Page:Helen Leah Reed - Napoleons young neighbour.djvu/188

160 while Napoleon, naturally, saw only its faults. When Betsy defended the island and waxed eloquent over its beauties, sometimes he would simply laugh at her impertinence, while at others, pinching her ear in his favorite fashion, he would say:

"Mees Betsee, how can you possibly dare to have an opinion on the subject?"

This glimpse of Napoleon, sadly watching the Conqueror, was not the only occasion when Betsy had an opportunity to see the more serious side of the man whom she admired. Although she was only a young girl, she was able sometimes by her intelligent questions to draw from him an explanation of much discussed things in his past. There was, for example, the oft-repeated story that Napoleon had sanctioned the butchery of Turkish troops at Jaffa and the poisoning of the sick in the hospitals.

If the Emperor was vexed with Betsy for touching on forbidden ground, he did not show his feeling, but entered into an explanation that his young neighbor was able long afterwards to repeat in his own words. "Before leaving Jaffa," said Napoleon, "and