which he had done to the cause of liberty, and that from that lonely peak would go forth the legend of the new Prometheus chained to the rock by the kings and torn every day by the ravening vulture.  The world had rejected his gospel of force; but would it not thrill responsive to the gospel of pity now to be enlisted in his behalf?  His surmise was amazingly true.  The world was thrilled.  The story worked wonders, not directly for him, but for his fame and his dynasty.  The fortunes of his race began to revive from the time when the popular imagination transfigured Napoleon the Conqueror into Napoleon the Martyr.  Viewed in this light, and thrown up into telling relief against the sinister policy of the Holy Alliance of the monarchs, the dreary years spent at St. Helena were not the least successful of his career.  Without them there could have been no second Napoleonic Empire.

Not that his life there was a “long-drawn agony.”  His health was fairly good.  There were seasons of something like enjoyment, when he gave himself up to outdoor recreations.  Such a time was the latter part of 1819 and the first half of 1820:  we may call it the Indian summer of his life, for he was then possessed with a passion for gardening.  Lightly clad and protected by a broad-brimmed hat, he went about, sometimes spade in hand, superintending various changes in the grounds at Longwood and around the new house which was being erected for him hard by.  Or at other times he used the opportunity afforded by the excavations to show how infantry might be so disposed on a hastily raised slope as to bring a terrific fire to bear on attacking cavalry.  Marshalling his followers at dawn by the sound of a bell, he made them all, counts, valets, and servants, dig trenches as if for the front ranks, and throw up the earth for the rear ranks:  then, taking his stand in front, as the shortest man, and placing the tallest at the rear (his Swiss valet, Noverraz), he triumphantly showed how the horsemen might be laid low by the rolling volleys of ten ranks.[586] In May or June he took once more to horse exercise, and for a time his health benefited from all this activity.  His relations with the Governor were peaceful, if not cordial, and the limits were about this time extended.

Indoors there were recreations other than work at the Memoirs.  He often played chess and billiards, at the latter using his hand instead of the cue!  Dinner was generally at a very late hour, and afterwards he took pleasure in reading aloud.  Voltaire was the favourite author, and Montholon afterwards confessed to Lord Holland that the same plays, especially “Zaire,” were read rather too often.