The Prince de Joinville had not received his orders to go on the expedition with great pleasure. Two of his brothers had just been sent to Africa to fight, and he envied them their opportunities for adventures and glory; and, besides, he was sick of a most plebeian complaint, the measles. “One day as I lay in high fever,” he says in his “Memoirs,” “I saw my father appear, followed by Monsieur de Rémusat, then Minister of the Interior. This unusual visit filled me with astonishment, and my surprise increased when my father said, ‘Joinville, you are to go out to St. Helena and bring back Napoleon’s coffin.’ If I had not been in bed already I should have fallen down flat, and at first blush I felt no wise flattered when I compared the warlike campaign my brothers were on with the undertaker’s job I was being sent to perform in the other hemisphere. But I served my country, and I had no right to discuss my orders.”
If the young prince was privately a little ashamed of his task, publicly he adapted himself admirably to the occasion.
NAPOLEON’S TOMB AT ST. HELENA.
From a recent photograph.
A voyage of sixty-six days brought the “Belle Poule,” on October 8th, to St. Helena, where she was welcomed by the English with every honor. Indeed, throughout the affair the attitude of the English was dignified and generous. They showed plainly their desire to satisfy and flatter the pride and sentiment of the French.
It had been decided that the exhumation of the body and its transfer to the French should take place on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the arrival of Napoleon at the island. The disinterment was begun at midnight on October 15th, the English conducting the work, and a number of the French, including those of the party who had been with Napoleon at his death, being present. The work was one of extraordinary difficulty, for the same remarkable precautions against escape were taken in Napoleon’s death as had been in his life.
The grave in the Valley of Napoleon, as the place had come to be called, was surrounded by an iron railing set in a heavy stone curb. Over the grave was a covering of six-inch stone which admitted to a vault eleven feet deep, eight feet long, and four feet eight inches broad. The vault was apparently filled with earth, but digging down some seven feet a layer of Roman cement was found; this broken, laid bare a layer of rough-hewn stone ten inches thick, and fastened together by iron clamps. It took four and one-half hours to remove this layer. The stone up, the slab forming the lid of the interior sarcophagus was exposed, enclosed in a border of Roman cement strongly attached to the walls of the vault. So stoutly had all these various coverings been sealed with cement and bound by iron bands, that it took the large party of laborers ten hours to reach the coffin.
As soon as exposed the coffin was purified, sprinkled with holy water, consecrated by a De Profundis, and then raised with the greatest care, and carried into a tent which had been prepared for it. After the religious ceremonies, the inner coffins were opened. “The outermost coffin was slightly injured,” says an eye witness; “then came one of lead, which was in good condition, and enclosed two others—one of tin and one of wood. The last coffin was lined inside with white satin, which, having become detached by the effect of time, had fallen upon the body and enveloped it like a winding-sheet, and had become slightly attached to it.
“It is difficult to describe with what anxiety and emotion those who were present waited for the moment which was to expose to them all that was left of the Emperor Napoleon. Notwithstanding the singular state of preservation of the tomb and coffins, we could scarcely hope to find anything but some misshapen remains of the least perishable part of the costume to evidence the identity of the body. But when Dr. Guillard raised the sheet of satin, an indescribable feeling of surprise and affection was experienced by the spectators, many of whom burst into tears. The emperor himself was before their eyes! The features of the face, though changed, were perfectly recognizable; the hands extremely beautiful; his well known costume had suffered but little, and the colors were easily distinguished. The attitude itself was full of ease, and but for the fragments of satin lining which covered, as with fine gauze, several parts of the uniform, we might have believed we still saw Napoleon lying on his bed of state.”