What do you think?
Rate this book
Assassination at St. Helena Revisited
An updated reissue, expanded with new evidence, of the classic book on how Napoleon died. Presents a well-argued case for who murdered Napoleon that is supported by today's leading experts on Napoleonic history. Contains exhibits of scientific evidence to establish who orchestrated and financed Napoleon's death.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
555 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1978
1 person is currently reading
21 people want to read
About the author
Ben Weider
26 books2 followersBenjamin "Ben" Weider, OC CQ CD, was the co-founder of the International Federation of BodyBuilding & Fitness (IFBB) along with brother Joe Weider. He was a Canadian businessman from Montreal, well known in two areas: Bodybuilding and Napoleonic history.
In 1975 he was made a Member of the Order of Canada and was promoted to Officer in 2006. In 2000, he was made a Knight of the National Order of Quebec. On October 12, 2000, he received the French Legion of Honor, that country's highest honour, which was established by Bonaparte himself. Weider was also a 1984 nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, a member of the Quebec Sports Hall of Fame, and a Commander of the Venerable Order of St. John. He also had several honorary doctorate degrees. The Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution at the Florida State University History Department has recently created the Ben Weider Chair in Revolutionary Studies. In total, Ben accumulated over 66 awards and honours during his lifetime. [wikipedia]
In 1975 he was made a Member of the Order of Canada and was promoted to Officer in 2006. In 2000, he was made a Knight of the National Order of Quebec. On October 12, 2000, he received the French Legion of Honor, that country's highest honour, which was established by Bonaparte himself. Weider was also a 1984 nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, a member of the Quebec Sports Hall of Fame, and a Commander of the Venerable Order of St. John. He also had several honorary doctorate degrees. The Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution at the Florida State University History Department has recently created the Ben Weider Chair in Revolutionary Studies. In total, Ben accumulated over 66 awards and honours during his lifetime. [wikipedia]
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 19, 2016
A masterful account of one of the most nefarious deeds of the C19th. This book has all the gripping suspense of a Sherlock Holmes story, the mystery of an episode of CSI and the human interest of an episode of House.
Trapped on a isolated island a man is befriended by someone who is intent on killing him - slowly. The tragic figure whose agonizing final months were spent on Saint Helena in the South Atlantic was Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French by the will of the French people and a ruler who had been crowned by the Pope. But that was not how the dethroned Bourbons saw him.
For years assassins working on behalf of d'Artois, next in line to Louis XVIII the 'legitimate' King of France, aka Monsieur, had been trying to kill Napoleon. Ever since the First Consul had refused to help restore the incredibly obese Louis to the throne, the Bourbons had been out to get him. In his memoirs Jean-Roch Coignet describes how he was poisoned because a would-be assassin was not able to get to Napoleon himself. Thanks to the care of Napoleon's own doctor, the famous Larrey, Coignet recovered. Coignet was just one of the many innocent victims of state sponsored terrorism organized by d'Artois and paid for by the Bank of England. Various assassination plots were backed by Prime Minister Pitt and a small clique in the British Cabinet. Parliament was never told about these criminal proceedings which continued even when England was supposed to be at peace with France during the short-lived Peace of Amiens.
The method of choice for those wishing to rid themselves of the 'unwanted' during the late C18th and early C19th was arsenic. Colourless and tasteless, it could be administered in small doses over a period of time to alleviate any suspicion while it steadily broke down the victim's powers of resistance and disrupted normal bodily functions. This is what happened to Napoleon from 1815 to his sad and painful death in May 1821. Thanks to the memoirs of his trusty and loyal valet Marchand and those of the Grand Marshal Bertrand, the victims symptoms can be plotted day by day and month by month. Repeated tests on genuine hair samples from Napoleon scientifically confirm the presence of arsenic deep inside the hairs and demonstrate with startling clarity how the former Emperor was given 40 doses of arsenic during his last few months of life.
Just as fascinating and revealing as the reason for his final demise, the author Ben Weider, with the help of immense and penetrating research by Swedish toxiocologist Sten Forshufvud, makes a very convincing case for repeated earlier poisonings by arsenic at critical times during Napoleon's life - especially during the battles of Borodino, Leipzig and Waterloo. It has always puzzled historians why Napoleon was 'off form' on such momentous occasions.
The dealer of death on Saint Helena was none other than the comte de Montholon who suddenly appeared out of the blue after Waterloo when Napoleon was at the nadir of his fortune. Montholon was a rogue who had falsely claimed to have fought in many battles yet had never seen a shot fired in anger. He was also guilty of the embezzlement of funds that should have been paid to men under his command. Furthermore in 1814 he had sought a position with the newly restored Louis XVIII. Napoleon had so much on his mind - such as would he be able to escape to America? Would the British grant him asylum? - that he made one of the worst mistakes of his life and allowed Montholon, a useless criminal arriviste, and would-be assassin to accompany him into exile.
