Page:Helen Leah Reed - Napoleons young neighbour.djvu/191

Rh would have tried to pull a trigger to despatch me.

The Emperor spoke so earnestly that no one could doubt he meant what he said. Even though they believed that the Turkish prisoners had been treated with great cruelty, his hearers saw that ambition or a feeling of necessity had been the impelling motive of the officers who sanctioned or ordered the cruelty.

Napoleon's conversations with Betsy were of course carried on largely in French, and but for the little girl's fluency in this language she would probably have seen much less of the great man. Napoleon himself made a real effort to learn English. Not only did he study with Las Cases, but he tried to practise the language with Betsy and her sister. In conversation, however, he never became very proficient, his pronunciation was droll, and he was inclined to translate things very literally. Betsy was less patient than her sister with Napoleon's English. By his expressed desire she and Jane were always to correct his mistakes, yet often, in the midst of his efforts, she would run off without deigning to help him.