Longwood House Restoration 1950-1955

Royal Visit to Longwood House, 1947

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 .

Longwood House 1951 rebuilding commences

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)

1953, Rebuilding in progress

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.

Reopening, 27 March 1955

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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.

Napoleon at St Helena: Exhibition in Paris

Exhibition at Musée de l'Armée - Invalides

During my last visit to St. Helena in early 2013 much of the Longwood furniture, including the famous bath and billiard table, was crated and despatched to France, for restoration and then exhibition.

The dates of that exhibition have now been confirmed. It opens in early April at the Musée de l'Armée and runs until July. It will provide an opportunity for Parisians and those from further afield to learn a little more about Napoleon's captivity on St Helena.

I have already made my plans to visit, and look forward to seeing the restored furniture in a totally different environment. Coinciding as it does with the opening of the airport (fingers crossed!), the exhibition will hopefully provide a boost to tourism on St. Helena.

On that note I have also learned that the island council has thankfully turned down the proposal to locate a water tank at the gates of Longwood house. A very sensible decision.

St Helena: How not to encourage tourism

Proposed new water tank outside Longwood House

St. Helena is pinning all its hopes on the expansion of tourism once the airport is up and running. The main tourist site on the island is Longwood House, where Napoleon spent the last 5 or so years of his life. So what better way to make the island aesthetically attractive to tourists than to site a large water tank just outside the gates of Longwood House, on a site formerly intended for parking the mini buses needed to take said tourists to visit the house.

Some years ago a distinguished visitor Jean-Paul Kauffmann correctly described the area around the Briars as an abandoned work site. I fear that the authorities on the island are prepared to let Longwood go the same way.

Apparently only the Governor can stop this from happening, and the precedents for so doing are not encouraging.

Byron, Churchill, Harrow & Napoleon

The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries, Jacques-Louis David, 1812

Wellington, himself an old Etonian, is often misquoted as saying that the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.(1) It is strange that Harrow, Eton's strongest rival, has produced three of the biggest admirers of Wellington's opponent at Waterloo!

The David picture above, some seven feet high, was commissioned in 1811 by the first of our old Harrovians, Alexander Hamilton, 10th Duke of Hamilton (1767-1852). Hamilton, a Scottish Whig politician, apparently had a tendency to emphasise the importance of ancient birth, but this curiously did not prevent him from supporting Napoleon, an upstart whose career and credo symbolised equality of opportunity. In 1882 the painting that Hamilton had commissioned was acquired by Lord Rosebery, like Hamilton a Scottish politician of Whig ancestry.

A Liberal Imperialist who briefly served as Foreign Secretary twice, and then Prime Minister(1894-1895), Rosebery's marriage to Hannah Rothschild (1878) enabled him to buy a priceless collection of art, including a number of valuable Napoleon memorabilia, to fill his twelve houses. (2) Rosebery was the author of an excellent study of Napoleon's exile which is still worth reading, and also commissioned the famous portrait of Napoleon by James Sant.

Rosebery was an old Etonian, but whilst the David painting was in his possession it caught the admiring gaze of the second of our old Harrovians, the young Conservative politician, Winston Churchill, a passionate devotee of Napoleon.

This was the first time that Churchill had been confronted by a large life-size picture of his hero. It made such an impression on him that the very next day he wrote to Rosebery about it:

I carried away quite a queer sensation from the Napoleon picture yesterday. It seems pervaded with his personality; and I felt as if I had looked furtively into the very room where he was working, and only just got out of the way to avoid being seen. (3)

I have written a number of posts about Winston Churchill's intense admiration for Napoleon, and a recent reading of Michael Sheldon's Young Titan, The Making of Winston Churchill, the only biography which has focused on his early political career, has shed further light on this:

In 1912, now a Liberal and First Lord of the Admiralty, travelling by train across the Alps to Naples to try to persuade the retired Lord Fisher to help the Government with its naval plans, Churchill waxed so eloquently about Napoleon's crossing the Alps that his wife in the next compartment thought he was reading aloud. (4)

Photograph Churchill sent to Gilbert Martineau in May 1961, now exhibited at Longwood House

In April 1915, critical of the performance of the Navy in the early stages of the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign he quoted Napoleon to Admiral Fisher,

'We are defeated at sea because our Admirals have learned--where I know not--that war can be made without running risks' [Napoleon] (5)

Contemporaries were of course well aware of his passion for Napoleon. "He thinks himself Napoleon " said Lord Esher, his superior at the Colonial Office. His friend John Morley, Gladstone's biographer, when told that Churchill was reading another book on Napoleon commented,

