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Charles de Montholon

1 story mention Charles de Montholon on DeadlyCurious.

The Coroner’s Report June 27, 2026 · Longwood, Saint Helena

The Former Emperor of the French Who Spent His Last Five and a Half Years on a Volcanic South Atlantic Island and Was Possibly Poisoned With Arsenic

Napoleon Bonaparte arrived at Saint Helena on 15 October 1815 as a British prisoner. He spent the next five and a half years at the inland house of Longwood, dictating his memoirs and quarrelling with the British governor Hudson Lowe. He died on 5 May 1821 of what the contemporary autopsy called stomach cancer. The 1961 chemical analysis of his hair found arsenic at approximately 100 times normal levels. The arsenic source has never been securely identified.

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