A few days later, Bonaparte, having nothing else to do, once more
abdicated, and threw himself upon the generosity of the English
people.
"I was only fooling, anyhow," he said, with a sad smile. "If you
hadn't sent me to Elba I wouldn't have come back. As for the
fighting, you all said I was outside of the pale of civilization, and
I had to fight. I didn't care much about getting back into the pail,
but I really objected to having it said that I was in the tureen."
This jest completely won the hearts of the English who were used to
just such humor, who loved it, and who, many years later, showed that
love by the establishment of a comic journal as an asylum for bon-
mots similarly afflicted. The result was, not death, but a new
Empire, the Island of St. Helena.
"This," said Wellington, "will serve to make his jokes more far-
fetched than ever; so that by sending him there we shall not only be
gracious to a fallen foe, but add to the gayety of our nation."
CHAPTER XII: 1815-1821-1895
It is with St. Helena that all biographies of Napoleon Bonaparte
hitherto published have ended, and perhaps it is just as well that
these entertaining works, prepared by purely finite minds, should end
there.
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