He would do better to study the drab heroes of life. Framing oneself upon Napoleon has proved a danger to many a man before him. (6)

Letter from Winston Churchill to Gilbert Martineau May 1961, exhibited at Longwood House

Perhaps the strongest criticism came from a political opponent, Admiral Lord Charles Beresford who described him in a Unionist rally in Hyde Park in 1914 as an enemy of Ulster and a danger to the State, a "Lilliput Napoleon. A man with an unbalanced mind. An egomaniac ..!" (7)

The third of our old Harrovian aristocratic admirers of Napoleon was of course Lord Byron, from whom Churchill drew great inspiration. Both Byron and Churchill kept busts of Napoleon on their desks. Byron seemed in Churchill's mind to resemble his own father whose career had been tragically cut short, and to possess that combination of energy, action, vision and free thinking which he so admired.

Shelden's study suggests that as a young man Churchill very much saw himself as a Byronic romantic hero, a protagonist of domestic reform, determined to change the world for the better, and one whose political career looked to have come to an end with the failure of the Gallipoli Campaign. Churchill though did not perhaps quite look the part, and the book throws new light on his passionate if unsuccessful pursuit of three of the most beautiful women of his time. (8)

Churchill was a great lover of Byron's poetry and could recite long passages from it, and often drew on it as in his famous promise in 1940 of only "Blood Sweat and Tears" which echoed Byron's reference in his Age of Bronze to the war profiteering of the landed gentry who enriched themselves with their "blood, sweat and tear-rung millions". (9)

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1. Others have claimed that what he actually said decades later when observing an Eton cricket match was "There grows the stuff that won Waterloo".

2. The David painting was bought by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation in 1954 and now hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.

3. Churchill to Rosebery, 4th Sept 1901 p. 45 Michael Shelden, Young Titan, The Making of Winston Churchill, Great Britain, 2014.

4. Shelden pp. 278-9.

5. Winston, Churchill to Admiral Lord Fisher, April 8th 1815. Churchill Archives.

6. Shelden p. 92

7. Shelden pp. 195, 270.

8. Shelden pp 7-10.

9. Apparently when in 1941 Franklin Roosevelt suggested that the allies should call themselves the United Nations Churchill immediately quoted a verse from Byron, "Here, where the sword united nations drew .." Shelden pp 6-7.

St Helena One Man's Island: "He had little time for Napoleon"

Front Cover of Ian Baker's, "St Helena: One Man's Island" (1)

I have recently been reading Ian Baker's interesting and beautifully written book on St Helena. The first few paragraphs of the Introduction hooked me

Islands are special places. They are finite, complete. They are of the sea, and because of that, their land has added value.

An island can become part of you, though perhaps not you part of it.

An island allows you to stop and stare, to look anew at things with which you're familiar , and to find the things with which you are'nt. It gives you chances to look more closely at yourself."

He has woven together a fascinating account of St Helena, rooted in his unrivalled knowledge of its geology, which began with a lengthy research visit in the early 1960's.

Created over a period of millions of years from volcanic eruptions in the mid-Atlantic rift, which ceased in St Helena's case about seven or eight million years ago, it is at its longest only ten miles across, about the size of Greater Manchester he tells us, but at its base, deep below the surface of the Atlantic, it is eighty miles across, and higher than Mont Blanc before it breaks the water's surface.

One Man's Island might perhaps be seen as an early example of what is coming to be known as "Big History", an approach which gives homo sapiens a less privileged position in the story of our planet. Such an approach presents challenges when you are telling the story of a small remote island largely unknown apart from its association with the captivity of the legendary Emperor of the French.

"One Man" and Napoleon

Please don't get me wrong. I've as much time as the next for Napoleon, probably a lot more. But there is much more to this island than even that special bird of passage. (2)

So in his attempt to focus on the bigger picture, Ian Baker enlists the support of Charles Darwin, certainly focused on far greater forces, who during his short stay on St Helena in 1836 never bothered to visit Napoleon's tomb and, as the author says, probably "didn't have a great deal of time for Napoleon".

