From the 15th to the 25th of April, Napoleon occupied himself with drawing up his last will—­in which he bequeathed his orders, and a specimen of every article in his wardrobe, to his son.  On the 18th he gave directions for opening his body after death, expressing a special desire that his stomach should be scrutinised, and its appearances communicated to his son.  “The vomitings,” he said, “which succeed one another without interruption, seem to show that of all my organs the stomach is the most diseased.  I am inclined to believe it is attacked with the disorder which killed my father—­a scirrhus in the pylorus—­the physicians of Montpelier prophesied it would be hereditary in our family.”  He also gave directions to the priest Vignali as to the manner in which he wished his body to be laid out in a chambre ardente (a state-room lighted with torches).  “I am neither an atheist,” said Napoleon, “nor a rationalist; I believe in God, and am of the religion of my father.  I was born a Catholic, and will fulfil all the duties of that church, and receive the assistance which she administers.”

On the 3rd of May it became evident that the scene was near its close.  The attendants would fain have called in more medical men; but they durst not, knowing his feelings on this head:  “Even had he been speechless,” said one of them, “we could not have brooked his eye.”  The last sacraments of the church were now administered by Vignali.  He lingered on thenceforth in a delirious stupor.  On the 4th the island was swept by a tremendous storm, which tore up almost all the trees about Longwood by the roots.  The 5th was another day of tempests; and about six in the evening, Napoleon—­having pronounced the words “tete d’armee,” passed for ever from the dreams of battle.

On the 6th of May the body being opened by Antommarchi, in the presence of five British medical men, and a number of the military officers of the garrison, as well as Bertrand and Montholon, the cause of death was sufficiently manifest.  A cancerous ulcer occupied almost the whole of the stomach.

Napoleon desired in his will, that his body should be buried “on the banks of the Seine; among the French people, whom he had loved so well.”  Sir Hudson Lowe could not, of course, expect the King of France to permit this to take place; and a grave was prepared among some weeping willows beside a fountain, in a small valley called Slane’s, very near to Longwood.  It was under the shade of these willows that the Exile had had his favourite evening seat; and it was there he had been heard to say, that if he must be interred in St. Helena, he would prefer to lie.