An opinion has already been expressed that much of this annoyance was due to the offended pride of Napoleon’s attendants, who were at first certainly far more captious than himself.  He admitted as much himself on one occasion in a conversation with O’Meara.  He said, “Las Cases certainly was greatly irritated against Sir Hudson, and contributed materially towards forming the impressions existing in my mind.”  He attributed this to the sensitive mind of Las Cases, which he said was peculiarly alive to the ill-treatment Napoleon and himself had been subjected to.  Sir Hudson Lowe also felt this, and remarked, like Sir George Cockburn, on more than one occasion, that he always found Napoleon himself more reasonable than the persons about him.

A fertile source of annoyance was the resolution of Napoleon not upon any terms to acknowledge himself a prisoner, and his refusal to submit to such regulations as would render his captivity less burdensome.  More than once the attendance of an officer was offered to be discontinued if he would allow himself to be seen once every day, and promise to take no means of escaping.  “If he were to give me the whole of the island,” said Napoleon, “on condition that I would pledge my word not to attempt an escape, I would not accept it; because it would be equivalent to acknowledging myself a prisoner, although at the same time I would not make the attempt.  I am here by force, and not by right.  If I had been taken at Waterloo perhaps I might have had no hesitation in accepting it, although even in that case it would be contrary to the law of nations, as now there is no war.  If they were to offer me permission to reside in England on similar conditions I would refuse it.”  The very idea of exhibiting himself to an officer every day, though but for a moment, was repelled with indignation.  He even kept loaded pistols to shoot any person who should attempt an intrusion on his privacy.  It is stated in a note in O’Meara’s journal that “the Emperor was so firmly impressed with the idea that an attempt would be made forcibly to intrude on his privacy, that from a short time after the departure of Sir George Cockburn he always kept four or five pairs of loaded pistols and some swords in his apartment, with which he was determined to despatch the first who entered against his will.”  It seems this practice was continued to his death.

Napoleon continued to pass the mornings in dictating his Memoirs and the evenings in reading or conversation.  He grew fonder of Racine, but his favourite was Corneille.  He repeated that, had he lived in his time, he would have made him a prince.  He had a distaste to Voltaire, and found considerable fault with his dramas, perhaps justly, as conveying opinions rather than sentiments.  He criticised his Mahomet, and said he had made him merely an impostor and a tyrant, without representing him as a great man.  This was owing to Voltaire’s religious and political antipathies; for those who are free from common prejudices acquire others of their own in their stead, to which they are equally bigoted, and which they bring forward on all occasions.  When the evening passed off in conversation without having recourse to books he considered it a point gained.