Having been promoted to imperial ordnance officer, he joined the emperor’s carriage when they left Moscow, so missing the worst of the Grande Armée’s terrible retreat. On the voyage to St Helena it became evident that he worshipped his former commander with histrionic extravagance. Engravings portray him with a protruding upper lip, rendering the man an unfortunate sneering expression.

During Gourgaud’s visit to The Briars, Napoleon suggested a walk. He wished to see something of the nearby countryside, although it angered him that this was only possible accompanied by an English guard. Betsy and Jane were invited to join the expedition and the four set off at a brisk pace, while Captain Mackay and the sergeant followed at a discreet distance. Napoleon chose to grandly ignore their presence.

They strolled into a meadow where cows belonging to The Briars’ milking herd were grazing between the palm trees.13 In Betsy’s account, one of the beasts started behaving strangely, lowing and bellowing, swinging her head from side to side in a deranged fashion. ‘Look at that poor brute,’ said Napoleon. ‘Going mad with the heat just as I am.’

The moment the cow saw the party, she put her head down, her tail up, bucked and advanced au pas de charge at the emperor. We are told he made a skilful and rapid retreat, despite his plumpness, leaping over a low stone wall. Gourgaud, to Betsy’s astonishment, drew his sword—remarkably, these weapons had been returned to the French—and advanced towards the cow, exclaiming: ‘This is the second time I have saved the emperor’s life!’

Captain Mackay came running but the cow had lost interest. It turned away and resumed cropping grass. Napoleon joked to Betsy that the beast was a British agent: ‘She wishes to save the English government the expense and trouble of keeping me.’14

The Balcombes came to inspect the pavilion and its new furnishings: an oriental rug, silver platters and tureens, the campaign bed with green silk curtains and floss mattress, and an elaborate silver washstand from the Élysée-Bourbon palace.15

Betsy was intrigued by two miniatures on the wall. One was a portrait of the emperor’s son as a baby in his cradle, his tiny hand supporting a globe, the banner of France and helmet of Mars behind him. Napoleon told her this signified that his son would be a great warrior and one day rule the world. In the other, the boy was an angelic child with a nimbus of golden curls, a typical blond Habsburg in the arms of his mother, the plump Empress Marie Louise. Betsy said bluntly that she did not like that one as much as the other.

In her later account, Napoleon confided that the empress was an amiable creature and a very good wife; she would have followed him to St Helena, bringing their son with her, if only she had been allowed. However, by then he may have known—perhaps not, but it was an open secret in Europe—that Marie Louise was pregnant to the eye-patch-wearing courtly seducer Count von Neipperg, and his son was in the Viennese palace of Schönbrunn, effectively a prisoner of his grandfather, Francis I of Austria.16 But it was important for Napoleon to emphasise his connection with the great royal house in order to argue the illegitimacy of his imprisonment and the dynastic prospects of his son, known in France as ‘l’Aiglon’—‘the Eaglet’.

Napoleon made a considerable effort to charm the Balcombes and in turn seemed charmed by them.17 The company of children brought out the best in him, and the mountainous rocky locale must have stirred memories of his Corsican childhood, climbing granite slopes with a tribe of brothers and sisters among whom he soon won the position of leader.18 He had been kind and affectionate with his stepchildren, Hortense and Eugene, adored his own son, and he could tolerate and laugh at the familiarities of Betsy, Jane and their two small brothers, for they posed no threat. With children he did not need to impose distance or insist on rank, although this was rigidly observed with adults. For Mrs Balcombe he felt both respect and attraction, given her uncanny resemblance to Josephine. But his friendship with William Balcombe would not have rested simply on that man’s engaging and affable personality and his ability to furnish a good table.

One of the world’s greatest strategists rarely wasted energy on being pleasant merely for the sake of civility, and certainly not at this nadir of his career. His principal motivation, just as it had been on the island of Elba, would have been to escape from the hellhole of imprisonment and resume the reins of power. He was always alert to the person or situation likely to offer him advantage. He perfectly understood the value of long campaigns and of building allies where it counted; the historian Philip Dwyer has observed: ‘For Bonaparte, people were pawns in his political and military calculations, to be dispensed with if they could not be useful.’19 The proprietor of The Briars was potentially extremely useful.

Bonaparte’s best hope of release from the island to a less restricted situation (from where he could plan his resurgence) was the intervention of the Prince Regent. He would have recognised the importance of the patronage and affection Balcombe received from Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt, an intimate of the prince. The connection was well known on the island; Balcombe was inclined to boast of it himself. Tyrwhitt’s name must have been known to Bonaparte, who had a remarkable memory. From his time as First Consul he would have remembered Tyrwhitt’s diplomatic visit to Paris in 1801 as the secretary and emissary of the prince, bringing gifts of ornamental trees and shrubs for his wife Josephine’s celebrated garden at Malmaison.20 Without question he was aware of Tyrwhitt and his close relationship with the Regent. Once his exile on St Helena began, or even on shipboard before he arrived—for some of the officers and seamen had been to the island before—he would have learned that this man was the patron, protect- or and friend of the merchant William Balcombe.

This offers an explanation as to why Bonaparte expressed interest in occupying the little summer house of The Briars before he had even inspected it, and, when Balcombe offered him the whole property including the main house, the former emperor maintained a resolute preference for residing at the uncomfortable pavilion. What this allowed was the possibility of daily interaction with the Balcombes and whatever advantage might accrue from that.

CHAPTER 6

BONEY’S LITTLE PAGES

The charabanc tour of the Napoleonic sites was in a converted 1929 Chevrolet truck, rejuvenated in 1945 with a Bedford motor. The driver and guide was Colin Corker, a cheerful, entrepreneurial St Helenian, who had fitted out his eccentric vehicle with twelve seats and some plastic sheeting for when it rained.