Maldivia House and the Rather Confusing Bennetts of St Helena

Maldivia 1 st. 3 bay x 2 house with verandahs, Early timber gable infill under deeply C.19 projecting eaves, North, back additions and 2 st. cottage. Tall windows sashed. Front doorcase and verandahs later. All in extensive garden. - St Helena Govt. Report
This beautiful house is situated in what was once Maldivia Gardens, from which it takes its name. Blundens and Villa le Breton also lie within the boundaries of the original gardens.

An earlier house stood on this site, originally named Concord, but changed in 1735, presumably when the Maldivians arrived.

The present house was built in the early nineteenth century, and during the occupation of Napoleon was the home of Major Hodson, nicknamed "Hercules" by Napoleon, and son in law of Sir William Doveton.

On the arrival of Napoleon members of the Council of St Helena adjourned from Jamestown to Maldivia House to consider the implications of the takeover of the island from the East India Company by the British Crown.

Napoleon himself visited the house in November 1815. Major Hodson was present at the funeral and the exhumation of Napoleon. He died in Bath in 1858.

Later in the nineteenth century Maldivia was the home of Lady Ross (nee Eliza Bennett), widow of the former Governor of St Helena, Sir Patrick Ross. Lady Ross died at Maldivia in 1890.

Some time thereafter it was bought by Eliza LLoyd (nee Eliza Mary Bennett), no relation to the aforesaid Eliza Bennett.

Eliza Mary Bennett was born in St Helena in 1857, the daughter of a clergyman on the island, the Rev George Bennett. This Bennett family returned to the UK in 1881 and at the age of 28 Eliza married 65 year old Thomas Edward LLoyd. She was widowed in 1909, and sometime thereafter purchased Maldivia House, and used to spend the English winters there until the second world war.

She died in 1947 and left the house to the Government of St Helena, in whose hands it has remained. In accordance with her wishes it is now used to house the chief medical officer on the island.

My thanks to James Phillips Evans for supplying information about the Bennett connection.

Napoleon's Religious Beliefs: The Final Days

" I die in the Apostolic and Roman Religion, in the bosom of which I was born more than fifty years ago."
Despite reaching maturity in the anti-clerical, deistic, even atheistic world of the French Revolution, Napoleon always exhibited an interest in religion. In power his biggest break with the Revolution had been the Concordat with the Papacy which restored the Catholic Church to its central place in French life, as well as conveniently neutralising a major source of opposition.

On St Helena where he had almost endless time for speculation about the mysteries of life and the universe, he spoke often about such matters, although he never expressed any deep religious beliefs. As Lord Rosebery comments, it is possible to find quotations from him taking all manner of religious positions: materialist, Mohammedan, Christian and even sun worship. In some cases he was simply saying things to provoke a reaction, and without anyone in whom he confided his innermost thoughts, it is impossible to know what he really believed. (1)

To his Corsican doctor, Antommarchi, several months before he himself died, Napoleon recalled his own father's return to the Catholic church in words which hardly suggested any personal religious faith:

"my father, who was far from being religiously inclined, and who had even composed some anti-religious poetry, no sooner saw the grave half-opened, than he became passionately fond of priests; there were not priests enough in Montpellier to satisfy him. A change so sudden, and which, however, occurs in the case of every individual labouring under a serious illness, can only be accounted for by the disorder into which the disease throws the human frame. - The organs become blunted, their re-action ceases, the moral faculties are shaken; the head is gone, and thence the desire for confession, oremuses, and all the fine things, without which, it seems, we cannot die." (2)

As the end drew near Napoleon gave to his doctor Antommarchi clear instructions about the post-mortem he wished to take place, and to Vignali, one of the priests sent to St Helena by his uncle Cardinal Fesch, he spoke about the arrangements after his death and the religious ceremonies to be performed for the duration of his life.

He told the priest that he was a Catholic "and will fulfill the duties prescribed by the Catholic religion ", and he instructed him to say mass every day, to perform the holy forty hours devotion, and after his death to continue to say mass and perform the customary ceremonies until I am under ground. (3)

Perhaps sensing Antommarchi's incredulity, Napoleon became rather defensive,

You are above those weaknesses, but what is to be done? I am neither a philosopher nor a physician. I believe in God, and am of the religion of my father. It is not every body who can be an Atheist. (4)

"Can you not believe in God, whose existence every thing proclaims, and in whom the greatest minds have believed?" (5)

Napoleon had apparently been attending mass at Longwood since the arrival of the priests, but his companions in exile did not quite know what to make of his meetings with Vignali. Count Montholon said that he would not be surprised if he were to become religious. (6) Grand Marshall Bertrand, loyal as always, commented

"whether the Emperor has had a religious or a political aim, he should be upheld. If you are agreeable Montholon, tomorrow at noon and at six o'clock in the evening, my wife and I and our children will go and pray." (7)

