Napoleon: a life

44 A Crown of Thorns

ON 24 JULY the Bellerophon dropped anchor in Torbay, and as soon as news got round that Napoleon was on board it was surrounded by a multitude of small craft full of locals eager to catch a glimpse of the great man. Themistocles obliged, appearing on deck and at the poop windows, tipping his hat to the ladies, evidently enjoying the attention and taking heart from the fact that it was not hostile. The newspapers wrote of his probable exile to St Helena, but that had been in the air for over a year, and the more ordinary English people saw him the more likely it seemed that he might be allowed to retire by their fireside. On 26 July Bellerophon weighed anchor and sailed for Plymouth, where it was flanked by two frigates with the aim of keeping away the tourists, but more than a thousand boats ferried people out to see the illustrious captive.^[1]

The blow fell on 31 July, when Admiral Lord Keith came aboard accompanied by the under-secretary for war, Sir Henry Bunbury, to inform him that he was to be taken to St Helena as a prisoner of war. Napoleon protested vehemently, saying he had been tricked into believing he would be allowed to stay in England. Captain Maitland had certainly been equivocal, allowing him to think what he wished, and some of the officers of the Bellerophon felt he had been deceived. He objected that the British had no right to imprison him, as he had made war legally on the King of France, who had defaulted on a binding treaty. He retired to his cabin, from which he hardly emerged over the next three days, and on the fourth wrote out a formal protest at the manner in which he had been treated.^[2]

By then Bellerophon had sailed from Plymouth to rendezvous with the flotilla under Rear Admiral Sir George Cockburn that was to escort him to St Helena. He was to travel on the flagship, HMS Northumberland, and the transfer would take place at sea, as the government was keen to get him away as quickly as possible. There had already been an attempt by British sympathisers to use legal means to bring him ashore by issuing a subpoena for him to attend court. If Napoleon had been allowed on English soil it would have been very difficult to get him off, and the British penchant for making a hero out of a loser might well have turned him into Themistocles.^[3]

A limit was set to the number of people who could accompany him, and Savary and others were not allowed to go. Those permitted to share their master’s captivity were Bertrand with his wife and young son, General Tristan de Montholon with his wife and five-year-old son, General Gourgaud, and the former chamberlain and member of the Council of State Emmanuel de Las Cases with his son. Napoleon’s service consisted of his valet Louis Marchand, his Mameluke Louis-Étienne Saint-Denis, his second valet Noverraz, his butler Cipriani, his grooms the Archambault brothers, another valet, a cook, and a pastry-cook, and a man in charge of the silver. Servants attached to the other members of the party brought the total up to twenty-seven, and since Napoleon’s physician had baulked at the prospect of going, the Irishman Barry O’Meara, surgeon of the Bellerophon, agreed to go along in his stead.

After a cordial farewell from the officers of the Bellerophon Napoleon was drummed off with the honours due to a general, but on coming aboard Northumberland he and his party had their baggage searched unceremoniously. A large sum of money was confiscated without any pretext being given. Having foreseen something of the sort, Napoleon had entrusted cloth belts full of gold coins to each of his entourage, and in that manner saved a small amount.

He seemed resigned to his fate and remained remarkably serene throughout the long passage. He bore the discomforts of shipboard life well, often remaining in his cabin to read. He chatted with the sailors, asking technical questions and trying to improve his English, and during dinner treated the ship’s officers to reminiscences and accounts of his campaigns. Although they were unimpressed by his table manners, he got on well with most of them, whiling away the time in conversation or games of cards and chess. He was occasionally indisposed and sometimes irritable, which is understandable, given that from the moment he came aboard the Bellerophon at Rochefort to the day he stepped off Northumberland at St Helena, he would have spent three months at sea.^[4]

On 14 October they sighted their destination, a volcanic outcrop rising out of the waters of the South Atlantic, accessible only at Jamestown, a small settlement nestling in a cleft which goes down to the sea. The island has a surface area of 122 square kilometres, and lies 1,900 kilometres off the coast of Africa, the nearest land. The climate is tropical but mild, and damp for much of the year. Discovered by the Portuguese in 1502, it was currently in the possession of the East India Company, serving the vital purpose of watering ships bound for India and Southeast Asia. In 1815 the population consisted of 3,395 Europeans, 218 black slaves, 489 Chinese, and 116 Indians and Malays. The island produced little and depended heavily on the import of food from Cape Town, a three-week trip away. There was a military governor and a small British garrison manning strategic forts and batteries, which was hugely inflated by the arrival of Cockburn’s fleet, with 600 men of the 53rd Regiment of Foot and four companies of artillery totalling another 360, which, along with the sailors now permanently on station, brought to about 2,500 the number who had come to guard Napoleon.^[5]

