Napoleon's suite, as finally arranged, consisted of Counts Bertrand, Montholon and Las Casas, General Gourgaud, and Dr. O'Meara, an Irish naval surgeon. Bertrand and Montholon were accompanied by their ladies and children, and twelve upper domestics of the late imperial household, who desired to share in the fortunes of their master. The money, diamonds and salable effects Napoleon had with him he was deprived of. When the search of his belongings was in progress, Bertrand was invited to attend, but he was so indignant at the measure that he positively refused. Four thousand gold napoleons ($16,000) were taken from him; the rest of the money, amounting to about one thousand five hundred napoleons, were returned to enable the Exile to pay such of is servants as were about to leave him.
The Northumberland sailed for St. Helena on the 8th of August. After a voyage of about seventy days, without unusual incident, on the 15th of October, 1815, Napoleon had his first view of his destined retreat. He was then forty-six years of age, enjoyed fairly good health, and but for the repeated denials of many necessary comforts to which he was now to be subjected might, in a measure, have enjoyed the remaining years of his life. Here he found himself immured for life in a small volcanic island, in the southern Atlantic, measuring ten miles in length and seven in breadth, at a distance of two thousand leagues from the scenes of his immortal exploits in arms, and separated from the two great continents of Africa and America by the unfathomable ocean.
The admiral landed about noon with a view of finding a fitting abode for Napoleon and his suite, returning in the evening. On the 16th the imperial prisoner landed, and as he left the Northumberland the officers all assembled on the quarter-deck with nearly the whole of the crew stationed in the gangways. Before he stepped into the small boat to be taken ashore he took leave of the captain and desired him to convey his thanks to his officers and men. He then made off for the shore to take up his residence at "the Briars," a small cottage about half a mile from Jamestown, during the interval which must elapse before other quarters could be provided for him. On the 10th of December he took possession of his newly appointed abode at Longwood, a villa about six miles distant from Jamestown. At this latter place he died on the 5th of May 1821 at half past 5 o'clock in the evening, after an exile of nearly six years. His death was no doubt hastened by a succession of petty annoyances on the part of his "jailer," Sir Hudson Lowe, governor of the island, which began on his arrival, and were followed up during all the years of his exile, despite his repeated protestations. He had already lived much longer than he desired, and had completed all his preparations for death's coming, during his last year of bad health. In his final hours he was surrounded by Bertrand, Montholon and other devoted friends to whom he had given his final instructions.
Four days later, or on May 9th, with the cloak he had worn at Marengo thrown over his feet, and clothed in the uniform of the Chasseurs of his Guard, he was buried with military honors, surrounded by the sorrowing friends who had shared his long confinement. The only inscription permitted on the tablet over his body was "General Bonaparte."
Nineteen years later, at the request of the French government, England honored a request for his ashes, and his body was disinterred and conveyed to France to rest once more "on the banks of the Seine, among the French people whom he had loved so well." On December 15th 1840, in the midst of the most imposing and magnificent ceremonies Paris had ever witnessed, the body of the Emperor was borne to the Invalides where it lay for many days publicly exposed. On the 6th of February 1841 the coffin was taken from the imperial cenotaph and placed in the chapel of St. Jerome, in the Church of the Invalides where it was to remain till the completion of the mausoleum some years later. Beneath the golden dome which crowns the Invalides, and towards which the faces of all visitors to Paris are most frequently turned, there still rests all that is mortal of this most wonderful warrior and statesman. His magic name continues to defy even time itself, and as the years roll on each generation inquires of its predecessors what they knew of this man who was so great that his name fills more pages in the world's solemn history than that of any other mortal.
THE END.
