Blackburn describes last days of Napoleon on St. Helena

THE EMPEROR’S LAST STAND: A Journey to St. Helena, by Julia Blackburn, Pantheon, 277 pages, $22.

Julia Blackburn skillfully narrates the last days of Napoleon on the small island of St. Helena, which is hundreds of miles from its nearest neighbor, the Ascension Islands. It seems ironic that Napoleon would spend his last days here, on an island smaller than his mighty reputation and certainly smaller than his ego. One can’t help but share Napoleon’s boredom on a gray island with very little going on but the passing of time.

St. Helena’s hero, surprisingly, is not Napoleon but a criminal, Fernando Lopez, who was a soldier in the Portuguese Army. While on campaign in India in 1510, Lopez converted to Islam. He was mutilated as punishment. When the ship he was on stopped at St. Helena for replenishments, Lopez decided to remain. He lived the life of a hermit for 30 years, until his death. He became a mystical figure. Men would leave him citrus trees, cattle and whatever else he needed to survive. Having nothing else to do, Lopez turned to gardening and soon turned St. Helena into a paradise whose reputation reached Europe.

The East India Co. claimed the island and exploited it. The abundant lemon and redwood trees were cut down, leaving the soil with no protection from the relentless trade winds. Most of the island became a barren wasteland covered with gray volcanic ash. Nevertheless, because of its isolation, the island was still hailed as a paradise in Europe. The inhabitants of St. Helena gave up farming for the most part and turned to other occupations such as innkeeping and prostitution as the island became a stopping point for merchant ships passing by.

Blackburn juxtaposes her upcoming visit to St. Helena with the stages of Napoleon’s life, sadly, but mercifully bringing the emperor closer to death as she nears her final destination. She lets her imagination combine with her readings to form a picture what St. Helena will look like and what life was like when Napoleon lived there.

The island was converted into a prison especially for the arrival of Napoleon. The English were ever concerned that the man would escape, thereby choosing this island as his prison. His reputation was so immense that after his death, Napoleon was buried in four coffins then sealed in cement to prevent his escape which they always believed imminent.

Because it could take up to several months for news to reach Europe from St. Helena, Napoleon couldn’t have been prepared for what the island looked like in his time. Upon seeing St. Helena for the first time he remarked that he would have done better to have stayed in Egypt.

Ms. Blackburn anticipates the boredom of her journey. She asks people from the island what the long journey is like. She would face what Napoleon had already faced.

Lines of people waited to catch a glimpse of this magnificant figure. The island became famous because of its new inhabitant. St. Helena’s reputation became forever intertwined with Napoleon’s — they became as one although the relationship was far from symbiotic.

After staying in the Balcombe family’s garden for three weeks, where he played games with the children and enjoyed himself, reality set in as Napoleon was moved to Longwood, his prison home located in Deadwood, where the winds battered the rocks repeatedly. There was a guard on duty at all times.

Napoleon was surrounded by his entourage, but nothing could keep out the boredom so prevalent throughout the book. One day, for lack of anything better to do, Napoleon dismantled his campbed to find its exact weight and measurements. The rest of the time Napoleon read, gardened, or recounted his memoirs to Emmanual Las Cases.

Napoleon became a fixture, a curiosity. People were always trying to sneak a peek at the man who almost conquered Europe. The years and all of this attention took its toll on the French emperor. He grew fat and bored. He often locked himself in his private room for days, waiting for death to rescue him. He apologized to his servants for being alive.

As the author came within sight of St. Helena, Napoleon died. The island reverted back to its dull self with all of the attention gone. Blackburn notes how sad the island seems, filled with despair; the same despair that helped to kill Napoleon as much as the stomach cancer did. Life seemed to have little importance to the sheltered island other than being Napoleon’s prison.

St. Helena, which is as much the central focus of the book as Napoleon, cannot find its own history. It is forever a part of Napoleon. It died twice; once after Fernando Lopez’s death and yet again after Napoleon’s. St. Helena didn’t know how not to be a prison. It could only be a part of Napoleon.

Julia Blackburn went to St. Helena to discover Napoleon, as to see the island was to see him. She sums it up exquisitely when she writes, “It is not difficult to see him stretched out vast and still and indeed very much like an island, while a restless crowd moves this way and that across his body, measuring him, examining him, burrowing him under his skin and breaking into his bones is an effort to find something more about him.”

Jeff Meiczinger is a summer intern at the Bangor Daily News.