Napoleon Bonaparte. Murder on the island of St. Helena

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Plans for the liberation of Napoleon from St. Helena were stopped. The emperor died in exile in May 1821. Most likely it was poisoned with arsenic.

In October 1815, the English warship "Northumberland" anchored off the coast of St. Helena. In the company of soldiers ashore the most important British prisoner - the former French emperor Napoleon I. He was placed in a port house-warehouse, which belonged to businessman William Balcombe.

This may seem humiliating for a fallen monarch, but Napoleon spent most of his life in wars, so he was accustomed to the Spartan conditions of life. Only a month later, Governor Hudson Lowe reported in London that the prisoner had moved to Longwood House, a special house in which, according to London's plans, Napoleon would have to spend the rest of his life.

In this journey Napoleon was accompanied only by a few of his friends: the French aristocrat Emanuel de Las Cases, one of the close servants of the emperor, who later wrote his memoirs - General Gaspar Gurgo. Later they were joined by a Pole Karol Pyatkovsky - an adventurer, a braggart, a man who was in love with the legends of Napoleon.

Deprived of the throne, the Emperor was friends with one more man - Count Charles Tristant de Montolon. In fact, he was not the Emperor's friend, but it became known about it many years after the death of Bonaparte. The group of faithful companions of the emperor soon joined Lucia Elizabeth Balcombe, which was called the pet name Betty. She was the youngest daughter of the merchant Balcombe and the first of the family made friends with the monarch. Maybe Napoleon, known for his novels, connected something more with a young and beautiful girl? There is not enough information on this subject.

But something had to be, because soon Governor Lowe began to suspect that the Balcombe family supported Bonaparte. This is why Napoleon and his retinue forced to move to Longwood House.

The trader and his family soon left the island and returned to England. Their small estate remained in the ownership of the family and survived untouched until 1959, when the heirs of the merchant donated it as a historical monument to the French government.

The road that led the deposed monarch to Longwood House began under Waterloo. In this area, which today is the suburb of Brussels, June 18, 1815 was one of the most important battles in the history of mankind. Although the cups of the scales of victory were inclined towards the French emperor, at the most crucial moment of the battle the British commander of the Herzegg Wellington, with the support of the Field Marshal of the Prussian army, Gebhard von Bluuger, defeated the French troops. A week later, on June 22, 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte signed an act of surrender.To preserve the dynasty, he wanted to negotiate the possibility of retaining the throne for his son Napoleon II, but the winners rejected this proposal.

Since July, Bonaparte has tried to board a ship in the port of Rochefort to get to the United States and spend the last years of his life there. It's not meant to be. The British fleet blocked the port and did not allow it to sail. Not having a way out, on July 15, Bonaparte surrendered to the captain of the "Bellerophon" Frederick Maitland, who, thanks to this, went down in history.

He took the hated British Bonaparte to Plymouth - already as a prisoner of the British government. There, on July 31, the British delegation announced to Napoleon that the government of Foggy Albion had decided to send it to St. Helena.

A week later, the former emperor on the Northumberland warship, escorted to the island of St. Helena under heavy security. The island, located in the Atlantic Ocean, almost half the way between Africa and South America, hundreds of miles from the nearest land, seemed the most remote prison in the world. But even there the English government was afraid of Napoleon.

To protect the most important prisoner of the British Crown, sent a hundred well-armed soldiers and some of the most modern ships. Day and night they patrolled around the island, controlling every suspicious ship. The British authorities understood that the emperor's fighting comrades would soon come to their senses and want to see him on the throne. This scenario was most feared by the British. The danger he represented could only disappear with him.

However, the English knew that Napoleon's overt murder would strengthen his legend, and that would help his comrades-in-arms to come to power. Therefore, we turned to the proven method - poisoning.

Among those who arrived on October 15 to the island aboard Northumberland, was Count Charles Tristan de Montolon - the most mysterious person of Napoleonic time. He was born in 1783 in Paris. From an early age he studied for an officer, a teenager took part in the first military expedition (Sardinia).

In November 1799, after the seizure of power Bonaparte, spoke on his side. Since that time, he made a career in the army of Napoleon, having distinguished himself in the battle of Yeni and Aueshterdti (1806) and in the Aspern-Esliz battle (1809), where he was wounded. After this campaign, he became one of the closest advisers to the emperor. With the permission of Napoleon, he conducted secret negotiations in Würzburg with the commander-in-chief of the Austrian troops. He was one of the few who did not betray Napoleon after his first abdication in 1814. Accompanied him in the Battle of Waterloo and during the second renunciation. He was with the emperor on the ship, who took him as a prisoner of the British government to Britain, and from there to St. Helena.

