wines specially for the exiles; and 15 dozen of claret--Napoleon's
favourite beverage--were afterwards sent on shore at St. Helena for
his use.

Doubtless the evenness of his health, which surprised Cockburn,
Warden, and O'Meara alike, was largely due to his iron will. He knew
that his exile must be disagreeable, but he had that useful faculty of
encasing himself in the present, which dulls the edge of care.
Besides, his tastes were not so exacting, or his temperament so
volatile, as to shroud him in the gloom that besets weaker natures in
time of trouble. Alas for him, it was far otherwise with his
companions. The impressionable young Gourgaud, the thought-wrinkled
Las Cases, the bright pleasure-loving Montholons, the gloomy Grand
Marshal, Bertrand, and his mercurial consort, over whose face there
often passed "a gleam of distraction"--these were not fashioned for a
life of adversity. Thence came the long spells of _ennui_, broken by
flashes of temper, that marked the voyage and the sojourn at St.
Helena.

The storm-centre was generally Mme. Bertrand; her varying moods, that
proclaimed her Irish-Creole parentage, early brought on her the
hostility of the others, including Napoleon; and as the discovery of
her little plot to prevent Bertrand going to St. Helena gave them a
convenient weapon, the voyage was for her one long struggle against
covert intrigues, thinly veiled sarcasms, sea-sickness, and despair.
At last she has to keep to her cabin, owing to some nervous disorder.
On hearing of this Napoleon remarks that it is better she should
die--such is Gourgaud's report of his words. Unfortunately, she
recovers: after ten days she reappears, receives the congratulations
of the officers in the large cabin where Napoleon is playing chess
with Montholon. He receives her with a stolid stare and goes on with
the game. After a time the Admiral hands her to her seat at the
dinner-table, on the ex-Emperor's left. Still no recognition from her
chief! But the claret bottle that should be in front of him is not
there: she reaches over and hands it to him. Then come the looked-for
words: "Ah! comment se porte madame?"--That is all.[547]

For Bertrand, even in his less amiable moods, Bonaparte ever had the
friendly word that feeds the well-spring of devotion. On the
"Bellerophon," when they hotly differed on a trivial subject, Bertrand
testily replied to his dogmatic statements: "Oh! if you reply in that
manner, there is an end