NAPOLEON'S YOUNG NEIGHBOR

BY HELEN LEAH REED

Author of "Brenda; Her School and Her Club," "Brenda's Cousin at Radcliffe," "Brenda's Ward," "Amy in Acadia," etc.

ILLUSTRATED

BOSTON:
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1907

Copyright, 1907,
By Little, Brown, and Company.

All rights reserved

Published October, 1907

Alfred Mudge & Son, Inc., Printers,
Boston, Mass., U. S. A.

TO
DOROTHY E. B.
WHOSE LOVE OF HISTORY BESPEAKS
A WELCOME
FOR THIS LITTLE VOLUME.

NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA. From the painting by Delaroche

PREFACE

This book, chronicling some little known passages in the last few years of Napoleon, is based on the "Recollections of Napoleon at St. Helena," by Mrs. Abell (Elizabeth Balcombe), published in 1844 by John Murray.

Her little book is written in an old-fashioned and quiet style, and the present writer, without altering any words of Napoleon's, has, so far as possible, given a vivid form to conversations and incidents related undramatically and has rearranged incidents that Mrs. Abell told without great attention to chronology. The writer has also added many pages of matter (with close reference to the best authorities) in order to make the whole story of Napoleon clear to those who are not familiar with it.

CONTENTS

PREFACE
CHAPTER I. Great News
CHAPTER II. A Distinguished Tenant
CHAPTER III. From Waterloo to St. Helena
CHAPTER IV. Napoleon at The Briars
CHAPTER V. Betsy's Ball-Gown
CHAPTER VI. A Horse Tamer
CHAPTER VII. Off for Longwood
CHAPTER VIII. The Governor's Rules
CHAPTER IX. All Kinds of Fun
CHAPTER X. The Serious Side
CHAPTER XI. The Emperor's Visitors
CHAPTER XII. Thoughtless Betsy
CHAPTER XIII. Longwood Days
CHAPTER XIV. The Parting
CHAPTER XV. The Panorama
CHAPTER XVI. The Last Pictures

BOOKS BY HELEN LEAH REED

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Napoleon at St. Helena

Jamestown

The Embarkation on Board the Bellerophon

Napoleon

The Briars

Longwood

NAPOLEON'S YOUNG NEIGHBOR

CHAPTER I

GREAT NEWS

Far south in the Atlantic there is an island that at first sight from the deck of a ship seems little more than a great rock. In shape it is oblong, with perpendicular sides several hundred feet high. It is called St. Helena because the Portuguese, who discovered it in 1502, came upon it on the birthday of St. Helena, Constantine's mother. To describe it as the geographies might, we may say that it lies in latitude 15° 55' South, and in longitude 5° 46' West. It is about ten and a half miles long, six and three-quarters miles broad, and its circumference is about twenty-eight miles. The nearest land is Ascension Island, about six hundred miles away, and St. Helena is eleven hundred miles from the Cape of Good Hope.

From the sea St. Helena is gloomy and forbidding. Masses of volcanic rock, with sharp and jagged peaks, tower up above the coast, an iron girdle barring all