Montholon was under orders from d'Artois - and on Saint Helena he was the person in sole charge of Napoleon's wine. Several other people got violently ill between 1815 and 1821. Cipriani, Napoleon's servant and friend from his Corsican days, died suddenly and mysteriously while Gourgaud and the Bertrands succumbed periodically to some strange malady. Madame Bertrand had several miscarriages while on the island. One by one people 'disappeared' or like Las Cases, father and son, left in fear of their lives - at the time these illnesses were put down to liver disease or the 'hostile climate'. Everyone of the victims had partaken of the wine from the Emperor's wine cellar. Gourgaud even suspected poison but no one could fathom out the cause of all these weird ailments.
Soon, the only person the sickly Napoleon trusted was Montholon - even though his nickname, given him by the other French exiles, was 'the liar'- il bugiardo. It was with Montholon that Napoleon wrote his final will and it was Montholon who was the biggest gainer of all, a bequest of no less than two million francs. Montholon's later memoirs were a tissue of lies and amongst the myths he perpetrated was that Napoleon had contemplated suicide on many occasions and, above all else, that Napoleon had died of cancer.
The autopsy carried out by Antommarchi revealed no cancerous tumour and instead it showed the Emperor had become very obese. How many fat people die of cancer? Obesity is a symptom of arsenic poisoning. Furthermore, when Napoleon's coffin was opened in 1840 prior to his remains being returned to France, the corpse showed hardly any sign of decomposition, it looked to the observers as if the Emperor was just asleep! The preservation of tissue is yet another by-product of arsenic poisoning.
This superb book with its scrupulous and meticulous scientific detail proves without a shadow of a doubt that Napoleon Bonaparte was poisoned by a Frenchman - a Bourbon assassin acting on the orders of d'Artois. No one worthy of the name of historian can doubt all the evidence of murder shown in this volume. But to this day, many in France and elsewhere refuse to acknowledge the great achievement of Sten Forshufvud and Ben Weider in finally explaining the real cause of Napoleon's demise. Anyone who has eyes to see, and the courage to dispassionately review all the evidence will surely come to the same conclusion.
Trapped on a isolated island a man is befriended by someone who is intent on killing him - slowly. The tragic figure whose agonizing final months were spent on Saint Helena in the South Atlantic was Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French by the will of the French people and a ruler who had been crowned by the Pope. But that was not how the dethroned Bourbons saw him.
For years assassins working on behalf of d'Artois, next in line to Louis XVIII the 'legitimate' King of France, aka Monsieur, had been trying to kill Napoleon. Ever since the First Consul had refused to help restore the incredibly obese Louis to the throne, the Bourbons had been out to get him. In his memoirs Jean-Roch Coignet describes how he was poisoned because a would-be assassin was not able to get to Napoleon himself. Thanks to the care of Napoleon's own doctor, the famous Larrey, Coignet recovered. Coignet was just one of the many innocent victims of state sponsored terrorism organized by d'Artois and paid for by the Bank of England. Various assassination plots were backed by Prime Minister Pitt and a small clique in the British Cabinet. Parliament was never told about these criminal proceedings which continued even when England was supposed to be at peace with France during the short-lived Peace of Amiens.
The method of choice for those wishing to rid themselves of the 'unwanted' during the late C18th and early C19th was arsenic. Colourless and tasteless, it could be administered in small doses over a period of time to alleviate any suspicion while it steadily broke down the victim's powers of resistance and disrupted normal bodily functions. This is what happened to Napoleon from 1815 to his sad and painful death in May 1821. Thanks to the memoirs of his trusty and loyal valet Marchand and those of the Grand Marshal Bertrand, the victims symptoms can be plotted day by day and month by month. Repeated tests on genuine hair samples from Napoleon scientifically confirm the presence of arsenic deep inside the hairs and demonstrate with startling clarity how the former Emperor was given 40 doses of arsenic during his last few months of life.
Just as fascinating and revealing as the reason for his final demise, the author Ben Weider, with the help of immense and penetrating research by Swedish toxiocologist Sten Forshufvud, makes a very convincing case for repeated earlier poisonings by arsenic at critical times during Napoleon's life - especially during the battles of Borodino, Leipzig and Waterloo. It has always puzzled historians why Napoleon was 'off form' on such momentous occasions.
