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57_Masson_SH| identifiant | 57_Masson_SH |
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| fait partie de | Masson |
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| est validé | oui |
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| date | 1819/04/04 00:00 |
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| titre | Lettre d'Hudson Lowe au général Montholon |
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| texte en markdown | <h1><span style="font-family:Chivo;font-size:60%;line-height:1;"><b>57_Masson_SH -</b> HUDSON LOWE AU GÉNÉRAL MONTHOLON</span></h1>
<h2 data-kind="letter-context;" style="text-align: right; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal">St Helena, 4<sup>th</sup> April 1819</h2>
Sir,
I am again under the necessity pursuant to the instructions of my government, of returning you the letter you last addressed to me.
I regret that Napoleon Bonaparte should consider himself as outraged by the form in which I have lately transmitted papers for his information. In using the name of Napoleon Bonaparte, I have strictly followed his own desire, communicated to me by Count Bertrand; whilst in writing papers for his own information and inclosing them to a person of his family for delivery, it has been my real wish and study to adopt that mode of address and communication, which I conceived was least likely to prove displeasing to him.
The instructions of my government before referred to, viz., those of the 27th September 1817, prescribe the mode in which I am to communicate with the persons of Napoleon Bonaparte's family, assigning at the same time the reason for directing an alteration in what had been my former practice. If I have varied sometimes from the rule, it has arisen from particular circumstances which can establish no precedent. It is only with this understanding I now again address you in reply to that part of your letter wherein you suggest my addressing myself to Count Bertrand.
Upon this point I wish to be most distinctly understood.
Regard to peculiar circumstances in the situation of Napoleon Bonaparte mixed with a certain consideration towards the family of Count Bertrand have hitherto alone prevented me from removing Count Bertrand from Longwood. But the forbearance I have on such grounds practised must have its term, nor whilst it continues, can I suffer any undue advantage to be drawn from it. I have no pretention to interfere in any private relation between Napoleon Bonaparte and any of the French officers who have followed him hither, but I am myself resolved not to enter into any communication by writing or otherwise with Count Bertrand, or suffer any person under my authority to enter into such with him, on any affair whatever that regards my duties towards the person upon whom he is in attendance.
In the letter which Count Bertrand addressed to me on the 27th April 1818 (afterwards made public) he himself withdrew from any communication with me respecting the affairs of Napoleon Bonaparte and in a letter I addressed to him on the 21st July I desired he would depart from this rule. The language he has besides, at various times held to affairs of my staff and others whose duties have led them near him, has been in the highest degree disrespectful and insulting.
Various circumstances of Count Bertrand’s conduct have since confirmed me in the resolutions above expressed, and although I have forborne from availing myself of the strong motive recently offered of removing him from this island, by a direct breach of the regulations in force, in the clandestine transmission to Europe and publication of his letter to the Count Las Cases, yet the gross misrepresentation and calumnies throughout this letter, not only as relating to myself but to several other individuals, will never permit me to regard the writer in any other light than as a person who where he has drawn the information from others has suffered himself to be most grossly deceived, without taking the most common pains to discover the truth, or who has in other respects lost the proper regard due to himself by becoming a mere defamer. Under these various circumstances in the situation of Count Bertrand, you will, Sir, see how impossible it is for me to comply with the suggestion presented in your letter of addressing myself to him.
I have the honor to be, Sir, you most obedient humble Serv.ant.
H. Lowe
[^1]: Expédition, Bibliothèque Thiers, fonds Masson, carton 8, fol. 258. |
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