Similarly he is able to call on the the first man to sail around the world single handedly, Joshua Slocum, who presumably had had time enough to think about more fundamental things. Slocum, with some justification, described St Helena as "an island of tragedies", but added with a sting in the tail, "tragedies that have been lost sight of in wailing over the Corsican." (3)

Ian Baker is I think on shakier ground when he tells us, "Gorrequer certainly had little time for Napoleon" , a conclusion based on the fact that in his long diary entry on May 5th 1821 Gorrequer did not mention Napoleon, and on the next day referred to him as defunct Neighbour". It is impossible to know precisely what he thought of Napoleon, and it doesn't much matter, but while Gorrequer's diary is full of venom directed at Hudson Lowe, Lady Lowe and Sir Thomas Reade, I cannot recall any negative comments about Napoleon. Ian Baker also somewhat misleadingly describes Gorrequer's nickname for Lowe as "Chief". He certainly used it at times, but far more common was the sobriquet "Mach", short for Machiavelli, which throws rather a different light on Gorrequer's sympathies! (4)

I also have my doubts about the rather sweeping conclusion as to why Longwood was allowed to deteriorate after Napoleon's death:

"When Napoleon died in exile in 1821, most of the world felt that he had got no more than his just desserts. It is all too easy to see Napoleon, the great leader, in hindsight, but at the time he was hated, feared and vilified. Many would rather the Prussians had taken him after Waterloo, and executed him, as they had wanted to." (5)

Having read this one might be surprised to hear of the large numbers who queued up to see Napoleon's body after his death, the crowd that attended his funeral, and the steady stream of visitors to his grave in succeeding years. It was indeed the fuss about Napoleon, rather than Napoleon himself, which Darwin commented on. There would of course not have been that fuss had Napoleon not had significant support in England and the New World, though not of course among the absolute monarchs who wielded power on the continent and for a time at least felt more secure that Napoleon was gone, and wished that he would be soon forgotten.

As for the neglect of Longwood, the house itself was in a state of dilapidation and presumably would have been demolished had Napoleon lived and moved into New Longwood House. Unlike the Valley of the Tomb, which was in private hands and earned a reasonable income for its owners, ownership was in the hands of the East India Company, and clearly it had neither commercial nor political interest in creating a memorial to Napoleon.

Perhaps though the most questionable section on Napoleon is the description of his removal from the Briars to Longwood. The book paints a picture of Napoleon playing for time, and of Cockburn losing patience with him. According to this version Napoleon was "furious at having to leave the Briars. Cockburn was impassive, either Napoleon moved or he would bring guards to move him. Take it or be taken. Napoleon took it." (6) This version of events had then as now a very satisfying ring for British patriots. All one can say is that there is no support for it in French sources, nor from O'Meara nor indeed from Betsy Balcombe. Those closest to Napoleon were of the view that he was pleased to move to Longwood, and to assemble all his followers in one place. One would like to know the source for this version, but One Man's Island is not that kind of book.

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1. Ian Baker St Helena One Man's Island (Wilton 65, 2004)
2. op cit p 101
3. op cit p 113
4. op cit p 164
5. op cit p 119
6. op cit p 62

The Ladies of Longwood: Albine de Montholon & Fanny Betrand

Albine de Montholon (1779-1848).

A lady of somewhat easy virtue. She was first married at the age of 15, and was twice divorced.

She married Charles Tristan de Montholon, some four years her junior, in 1812. Their marriage had been opposed by Napoleon.

Mme de Montholon is very different from Mme Bertrand, a scheming woman who has known where her best interests lie, far better than we do. Mme Bertrand, on the contrary, does not. - Napoleon (1)

she is called "The Minister of Bonaparte" in Europe .. She has a very different head than that of madame Bertrand. - attributed to Monthchenu, the French Commissioner. (2)

When she accompanied her husband and young son Tristan (1812-1831) to St Helena she left behind a 12 year old son from a previous marriage and also a baby, Charles Frédéric Montholon (1814-1886), who was considered too young to travel.

Whilst on St Helena she gave birth to two daughters, Napoléone (1816-1907) and Joséphine(1818-1819).

She was reputed to have had a number of romantic liaisons whilst on the island. Possibly with Admiral Cockburn, more certainly with Napoleon and with Lt. Basil Jackson, who followed her off the island in 1819 at the wish of the Governor, and stayed with her in Brussels.

Fanny Bertrand raised doubts as to who was the father of Napoléone, who was conceived on the Northumberland. It is fairly clear though that Napoleon had no relationship with Albine at that time, but there is now almost general agreement that Joséphine, who was conceived at Longwood, was Napoleon's daughter.

Mme Montholon decided to leave the island in 1819, after she had become infatuated with the young Basil Jackson. Napoleon was concerned at the relationship, apparently less from jealousy than from suspicion that everything that was happening at Longwood was being reported back to the Governor. (3)

Napoleon was determined not to lose the Count de Montholon, and offered every inducement to get Albine to leave on her own. He told her that she would easily find a husband. Sire, a woman may easily find a lover, but not a husband she replied. (4)

Mme Montholon duly left on board the Lady Campbell in July 1819. She took with her 12 turkeys, 72 chickens, 2 goats to provide milk for the children, 2 ducks and numerous bottles of wine.

