Saint Helena and the Napoleonic Legend

After Waterloo the British exiled Napoleon to Saint Helena, a remote island in the South Atlantic, where he arrived in October 1815. He spent his last years dictating memoirs and conversations to companions, presenting himself as a defender of the Revolution's principles, a friend of nations and a victim of reactionary kings. He died on 5 May 1821. The Memorial of Saint Helena by the Comte de Las Cases, published in 1823, became a bestseller and shaped a powerful legend.

In 1840 the French government brought his remains back to Paris, where they were later placed in a tomb at Les Invalides. His nephew became Emperor Napoleon III in 1852, partly by drawing on that legend. Historians today offer contrasting assessments: a modernising reformer and military genius, or an aggressive conqueror whose wars caused millions of deaths and who restored slavery in the colonies.