[5] Alain Peyrefitte's The Immobile Empire, a study of British delegations to China in the late 18th century based on extensive research in French and English language sources, gives a detailed account of Amherst's conversations with Napoleon with no mention of such a quote.
[6] Elizabeth Knowles, editor of What They Didn't Say: A Book of Misquotations (Oxford University Press) cites a similar remark the exiled emperor made to Barry O'Meara, his surgeon.
O'Meara in conversation criticised Amherst for failing to convince the Chinese emperor to open China to trade.
He suggested to Napoleon that "we could easily compel the Chinese to grant good terms by means of a few ships of war; that, for example, we could deprive them altogether of salt, by a few cruisers properly stationed," Napoleon disagreed: Knowles remarks that "the essential idea is here, if not, frustratingly, the figure of speech.
"[4] Peyrefitte writes in Quand la Chine s'éveillera… le monde tremblera that Vladimir Lenin used the expression in 1923, and that it must therefore be older than that and therefore must be authentic.