He came ashore at seven o’clock on the evening of 16 October and was put up in provisional quarters in Jamestown. By six o’clock the next morning he was on horseback with Cockburn and off to inspect the place that was to serve as his residence, a former farmhouse situated on a remote plateau at Longwood. Described by one English observer as ‘an old extremely ill-built barn’, it was virtually derelict and too small, so there could be no question of his moving there for some time. The British government had ordered a prefabricated wooden house to be shipped out along with some furniture, but this would take months to arrive and erect, so Cockburn set his ship’s carpenters and sailors to work on patching up the existing structure and adding further accommodation.^[6]

On their ride back, just over a mile short of Jamestown, they passed a bungalow set in flourishing gardens and known as ‘The Briars’ for its multitude of roses, the residence of the agent of the East India Company, William Balcombe. As there was nowhere else to put him, Napoleon was billeted in a small pavilion Balcombe had erected to serve as a ballroom, with an adjacent marquee. His campaign bed and nécéssaire were installed at one end, and a makeshift study was arranged at the other, with a curtain dividing the two. Las Cases and his son moved into the garret and a skeleton staff of Marchand, Saint-Denis, and Cipriani accommodated themselves as best they could. The rest of his suite remained at Jamestown.

Napoleon would spend the next seven weeks there, working in the mornings with either Las Cases or Montholon, Bertrand, and Gourgaud, who would take it in turns to come up from Jamestown to take dictation of his accounts of the principal episodes of his life: Las Cases the Italian campaign, Bertrand Egypt, Montholon the empire, and Gourgaud the revolutionary period, the Consulate, Elba, the Hundred Days, and Waterloo. He took exercise by riding out with Captain Poppleton of the 53rd, who was detailed to keep a constant watch over him, or walking around the extensive gardens of the Briars, which were filled with fruit trees, including mangoes and figs, as well as shrubs and flowers. In the afternoons he would go for a drive with one or other of his entourage. He sometimes dined with the Balcombes and often spent his evenings with them, playing cards and other games with the children — two girls and two boys.

The second daughter, the fourteen-year-old Betsy, was pretty and vivacious and remarkably precocious. She spoke French, and once she had got over the fear of meeting the dreaded Bonaparte and the awe of seeing ‘the most majestic person [she] had ever seen’, captivated by his ‘fascinating smile’, she began chatting away with him. He delighted in her impish ways and happily joined in whatever games his ‘Mademoiselle Betsee’ chose to play, displaying unexpected talents at mimicry and blindman’s buff; one day when a young friend of hers called to catch a glimpse of the Corsican Ogre he obliged by acting a grimacing, howling monster. Betsy treated him like a companion or a brother. ‘He seemed to enter into every sort of mirth or fun with the glee of a child, and though I have often tried his patience severely, I never knew him lose his temper or fall back upon his rank or age,’ she later reminisced, only dimly aware of the pleasure he derived from moments spent with his ‘bambina’ or ‘leettle monkee’, as he referred to her.^[7]

He had not been on the island a week when the full implications of his position sank in. Not only was he a prisoner, he was lodged in a miserable shed without curtains or furniture, he was watched day and night, and separated from his companions, who could only visit him accompanied by a guard. The food was inadequate and revolting, with no good bread and a shortage of fresh meat and vegetables. He was soon going to be put in an uncomfortable barn in the most dismal part of the island, damp and either windswept or enveloped in cloud. He was to be treated with the barest civility by his gaolers and, what rankled most, could expect not the slightest recognition of his former status.

On 24 October, in the presence of all four of his officers, he gave vent to his bitterness, saying that he had never treated any of his enemies with such heartless contempt. They had all been only too happy to call him their brother when he was in power and were now assuaging their shame by humiliating him. The Emperor Francis tried to bury his grandson’s origins by giving the King of Rome an Austrian title and bringing him up accordingly; the man Napoleon had made King of Württemberg was doing his utmost to get his daughter to divorce Jérôme, as was the similarly crowned King of Bavaria with regard to his daughter and Eugène.^[8]

Napoleon declared that he would make no more public protests himself, it being below his dignity, and would let others speak on his behalf. In a note he prepared for the captain of one of the accompanying ships who had come to take his leave before returning to Britain, he set out a number of points he wished him to make known there. The first was that the British government had declared him to be a prisoner of war, which was incorrect, since he had not been taken but had voluntarily placed himself under the protection of the laws of England; and if it had been true, then he should have been released as all prisoners of war are at the cessation of hostilities. The second was that by subjecting him to an unsuitable climate and harsh conditions, refusing him the consideration he deserved and preventing him from communicating with his wife and child, or even getting news of them, the British government was not only breaking international law but denying him basic human rights.^[9]

