1821, May - upon learning that Napoleon Bonaparte had died, many of the European monarchs breathed a sigh of relief. Even while on St. Helena, he posed a real threat, because he still had strong authority. The emperor had excellent health, and he never gave up the thought of returning to the Old World, over which he once dominated and which he never ceased to remind of his existence. Therefore, the death of the Corsican Napoleon was then wished by many.
In his will, the great Frenchman wrote the words that made a real sensation in Europe: "I am dying at the hands of the English oligarchy and the murderer it hired." Unable to take revenge on the British who had imprisoned him on the island, he blamed them for his death. Until now, England has made excuses that it is not responsible for Napoleon's death.
But not only the British were interested in Napoleon's death. France at that time was going through a period of the Bourbon Reformation, and Louis XVIII was well aware of how fragile his power was before the name of Napoleon Bonaparte. He constantly had to fear Bonapartist conspiracies.
Louis also knew that most of the French retained their loyalty to the disgraced emperor, although they were afraid to publicly declare this.
The fears of the king of France were justified in February 1820, when an attempt was made in Paris on the life of the last representative of the Bourbon dynasty, the Duke of Berry, who could actually ascend the French throne. But he was mortally wounded. Louis himself did not have children, and could not have had due to his advanced age. Nor could the king's brother, Count d'Artois, and his eldest son have offspring.
So the assassination of the Duke of Berry was a real disaster for the Bourbon dynasty, which was destined to end. The Duke was killed by the Napoleonic veteran Louvel, who undoubtedly acted on the orders of Napoleon. Perhaps the death of the son of the royal family was the drop that hastened the tragic denouement of the confrontation.
Since the imprisonment of the deposed emperor, there have been many rumors about his fate, and sometimes the most incredible ones. They said that he had been shot, strangled, hanged or thrown off a cliff, that Bonaparte had escaped from the island and lived somewhere in America with his brother, that he was preparing an army in Turkey for the war against the British. Therefore, when Napoleon died, many refused to take it on faith.
The real reason why Napoleon died was never determined until relatively recently, despite the fact that once the opportunity arose to carefully study his remains. 1840 - The remains of a Corsican were exhumed and reburied in the center of Paris, in the House of Invalids. Although there were many reasons for doubting the natural death of the great Frenchman, no attempts were made to refute the diagnosis (death from a disease that was caused by natural causes).
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They did not take into account the fact that the body of the emperor was perfectly preserved, and after all, no less than 20 years had passed since the day of his death. This circumstance should have alerted the people who carried out the exhumation, also because the emperor was exiled to the island of St. Helena in his prime and did not complain about his health, but after six years of being there he died due to illness.
What was this strange illness that in such a short time brought the emperor to the grave? This is also not known for certain. A more common view is that Napoleon died of cancer, which is quite possible because his father, who was also not too old, died of the same disease. But the evidence confirming the presence of this disease in the disgraced emperor was never found.
The secret of Napoleon's death was revealed relatively recently by the Swedish physician and chemist Sten Forshuvud, who, moreover, was passionate about the study of history. Once in the hands of the scientist was a rather valuable relic - locks of the emperor's hair, which his loyal servant distributed to all family members of the deceased.
Forshoofud decided to find out the real reason why Napoleon died, because none of the existing versions was supported by strong evidence. The scientist also questioned the assumption about the emperor's cancer. First of all, he decided to study the chronicle of the last months of Bonaparte's life, which was left for posterity by the same servant, Louis Marchand, who did not leave his master for a minute. In the chronicle, Marchand described in detail the course of Bonaparte's disease.
Forshufvud was also an experienced toxicologist, thanks to which he was able to notice that the emperor developed the same symptoms that occur with gradual poisoning with small doses of some kind of poison. Now it remained to determine what kind of poison it was, which was not difficult to do.
In the Napoleonic era, the most common poison was arsenic, which in Europe was called nothing other than the powder of inheritance, because with its help enterprising heirs often managed to get their hands on the wealth of their relatives long before the due date, while without a shadow of suspicion of their own person. In this sense, arsenic was an ideal "murder weapon".
Because this powder has a sweetish taste, without a specific smell, its presence in wine or food is completely impossible to notice. If you use arsenic in small doses, then the symptoms of poisoning will be similar to many common diseases.
It is curious that at that time almost all diseases were treated with the same drugs - calomel, that is, a solution of mercury chloride, potassium and antimony salts, thanks to which it was simply impossible to detect traces of arsenic in the body. So it was enough for the attacker to force his victim to take these drugs along with arsenic, and not a single doctor, even the most experienced doctor, could determine the real cause of death during autopsy.
