Napoleon's Doctor by Hubert O'Connor

Author:Hubert O'Connor
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781847179746
Publisher: The O'Brien Press
Published: 2017-06-08T16:00:00+00:00

6 March 1817

Napoleon in very different spirits. He was reclining on his couch in a pensive attitude with his head resting in one hand, apparently melancholy.

He had his morning gown on, a Madras handkerchief around his head and his beard was unshaven.

‘What news—has any ship arrived from England?’ he asked.

I informed Napoleon that a book about him written by Dr Warden was recently published and had just arrived on the island. Napoleon was instantly interested. ‘What is the nature of the work? Is it for or against me? Is it well written?’

I replied that it was a description of what had happened on board the Northumberland and at St Helena. (Dr William Warden’s Letters written on board the Northumberland and St Helena was not the first attempt to feed the British public’s appetite for information about Napoleon. Lieutenant John Bowerbank’s Extract of a journal kept on HMS Bellerophon was published in 1815. However, Warden’s more substantial book gave Napoleon a chance to put his case to the British public. The anonymous publication Letters from the Cape of Good Hope in reply to Mr Warden was dictated by Napoleon to Count Bertrand over the next few months and published in 1817.)

Napoleon asked how had the work been received in England? Were the Ministers pleased with it?

I then assisted him in reading over some extracts in The Observer which he admitted were correct. An article in the paper stated that Marie Louise had fallen from her horse into the Po. She had been saved with some difficulty.

General Gourgaud received a letter from his sister which included the news that Madame Dillon, Countess Bertrand’s mother, was doing well. I never observed before the consolation afforded by a letter from distant relations or friends. A line of writing from Europe is, at Longwood, a treasure above all price.

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