On 9 December Cockburn took him to see Longwood, which had undergone extensive work. The stone barn had been partitioned to create living quarters for Napoleon consisting of a small bedroom, a study, a bathroom and a small room for the valet on duty, a dining room and pantry, and a library. A long wooden structure had been added on to the front at right angles, containing a parlour and a sitting room. Further additions at the back provided a kitchen, servants’ quarters, various utility rooms, and accommodation for the Montholon family, Gourgaud, and in a loft reached by a ladder, Las Cases and his son (the Bertrands were to be lodged separately in a cottage halfway between Longwood and Jamestown). The building work on the annexes was still in progress, and Napoleon complained that the smell of paint made him feel sick, but even though the rooms were small and there was hardly any furniture, on the whole the accommodation was an improvement on the pavilion in the Balcombes’ garden. The following day he put on his uniform and, after thanking the Balcombes for their hospitality, set off on horseback with Cockburn for his new residence, where he was greeted with military honours by a detail of the 53rd.

His campaign bed had been installed in his bedroom, a portrait of Marie-Louise had been hung on the wall, with a bust of the King of Rome beneath it, and that day he was able to relax for an hour in his first hot bath since leaving Malmaison. As their quarters were not yet ready, the Montholons, Gourgaud, Dr O’Meara, and others had to make do with tents in the garden. It was not long before the disadvantages of Longwood made themselves felt. The climate on the plateau was the worst on the island and the desolate surroundings the least appealing. The buildings were entirely unsuited to the conditions. They were roofed with paper covered in pitch, which soon began letting in the rain, and damp seeped through the walls of the annexes, which were of wood covered with the same, permeating clothes, bedding, books, and everything else. The house was full of flies and mosquitoes and infested with rats. The floors were of cheap pine, and as there was no cellar or underpinning, they rotted, occasionally giving way to reveal the damp earth beneath. The smoking chimneys did not give off enough heat to dry the rooms out.

The conditions depressed Napoleon and his entourage, who were used to a dry climate, good food, and a modicum of luxury. They also brought into sharp relief the reality of their situation and aggravated tensions which had been mounting since they left Europe. Each of the four officers who had chosen to come out with Napoleon had reasons of their own for their decision, which had been made under pressure at a moment of uncertainty. Bertrand’s wife, Fanny, a beautiful, well-born creole of Irish descent, had threatened to drown herself when her husband declared his intention of going. Pangs of regret at what had seemed at the time the right gesture of loyalty were not long to hit all of the men, and their spouses even more so, as they contemplated limitless exile in such conditions. The spirit of emulation in these soldiers and courtiers, possibly manipulated by Napoleon, had aroused jealousies and animosities between them during the voyage, and these only grew with time. The Bertrands and Montholons, and particularly their wives, were locked in rivalry. Las Cases, a forty-nine-year-old minor nobleman of no evident talents, was generally referred to as ‘the Jesuit’. Gourgaud was a product of the Napoleonic system: the son of a court violinist, he had fought his way up from the ranks at Austerlitz and Saragossa, been wounded at Smolensk and swum the Berezina, ending up with the rank of general, the title of baron, and the position of orderly officer to Napoleon. But he was excessively sensitive and histrionic, and they all took pleasure in baiting him.^[10]

They nevertheless constituted a court around Napoleon, observing imperial etiquette and routine. Unless he was receiving a formal visit, during the day he usually wore his green hunting coat or a ‘colonial’ costume of white linen coat and trousers. In the evenings the company assembled for dinner in full uniform, the ladies in court dresses and bejewelled, and after dinner they played cards, conversed, or listened as Napoleon read from a book. He revisited his old favourites—Paul et Virginie, Racine, and Corneille — discussed other works, and went over his life in endless monologues on what he should have done or not done, passing severe judgement on people, making unpleasant comments about the women in his life, blaming others and particularly bad luck, treachery, or ‘fate’ for his failures. The house was furnished with whatever had come to hand, but shards of splendour were on display — imperial silver, a magnificent Sèvres coffee set depicting the salient events of his life, a few portraits and miniatures.

He took pleasure in laying out a garden at Longwood which he kept embellishing with the aid of two Chinese workers and which he enjoyed watering himself. He received visits from the Balcombes, particularly Betsy, who sometimes brought some local lady to see him. But they had to obtain authorisation beforehand and present a chit at the guardhouse at the outer limit of Longwood, as though they were visiting an inmate in prison.

