The Archambault Brothers: A Postscript

I have recently been contacted by Wade Krawczyk from Australia who has in his possession a pair of silk stockings which were evidently sold by Napoleon Archambault who attested that they once belonged to the Emperor Napoleon and were brought from St Helena by Joseph Archambault when he left in 1816.

The stockings have a crown woven into them



and were accompanied by a descriptive card, presumably printed for an auction or an exhibition.



The accompanying letter, written in Philadelphia in February 1894, signed by Napoleon and Achille Archambault and countersigned by a lawyer, also claims that the stockings had at some point been shown to distinguished personages including Joseph Bonaparte and General Bertrand.


The letter is legible if you click on it, but here is a trancription of the body of it:

Napoleon B. and Achille Lucian Archambault swore out an affidavit on Feb. 3, 1894 before Notary Public Harry J. Franz in which they attested: This is to certify that our father Joseph Archambault accompanied Napoleon Bonaparte to St. Helena, and was subsequently sent away with three others to the Cape of Good Hope. When he left he was presented by the Emperor with several souvenirs, among then a pair of fine, long white silk stockings with a crown wrought in the side. They are in a state of excellent preservation. The stockings have never been out of our possession, since they were given to our father in the year 1815, and have consequently been in our family nearly eighty years. They have been frequently shown to distinguished persons, among them Joseph Bonaparte and General Bertrand. We consider these stockings a valuable addition to any collection of Napoleon relics. Napoleon B. Archambault 3032 Girard Avenue Achille Lucian Archambault 426 So. 40th St."

My thanks to Wade for sharing these.

Faithful Servants of Napoleon: The Archambault Brothers Part 2

Card Steuben, Mort de Napoléon Ier à Sainte-Hélène, le 5 mai 1821
Achille Archambault highlighted
Achille Thomas L'Union Archambault was born at Fontainebleau in 1792. His parents never married and he took his mother's family name. His father was Genevieve Agathe Songeux, a native of Fontainebleau, who appears to have taken little part in the life of Achille or of his younger brother Olivier.

When their mother died in 1799, the Archambault brothers were put in the charge of l'hospice du Mont Pierreux at Fontainebleau where their widowed grandmother was living. Their grandfather had been a postillon, and not surprisingly perhaps they followed in his footsteps. Both brothers were fortunate to find positions in the Imperial stables around 1807, and it was at St Cloud that they learned the trade that was to take them as footmen into the service of the Emperor, and finally into exile on St Helena. Achille was present on Elba and at Waterloo. It is not clear whether his younger brother was also there.

Whilst the younger Archambault was forced to leave St Helena in 1816, Achille stayed until the end. Following this separation the two brothers followed totally different paths, and did not meet again for 40 years.

On St Helena Achille was under employed for much of the time because of the determination of the Emperor not to go outside the small area in which he was allowed without being accompanied by an English officer. Achille, like many of the servants and the English attached to Longwood drank and engaged in rowdy behaviour. In September, 1818, when the Emperor's horses, Dolly and Regent, were racing at Deadwood, a certain half-mad and drunken piqueur of Napoleon, who turned out to be Achille, rode down the course. He was horsewhipped by the steward who did not know that he was one of Napoleon's servants. (1) Napoleon saw the whole incident from his vantage point at Bertrand's cottage, and later reprimanded Achille.

Whilst on St Helena Achille formed a relationship with a black girl, Mary Ann Foss. Napoleon refused permission for him to marry her, and finally, to the surprise of Montholon and others who knew his determination and his fiery temparament, Achille relented, perhaps fearing expulsion from the island, but he continued to cohabit with her.

In 1820 as a result of the decision of the Governor to extend the area in which Napoleon could travel, Achille found his services were frequently required by the Emperor. He also acquired a new horse for Napoleon, "King George", from Lord Somerset. The horse was renamed "Sheikh", after one of Napoleon's old horses used during his military campaigns.

In October 1820, Napoleon made his last outing outside the environs of Longwood, to visit Sir William Doveton at Sandy Bay, and when he was unable to complete the return journey on horseback it was Achille Archambault who was summoned to bring the caleche which transported him from Hutts Gate back to Longwood.

When Napoleon died Achille assisted at the autopsy, and according to Sir Thomas Reade was the only one of Napoleon's followers present who was visibly upset by the occasion. At Napoleon's funeral he walked behind the cortege holding "Sheikh" by the bridle .

Returning to France, he settled in Sannois in the Val d'Oise. In 1822 he married Julienne Clarisse Boursier and they had two daughters, Euphraise Clarisse and Josephine Esther.

After the 1830 Revolution he was helped by General Gourgaud to get a job as an usher at the Tuileries.

In 1840 he accompanied some of his former companions on the expedition back to St Helena to return Napoleon's body to France. On this occasion his old lover Mary Ann Foss, accompanied by her husband, met some of his associates. It is uncertain whether Achille himself met her.

Along with other Longwood servants he received the Legion of Honour in 1851.

He was paid the remainder of Napoleon's legacy by Louis Napoleon in 1855.

