Читать книгу The Life, Exile and Conversations with Napoleon - Emmanuel-Auguste-Dieudonné Las Cases - Страница 89

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17th.—The Emperor took his first lesson in the English language to-day. And as it was my intention to put him at once in a situation to read the papers with readiness, this first lesson consisted of nothing more than getting acquainted with an English newspaper; in studying the form and plan of it; in learning the places that are always given to the different subjects which it contains; in separating the notices and gossip of the town from politics; and, in the latter, in learning to distinguish what is authentic from what is mere report or conjecture.

I have engaged that, if the Emperor could endure being annoyed every day with such lessons, he would be able to read the papers in a month without the assistance of any of us. The Emperor wished afterwards to do some exercises; he wrote some sentences which were dictated to him, and translated them into English, with the assistance of a little table, which I made for him, of the auxiliary verbs and articles, and aided by the dictionary for other words which I made him look out himself. I explained to him the rules of syntax and grammar, as they came before us: in this manner he formed various sentences, which amused him more than the versions which we also attempted. After the lesson, at two o’clock, we took a walk in the garden.

Several musquet shots were fired: they were so near us that they appeared to have been fired in the garden itself. The Emperor observed to me that my son (we thought it was he) seemed to have good sport: I replied that it was the last time he should enjoy it so near the Emperor. “Really,” said he, “you may as well go and tell him that he is only to come within cannon-shot of us.” I ran: we had accused him wrongfully, for the guns were fired by the people who were training the Emperor’s horses.

After dinner, during coffee, the Emperor, taking me to the corner of the chimney-piece, put his hand upon my head to measure my height, and said, “I am a giant to you.”—“Your Majesty is a giant to so many others,” I observed to him, “that I am not at all concerned at it.” He spoke immediately of something else; for he does not like to dwell on expressions of this kind.