His detention was anomalous, as he was neither strictly speaking a prisoner of war nor a convicted criminal, and while he was freer to move about than either, he was also forbidden a number of privileges guaranteed to both. Its conditions said more about the fears and insecurities of the cabinets of Europe than about any threat he might have posed. He was not allowed to walk or ride beyond certain limits without being accompanied by a British officer, and even within them he was watched by 125 sentinels during the day and 72 by night. In addition, there were pickets of soldiers placed on every hill in the area. Twice a day an officer had to ascertain his presence face to face. A telegraph was set up to alert Jamestown instantly of his movements (with a signal for ‘escaped’). Nobody could visit him without authorisation, and a curfew applied to the immediate area. The 53rd was encamped nearby and patrolled incessantly. Two ships circumnavigated the island continuously, one clockwise, the other anti-clockwise. Dr O’Meara was enlisted by Admiral Cockburn to spy on Napoleon and report on his actions, his words, and even his mood. He was not allowed any newspapers. Ships calling at Jamestown to take on water were boarded and searched, their crews and passengers screened. In June 1816, high-ranking commissioners sent by the French, Russian, and Austrian governments arrived to invigilate. ‘The Island of St Helena is the point on which our telescopes must be unceasingly trained,’ Louis XVIII’s prime minister, the duc de Richelieu, wrote to his ambassador in London, anxious about whether the British were taking enough precautions. It was as if some dangerous force was being contained on the remote island, a plague that needed to be quarantined.^[11]

There is no evidence that Napoleon ever contemplated or even wished to escape. On the contrary, he applied himself to making what he could of his predicament in such a way that at times he almost seemed to revel in it; the consummate actor and manipulator was gradually developing a new strategy.

Whatever his feelings about their government’s actions, he had gone out of his way to be amiable to all the British officers, military and naval, during the crossing (he never cheated at cards with them). When the sailors put on their ceremony at the crossing of the Equator, he distributed money to them. He charmed the Balcombes during his stay at the Briars. He was polite and comradely toward the colonel and officers of the 53rd when they called. He received British inhabitants of the island graciously, and on the whole succeeded in engaging their sympathy, or at least in conveying the impression that he was being shabbily treated. To visiting Britons — and there were many of them, as after weeks or months at sea on their way to or from India, a glimpse of the fallen ogre was an irresistible attraction — he was charming and appeared to bear his misfortunes with good grace. It was not long before accounts were published, and people in England began criticising the unnecessarily harsh conditions to which he was being subjected.^[12]

He applied himself to making them appear harsher than they were. While he had been on relatively cordial terms with Admiral Cockburn during the crossing, on St Helena he began to treat him as his gaoler. Rather than seek a modus vivendi, he challenged him. Knowing perfectly well that all officers and officials had been instructed to accord him no more honours than those due to a general, he would nevertheless order Bertrand to inform the admiral that the emperor wished this or that, which naturally elicited the response that the admiral knew of no emperor on the island and was therefore unable to comply. When an invitation was issued to ‘General Buonaparte’ to attend a function, Napoleon instructed Bertrand to answer that the person in question had last been seen in Egypt in 1799. This kind of behaviour soured the admiral’s view of Napoleon and encouraged him to carry out his duty with greater zeal, leading to a further deterioration in relations between them and an accumulation of grievances on either side.^[13]

In April 1816 the military governor who was to supervise his captivity reached the island and took over from Admiral Cockburn, who stayed on as commander of the naval station. Major General Sir Hudson Lowe had served mainly in the Mediterranean, taking part in the British capture of Corsica and commanding a regiment of pro-British Corsicans, and spoke French and Italian as a result. Although he was a capable soldier and a competent administrator, he was not popular, and Wellington thought him a fussy fool. Punctilious, narrow-minded, and lacking in imagination, let alone human sympathy, he was the worst possible choice for his new appointment.

Napoleon was pleased at the news that his new gaoler was to be a soldier. But things got off to a bad start when, shortly after his arrival, on 15 April the new governor called at Longwood unannounced, only to be told that the emperor was unable to receive him. It was agreed that he should return the following day, when Napoleon did receive him but took an instant dislike to him. Lowe was not interested in him as a person or a historical figure and could see no further than the limits of his instructions, which were to guard the prisoner according to guidelines laid down in London by the war secretary Lord Bathurst, who had no idea of local conditions and therefore piled on unnecessary precautions. Lowe saw no reason to question these and carried them out to the letter. Napoleon felt affronted and showed his feelings with characteristic rudeness. Lowe responded with officious detachment and an extreme interpretation of his instructions, meaning to teach the French upstart a lesson. This furnished Napoleon with the perfect target for his bitterness and frustration and, by extension, with the ideal means by which to fight his final battle against the British.

