He also continually complained about the difficulty of negotiating with Cobenzl.* In the course of a frank discussion over the future of the Ionian Isles, Napoleon smashed on the floor either a beautiful piece of antique china (the Austrian version) or a cheap tea set (the Bonapartist version), or possibly Cobenzl’s ‘prized porcelain teacups that had been given him by sovereigns such as Catherine the Great’ (Napoleon’s own version twenty years after the event).
