Jeremy Hildreth

Michel Dancoisne-Martineau, Saint Helena’s French honorary consul, wants to set the record straight. Contrary to popular belief, he tells me, Napoleon wasn’t exiled to St Helena for life. In a highly idiosyncratic sentencing, drafted by the Russians and ratified by the other powers involved, Napoleon’s banishment was to last ‘until his deadly fame ends’. While Napoleon was living there (from 1815 until his death in 1821, his remains being returned to France in 1840), he was essentially confined to an estate named Longwood House, which sits at a fairly high elevation where the weather is often chilly and misty. There, Napoleon entertained visitors, gardened extensively, and dictated the bestselling book of the 19th century The Memorial of Saint Helena to Emmanuel de Las Cases.

I’ve just returned home from seeing Douglas Murray, Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris on stage at the O2 Arena in London before a crowd of 8,000 people. And I have to say, it was a pretty good show. Once you’re past the bizarreness of seeing three top-flight intellectuals calmly occupying the same stage normally strutted upon by the likes of Iron Maiden or Def Leppard, it’s tempting to try to evaluate the content of the discussion, score it like a boxing match, or try to figure out which gentleman is the more brilliant or righteous. But those angles, valid as the might be, miss the larger point: namely, that deep conversation, underpinned by goodwill, delivers transformative value that can’t be obtained any other way.