A couple of weeks after their first meeting, the ship carrying furniture and the materials for building the new house arrived at Jamestown, and Lowe came to enquire where Napoleon thought it should be erected. This carried an unwelcome suggestion of permanence regarding his captivity, and Napoleon flew into a rage about the way he was being treated, accusing his gaoler of having been sent to kill him. Lowe barely contained his anger and retired. The furniture was brought to Longwood (absurdly, since Napoleon did not play, a billiard table was installed in the parlour), and no more was said about the new residence.^[14]

In mid-June Admiral Cockburn was relieved by a new squadron under Rear Admiral Sir Pulteney Malcolm, whose wife, Clementine Elphinstone, owed Napoleon a debt of gratitude; he had saved her brother’s life by getting his wounds dressed at Waterloo. They brought presents from her brother (which Lowe attempted to prevent being handed over) and French newspapers and treated him with consideration. In the course of repeated visits this developed into cordiality, with Napoleon indulging his old fascination with Ossian by questioning her about her native Scotland. This profoundly irritated the governor, whose relations with the admiral became strained.^[15]

The new fleet also brought the commissioners designated by Russia, Austria, and France to watch over Napoleon, and he briefly thought that, at least in the case of the Russian and the Austrian, they might provide a channel of communication with Alexander and Francis. When it became clear that they were only additional gaolers, he refused to receive them in their official capacity, as in doing so he would be accepting his position as a prisoner of their sovereigns. At the same time, he let it be known that he would gladly see them as private individuals. When, after having consulted their governments on the matter, they agreed, Lowe prohibited it, going so far as to forbid them to walk, ride, or drive in the vicinity of Longwood, or to exchange greetings with any of its inhabitants they might meet, including servants (he issued similar injunctions on the soldiers of the 53rd, who had run out to cheer Napoleon as he passed their camp on one of his morning rides). Having intercepted a note from Bertrand to the French commissioner, the marquis de Montchenu, whom he knew to have seen his sick mother in Paris, asking for news of her, Lowe rebuked him and declared that all correspondence must pass through him. He even prevented the Russian commissioner, Count Balmain, from any contact with a passing Russian ship, presumably fearing an attempt to kidnap his prisoner.^[16]

Accompanying the Austrian commissioner, Baron Stürmer, was a young botanist employed in the gardens of Schönbrunn, Philipp Welle. He discreetly contacted Napoleon’s valet Marchand and handed him a letter from Marchand’s mother, who had been in service with the King of Rome and had accompanied him to Vienna. The letter contained a lock of his hair, and Welle, who had often seen the child in the gardens, was able to give news of him, which was all passed on to Napoleon; he was deeply affected and put the lock of hair away in his nécessaire, next to one of Josephine’s.^[17]

Another ray of sunshine in his life was the arrival of two cases of books, along with letters from Letizia and Pauline. He was so eager to get at the books that he opened the cases himself with hammer and chisel. But his mood was spoiled when Lowe confiscated two volumes sent by an English admirer stamped on the binding with the words Imperatori Napoleoni, as he refused to acknowledge his prisoner’s imperial title. Napoleon had a number of well-wishers in England, most notably Lord and Lady Holland, who sent him books and other creature comforts — most of which were sent back by Lowe or by pettifogging officials in London. ‘Napoleon cannot need so many things,’ Lord Bathurst exclaimed when Pauline attempted to send him some necessities.^[18]

Not surprisingly, Lowe met with a frosty reception when he called to discuss Napoleon’s accommodation; Longwood was already showing signs of decrepitude and was fast becoming uninhabitable. Napoleon could see no point in building a new house, believing that by the time it was ready there would have been a new ministry in Britain or a change of regime in France, or he would be dead. He was reluctant to accept any favour which might give the impression that his lot had been eased. There ensued a difficult meeting lasting two hours (Napoleon would stand throughout, forcing Lowe to do likewise, fearing that if he were to sit down Lowe would do so too, a breach of etiquette in the presence of the emperor). Since the materials for the new house had arrived, Lowe was determined to erect it, but in the first instance remedial works to the existing one were put in hand.^[19]

The Russian commissioner reported to his superiors that as well as being ‘the saddest place in the world’, St Helena was impossible to attack or to escape from. Yet the British government was obsessed with the possibility of his doing so and gave credence to every report and rumour of a plot to liberate Napoleon — including some absurd ones involving submarines. It therefore maintained the ludicrous number of troops and a naval squadron on permanent station, which, given the necessity of shipping in almost all victuals and supplies from Cape Town or even further afield, brought the cost of Napoleon’s confinement up to, according to some estimates, as much as £250,000 a year.^[20]

Rather than scale down the military establishment, Lord Bathurst ordered Lowe to reduce the expense of keeping the prisoner and his household. While on Elba Napoleon had skimped and saved, but here he was only too profligate with the British treasury’s money (it had, after all, robbed him of a large sum when he came aboard the Northumberland). He insisted on being supplied with meat and vegetables which were unavailable on the island and often arrived spoiled, and Longwood consumed an astonishing 1,400 bottles of wine a month (assisted by Poppleton and other officers of the 53rd, who either scrounged or bought it from the servants). Lowe called at Longwood to discuss savings, but was not received, and was told to address himself to Napoleon’s butler. He went to see Bertrand, who sent him to Montholon, who told him to go to the devil.^[21]

