For the CLUE-less, the murderer was the count, in the bedroom, on the island,
with the arsenic, in the wine. Or maybe in the brandy, but it would have had to
have been Napoleon brandy.
By Cindy Mooy
Assistant Director
FSU Communications Group
Elementary, my dear Readers. Element No. 33, to be precise. Chemical element "As," atomic number 33, also known as arsenic, was what done him in. That silvery-white, brittle -- and very poisonous -- powder without taste. A very useful compound for exterminating pests, AND -- for murder.
In this mystery, the butler didn't do it, but he did take notes, leaving the detective with many clues.
For the CLUE-less, the murderer was the count, in the bedroom, on the island,
with the arsenic, in the wine. Or maybe in the brandy, but it would have had to
have been Napoleon brandy.
After 174 years -- and you thought the O.J. Simpson trial lasted a long time -- the murder of the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte has been solved. The murderer (long, long since deceased) has met his Waterloo in the person of amateur historian and sleuth Ben Weider, a modern-day Sherlock, who with help from his own Dr. Watson-of-sorts, combined his knowledge of history and nutrition to solve the mystery of Napoleon's death.
Didn't know Napoleon was murdered? Nor did anyone else, or at least proved it, until Weider came along.
A French Canadian also known for the fitness empire he built with his brother Joe, Weider came to FSU in September to announce the results of FBI lab tests that bolster his theory, which he first promulgated in a 1982 book, The Murder of Napoleon, co-written with a Swedish dentist, Dr. Sten Forshufvud.
Weider believes Napoleon, exiled to St. Helena in the South Atlantic in 1815 after his defeat at Waterloo, died not of stomach cancer, as history has held, but of arsenic poisoning. Arsenic, by Weider's thinking, was an appropriate means of extermination because Napoleon was a pest to the Bourbons then ruling France.
Thus, the motive: Bonaparte was still a popular figure in the country where he had once proclaimed himself emperor, and he had, after all, escaped before from island exile -- remember Elba from European History 301?
Weider, a voracious reader and self-taught historian, once a working-class kid who had to quit school to go to work early in the Great Depression, saw the historical reports of Napoleon's long bout with stomach pains differently. For one thing, the former French emperor, when he died in 1821 at the age of 51, died fat.
"How is that possible, when we know that cancer is a wasting disease?" said Weider, who has lectured throughout the world about nutrition and athletic training, and been dubbed with brother Joe Weider as the "godfathers of body building."
"Furthermore, Napoleon did not manifest any symptoms of cancer." Of the 34 known symptoms of arsenical intoxication, however, more than 30 were recorded by eight witnesses to Napoleon's exile and death on St. Helena, Weider said.
So, who done it? Weider points the figure at the Count de Montholon, who volunteered to serve Napoleon on St. Helena, controlled the emperor's wine supply and was one of only two people with continuous access to Napoleon. And the Count's family backed the Bourbons back in France, i.e., he had motive and opportunity.
The other who had access to Napoleon was his valet, Louis Marchand.
Marchand kept a diary that included daily reports of what Napoleon ate and of his medical condition. But, unlike others on St. Helena who wrote books for profit (times haven't changed much, hey, Kato?), Marchand instructed his family not to publish his memoirs. In the 1950s, however, the family estate was sold, and Marchand's diary -- full of clues pointing to murder -- was published in 1955.
"His book will go down in history as a `time bomb' which helped unravel the mystery of Napoleon's death," said Weider, who is president of the International Napoleonic Society.
Weider believes, and he argues that the evidence bears him out, that Napoleon did not die of arsenic poisoning, per se, but of a "classical method" of poisoning used at the time to cover up the crime -- a "cosmetic" phase of poisoning followed by a lethal phase.
"Napoleon was poisoned slowly and chronically with arsenic in order to break down his health and make it appear that he was deteriorating in a normal and natural way from disease," Weider said. "To kill him outright would have meant a revolution in France, because the French army was still loyal to Napoleon, as were the majority of the French people."
The assassin would need access to the emperor's food or wine, but would have to take care not to poison others.
The lethal phase began in March 1821, Weider said, with the introduction of toxic medications given by doctors in an effort to cure the emperor. On May 3, as confirmed in Marchand's and another eyewitness's diaries, Napoleon received a too-large dose of calomel -- for constipation -- that combined in his stomach with another medication, orgeat, to form mercury cyanide. Napoleon dropped into unconsciousness and died 48 hours later. Weider said the autopsy reports on Napoleon reflect his body's reaction to mercury cyanide poisoning.
For the period, it was the perfect crime, perfectly covered up. Only modern forensics -- and Weider's investigation -- could know that and solve it.
Case closed for Weider. His new book, The Assassination of St. Helena Revisited, published this year by John Wiley and Sons, details the poisoning of Napoleon and adds to the first book, which was published in 18 languages and sold more than 1 million copies.
A resident of Montreal, Canada, Weider was described in a cover story in last June's Reader's Digest as a "global fitness guru." A very fit septuagenarian, Weider is co-founder with older brother Joe of the International Federation of Body Builders. Born in 1924, he preaches healthy body building -- read, no steroids -- throughout the world. Today, Weider Health and Fitness is one of the world's largest manufacturers and marketers of home-fitness equipment. The Weider empire includes sports nutrition products, vitamin supplements and magazine publishing.
Because Florida State holds the nation's second largest Napoleonic collection -- more than 17,000 titles or 20,000 volumes compiled over the past 30 years -- and ranks first in production of Ph.D.s in the Napoleonic period, with 21 completed doctorates and 11 students working on dissertations. FSU is the only American university concentrating on the Napoleonic period.
In 1990, the Florida Board of Regents, recognizing that the university had become a major center of Napoleonic study in the United States, established at FSU the Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution.
The institute is directed by Dr. Donald Horward, a leading Napoleon scholar who has been decorated twice by the French government, as well as by the Portuguese, Spanish, Czech and American governments, for his contributions to the study of Napoleonic history.
In 1992, Horward received the rank of Officier of the Ordre des Palmes Academiques, an order founded in 1808 by none other than Napoleon himself to honor those who have made significant contributions to historical and scientific research.
Two years ago, when Air France's magazine, France, did an alphabetical story on Napoleon's influence on America "from A to Z," the "T" was for Tallahassee, Fla.
"Inquiring minds seeking to learn more about Napoleon might consider investigating the history department at Florida State University, which offers M.A. and Ph.D. programs at its Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution."
Furthermore, Tallahassee has its Napoleonic link -- as the final resting place of Napoleon's nephew, Prince Achille Murat and wife, Princess Catherine Murat; their gravesite is in St. John's Cemetery near the FSU campus. The Murats` home, the Bellevue Plantation House, was moved from its original Tallahassee site to the Tallahassee Museum of History and Natural Science, where it is being restored.
The other French connection: Congress deeded a large chunk of Tallahassee, more than 23,000 acres, to the Marquis de LaFayette, though the friend of the American Revolution never visited his property.