Exile on Saint Helena — 15 octobre 1815

After his second abdication, Napoleon was deported to the British island of Saint Helena, in the mid-South Atlantic. He would spend the last six years of his life there, writing his memoirs and forging the Napoleonic legend.

Choosing the rock

After the surrender aboard the Bellerophon, London refused the status of guest that Napoleon claimed and declared him a prisoner of war of the Allied powers. Elba had shown the cost of proximity: the choice fell on Saint Helena, a volcano of one hundred and twenty square kilometres lost in the South Atlantic, two thousand kilometres from the African coast. He sailed on the Northumberland on 7 August and landed on 15 October 1815.

Longwood

First lodged at the Briars, he moved in December to Longwood, a damp and windswept former farm on the plateau. Around him a small court: Bertrand, Montholon, Gourgaud, Las Cases and the valet Marchand. Governor Hudson Lowe, who arrived in April 1816, applied the regulations to the letter, cut expenses, restricted rides and refused the imperial title — clashes were constant.

Writing the legend

With no action left, he dictated: the campaigns of Italy and Egypt, memories, judgements on men. Las Cases took it all down and returned to Europe in 1816 with the manuscript that became the Memorial of Saint Helena. In it he shaped the image of a liberal sovereign, protector of nationalities, victim of kings.

His health declined from 1817. He died on 5 May 1821 and was buried in the Geranium valley beneath a slab with no inscription: London and his suite could not agree on the name to engrave. The body returned to Paris in 1840.