The Governor was then confronted with what to him was another knotty point.  The Emperor had desired that a few gold coins struck during his reign should be buried with him.  After serious consideration this was graciously allowed, but not without forebodings of trouble arising therefrom!  What the British Government or their idiotic Governor wanted with Napoleon’s stomach, or why they refused to allow his body to be embalmed, or his heart preserved and sent to his wife, Heaven only knows.  They had monstrously violated all human feeling by ignoring appeals made to them from all parts of the world to be merciful to a much afflicted man.  They were well informed by the best medical authorities on the island that the climate was deadly to a constitution such as his.  They ignored reports of his declining health even up to a few weeks of his death, and then when the Arch-enemy claimed him, they flooded Europe with the intelligence that he had succumbed to the malady from which his father died, and that their tender and benevolent care for him was unavailing.  The progress of his inherited disease could not be checked.

The world is fast beginning to realise the infamy of it all.  Not a thought ever entered their heads but that of torture, veiled or open, and the appalling clumsiness of their endeavours to conceal their Satanic designs, so that they might appear in the light of beneficent hosts, shows that they cowered at the possibility of public vengeance.  Happily for them, Napoleon’s death came too near to the terrific commotion caused by the French Revolution.

Tumult raged round the Emperor during the whole of his public career, and powerful agencies were constantly proclaiming against him and his methods.  His advent had brought with it a new form of democracy, which cast down oligarchies and despotisms everywhere.  His system destroyed and affected too many interests not to leave behind it feelings of revenge, but this revenge did not exist among the common people.  Those who persecuted the common people felt his heavy hand upon them.  The populace entered into his service in shoals, only to betray him when the time of trial came.  He knew the risk he ran, but did not shrink from it.  He hoped that he might bring them to adopt the great principles he held and the plan he had in view.

His ambition was to seek out all those who had talent and character and give them the opportunity of developing their gifts for the benefit of the race.  Humble origin had no deterrent effect on him.  His most brilliant officers and men of position sprang from the middle and lower middle class, and taking them as a whole, their devotion never gave way, even during the most terrible adversity that ever befell mortal man.  One small instance of admiration and sympathy is evidenced by the beautiful reverence shown by the officers and men of the English army and navy, who defiled before the dead hero’s remains and bent their knees to the ground.