On the day of her departure her husband sent her a note: The Emperor expresses deep regret at your departure, his tears flowed for you, maybe for the first time in his life. (5)

Joséphine died shortly after they arrived back in Europe, and Mme de Montholon blamed herself. She felt that it would not have happened had she stayed on the island.

She also lost most of her personal possessions in a fire that broke out at her home in Brussels. A similar event happened to Joseph Bonaparte in January 1820. There is some suspicion that both events were the work of agents acting for one or other of the monarchs of Europe who were concerned that Napoleon's correspondence with them was about to be published.

Because of a failure of the various parties to agree on a replacement for her husband, she was apparently even contemplating returning to St Helena before news arrived of the Emperor's death.

After her husband's return to Europe the couple soon separated and remained in that state until her death - divorce had been abolished in post-revolutionary France.

She died at Montpellier in 1848 aged 69. Her embalmed body lies in the Chapelle des Penitents bleus, Montpellier. There was a curious decision in the last days of the German occupation to move it to Les Invalides, but for whatever reason this was never carried out.



Élisabeth Françoise Bertrand, (1785-1836)
See also blogs on Bertrands Cottage and the French actress Rachel.

A cousin of the Empress Josephine, Fanny had enlisted the help of her and Napoleon in finding a husband.

Among those suggested were Prince Alphonse Pignatelli (he died), Prince Aldobrandini - later King of Portugal, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the Prince of Neuchatel and Prince Bernard of Saxe-Coburg.

For one reason or another all these matches fell through. Two days after her mother's death she went to Josephine desperately seeking a husband, and was told that Napoleon had finally found one: General Bertrand. She was not pleased and, volatile as ever, when Napoleon came in she said What, sire! Bertrand! Bertrand! Why not the Pope's monkey?

Still, she married him in 1808 in the house of Josephine's daughter Hortense at Saint-Leu, and they had what appears to have been a happy marriage.

There is not another Bertrand in the world. I think the mould for making such men is broken. - Fanny Bertrand(6)

She accompanied her husband to Elba and, reluctantly to St Helena. She was accompanied by their children Napoleon, Henri and Hortense.

Whilst at St Helena she suffered a number of miscarriages, and gave birth to a son, Arthur.

Rumours were rife that Fanny had romantic liaisons with Admiral Cockburn or an English Officer, Harrison. Some wonder whether young Arthur was perhaps Harrison's son. Napoleon also in his final days certainly cast doubts on her fidelity, but that may have been simply the result of anger and bitterness at her.

Of some things we may be certain: Fanny hated Albine Montholon and was jealous of the influence of her and her husband over Napoleon. At the time when rumours of the relationship between Napoleon and Albine were rife, she made it clear that she could have been his mistress had she wanted to. It is certain however, that she never became Napoleon's mistress, as Napoleon himself was to complain bitterly in his last few weeks.

The core of Napoleon's complaint against her seems to have been her withdrawal from life at Longwood. The Bertrands had always lived separately from the main party, first at Hutts Gate, and then in the separate cottage built for them away from the main house at Longwood.

For six years she had not played the part she should have played. She should have dined with him, or at the very least she should have joined his party of an evening. (7)

To correct the balance it is worth noting the diary entry made by her husband on February 7th 1821, before the bitterness and sadness of the final days:

.. There was no one of whom he thought more highly, though at times he had said unkind things about her. (8)

The unkind words were not yet finished!

In early 1821 Fanny had a miscarriage from which she nearly died, and Antommarchi spent a long time with her, much to Napoleon's annoyance. Bertrand's diary of the last few months gives a fascinating glimpse into a desperately unhappy world in which Bertrand faithfully recorded the most monstrous allegations against the virtue of his wife and pleaded with Napoleon to see her and to allow her to nurse him. Napoleon was adamant: he was used to Marchand, but would see Mme Bertrand before he died. At this point Betrand recorded,The Grand Marshall was unable to restrain his tears.(9)

On the evening of 26th April Napoleon said 5 or 6 times to Marchand, How is Mme la Marshall? Tell me, how is she?(10)

Finally he saw her at mass in the Emperor's apartment on 29th April, and then she visited him on succeeding days. She was shocked at his appearance.
According to Marchand he said to her:

Well Madame, you too have been ill. But now you are better. Your illness is known whereas mine is not, and therefore I am dying.

