26 Watson (ed.), A Polish Exile with Napoleon, 207n.
27 Martineau, Napoleon’s St Helena, 81–2.
28 Martineau, Napoleon’s St Helena, 197.
29 Gourgaud, Journal, 20 May 1816; Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 20 May 1816, 49n.
30 Colonial Office, 247.5; Young, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 160; Watson (ed.), A Polish Exile with Napoleon, 177.
31 Abell, Recollections, 102–3.
32 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 29 May 1816.
33 Gourgaud, Journal, 30 May 1816.
CHAPTER 12
1 The Times, 24 September 1816.
2 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; Young, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. II, 259–60.
3 Abbott, The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Vol. II, 566.
4 O’Meara, letter to Gorrequer, 24 June 1816, quoted in Aubry, St Helena, 207.
5 Gourgaud, Journal, 18 June 1816. The little girl’s formal name was soon abandoned for ‘Lilli’, just as her brother Tristan was usually called ‘Charles’. Martineau, Napoleon’s St Helena, 145, has noted that Lilli lived until 1907, ‘the last of the “witnesses” of St Helena’.
6 Lowe to Bathurst, 21 June 1816, cited in Forsyth, History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St Helena, Vol. I, 195.
7 Bathurst to Lowe, 15 April 1816, cited in Forsyth, History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St Helena, Vol. I, 189–90.
8 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 18 June 1816.
9 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 18 June 1816.
10 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 18 June 1816.
11 Young, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. II, 270; Julian Park (ed.), Napoleon in Captivity: The reports of Count Balmain, Russian commissioner on the island of St Helena 1816–1820, New York, The Century Co., 1927, xv.
12 Mrs Abell, Recollections, 238–9.
13 Martineau, Napoleon’s St Helena, 100–4.
14 Park (ed.), Napoleon in Captivity, Introduction, xiii.
15 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 31 March 1817, 476.
16 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 23 June 1816, 67.
17 Bathurst to Lowe, 15 April 1816, with letter from Sir Henry Bunbury to Lowe, cited in Forsyth, History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St Helena, Vol. I, 189–92.
18 See J.F. Bernard, Talleyrand: A biography, London, Collins, 1973, 52. (Madame de Souza lived as Talleyrand’s mistress from 1783 to 1792. Auguste Charles was born in 1785.)
19 E. Tangye Lean, The Napoleonists: A study in political disaffection 1760–1960, Oxford University Press, 1970, 176–7.
20 Tangye Lean, The Napoleonists, 176.
21 ‘Letters from Lady Malcolm During Napoleon’s Captivity’, in Earl of Kerry (ed.), The First Napoleon, 181–5.
22 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 20 June 1816, 65.
23 Earl of Kerry (ed.), The First Napoleon, 156.
24 See Martineau, Napoleon’s St Helena, 206.
25 Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 28 June 1816: ‘M. Balcombe, venu à Hutt’s Gate, dit que Lady Malcolm a été fort heureuse des réponses de l’Empereur; que l’Empereur a en Angleterre beaucoup de partisans, surtout parmi les femmes et que le nombre en augmente tous les jours; et que l’amiral restera ici plus d’un an, à moins que l’Empereur pareur ne parte et qu’alors il l’accompagnera.’
26 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 19n.
27 Young, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. II, 271.
28 Park (ed.), Napoleon in Captivity, Report No. 6, 1 May 1817, 85–6.
29 O’Meara to Sir Thomas Reade, 10 July 1816, in Forsyth, History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St Helena, Vol. I, 237–8.
30 Lady Malcolm to Lady Keith from the Briars, 4 July 1816, in Earl of Kerry (ed.), The First Napoleon, 189.
31 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 11 July 1816.
32 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 11 July 1816.
33 The Times, 27 March 1816.
34 Las Cases, Mémorial, Vol. IV, 316.
35 See Chaplin, Napoleon’s Captivity on St Helena, ‘A Chronological List of Napoleon’s Visitors in St Helena’, 142–52.
36 The Times, 14 February 1816.
37 Lowe to Bathurst, 17 July 1816, despatch 27 July, cited in Forsyth, History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St Helena, Vol. I, 220–6. Note that Lowe dates this meeting as 17 July 1816, whereas other accounts place it on 16 July.
CHAPTER 13
1 Lowe to Sir Henry Bunbury, 29 July 1816, quoted in Forsyth, History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St Helena, Vol. I, 232.
2 Martineau, Napoleon’s St Helena, 199.
3 Abell, Recollections, 94.
4 O’Meara to Sir Thomas Reade, 24 July 1816, cited in Forsyth, History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St Helena, Vol. I, 239–40.
