On the death of Napoleon:

"the close of a most disgraceful transaction in which the Ministers have made this country to particpate. To be the persecutor of fallen glory and the gaoler for the European sovereigns is not the situation in which England ought to have been placed. Peace to the remains of that great man, whom History will treat hereafter with greater justice than his contemporaries have hitherto done, while our disgrace will I fear be handled with all due severity." - The Duke of Sussex(1)

The Duke of Sussex was the sixth son and the ninth child of George III. His Foxite Whig politics set him apart from most of the Royal Family, except for his much loved brother the Duke of Kent, a fellow Whig and father to the future Queen Victoria. The Duke of Sussex gave Victoria away at her wedding, and he became a godfather to her eldest daughter, but according to his biographer and contrary to conventional opinion, their relationship was far from tranquil.(2)

Like his brothers his private life was unconventional, and neither of his marriages received Royal assent. The first, secretly to a Catholic in Rome in 1793 was in 1794 annulled under the Royal Marriages Act, and his second, to Lady Cecilia Letitia Gore, in contravention of the same act, was never recognised at Court.(3)

Probably the poorest of the sons of George III and perpetually in debt, he spent much of his income on building up a large library. When the Whigs finally got into power they refused to increase his allowance because it would be seen as corrupt to reward one of their own! He died leaving little or nothing to his heirs. His wishes that his body be used for dissection by scientists was ignored, but he was buried as he instructed in Kensal Green Cemetery rather than Windsor Chapel, to ensure that his beloved, unrecognised second wife could rest beside him.

At 6ft 4" tall, with a far from slender frame, the Duke cut a striking easily recognisable figure, and was reportedly very popular with the public at a time when the Monarchy was not held in the highest esteem.

From 1805 when he took his seat in the House of Lords until late in his life he supported all the liberal causes of the day. His support of the 1832 Reform Bill was unequivocal. Whilst he had "every respect for the nobility of the country" he argued that

education ennobles more than anything else, and when I find the people increasing in knowledge and wealth, I should be glad to know why they ought not, also, to rise in the ranks of society. (4)

He was a particularly strong supporter of Catholic Emancipation and of the rights of Jews, both highly controversial issues for a Royal Family whose coronation oath included a vow to maintain the established Protestant Church and to preserve the rights and privileges of its Bishops and clergy.

In the bitterly divisive period after Waterloo the Duke lined up solidly against the repressive measures of the Lord Liverpool Government. He described the laws of England as vindictive and barbarous, and their application as often capricious, he opposed the Alien Bills of 1816 and 1817 which gave the Government the right to deport aliens without trial, he opposed the suspension of Habeas Corpus in 1817, and he opposed the Blasphemous Libel Bill of 1817, warning against the erosion of the liberty of the press. He also gave support to Queen Caroline, arguably the most popular of all the Royal Family, during her divorce trial in 1820.(5)

It should be no surprise then that the Duke was brave enough to make a public stand with Lord Holland against Napoleon's exile to St. Helena. As a Whig he did not subscribe to the Loyalist caricature of Napoleon as the "Corsican Ogre." The Whigs saw much in Napoleon's record that compared favourably with the status quo in Britain: the Code Napoléon, the career open to talents, religious liberty. To their Tory opponents, Napoleon was an illegitimate ruler, but to the Foxite Whigs, sovereignty ultimately resided in the people, and Napoleon clearly had a great deal of support in France. The Duke voted against the resumption of war in 1815 after Napoleon's return from Elba, and pointed out that if a foreign government had intervened on the side of Legitimacy in 1688, then his own family would not be on the throne. (6)
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1. Quoted in Mollie Gillen, Royal Duke, Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex (1773-1843) (London 1976) p.186.
2. Gillen pp 210-214.
3. Although in 1840 Victoria did give her a title, the 1st Duchess of Inverness.
4. Gillen p. 188. 5. Gillen pp 184-192
6. Quoted by Sir Robert Wilson at Southwark election in June 1818. Morning Chronicle , 19th June 1818. Similar sentiments were expressed by his close friend, another Foxite Whig, Coke of Holkham, 1st Earl of Leicester, the famous agricultural reformer, who publicly described Louis XVIII as a "usurper", placed on the French throne against the wishes of the French people. Norfolk Chronicle 6 April 1816.

Excellent news. Michel has at last received recognition from the British Government for what he has done on St. Helena. He has made an amazing contribution to the island, and not only to the French Properties, which are now successfully integrated into St Helena life rather than places apart. His work for the protection of animals and for the St. Helena National Trust, to which he has donated a sizeable block of land, is particularly notable. Perhaps not usually worthy of public recognition is the respect he has shown to the Saints, the ordinary people of St. Helena. Although he will always be "the Frenchman" he has accepted local people in a way that none of his predecessors have and few if any expatriates ever do.

Although I am far from an admirer of an outdated Honours system, I rather wish the Government had given Michel the same award as his predecessor Gilbert Martineau, in a very different political climate of course. * In 1973 we were grateful new members of the E.E.C., our admission having twice been vetoed by a French President, now we are trying to get out! But I do not wish to strike a discordant note. This is a great achievement for a poor boy from Picardy added to his award of the Legion d'honneur in 2016.
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* I understand that Michel's award has been given for services towards the development of St. Helena tourism. I understand that an M.B.E. is given for “service in or to the community which is outstanding in its field and has delivered a sustained and real impact which stands out as an example to others" whereas the higher award, an O.B.E. is given for “ a distinguished regional or county-wide role in any field, through achievement or service to the community including notable practitioners known nationally.” If any emphasis is put on the latter clause then it is unlikely that anybody on St. Helena could ever gain an O.B.E. It is probably time for a new honours system which removes references to the British Empire, but I am not holding my breath for that to happen.

John Tarttelin is a Fellow of the International Napoleonic Society, and a recipient of the society's Legion of Merit. THE REAL NAPOLEON, The Untold Story (GB 2013) is dedicated to the memory of Ben Weider, the founder of the society, and it should perhaps come as no surprise to find that John is no fence sitter. The book's cover with its capitalised title and modified painting of Napoleon demands our attention.

Even before the preface a quote from Napoleon sets out the author's intent

The great works and monuments that I have executed, and the code of laws that I formed, will go down to the most distant ages, and future historians will avenge the wrongs done to me by my contemporaries.

The book puts much emphasis on Napoleon as an Englightenment figure, and reminds us that 177 scientists accompanied him on his Egyptian campaign. There is also a useful checklist of Napoleon's attributes that are too often overlooked by those keen to paint a negative portrait.

• a phenomenal memory and capacity for concentration and hard work
• kindness to his servants and people of all ranks
• his approachability to his soldiers
• the only ruler who promoted careers open to talent
• tolerance of people who were disloyal to him - Fouche, Talleyrand and Bernadotte
• passion for intellectual enquiry- he sought out the great minds of his time
• voracious reader of history and literature
• support of the rights of Jewish people

The author reminds us of the support the British Government gave to Royalist attempts to assassinate Napoleon. He also correctly disputes the conventional British view which holds Napoleon personally responsible for all the wars that were later to bear his name. As he points out, the Liverpool Government and its allies were determined to "snuff out equality and restore privilege." After the wars Britain actively encouraged Louis XVIII to use far more severe repression against Bonapartists than any Napoleon had carried out against his opponents, but such repression was of course common place in the United Kingdom at the time.

