Page:Helen Leah Reed - Napoleons young neighbour.djvu/192

164 "Ah, Mdlle. Betsee," he would then cry in French, "you are a stupid little creature; when will you become wise?"

Although Napoleon persevered with his English lessons with Las Cases, he never proceeded much further than to read the newspapers. English books presented many difficulties, and yet much of the literature that came his way was in this language. Here again Betsy was able to make herself very useful by translating books or newspapers for him, and sometimes she went further and gave him in condensed form the contents of a great many pages. Even after he went to Longwood, when Betsy went over there to call on Madame Bertrand, Napoleon would summon her to help him understand some newly arrived English book.

From Napoleon's own admission to one of his own suite, after he had been in St. Helena a year or two, we can judge that his progress in English had not been very rapid. One morning, after the arrival of a number of French books, he said:

"What a pleasure I have enjoyed! I can read forty pages of French in the