5 HMS Griffon was a sixteen-gun brig-sloop, captured from the French in 1808. It was sold in 1819.
6 Clementina E. Malcolm, A Diary of St Helena (1816, 1817): The journal of Lady Malcolm, containing the conversations of Napoleon with Sir Pulteney Malcolm, London, A.D. Innes & Co, 1899, 25 July 1816, 35–43.
7 Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 6 August 1816.
8 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 6 August 1816.
9 Abell, Recollections, 153.
10 Brookes, St Helena Story, 51–8. George Carstairs is not mentioned by name in Mrs Abell’s Recollections, nor in St Helena records of the period such as Chaplin, who lists army and navy officers. Dame Mabel had access to family papers for her book and mentions a diary by the young Betsy as a source, although it is not included in her bibliography and seems no longer to exist. In her charming The Emperor’s Last Island, London, Secker & Warburg, 1991, 62, Julia Blackburn claimed: ‘The diary does exist and it has apparently made its way into a collection of papers and documents that lie in the archive department of an art gallery in Melbourne, Australia.’ However, an extensive search by researchers at The Briars, Mt Martha, has not located a Betsy Diary in either The Briars’ collection, the Mornington Regional Museum or the National Gallery of Victoria, nor is it held by any Balcombe family descendants they have contacted.
11 Abell, Recollections, 153.
12 Lady Malcolm to the Hon. Miss Mary Elphinstone, 26 January 1817, in Earl of Kerry (ed.), The First Napoleon, 197–9; Malcolm, A Diary of St Helena, 10 August 1816, 45–6.
13 Quoted in Martineau, Napoleon’s St Helena, 128.
14 James Kemble (ed.), St Helena During Napoleon’s Exile: Gorrequer’s diary, London, William Heinemann, 1969, quoted in Martineau, Napoleon’s St Helena, 145.
15 Abell, Recollections, 138–9.
16 Abell, Recollections, 139.
17 See J.B. Priestley, The Prince of Pleasure and his Regency 1811-20, London, Heinemann, 1969, 87.
18 Brookes, St Helena Story, 52.
19 Quoted in Creston, In Search of Two Characters, 301.
20 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 15 August 1816.
21 The ice-making machine was the invention of Professor John Leslie in 1810.
22 Malcolm, A Diary of St Helena, 16 August 1816, 48–9.
23 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 16 August 1816.
24 Abell, Recollections, 142–3.
25 Forsyth, History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St Helena, Vol. I, 243; Malcolm, A Diary of St Helena, 17–18 August 1816, 54–6.
26 Forsyth, History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St Helena, Vol. I, 246–56; Malcolm, A Diary of St Helena, 18 August 1816, 55–64; Gourgaud, Journal, 18 August 1816; O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 19 August 1816.
27 Martineau, Napoleon’s St Helena, 57.
28 Gourgaud, Journal, 18 August 1816; O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 19 August 1816.
29 Martineau, Napoleon’s St Helena, 57–8.
30 Malcolm, A Diary of St Helena, 23 August 1816, 66.
31 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 26 August 1816.
32 Malcolm, A Diary of St Helena, 28 August 1816, 67.
33 Martineau
, Napoleon’s St Helena, 167.
34 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 5 and 7 September 1816.
35 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 13 September 1816.
36 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 17 September 1816.
37 Bathurst to Lowe re warning from Milan-based Menet, Lowe Papers, BL Add. MS 20116, 310.
38 Charles Stuart, British ambassador to France, to Viscount Castlereagh, 8 July 1816, enclosed in Bathurst despatch to Lowe, 17 July 1816, Lowe Papers, BL Add. 20115 ff.190, 204.
39 Bathurst to Lowe, 12 and 17 July 1816, Lowe Papers, BL Add. 20115 ff.202, 210.
40 Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 5 October 1816.
41 Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 4 and 6 October 1816.
42 O’Meara to Finlaison, 10 October 1816, BL Lowe Papers, Add. 20146, 20116, 20117, quoted in Benhamou, Inside Longwood, 61–76.
CHAPTER 14
1 Aubry, St Helena, 286–7.
2 Martineau, Napoleon’s St Helena, 200–1.
3 Quoted in Abbott, The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, 571.
4 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 5 November 1816.
5 Abell, Recollections, 134–5.
6 Malcolm, A Diary of St Helena, 25 November 1816, 76–7.
7 Young, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. II, 15.
8 See Park (ed.), Napoleon in Captivity, Report No. 20, 1 October 1817, III.
9 Montholon, History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St Helena, Vol. I, 279, claimed that it was an earlier letter Las Cases had attempted to send to Lady Clavering that was intercepted—but Montholon was often unreliable.
