red to desert the
Emperor's table on these and other festive occasions, her growing
fondness for the English drew on her sharp rebukes from the ex-Emperor
and a request not to treat Longwood as if it were an inn.[563] Many
jottings in Gourgaud's diary show that the same policy was thenceforth
strictly maintained. Napoleon kept up the essentials of Tuileries
etiquette, required the attendance of his courtiers, and jealously
checked any familiarity with Plantation House or Jamestown.

On some questions Lowe was more pliable than the home Government,
notably in the matter of the declarations signed by Napoleon's
followers. But in one matter he was proof against all requests from
Longwood: this was the extension of the twelve-mile limit. It
afterwards became the custom to speak as if Lowe could have granted
this. Even the Duke of Wellington declared to Stanhope that he
considered Lowe a stupid man, suspicious and jealous, who might very
well have let Napoleon go freely about the island provided that the
six or seven landing-places were well guarded and that Napoleon showed
himself to a British officer every night and morning. Now, it is
futile to discuss whether such liberty would have enabled Napoleon to
pass off as someone else and so escape. What is certain is that our
Government, believing he could so escape, _imposed rules which Lowe
was not free to relax_.

Napoleon realized this perfectly well, but in the interview of April
30th, 1816, he pressed Lowe for an extension of the limits, saying
that he hated the sight of our soldiers and longed for closer
intercourse with the inhabitants. Other causes of friction occurred,
such as Lowe's withdrawal of the privilege, rather laxly granted by
Cockburn to Bertrand, of granting passes for interviews with Napoleon;
or again a tactless invitation that Lowe sent to "General Bonaparte"
to meet the wife of the Governor-General of India at dinner at
Plantation House. But in the midst of the diatribe which Napoleon
shortly afterwards shot forth at his would-be host--a diatribe
besprinkled with taunts that Lowe was sent to be his
_executioner_--there came a sentence which reveals the cause of his
fury: "If you cannot extend my limits, you can do nothing for
me."[564]

Why this wish for wider limits? It did not spring from a desire for
longer drives; for the plateau offered nearly all the best ground in
the island for such exercise. Neither was it due to a craving for
wider social