He died and was buried at Sannois in 1858, almost two years after meeting his younger brother whom he had not seen since 1816.




I must acknowledge again my debt to Albert Benhamou. Much of the material here has with his permission derived from Les Frères Archambault on his web site.

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1. Events of a military life: being recollections after service in the Peninsular war, invasion of France, the East Indies, St. Helena, Canada, and elsewhere, Henry Walter,(1846) pp 26-27.

Faithful Servants of Napoleon: The Archambault Brothers Part 1

Joseph Olivier Victor Senez Archambault (1796-1874) (1)

Among the party who set out with Napoleon to St Helena were two brothers, Achille Thomas L'Union Archambault and his younger brother (Joseph) Olivier Archambault, both working in the stables under the command of General Gourgaud.

This article tells the story of Olivier Archambault, who spent only a short time in the service of the Emperor Napoleon on St Helena, but under the instructions of the Emperor followed Joseph Bonaparte to America, settled there, prospered, and raised a family.

Gravestone in Pennsylvania

Born Aug 22nd 1796 Died July 3rd 1874

In September 1816 Napoleon was forced to reduce the size of his household at Longwood, and the younger Archambault, the Polish officer, Captain Piontowski, and two servants at Longwood, Jean Giovan-Natale Santini and Theodore Rousseau, were sent off the island, initially as was the custom, to the Cape. Apparently Napoleon wished to avoid splitting up the two brothers, the younger of whom was barely 20, and he suggested that Bertrand's servant Bernard, or his own servant Gentilini should go instead. The Governor refused: Bernard was Flemish and Gentilini Italian, and his orders had been to remove three "French domestics"!

The four of them were meant to spend several months of "quarantine" on the Cape, but Admiral Malcolm, apparently ignorant of Lord Bathurst's instructions, after a few weeks sent them back to Europe via St Helena, where they duly arrived to the consternation of the Governor on 18th December 1816. Every conceivable step was taken to prevent communication with anyone on the island, although the Governor did grudgingly allow Achille to talk to his brother on board the ship, accompanied by the commissioner of police.

Arriving in England in early 1817, Olivier and Rousseau proceeded to New York with letters for Joseph, a plan of attack and a detailed map of St Helena sewn inside Rousseau's jacket. Joseph Bonaparte was preparing an expedition to free Napoleon and to take him to New Orleans where a house, Napoleon House, was readied for him. This plan was of course scrapped, but Napoleon House remains to this day.

On the ship travelling to America he met the English radical William Cobbett, who was leaving the country to avoid imprisonment in the repressive period after Waterloo. Joseph spent a year on Cobbett's Long Island model farm, teaching French to his son and receiving instruction in scientific agriculture.

In 1819 Joseph Archambault married a woman of good family, Susan Sprague (1793-1880), and the couple settled first in Philadelphia and then at Newtown, some 40 kilometres outside Philadelphia where Joseph bought a house and some land. (2)

In 1829 he bought the Brick Hotel in Newtown. He also established a post office and a dentist's practice, in which he worked for some time. Presumably his knowledge of the anatomy of horses provided some kind of foundation for this profession!

In 1837 he settled again in Philadelphia, and in 1840 was named Cavalry Captain for Bucks County.

On 3rd May 1856 he set sail for France to meet his elder brother for the first time since they had said goodbye on board a British naval ship in Jamestown harbour in December 1816. Achille had been given a grant by Napoleon III of the remainder of the money bequeathed to him by Napoleon, and it is possible that he was given a share of this money.

In the American Civil War Joseph became a Major in the US Cavalry, and his sword and a picture of him is in the Mercer Museum.

He died on 3rd July 1874, one of the last survivors of the party who had accompanied Napoleon to St Helena, and living long enough to witness the fall of Napoleon III.

He was outlived by his five children, four of whose names evoke his youth in France: Victor Ebenezer Archambault (1819-1893); Achille Lucien Archambault (1822-1906); Lafayette Archambault( 1824-1888); Napoleon Bonaparte Archambault (1826-1901); Roselma Josephine Archambault (1832-1914).

The most famous and most long lived of his descendants was his grandaughter Anna Margaretta Archambault (1856-1956), a distinguished portrait artist, miniaturist and author. As Albert Benhamou comments, she lived through the American Civil War, the Franco Prussian War, the First and Second World Wars, and could claim to have known someone who had accompanied Napoleon to St Helena!

My thanks to Albert Benhamou for all his research and his generosity in encouraging me to draw on Les Frères Archambault on his web site, and to Joseph OVS Archambault for contacting us and providing information on Joseph Archambault's descendants which inspired the piece.


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(1) Born at Fontainebleau he was given the forenames Olivier Agricola. It is possible that the name Joseph was adopted much later on his arrival in America to meet Joseph Bonaparte. Senez was his natural father's name and appears only to have been used when he arrived in America. When he substituted Victor for Agricola is unknown.
(2) Joseph Bonaparte had already established himself in the Philadelphia area, where he built a substantial house at Point Breeze, which was burned down in 1820, allegedly by a Russian lady. He built another house on the same site, and lived there until his return to Europe in 1839.