DEATH OF NAPOLEON
During the 3rd of May, it was seen that the life of Napoleon was drawing evidently to a close; and his followers, and particularly his physician, became desirous to call in more medical assistance;—that of Dr. Shortt, physician to the forces, and of Dr. Mitchell, surgeon of the flag-ship, was referred to. Dr. Shortt, however, thought it proper to assert the dignity belonging to his profession, and refused to give an opinion on a case of so much importance in itself, and attended with so much obscurity, unless he were permitted to see and examine the patient. The officers of Napoleon's household excused themselves, by professing that the emperor's strict commands had been laid on them, that no English physician, Dr. Arnott excepted, should approach his dying bed. They said, that even when he was speechless they would be unable to brook his eye, should he turn it upon them in reproof for their disobedience.
About two o'clock of the same day, the priest Vignali administered the sacrament of extreme unction. Some days before, Napoleon had explained to him the manner in which he desired his body should be laid out in state, in an apartment lighted by torches, or what Catholics call une chambre ardente. "I am neither," he said in the same phrase which we have formerly quoted, "a philosopher nor a physician. I believe in God, and am of the religion of my father. It is not everybody who can be an atheist. I was born a Catholic, and will fulfil all the duties of the Catholic church, and receive the assistance which it administers." He then turned to Dr. Antommarchi, whom he seems to have suspected of heterodoxy, which the doctor, however, disowned. "How can you carry it so far?" he said. "Can you not believe in God, whose existence every thing proclaims, and in whom the greatest minds have believed?"
As if to mark a closing point of resemblance betwixt Cromwell and Napoleon, a dreadful tempest arose on the 4th of May, which preceded the day that was to close the mortal existence of this extraordinary man. A willow, which had been the exile's favourite, and under which he had often enjoyed the fresh breeze, was torn up by the hurricane; and almost all the trees about Longwood shared the same fate.
The 5th of May came amid wind and rain. Napoleon's passing spirit was deliriously engaged in a strife more terrible than that of the elements around. The words "tête d'armée" the last which escaped his lips, intimated that his thoughts were watching the current of a heady fight. About eleven minutes before six in the evening, Napoleon, after a struggle which indicated the original strength of his constitution, breathed his last.