Death of Napoleon at Longwood — 5 mai 1821

At seventeen minutes to six, in the damp house at Longwood, Napoleon died at fifty-one after several weeks of agony; his reported last words were 'France… army… head of the army'. The autopsy concluded stomach cancer, as with his father, without closing the debate since reopened by the arsenic hypothesis. Buried in the Geranium valley under a nameless slab, he became at once a figure of martyrdom.

Four years of decline

From 1817 his health deteriorated: stomach pains, vomiting, weight loss, swollen legs. The damp climate of Longwood, inaction and the permanent conflict with Governor Hudson Lowe finished a man who scarcely went out any more. On 15 April 1821 he dictated his will: "I wish my ashes to rest on the banks of the Seine, among the French people I have loved so much."

5 May

The agony lasted several days before a crowded room — Bertrand, Montholon, Abbé Vignali, the valet Marchand. He died at seventeen minutes to six, in a storm that had flattened the trees on the plateau. His reported last words, through delirium, were "France… army… head of the army".

The autopsy performed the next day by Antommarchi before seven British doctors concluded stomach cancer, the disease that had killed his father. The hypothesis of arsenic poisoning, revived in 1961 by hair analysis, remains disputed: arsenic was everywhere in the dyes, wallpapers and remedies of the time.

A grave without a name

London refused the inscription "Napoleon" that his suite demanded; the French refused "Napoleon Bonaparte", which denied the imperial title. The slab stayed blank. He was buried on 9 May in the Geranium valley beneath three willows, the grave watched by a British sentry.

The news took two months to reach Europe. It turned an inconvenient prisoner into a romantic figure: it was the death, more than the reign, that opened the legend.