Fanny and her children were with Napoleon when he died.

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1. Memoirs of General Bertrand Grand Marshall of the Palace January to May 1821 April 24th 1821, p. 198
2. Albert Benhamou L'autre Sainte-Hélène: La Captivité, La Maladie, La Mort, Et Les Médecins Autour De Napoléon p.248
3. The fact that Basil Jackson had indeed acted as a spy for the Governor was revealed to the Longwood party on May 8th 1821. Bertrand p. 265
4. Albert Benhamou p 203
5. Albert Benhamou, p. 208.
6. G. L. de St. M. Watson, A Polish Exile with Napoleon (London 1912) p. 234
7. April 14th 1821. Bertrand p.159
8. Bertrand p. 61
9. Bertrand p. 164
10. Bertrand p. 218

The Future of St Helena: A Wedding destination?

An interesting day for the Napoleonic blogs.

Carmi has unearthed a wonderful cartoon of Napoleon on the front page of a 1949 Men Only Magazine - a real gem. Quite how the cartoon relates to the content of that particular edition of the magazine is unclear.

Then Michel reports a recent wedding at Longwood House,well a renewal of vows actually, and in the Montholon Apartment, not the Imperial Suite.

The happy couple were expatriates currently working with the island police. After the short ceremony there were photos on the lawn in front of the famous entrance.

Longwood has over the years witnessed births and deaths and other dramatic events - but as far as I know never a wedding ceremony.

I could not help wondering what Napoleon would have made of all this.

Perhaps this will be the future of St Helena and of Longwood House - an exotic wedding destination.

Once St Helena gets its airport then the Mediterranean, Africa, the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean and Las Vegas will have a new more exotic and probably more expensive rival.

I can see it now: horses and carriages, men dressed in uniforms of the Grande Armée, and maybe even photos in Longwood House with a Napoleon look alike, for a supplementary fee of course.

Certainly beats a photo with a Sri Lankan elephant.

Generals Quarters at Longwood and other St Helena News

I have just been catching up on recent issues of the St. Helena Independent.

As usual the paper gives a downbeat view of life on the island, which I fear is an all too accurate representation of reality.

The last few issues have been dominated by the distressingl circumstances surrounding the birth of a still born child in the hospital - which according to the Bishop has resulted in a lack of confidence in the medical facilities on the island.

On a brighter note I was pleased to read that the cultural voyage to St Helena, "In the Footsteps of Napoleon" , which I wrote about last October, has attracted a lot of interest. According to Alistair McLean, Marketing Executive of R.M.S. St Helena, 34 packages have been sold, and they have had to turn away further enquiries because of the lack of suitable accommodation on the island. Alistair thinks it will be one of the biggest such parties to arrive on the island. Further trips are likely to take place in 2011 and 2012.

It was also interesting to read a presentation made by the French Honorary Consul, Michel Martineau, to Legislators and Senior Government Officials. The main points are listed below.

The French Government is responsible for the maintenance of the French properties; the St Helena Government is now responsible for Fire and Burglary security of Longwood House and for ensuring the properties are accessible to public.

Permission has been secured from the French Government to restore the Generals Quarters at Longwood House. (photo above). These quarters had previously been rebuilt in the 1930's, but because of poor quality materials and the harsh weather conditions at Longwood they have deteriorated badly. The project will cost 800,000 Euros. Happily the main construction work will be undertaken by a local builder, with specialist assistance as needed from France. A campaign to raise sponsorship for this project will begin in the autumn. The project is expected to take three years.

In 2016 some 80 pieces of furniture associated with Napoleon's captivity will temporarily be removed from St Helena to be exhibited in Paris alongside other Napoleon artefacts. The furniture will be expertly restored before the exhibition, and will be returned in perfect condition to St Helena.

Visitors to St Helena beware - Longwood is going to be rather empty in 2016!

The Generals' Apartments at Longwood House and other matters

It is now over three months since my last posting. Travels to Portugal, Malaysia and Norway, the credit crunch and the loss of much of what little wealth I once had have rather diverted my attention!

Anyway, it is time to resume. One of the objectives I set myself when I started this blog was to provide an occasional English language reference to Michel Martineau's blog. I have not done this for some time, but would now like to draw attention to the interesting posts made in November - on the neglect of the Bertrand House, on plans for tourist accommodation close to Napoleon's tomb, on the dilapidated state of Teutonic Hall (Mason's Stock House) and, most recently, some photos showing the restoration of the apartments which once housed Generals Montholon and Gourgaud, and Dr O'Meara.