Ultimately of course the struggle with Napoleon was not just about the threat that the ideas of the Englightenment and the French Revolution posed to the established order. Britain's payrolling of all the coalitions against France over two decades was the climax of its century long struggle for European and World domination. In this contest the continental land wars were to some extent a sideshow. The real victory was being forged in the cotton mills of Lancashire, but that is another story, and outside the terms of reference of this book!

I have to admit that I find the book a little disjointed and bitty, and the language is very unacademic, perhaps as befits the times in which we live. I do not have a taste for polemicism, nor for hero worship, and on Napoleon in particular I have been a fence sitter, as I indicated some eight years ago when I thought my blogging was nearing its end! But I do share John's revulsion at the treatment of Napoleon by many historians and particularly by the British press, so maybe he has finally got me off the fence.

Over the past decade I have covered the views of a number of Whigs and Radicals who refused to accept Government propaganda about Napoleon, admired much of what he had achieved, and compared the UK unfavourably with contemporary France. On any rational basis of comparison they were right to do so.

John's quote from one British academic historian, Clive Elmsley is worth reproducing

there's no dispute that Napoleon launched modern Europe. He completely redrew the map, he swept away ramshackle governments, modernized administrations, and he didn't just do this in France, but in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and .. in what is now Belgium."

I may add that when coming across British or more exactly English chauvinists I always find it ironic to remember that Napoleon was the hero of the man who not long ago was voted the greatest ever Englishman, Sir Winston Churchill no less.

I had always assumed that I had never studied Napoleon nor been the slightest bit interested in him until being lent a book by a friend less than 20 years ago. I was surprised therefore when clearing out clutter to find a long forgotten school exercise book which revealed that the last ever school essay I wrote on European history was on the question of whether Napoleon betrayed the French Revolution.

My essay seems to have pleased my teacher who described it as well written and gave it an alpha plus (80%)! I now find it rather less satisfactory! Nevertheless it provides an interesting insight into the views and prejudices of a 17 year old being educated in a conservative school in the UK half a century or so ago.

Amongst the gems I picked out was the “singularly French love of a dictator” and my judgement that Napoleon's success “transformed and sterilized the politics of Modern France.” My teacher liked that. It was of course written in the time of De Gaulle, although he had not yet made the first of his two vetoes of Britain's application to join the European Economic Community that were to make him so unpopular. At that time we were all very convinced of the superiority of our political system, and were busy exporting it to various former colonies.

When writing about Napoleon I talked about his " efficiency”, the “practical realism of the soldier ” and judged him "unoriginal but well organized". The career “open to talent” I opined injected “an element of equality into what was otherwise little more than a military dictatorship.” A more mature view would see it as intrinsic to the system and to Napoleon's post-Enlightement view of the world. My judgement was that his whole system depended “upon a policy of successful belligerency, and as such was bound eventually to collapse. ” There was no mention of course of the attempts by Britain to assassinate him and to restore the Bourbons to power, nor any awareness of the total lack of equality and justice for the lower orders in the UK at the time. Britain as everyone knew was on the path of moderation which led ineluctably to our almost perfect democracy!

My rather pompous opinion apparently was that “Napoleon’s crime is not that he pursued the war to the best of his ability, but that he lost sight of the true interests of France and allowed his own ambition to sway his judgement” and that he was "far more in love with France than with the Revolution.” But somewhat mysteriously I also decided that it was “he alone that safeguarded it” (the Revolution) and that “his work has outlasted numerous Revolutions.”

I was of course totally convinced as many still are that Napoleon was solely to blame for the succession of wars that were later to bear his name.

“Napoleon’s faults were amplified by the importance of the part that he was called upon to play, and his false sense of values frustrated the greatness in his character, and condemned France to an era of war as disastrous as that of Louis XIV.”

If Napoleon's values were "false", then I wonder what true values were. I also wonder where all that came from, my teacher or the book(s) that I read!

At least though I recognised Napoleon's greatness and there was no nonsense about the Corsican Ogre or the invasion of Britain. Even at that age I could stick to a logical argument.

It does though make me wonder how my blog would read to me in another half century. One thing I can say with certainty is that I shall never know! Perhaps it is just as well.

Let the decluttering continue.

The visit by the Royal family in April 1947 probably proved crucial in safeguarding the future of Longwood House and of the French properties on St. Helena.

New material on this has now come to light from the archives diplomatiques du ministère des Affaires étrangères on the Facebook page of the Domaines nationaux français à l'île de Sainte Hélène, Atlantique Sud .

Apparently when Georges Peugeot took charge on 15 October 1945 he found Longwood House in such a bad state of repair, largely as a result of the depradations of the termites thought to have been introduced on the island from the 1840's, that he felt he had no choice but to close it to the public. On 12 November he informed the French Government that the house was in a lamentable state inside and out and would create a very bad impression on any tourists who visited. Peugeot tried to convince Paris that a full restoration was necessary.

18 months later, in April 1847, with Longwood House in an embarrassing state, resembling plus à une ruine qu’à la dernière résidence d’un empereur, M. Peugeot was faced with the prospect of a visit from the Royal Family, on their way back from South Africa. Somehow he managed to to get Longwood into a presentable state for the royal visitors. King George VI duly signed the visitor's book, and said he had found the visit very interesting. Nevertheless he noted the enormous damage the termites had done, and expressed the hope that the French Government would take the necessary steps to restore the historic house.(1)

On returning to England the King summoned the French Ambassador, M. Massigli and informed him of the bad state of Longwood House. As he had done on St Helena, the King said that he hoped the French Government would quickly begin to take the necessary measures to preserve the building. (2)

This intervention perhaps saved Longwood House from suffering the same fate as New Longwood House and the Balcombes' house at the Briars. In March 1950 the project was approved, and over the next 5 years the house was restored.

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1. Restauration 1950-1955 des appartements de Napoléon à Longwood, Domaines nationaux français à l'île de Sainte Hélène, Atlantique Sud
2.Letter from L. Roché, chargé d’affaires de France en Grande Bretagne, 2 septembre 1947.

Rev. Richard Boys MA (1785–1867) was appointed Junior Chaplin on St. Helena in 1811 and remained on the island until 1829. His stay, particularly during the Governorship of Hudson Lowe, was eventful to say the least.

The dubious claims made by his descendants about his alleged meeting(s) with Napoleon, furniture from Longwood, and death masks have appeared from time to time on this blog.

He also made an appearance in the Judicial Records, for testifying on behalf of a lady of somewhat dubious repute who was given shelter in his home until she left for some reason in the early hours of the morning!

The story of Rev. Boys' assault on the lax moral standards of the slaveowners of St. Helena is generally accepted by those who have written about St. Helena in the time of Napoleon. Whether the decline in the number of illegitimacies as shown in the table above was due directly to Rev. Boys is perhaps not quite as clear as the accepted narrative suggests. The probable source for most who have written about this is Arnold Chaplin's A St Helena Who's Who, now over a century old.

