A bare slab under willows, in a small valley on Saint Helena. It stayed uninscribed because the French and the British could not agree on a name.

Historical context

The place had been chosen by Napoleon himself. He liked this small valley planted with willows, at the bottom of which a spring supplied the water carried up daily to Longwood, and he had said that if he were not returned to France he wished to be buried there. The British, who refused any transfer, accepted the compromise.

The burial took place on 9 May 1821, four days after his death, with British military honours rendered to a general. The body was placed in four nested coffins, under sealed masonry and three stone slabs. A guard was mounted permanently: London feared a body-snatching to the very end.

The slab remained bare. The French wanted the single first name, Napoleon, engraved, as for a sovereign; the British demanded Napoleon Bonaparte, the name of a particular general. For want of agreement, nothing was written — and that nameless stone became one of the most commented objects of the whole romantic nineteenth century.

The tomb has been empty since 15 October 1840, the day of the exhumation. It has stayed in place, maintained, surrounded by its railing and replanted willows; like Longwood, the valley has belonged to France since 1858. A path of a few hundred metres leads down to it, and one finds there exactly what one came for: nothing, very well preserved.