Murat and the Marquis Guiliano, amongst the rocks and olive trees that skirted the shore.

But they sought for and awaited him in vain. A body of soldiers and police agents prowling through the country around the King's retreat, had prevented him from leaving it at the hour of rendezvous which he had assigned to his friends The boat therefore returned to the vessel. The friends and servants of Murat, in a state of consternation, deliberated amongst themselves in a mortal fright, what was best to be done to parry this fatal mischance; some thinking that their unfortunate master had mistaken the place of rendezvous, and was waiting for them in some creek nearer to, or farther from Toulon; others that he had mistaken the hour of the day, and that he would make his appearance on the shore after the departure of the vessel.

The latter proposed landing and passing the night in attempting to discover him, calling upon him from rock to rock; the former proposed cruising within reach of the shore, and at the risk of being seized by the coast-guard, until the King should make his appearance, and the boat might be sent again for him to the shore. They decided on this last measure, the most prudent of all, and tacked about opposite the coast. But these suspicious manoeuvres having attracted the attention of the same royalist patrol which had scoured the country around the King's retreat, these men hailed the vessel, went on board sword in hand, uttering sanguinary imprecations against the Bonapartists and against the King of Naples, declaring that if they had found him on board they would have avenged his crimes without trial, and cast his body into the sea; they ordered the captain, under threat of seizing his vessel,

Suspicions of the royalist patrol.

to quit the coast immediately and proceed to sea, to avoid the suspicion of endeavouring to save some of the outlaws. The Duke of Rocca-Romana, and Colonel Bonafoux, with the servants and equipments of the King, concealed during this visit in the bottom of the hold, behind bales of merchandise destined apparently for Corsica, had fortunately escaped the notice of the assassins.

VII.

The captain of the vessel, compelled to obey under pain of exciting suspicions, and calling out patrols inevitably fatal to the King, pretended to put to sea after their departure, but slackening sail again to give Murat time and opportunity still to rejoin them, he kept on under easy sail within reach of the coast during the night. Rocca-Romana, in despair would have died rather than thus escape alone, instead of the friend, whom he had come to save; but the armed vessels that guarded the coast, and which observed the ship, prevented it from making the shore again, or even from approaching it too near.

During these events at sea, the gangs who were watching the approaches to Murat's retreat having retired, the King came out about midnight, and reached, without being perceived, the point of the coast where the vessel was to have waited and taken him on board. He did not doubt the punctuality of his companions in arms being there, nor their patience in waiting for him. He enjoyed already in imagination, that feeling of anticipated safety which at length he was going to enjoy in Corsica, after the long oppression of sorrow and terror under which he had existed for the last three months.

Vain illusion of the outlaw, by turns the sport of fortune in hopes and fears! The shore was deserted, and the sea vacant. The King thought he had come too late or too early. He still continued to hope that the vessel would appear with every wave that rustled at his feet. More disturbed, however, as the night wore away, and new stars were rising or setting behind the mountains of the coast, he ascended from rock to rock, to obtain, from a greater elevation, a more extended

The vessel puts to sea without Murat.

view of the sea. He thought he saw a sail in the white crest of every wave, and still clung to hope with the obstinacy of a man who must cease to live if deprived of that consolation.

At length the first glimpses of the morning twilight spread a broader gleam than that of the moon upon the waves. He saw and recognised his vessel by the description which had been given to him, and by the signals which had been agreed upon between himself and his friends at Toulon. But he saw her only to feel at the same time the absolute impossibility of reaching her. There was no boat on the shore that he could avail himself of, and the vessel, watched by the coast-guard boats, was under full sail for the open sea.

His last hopes and his last friends were vanishing together with this sail. He fell for a moment thunderstruck upon a rock, calling for death, or for his friends

VIII.

But he was one of those men who do not long bend under the weight of calamities, even the most desperate. Fortified by the perils encountered in his youth, by playing with destiny, and by the dangers, braved or avoided, of the field of battle, against all extremities of fortune, he, like all men of courage, did not submit to them until he had exhausted all the resources of his presence of mind, and all the vigour of his character in endeavours to surmount them. Conquerable only by death, the energy and flexibility of his soul subdued, even in the most sinister assaults of fate, all outward symptoms of weakness, and his countenance still displayed the smile and the serenity of his courage.

He arose after waiting some moments in vain for the return of his vessel, now more and more impossible, which was disappearing under the waves of the horizon, and he plunged amidst the fields and olive groves which line the coast, not knowing whither to direct his steps, but still unable to remain in a state of inaction.

Daylight would now soon discover him to those who had been in search of him during the night The conviction that

Murat wanders about the coast for three days and four nights.

his asylum of the preceding evening was suspected and surrounded, did not permit him to return to it, unless at the risk of falling into the hands of his executioners. Under every roof which he saw in the country he was apprehensive of meeting with an informer or an enemy. He went on as chance directed, avoiding the vicinity of the forts and villages, reced ing from the sea coast, following no other paths than those which his instinct pointed out to him as the most hidden and deserted, frequently tempted to knock at the doors of some isolated houses, but as often withheld by the dread of finding some traitor within.

He wandered thus for three days and four nights, without any other nourishment than some grains of Indian corn which he ground between his teeth to support nature, and having no other covering from the cold night air while he slept, than the leaves of the olive trees. He did not, however, retire too far from the borders of the sea; and approached the shore every evening, in the vague hope that his friends, when once freed from the observation of the vessels of war, would land in the neighbourhood of the spot they had fixed upon, and that they would succeed in discovering him, and take him on board.

IX

But none of these hopes were realised. About noon on the fourth day, compelled by hunger and the weakness of his limbs, he decided on knocking, at all risks, at the door of the first cottage which should present itself, and to seek for hospitality or death from the generosity or treachery of its inhabitants. He flattered himself even that he would not be recognised, and that he might sound the feelings and opinions of his hosts, before he should reveal himself, or steal away again from their threshold.

His fortune conducted him towards a poor and rustic cottage isolated from the other houses scattered about these hills, and belonging to an old military man retired from the service, who cultivated there the little inheritance of his fathers. An aged female servant, who kept house for the owner, was the scle