Napoleon on Napoleon [antikvár]

dn foreword H, -ISTORY and literature alike are indebted to Napoleon's exile on St Helena. Without the leisure (if such it may be called) that he enjoyed on the island -which he would never have enjoyed had he remained Emperor of France - he would have had neither the opportunity nor the desire to give us his own account of his own era. I'hus the British, by tying him, like Prometheus, to his rock in the South Atlantic, gave a powerful impetus to the Napoleonic legend that inspired the Second Empire of his nephew Napoleon III. The entourage that accompanied Napoleon to St Helena consisted of General Henri-Gratien Bertrand and his wife (who, according to Napoleon, provided him with small favours); General Charles-Tristan de Montholon and his wife; the former naval captain Emmanuel de Las Cases and his twelve-year-old son Emmanuel; and General Gaspard Gourgaud. Madame Bertrand, who was half-English, half creóle (and related on the creóle side to the Empress Josephine), was described by an English lady on the island as 'a most engaging, fascinating woman' of'interesting appearance; her eyes black, sparkling, soft, and animated'. When she had heard that Napoleon was to be exiled to St Helena, Madame Bertrand had flung herself into his cabin on the Northinnherland -í^ná tried to drown herself by throwing herself through the cabin window. She was restrained by her husband, who grabbed her by the ankles, while C}eneral Savary (who wanted to accompany Napoleon but was forbidden to go), between fits of laughter, shouted unsympathetically, 'Let her go!'. While on St I lelena Madame Bertrand presented her husband with a baby, whom she introduced to Napoleon as the first visitor to arrive on the island without the permission of i.ord Bathurst, the British secretary of state for war! The quiet.