, 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.

The body of the Emperor, clad in his usual uniform, was now exposed to
the public view, and visited accordingly by all the population of the
island. The soldiers of the garrison passed the couch slowly, in single
file; each officer pausing, in his turn, to