“If Lord Wellington had intrenched himself,” continued Napoleon, “I would not have attacked him.  As a general, his plan did not show talent.  He certainly displayed great courage and obstinacy; but a little must be taken away even from that when you consider that he had no means of retreat, and that had he made the attempt not a man of his army would have escaped.  First, to the firmness and bravery of his troops, for the English fought with the greatest courage and obstinacy, he is principally indebted for the victory, and not to his own conduct as a general; and next, to the arrival of Blucher, to whom the victory is more to be attributed than to Wellington, and more credit is due as a general; because he, although beaten the day before, assembled his troops, and brought them into action in the evening.  I believe, however,” continued Napoleon, “that Wellington is a man of great firmness.  The glory of such a victory is a great thing; but in the eye of the historian his military reputation will gain nothing by it.”

“I always had a high opinion of your seamen,” said Napoleon one day to O’Meara, in a conversation arising out of the expedition to Algiers.  “When I was returning from Holland along with the Empress Maria Louisa we stopped to rest at Givet.  During the night a violent storm of wind and rain came on, which swelled the Meuse so much that the bridge of boats over it was carried away.  I was very anxious to depart, and ordered all the boatmen in the place to be assembled that I might be enabled to cross the river.  They said that the waters were so high that it would be impossible to pass before two or three days.  I questioned some of them, and soon discovered that they were fresh-water seamen.  I then recollected that there were English prisoners in the barracks, and ordered that some of the oldest and best seamen among them should be brought before me to the banks of the river.  The waters were very high, and the current rapid and dangerous.  I asked them if they could join a number of boats together so that I might pass over.  They answered that it was possible, but hazardous.  I desired them to set about it instantly.  In the course of a few hours they succeeded in effecting what the others had pronounced to be impossible, and I crossed before the evening was over.  I ordered those who had worked at it to receive a sum of money each, a suit of clothes, and their liberty.  Marchand was with me at the time.”

In December 1816 Las Cases was compelled to leave St. Helena.  He had written a letter to Lucien Bonaparte, and entrusted it to a mulatto servant to be forwarded to Europe.  He was detected; and as he was thus endeavouring to carry on (contrary to the regulations of the island) a clandestine correspondence with Europe, Las Cases and his son were sent off, first to the Cape and then to England, where they were only allowed to land to be sent to Dover and shipped off to Ostend.

Not long after their arrival at St. Helena, Madame Bertrand gave birth to a son, and when Napoleon went to visit her she said, “I have the honour of presenting to your Majesty the first French subject who has entered Longwood without the permission of Lord Bathurst.”