10 Martineau, Napoleon’s St Helena, 178, noted that for stealing two glasses of wine from Sir Thomas Reade, ‘a slave received two years hard labour; whoever cut down a tree without permission was threatened with two hundred lashes’.
11 Las Cases, Mémorial, Vol. IV, Part 7, 277–81.
12 Las Cases, Mémorial, Vol. IV, Part 7, 282.
13 Marchand, Mémoires, Vol. II, 135.
14 Las Cases’ journal, quoted in Young, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. II, 12.
15 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 25 November 1816.
16 O’Meara to Finlaison, 23 December 1816, quoted in Benhamou, Inside Longwood, 77–96.
17 Las Cases, Mémorial, Vol. IV, Part 7, 295.
18 O’Meara to Finlaison, 23 December 1816, quoted in Benhamou, Inside Longwood, 93.
19 Napoleon to Las Cases, 11 December 1816, quoted in Abbott, The Life of Napoleon, 573.
20 Las Cases, Mémorial, Vol. IV, Part 7, 319–20.
21 Las Cases, Mémorial, Vol. IV, Part 8, 3.
22 Las Cases, Mémorial, Vol. I, 61–2n. (O’Meara to Finlaison, 23 December 1816, quoted in Benhamou, Inside Longwood, confirmed the high security: ‘They were kept au secret and placed in charge of an officer and sentinels properly placed about them . . . None but staff officers were afterwards permitted to see them.’)
23 Marchand, Mémoires, Vol. II, 141.
24 Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 24 December 1816.
25 Las Cases, Mémorial, Vol. I, 62n.
26 Lowe, private letter to Bathurst, 3 December 1816, confirming procedure concerning Las Cases papers, quoted in Forsyth, History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St Helena, Vol. I, 385.
27 Las Cases, Mémorial, Vol. IV, Part 8, 40.
28 Marchand, Mémoires, II, 151.
29 O’Meara to Finlaison, 29 December 1816, quoted in Forsyth, History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St Helena, Vol. II, 62–78.
30 Malcolm, A Diary of St Helena, 11 January 1817, 81–97.
31 Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 17 November 1816.
32 Abell, Recollections, 148–9.
33 Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 31 December 1816.
34 O’Meara, to Sir Hudson Lowe, 16 December 1816, Bathurst Private Papers, BL 57/42 ff. 225–34.
CHAPTER 15
1 Gourgaud, Journal, 17 January 1817.
2 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 26 January 1817.
3 Lady Malcolm to the Hon. Miss Mary Elphinstone, 26 January 1817, in Earl of Kerry (ed.), The First Napoleon, 197–9.
4 Lady Malcolm to her cousin Margaret, Madame de Flahaut, 3 September 1817, in Earl of Kerry (ed.), The First Napoleon, 199–205.
5 Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 17 November 1817.
6 Malcolm, A Diary of St Helena, 31 January 1817, 97–111.
7 Gourgaud, Journal, 4 February 1817.
8 Gourgaud, Journal, 8 February 1817.
9 Abell, Recollections, 242.
10 Gourgaud, Journal, 12 February 1817.
11 Abell, Recollections, 120.
12 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 12 January 1817.
13 Abell, Recollections, 158.
14 Information from website ‘The Journal of Ross Dix-Peek’—‘Notes on Lieutenant-Colonel Olof Godlieb Fehrzen (1784–1820), 53rd Regiment of Foot; Bingham, who had been his commander in the Peninsular Campaign and was a personal friend, spelled the surname ‘Fehrszen’, perhaps the original spelling; however, the name was anglicised to Oliver George Fehrzen.
15 See Glover (ed.), Wellington’s Lieutenant, Napoleon’s Gaoler, 139–40.
16 Chaplin, Napoleon’s Captivity on St Helena, 75–6.
17 Gourgaud, Journal, 12 February 1817.
18 Gourgaud, Journal, 13 February 1817.
19 Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 13 February 1817.
20 Gourgaud, Journal, 13 February 1817.
21 Gourgaud, Journal, 14 February 1817. In the interests of clarity I have corrected Gourgaud’s spelling ‘Ferzen’ to Fehrzen.
22 Jean-Paul Kauffmann, The Dark Room at Longwood, translated from French by Patricia Clancy, London, Harvill Press, 1997, 118–19, citing unpublished notes by Louis-Étienne Saint-Denis in Fonds Jourquin-Jourquin collection.