On 18 August 1816 Lowe called at Longwood once more, in the company of Admiral Malcolm, who would at least gain him access to Napoleon. As they rode up they found him walking in the garden with Las Cases and Albine de Montholon. Lowe apologised for having to bring up the matter of finances but complained that he was obliged to communicate directly with Napoleon since Bertrand had insultingly refused to discuss it. Napoleon could not contain his antipathy toward the general; he reminded him that Bertrand had commanded armies in the field, while he was nothing but a staff clerk who had only ever commanded ‘Corsican deserters’, a man without honour who read other people’s letters, a gaoler not a soldier, who was treating them ‘like Botany Bay convicts’. He railed at the conditions he was being kept under, at the climate which was undermining his health, at his mail being read, his books being confiscated, and other indignities. ‘My body is in your hands, but my soul is free. It is as free as it was when I commanded Europe.… And Europe will in time come to judge the treatment inflicted on me. The shame will rebound on the people of England,’ he said to Lowe. If he was not prepared to feed him, Napoleon would go to the camp of the 53rd, whose officers would surely not refuse to share their meagre mess with an old soldier. Red in the face, Lowe could barely contain his fury at the insulting references to his not being a real soldier and acting dishonourably when he was only following orders; he salvaged his honour by telling Napoleon that he was ridiculous and his rudeness pathetic and left, followed by Malcolm. He would never see Napoleon alive again.^[22]

Napoleon admitted to Las Cases and Albine de Montholon that he had gone too far, but he was not one to apologise, and the hostilities continued. Faced with further demands to reduce the expense of his establishment, and a refusal to let him write to bankers who held his funds (a plot was feared), he had his servants gather up a large quantity of his table silver, hammer it out of shape and remove imperial devices, and sent it to be sold off for scrap in the square at Jamestown, in full view of the inhabitants and visiting Britons.^[23]

Lowe retaliated by reducing the limits within which Napoleon was allowed to move and ordered the number of his servants to be reduced by four. At the end of November 1816 Las Cases was arrested, having been caught trying to smuggle out a couple of letters — apparently a ploy to get himself sent back to Europe with the four servants who were being sent away. This diminished the miniature court which was a psychological support for the fallen emperor. Observing the routine etiquette became more difficult. A combination of monotony, boredom, bad weather, worse food, the sight of the sentries at every door and window, the petty restrictions and minor vexations, along with frequent indispositions caused by all of these, sapped morale as well as their health.

As a protest against Lowe’s restrictions on his movements, Napoleon isolated himself further. He stopped riding and even going for walks; the constant attendance of a British officer spoilt the pleasure. The lack of activity told on his physical condition. His dysuria had got worse, and according to Saint-Denis he would sometimes stand over his chamberpot for long periods, his head leaning against the wall, trying to urinate. By the end of 1816 he was also suffering from protracted coughing fits and fevers.^[24]

On some days he did not bother to dress at all, keeping to his rooms and reading, usually one of his old favourites. He still dictated accounts of his campaigns, to Albine de Montholon who had taken over from Las Cases, and it seems that in the spring of 1817 he began an affair with her — presumably with her husband’s acquiescence, since there could have been no secrets in the confined space inhabited by so many (in January 1818 she would give birth to a daughter, Josephine, who was probably his).

After one of his visits to Longwood, Admiral Malcolm noted that Napoleon was ‘not displeased’ at the vexations being visited on him by Lowe and derived some satisfaction from his accruing grievances. At a later meeting, Napoleon explained the reason to Lady Malcolm. ‘I have worn the imperial crown of France, the iron crown of Italy; England has now given me a greater and more glorious than either of them — for it is that worn by the Saviour of the world — a crown of thorns. Oppression and every insult that is offered to me only adds to my glory, and it is to the persecutions of England I shall owe the brightest part of my fame.’^[25]

He composed a protest against the way he was being treated, listing all the petty indignities and legally dubious procedures, which was written out on a piece of satin from one of Albine de Montholon’s dresses and sewn into the lining of the coat of one of the departing servants, the Corsican Santini, who on reaching London would contact the prominent radical General Sir Robert Wilson and get it published. It would fuel a debate initiated in the House of Lords by Lord Holland attacking the government for its shameful treatment of the captive emperor.^[26]

Napoleon was aware that his companions were making notes and recording events for posterity, and he made sure they did not lack material. He reminisced about his childhood, his family, his love for Corsica, his time as a cadet and his later military and political exploits. He expounded his views on everything from religion to music, from women to war, reflected on what he had done and why, and discoursed on what he would have done if he had not been prevented. His monologues contain a deal of self-justification and blame of those who had supposedly failed or betrayed him, of circumstances and of ‘fate’. He returned time and again to subjects such as his Russian campaign, blaming treachery and bad luck. He denigrated most of his marshals and dismissed the women he had loved with coarse comments on their attractions and desires. Unpleasant as much of it is, to anyone who does not know better the overall image that emerges from the material noted down by his four ‘evangelists’ is that of a man who meant well, tried to achieve the impossible, and was being horribly punished, indeed martyred, for it. Waterloo is reinvented as a kind of expiatory moral victory. And St Helena was the ideal Golgotha.

