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Bertrand states that after 1820 Napoleon was a confirmed invalid. Sitting in his chair, clad in dressing-gown, he spent the days reading, being no longer able to work or dictate.
“What a delightful thing rest is. The bed has become for me a place of luxury. How fallen am I. Once my activity was boundless; my mind never slumbered; I sometimes dictated to four or five secretaries, who wrote as fast as words could be uttered. But then I was Napoleon. Now I am nothing. I am sunk into a stupor, I can hardly raise my eyelids, my faculties forsake me. I do not live; I merely exist.”
Through March and April, 1821, he was slowly dying, and suffering torments from his ailment—cancer of the stomach. His patience and his kindness to those around him were perfect.
On one of the last days of April he said to Montholon, early in the morning on awakening from sleep: “I have just seen the good Josephine. I reached out my arms to embrace her, and she disappeared. She was seated there. It seemed to me that I had seen her yesterday evening. She is not changed; she loves me yet. Did you see her?”
Burning fever and delirium marked these final days; but in the lucid intervals he was calm, fearless, and thoughtful for the friends about him. On May 4 Bertrand asked him if he would have a priest. “No, I want no man to teach me how to die.” Nevertheless, he accepted the usual clerical services. And the picture of a densely ignorant and dull-minded priest, taking possession of Napoleon Bonaparte, hearing his confessions and granting him heavenly passports, is one of those things which makes the vocabulary of amazement seem to need enlargement and intensification.
It would not, perhaps, be difficult to explain why Napoleon, in his last illness, accepted the services of a priest, and died in the arms of the Church; but it puzzles one to understand why he embalmed in his Will his delusion as to Maria Louisa. He had long known of her infidelity, he received no line or message from her during the whole time of his captivity; yet he speaks of her in his will as though she had ever been the true and loving wife. Was this done from personal pride? Or did he do it for the sake of his son? Both motives may have influenced him, especially the latter.
A storm was raging over the island on May 4. “The rain fell in torrents, and a fierce gale howled over the drenched crags of St. Helena. Napoleon’s favorite willow was torn up by the roots, and every tree he had planted at Longwood was blown down.
“The night was very bad,” says Montholon. “Toward two o’clock delirium set in, accompanied by nervous contractions. Twice I thought I heard the words, France—armée—tête d’armée—Josephine, at the same time the Emperor sprang from the bed, in spite of my efforts to restrain him. His strength was so great that he threw me down, heavily falling to the floor.”
Others, hearing the noise, ran in, and the Emperor was put back upon the bed, where he became calm again. At six in the morning the death-rattle was heard. As Montholon approached the bed, the dying man made a sign that he wanted water. He was past swallowing; his thirst could only be allayed by a sponge pressed to his lips. He then lay all day with his eyes fixed, seemingly in deep meditation. As the sun was setting, he died—the evening gun of the English fort booming across the sea as his life went out.