23 See Chaplin, Napoleon’s Captivity on St Helena, 97, citing Lady Russell, Swallowfield and Its Owners, London, 1901.
24 Quoted in Korngold, The Last Years of Napoleon, 242.
25 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 16 February 1817.
26 Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 1 March 1817.
27 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 8 & 11 March 1817, 415, 425–6.
28 O’Meara, quoted in Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 5 March 1817.
29 Abell, Recollections, 242–3.
30 The Times, 28 December 1816.
31 Footnote to French edition of Mrs Abell’s Recollections—Napoléon à Sainte-Hélène: Souvenirs de Betzy Balcombe, Traduction annotée et précédée d’une Introduction par Aimé Le Gras, 48–9. Translation thanks to Janet Bell.
32 The expression should have been ‘viel imbécile’—so Mrs Abell’s French left room for improvement.
33 Abell, Recollections, 106.
34 Malcolm, A Diary of St Helena, 7 March 1817, 111–21.
35 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 5 March 1817, 410–11.
36 Abell, Recollections, 159.
37 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I., 8 March 1817.
38 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I., 8 March 1817.
39 Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 7 March 1817.
40 Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 5 March 1817.
41 Marchand, Mémoires, Vol. II, 157.
42 Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 11 March 1817.
CHAPTER 16
1 Finlaison to O’Meara, 25 February 1817, Lowe Papers, BL Add. 20121, quoted in Benhamou, Inside Longwood, 98.
2 Dr James Miranda Barry (born c. 1789–99, died 25 July 1865) was a military surgeon in the British army who served in India, Cape Town, Mauritius, and later on the island of St Helena. After dying in 1865, Dr Barry was revealed to have been a woman, born Margaret Ann Bulkley. See Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; Stephanie Pain, ‘The “male” military surgeon who wasn’t’, New Scientist, 6 March 2008.
3 O’Meara to Sir Thomas Reade, 24 August 1816, arguing the need for a proper fowlhouse: B.L. Lowe Papers Add. 20115 and St
Helena Archives Vol. 20115 f.304.
4 Gourgaud, Journal, 7 April 1817.
5 Bathurst to Lowe, 23 February 1817, St Helena Archives.
6 William Makepeace Thackeray, ‘The Four Georges: Sketches of Manners, Morals, Court and Town Life’, The Cornhill Magazine, London, Smith, Elder & Co, September 1860, 258; D.J. Taylor, Thackeray, London, Chatto & Windus, 1999, 24.
7 Conversation quoted in Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 3 May 1817.
8 ‘Buonaparte’, The Times, 15 March 1817.
9 The Times, 14 and 18 March 1817.
10 Quoted in Martineau, Napoleon’s St Helena, 201.
11 Martineau, Napoleon’s St Helena, 202.
12 Gourgaud, Journal, 21 June 1817.
13 Montholon, History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St Helena, Vol. I, 20 May 1817.
14 Gourgaud, Journal, 15 May 1817.
15 Esther Vesey’s mother was a mixed-race woman, possibly a slave, but her father was identified as ‘a sergeant in the St Helena Corps’ in a letter by Captain Thomas Poppleton to Lowe, 22 May 1816, listing the Longwood domestics: Lowe Papers, BL Add. 20115 f.110.
16 Gourgaud, Journal, 9 June 1817.
17 Gourgaud, Journal, 9 June 1817.
18 Gourgaud, Journal, 18 June 1817.
19 Gourgaud, Journal, 5 June 1817.
20 Gourgaud, Journal, 9 June 1817.
21 Lady Malcolm to her cousin Margaret, Madame de Flahaut, 3 September 1817, in Earl of Kerry (ed.), The First Napoleon, 199–205.
22 Malcolm, A Diary of St Helena, 19 June 1817, 146–66.
23 Gourgaud, Journal, 19 June 1817.
24 Hester Lynch Piozzi et al., The Piozzi Letters 1817–1821, University of Delaware Press, 1999, 100.
25 Piozzi et al., The Piozzi Letters 1817–1821, 100.
26 Abell, Recollections, 180–1.
CHAPTER 17
1 J. Ralfe on Admiral Plampin in The Naval Biography of Great Britain, London, Whitmore & Fenn, 1828, Vol. III, 372–86.
2 Paul Frémeaux, With Napoleon at St Helena: Being the memoirs of Dr John Stokoe, naval surgeon, translated from the French by Edith S. Stokoe, London, John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1902, 40.
3 Martineau, Napoleon’s St Helena, 135–6.
4 Frémeaux, With Napoleon at St Helena, 41–2.
5 William Pitt, 1st Earl Amherst, 1773–1857. After his diplomatic mission to China he was appointed Governor General of India.
6 Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 18 July 1817.
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