Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1859-11-24
Napoleon First in 1910.

Napoleon died on the 5th of May, 1921. The
man who made that strangely minute record of
the transactions, even of the minutes that pre-
ceded his decease was afterwards guest of the
enthusiastic hospitalities of the Frenchmen of
New Orleans. He did not live to see the test
of his work of the embalmeut of the Emperor.
Dying in 1899, he passed away the year pre-
vious to that strange day when Napoleon was
again made visible to mortal eye, and friend and
follower started back as the cerement was un-
rolled from the face which had seemed passed
forever into the graves oblivion.
Nineteen years and five months had gone.
The Napoleon family, considered as relic Of
a wild storm in government, were scattered over
the earth. Louis Philippe deemed it policy to
court the old sentiment of the Nation by asso-
ciating the action of his son with the honors to
the dead and powerless Emperor. He did not
realize that when he brought Napoleon to
France, =" to the banks of the Seine, among the
French people have loved" as the will and
wish of the Imperial Exile plaintively express
ed, he was building deep and strong the basis
on which the lever of new and grander Rev.
olutlon should be placed.
At midnight, on the 18th Of October, 1910,
the exhumaton commenced. The Ninety-frst
English Regiment stood around the grave.
There was labor of nine hours before it came
possible to lift from the tomb the enormous stone
which covered it. They who built that grave,
built it for endurance. In their ideas, the
scenes of St. Helena had exhausted the infiu-
ence of the name, and they determined faith
fully to preserve to the Island the trust, IN
whose keeping the name of this little mid
ocean crag had become word of history
There were prayers uttered when the coffin
was attained, and when this recognition of the
Power that rules the living and the dead were
made, one by one, the encasing metals were re-
moved, and at last the inner one was opened.
Then the Napoleon of the past was once more
seen, and seen as if upon his bed. The form,
lining, and there was such a recognition as
shall never again meet mortal eye.
But the quick eye of the amazed spectators
detected Immediately that one hand, it was
white as in the day of its living beauty, was
raised out of the fixed attitude of the dead.
There was that sudden thought of horror in
this. Had he breathed and lived and moved
after the moment when the curtain of the cof-
fn-lid fell upon him? Those who have evel
felt the intensity of such doubt, (t Is but the
creation of gloomy fancy) can realize wha
thrilled that group of men.
All, said General Bertrand, do you not re
e. member that after we have arranged his limbs
and just before we left him, raised that hanc
> to kiss it
: The decay of time had dimmed the ornaments
except that the Cross of the Legion of Honor
was bright A similar incident, it is said, at
tended the exhumation of Lord Stirling, at AL
Il bany where a silver decoration he had worr
: glittered amidst the dust of the coffin
One soldier had never left his tomb. Faith
fully since the day of 1921, he had kept hi
= watch and ward. He was indeed the OLE
;. Guard who never deserted his Emperor, an(
d when he was, first of all allowed to land on th'
arrival at France, he was met and embraced BY
v the Generals, who thought it honor thus to re
It ceive the answering friend
}. Since then the Queen of England has, in tn
n truthful nobleness of her character, and in tn
h faithfulness of the recompenses that time give
=, to History, visited his tomb.
, Time has not yet woven, fast as its shuttl
plies the veil thick enough to hide from us tn
> minute incidents of such wonderful events
Still for us the word Napoleon IS one of the &C
tual Empire. Less in Territorial power thai
before, but in moral strength immesurabl
: greater The family of the Corsican is in tn
chronicles of Browns, and he who now bears th
name clusters around it the associations of sci
ence and civilization first, and Of war only as
chapter closed almost as suddenly as commend
ed.-N. Y. Courier and Enquirer.
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