When, as it sometimes happened, Mr Boys was called upon to record the births of illegitimate children of slave women, begotten of men who were some of the highest and most trusted of Lowe's lieutenants, the chaplain in his righteous indignation did not hesitate to write in bold characters in the registers the titles and high positions of the sires. In these old registers, which have been inspected for me by Major Foulds, it is amusing to observe the frantic attempts that have been made by means of blots and pen-knife to obliterate the damaging evidence . But Mr Boys was determined to write for all time, and the precise titles and positions of the fathers, in spite of the attempted erasures, can still be plainly distinguished . This was probably the real reason for the ostracism of Mr Boys by the high St. Helena society, and the fear of his out-spoken tongue evinced by Sir Hudson Lowe. (2)

Chris Hillman, who with his wife Sheila, has been working through a set of registers microfilmed on St. Helena in 1989, has now led me to doubt the reliability of Chaplin's account. Chris informs me that the records they have worked on show "no apparent tampering", although as already indicated, it is indisputable that illegitimacy declined significantly in the course of Boys' time on the island. Chaplin as he admits never actually saw the registers nor any photographic images, and depended on the report of Major Foulds, whoever he was. I wonder if Major Foulds made it up, what was his motive? It would be great if someone could clear up this mystery.
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1.Michel Dancoisne-Martineau, Chroniques de Sainte-Hélène (Perrin 2011) pp. 111-117.
2. Arnold Chaplin, A St Helena Who's Who (London 1919) p. 224

Over the years there have been only a handful of Royal visits to St Helena. One of the earliest, perhaps even the first, was that of the Prince of Wales in 1925.

The opening passage in the speech he had made on arrival on the island began with a glowing reference to Napoleon, although he was not mentioned by name.

I need not assure you of the deep interest with which I set foot on an Island whose name is so well known to all students of History, not only because it was here that were written the closing pages of a great and romantic life story – the story of the Emperor whose mortal remains now lie on the banks of the Seine, where many soldiers of France have found a resting place ... (2)

Delivered in the shadow of the horrific loss of life in the Great War, the speech evokes memories of a time when France was Britain's closest ally, and when Napoleon was looked on far more favourably in the United Kingdom than a half century later.

Four years earlier there had been a joint Anglo-French commemoration of the centenary of Napoleon's death, with the Union Jack proudly displayed over Napoleon's tomb alongside the French tricolour.

In recent years the commemoration of Napoleon's death on St Helena has been revived. The emphasis is now far less imperial and euro-centric, and more focus is placed on involving local people in what is an important part of their heritage.

Plans are I understand already well underway for the commemoration of the bicentenary. Not everybody who wants to attend can find seats on the scheduled flights nor be accommodated on the island, so I believe two cruise ships are being hired.
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1. I acknowledge the Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France for use of the two photos of the Prince at Napoleon's tomb. The photo of the 1921 commemoration I found on St Helena Island Info which is a very useful source.
2. A copy of the speech was, or at least used to be on display at the castle in Jamestown. A friend faithfully transcribed it for me. As far as I am aware it is not available anywhere else on the internet, so I will include it here.

I am very grateful to the people of St. Helena for the welcome offered to me on landing at Jamestown this morning, and I much appreciate the good wishes contained in their address.

I need not assure you of the deep interest with which I set foot on an Island whose name is so well known to all students of History, not only because it was here that were written the closing pages of a great and romantic life story – the story of the Emperor whose mortal remains now lie on the banks of the Seine, where many soldiers of France have found a resting place – but for the fact that during the period of maritime development of our Empire, St. Helena formed one of the most important links in Britain’s chain of communications as an invaluable supply depot and an outpost of the East Indies.

To-day trade routes have changes with the times, and though the Island, finding that circumstances have deflected the main arteries of traffic, may at times feel somewhat remote from the outer busier world, I know full well that St. Helena still prides herself on her place in the Empire, and that the loyalty of her people to the Crown and to Britain ideals remain undiminished.

I am hoping in the time at my disposal to meet as many as possible of the people of the Island and to learn something of your interests and your activities.

This morning before leaving the Castle, I am to see an exhibit of your local domestic industry, that of lace-making, samples of which I know attracted the attention of the general public at Wembley and won commendation from the experts. And tomorrow I look forward to the opportunity of inspecting some of the flax mills and shall be interested to gain some first hand knowledge of this Industry which has been established in your midst and on which much of your material prosperity depends. You have my best wishes for your progress and welfare in the years to come.

In conclusion I will not fail to convey to the King your assurance of loyalty and devotion, and will at the same time tell His Majesty of the cordiality of the welcome which the people of St. Helena have given to me to-day.

Edward

The author has done a tremendous amount of research, and has gathered together a large amount of information on the Balcombe family, much of which was unknown to me at least. Her basic thesis is that Napoleon, the calculating arch-manipulator, cultivated the Balcombe family because of their connection to the Prince Regent through their benefactor, Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt.(1)

"He had no intention of adjusting to the situation; he would devise how best to escape from it - and the Balcombe family might just offer an avenue. Meanwhile, surprisingly, there was some pleasure to be had.(2)

And of course whilst Napoleon may have enjoyed himself, Mme de Staël's somewhat biased judgement of him is endorsed:

"doubtless there was calculation on his part even amid the fun and silly games. He knew the accounts of them .. made him seem sympathetic, humanised him." (3)

The author makes a good case for Betsy being several months pregnant at the time of her marriage to Edward Abell in 1822. This she suggests may be the reason the marriage took place at Exminster, rather than Chudleigh where the Balcombes had been living. The author also makes a good case for her daughter being born in St Omer in France, away from the gossip of London and Devon.(4)

As for the bridegroom Edward Abell, solid facts are a bit thin on the ground. He was an Indian Army Officer, about 11 years older than Betsy, and the author speculates that they may have met on St Helena four years earlier when his ship docked. The evidence suggests that he married Betsy because of her family's connections. The author speculates that he may have impregnated Betsy deliberately so that he could marry her, "maybe he heard stories that her father was the natural son of George IV." Abell soon deserted Betsy, but later followed her to Australia, intending to sue William Balcombe for keeping his wife from him. (5)

The book sheds light on the deal which Balcombe made with Hudson Lowe to support him in his case against O'Meara. This cleared the way for Balcombe's appointment as Colonial Treasurer in New South Wales, where he spent the remaining five years of his life, and some of his heirs were to prosper. (See the Melbourne Blogger for more information on the Australian connection.)

Over all the manoeuvering on St Helena and off presided Balcombe's mysterious benefactor, Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt. Tyrwhitt met Lowe in 1815 before he sailed to St. Helena and helped Balcombe secure his lucrative role procuring supplies for Longwood. It was he who came to Balcombe's aid when Lowe and Lord Bathurst began to have suspicions about his relations with Longwood. It was Tyrwhitt who strongly advised Balcombe to leave the island, whilst at the same time flattering Lowe with Royal gossip and making clear his lack of sympathy with the Whigs who were critical of Lowe's treatment of Napoleon.

Lord Holland is in a week or two to give us a Display upon Napoleon's Calamities; but as long as you keep him close, nobody cares for speeches.(6)

It was also probably Tyrwhitt who got the Times to retract a story that the Balcombes had been forced to leave St Helena, and it was Tyrwhitt who again met with Lowe and brokered the deal that removed Lowe's objection to Balcombe's subsequent colonial appointment. (7)

Balcombe, despite his association with Longwood House and Napoleon, was far better connected in London and better rewarded than Sir Hudson Lowe who had done the dirty business of the Liverpool Administration. On return from St Helena, Balcombe is to be found in the company of Sir Pulteney Malcolm and Admiral Sir George Cockburn, neither of them admirers of Sir Hudson Lowe. He is also interviewed three times by Lord Bathurst, who had to endure Lowe's endless long letters from St. Helena and perhaps was looking for an alternative source of information. Bathurst did however over-rule Balcombe's wish to return to St. Helena in 1819.

