Every country has dozens of stories about the mysterious death of their beloved leaders/heroes - John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Marilyn Monroe, Subhas Chandra Bose… are a few that instantly come into my mind at least...

Likewise, the French too never get tired of stories about the death of their greatest warrior Napoleon Bonaparte! I always thought that napoleon died due to stomach cancer, but most of the French people refuse it and call it he was poisoned!  There’s more than enough of mystery around napoleons death, burial, tomb and even on his DNA!

The greatest emperor of Europe - Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled to St. Helena – an island in the Atlantic Ocean, after loosing his final battle at the #waterloo in 1815. He was in the custody of British for 6 years and died at St. Helena in 1821. Ever since, the circumstances of his demise have been creating a lot of debate.

Arsenic Poisoning:

Autopsy reports of Napoleon shows high amount #arsenic in his body, which is more than a poison. Many of the French believe that the British might have poisoned napoleon fearing that he might escape the #exile again* and reconquer the France!

(* Even before the Waterloo, Napoleon had lost the “Battle of #montmartre” in 1814 and was exiled to the Elba Islands. Brave Napoleon spent nine months of exile at the Elba - only to plan and regain the Paris back. But, this time he was out of luck, he could led France only for the next 100 days till he was defeated again at Waterloo and exiled to St. Helena Islands where he died)

But the doubt of poisoning got strengthened when Napoleon’s coffin was dug-up in 1840 from Helena and bring it back to France. There was the surprise: His body was intact in perfect condition even after 25 years of burial !.

This made the scientist to suggest that Napoleon might have slowly poisoned with arsenic - which is apparently one of the most effective preservative too!

Le retour des cendres 

Another conspiracy was around the “#retour_des_Cendres – the return of the remains of Napoleon from St. Helena to Paris.

18 October, 1840 the coffin of Napoleon was exhumed  St.Helena and transferred to the ship “Belle Poule ” sailing back to Paris. The trip from #Helena to Paris was too long over two months, in between the body of napoleon was shifted twice to different boats, giving ample opportunities for speculations J. 

There are some stories saying the body buried at Les #Invalides in Paris is not actually Napoleon’s, but it was one of napoleons caretakers from St.Helena!. These people are still asking to exhume his body again from the Invalides and do go for a DNA test !

Napoleon remains in news even after he dies! His death, burial, ashes, tomb…everything are still a matter of debate!

Read the detailed history at :