Joséphine de Beauharnais
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Nov 24, 2009 · On April 11, 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France, abdicated the throne and was sent to the island of Elba in the Mediterranean Sea. He escaped in 1815 and tried to regain his power, but was defeated at Waterloo and exiled again.
- Missy Sullivan
- 1 min
- Overview
- Exile on Saint Helena Island
- What Killed Napoleon Bonaparte?
- HISTORY Vault: Napoleon Bonaparte: The Glory of France
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After his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, the former emperor was placed in a 'wretched' home on a remote island.
The facts about Napoleon Bonaparte’s life— his awesome military achievements against the united powers of Europe, his sweeping reforms of law and bureaucracy across an entire continent—are extraordinary. But Napoleon Bonaparte's final years were just as extraordinary, with humiliating exile, a mysterious death at age 51, and a bizarre postmortem chain of events.
After Napoleon was finally defeated at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, he abdicated his throne and surrendered to the British. Rather than execute him and potentially turn him into a martyr, the British placed him in exile on one of the most isolated places on earth—the British-held island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean.
Napoleon's Final Exile
A tiny island measuring only about 10 by 5 miles, its jagged cliffs must have seemed a grim sight when the former emperor first laid eyes on it. After initially enjoying two pleasant months living at the home of a former friend William Balcombe, Napoleon was then moved to nearby Longwood House, a property that had fallen into disrepair, and which was particularly damp and riddled with mold.
His servants were said to have complained of “colds, catarrhs, damp floors and poor provisions.” One of the entourage of 28 people who accompanied Napoleon was the Comte de Las Cases, who described Longwood House as “a wretched hovel, a few feet square.”
The island also appears to have been infested with rats, a feature that political satirists from all over Europe took as an opportunity to poke fun at the vanquished former emperor. A German political cartoon from the period mocked his situation, with a battalion of rats serving him instead of courtiers. A French cartoon showed the former Emperor sleeping in a tent while rats on the shore plot a rebellion—the caption read “Not even the rats want him.”
It would only get worse. The new British governor of the island, Hudson Lowe, was determined that Napoleon would not escape from this exile as he had done from his first one in Elba, and so restricted his movement, monitoring his correspondence, and ordering that Napoleon be seen in the flesh by British officers several times a day.
This led to the ex-emperor going into a bizarre form of rebellion, closing the shutters of the house and carving tiny peepholes into them so that he could look out without being seen. He also designed sunken pathways in the garden to make it harder for the officers to spot him. And despite Lowe’s orders that gifts were not permitted if they made mention of Napoleon’s imperial status, the former emperor continued to preserve royal protocol, with men in military dress and women in bejewelled gowns.
He also took up a few pastimes: he dictated his memoirs, wrote a book on Julius Caesar, studied English, and played cards. In fact, he played cards so much that a range of versions of solitaire (the card game also known as “patience”) have been named after him.
Shortly after Napoleon died, an autopsy was carried out by his physician Francesco Antommarchi. During this procedure, his heart and intestines were removed and put into sealed vessels, a standard treatment for the bodies of monarchs. However, Antommarchi also cut off Napoleon’s penis—no one knows why.
It was then smuggled out of the island by his chaplain and would end up being bought and sold over the years by various parties, eventually ending up on display in 1927 at New York City's Museum of French Art, where TIME magazine compared it to a “maltreated strip of buckskin shoelace.” An inglorious end for one who had in a matter of years managed to conquer almost all of Europe.
So what killed “Old Bony,” as the English liked to call him? That has been the matter of historical debate and medical science for the last 200 years.
Antommarchi said it was stomach cancer. In 1961, a Swedish amateur toxicologist claimed that Napoleon had in fact been poisoned with arsenic and pointed the finger at one of his French entourage.
Explore the extraordinary life and times of Napoleon Bonaparte, the great military genius who took France to unprecedented heights of power, and then brought it to its knees when his ego spun out of control.
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After his defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon was placed in a damp and isolated house on a remote British-held island in the South Atlantic. He died there in 1821, but the cause of his death remains a mystery.
- Una Mcilvenna
- 3 min
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Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; [1] [b] 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French emperor and military commander who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led successful campaigns during the Revolutionary Wars. He was the leader of the French Republic as First Consul ...
- 17 March 1805 – 11 April 1814
- Letizia Ramolino
Nov 9, 2009 · Learn about Napoleon Bonaparte, the French military leader and emperor who conquered much of Europe in the early 19th century. Find out how he was exiled twice, first to Elba and then to Saint Helena, where he died in 1821.
May 5, 2021 · Napoleon was exiled to the island of St Helena in the south Atlantic by the British after his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. He spent nearly six years there, dying of stomach cancer in 1821, under suspicious circumstances.
- Sarah Roller
Oct 19, 2023 · Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated at the Battle of Leipzig, or the Battle of the Nations, in October 1813; afterwards, France was invaded, and he was forced to abdicate and exiled to Elba. He returned in 1815, only to be defeated again at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815 and exiled permanently to St Helena.
3 days ago · Napoleon returned to power in early 1815 but was again ousted on June 22, 1815. In October 1815 Napoleon was exiled to the remote island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, where he remained until he died on May 5, 1821, at age 51.
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related to: where was napoleon exiledStarring Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby. Watch now on Apple TV+. Subscription required. The story takes a personal look at the French military leader's ruthless climb to emperor.