The author's conclusion about the famous relationship between Betsy and Napoleon is perhaps worth quoting, although it does overlook Napoleon's acknowledged love of children.

Betsy had brought out the best in Napoleon, that complex, brilliant, calculating and turbulent man, severely formal with others but always approachable for her. She had loved him and she would never recover from knowing him.(8)

Overall I have to admit that this book is really not to my taste. It meanders over some 400 pages, and includes material on Peterloo, the Cato Conspiracy, Queen Caroline, the Royal Divorce, the King's Coronation and much else besides. It includes a great deal of speculation and also gives an account of the the extensive travels the author undertook on her research. A more concise, factual treatment would have suited me far better, although I appreciate that I am a far from typical reader. Nevertheless it is a very useful source for anyone interested in the Balcombes and the story of their association with Napoleon,
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1. Apparently the Prince Regent was unusually loyal to Tyrwhitt but he didn't take his advice on the Royal Divorce Bill and it was Tyrwhitt who had to present the divorce bill to Queen Caroline. Whitehead pp 257-259. Tyrwhitt had a number of nicknames among the royal family: ‘the Dwarf’, the ‘twenty third [sic] of June’ or ‘the shortest night’; ‘Saint Thomas’ from ‘the shortest day’, and so to ‘the Saint’.
2. Whitehead pp 54-55. The author says that says that Napoleon would have remembered Tyrwhitt's visit to Paris in 1801 as secretary and emissary of the Prince Regent.
3. Mme de Staël is uncritically quoted at some length in support of the author's view, concluding with, "he is a chess-master whose opponents happen to be the rest of humanity". She also quotes Philip Dwyer in claiming that Napoleon dispensed with people when they ceased to be useful. One does wonder about his tolerance of Talleyrand and Fouché in this respect! Anne Whitehead, The Emperor's Shadow, Bonaparte, Betsy and the Balcombes (London 2015) pp 49,62, 94
The author also exaggerates Napoleon's desire to escape, which was virtually non-existent, but which nevertheless understandably preoccupied Hudson Lowe and Lord Bathurst. For example the author comments on a conversation between Napoleon and Admiral Pulteney Malcolm in which the latter said had rowed around the island, that it was "useful information that a rowing boat could approach the cliffs." Whitehead p. 129.
4. Whitehead pp 281,300, 330.
5. The author and I disagree whether William Balcombe was actually at the wedding. I have a copy of the certificate and am pretty certain that the first signatory was Jane Balcombe, not William Balcombe. It could of course be Betsy's mother, but her mother although known as Jane was christened Emma Jane.
According to Betsy, Abell later admitted that he never had any affection for her, and that "he merely married under the hope of gaining something good thru my father and his exalted interests. " Letter from Betsy to Major-General Sir Henry Torrens, 10 August 1824, quoted in Whitead pp330-332.
6. Tyrwhitt to Hudson Lowe, Dec 8th 1817, quoted in Whithead p 191.
7. Whitehead pp 203-4, 282-4.
8. Whitehead p 197

Some time ago I wrote a blog about the grave of Napoleon I came across many years ago in a Suffolk church yard. At the time, with a very conventional view of the history of the early nineteenth century, I thought it amusing and rather odd. I know realise that it was a far from isolated occurrence.

The historian Katrina Navickas did the above search of Napoleons born in 1803-5, at the height of the invasion scare. Her search came up with over 5000 references, some of which were undoubtedly duplicates. My own search in the 1841 census found over 100 people with the name Napoleon, many of which were christenings in the decade before the census. To baptise a child with the name Napoleon at a time when he was the target of an unprecedented amount of state propaganda could not have been an easy matter. Before the introduction of civil registration in 1837 most births were registered in the Church of England, and it seems unlikely that the name "Napoleon" would have been welcomed by Anglican parsons, the very backbone of Loyalism. The incidence of so many cases seems to confirm what the folk songs of the nineteenth century suggest, that Napoleon was a surprisingly popular figure in the United Kingdom.

On the eve of the Peterloo bicentenary it is worth reflecting on the case of one of the Lancashire radical leaders, William Fitton a self proclaimed surgeon of Royton. Fitton came from a radical family, members of which had from time to time fallen foul of local Loyalist mobs. In 1816, at the age of 23, he founded in Royton what was the first "Hampden Club" outside London.(1) For the next three tumultuous years leading up to Peterloo he was very active in Lancashire radicalism. Sometime in 1819 William Fitton had a new baby son. On September 26th, just over a month after the Manchester Massacre, the boy was baptised with the name "Napoleon". The young Napoleon died in January 1820, but so determined were his parents, or at least his father, that a second son born in 1820 was duly given the same name.(2)

As a postscript:- Two years after Peterloo, the immortal memory of Napoleon Bonaparte was toasted by 300 people at a dinner in Manchester held to commemorate the massacre.
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1. Hampden Clubs were formed to bring together radical and working class reformers. The movement was led by John Cartwrigth a London based radical leader. The clubs were named after John Hampden, a seventeenth century parliamentarian who played a leading role in the struggle against Charles I in the years leading up to the Civil War.
2.See this brief account of William Fitton.

The above portrait has just been completed by Michel Dancoisne Martineau. Aside from his incredible work with the French Properties on St. Helena, Michel has been extraordinarily productive as a writer and an artist.

This painting is based on Sir Pulteney Malcolm's description of Napoleon in the early stages of his captivity, before ill health and bitterness set in.

His hair of a brown-black, thin on the forehead, cropped, but not thin in the neck, and rather a dirty look ; light blue or grey eyes ; a capacious forehead ; high nose ; short upper lip ; good white even teeth, but small (he rarely showed them) ; round chin ; the lower part of his face very full ; pale complexion ; particularly short neck. Otherwise his figure appeared well proportioned, but had become too fat ; a thick, short hand with taper fingers and beautiful nails, and a well-shaped leg and foot. He was dressed in an old threadbare green coat, with green velvet collar and cuffs ; silver buttons with a beast engraven upon them, his habit de chasse (it was buttoned close at the neck) ; a silver star of the Legion of Honour ; white waistcoat and breeches ; white silk stockings ; and shoes with oval gold buckles . She was struck with the kindness of his expression, so contrary to the fierceness she had expected. No trace of great ability ; his countenance seemed rather to indicate goodness (1)

The portrait is surely also unconsciously influenced by what the artist has absorbed from other paintings and from numerous written accounts read over the years. The resultant figure that we see, shorn of contemporary conventions of portraiture, seems so realistic and human. Michel has spoken of the possibility of doing a study for each year of Napoleon's captivity, based on descriptions left by those who witnessed his decline. That would form the basis of a great exhibition for the bicentenary in 1821 and a fitting legacy of Michel's long service on St. Helena.

