Ile d'Aix
The career of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) is still contested and doubtless will continue to be twenty years hence as memories of the bicentennial of his death begin to fade. Even the cause of his death, in exile on St Helena—an outpost of the British Empire in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean—is disputed. Some French historians insist that he was poisoned by his British guardians; their British counterparts contend that he died of wallpaper poisoning. The latter story is not as unlikely as it might at first appear, for the fine wallpapers that Napoleon had ordered to cheer up the décor at Longwood House contained arsenic that the reclusive ex-Emperor would have inhaled in the humid climate.
When Napoleon's body was returned to France from St Helena in 1840, it was at the height of a Napoleonic cult. A bored generation in the decades that followed Waterloo felt stultified by provincial bourgeois values and craved gloire, the style and sheer excitement associated with First Empire. It seemed to some that Napoleon had not been an ordinary mortal at all but rather a Superman, a Prometheus-like figure who, stealing fire from the gods, had acquired divine attributes for himself. This reading of Napoleon's career was fuelled by the memoirs he dictated in exile. "It was only in the evening after the battle of Lodi," he notes in a typical passage, "that I realized that I was a superior being and conceived of the ambition of performing great things which had hitherto filled my thoughts only as fantastic dreams." Such an approach to Napoleon's career, once seen as Romantic, could only appear sinister after the career of a twentieth century Superman took Europe into the tragedy of a Second World War.
In the early stages of his career, Napoleon was seen as the embodiment of the democratic values of the French Revolution. His legacy includes a legal code that guarantees equality before the law and careers open to talent. Napoleon claimed to believe "in the mystery of the social order rather than the mystery of the Incarnation" and his career saw the end of the Terror and of the widespread persecution of devout Catholics. Non-juring monks, priests and nuns had been put into barges that were deliberately sunk of the coast here, the notorious noyades or drownings that are commemorated in the crypt of the island's parish church. To others Napoleon seemed to betray the Revolution, declaring himself an Emperor and returning to pre-Revolutionary ways.
The endless fascination with Napoleon's career continues. At Waterloo, where his military career ended in 1815, the modern tourist is overwhelmed with Napoleonic memorabilia. Who now wants to remember Wellington, the "Iron Duke" who opposed any widening of the franchise and even opposed railways because he thought they would enable to lower orders to move about too freely? Here, on the Ile d'Aix, a Napoleon Museum commemorates the short stay—less than a month—of the deposed Emperor prior to his transfer to St Helena. In this tranquil location, it attracts a constant stream of visitors. It is crammed with evocative memorabilia: the obligatory hat, a death mask, one of Josephine's dresses and an entire room of Napoleon clocks, each one set at ten to six, the time in the evening when he died in exile, "The Eagle on his Rock."
The career of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) is still contested and doubtless will continue to be twenty years hence as memories of the bicentennial of his death begin to fade. Even the cause of his death, in exile on St Helena—an outpost of the British Empire in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean—is disputed. Some French historians insist that he was poisoned by his British guardians; their British counterparts contend that he died of wallpaper poisoning. The latter story is not as unlikely as it might at first appear, for the fine wallpapers that Napoleon had ordered to cheer up the décor at Longwood House contained arsenic that the reclusive ex-Emperor would have inhaled in the humid climate.
When Napoleon's body was returned to France from St Helena in 1840, it was at the height of a Napoleonic cult. A bored generation in the decades that followed Waterloo felt stultified by provincial bourgeois values and craved gloire, the style and sheer excitement associated with First Empire. It seemed to some that Napoleon had not been an ordinary mortal at all but rather a Superman, a Prometheus-like figure who, stealing fire from the gods, had acquired divine attributes for himself. This reading of Napoleon's career was fuelled by the memoirs he dictated in exile. "It was only in the evening after the battle of Lodi," he notes in a typical passage, "that I realized that I was a superior being and conceived of the ambition of performing great things which had hitherto filled my thoughts only as fantastic dreams." Such an approach to Napoleon's career, once seen as Romantic, could only appear sinister after the career of a twentieth century Superman took Europe into the tragedy of a Second World War.
In the early stages of his career, Napoleon was seen as the embodiment of the democratic values of the French Revolution. His legacy includes a legal code that guarantees equality before the law and careers open to talent. Napoleon claimed to believe "in the mystery of the social order rather than the mystery of the Incarnation" and his career saw the end of the Terror and of the widespread persecution of devout Catholics. Non-juring monks, priests and nuns had been put into barges that were deliberately sunk of the coast here, the notorious noyades or drownings that are commemorated in the crypt of the island's parish church. To others Napoleon seemed to betray the Revolution, declaring himself an Emperor and returning to pre-Revolutionary ways.
The endless fascination with Napoleon's career continues. At Waterloo, where his military career ended in 1815, the modern tourist is overwhelmed with Napoleonic memorabilia. Who now wants to remember Wellington, the "Iron Duke" who opposed any widening of the franchise and even opposed railways because he thought they would enable to lower orders to move about too freely? Here, on the Ile d'Aix, a Napoleon Museum commemorates the short stay—less than a month—of the deposed Emperor prior to his transfer to St Helena. In this tranquil location, it attracts a constant stream of visitors. It is crammed with evocative memorabilia: the obligatory hat, a death mask, one of Josephine's dresses and an entire room of Napoleon clocks, each one set at ten to six, the time in the evening when he died in exile, "The Eagle on his Rock."
