Napoleon's Poisoned Chalice

by Dr Martin Howard

  Stokoe died of a stroke in September 1852. His last years were overshadowed by the loss of his wife and his two children, a son and a daughter. He was buried at Kirk Merrington near Durham – his gravestone can still be found in the yard of St. John’s Church. His property was sold at auction in London in the summer of 1853. The catalogue is a poignant reminder of his closeness to Napoleon’s family. Items include cutlery from Longwood’s silver service, a lock of the Emperor’s hair, a cameo ring presented to him by his famous patient, and a number of valuable presents from Joseph and his wife. Stokoe’s memoirs were finally published by the French historian Paul Frémeaux in 1901. He found them almost by chance in a drawer during a visit to London and was given permission to publish them in France by Edith Stokoe, the doctor’s great-grand-niece. She produced an English version a few years later. Frémeaux found Stokoe’s writings to be diffuse and repetitive and he felt obliged to edit and annotate the work to render it more intelligible for the average reader. As he notes in the introduction, ‘A simple recital would not be possible without notes which, being almost as voluminous as the text, would soon exhaust the reader’s patience and make him throw the book on one side.’ This heavy handed approach left the work open to criticism and it was less well received in Britain than in France. Even so long after the events, the narrative of Stokoe’s misfortunes was controversial and it was no coincidence that the most critical reviews were penned by Lowe’s apologists, notably Seaton, who referred to it as a ‘murky compilation compiled from scanty material’. Frémeaux in turn attacked Seaton’s sycophantic account of Lowe, accusing him of producing ‘a scanty book from abundant materials’. Some of the documents used by Frémeaux, including the crucial note ordering Stokoe to attend Longwood, are now contained in an enormous Grangerised version of Forsyth’s History of the Captivity of Napoleon held in the manuscripts section of the British Library.

  Compared with O’Meara, Stokoe has been ignored by British historians of the exile. A number of major accounts were written prior to the appearance of his memoirs but even those writing after their publication often only mention him in passing. No definitive interpretation of the surgeon’s fate is possible but he was very likely sacrificed to clear the conscience of the chiefs at the Admiralty. Men such as Lord Melville and Sir Pulteney Malcolm had been disloyal to Hudson Lowe in their support of O’Meara and their treatment of Stokoe was opportunistic. By overreacting to the surgeon’s minor improprieties they were able both to assuage Lowe and to publicise the fact that the subversive encouragement that they had given to O’Meara, another naval surgeon, was never to be repeated.

  In his Hunterian lecture of 1913, Sir Arthur Keith declared that O’Meara and Stokoe were ‘dismissed from the Navy by ignorant laymen because they were competent and trustful physicians’. With respect to Stokoe, this remains a reasonable conclusion.17

  Notes

  1. Stokoe, J, With Napoleon at St. Helena, pp. 116–20; Marchand, Mémoires de Marchand, Vol. II, p. 208; Bertrand, Général, Cahiers de Sainte-Hélène, p. 295; Chaplin, A, The Illness and Death of Napoleon Bonaparte, pp. 21–2; Markham, JD, Napoleon and Dr Verling on St. Helena, pp. 51–3.

  2. Stokoe, pp. 120–3; Young, N, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. II, p. 143; Balmain, Count, Napoleon in Captivity, pp. 202–3.

  3. Stokoe, p. 124; Markham, p. 57; Gorrequer, Major G, St. Helena during Napoleon’s Exile, p. 135.

  4. Stokoe, pp. 124–8; Markham, p. 132; Young, Vol. II, p. 144; Forsyth, W, History of the Captivity of Napoleon, Vol. II, p. 66.

  5. Stokoe, pp. 128–30; Young, Vol. II, pp. 144–5; Bertrand , p. 385; Montholon, Comte de, Lettres du Comte et de la Comtesse de Montholon, p. 32; Journeaux de Sainte-Hélène, p. 181; Gorrequer, p. 139.

  6. Lowe Papers 20126 ff. 61–4; Stokoe, pp. 130–41; Young, Vol. II, pp. 144–7; Markham, pp. 51–4, 86; Gorrequer, pp. 133, 242; Forsyth, Vol. II, pp. 72–3; Richardson, F, Napoleon’s Death: An Inquest, p. 139; Korngold, R, The Last Years of Napoleon, p. 328.

  7. Stokoe, pp. 141–3; Young, Vol. II, p. 145; British Library Eg. 3717 f. 128; Bertrand, pp. 386–7; Journeaux, pp. 183–4.

  8. Stokoe, pp. 143–6.

  9. Stokoe, pp. 146–56; Markham, p. 91; Richardson, p. 140; Bertrand, p. 387; Balmain, p. 221; Glover, G, Wellington’s Lieutenant Napoleon’s Gaoler, p. 281.

  10. Stokoe, pp. 156–60; Young, Vol. II, pp. 150–1; Chaplin, A, A St. Helena Who’s Who, p. 129; Glover, pp. 282–3; Balmain, p. 221; Forsyth, Vol. II, p. 74.

  11. Stokoe, pp. 161–2, 175; Chaplin, A St. Helena Who’s Who, p. 49; Bertrand, p. 391; Ganière, P, Napoléon à Sainte-Hélène: La mort de L’Empereur L’Apothéose, p. 71.