The second image is a photograph of Chamberlain's short lived wartime cabinet in September 1939, with Winston Churchill installed as First Lord of the Admiralty. I was intrigued by what each of the cabinet did with their hands. Some had their hands in their knees, some had their arms folded, some had their hands behind their back and one had a hand in his pocket. In the centre though sat Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, nearing the end of his Prime Ministership and of his life, his hands clasped in almost prayer like pose.(2) Behind Chamberlain stood Winston Churchill, his right hand thrust in his jacket, in a pose most commonly associated with Napoleon.(3)

Churchill has appeared a number of times in this blog. A flawed genius, aren't they all, his admiration of Napoleon was well known to contemporaries, and like Napoleon he saw himself as a man of destiny.

I often reflect that like Napoleon, Churchill ultimately failed in his main aim. Napoleon failed to establish his Empire and the primacy of France on the continent. By the end of the second world war it was apparent that Churchill too would fail to safeguard the future of the British Empire and preserve its status as a great power. Although he did not preside over the Empire's dissolution, Churchill lived long enough to see others do it. How ironic that St. Helena, the scene of Napoleon's final years, remains one of the last outposts of that Empire that once bestrode the world.
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1. A diary of St.Helena - The Journal of Lady Malcolm (1816, 1817) containing yje conversations of Napoleon with sir Pulteney Malcolm edited by Sir Arthur Wilson, K.C.I.E. with an introduction by Muriel Kent - Ed. by George Allen & Unwin Ltd - 1929 pages 26-27
2. Within 9 months Churchill was to succeed Chamberlain as Prime Minister, and a few months later, in November 1940, Chamberlain died of cancer.
3. The hand in jacket pose most often associated with Napoleon was apparently introduced around 1750 and signified calm and firm leadership.

I first started posting on Churchill and Napoleon in 2009, and it should be of no surprise to anyone who has read any of these posts to find a Sevres bust of Napoleon in pride of place on Winston Churchill's desk at Chartwell. Beside Napoleon is a small bust of Nelson, almost completely hidden, and to the right a statuette of Jan Smuts.

Since I wrote my first post a number of pieces have appeared elsewhere. The Director of the Churchill Archives at Churchill College, Cambridge, wrote an article in 2012 which placed Churchill's admiration of Napoleon firmly in the Whig tradition, and also attached some weight to Churchill's lifelong francophilia.(1)

More recently Andrew Roberts, a biographer of Napoleon, and more recently of Churchill also, gave a comprehensive presentation on Churchill and Napoleon to a conference on Winston Churchill at which Boris Johnson, then Mayor of London, was the unfortunate choice of keynote speaker. To the delight of his audience, Roberts alluded to this at the beginning of his talk :

We have had a series of substantial scholars telling you genuine quotations and true facts about Winston Churchill and we have also had Boris Johnson.(2)

Johnson of course had just written a biography of Churchill on whom he appears to model his own career. He has since become Prime Minister. I am tempted to conclude with one of Karl Marx's oft repeated quotes, from The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon,

Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

Napoleon's son, titled first King of Rome, then briefly Napoleon II and finally Duke of Reichstadt became known as L'Aiglon because of the play of the same name by Edmond Rostand which, with Sarah Bernhadt in the title role, captured the imagination of audiences in Paris and London in 1900.

In 1814, after Napoleon's first abdication, Marie Louise, who initially had every intention of staying loyal to Napoleon, duped by the machinations of Metternich and her father the Emperor Francis, returned with the infant prince to her home in Austria. To the disapproval of her grandmother Maria Carolina, Marie Louise never joined Napoleon on Elba, and Napoleon never again saw his son.

Renamed Franz, and retitled the Duke of Reichstadt, the young prince remained for the rest of his life a virtual prisoner in the Hapsburg Court, and because of political sensitivities his mother was not allowed to take him to Parma where she was installed as Duchess for life. (1)

Alienated from his mother whom he came to see as very weak and compared unfavourably with the Empress Josephine, he was much loved by his grandfather but prevented from any direct communication with the Bonaparte family with whom he increasingly identified.

He died of tuberculosis at the age of 21, and was buried in the Crypt of the Capuchins in Vienna, where his body remained until December 1940, the centenary of the return of Napoleon I's ashes from St. Helena.

Part II of this post will explore the strange story of the return of these ashes. For anyone who wishes to know anything more about Napoleon II's life and death, the excellent, elegant blog by Shannon Selin is highly recommended.
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1. After 1815 there was in the UK much probably erroneous speculation that Austria would use his presence to leverage influence on France, and maybe to reinstate him, under a Regency on the French throne. Lord Holland speculated in the House of Lords that at some time in the future he might be placed on the French throne, supported by Austria. (The Examiner, 14 April 1816) The Leicester Chronicle 2nd Nov 1816 printed a report that Austria ultimately wanted to reinstate Napoleon or put his son on the throne. In December 1816 there were reports of a plot to put Napoleon II on the throne with Marie Louise as Regent. Cobbett Weekly Political Register 28 Dec 1816. In 1820 there were reports in a number of papers, e.g. Dublin Weekly Register, 15 April 1820 that the Austrian Government had asked for indulgence towards Napoleon and that the young Napoleon "had not been discouraged from entertaining the utmost hatred of the English."

Following the surrender of France, Adolf Hitler made two visits to Paris in June 1940. On the second visit he went to Les Invalides and whilst looking at Napoleon's tomb declared that he would return the remains of Napoleon II.

Origins of the Idea The idea of returning the remains had first been broached by Napoleon III some 90 years earlier. The Emperor Franz-Joseph had refused, saying that the Prince was and should remain a Hapsburg. (1) The idea was revived after the 1st World War, and in 1930 under the leadership of the historian Édouard Driault, President of the Napoleon Institute, a movement was formed to bring it about.

The Hapsburg family, now exiled in Belgium, said they were prepared to agree provided an official request came from the French Government. The Foreign Minister, Édouard Herriot supported the plan. The proposal was that the coffin would be returned on 15 December 1940, the anniversary of the return of Napoleon I's remains from St. Helena. Then the Government fell, and the plan lapsed.

Nazis and Collaborationists The rise of Hitler and the Anschluss with Austria created a totally new political climate in France as well as in Germany and Austria. In 1938 the Comité France-Allemagne , a right wing appeasement supporting group, took up the idea again. Historian Jacques Benoist-Méchin, a member of the fascist Parti Populaire Français, raised it with von Ribbentrop, the German Foreign Minister.

Ribbentrop dismissed the idea, but Otto Abetz a fellow member of Comité France-Allemagne was enthusiastic and claimed to have got the support of Adolf Hitler. Abetz who had a French wife and presented himself as a francophile had attended the Munich conference in 1938, and after the surrender of France he returned to Paris from which he had been expelled in 1939 and subsequently became the German Ambassador to Vichy. (3)

After Hitler's visit to Les Invalides in June 1940, Abetz, with the concurrence of Pierre Laval, Deputy Prime Minister of the Vichy Government, made elaborate plans for a ceremony to mark the handing over of the remains.

