clandestine correspondence with Europe, Las Cases and his son were sent
off, first to the Cape and then to England, where they were only allowed
to land to be sent to Dover and shipped off to Ostend.

Not long after their arrival at St. Helena, Madame Bertrand gave birth to
a son, and when Napoleon went to visit her she said, "I have the honour
of presenting to your Majesty the first French subject who has entered
Longwood without the permission of Lord Bathurst."

It has been generally supposed that Napoleon was a believer in the
doctrine of predestination. The following conversation with Las Cases
clearly decides that point. "Pray," said he, "am I not thought to be
given to a belief in predestination?"--"Yes, Sire; at least by many
people."--"Well, well! let them say what they please, one may sometimes
be tempted to set a part, and it may occasionally be useful. But what
are men? How much easier is it to occupy their attention and to strike
their imaginations by absurdities than by rational ideas! But can a man
of sound sense listen for one moment to such a doctrine? Either
predestination admits the existence of free-will, or it rejects it.
If it admits it, what kind of predetermined result can that be which a
simple resolution, a step, a word, may alter or modify ad infinitum?
If predestination, on the contrary, rejects the existence of free-will it
is quite another question; in that case a child need only be thrown into
its cradle as soon as it is born, there is no necessity for bestowing the
least care upon it, for if it be irrevocably decreed that it is to live,
it will grow though no food should be given to it. You see that such a
doctrine cannot be maintained; predestination is but a word without
meaning. The Turks themselves, the professors of predestination, are not
convinced of the doctrine, for in that case medicine would not exist in
Turkey, and a man residing in a third floor would not take the trouble of