The Generals' apartments were most recently inhabited by the former Chief Secretary (Mr Hallam), and before that housed a succession of French Consuls, including the Martineaus.

As I looked at these photos I couldn't help but doubt whether the apartments, like Longwood House itself, ever looked as luxurious during Napoleon's imprisonment. As the blog makes clear, there is no evidence of what decorations were in place during the captivity. Michel has made use of the drawings of George Bullock who was responsible for furnishing Longwood New House, to get an idea of how they might have been furnished. (1)
Michel Martineau's blog

The future of these apartments is not clear from the blog. I wonder if they too are to be opened to the public?

I never cease to be impressed with Michel's enterprise, energy and imagination. The excellent state of the French properties contrasts with much else on St. Helena - as many of his recent entries, including those on Bertrand's Cottage and Mason's Stock House indicate. The entry on Mason's Stock House documents the current decay, and also recalls the Napoleonic connections - with Lieutenant Wood and other British officers who regularly prayed there for the soul of Napoleon. (2)

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1. Longwood New House, now demolished, stood close to Bertrand's Cottage. It was finished only a few days before Napoleon died; he always said he would not move there.

2. Lieutenant Wood was covered at some length in my blog on Napoleon's funeral, posted on March 7th 2008.

Celebrations to Mark 150 Years of French Properties

Interesting post on Michel's blog on the celebrations of the 150 years of the French Properties. Good press coverage, and no need for me to translate anything. One of the papers picked up on the fact that a direct descendant of Napoleon, Count Walewski, laid a wreath at the tomb - along with the Governor and the Honorary French Consul and the Head Boy and Head Girl from the Prince Andrew School. A Latin Mass was held in the room Napoleon died in at 5.45 on May 5th.

I picked up the following interesting and I think encouraging passage from the Independent

In his speech, Governor Gurr expressed
his admiration for Emperor Napoleon,
who died on the Island over 187 years
ago. He also took the opportunity to
thank Michel Martineau, the French
Consul, by saying that “we, the inhabit-
ants of this Island, owe you a debt for
the fact that you have re-created the
most significant part of our heritage with
a taste and professionalism that will be
of enormous benefit as we develop our
tourism. I give you my hearty thanks.”
A toast was held to our Queen and to
the memory of Emperor Napoleon.

150 Years of French Properties

Great to see a glamorous lady who has appeared on one of my blogs photographed at the reception at the Briars Pavilion.

Longwood: A Temporary Residence for General Bonaparte

The house is certainly small .. I trust the carpenters of the Northumberland, ... will in a little time be able to make such additions to the house as will render it, if not as good a one as might be wished, yet at least as commodious as necessary.

- Admiral Sir George Cockburn to Mr Croker, Secretary to the Admiralty, 22nd October 1815



As a temporary residence it is, perhaps, as good as could have been found for him.
- Sir Hudson Lowe to Lord Bathurst, April 17th 1816. (1)

The Emperor has been established in a place called Longwood, exposed to every wind, a barren spot, uninhabited, without water or verdure. [This passage from Count Montholon's letter is absolutely true. ... Longwood is only a hovel, surrounded with gum-trees (a dreadful tree which gives no shade), and very windy. In general, the English treat Bonaparte very shabbily. His house, his people, his dress, all are mean. He has only the necessities. That enormous expense which so excited Parliament is wholly for the maintenance of the troops and guard-ships, and of a numerous and more or less useless staff.-Balmain.]

- Count Balmain, The Russian Commissioner, 1816.

I have been here a week, and still have not been inside the place which was the main purpose of my visit. I seem as reluctant as Napoleon was to step inside.

In my case it is not the smell of paint, or the fear that I shall have to spend the rest of my life here - simply that it looks better than it would have done in Napoleon's day, and I get a little irritated hearing people say how luxurious it is for a prison!

A previous visitor, an English writer, once expressed displeasure to the current curator because Longwood did not look dilapidated enough. The Royal Family had made the opposite criticism in 1947!

What is a Frenchman to do but shrug his shoulders, raise his eyes to the heavens, and murmur under his breath, "Les Anglais!".

So now we will go in. Before we do, a thank you to the charming lady in the picture above who showed us round - twice!

First stop is the Billiard Room. There is a good photo of it on Michel's blog. The Billiard Room This room was added in 1815 by the carpenters from the Northumberland. Napoleon never played billiards. The table was used for maps and documents. Later it was moved to the back of the house for the servants to use.

