“Napoleon,” wrote Glover, “seemed well satisfied with the situation of Longwood, and expressed a desire to occupy it as soon as possible.”  As he disliked the publicity of the house in Jamestown, Cockburn suggested on their return that he should reside at a pretty little bungalow, not far from the town, named “The Briars.”  He readily assented, and took up his abode there for seven weeks, occupying a small adjoining annexe, while Las Cases and his son established themselves in the two garrets.  A marquee was erected to serve as dining-room.  It was a narrow space for the lord of the Tuileries, but he seems to have been not unhappy.  There he dictated Memoranda to Las Cases or Gourgaud in the mornings, and often joined the neighbouring family of the Balcombes for dinner and the evening.  Mr. Balcombe, an elderly merchant, was appointed purveyor to the party; he and his wife were most hospitable, and their two daughters, of fifteen and fourteen years, frequently beguiled Napoleon’s evening hours with games of whist or naive questions.  On one supreme occasion, in order to please the younger girl, Napoleon played at blindman’s buff; at such times she ventured to call him “Boney”; and, far from taking offence at this liberty, he delighted in her glee.  It is such episodes as these that reveal the softer traits of his character, which the dictates of policy had stunted but not eradicated.[554]

In other respects, the time at “The Briars” was dull and monotonous, and he complained bitterly to Cockburn of the inadequate accommodation.  The most exciting times were on the arrival of newspapers from Europe.  The reports just to hand of riots in England and royalist excesses in France fed his hopes of general disorders or revolutions which might lead to his recall.  He believed the Jacobins would yet lord it over the Continent.  “It is only I who can tame them.”

Equally noteworthy are his comments on the trials of Labedoyere and Ney for their treason to Louis XVIII.  He has little pity for them.  “One ought never to break one’s word,” he remarked to Gourgaud, “and I despise traitors.”  On hearing that Labedoyere was condemned to death, he at first shows more feeling:  but he comes round to the former view:  “Labedoyere acted like a man without honour,” and “Ney dishonoured himself."[555]

We may hereby gauge the value which Napoleon laid on fidelity.  For him it is the one priceless virtue.  He esteems those who staunchly oppose him, and seeks to gain them over by generosity:  for those who come over he ever has a secret contempt; for those who desert him, hatred.  Doubtless that is why he heard the news of Ney’s execution unmoved.  Brilliantly brave as the Marshal was, he had abandoned him in 1814, and Louis XVIII. in the Hundred Days.  The tidings of Murat’s miserable fate, at the close of his mad expedition to Calabria, leave Napoleon equally cold.—­“I announce the fatal news,” writes Gourgaud, “to His Majesty, whose expression remains unchanged, and who says that Murat must have been mad to attempt a venture like that.”—­Here again his thoughts seem to fly back to Murat’s defection in 1814.  Later on, he says he loved him for his brilliant bravery, and therefore pardoned his numerous follies.  But his present demeanour shows that he never forgave that of 1814.[556]