History According to Bob - Napoleon: Elba to Death

Rumours of Escape:

[On Napoleon on Elba] "British tourists of course came in large numbers and were always very well treated... there is an embarrassing situation that lots of British naval officers would visit Elba on their British Warships. This forced Admiral Hollowell to issue orders to stop the pilgrimages to Elba on British Warships"

The Fatal Decision:

[On the Duke of Orleans] "During the French Revolution that is a man known as Philip Egalité and he knew that for a while... Louis XVI needed to be circumcised so he actually told Marie Antoinette that they probably wouldn't have any children. But the Duke d'Orleans sent a nasty little present to Marie Antoinette. And that was a beautiful hand carved baby cradle with a note saying 'Just thought you'd like to have something you never would use'. And when Louis XVI found out about it, he had himself circumcised and he had 3 children"

End of Waterloo Part 2:

"Blücher's not gonna be with us too much longer. Once they go back into Paris, he erm, he falls off his horse. The story goes he was showing off his horsemanship for a group of French prostitutes when he pulled his horse up to rein it up and fell off, hit his head on the cobblestones and developed a brain hemorrhage on the brain. So the way it goes but he had a good time"

Napoleon is Informed of His Fate Part 2:

"In Saint Helena I should not live three months. My habits and constitution, it would be immediate death. I am used to riding 020 leagues a day. What am I to do on this little rock at the end of the world? The climate is too hot for me. No, I will not go to Saint Helena. Botany Bay is better than Saint Helena. If your government wishes to put me to death, they may kill me here, it is not worthwhile to send me to Saint Helena. I prefer death to Saint Helena. And what good is my death to you? I can do you no harm, I am no longer a sovereign. I am a simple individual"

Napoleon Defended:

"During war time, or times of emergency, the British government would violate the Habeas Corpus act and then what would happen, Parliament then after it was all over and done with, would pass one of these bills, an indemnity bill, which basically says we forgive the government for violating all these various laws and incarcerating people without trial, and all this kind of stuff so that they wouldn't get sued"

Napoleon Leaves the Bellerophon Part 3:

"If you follow English History, into the 1848 period where we have the rapid transition of various governments. We have the collapse of the French Government of Louis Philip and the fleeing of the various officials. We have the collapse of the Austrian empire, and the change of Emperors. And the wonderful character Mr Metternich flees the country. In most of these places, whenever the leadership of the conservative governments - that is the kings, the monarchies, whenever they decide to leave and dodge the mob if you will, they go to England.

When I taught Advanced Placement European history, it was so bad that I made the comment in class, many times that, surely England had a street, that was just for exiles from European leadership. And you just said, ‘Oh we've got a new prime minister, from such and such a country. You get house number 42. Oh, here’s ex-king from such-and-such a country. Sorry, you were overthrown by a popular revolt - here you get this building.’ So it is kind of strange."

British Watchful Eye:

"A lot of times daily routines don't survive to us. We have a daily routine for Ivan the Terrible for example that survives. He would get up in the morning at 530, go to morning services. After services, he'd have breakfast. After breakfast, they would take what was left over of the food and give it to the poor. Then he would dictate what was going to happen during the day: who would get executed, what mistress he was going to visit so forth and so on, did all that stuff. Then at noon, they'd have noon service. Again, you'd have lunch, leftover food went to the poor, and then the afternoon he would then sometimes nap sometimes play around with his his women or execute people that he would do what was going on that he decided to do in the morning. Then 530 to six o'clock, it's evening Vespers. Again religious services, dinner, and the leftover food goes to the poor and after that he went to bed with usually three priests reading or reciting from the Bible until he went to sleep. And then the next day it would start over again"

Napoleon's Daily Routine Part 3:

"He was well aware of the fact that he thought that women like to talk about themselves. So he would ask questions such as, did you, was this your first sea voyage? Did you get sick on the voyage? Had she been bored on the voyage? Did she do embroidery and all sorts of other types of questions?"

Lowe and his spies:

"He was violently disliked because of his mania for inspecting the contents of the laundry baskets at Longwood, looking for messages. This included looking at the women's underwear. Blakeney was then replaced by Captain Nichols... basically spent his whole time playing hide and seek to try and get sight of Napoleon. Eventually got tired of the whole thing and simply asked to be relieved... Captain Lutyens, he stayed until April of 1821. Now he would have been there to the end. Unfortunately, he was forced to resign because he accepted a book from Napoleon which was on the life of Marlborough, which was destined for the regimental library of his unit and that made Lowe unhappy"

Sex & St Helena Pt 1:

"The Longwood bachelors whether they were master or servant had a great deal of affairs with women. Naturally involving some jealous quarrels but the man who was watched and spied on by everyone, Napoleon, preserved an imperial indifference. He was being surrounded by licentiousness.
‘Some men of 48 still behave like young men’ purred de Montholon"

St Helena Society Pt 1:

"The big whites took a more active part in the daily life of the island. Its members were in a position to defend their interests with some flexibility. They were the descendants of the English who had settled on St. Helena and that would be during the last 200 years and as their families grew, they schemed to acquire the most important posts for them. If the father in law was a judge, his son in law would be a sheriff. When the older brother was an apothecary, the younger brother would be a chemist. If a daughter married a councillor, her older sister would then throw herself into the arms of the commanding officer of the St Helena regiment"

Arsenic and Old Napoleon Part 1:

"Well, Napoleon has left a lot of hair. It’s very common to give hair as souvenirs. And we know that on the island of St Helena that he had given a sample of hair as a souvenir to [people]... over the years they found I think, 40 some different samples of his hair that had been given out at different times... So you have sometimes people say, well, he’s been being poisoned over a long period of time. Well, that doesn't work, because arsenic is one of those poisons, that if you take it bit by bit, you build an immunity up.

We have a gentleman in the ancient world Mithradates the Fourth who was one of the greatest experts on poison, and he came up with the idea that if you took little bits of poison every day, you could build an immunity to it. And he created what is called a Mithradatium, of which every day he took 22 different poisonous substances. Of course he tested it out on prisoners in his prisons, but it worked because when he was overthrown by his son, he tried to commit suicide with poison and was unsuccessful. He had to stab himself…

Arsenic workers, people who work in mines, where you find arsenic naturally have this huge tolerance to it... Napoleon had several doubles. And we have examples where authenticated boxes of material from people who wrote letters to their descendants, that this was a lock of hair of Napoleon, when it's tested, it comes up negative, so they end up being his doubles. Because he took arsenic all his life, he was scared to death of dying, of what his father did was stomach cancer. So he had stomach trouble, he took a lot of that."