. Sir George Cockburn explained the objections to its being complied with, and the refusal is understood to have been received with perfect good humour.’8

‘We understood that the time for self-denial had arrived,’ lamented Marchand. He was relieved when the silver and table linen were brought, so ‘the service for the Emperor’s table took on a regularity it had lacked so far’.9 Napoleon dined in the evening with the count and his son, and then, because space was at a premium, the man accustomed to the luxuries of the Tuileries obligingly vacated the little pavilion so Marchand and the cook could take their meal there.

Many in the 53rd Regiment were shocked by the deficiencies in their own food supplies, even more limited than before because of the new security arrangements. An officer wrote: ‘This island supplies itself with nothing but vegetables, and depends entirely on imports for subsistence. Cutting off all trade prevents any supply to the inhabitants, but what they are allowed to purchase from the public stores (the same quantity as the ration to the troops), the fishing boats not being allowed to fish at night, which was the best time altogether.’10 A soldier expressed the widely held view that the prisoner was to blame.11

But for Balcombe, catering for the prisoner was the opportunity of a lifetime. Napoleon’s favourite dish—and therefore that of his retinue—was chicken. Balcombe owned a second property, Ross (or Rose) Cottage, with a few acres of land and soon established a poultry farm with 400 hens, some ducks, geese and guinea fowl. He was now in control, from production to market.

At The Briars, Napoleon began to relax, even to give the appearance of positively enjoying himself. He had been through the storm of war and the humiliation of defeat, always participating, action followed hard by reaction. Now he had time to analyse that bewildering defeat that had brought him to this, the most remote exile ever suffered by any head of state. He had no intention of adjusting to the situation; he would devise how best to escape from it—and the Balcombe family might just offer an avenue. Meanwhile, surprisingly, there was some pleasure to be had.

He may have believed he had the measure of his host—a bluff, hearty man alert for his own personal advancement—but Napoleon had not yet divined the full extent of Balcombe’s mysterious influence in London, or the reason for it. The whole family were amiable and he joined them some evenings for games of whist or musical entertainments; the two daughters were attractive, and although Betsy was presumptuous, she made him laugh; the two small boys were lively and playful, clambering over him, fiddling with the toggles of his coat and the gleaming star of his Légion d’Honneur, and four-year-old Alexander reminded him of his own son in a way that was both painful and endearing. He asked Marchand to make a tiny cart for the boys; to their delight it was pulled across the floor by four scurrying mice.

In an article published in the Quarterly Review the following January, Napoleon was portrayed as not nearly so pleasant at these family card games: ‘When Las Casses [sic] put down four gold Napoleons for markers, the youngest of the ladies, who had never seen any of that coin before, took up one, and asked what it was. Buonaparte instantly, with more haste than was consistent with politeness, snatched it out of her hand and exclaimed, with a tone half of vexation and half of triumph, “Ne voyez-vous pas que c’est moi?,” [“Can’t you see that it is me?”] pointing to the impression with his finger.’12

Betsy made no mention of this in her Recollections, although she did note another card game incident: ‘One day Alexander took up a pack of cards, on which was the usual figure of the Great Mogul. The child held it up to Napoleon, saying, “See Bony, this is you.”’ In her account, Napoleon failed to understand what was meant by calling him ‘Bony’ and asked why the English gave him that name; he knew they called him many things, but why this one? Betsy explained that it was an abbreviation, short for Bonaparte. Las Cases offered a literal translation: ‘It means a thin, bony person—un homme osseux.’ Napoleon laughed and protested, ‘Je ne suis pas osseux’ (‘I am not bony’), which Betsy thought he certainly never could have been, even in his young days: ‘His hand was the fattest and prettiest in the world; his knuckles dimpled like a baby’s.’13 So the Balcombe children were given permission to call him ‘Bony’ if they wished.

Napoleon’s daily dictation in the grape arbour, involving the recall and justification of complex battle actions—and much creative fiction—was frequently interrupted by the younger girl’s arrival. Her sister Jane rarely intruded except by invitation, but Betsy felt perfectly at liberty to turn up at any time. One day she was accompanied by the admiral’s huge lolloping dog, Tom Pipes. She lured him into the goldfish pond, where he splashed about, plunging vainly after fish. When he scrambled out, he rushed to greet his old shipboard companion, vigorously shaking water all over him and his papers, just as Betsy had planned that he would.

Las Cases was appalled. What irritated him even more than Betsy’s familiarity was the way that Napoleon, who always insisted on strict formal etiquette from his entourage and staff, seemed endlessly indulgent of her impertinences. On one occasion she deliberately jogged his elbow when he was making an impression of a rare coin and the hot wax spilled and burned his hand; another time she snatched his dictation papers from his desk and danced around the garden flourishing them, calling out: ‘I shall keep these and then I shall find out all your secrets!’14 The count warned the errant girl to have some respect: ‘You need to understand you are talking to the man who governed the world. Once a mere decree from him sufficed to overthrow thrones and create kings. I remember the timidity and embarrassment with which he was approached by ministers and officials; the anxieties and fears of ambassadors, princes and even kings.’15

But Napoleon was charmed by this mischievous, irreverent sprite of a girl. There had been little laughter since he boarded the Bellerophon, but he laughed often now when she was about. Ever since he had risen to power, he had been surrounded by courtiers and by women who were, on the whole, docile, acquiescent and flattered his ego; he had known graceful adolescent girls such as Laure Permon (the later Madame Junot) and his stepdaughter Hortense—they were the kind of jeune fille of whom he approved. For her part, Josephine could be fiery—she was famous for her tantrums—but had never challenged his ultimate authority. ‘You must submit to all my whims,’ he had told her. ‘I have the right to reply to all your complaints by an eternal moi! I am a being apart.’ His second wife, Marie Louise, young and pliable, also accepted his dictum that ‘I am not a man like other men and the laws of morality or custom cannot be applied to me’.16 He was known to detest outspoken and intellectually brilliant women such as the author Germaine de Staël.

Betsy Balcombe ‘represented a type which was new to the Emperor’, wrote Lord Rosebery, prime minister of Great Britain for one short term and obsessed with Napoleon Bonaparte for far longer.