But as Wrangham had been gone for years, an executive decision could have been made by the governor to free Toby.)

The following year there was a new admiral and, more to the point, a new governor, Sir Hudson Lowe. Bonaparte put the request again, through O’Meara. The governor judged, probably correctly, that Bonaparte’s strategy was to win favour as a compassionate figure with the Whigs back in England, in order to encourage their lobbying for a more amenable situation for him. Lowe advised the doctor to ‘let him believe that I will submit his request to the council of the Company’, but in reality he was emphatic that ‘I would not do what you ask for anything in the world’.16

However, the episode achieved what was no doubt intended: the story spread, adding sentimental lustre to Napoleon’s legend.

On 28 November 1815, Colonel Bingham hosted a farewell breakfast for Governor Wilks and his family, and those constituting society on the island were invited. Three large marquees were set up, one with a dance floor; there were tables for ninety guests and these were decorated with flowers. Bingham wrote to his wife Emma in England of these preparations: ‘It appeared as if it were all enchantment to the natives of St Helena, who are so slow in their actions that it would have taken them one year to have accomplished what we did in six days.’17

For weeks Napoleon had observed the fatigue parties of the 53rd Regiment as they wound around the mountains to the beat of fifes and drums, building materials on their shoulders. Now they were no longer heaving stone blocks and timbers, but rather furniture, rugs and pictures. Longwood House would soon be ready for occupation.

According to Catherine Younghusband, Napoleon was ‘not at all anxious to quit the Briars, or in a hurry to go to Longwood, which is being fitted up for him with all the little elegance St Helena can afford’. Nor did Madame Bertrand welcome the move. She ‘dislikes the idea of leaving James Town and accompanying Buonaparte to what she calls his Country Castle. She prefers the town, wretched and hot as it is, because the French party there are much visited & they hear all the Gossip. The Admiral, however, says he cannot think of making the Government pay 55 guineas a week for Fancies.’18

Betsy’s memoir describes how, as the time drew near for Napoleon’s departure, ‘he would come into the drawing-room oftener, and stay longer. He would, he said, have preferred altogether remaining at the Briars; because he beguiled the hours with us better than he ever thought it possible he could have done on such a horrible rock as St. Helena.’19 He had suggested purchasing their property—apparently with Balcombe’s approval, who would have done handsomely out of the deal—‘but circumstances, probably political, prevented the negotiation from being carried out’.20 However, according to Marchand, ‘the Emperor was beginning to tire of his prolonged stay at the Briars; appearing in short britches and silk stockings for walks in the garden after sunset he had caught a cold and was coughing a lot’. Mrs Balcombe, kind and gracious, ‘offered to make him an infusion of four flowers with honey from her own hives’. Napoleon thanked her and showed her a small candy box containing licorice, the only remedy he said he liked to use.21

Bertrand visited Longwood and reported that the house smelled badly of paint. Betsy would ‘never forget the fury of the emperor. He walked up and down the lawn, gesticulating in the wildest manner. His rage was so great that it almost choked him. He declared that the smell of paint was so obnoxious to him that he would never inhabit a house where it existed.’

They were interrupted by extraordinary news. Montholon arrived, breathless from his climb up the hill, with a Paris Gazette just delivered. He said that the whole of France was in a state of revolution; that an army of 15,000 men had been organised and that everywhere they were shouting for the emperor. Admiral Cockburn had told him that such a state of affairs would be the ruin of England, as they would have to call up the militia. Gourgaud described Napoleon’s distress at his inability to take advantage of the insurgency: ‘The Emperor is so moved by this news of the 15,000 men that he strides along crying “It is now that it is cruel to be a prisoner here. Who will lead this movement? I see nobody capable of doing anything big. Eugene [his stepson by Josephine] has a good headpiece, judgment and good qualities, but not that genius, that resolute character that distinguishes great men . . . It is only I who could succeed!”’22

When Colonel Bingham came to escort his prisoner to Longwood, he found him in his dressing-gown; Napoleon ‘excused himself from going on account of the smell of paint’. But he ‘appeared to be in unusual good spirits, having on the table English papers to the 15th of September’ detailing the political turmoil in France.