I have to reproach myself for not having taken an opportunity to relate the adventures of Santini. At the conclusion of every drama, whatever may be its nature, one likes to meet again in the dÉnouement with all those who have figured in the early part of it. Santini’s story involves moreover traits of manners, tints of the times, a reference to public affairs, which induce me to repair my omission, since I have it in my power to do so.

We had long given up Santini for lost, confined, dead, when all at once he again made his appearance among us soon after the death of Napoleon: and the following narrative is from his own lips, and nearly in his own words.

After making his escape from England, he had traversed Belgium and some parts of Germany, with the intelligence and address of a clever Italian. At length, on entering MÜnich, he imagined that he had overcome the grand obstacles, and was safe in port. But precisely in that city he was apprehended, and, in spite of all his applications to the different authorities, and to several ambassadors, in order to obtain permission to pass quietly, he was carried back by gendarmes into Wirtemberg, which he traversed at liberty, but under evident surveillance. On reaching Lombardy, at Como, he went to declare himself to the police: they had been expecting him there; he was arrested and conveyed to Milan, where he was told that he could not remain in the country, at full liberty, without serious inconvenience; and that, in consequence, he should be conducted to Mantua, where he would be under less restraint. Now the less restraint that was promised him proved to be nothing better or worse than a prison, where he was not allowed to hold communication with any person whatsoever. Such was the importance attached to his complete seclusion that, Maria Louisa having passed through that city, and stopped there for twenty-four or thirty-six hours, poor Santini had for an extraordinary companion in his room a police officer who did not suffer him to be for a moment out of his sight, not even during meals or when he slept; which serves to show the extreme care that was taken to prevent all communication between Napoleon and Maria Louisa.

At length, in consequence of the disturbance and complaints which he made in his dungeon, an order arrived to remove him to Vienna; but the captain of the circle was required to travel in the same carriage with him, and to conduct him by forced journeys to his new destination.

Santini, contrary to his expectation, found himself again imprisoned, and again made a great noise; incessantly insisting on being tried, and either shot, as he said, if he deserved it, or set at liberty if he had not done any thing wrong. He was at last told that they had nothing to lay to his charge, but that his entire liberty was attended with great difficulties; that he could not be suffered to go into every country, and he should therefore have his choice between England and Austria. Santini replied that he would never more set foot on land governed by the executioners of his master. He was then carried to BrÜnn, the capital of Moravia, where he was obliged to take an oath to abstain from seeking any foreign correspondence. On his arrival there, he found himself, it is true, under a special surveillance; but there, said Santini, ended his persecutions and his troubles; there began a better condition. His captivity indeed became, he said, a blessing, and his heart was filled with gratitude. He there found himself an object of attention and interest: all, from the highest to the lowest, showed him the greatest kindness. The inhabitants had twice seen Napoleon; as an enemy it is true, and yet they felt profound veneration for him. In this manner Santini spent, what he called, three happy years.

It had been recommended by superior authority that a strict watch should be kept, at BrÜnn in particular, to prevent Santini from sending off any paper for the Emperor Francis. When that monarch was going to the Congress at Troppau, he stopped at BrÜnn, and Santini said that two days before, a police officer had arrived from Vienna to watch lest he should address any thing to the Emperor. Thus the heart of Francis was under as vigilant surveillance as that of Maria Louisa; the emotions of both were suspicious, and of course they were much feared. All precautions, however, were vain. Santini had interested the highest personages, and a petition from him, on the treatment that he had experienced, reached the hands of the Sovereign. He complained in it of his pecuniary situation, and of the privation of liberty, and accompanied it with attestations which he had brought from St. Helena, especially the order for the pension which Napoleon had assigned to him. The Emperor Francis appeared to be much struck with this order, which was signed by the Grand Marshal, and headed “By express order of the Emperor.” It purported that a pension of a certain amount was granted to Santini, and that it should be paid him by the first relatives or the first friends of the Emperor’s to whom he should present it. “Is it not terrible?” said the Emperor Francis, looking at it—“he is prisoner at St. Helena, and yet he continues to give orders as if nothing had happened!” His beneficence, however, got the better of his surprise, and whether he considered himself as a relative, or merely followed the impulse of his kind heart, he ordered a sum of money to be remitted to Santini; and it is a singular circumstance, which I could not observe without a kind of emotion, that the first two sums set down on the order for Santini’s pension, are placed precisely against names not related to the Emperor by blood—the Princess Stephanie of Baden and the Emperor of Austria, the one his adopted daughter, the other his father-in-law.