Shortly before he [Napoleon] died, he asked Bertrand to close his eyes afterwards, ‘Because they naturally stay open’, something he must have noticed, and been haunted by, from his experience of sixty battlefields. During the 4th, Napoleon suffered from prolonged hiccups, and in the evening he slipped into delirium, asking the name of his son. The next day, Saturday, May 5, 1821, after a very blustery and stormy morning, the fifty-one-year-old former Emperor gave three sighs at long intervals and died at 5.49 p.m., just after the firing of the island’s sunset gun.
What Chateaubriand called ‘the mightiest breath of life that ever animated human clay’ had ceased.
Source:
Roberts, Andrew. "St Helena." Napoleon: A Life. New York: Penguin, 2014. 801. Print.
Original Source(s) Listed:
Albermarle, Fifty Years II p. 105.
Henry, Trifles from My Portfolio II p. 7.
Richardson, Napoleon’s Death pp. 164.
Antommarchi, Last Days of Napoleon II p. 105.
Further Reading:
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