New Longwood House

The new house built for Napoleon at Longwood - a mid nineteenth century view.

Longwood House was always intended to be a temporary residence, and on 17th May 1816 Sir Hudson Lowe told Napoleon that the materials necessary for building a new house had arrived. Napoleon, uwilling to accept his permanent imprisonment on the island, would not discuss it with him.

Sir Hudson Lowe prevaricated as to where it would be built, but eventually, in 1818, began construction on a site next door to Bertrand's cottage. It was pretty well completed by the end of 1820.

The house was pre-fabricated by John Bullock in London. Construction was under the command of Major Emmet. Among those working on the project were Mr Paine, a painter and paper hanger sent out from London, and Mr Darling, who served as undertaker at Napoleon's funeral and also assisted at the exhumation.

Napoleon watched the house being built, and once secretly visited it, but he always maintained that he would never live there. Shortly before his death he strongly objected to the iron railings that were placed around it, which to him had the appearance of a prison. These were removed and later used to fence off his grave.

In the last hours of Napoleon's illness Lowe and his assistant Major Gideon Gorrequer waited there for news.

No trace of the house now remains. It was demolished in 1947 and agricultural buildings now stand on the site.

Longwood House itself came very near to a similar fate around the same time.

For another image see previous blog on sites associated with the captivity of Napoleon.

British Radicals and the Captivity of Napoleon: Smithfield 1819

Meeting at Smithfield, London, 22nd July 1819

"Napoleon I esteem the most illustrious and eminent man of the present age, both as a profound statesman and a brave and matchless general. Although he never appeared to evince so sincere a desire as could be wished to promote the universal liberty of man to the extent that I contend, and have always contended for, yet, when I reflect upon the period in which his energetic mind was allowed to have its full scope of action, and when I recollect the powerful armies and fleets that he had to contend with, and the phalanx of tyrants who were at various times leagued together against him, I am disposed not to examine too nicely and with too critical an eye the means that he used to defend himself against their unceasing endeavours to destroy him, and to restore the old tyranny of the Bourbons.' - Henry Hunt, radical leader(1)

The social struggles in England after the Napoleonic wars provide an important background to the captivity of Napoleon. Whilst the fear of revolution was never far from the minds of the loyalist classes, for those who were campaigning for reform, Napoleon was like them the victim of a corrupt, unrepresentative and repressive government, and Waterloo not a great national victory but a setback for the forces of liberty at home as well as on the continent.

On July 22nd 1819 a meeting in favour of parliamentary reform presided over by Henry Hunt, and attended by 40,000-50,000 people took place at Smithfield in London. This followed a meeting in Birmingham on 12th July, at which Sir Charles Wolseley had been elected as "legislatorial attorney and representative" and had been instructed to take his seat in the House of Commons - a promise he made to the gathering but wisely did not keep!

As well as what was probably interpreted as rather a threatening resolution on parliamentary reform,

"That from and after the 1st day of January 1820, we cannot conscientiously consider ourselves as bound in equity by any future enactment which may be made by any persons styling themselves our representatives other than those who shall be fully, freely, and fairly chosen by the voices of the largest proportion of the members of the state."

the Smithfield meeting also criticised the imprisonment of Napoleon:

"That this meeting unequivocally disclaims any share or participation in the disgraceful and cowardly acts of the boroughmongers, in placing the brave Napoleon a prisoner, to perish upon a desert island, shut out from human society, and torn from his only son, whilst he is exposed to the brutal insolence of a hired keeper".

The Smithfield meeting passed over peacefully, but it undoubtedly alarmed the authorities, and a similar meeting held a few weeks later in St Peters Fields Manchester, was brutally suppressed by the Manchester Yeomanry, and was henceforth to be known as the Peterloo Massacre, in ironic reference to Waterloo.

Henry Hunt who had presided over the Smithfield meeting, was along with other leaders arrested at Manchester and found guilty of intending disaffection and hatred of the king and constitution, and subsequently spent two and a half years in gaol.


Henry "Orator" Hunt (1773 – 1835)

In his memoirs, written whilst in gaol, Hunt compared his plight to that of Napoleon,

I am not ashamed of being accused of endeavouring to imitate the brave and persecuted Napoleon, who is writing his memoirs during his imprisonment on the barren rock of St. Helena.

He is, like myself, a prisoner, and imprisoned by the same power; only in his case they have not even the forms of law to justify them in his detention. He is a prisoner upon a barren rock, but I have not the least hesitation in pronouncing him to have been, both in the cabinet and the field, as to talent and courage, unrivalled in the pages of modern or ancient history. Neither the reformers nor the people of England had any share in sending him to St. Helena, nor ought they in fairness to participate in the disgrace of his detention.

In my humble judgement, the greatest fault he ever committed was, in having too good an opinion of the justice of the boroughmongers, and relying upon the liberality of their agents, so far as to be betrayed into that net which now surrounds him.

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1. Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq, Written by himself, in his majesty's jail at Ilchester, In the county of Somerset (London 1820) Volume 1 pp xvii-xviii

Friends of St Helena: New Facebook Page

The Friends of St Helena has just launched a new facebook page, the work I imagine of Ian Bruce who is making great changes to the internet profile of the Friends.

I really liked the set of photos taken in St Helena in the period 1890-1930, and brought back to the UK in 1931 by Thomas R Bruce who was Postmaster on the island from 1898 to 1930. Among the pictures of Boer War prisoners and local dignitaries it was fascinating to see a bullock cart on Main Street, something which I had never before associated with the island, although I knew that Miss Mason was famously reputed to ride a bullock in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Among my favourite photos were those of the "Long Tom" field gun being hauled manually up Main Steet and then up Ladder Hill. I wonder if anyone can shed any light on that?

I was also fascinated by the series of photos on the wreck of the SS Pappanui in 1911. An amazing incident about which I confess I also knew nothing.



Then there was the picture of a rather forlorn Longwood, a photo which reminds us that the building we now see on the site, constructed out of termite resistant materials, is for the most part a replica of the original.

Fondation Napoléon: Award for Chroniques de Sainte-Hélène Atlantique sud

It is good to hear that Michel Dancoisne Martineau has received the Prix de'Histoire de la Fondation Napoléon for his excellent Chroniques de Sainte-Hélène Atlantique sud.

It is interesting that the Foundation has given an award to a book in which Emperor, Empire and the French on St Helena play no part, a book which sheds light on the lives of ordinary people, many of whom would not normally figure even as footnotes in the history of Napoleon's captivity.

As I said in my review in May it really does merit translation into English.



Congratulations again to Michel. This is quite an achievement for a talented artist!

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.