tendency to conclude that he 'must have been' a poor doctor. This non
sequitur is not borne out by the evidence. Antommarchi had never
practised as a physician, but was a skilled anatomist, with long experience
of dissecting corpses; he had more knowledge of post-mortem procedures
than all other physicians on the island put together.
In the late months of r8r9 (spring in the southern hemisphere)
Napoleon temporarily developed a craze for gardening and used to roust
out both old and new servants at first light in his desire to turn
Longwood into a botanical garden. But this craze soon faded, especially
when his health worsened. By r82o there was abundant evidence of the
dark side of the Bonaparte psyche, which seems to have been triggered by
the departure of Albine de Montholon on r July r8r9. Albine had given
birth to a daughter the year before (26 January r8r8), of doubtful
paternity since, in addition to sleeping with her husband and Napoleon,
she also had a British officer as her lover - one Major Jackson who passed
on her pillow talk about Longwood to Hudson Lowe. She so far prevailed
on the Emperor with her charms that she left St Helena with a
'handshake' of 2oo,ooo francs in cash, an annuity of 2o,ooo fr ancs and a
gold snuff box set with a portrait of Napoleon surrounded with large
diamonds. There was something very unsatisfactory about the explana
tions given for her departure, officially because of 'broken health' - not
least the fact that her supposedly devoted husband did not accompany
her.
Whether it was because Albine's departure left him without sexual
gratification, or because he found out about Major Jackson, or whether on
reflection he considered he had been gulled by her, the Napoleon of late
r8r9 and early r82o was a man in strongly misogynistic frame of mind.
On 29 September there was an embarrassing scene between him and
Fanny Bertrand, caused, some said, because Napoleon made advances to
her. Evidently, they were rebuffed, for the Emperor thereafter made
Mme Bertrand a target for his rage. He described her as 'a whore, a fallen
woman who slept with all the English officers who passed her house ...
the most degraded of women'. He even raised the subject with Bertrand
himself and told him he should have put Fanny on to the streets as a
common prostitute.
Some say that Napoleon finally became disillusioned with women
when he learned that his faithful Marie Walewska had remarried in r8r6.
With consummate irrationality Napoleon was extremely annoyed by news
of the marriage, and expressed no sorrow when he heard that Marie,
having failed to recover from the after-effects of childbirth, died in r8r7.
But the signs are that it was simple sexual frustration that gnawed at him.
marcin
(Marcin)
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