A LINK WITH NAPOLEON [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—Your correspondent Mr. Cecil Willson has obtained from an unexpected source knowledge regarding a certain singularity possessed by the Emperor Napoleon—namely, that of pinching the ears of unoffending females. I have therefore much pleasure in informing him that this peculiarity has been the subject. of careful investigation on the part of many of our Napoleonic students, and the conclusion reached by them is that its historical significance is such as ranks with that of his many other strange propensities—that, for instance, of planting his right hand in his waistcoat, and his unaccountable partiality for small cocked hats, violets, and grey redingotes, without a knowledge of which no estimate of his character could be truly complete. I think, however, that the comely Mrs. Cox was somewhat mistaken in her attitude towards what your correspondent has termed the Emperor's " familiarity."
The inimitable Bourrienne has it in his memoirs that : " When in good humour, his usual tokens of kindness consisted in a little rap on the head or a pinch of the ear." (Vol. I., chap. xxx.) In the same chapter he has written that Bonaparte pinched the ear of Cambaceres to soften, by that '` habitual familiarity," the bitterness of his words—his words having been to the effect that if the Bourbons returned Cambaceres would certainly be hanged.
Another occasion on which this peculiarity was noted by an eye—or better perhaps in this connexion an car—witness was during the voyage to Elba, on board the Undaunted, when Admiral Sir Thomas Usher wrote in his diary that in the course of a conversation the Emperor ",laughed rn I pinched his ear." Unfortunately, I cannot at the present moment recollect the date of this entry.
From the pages of M. Pierrefeu's Plutarch Lied I gather that spirits retain their earthly weaknesses in addition to their outwardly earthly appearances ; for the shade of Napoleon, on visiting the author of the work to discuss with him the glory of the Continuous Front, condescended to pinch the car of its exponent.
M. Pierrefcu shamefacedly admits the condescension and even confesses to a feeling of pride in having awakened it.
Mr. Bernard Shaw may also perhaps have had interviews with this illustrious ghost ; for, as I read in the stage directions for The Man of Destiny that on one occasion Napoleon is to " laugh and pinch Giuseppe's ear," this writer cannot be ignorant of the oddities of his subject.
Mrs. Cox was not therefore alone in her sufferance of the
Emperor's " familiarity " ; but perhaps the climate of the island, which was not an altogether delightful place of residence, and the temper of Madame Bertrand, who was not an altogether delightful woman, may have had something to do with her ilight.—I am, Sir, &c., Canford Cliffs, Bournemouth. MARJORIE JOHNSTON.
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