CHAPTER TWENTY -EIGHTAs Napoleon was borne southwards by his British captors, he had plenty
of time to take stock of the motley crew of adventurers who had chosen to
accompany him and who would form his tiny court on the distant island
Of St Helena. Only three of the fifteen officers (plus a chamberlain) who
were with him on the Bellerophon were allowed to transfer to the
Northumberland, and Generals Savary and Lallemand had been expressly
excluded as being on the Bourbon government's 'most wanted' list. First
in rank was General comte Henri-Gratien Bertrand, an aide since 1807
and successor to Duroc as Grand Marshal of the Palace. Four years
younger than the Emperor, Bertrand had served him faithfully but
relations between the two were poor, mainly because of the behaviour of
Bertrand's problem wife, Fanny. An unregenerate royalist, who fre
quently angered Napoleon by her unpunctuality and lack of deference,
Fanny showed her true calibre by throwing an hysterical fit and trying to
hurl herself from a cabin window on the Bellerophon when her husband
announced he would be sharing the Emperor's exile.
General baron Gaspar Gourgaud, aged thirty-two, the first orderly
officer, was always Napoleon's favourite of the St Helena entourage, but
the obstinate and unbalanced Gourgaud remains an enigma to this day;
some say he was a Judas, others that he was merely the St Peter who
temporarily denied his master. He had not originally been on the St
Helena shortlist, but when he threw a scene of hysterical jealousy, a
complaisant Emperor allowed him to be substituted fo r the original
choice, Colonel Planat. As Chamberlain there was appointed comte
Emmanuel-Joseph de Las Cases, a civilian nobleman, fo rmerly chamber
lain and maitre des requetes in the Council of State, who was accompanied
to St Helena by his young son, Emmanuel. Las Cases scarcely knew
Napoleon but he was to develop a close friendship with the exiled
Emperor.
The most controversial appointment, and in many ways the key to the
entire St Helena episode, was a relative unknown who had wormed his
way into the Emperor's good graces during the Hundred Days. The