On May 1st 1821, the same day that Vignali administered the extreme unction to Napoleon, Bertrand recorded in his diary that Napoleon had "raised the supreme question. He would seem to say that there was no afterwards . (8)

Two days later Bertrand, concerned about Napoleon's reputation, asked Vignali not to spend too much time with the Emperor

and even to make a point of showing himself to the English so that ill wishers, slanderers, and enemies of the Emperor should not be able to say - as he knew it had already been said on the island - that the strong man, the Emperor, was dying like a monk with a priest always in attendance - all of which Vignali quite understood. (9)

The young evangelical christians who met at Mason's Stock House, a short distance from Longwoood, and used to pray for the Emperor's soul, were encouraged by what they were told after his death:

his suite informed us, that towards the close of his days, he had not only been in the constant habit of praying with the priest, but that also, when he was in his apartment, he was often heard to pray earnestly to God, through Jesus Christ, for the salvation of his soul.

A day or two before his death, and knowing that he was dying, he received with great apparent earnestness and devotion, the sacrament of the Lord's supper, as we heard from Madame Bertrand and others of his household. (10)

For Chateaubriand, an enemy of Napoleon, but flattered by the small recognition Napoleon had given him from far off St Helena, Antommarchi's account was proof of Napoleon's Christian convictions:

You Rationalists abandon your admiration for Napoleon; you have nothing in common with that poor man .. this foremost man of modern times, this man for all the centuries, was a Christian of the nineteenth century! (11)

More recently the editor of Bertrand's diary concludes: "He makes a sacrifice to ritual; but he has no profound faith" , and in the diaries themselves is a note by Bertrand, "The Emperor died a Theist." (12) That still seems the most likely description of his beliefs at the end, but the evidence is not conclusive.
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1. Lord Rosebery pp 168-173
2. The Last Days of the Emperor Napoleon by Doctor F. Antommarchi his Physician (London 1925) vol 1 pp 240-241
3. On 21st April 1821. Antommarchi Vol 2 p. 120
4. Antommarchi Vol 2 p. 120
5. Antommarchi Vol 2 p. 121
6. Napoleon at St Helena, Memoirs of General Bertrand, Grand Marshall of the Palace, January to May 1821 (Cassell 1953) p.162
7. Bertrand p. 162
8. Bertrand p 247 Antommarchi dates the giving of the extreme unction as May 3rd. On March 27th Bertrand had recorded a similar opinion by Napoleon: "I am very glad that I have no religion, .. I find it a great consolation, as I have no imaginary terrors and no fear of the future." Betrand p. 133.
9. Bertrand p. 247
10. The Last Days of Bonaparte
Religious magazine: or, Spirit of the foreign theological journals ..., Volume 2
11. François de Chateaubriand, Mémoires d’outre-tombe Book XXIV Chapter 11
12 Bertrand xxiii ; p. 182

Marlborough and Napoleon - another Gift from the Emperor?

Histoire de Jean Churchill, Duc de Marlborough
These three volumes, a French biography of the great Duke of Marlborough,



published under the Imperial insignia in Paris in the year XIII (1805), beautifully bound and in near perfect condition, are to be found in the John Rylands Library in Manchester.



This would not merit a mention but for a handwritten inscription inside the cover of volume I :

This Book was sent as a present to my Father about the year 1809 or 1810 by the Emperor Napoleon another copy was sent at the same time to the Prince Regent & a third to the then Duke of Marlborough

This inscription was apparently dated 13th August 1852, and signed by Earl Spencer. If my inference is correct then the signature is that of the 4th Earl, Frederick Spencer (1798-1857), the great great grandfather of Diana Princess of Wales. His father to whom the gift was purportedly sent was the 2nd Earl, George John Spencer (1758-1834), brother of Lady Georgiana, famous Duchess of Devonshire and mother of the 6th Duke of Devonshire, whose links with the Bonapartes have been covered elsewhere. What complicated family ties these Whig families had!

The 2nd Earl Spencer was a great collector of books, and accumulated the "greatest private library in the world" according to the Althorp Hall website. Towards the end of the nineteenth century one of his descendants sold this 40,000 volume library to Mrs Rylands, the creator of the library named after her husband in industrial Manchester, and there it remains.

Apart from the Prince Regent, the other recipient of the biography would have been the 4th Duke of Marlborough, George Spencer (1739-1817). Curiously it was the 4th Duke's youngest brother, Lord Robert Spencer (1747 –1831), who later sent Coxe's Life of Marlborough to Napoleon on St Helena.(1) My impression from a visit to Blenheim some time ago is that members of the Marlborough family had a reciprocal interest in Napoleon; this was certainly the case of its most famous son, Sir Winston Curchill.