Next comes the drawing room,which was where Napoleon received his guests; these were very numerous in 1816 and 1817, but after March 1818, when the Balcombes came to say goodbye, and as the restrictions on him were tightened, he lived the life of a recluse, and virtually nobody outside his entourage saw him.


In this room he died; the bed was pulled out at a right angle so that people could gather round both sides. 16 were present, including the children of Mme Bertrand.(2)

Then you enter the dining room, with its single window, its very small dining table, and the candles which used to make it unbearably hot. In later years, after the arrival of the two priests sent by Napoleon's mother, mass was said in this room every Sunday.



Now you take a right turn and enter Napoleon's private suite. Three small rooms: a study, a bedroom and a bathroom. He had two small beds, identical to that already seen. One was in his study, so that if he couldn't sleep in the night, and he often couldn't, he could perhaps try the other room.


About the first thing he did when he arrived was to get in the bath. He had not had a proper bath since he left France in July.

This was possibly Napoleon's favourite place; he sometimes ate and read in here.


The bath itself has had a life of its own - in 1840 it was taken back to France, but has now been restored to its original place.

Backstairs Longwood

This is a part of Longwood House that few visitors bother to explore. The word ramshackle springs to mind.



Around this courtyard, which would have been muddy in Napoleon's day, the work of Longwood would have taken place. At any one time there were in excess of 25 people living here. In addition there were about 20 others employed around the house and garden.

It was not a peaceful place.


At night the numbers would increase; the servants would bribe the English soldiers with wine to get them to allow young lady visitors to evade the curfew.

The sanitary arrangements do not bear thinking about.






This section housed all the French Party(except the Bertrands who lived in a cottage nearby) , plus O'Meara, and including the two children of the Count and Countess de Montholon, and the English Duty Officer.


____________________________________________________
NOTES
1. The Government's orders were that Napoleon should be treated as a General, and should have a house equivalent to that of an English Gentleman's country residence. Lowe pointed out to Lord Bathurst that only Plantation House fitted that description. On 17th May 1816 Sir Hudson Lowe told Napoleon that the materials necessary to build him a new house had arrived. This house was not begun until 1818; Napoleon watched it built, but never lived there. The delay was not entirely the fault of Sir Hudson Lowe. Napoleon himself was unwilling to discuss it: to have done so would have signalled an acceptance of the permanence of his position on the island; this he never did until the day in April 1821 when he wrote his will.
2. The bed was moved into the drawing room on 27th April 1821, about a week before he died; it was Napoleon's idea - his bedroom was too small; his servants were preparing to carry him. "No," he said, "not until I am dead."

Longwood St Helena: First Impressions

When I am no longer here, the English travellers will sketch this garden, made by Napoleon. Nobody will wish to leave without seeing it. - Napoleon


I have nothing new or interesting to communicate to the Imperial Ministry. Bonaparte's affairs are always the same. He leads a tranquil life, seems to enjoy good health, and is extremely busy with his garden. He is having big trees placed, and flowers planted, which he waters himself, in full view of every one. This morning the orderly officer wrote to Plantation House as follows:

I saw General Bonaparte this morning. He was amusing himself in one of his private flower gardens. His morning dress at present consists of a white gown, and straw hat with a very wide brim. In the afternoon he appears out in a cocked hat, green coat, and white breeches and stockings. He walks a good part of the afternoon in Longwood garden, accompanied by either Counts Montholon or Bertrand, and often pays a visit to the Bertrands in the evenings. Yesterday afternoon he walked around in the new garden and buildings.

- Count Balmain, Russian Commissioner, January 20, 1820


So to Longwood.

A sharp, almost un-negotiable right turn when you leave the Briars, through some more pastoral countryside around Hutts Gate, and on, through Longwood Gate, to the unshaded, windswept plain which was the site of Napoleon's home from December 1815 until his death on May 5th 1821.



A community has now developed around Longwood House. There is a shop and filling station, and a children's play park. To the rear of Longwood House is St. Helena's only golf course.

We arrive early. Today we are going to look at the outside of the house and the gardens only.



Let us look now at some old pictures. This print shows Longwood when it was used as a farm building after Napoleon's death, before it was transferred to the French Government.
The barn in the foreground was not there in Napoleon's time, and it is there no more.

What I had not fully appreciated is that Longwood is not really one house. The plan in Kauffmann's book had confused me. There are in fact two linked houses around a small courtyard.

Napoleon and his servants lived in the single storey house to the left and behind the barn. The two storey building to the right housed the Montholons and, for a time, O'Meara.(1) Until recently it was the home of successive French curators. At the time of our visit the First Secretary to the St. Helena Government was living there.

