Note 203 — Chapter XCII
Reading edition
Las Cases, tom. i., p. 138.—"After dinner the grand maréchal and I always followed the Emperor to the quarterdeck. After the preliminary remarks on the weather, &c., Napoleon used to start a subject of conversation, and when he had taken eight or nine turns the whole length of the deck, he would seat himself on the second gun from the gangway, on the larboard side. The midshipmen soon observed this habitual predilection, so that the cannon was thenceforth called the Emperor's gun. It was there that Napoleon often conversed hours together, and that I learned, for the first time, a part of what I am about to relate."—Las Cases, p. 95.