My efforts to find out whether copies of the 1805 French biography of Marlborough now reside at Blenheim and in the Royal Library, have so far met with no success. Without some corroboration one cannot be certain that the inscription in the Manchester book is accurate. One can see why Napoleon might have sought to cultivate leading Whig families who were out of office and were generally critical of Britain's wars on the continent, not least because they resented being taxed to pay for them. The same applies to the Prince Regent who was close to the Whigs at this time. It is possible of course that the inscription is simply repeating a family legend which had been embroidered a little in the retelling.

It seems probable though that Napoleon, who had great respect for Marlborough, took a close interest in the production of this biography, which was published not long after his coronation as Emperor. In the John Rylands Library there is also a much inferior 1808 edition (the revolutionary calendar abandoned), now losing its binding and held together with tape. Inside its front cover is a barely legible handwritten French inscription indicating that the book was printed "by order of Napoleon".

The first page of the preface to the biography is in this regard worth consideration:

A great man belongs to all peoples and to all centuries; he is, if I dare express myself thus, a masterpiece of human nature, similar to a masterpiece of art, offering a model to imitate in all times and in all places. His life is a public patrimony, a treasure where each has the right to come and draw light, wisdom, magnanimous sentiments, and the love of everything which can ennoble humanity. It becomes precious for all generations, through memories useful to the instructor who teaches, to the army general who commands, and to the man of affairs who governs.

Is the author talking about Napoleon or Marlborough one wonders? I don't think there is much doubt that this is how Napoleon hoped he too would be remembered.

My thanks to the University of Manchester for permission to publish the images taken from the collection in the John Rylands Library .
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1. On his death bed Napoleon gave the three volume Coxe's Life of Marlborough to the 20th Foot Regiment. An account of this, and the problems the gift caused have already been covered in my blog on the Fusilier Museum. It is curious that two biographies of Marlborough, both associated with Napoleon, are now to be found in Greater Manchester.

Napoleon and the British Sailor

With folded arms Napoleon stood,
Serene alike in peace and danger
--
The poem "Napoleon and the British Sailor" was apparently based on an actual event, or at least a story believed to be true by people on both sides of the English channel.

Such anecdotes about Napoleon were not uncommon in Britain throughout the nineteenth cenury.

Written by Thomas Campbell, a Scottish Poet (1777-1844), it was included in his The pilgrim of Glencoe: and other poems, which was published in 1842.

Campbell had Whig political connections. It is difficult to believe that any Tory would have written thus about the "Corsican Ogre".

The full poem follows:

I love contemplating, apart
From all his homicidal glory,
The traits that soften to our heart
Napoleon's story!

'Twas when his banners at Boulogne
Armed in our island every freeman,
His navy chanced to capture one
Poor British seaman.

They suffered him— I know not how—
Unprisoned on the shore to roam;
And aye was bent his longing brow
On England's home.

His eye, methinks, pursued the flight
Of birds to Britain half-way over
With envy, they could reach the white
Dear cliffs of Dover.

A stormy midnight watch, he thought,
Than this sojourn would have been dearer,
If but the storm his vessel brought
To England nearer.

At last, when care had banished sleep.
He saw one morning, dreaming, doating,
An empty hogshead from the deep
Come shoreward floating.

He hid it in a cave, and wrought
The livelong day laborious; lurking
Until he launch'd a tiny boat
By mighty working.

Heaven help us! 't was a thing beyond
Description wretched; such a wherry
Perhaps ne'er ventured on a pond
Or crossed a ferry.

For ploughing in the salt sea-field,
It would have made the boldest shudder;
Untarred, uncompassed, and unkeeled.
No sail, no rudder.

From neighboring woods he interlaced
His sorry skiff with wattled willows;
And thus equipped he would have passed
The foaming billows;

But Frenchmen caught him on the beach.
His little Argo sorely jeering;
Till tidings of him chanced to reach
Napoleon's hearing.

With folded arms Napoleon stood,
Serene alike in peace and danger;
And in his wonted attitude.
Addressed the stranger:—

"Rash man that wouldst you channel pass
On twigs and staves so rudely fashioned,
Thy heart with some sweet British lass
Must be impassioned."

"I have no sweetheart," said the lad;
"But, absent long from one another,
Great was the longing that I had
To see my mother."

"And so thou shalt," Napoleon said;
" Ye've both my favor fairly won;
A noble mother must have bred
So brave a son."

He gave the tar a piece of gold.
And with a flag of truce commanded
He should be shipped to England Old,
And safely landed.

Our sailor oft could scantly shift
To find a dinner plain and hearty;
But never changed the coin and gift
Of Bonaparte.

Longwood House: Open Day

On 23rd July Michel held an open day at Longwood House, attended mainly by local Saints, most of whom had not visited the House for a long time, and some of whom had never visited before.



As I have said on previous occasions, I am full of praise for the way that Michel is continuing to involve local people in the French properties on St Helena.