“1. I die in the apostolical Roman religion, in the bosom of which I was born, more than fifty years since.
“2. It is my wish that my ashes may repose on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of the French people, whom I have loved so well.
“3. I have always had reason to be pleased with my dearest wife, Marie Louise. I retain for her to my last moment, the most tender sentiments—I beseech her to watch, in order to preserve my son from the snares which yet environ his infancy.
“4. I recommend to my son, never to forget that he was born a French prince, and never to allow himself to become an instrument in the hands of the triumvirs who oppress the nations of Europe; he ought never to fight against France, or to injure her in any manner; he ought to adopt my motto—‘Everything for the French people.’
“5. I die prematurely, assassinated by the English oligarchy.... The English nation will not be slow in avenging me.
“6. The two unfortunate results of the invasions of France when she had still so many resources, are to be attributed to the treason of Marmont, Augerau, Talleyrand and La Fayette.
“I forgive them—may the posterity of France forgive them like me!
“7. I thank my good and most excellent mother, the Cardinal, my brothers Joseph, Lucien, Jerome, Pauline, Caroline, Julie, Hortense, Catarine, Eugénie, for the interest which they have continued to feel for me. I pardon Louis for the libel which he published in 1820; it is replete with false assertions and falsified documents.
“8. I disavow the ‘Manuscript of St. Helena,’ and other works, under the title of Maxims, Sayings, &c., which persons have been pleased to publish for the last six years. These are not the rules which have guided my life. I caused the Duc d’Enghien to be arrested and tried, because that step was essential to the safety, interest, and honor of the French people, when the Count d’Artois was maintaining, by his confession, sixty assassins at Paris. Under similar circumstances, I would act in the same way.”
In the second division of the will are thirty-five bequests to Buonaparte’s generals and others who had been associated with him the whole amounting to five million six hundred thousand francs. He says, “These sums will be raised from the six millions which I deposited on leaving Paris in 1815; and from the interest, at the rate of five per cent, since July, 1815.” He further directs that the excess of five million six hundred thousand francs shall be distributed as a gratuity amongst the wounded at the battle of Waterloo, and others of his soldiers; the amounts to be paid, in case of death, to the widows and children of the legatees.