Napoleon Bonaparte: The new theory of his death and its controversial Greek roots

“I have done all the calculations. “Fate will do the rest.” What Napoleon Bonaparte himself uttered in 1815 finally proved to be his legacy in France: a political and military backwardness which, though controversial, no one can deny that he remains very strong in his country to this day, exactly 200 years after his death at the age of just 51 years.

As he notes relevant DW article, Napoleon’s legacy divides France. Critics call him a “dictator” who usurped power and wonder what a memorial service is. Nevertheless. For many French people, Napoleon is the man who laid the foundations of modern France with the Civil Code, university entrance exams and the National Bank of France. For others, Napoleon is the “undertaker” of the French Revolution, repealing acquis, such as the abolition of slavery in France’s overseas territories. Some argue that Napoleon is not a hero to be honored. In contrast, the Foundation for the Memory of Slavery in France takes a more moderate stance, stressing that without Napoleon, French history cannot be understood. The president of the foundation and former prime minister Jean-Marc Héroe However, he believes that the dark pages of French history should also be studied: “We wish that all issues be discussed during the 200th anniversary. Even the painful ones “.

History, however, has written it and does not write it down: Bonaparte, the “Little Dean” as he was nicknamed, was a charismatic leader, a top general and an outstanding diplomat who managed to lead the French troops to conquer much of it. continent before the heavy winter stopped him on his campaign to occupy Russia (1812) and on the other hand, three years later, the Waterloo (of).

Birth and evolution

Napoleon Bonaparte was born on August 15, 1769 in Corsica, France as the fourth child of Italian-born lawyer Carlo Buonaparte and his wife Leticia Ramolino.

Napoleon attended a not-so-famous French military academy and then Paris War School. He graduated as an artillery lieutenant, and in 1796 finally took the position he so desperately sought, as Commander of the Italian Army.

The 30,000-strong force, however, was neglected by the regime, and Bonaparte would soon show his organizational virtues, drastically changing the fighting spirit of his troops, leading the Italian Army to a series of impressive victories against the Austrians in Italy, which not only did they extend French rule by conquering new territories, but they also made Bonaparte the most brilliant commander in the French army.

Napoleon then targeted the Middle East, seeking to undermine the prosperity of the British Empire by occupying Egypt and thus cutting off the Anglo-Indian trade route.

However, on August 1, 1798, the British Admiral’s fleet Horace Nelson decimated its forces at the Battle of the Nile, while at the same time Britain, Austria-Hungary, Russia and the Ottoman Empire formed a new alliance against France. And then Napoleon was forced to turn inland in order to stand on his own two feet.

In February 1800 Napoleon announces to the French people its end French Revolution, thus inaugurating the Napoleonic Period of France (First French Empire), while in 1804 he was proclaimed emperor of the French, concentrating all his powers on him. And after that, he started his expansion wars with his eyes on Britain mainly. The British managed a great victory against him at sea, at Trafalgar in 1805, forcing Napoleon to give up his appetites for the conquest of England once and for all.

Instead, he turned his gaze to her Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire, initially defeating their united forces at Austerlitz, and later expanded the borders of his empire to the Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, Spain and Westphalia.

Until the catastrophe came, in Russia in 1812. Bonaparte’s generals revolted and forced him to resign. Napoleon was exiled to Elba Island. Just for a while. In February 1815 he managed to escape and return (almost triumphantly) to Paris. The triumph would last for a while, as at Waterloo, in June, it would be crushed by the united army of the British and the Prussians. It was the beginning of the end.

He was captured by the British, who sent him back into exile on the secluded South Atlantic island of Saint Helen. As early as 1817 he had already shown symptoms of a stomach ulcer and possibly cancer, while at the beginning of 1821 he was lying down and bedridden.

THE Napoleon Bonaparte he breathed his last on May 5, 1821. The British commander of the island did not allow his body to leave the island and so Napoleon was finally buried in St. Helen in an unnamed memorial. In the late 1840s his body was transported to France and buried in the famous Parisian monument Esplanade des Invalides.

Its controversial Greek roots

For many decades there is the theory about the Greek origin of Napoleon and specifically from Mani.

So we have and we say: Hundreds of Manians between 1731 – 1775 emigrate due to the Ottoman yoke in the capital of Corsica, Ajaccio, the same period that Napoleon was born.

His father, Karolos, has a very close friendship with the family of Panoria Stefanopoulou (Stefanopolis in French), originally from Mani. He dies at the hands of Panoria and her daughter, Laura Stefanopoulou – Zouno, known as Duchess of D ‘Abrantes, in her memoirs she writes characteristically:

“At Bonaparte’s house we spoke Greek with Napoleon’s father. An ancestor of Bonaparte belonged to the generation of the Stefanopoulos and bore the name Good place, who immigrated from Ajaccio to Tuscany, Italy. There’s the name Good place took its Italian form and became Good part [σ.σ: Καλό Μέρος].

Napoleon’s family also had friendly relations with other Mani families, in Ajaccio, while in addition, when Napoleon first went to Paris to study, he was welcomed by a large figure of the Greek community in Corsica and France, the officer Dimitrios Stefanopoulos – Komninos, brother of Panoria Stefanopoulou and close friend of Karolos Bonaparte.

In fact, Napoleon’s first treatise bore the characteristic title “Memoirs on the education of young Maniotes” (“Memoirs on the education of the young people of Mania”).

Of course, none of this has been proven in practice, so let’s keep a small basket about the Greek roots of the French recruiter.

Cologne poisoning, the most prevalent version of his death

Did Napoleon’s obsession with the colony cause him to be poisoned and die?

A new study reveals the cult of the recruiter in a specific perfume that he put on him daily to stay fresh and fragrant. Perfume chemicals may have been converted to argon poison that watered his body and eventually led him to death.

As stated in a post by Daily Mail, O Parvez Harris, professor biomedical sciences in university From Montfort in Leicester, Britain, claims that his favorite perfume was responsible for Napoleon’s death. Harris, a member Royal Chemical Society of Britain, studied historical records and found that Napoleon used on average 36-40 bottles of cologne per month!

In one of the records, one of the women who was in his personal service says that Napoleon used only perfumes cologne and could consume up to 60 bottles per month.

Harris therefore argues in his theory that for a period of at least 20 years (1795-1815), Napoleon used colognes all over his body every time he bathed or washed and sometimes even threw them on his head – and in some cases made a diluted solution with the cologne and drank it, convinced that cologne has beneficial health benefits.

So if indeed the recruiter had exposed himself in such large quantities cologne daily it is possible some of its components, such as ethanol, had penetrated his body causing hormonal disorders, such as gynecomastia, lack of hair on his body and sudden weight gain.

“Napoleon exposed himself daily to quantities of essential oils in which an average person is exposed over the course of a year. “He was slowly poisoning himself through the excessive amounts of cologne he was using.” Grace, concluding meaningfully that:

“Researchers all these years have focused exclusively on the fact that in a sample of his hair, when he was alive, he was found male but at that time most people had high levels of arsenic in their bodies. What they overlooked was the huge amounts of cologne he was throwing at his body. He was constantly exposed to his cologne and even once accidentally passed it for water and washed his face and eyes with it. “It’s clear to me that the main poison that killed Napoleon was his colony.”