BONAPARTE N'EST PLUS!

The greatest man of the century died far away on a South Atlantic island. How, at a time when the navy used ships with sails, did the news come to Europe?
What reactions did it provoke? This is the first important work to be published in anticipation of the 250th anniversary of the birth of Napoleon and the bicentennial of his death in 2021.

On May 5, 1821, “General Bonaparte” drew his last breath at Longwood, surrounded by his loyal companions. The classic scene has been represented numerous times. On the morning of 6 May, the HMS Heron, under the command of Captain Crokat, set sail for England, charged with bringing the extraordinary news to Europe. It docked at Portsmouth on 4 July. Thus – an unimaginable occurrence today – the world remained two months in ignorance of this crucial event. George IV, who was to be crowned on July 19, was informed by the cabinet at midday. The Tuileries received the news the next day in the early afternoon, by telegraph from Calais. However, contrary to traditional historiography, emotional reactions, real or affected, hardly went beyond the circle of loyal friends, mainly military, and the milieu of the publicists. True, dozens of pamphlets were hastily compiled, some accrediting rumors about the causes of death, and others even denying Napoleon had died, but their echo was weak.
The Bonaparte family members themselves expressed only a minimum of sorrow. The news perturbed neither the government nor the parliament. It would be at least a decade before the giant emerged from the tomb of memory and was powerfully brought back to life in minds and hearts.

In 24 lively chapters, based on long-lost sources and unpublished information, Thierry Lentz gives us a masterful account of those few weeks that people thought would turn the world upside down, but which in fact were only the end of a distant and even partially forgotten episode.

Director of the Fondation Napoléon, THIERRY LENTZ has established himself as a leading expert on the First
Empire. His most recent books published by Perrin: Waterloo 1815 and Joseph Bonaparte (Chateaubriand award), as well as Le Diable sur la montagne, Hitler au Berghof (The Devil on the Mountain, Hitler at the Berghof). Thierry Lentz is a laureate of the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences for the body of his work.