The crisis in Vichy and a botched plan

Abetz's plans seem to have involved a grand ceremony at which Hitler, Goering and Marshal Pétain, Head of the Vichy Government, would all be present. It was also apparently part of a plan to get Pétain to move to Paris, where he would be isolated from those who were trying to distance the Vichy regime from the German Government.
Laval was told of the decision to return the remains four days before Pétain. As soon as they found out, Pierre Laval's opponents in the Vichy Government were determined to prevent what they saw would, like the meeting with Hitler at Montoire in October, be another humiliation for Pétain and the Vichy Government.

Despite a personal letter from Hitler, Pétain took notice of the anti-collaborationists. He declined to go to Paris and he removed Laval from office and placed him under house arrest. So on the night of 14th/15th December the Vichy Government was represented at a very low key handing over ceremony by Admiral Darlan and General Laurencie. (4)

Ambassador Abetz was furious. The great public relations event he had planned had failed, and he informed the Vichy Government that it was not to say anything about the ceremony at Les Invalides. To the press he made it clear that Pierre Laval had been one of those who had made the hand over possible. It was Laval he said, who had "created the atmosphere of collaboration" and who was "the only guarantor of that policy." Then with some totally fraudulent history, Abetz claimed Napoleon as a forerunner of Nazism and its associated movements:

He has never been closer to us, not just from a national point of view of his struggle against the reactionaries who had victimised the King of Rome, but from the European point of view since Napoleon was the one who revived the great popular movements whose modern equivalents are Italian fascism, German national socialism, Spanish nationalism that are now also influencing France.(5)

Adolf Hitler sent a large wreath to Les Invalides, "From Chancellor Hitler to the Duke of Reichstadt", but nobody could find it. It had been seized and destroyed by the wife of an employee of an ex-servicemen's organisation who lived at Les Invalides.(6) This somehow symbolised the total failure of what was intended to be a propaganda coup

The coffin was placed in the Chapelle Saint-Jérôme, where Napoleon's coffin had originally been placed. 29 years later after much deliberation it was put under the ground, where it has remained so that nobody can see it. All that is now visible is a slab with the inscription "Napoleon II Roi de Rome 1811 1832"

Postscript: Hitler's Motives It is usually said that Hitler was trying to win over the French people. Georges Poisson, whose account I have followed, discredits this idea. Clearly there is no hard evidence, but Napoleon had nothing but contempt for France and the French people, whom he believed to be irreparably tainted by Jews, blacks and inferior races. He was perhaps trying to associate himself with Napoleon, or maybe he was trying to rekindle French hatred of England, which may have seemed not too difficult in 1940 after the British attack on the French fleet which led to the death of 1200 French sailors.

It is unlikely though that he gave it much thought. He had in 1940 a great many other more important things on his mind: the idea had been planted in his head; it had been opposed by von Ribbentrop who was probably concerned not to upset Spain and Italy; it may just have been a spur of the moment decision, inspired by the majesty of Les Invalides. (7)
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1. Georges Poisson, Hitler's Gift to France, The Return of the Remains of Napoleon II Crisis at Vichy Enigma Books, New York 2008, p. 8.
2. Poisson pp 11-12.
3. Poisson pp 12-18
4. Poisson pp 50, 52, 58-59, 90.
5. Poisson pp 91-92. Apparently the Governments of the US and UK were at this point quite pleased with what was seen as Pthe Vichy Government's stand against Hitler.
6. Poisson p 93.
7. Poisson pp 48, 121-123

I recently returned to the Lady Lever Art Gallery. This was my first visit since the Napoleon room was moved and reconfigured.

I was very taken with the Berthon picture, painted from nature according to the inscription on the surround. It is much easier to see than previously. It is now hung between portraits of Wellington and Nelson, which previously were hung either side of the famous William Quiller Orchardson painting of Napoleon dictating to Count Las Cases on St Helena in 2016.

All these paintings were transferred from Lord Lever's private collection in 1922, but it is slightly odd to see Wellington and Nelson in a room named after Napoleon!

No longer on display is Lord Lever's collection of miniatures which I photographed on my visit in 2011. Some time ago I seem to remember having a communication from Liverpool Art Galleries telling me that when they reassembled the room they could not find it. My photo may be the only record of it in existence. I fear the worst.

Still there but not in the Napoleon room, is Oliver Cromwell.

The museum's notes now recognise that images of Cromwell were displayed as a political statement by many Whigs. This tradition was maintained by Lord Lever and a number of Liberals in the C19, notably in Manchester Town Hall, the very heart of nineteenth century Liberalism.

I have lost count of the number of times I have been to the Lady Lever Gallery. I never tire of it, always finding something I have missed on previous visits, and I always marvel at the beautiful village that Lord Lever created for his employees at Port Sunlight over a century ago. He was truly a remarkable man.

St Helena has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. So far no cases have been detected on the island, but there are no longer regular flights bringing in the tourists on which all the island's hopes had been pinned.

Normally a large crowd gathers in the Valley of the Tomb on May 5th to commemorate the death of the Emperor Napoleon, but this year because of social distancing no such event could be held. The Rev Graeme Beckett, St Helena's Baptist Minister wanted to play his bugle, and so he stood alone beside the tomb. Brightly edging the tomb were hundreds of Everlastings, the Australian daisies that now cover the island, and were originally sent to Longwood by a friend of Lady Holland, Napoleon's most prominent supporter in England.

The rather moving ceremony was videoed on a mobile phone by Michel Dancoisne Martineau and posted on Facebook on the same day. Remember how many weeks it took for news of Napoleon's death to arrive in Europe!

On reflection the presence of a nonconformist Minister at this ceremony seems very appropriate. Two hundred years ago, and much later, Anglicanism was emblematic of Loyalism, whereas radicals and Liberals, who were always much more sympathetic to Napoleon, were drawn from the ranks of nonconformity.

Next year elaborate plans are being made for a huge ceremony to commemorate the bicentenary of Napoleon's death. It will be very important for the tourist industry on the island. Let us hope that we are back to some semblance of normality before then.

In March 1820 a naval surgeon named McKenzie arrived on St Helena with a copy of the The political house that Jack built. (1) This pamphlet which was published by William Hone in the wake of the August 1819 Peterloo Massacre in Manchester, was to run to several editions and sell 100,000 or so copies.

McKenzie had, so he claimed, intended to show the pamphlet to Sir Thomas Reade, before giving it to an English resident on the island. Unfortunately he left it in a shop, and two British army officers found it and reported him to Sir Hudson Lowe.

Lowe immediately sent McKenzie aboard his ship and held him prisoner for 7 days, threatening to send him back to England and force him out of the Navy. Luckily for him there was no ship leaving for England, and so at the end of his confinement he was able to beg Lowe for forgiveness and secure his release. (2)

Hone was a fierce defender of the freedom of the press who had faced three separate trials on three days in December 1817, one of which was for libelling the Prince Regent.(3) He was acquitted in each trial, to great popular acclaim. Henceforth he was regarded as almost immune from prosecution whilst other radical journalists frequently found themselves in prison, and William Cobbett exiled himself in North America to avoid the same treatment.

William Hone was a friend of Hazlitt, and like him and many others did not subscribe to the Loyalist narrative about Napoleon. One of his earlier pamphlets had been Buonaparte-phobia (1815), which satirized the exaggerated anti-Napoleonic language of The Times , whose editor was henceforth referred to as Dr Slop.

