228 ST. HELENA 



He took her into the saloon where breakfast was prepared 

 and filled her basket with different sweet things, adding a 

 bottle of liquor with these words, " This is for your father 

 to drink my health ! " 



One day he sent for a jeweller to alter or repair a trinket, 

 and while talking asked him if he could make a silver coffin. 

 The jeweller tried to shift the question, but Buonaparte, re- 

 peating it, said, " I shall die in a few weeks." 



" God forbid that we should lose your Highness," said the 

 man ; but " God grant that I may die soon," was the answer, 

 "for I am well convinced that life is not a blessing, but a 

 curse." 



He often read from Telemachus. While lying on his sofa 

 he one day inquired if an English journal could be pro- 

 cured him. With some difficulty a newspaper was pro- 

 vided. Taking it, and glancing over it hastily, he suddenly 

 exclaimed, " Ah ! Naples, Naples ! — poor devils. Murat 

 was the bravest king they had, but he did not know his 



subjects; they are all Lazzaroni from the Duke of 



down to the lowest ! " 



On the morning of his death he said, "Death has nothing 

 to affright me ; for three weeks he has been the companion 

 of my pillow." 



Ailing, as has been shown, for some months, depressed and 

 weak, his illness at the end was of short duration, and he 

 died on May 5, 1821, at Longwood Old House. 



His heart was placed in spirit, and in his military uniform 

 the body lay in state on the two following days, the Star 

 of the Legion of Honour on his side, and a Crucifix on his 

 breast. The room was draped in black, and there were in 

 attendance Count and Countess Bertrand, Count Montho- 

 lon, the priest, physician and servants. 



On the following morning about seven o'clock Sir Hudson 

 Lowe proceeded to the apartment in which the body lay 

 in state. He was accompanied by Rear-Admiral Lambert, 

 the Marquis de Montchenu, Commissioner on the part of 

 France and Austria, and other public functionaries. After 

 viewing the body, which lay with the face uncovered, they 

 retired, and at two o'clock on the same day the body was 

 opened in the presence of six medical gentlemen, including 

 Professor Autommarchi, Buonaparte's own physician. An 



