Theory about Napoleon’s death derided in France

Press, 19 April 1982, Page 8

Theory about Napoleon’s death derided in France

NZPA London A British assertion that Napoleon died of poison administered by a French aristocrat, a member of his entourage at St Helena, has met with fury, derision, and scepticism in France. The assertion in a book to be published in London soon, rests largely on the results of tests carried out 20 years ago in Glasgow, revealing abnormally high quantities of arsenic in locks of hair purporting to come from the Emperor’s head. The authors of ‘'The Murder of Napoleon”—Ben Weider and David Hapgood—have paired up the dates on which the hair was supposedly cut with those of onsets of illness recorded in the memoirs • of the imperial prisoner’s companions in captivity. Basing themselves on a theory first formulated by Dr Sven Forshtifvud of

Goteborg, they select for the role of assassin the Comte de Montholon. It is deduced that he acted as a tool of the Bourbons, who feared Napoleon might make a second come-back. A plethora of motives are advanced for the count. He was in the pay of the Bourbons; alternatively he was blackmailed because he had embezzled his regimental funds; and/or he was vengeful because his wife became Napoleon’s mistress at St Helena. The "Sunday Telegraph’s” Paris correspondent says a group of distinguished Frenchmen became determined to deny the allegations after the book began to receive lurid write-ups in the French press. . .... They are the historian, Andre Castelot, whose writings include a “History of Napoleon Bonaparte”; ' Dr Paul Ganiere; author of three books on Napoleon in captiv-

ity; Dr Guy Godlewski, president of the leading Napoleonic association; Baron Gourgaud and Comte de Las Cases, descendants of members of the St Helena contingent; and Professor Jean Tulard, president of the Institute Napoleon. They demolish the thesis of Weider and Hapgood on three main scores. The medical arguments advanced are inconclusive. Given the lay-out of Longwood house, where Napoleon was captive, Montholon could not have enjoyed regular, unobserved access to the cellar containing the wine in which the poison was said to have been administered. They show that Montholon earned no favours from the Bourbons.. He subsequently served six years in prison for participating in the abortive Boulogne conspiracy to put the Emperor’s nephew, later Napoleon lll.'on the throne.