The frontispiece of The "Political House that Jack Built" (top) carried a cartoon of Wellington, putting his sword on the scales of justice. The Waterloo man, as Hone described him, had been recruited into the Cabinet in late 1818, and his appointment was seen as a sign that the Government was prepared to use military force to put down those calling for reform. The Manchester massacre seemed to confirm this, and it almost immediately became known as "Peterloo".

These are THE PEOPLE all tatter'd and torn,
Who curse the day wherein they were born,
On account of Taxation too great to be borne,
And pray for relief, from night to morn;
Who, in vain, Petition in every form,
Who, peacably Meeting to ask for Reform,
Were sabred by Yeomanry Cavalry, who,
Were thank'd by THE MAN, all shaven and shorn,
All cover'd with Orders--and all forlorn;

THE DANDY OF SIXTY, who bows with a grace,
And has taste in wigs, collars, cuirasses and lace;
Who, to tricksters, and fools, leaves the State 
and its treasure,
And, when Britain's in tears, sails about 
at his pleasure:
Who spurn'd from his presence the Friends of his youth,
And now has not one who will tell him the truth;
Who took to his counsels, in evil hour,
The Friends of the Reasons of lawless Power; 

In the poem Hone looked to leading Whigs to save Reform from Wellington and the repressive Tory Government:

This WORD is the Watchword--the talisman word,
That the WATERLOO-MAN's to crush with his sword;
But, if shielded by NORFOLK and BEDFORD's alliance,
It will set both his sword, and him, at defiance;
If FITZWILLIAM, and GROSVENOR, and ALBEMARLE aid it,
And assist its best Champions, who then dare invade it?

It is no wonder that a pamphlet such as this was not welcomed on St Helena at this time. Lowe and Reade were fierce Loyalists, determined to keep opposition newspapers off the island and especially from Longwood House, and naturally suspected anyone who showed any Whig or worse still Radical sympathies. On St Helena where the Governor's word was supreme, there was no recourse to the law to protect press freedom or individual liberties.
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1. Jack was a synonym for John Bull. "This is the house that Jack Built" is a traditional English nursery rhyme.
2. The Morning Chronicle, May 20, 1820.
3. See also this post on Hone.

I have recently read two books with very different perspectives on the British Government's wars against Napoleon. David Andress intertwines diplomacy, war and the domestic challenges often brutally faced down by Britain's rulers. He approaches the wars from the viewpoint taken by most British historians: Napoleon wasn't serious about peace, and presented a challenge which had to be defeated.

I do not like the Emperor Napoleon but am prepared to forgive the Duke of Wellington for his outrageous snobbery in the light of his many other virtues.(1)

So Napoleon is never given the benefit of any doubt. He is described in language that makes it clear that he was a thoroughly bad lot. We find him therefore revealing "the depths of his dictatorial nature" having "a growing sense of absolute and monarchical power " and "snuffing out the last lingering elements of the Dutch Republic ." (2)

Despite this declared bias Andress paints a bleak picture of Britain during the wars against France. It was a time of low wages, high living costs and sometimes famine, mass revolt in Ireland, mutiny in the fleet, fear of the press gang, and a time of great corruption. The elite he admits cared nothing about the costs of war, had contempt for the rights of ordinary people, pursued a witch hunt against radicals, and used a vast network of spies and informers against its internal enemies.

He describes in detail the concentration of large numbers of troops in Manchester, Lancashire, the Midlands and Yorkshire that were used to suppress the Luddites, but is still convinced that despite the "brutal suppression" of popular protest, which he describes as "shocking and tragic", the elite received "stout patriotic support from the mass of the population." Less controversially he concludes that the net result was the revival of

"aristocratic sense of imperial mission, the revival of hierarchy, a monarchical, paternalistic social order. It was a mark of the resilience of the British elite that it faced all those challenges and prospered. (3)

Tim Clayton, as his book's title suggests, takes a rather darker view. Whilst making it clear that the book is not a defence of Napoleon, he suggests that while there may have been a germ of truth in British propaganda about Napoleon, the "monster" created was a gross exaggeration and Britain's enduring enmity pushed him to extremes that he probably would not otherwise have entertained and ultimately led to his downfall. It was Britain, not Napoleon that wouldn't make peace.

In his view what kept the long wars against France going was the determination of many in its ruling circles to stamp out the last vestiges of the French Revolution at home as well as overseas. So the final wars in the century long struggle for supremacy between Britain and France were in short more about ideology than realpolitik. It was not so much Britain as the British oligarchic system that was under threat, until the "usurper" was safely on St Helena and "legitimacy" restored to the throne of France

Clayton's focus is on the British state's undercover struggle against Napoleon. This included incitements to civil war, the distribution of fake currency in France and the most mendacious propaganda campaign the world had yet seen. The propaganda was not only designed to destroy Napoleon's reputation and to undermine support for him and the ideas of the French Revolution at home as well as in France, but also to make the assassination attempts which the British Government sponsored seem acceptable. (4)

On December 24th 1800, very early in Napoleon's period of power, royalist insurgents detonated a bomb, the machine infernale, intended to kill Napoleon as he left for the theatre. On arrival at the theatre Napoleon remarked, "Those bastards tried to blow me up. Have someone bring me the libretto of Haydn's oratorio." This attempt, the first ever use of a bomb in an assassination attempt killed and wounded many and destroyed a number of buildings. It was financed by the British Government, and most of the conspirators had been transported from Britain to France in British naval ships. (5)

In 1804 a more elaborate plan was plotted by Royalists in London whose agents, Jean-Charles Pichegru and Georges Cadoudal were secretly landed in France on a British ship captained by John Wesley Wright.(6) The plot was uncovered and the agents hunted down. It initiated a chain of events which led to the death of the duc d'Enghien and the decision to make Napoleon an hereditary monarch, an attempt to provide stability and to make assassination less attractive.

The British Government went to extreme lengths to hide its involvement in this plot. Lord Hawkesbury, soon to inherit the title Lord Liverpool and to become a long serving Prime Minister (1812-27), had all the incriminating letters removed from the Foreign Office. He also bought similarly incriminating papers from the children of Francis Drake, Ambassador to Bavaria, one of the most senior British officials involved in undercover plots against Napoleon. (7)

Clayton concludes that Napoleon was no more tyrannical than any ancien regime monarch and less than most of the regimes set up after his downfall, but Britain's rulers were confident of their ability ultimately to beat the French:

Britain was superior to France at sea and financially, and a lot of people appreciated it. It bred an unattractive sense of national superiority and self-satisfaction that survives today even though the underlying conditions have changed totally. (8)

Memorial to Princess Caroline Laetitia Murat (1833-1902), Grand Niece of Napoleon, Ringsfield Church, Suffolk

This remarkable memorial was erected to commemorate Caroline Laetitia Murat, granddaughter of Joachim Murat and Caroline Bonaparte, sister of the Emperor Napoleon. After the fall of the Second Empire and the death of her first husband, Princess Caroline married a wealthy Englishman, John Lewis Garden, and spent her last years in a grand house in a tiny village in Suffolk.