Based on his research, Forshuvud concluded that the symptoms of the emperor's illness: alternating drowsiness and insomnia, loss of hair, swelling of the legs and subsequent liver damage were the result of gradual poisoning with arsenic. Because the Corsican took calomel and antimony and potassium salts in the last days of his life, by the time of the study, traces of arsenic in the body should have disappeared.
However, even if this had not happened, they still would not have been discovered, because no one had guessed to check the version of the poisoning, because it was already clear that Bonaparte died after a long illness. The fact that the body of the emperor was not touched by decay, the scientist explained as follows. Arsenic is often used in museum practice for the conservation of exhibits, because it prevents the decomposition of living tissues. Therefore, the body of a person who has died from arsenic poisoning decomposes very slowly.
So, after studying the numerous observations of the servant and other contemporaries of the Corsican, Forshufvud came to the following conclusion: Napoleon died as a result of poisoning with arsenic, which entered his body gradually, over a long period of time. All that remained was to find irrefutable evidence of this assumption.
First of all, the scientist decided to conduct a laboratory analysis of the strands of Napoleon's hair. The results obtained exceeded all expectations: at the time of death, the arsenic content in them exceeded the norm by 13 times. Samples taken from different strands were analyzed, hair of different people was examined. Thus, the assumption about the gradual poisoning of Napoleon with arsenic was confirmed. Now it was necessary to find out the name of the offender and how he acted.
A series of analyzes showed that the poisoning of the emperor began in the very first days of his stay on the island. To put it another way, he began to receive poison in early 1816 or late 1815.
The first evidence of the crime was, apparently, the strange death of the spy and confidant of the emperor, the Corsican Cipriani. For a long time a trusting relationship existed between him and Napoleon. Cipriani was the constant executor of all the most important orders of Bonaparte.
The man is not stupid and observant, only he could suspect something was wrong, or even reveal the insidious plan of the killer. Most likely, this is why Cipriani was killed, and the murder weapon must have been a lethal dose of the same arsenic. Because no autopsies were carried out on the bodies of the servants, the criminals did not have to fear that anyone would know the real cause of the Corsican's death.
Perhaps in order to hide the traces of the atrocity, the discovery of which would prevent the commission of another, more important crime, the attackers made sure that not only the grave of Cipriani disappeared from the cemetery on St. Helena, but also the tombstone that Napoleon himself ordered for him. The death of this man was not even registered in the island's civil records, as if he did not exist at all. Meanwhile, the emperor, suspecting nothing of the conspiracy, continued to blame the British for all the troubles, which played into the hands of his murderers.
The greatest suspicion in organizing the assassination of Napoleon is caused by the representative of the old French aristocracy, Count Montolon, who appeared in the emperor's retinue. The count was well-known in royalist circles, in particular, he had connections with D'Artois, who repeatedly organized an attempt on Bonaparte's life. Moreover, Montolon was suspected of a serious malfeasance, which threatened him with many years in prison.
It is quite possible that Montolon followed the emperor to the island of Saint Helena on the orders of the same D'Artois, brother of Louis XVIII and heir to the throne, in order to avoid court in this way.
There could be no question of the voluntary imprisonment of the 32-year-old count on the island, because there was no special affection between him and Bonaparte.
On the island of Saint Helena, Montolon was responsible for the supplies and the entire economy of the residence of the Emperor Longwoodhouse. In his hands were also the keys to the wine cellar, and, perhaps, the count decided to take advantage of precisely this weakness of Napoleon, to carry out the task entrusted to him.
The fact is that Bonaparte preferred to drink wine from Constance, poured into bottles intended personally for him and for no one else. His associates usually drank other wines.
Wine was brought to the island in barrels, and bottled on the spot, so that the attacker only had to add poison once to ensure its intake into the Corsican's body for a long time. Because Forshufvud's research revealed several peaks of poisoning, it can be assumed that Montolon occasionally poured arsenic into bottles that immediately fell on the emperor's table.
The illness of the great commander aggravated in the fall of 1820. Apparently, in this way the Bourbons took revenge on him for organizing the assassination of the Duke of Berry. Apparently, Count d'Artois decided to bring his plan to its logical conclusion and in the end get rid of the successful usurper.
The further life of Montolon was rather adventurous. He squandered a very impressive fortune and, having gone bankrupt, in 1840 again entered the army of Louis Napoleon, the son of Louis Bonaparte and the future emperor Napoleon III. The Count helped Napoleon III to conquer France. We must pay tribute to him, all these years Montolon did not say a single word to anyone about the secret mission on the island of St. Helena.
S. Khvorostukhina
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