The dealer of death on Saint Helena was none other than the comte de Montholon who suddenly appeared out of the blue after Waterloo when Napoleon was at the nadir of his fortune. Montholon was a rogue who had falsely claimed to have fought in many battles yet had never seen a shot fired in anger. He was also guilty of the embezzlement of funds that should have been paid to men under his command. Furthermore in 1814 he had sought a position with the newly restored Louis XVIII. Napoleon had so much on his mind - such as would he be able to escape to America? Would the British grant him asylum? - that he made one of the worst mistakes of his life and allowed Montholon, a useless criminal arriviste, and would-be assassin to accompany him into exile.
Montholon was under orders from d'Artois - and on Saint Helena he was the person in sole charge of Napoleon's wine. Several other people got violently ill between 1815 and 1821. Cipriani, Napoleon's servant and friend from his Corsican days, died suddenly and mysteriously while Gourgaud and the Bertrands succumbed periodically to some strange malady. Madame Bertrand had several miscarriages while on the island. One by one people 'disappeared' or like Las Cases, father and son, left in fear of their lives - at the time these illnesses were put down to liver disease or the 'hostile climate'. Everyone of the victims had partaken of the wine from the Emperor's wine cellar. Gourgaud even suspected poison but no one could fathom out the cause of all these weird ailments.
Soon, the only person the sickly Napoleon trusted was Montholon - even though his nickname, given him by the other French exiles, was 'the liar'- il bugiardo. It was with Montholon that Napoleon wrote his final will and it was Montholon who was the biggest gainer of all, a bequest of no less than two million francs. Montholon's later memoirs were a tissue of lies and amongst the myths he perpetrated was that Napoleon had contemplated suicide on many occasions and, above all else, that Napoleon had died of cancer.
The autopsy carried out by Antommarchi revealed no cancerous tumour and instead it showed the Emperor had become very obese. How many fat people die of cancer? Obesity is a symptom of arsenic poisoning. Furthermore, when Napoleon's coffin was opened in 1840 prior to his remains being returned to France, the corpse showed hardly any sign of decomposition, it looked to the observers as if the Emperor was just asleep! The preservation of tissue is yet another by-product of arsenic poisoning.
This superb book with its scrupulous and meticulous scientific detail proves without a shadow of a doubt that Napoleon Bonaparte was poisoned by a Frenchman - a Bourbon assassin acting on the orders of d'Artois. No one worthy of the name of historian can doubt all the evidence of murder shown in this volume. But to this day, many in France and elsewhere refuse to acknowledge the great achievement of Sten Forshufvud and Ben Weider in finally explaining the real cause of Napoleon's demise. Anyone who has eyes to see, and the courage to dispassionately review all the evidence will surely come to the same conclusion.
Read
July 19, 2012L'autore di questo libro affronta la questione della morte di Napoleone che ho affrontato anch'io nella quarta puntata della saga di Alain e Juliette, ma mentre io ho tenuto come possibili tutte le ipotesi, dalla morte per malattia all'assassinio, Weider è convinto che Napoleone sia stato assasinato con l'arsenico dal conte De Montholon che aveva interesse non solo a essere nominato nel suo testamento, ma anche a rientrare in Francia, invece, di passare il resto della propria vita in un luogo sperduto come Sant'Elena, accanto ad un imperatore, ormai sconfitto... a favore di questa ipotesi c'è l'elevata quantità di arsenico rinvenuta nei capelli di Napoleone, a sfavore il fatto che non siano venute fuori lettere di Montholon in cui il conte ammetta di aver avvelenato Napoleone... resta dunque questo uno dei numerosi misteri irrisolti della storia europea dell'8000...
LETTO ALL'EPOCA DELLA SAGA DI ALAIN E JULIETTE COME DOCUMENTAZIONE STORICA...
LETTO ALL'EPOCA DELLA SAGA DI ALAIN E JULIETTE COME DOCUMENTAZIONE STORICA...
December 1, 2008
Between Forshufuud's Who Killed Napoleon? & Assassination at St. Helena, Revisited, there was Assassination at St. Helena: The Poisoning of Napoleon Bonaparte. David Chandler collaborates with Forshufuud & Weider to write the forward for this book & express his belief in the arsenic theory as well. With his endorsement & as greatly researched as this these works are, it is difficult to understand why so many other so-called experts doubt the poisoning of Napoleon. This book differs from most, exploring the arsenic theory, & elaborating on the history prior to the exile[s] & briefs on similarities between the death of Napoleon & his son, the King of Rome.
It is an interesting & informative book, well worth reading.
It is an interesting & informative book, well worth reading.
December 1, 2008
Excellent companion books to read: Sten Forshufvud's Who Killed Napoleon & Assassination at St. Helena: The Poisoning of Napoleon Bonaparte.
January 8, 2012
One of my favorites as a tinfoil hat wearer. Good ideas, excellent questions.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews