He was accompanied by General and Mme. Bertrand, the former a tall, slim, good-looking man, of refined manners and domestic habits, though of a sensitive and hasty temper; his wife, a lady of slight figure, but stately carriage, the daughter of a Irishman named Dillon, who lost his life in the Revolution.  Her vivacious manners bespoke a warm impulsive nature, that had revelled in the splendour of her high ceremonial station and now seemed strained beyond endurance by the trials threatening her and her three children.  The Bertrands had been with Napoleon at Elba, and enjoyed his complete confidence.  Younger than they were General (Count) Montholon and his wife—­he, a short but handsome man, his consort, a sweet unassuming woman—­who showed their devotion to the ex-Emperor by exchanging a life of luxury for exile in his service.  Count Las Cases, a small man, whose thin eager face and furtive glances revealed his bent for intrigue, was the eldest of the party.  He had been a naval officer, had then lived in England as an emigre, but after the Peace of Amiens took civil service under Napoleon; he now brought with him his son, a lad of fifteen, fresh from the Lycee.  We need not notice the figures of Savary and Lallemand, as they were soon to part company.  Maingaud the surgeon, Marchand the head valet, several servants, and the bright little boy of the Montholons completed the list.

The voyage passed without incident.  Napoleon’s health and appetite were on the whole excellent, and he suffered less than the rest from sea-sickness.  The delicate Las Cases, who had donned his naval uniform, was in such distress as to move the mirth of the crew, whereupon Napoleon sharply bade him appear in plain clothes so as not to disgrace the French navy.  For the great man himself the crew soon felt a very real regard, witness the final confession of one of them to Maitland:  “Well, they may abuse that man as much as they like, but if the people of England knew him as well as we do, they would not hurt a hair of his head.”—­What a tribute this to the mysterious power of genius!

On passing Ushant, he remained long upon deck, silent and abstracted, casting melancholy looks at the land he was never more to see.  As they neared Torbay, the exile was loud in praise of the beauty of the scene, which he compared with that of Porto Ferrajo.  Whatever misgivings he felt before embarking on the “Bellerophon” had apparently disappeared.  He had been treated with every courtesy and had met with only one rebuff.  He prompted Mme. Bertrand, who spoke English well, to sound Maitland as to the acceptance of a box containing his (Napoleon’s) portrait set in diamonds.  This the captain very properly refused.[535]