In June 1817 Malcolm and his wife sailed away, and the 53rd was also replaced. In July Dr O’Meara was expelled by Lowe, who suspected him of spying for Napoleon; the governor was increasingly suspicious of everyone, and having got wind of the meeting between Marchand and Welle, even had the Austrian commissioner expelled.

The monotony of life on the island affected everyone, and Napoleon’s entourage could not hide their longing to leave. Gourgaud, who had grown neurotic and constantly feuded with Montholon, left in March 1818. Although it was something of a relief to be spared his mawkish tantrums, it further diminished Napoleon’s court. The Balcombes left the same month, which upset him, as even though he had been seeing less of them recently they were a friendly presence, and Betsy always cheered him when she called. A more affecting loss was the death from appendicitis of Cipriani, whom Napoleon was fond of and who had managed to maintain a certain standard when it came to his table.

Napoleon was grateful to the Anglican chaplain who consented to give him a Christian burial and sent him the gift of a gold snuffbox. Hearing of this, Lowe forced the chaplain to return it, on the grounds that it represented an attempt by the prisoner to bribe a British official. When, as the Balcombes were about to leave, Napoleon wished to give their Malay slave Toby, whom he had befriended when staying with them, the money to buy his freedom, he was prevented from doing so on the grounds that he was fomenting a slave rebellion. Lowe did not give a political reason for not allowing the piano at Longwood to be tuned, but he did find a sinister one behind Montholon’s offer to the French commissioner Montchenu of some beans, explaining in a report to Bathurst that Montchenu should only have accepted the white ones, since white was the colour of the Bourbons, and refused the green ones, since green was associated with Napoleon, the implication being that the commissioner was politically unsound.^[27]

Three months after O’Meara had been sent away, Napoleon fell ill. Bertrand requested a replacement, but the governor did not believe there was anything wrong with Napoleon and offered to send one of the available military and naval medics. Napoleon refused, on the grounds that they would be no more than the governor’s spies. He kept to his bedroom, which meant the British officer who was supposed to establish his presence twice a day could not see him, despite trying to peer through cracks in the shutters. Lowe insisted he be admitted into his bedroom. Napoleon refused. Lowe suggested sending a doctor to ascertain his presence. Napoleon would not admit him. Lowe threatened to have the door broken down, and Napoleon did eventually allow John Stokoe, surgeon of HMS Conqueror, to examine him. In January 1819 Stokoe diagnosed severe hepatitis, and was ill-treated by Lowe, arrested and dismissed, the governor being convinced that his captive was shamming. In April, Napoleon sent a plea to the prime minister Lord Liverpool through a relative of his who was passing through, but he too was persuaded by Lowe that there was nothing wrong with him.^[28]

Bertrand contrived to contact Fesch in Rome, with a request for a doctor and a Catholic priest. Neither Fesch nor Letizia liked spending money (though she had sent her son some), and she appears to have been convinced by a soothsayer that Napoleon had been spirited away from St Helena and was safe in some undisclosed location; they therefore selected two decrepit Corsican priests and a young doctor with little experience who came cheap. The three of them reached the island in September 1819, and on the Sunday following their arrival, mass was celebrated in the sitting room of Longwood. Napoleon had the now largely redundant dining room turned into a chapel, and henceforth attended mass every Sunday.^[29]

Albine de Montholon had left that summer, taking her children with her, and her husband was desperate to follow. The Bertrands were also keen to get back to Europe, and Napoleon, who understood their predicament but felt he could not do without the moral support of at least one high-ranking officer, considered finding replacements among his old faithfuls such as Savary and Caulaincourt. He was deluding himself if he thought they would be allowed to come; Pauline had sought permission without success, and in the previous year Jérôme and his wife, Catherine, had written to Lord Liverpool and the prince regent begging to be allowed to visit Napoleon, only to meet with refusal. In the event, he was coming to depend more on the twenty-eight-year-old Marchand, for whom he felt great affection and called ‘mon fils’, and who cared for him with truly filial devotion.^[30]

