g ordered that this should be done as if solely on
Montholon's responsibility, and that the priest, when questioned on
the subject, was to reply that he had acted on Montholon's orders,
without having any knowledge of the Emperor's wishes. It was
accordingly administered, but apparently he was insensible at the
time.[589] In his will, also, he declared that he died in communion
with the Apostolical Roman Church, in whose bosom he was born. There,
then, we must leave this question, shrouded in the mystery that hangs
around so much of his life.

The decease of a great man is always affecting: but the death of the
hero who had soared to the zenith of military glory and civic
achievement seems to touch the very nadir of calamity. Outliving his
mighty Empire, girt around by a thousand miles of imprisoning ocean,
guarded by his most steadfast enemies, his son a captive at the Court
of the Hapsburgs, and his Empress openly faithless, he sinks from
sight like some battered derelict. And Nature is more pitiless than
man. The Governor urges on him the best medical advice: but he will
have none of it. He feels the grip of cancer, the disease which had
carried off his father and was to claim the gay Caroline and Pauline.
At times he surmises the truth: at others he calls out "_le foie_"
"_le foie_." Meara had alleged that his pains were due to a liver
complaint brought on by his detention at St. Helena; Antommarchi
described the illness as gastric fever (_febbre gastrica pituitosa_);
and not until Dr. Arnott was called in on the 1st of April was the
truth fully recognized.

At the close of the month the symptoms became most distressing,
aggravated as they were by the refusal of the patient to take medicine
or food, or to let himself be moved. On May 4th, at Dr. Arnott's
insistence, some calomel was secretly administered and with beneficial
results, the patient sleeping and even taking some food. This was his
last rally: on the morrow, while a storm was sweeping over the island,
and tearing up large trees, his senses began to fail: Montholon
thought he heard the words _France, armee, tete d'armee, Josephine_:
he lingered on insensible for some hours: the storm died down: the sun
bathed the island in a flood of glory, and, as it dipped into the
ocean, the great man passed away.

By the Governor's orders Dr. Arnott remained in the room until the
body could be medically examined--a precaution which, as Montchenu
pointed out, would