The mid-nineteenth century print, done after the restoration of the house in the reign of Napoleon III makes this clearer, although the second house looks as if it is single storey.



In the years after the above print was made, the termites took their toll. At the time the British Royal family visited in 1947 the French Government was considering demolishing it and replacing it with a memorial.

Happily it was decided to save it. It was carefully rebuilt using materials that would resist the termites. Of the original fabric, the stone steps alone remain.

Although I tend to imagine Longwood in sepia; which somehow better fits the mood of the place, I expected to see it looking like the pictures below. This must have been something like its appearance when the present curator arrived on the island some twenty years ago, and began the process of recreating the gardens.






Carefully sticking to the historical records, Michel has both restored and transformed the setting. I knew about this, but was still unprepared for its beauty.





I asked my wife for her reactions. "Very peaceful" was her comment. It is tempting to believe that in the short period in 1819-1820 when Napoleon was creating these gardens, and before his final illness started to take its toll, that he found a peace that had probably eluded him for most of his life.


All is perfectly tranquil and in good order at St. Helena. Bonaparte takes considerable exercise in his garden. His complexion is fresh and healthy, his air pleasant; in other words, quite another man. Count Montholon and Mme. Bertrand assure me that he is still having some trouble with his chronic disease, hepatitis, and often takes mercury, but that, thanks to the assiduous care of M. Antommarchi, it is no longer dangerous. - Count Balmain, April 18, 1820


Before we left we met a young man who has been tending these gardens for a decade. He told us that he loves his job.

The sun was shining when we were there. He said it had been raining earlier. He was philosophical about the constant changes in the weather for which Longwood is well known: it makes the plants grow better, he said.

He showed us the gum tree to the left, bent by the prevailing wind, one of the few remains from Napoleon's time.

_____________________________________________________
Note
(1) O'Meara (1786-1836) was an Irish doctor in the British Navy whom Napoleon met on the Bellerophon after he surrendered. When Napoleon's own doctor refused to go to St. Helena he agreed to accompany him. Unlike the French entourage he was given freedom of movement; in return he was expected to report back to Hudson Lowe on the goings on at Longwood. He finally fell out with Hudson Lowe and was expelled from the island in 1818. He later published an account of Napoleon's captivity which dealt a blow to Lowe's reputation from which he never recovered. In his will he asked for the following to be inscribed on his gravestone:
I take this opportunity of declaring that with the exception of some unintentional and trifling errors in the Voice from St. Helena, the book is a faithful narrative of the treatment inflicted upon that great man Napoleon by Sir Hudson Lowe and his subordinates, and that I have even suppressed some facts which although true might have been considered to be exaggerated and not credited.

150 Year Anniversary of the French Properties, St. Helena

In 1858 Longwood House and The Valley of the Tomb were handed over to the French State, then headed by Napoleon's nephew, Napoleon III. The French paid £7,100 for the properties. A condition of the transfer was that the French Government should appoint a representative responsible for their upkeep.

Some background on this decision may be interesting.

By the 1850's Longwood House had been badly neglected, and was being used for agricultural purposes. The Valley of the Tomb remained a popular tourist destination even though Napoleon's body had been removed in 1840, and there was talk that P.T. Barnum would buy it, obviously for its commercial potential.

This was a time of Anglo French entente: Britain and France had just fought as allies in the Crimea, and Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie had developed a close friendship with Queen Victoria.

In 1855 Queen Victoria visited Paris, the first visit of a reigning English monarch to France since 1431.

She wrote about her trip to her cousin, Leopold II, King of the Belgians:

Our reception is most gratifying - for it is enthusiastic and really kind in the 
highest degree, - and Maréchal Magnan ... says that such a reception as I have received every day here - is much greater & much more enthusiastic even than Napoléon on his return from his Victories had received.!!

During her visit in 1855 she took the young Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) to Les Invalides, where Napoleon's body had rested since 1840, and bade him "Kneel down before the Tomb of the Great Napoleon". This was a very big change in official attitudes from 1821 when Hudson Lowe had refused to allow the single word "Napoleon" to be inscribed on the tomb!

The French Consul has some very good cartoons and pictures from an exhibition on the Congress of Paris (1856) which provide added backround on this period French Consul's Blog 18th Feb 2008


As a footnote it should be noted that Napoleon III died in exile in England, and his son died in 1879 fighting in the British Army against the Zulus. The body of Napoleon III, his son, and that of the Empress Eugenie (who died in 1820) are buried in the Imperial Crypt at Saint Michael’s Abbey, Farnborough Hampshire. There has been some talk about moving their bodies back to France.