Page:Helen Leah Reed - Napoleons young neighbour.djvu/266

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
236
NAPOLEON'S YOUNG NEIGHBOR

things, and at last put a bottle of wine in the basket, saying, "For your father to drink my health in."

Alas! it was too late for any one to wish Napoleon good health. Not long after he had suggested the toast for Julia's father, he had to go to bed. Whatever others thought, he was sure that he would never rise. He probably knew that the end was near. The very end came suddenly, and many on St. Helena, who had not known of the seriousness of his condition, were greatly surprised to hear of his death on the fifth of May.

Before the funeral Napoleon's body lay in state, and naval and military officers and many others were permitted to view it. When Sir Hudson Lowe looked at Napoleon immediately after his death, he was impressed by the nobility of the dead man's expression.

"His face in death," he wrote to Lord Bathurst, "was the most beautiful I have ever seen." Yet even to the dead Napoleon the Governor maintained the same attitude as to the living, for when it came to the question of the inscription to be placed on the Emperor's coffin, he would not permit the simple