Italianate Angels on the Memorial at Ringsfield Church

She was born to an American mother in the United States, where her father Lucien Charles Joseph Napoleon, Prince Murat, had been exiled along with other members of the Bonaparte family. After the 1848 Revolution she and her family returned to France and became part of the inner circle of the Second Empire. Her sister, the Duchess of Mouchie was close to the Empress Eugenie, her younger brother Achille accompanied Napoleon III in the Franco-Prussian war and was imprisoned with him after the defeat at Sedan. Caroline herself had apparently in 1849 been considered a suitable wife for the much older Louis Napoleon, by his English mistress Miss Howard.(1)

In 1850 she married the diplomat Charles de Chassiron (1818-1871) and they had one son, Guy de Chassiron (1863-1932). In 1870 following the defeat by Prussia, Caroline's mother and other members of her family fled to England in the company of Mr Garden, a wealthy English friend of her brother Achille. Mr Garden also obtained a passport for her and her young son, and she soon joined them. The mysterious Mr Garden meanwhile went to Prussia to visit the imprisoned Emperor Napoleon and his companion Achille Murat, and in 1872, a year after her first husband's death, Caroline and he were married. They quickly had two daughters, Eugenie Caroline (1873-1951) and Frances Harriet Doucha (1874-1970). (2)

Caroline Murat's memoirs reveal little about her private life, but give an insight into the highly privileged, titled and perhaps entitled world in which the Bonapartes moved in France and in England. They are of course the reflections of a woman nearing the end of her life and looking back with sadness and maybe some regret on what she regarded as a golden period for her and probably France:

days of glory, of luxury, of love, of folly; with no looking back, with no looking forward - the retreat from Moscow - the life and death of the King of Rome - the battle of Waterloo - the sad drama of St. Helena - all, but forgotten, disappeared in one round of triumphal glory and pleasure (3)

At the centre of the English connections in the early years was the aforementioned Miss Howard, Louis Napoleon's mistress whom he had met at the home of Lady Blessington in 1846. Her circle included a number of Dukes and Earls as well as Count d'Orsay.(4)

As the Empire drew to its close we learn that the Empress Eugenie and Princess Caroline's sister sent their jewels for safekeeping to Mr Gladstone, Prime Minister of Great Britain. Then after the Empress's flight from France the Duke of Hamilton went in his own yacht to France to retrieve some of the her possesions from the Tuileries. Then we find the Princess writing to her cousin, Leopold, Prince of Hohenzollern, whose candidature for the throne of Spain was the ostensible reason for the fatal war between France and Prussia, to get him to intercede to prevent Prussian soldiers vandalising her property in occupied France. (5)

What comes over very clearly is that Princess Caroline had little respect for the Empress Eugenie, the wife and widow of Napoleon III, "an influence always so sinister for France", whom she appeared at least partially to blame for the fall of the second Empire. (6) Neverthess she named her first daughter after her, and asked her to become godmother. This was refused because her daughter was not being baptised into the Catholic faith.

She also criticised the Spanish born Empress for the Prince Imperial's funeral which was attended by Queen Victoria:

if she had one drop of our blood in her veins no English flag would have covered his coffin, no English princes would have carried him to his grave. (7)

Neither did Caroline have much love for England. She loved her home, but after the glitter of Paris she was unsurprisingly unimpressed with Suffolk and its people, "perhaps the most stupid of English counties." (8) She loved her English daughters, but couldn't forgive the country for the ills the Bonaparte family and France had suffered at its hands. Her last few words though were reserved for the former Empress Eugenie, who once had rebuffed a criticism from Princess Caroline's mother with,

Ah! ma cousine, vous etes Louis Seize - n'oubliez pas que je suis Louis Quatorze

"In those few words", she commented, "we may read the history of the Second Empire and its reverses."(9)
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1. Whether Caroline was informed of this at time is unclear. She was only 16 and says she would not have entertained the idea. Princess Caroline Murat, My Memoirs, New York 1910, pp 211-212
2. John Lewis Garden(1833-1892) was born at Redisham Hall. It was originally an Elizabethan mansion which his grandfather, John Garden, a wealthy Londoner purchased in 1808, demolished and then rebuilt in the classical style then fashionable amongst England's upper classes. It was completed in 1823, after his death, when the house passed to John Garden (1796-1854), who was depicted as a child in a Hoppner painting. See also the description of the painting now in the New York Metropolitan Museum. J.L. Garden had the house re-fronted in 1880.

He was educated at Eton and Trinity College Cambridge, but didn't graduate. He is listed as serving with the East Indian Company. He is sometimes mentioned as a big game hunter, and during his marriage to Princess Caroline he spent over a year away on a game hunt with his younger brother. My Memoirs p. 286-7.
3. My Memoirs p. 48.
4. My Memoirs pp. 211-212.
5. The Duke of Hamilton was married to Louis Napoleon's cousin, Princess Marie Amelie of Baden. My Memoirs pp. 235, 215-7,214, 358.
6. My Memoirs pp. 179, 183-4, 305.
7. My Memoirs p. 334
8. My Memoirs p. 256
9. My Memoirs p. 340

Despite the pandemic an impressive programme has been planned on St Helena both at Longwood House and around the empty grave. It will be a very different atmosphere from a century ago. I will be surprised if the Union Jack is flown as it was in 1921, and I expect a low key, more informal ceremony with the participation of many ordinary Saints, few if any of whom appear to have been present a century ago.

In Paris President Macron has somewhat controversially decided to lay a wreath beside Napoleon's tomb in Les Invalides. It will probably come as a surprise to many English patriots to find that Napoleon is not universally admired in France. At the risk of over-simplification his memory is more revered on the political Right than on the Left! Macron of course is a centrist.

Macron's aides have let it be known that "Someone at the start of the 21st century does not think like someone at the start of the 19th century. Our history is our history and we accept it. "

The novelist L.P. Hartley put it more succinctly:

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.

With that in mind I have decided to return to what has been a major theme of this blog: the surprising amount of support for Napoleon in England, in folk songs, in people christening their children "Napoleon", and in the political campaigns of the Radicals, not to mention the better known but more measured support from Lady Holland and the Foxite Whigs.

"The most wonderful man that ever existed"

Henry "Orator" Hunt, the radical leader who was imprisoned after the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester, on hearing of Napoleon's death wrote these comments from Ilchester Jail. (1)

For Radicals Waterloo and Peterloo were of one piece - to cement the hold of autocratic rulers against the forces of liberty on the continent and in England.

Curiously on St. Helena Napoleon spoke of Orator Hunt, and it is fair to say that he did not have that much sympathy for his cause, which he seems to have identified with mob rule from which he believed he had saved France. He marvelled though at the ability of the English aristocracy to laugh at liberty and at freedom of the press. (2)

On Hudson Lowe, Napoleon's Gaoler: "very unlike the English to have behaved like that"

Finally a few comments by Queen Victoria, just under two years old when Napoleon died, but clearly schooled by the Whigs! On hearing of the death of Hudson Lowe in 1844 she wrote:

Sir Hudson Lowe has just died. He was chiefly renowned for his custody of Napoleon at St. Helena, which he is said to have performed with great harshness.(3)

Napoleon she considered was "one of the most remarkable men in the world's history, though not the best.(4) A few days later she added:

Sir Robert Gardiner has no good opinion of Sir Hudson Lowe & says his treatment of Napoleon was most unfeeling & harsh, & that altogether the way in which he was treated at St. Helena, was abominable & disgraceful, & most ungenerous towards a Captive of such note as he was. I must say I think it is very unlike the English to have behaved like that.