Napoleon spent most of his free time dictating to Montolon his memories, revealing facts unknown earlier. The privilege of writing down the memories of the emperor had two more persons: Baron Gaspar Gurgo and the Marquis Emanuel de Las Casas. But the two soon left the island. Las Casas left in November 1816, and Gurgo - in 14 months - in January 1818. Napoleon stayed with the "faithful" de Montolon, and they were until the death of the emperor. This period, Montolon later described in his memoirs, first published in London and Paris in 1847. But was the friend of the emperor faithful in the last days of the emperor?

In 1955, 130 years after the death of Napoleon and 102 years after the death of Montolon, Sven Forshwood, a Swedish dentist who was carried away by toxicology, began to research his memoir. He became one of the most authoritative experts in this industry in Sweden. Forswood carefully read all the reports on the last days of Napoleon, including a report on the examination of the body. I did this not to deepen my knowledge of history.

Forshwood considers Napoleon's death to be violent. Description of the last months of the emperor's life pushed him to the conclusion that Napoleon died of arsenic poisoning. In the reports on the state of health of Bonaparte, the Swedish scientist noticed 28 symptoms of such poisoning.

Napoleon himself told his doctor six days before his death: "After my death, which is not long to wait, I want you to make an autopsy of my body ... I particularly recommend that you examine my stomach and put the results in an accurate report ... I I ask you to conduct such a study. "

In his will, he made a sensational note: "I'm dying in time from the hands of the English oligarchy and the murderer hired by her." Was it intuition or a desire to strike the last blow to their English prisons?

The answer to this question was to be given an autopsy. The autopsy was attended by seven doctors, and they all came to a single thought of the cause of the death of the emperor. It was attributed to hepatitis, inflammation of the liver, Maltese fever and malaria.

The story went into history that Napoleon died of stomach cancer. But none of the doctors who attended the autopsy confirmed it. In addition, a person who died of stomach cancer should look drained, and Napoleon, on the contrary, died quite full.

In 1959, Professor of Forensic Medicine with Glasgow Hamilton Smith after studying the same documents published an article in which he stated that Napoleon was poisoned. Dr. Forschwood used unusual methods to test this hypothesis.

From a man named Henri Lyaschuk, former director of the museum in Malmaison (the former estate of Bonaparte and his wife Josephine, and later the Napoleonic Museum), he received real samples of Napoleon's hair. Forshwood and Professor Smith examined hair using new technologies. They found that the arsenic content in the hair exceeds the norm by five times, which confirms their hypothesis of arsenic poisoning.

The question arose: who committed the crime? The researchers claimed that the customers were the English, and the executor was the Count de Montolon! Regarding the British, everything is clear - the murder of Bonaparte neutralized the main enemy of London and guaranteed that the emperor will forever remain on the island and will not return to France. As for the Count de Montolon, there is no direct evidence, but there is an important clue: only de Montolon could do this, Because he had unlimited access to the emperor and only he enjoyed his confidence.

After the death of Napoleon de Montolon, if he really killed Napoleon, he reduced his personal accounts with the emperor. In July 1812, de Montolon married Countess Albina Vassal, who two months ago divorced her ex-husband. In 1814 they had a son, Charles-Francois. Arriving at St. Helena, Montolon asked for permission to visit his wife. The English government granted his request, and in a few weeks the Countess arrived on the island. Maybe it spodvignulo aristocrat to work for the British?

If not, soon life gave him a reason to hate Bonaparte. In 1816, the countess gave birth to his daughter, who turned out to be very similar to the emperor. De Montolon was forced to draw conclusions that his wife had betrayed him with Bonaparte. There was nothing more needed for loyalty to become a deadly hatred.

Dying, Bonaparte asked that his body be buried on the banks of the Seine. However, the British did not fulfill his last will. The remains of the emperor were placed in four coffins and buried in an unmarked grave on St. Helena. Governor Lowe refused to give permission to the tombstone, explaining that this would mean that the government in London recognized the title of Bonaparte. It took 19 years for the British to agree to transfer the body of the Emperor of France.

The coffins on St. Helena were discovered, and it turned out that Bonaparte's body remained practically imperishable (this is yet another proof of the presence of arsenic, which prevents the human body from being decomposed). The remains of the emperor were transported to France, where, in the presence of a hundred veterans of the Napoleonic soldiers, they were buried in the chapel of the House of Disabled (Bonaparte's relatives were forbidden to stay in France that day).

Only 21 years later, Napoleon was buried for the third time. On April 2, 1861, the coffin with its remains was moved to a beautiful sarcophagus under the dome of the Cathedral of the Disabled, where they lie to this day.