Page:Helen Leah Reed - Napoleons young neighbour.djvu/244

214 I heard of him was at the Pyramids and Mt. Tabor." Yet Napoleon was never happier, never better loved by the French people, than when, as General Bonaparte, he was received with the greatest enthusiasm on his return from his Italian campaign.

The English, on their part, were foolish in objecting to the use of a title to which he once had had a perfect right, with all its power and dignity. Now, deprived of the substance, there was no reason for forbidding him the pleasure of treasuring the shadow. Sir George Cockburn seems to have been almost childish in writing to Count Bertrand:

"I have no cognizance of any Emperor being actually upon this island, or of any person possessing such dignity (as stated by you) having come here." Language like this was far more absurd than Napoleon's obstinacy on the subject. Even his good friend, Admiral Malcom, could not change his views. In the course of a conversation on the subject of letting him have the title "Emperor," Malcom said decidedly:

"Still, it would be impossible to treat you as a sovereign."