I have been skimming through Gourgaud's 'Journal de Sainte-Helene' because I thought that there was a Napoleon 'joke' in there but I failed to find it, or any other example.

I did find an example, one, of him laughing at someone else's joke: April 14th 1816, Gourgaud ' In the evening I gave the Emperor the 'Dictionnaire des Girouettes' (dictionary of weathercocks). His Majesty asked "Are you in it?" I replied. "Out of all of us, only your Majesty figures in it." The Emperor and all of us laughed greatly.'

The 'joke' I was looking for, as I remember it, relates to an occasion when Mme Montholon said that she did not like dogs and Napoleon told her that since dogs were a symbol of fidelity not liking them meant that she must be unfaithful, pressing the point the more she denied it. Since I can't find it in Gourgaud I can only think it must have been in Bertrand's journals which I have read but don't own.

Susan