During the 3rd of May, it was seen that the life of Napoleon was drawing
evidently to a close; and his followers, and particularly his physician,
became desirous to call in more medical assistance;--that of Dr. Shortt,
physician to the forces, and of Dr. Mitchell, surgeon of the flag-ship,
was referred to. Dr. Shortt, however, thought it proper to assert the
dignity belonging to his profession, and refused to give an opinion on a
case of so much importance in itself, and attended with so much
obscurity, unless he were permitted to see and examine the patient. The
officers of Napoleon's household excused themselves, by professing that
the emperor's strict commands had been laid on them, that no English
physician, Dr. Arnott excepted, should approach his dying bed. They
said, that even when he was speechless they would be unable to brook his
eye, should he turn it upon them in reproof for their disobedience.
About two o'clock of the same day, the priest Vignali administered the
sacrament of extreme unction. Some days before, Napoleon had explained
to him the manner in which he desired his body should be laid out in
state, in an apartment lighted by torches, or what Catholics call _une
chambre ardente_. "I am neither," he said in the same phrase which we
have formerly quoted, "a philosopher nor a physician. I believe in God,
and am of the religion of my father. It is not everybody who can be an
atheist. I was born a Catholic, and will fulfil all the duties of the
Catholic church, and receive the assistance which it administers." He
then turned to Dr. Antommarchi, whom he seems to have suspected of
heterodoxy, which the doctor, however, disowned. "How can you carry it
so far?" he said. "Can you not believe in God, whose existence every
thing proclaims, and in whom the greatest minds have believed?"
As if to mark a closing point of resemblance betwixt Cromwell and
Napoleon, a dreadful tempest arose on the 4th of May, which preceded the
day that was to close the mortal existence of this extraordinary man. A
willow, which had been the exile's favourite, and under which he had
often enjoyed the fresh breeze, was torn up by the hurricane; and almost
all the trees about Longwood shared the same fate.
The 5th of May came amid wind and rain. Napoleon's passing spirit was
deliriously engaged in a strife more terrible than that of the elements
around. The words "_tête d'armée_" the last which escaped his lips,
intimated that his thoughts were watching the current of a heady fight.
About eleven minutes before six in the evening, Napoleon, after a
struggle which indicated the original strength of his constitution,
breathed his last.