Although he was now gravely ill, he had moments of enthusiasm and activity; toward the end of 1819 he decided to take more exercise and, spade in hand, took up gardening, which he seemed to enjoy. In January 1820 he went out for a ride, which laid him low for several days, and he repeated the exercise in May. That summer he drove out for a picnic, but on his return had to be carried into the house, and by the autumn he was in the terminal stages of what was either cancer or gastric haemorrhage due to his stomach wall being perforated by ulcers. The Corsican doctor sent by Fesch and Letizia, Francesco Antommarchi, was out of his depth and remarkably feckless with it, but there was little he could have done.^[31]

Napoleon no longer left the house, and often not even his room, not bothering to shave on some days. He had grown very weak and unsteady, tripping over a rat in his room on one occasion, and fainted if he made an effort. He suffered from sweats and fevers, and vomited frequently, and by the end of the year it was clear to all around him that he was dying. Lowe refused to believe it and kept insisting on his presence being verified by a British officer, again threatening forcible entry. Dr Thomas Arnott, surgeon of the regiment which had taken over to guard the ogre, was admitted at the beginning of April 1821; he confirmed that Napoleon was still there and reported that there was nothing much wrong with his health.^[32]

In the last week of April Napoleon was vomiting blood and complaining of searing pain in his side. He asked for his bed to be moved to the drawing room, which had more light and air. He was growing weaker and seemed to lose consciousness at times; on 29 April he muttered incomprehensibly about ‘France’, ‘the army’, and ‘Josephine’, and then about bequeathing his house in Ajaccio and the Salines to his son. On 3 May he was given extreme unction by one of his Corsican chaplains, Abbé Vignali, whom he instructed to follow the French royal tradition of the ‘chapelle ardente’, a lying-in-state with mass celebrated daily. By the next day he was delirious, and at around ten minutes before six on the evening of 5 May 1821 he died.^[33]

ON HEARING OF NAPOLEON’S DEATH, the Italian poet Alessandro Manzoni felt a sense of shock and a powerful urge to write. He sat down and in the space of two days composed one of his greatest works, Il Cinque Maggio, an ode in which he portrays the deceased emperor as a heroic and superhuman being whose death he likens to that of Christ on Golgotha, since it raises him to immortality. Goethe, who translated the ode into German, also made analogies between Napoleon and Christ, and his continuing fascination with the emperor’s Promethean nature had a profound influence on his work, particularly on his masterpiece, Faust. Napoleon’s talent for self-promotion had yielded its highest achievement.

‘He was neither good nor bad, neither just nor unjust, neither mean nor generous, neither cruel nor compassionate; he was wholly political,’ wrote Matthieu Molé, who had worked closely with him for years. That was as true of his death as of his life. When he felt death approaching, on 12 April Napoleon began dictating his last will and testament, which he would later laboriously copy out in his own hand, as his Code demands. It was to be much more than just a will. It expressed affection for his family, to whom he left no money, only personal mementos. It bequeathed his heart in an urn and a lock of his hair to Marie-Louise (who would refuse to accept them). It rewarded seventy-six of his most faithful friends and followers, high and low. It gave generous grants to the men who had followed him to Elba, to foreign soldiers who had fought for France, and to the wounded of Waterloo. As he did not possess a fraction of the sums necessary, he effectively turned tens of thousands of people into creditors of the French government and therefore enemies of the Bourbons. The document is a political manifesto around which supporters of his son and the Bonaparte dynasty could unite.^[34]

It opens with a number of declarations, about himself, his family, and his country and states that he is dying, ‘assassinated by the British government and its hired executioner’. He had been working on this theme from the moment he reached St Helena, representing himself as a martyr, and he was unfailingly assisted by Hudson Lowe to the very end — he was buried in a picturesque spot about a mile from Longwood, but his gravestone was left blank, because the governor would not permit any inscription suggesting imperial status, and neither Bertrand nor Montholon would allow ‘General Buonaparte’.^[35]

Two years after his death, Las Cases published his Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène, an account of the emperor’s slow martyrdom after Waterloo, a best-seller which spread the gospel of Napoleon throughout the world. The spirit of the age was highly receptive, and poets across Europe and beyond embraced Napoleon’s carefully crafted propaganda. ‘Britannia! you own the sea,’ wrote the German poet Heinrich Heine. ‘But the sea has not water enough to wash away the disgrace that this great man bequeathed to you as he died.’^[36]

Napoleon had finally triumphed over his British enemy, and in the process he had achieved something else. From his earliest years he had sought role models and braced his ego by casting himself in the image of a Hannibal, Alexander, Caesar, or Charlemagne, but after briefly considering Themistocles, he had lighted upon an entirely new model, one just as mythical as any of the others, which would gain far greater resonance than all of them put together — that of Napoleon the godlike genius who, misunderstood, betrayed, and martyred by lesser men, would triumph over death and live on to haunt the imagination and inspire future generations; he had begun a new life as a myth.