NAPOLEON'S TOMB

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11559, 25 September 1930, Page 7

NAPOLEON'S TOMB

REQUESTS FOR OPENING. NEVER TO BE GRANTED. Every year the French Government receives applications for permission to open the coffin of Napoleon in its rad granite tomb. The authorities lately issued a notice that in no circumstances will such a request be granted. Scientists, historians, and doctors are among the applicants, some of them desiring to examine the great man’s head, some to examine the organs to see whether it is true that Napoleon died from cancer. The answer as to the cause ol death has been finally given by one of the greatest surgeons in the world, Lord iVloynihan, who five years ago announced that fie had examined the vital organs of the dead emperor and found that there was absolutely no trace of cancer. This agrees entirely with the verdict of the English doctor at St. Helena, who carried, out a post-mortem examination of the remains. The death of Napoleon, it is stated, was due to chronic ulceration of the stomach. It is odd that, though he who so long planned to enter England as a victorious invader, and when defeated begged to be allowed to live there in retirement, never set foot on English soil. Parts ot his body are now in London among the relics of the Royal College of Surgeons. They were formerly in the privates museum of Sir Astley Cooper, a great surgeon of the nineteenth century, and were presented, with the remainder of his collection at his ideath, to the Royal College of Surgeons. Napoleon lay for nearly 20 years in his grave at St. Helena ; then, 90 years ago, his body, with the consent of the British Government, was borne with great pomp across the ocqan and finally buried in a lordly tomb' m Paris. For two minutes the chief men of France looked upon the body in the coflin which had crossed the sea, made from an English mahogany table. 'Then the remains were enclosed in six coffins, one of zinc, one of mahogany, two of lead, one of ebony, and one of oak, and it is never again likely to be disturbed.