NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA, from the painting by Paul Belaroche, is the subject of one of the intaglio-gravure pictures illustrating “Napoleon Bonaparte.”
SATURDAY DAILY READING IN THE MENTOR COURSE
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
AT ST. HELENA
On a rock-bound island in the South Atlantic the greatest military genius of all time spent the last six years of his life. There Napoleon dragged out the months in company with a number of his former associates, recalling the glories of the past and complaining of the bitter conditions of the present. There he wrote interesting memorial papers and gave expression to the ripe results of his military training.
Sir Hudson Lowe, a British military officer with little tact or diplomacy, was his jailer. It was not possible for such a man and Napoleon Bonaparte to meet on terms of amity. Writers on the subject differ, as they do on almost all the episodes of Napoleon’s life. Some say that Sir Hudson abused and insulted Napoleon shamefully. However, there are French writers who try to prove that Napoleon continually lied to and intrigued against the governor.
Napoleon’s mind during these days turned frequently toward his son, “the little king of Italy,” and he dictated many instructions as to the boy’s future. It might have been with the hope that at some future time an empire might come to his son that he also dictated those elaborate memoirs in which he gave an account of himself.
During a terrific storm of wind and rain on the night of May 5, 1821, Napoleon died. The dash of the waves and the roar of the storm seemed to stir his fading faculties and to arouse in him a memory of the din of battle; for his last words were “Tête d’armée” (the head of the army), and with that ejaculation in a sharp military tone his lips closed forever.
He was buried near his favorite haunt,—a fountain shaded by weeping willows, at Longwood, the estate on which he had lived at St. Helena. British soldiers accompanied his body to rest with reversed arms and fired a parting salute over his grave.
In his will the following extraordinary statement appeared: “My wish is to be buried on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of the French people, whom I so dearly loved.”
In 1840 his body was ceremoniously transferred to Paris and buried in the Hôtel des Invalides with every circumstance of military pomp and national mourning.