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“Four, for the gospel makers”[1] – The eye-witness memoirs of Napoleon on St Helena

In 1827, the poet, author and ardent Bonapartist, Heinrich Heine published a book about his life called Reisebilder (Images from a journey).

In it, one of the sections is named after an old French drummer from the Grandé Armée, called “Le Grand”, whom Heine met in Dusseldorf and who had a huge influence on Heine’s life, notably introducing him to the story of the Emperor Napoleon.

Towards the end of the section entitled “Le Grand”, Heine paraphrases the Christian Nicene Creed[2] referring to Napoleon’s grave on St Helena as a place of pilgrimage “to which the peoples would come, from East and West, where the saviour of the world […]suffered under Hudson Lowe, as it is written in the gospels of Las Cases, O’Meara and Antommarchi”.

The Nineteenth Century

Emmanuel de Las Cases,