  12. Stokoe, pp. 183–5; Richardson, p. 142.

  13. Stokoe, pp. 185–6; Young, Vol. II, p. 150; Richardson, pp. 141–2.

  14. Stokoe, pp. 186–92.

  15. Stokoe, pp. 192–4, 226–8; Seward, Napoleon’s Family, p. 183; Masson, F, Autour de Sainte-Hélène, Vol. III, pp. 212–3; Young, Vol. II, pp. 142–3; Bertrand, pp. 247–8; Marchand, Vol. II, p. 208; Ganière, p. 361; Gonnard, The Exile of St. Helena, p. 83; Korngold, p. 327.

  16. British Library Eg. 3717 f. 143; Stokoe, pp. 195–7, 239–40.

  17. Stokoe, pp. 194–9, 241–2; Frémeaux, The Drama of Saint Helena, pp. 2, 311–2; Richardson, pp. 141–4; Young, Vol. II, p. 151; Ganière, pp. 364–5.

  6

  A MISSED APPOINTMENT

  James Verling was the official British doctor at Longwood from January 1818 to September 1819 but he had hardly any contact with the house’s most famous occupant. When he sighted the Emperor it was an unusual enough event for him to report it immediately to George Nicholls who, in turn, passed the information on to Lowe. Despite his lack of intimacy with Napoleon, Verling’s story is of great interest as it provides a unique insight into the politics of St. Helena and further proof of the scheming of the French and the malevolence of the Governor. The doctor kept a meticulous journal commencing at the time of his appointment to Longwood and continuing up to the time of his departure from the island. The manuscript was originally handed down in his family but then was carelessly lost at sea by Verling’s nephew. In an unlikely sequence of events, it turned up in the hands of the British Consul to China who passed it to Napoleon III, the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte. It was then preserved in the French national archives where it remains today. A French translation appeared in the respected military periodical Carnet de Sabretache in 1921 and it was reprinted in 1998. For English readers, there has been a transcript of the original in the Bodleian Library in Oxford since 1915 and the diary has recently been made entirely accessible in David Markham’s fine book, Napoleon and Doctor Verling on St. Helena, published in 2005. There has been a tendency for historians to portray Verling’s experiences on St. Helena in a favourable light, contrasting his fate with that of O’Meara and Stokoe. On reading his journal, it is obvious that if Verling did escape St. Helena unscathed, it was only by the skin of his teeth.1

  James Roche Verling was born at Cobh in Ireland in 1787 and he spent his early years studying medicine in Dublin. He must have disliked his middle name because he had dispensed with it by the time he obtained his Doctorate of Medicine in Edinburgh in 1809. This degree, a thesis on jaundice, meant that he was more highly qualified than most of his medical colleagues on St. Helena. A year later, he entered the army as a Second Assistant Surgeon in the Artillery (the so-called Ordnance Medical Service). He served with distinction in the battles of the Peninsular War during 1812–1813, returned to England in 1814, and was promoted to First Assistant Surgeon in the weeks after Waterloo. This was his rank when, in August 1815, he proceeded to St. Helena in medical charge of the Artillery Department. He sailed on the Northumberland with Napoleon as a fellow passenger and had opportunities to converse with him. Marchand later recalled, ‘The Emperor considered Dr Verling to be a perfectly honest man; he had spoken to him several times on the Northumberland, either at the table when he was invited or during his walks on deck.’ The
tone of his journal and the testimony of others suggest that Verling was not only honest but easy to like. Walter Henry certainly thought so.

  Dr Verling is an esteemed friend of mine; and I know that he was well qualified in every respect for the duty in which he was employed; being a clever and well educated man of gentlemanly and professional manners and long military experience.2

  When O’Meara was forced out of Longwood, Verling was the obvious choice open to Lowe as his replacement. He would have preferred Baxter but he knew him to be unacceptable to Napoleon. It would surely be more difficult for the French to object to Verling who was well qualified, understood their language, and who had already met them on the voyage to the island. The surgeon was verbally ordered to his new accommodation on 25th July 1818 and he arrived in the early hours of the morning just as O’Meara was leaving. Lowe had not given Verling a written order, a recurrent theme in his treatment of the doctor, and over three months later Verling was forced to write to him requesting a proper written command to leave his artillery post for his new duty. The Governor complied and his order was worded such that Verling had to give medical attention to Napoleon and the other ‘foreign persons’ and was to remain at Longwood until the Governor received further instructions from the Government. The doctor forwarded the letter to the Ordnance Medical Department in England and the unexpected detour in his career was formalised.

  In reality, there was only a remote possibility that he would attend Napoleon. The Emperor, as we have seen, objected on principle to any doctor selected by Lowe. He wished his physician to be his own choice and he wanted them to be autonomous of the British authorities. They must be able to act without constraint, as would be the case for their attendance on any other private individual. He declared his own version of the Hippocratic Oath: ‘A physician was to the body what a confessor was to the soul, and was bound to keep such confessions equally sacred, unless permitted to divulge it.’ This plea for medical confidentiality was not designed to impress the Governor, who remained cynical regarding French intentions. Only a couple of weeks before Verling’s introduction, he wrote to Charles Ricketts of the East India Company.

  Nothing would satisfy but that the medical man should be delivered over to them [Napoleon and his followers] tied hand and foot – his mouth hermetically sealed, with my consent as well as his own so that he could never open it on subjects of his profession except on permission given, and then what he was permitted to say to be taken as official and exclusive.

  Despite these entrenched positions there was a polite dialogue between the French and Lowe regarding the stipulations pertaining to any doctor who might be acceptable to both sides. In April 1819, Montholon, presumably with his master’s authority, had written to the Governor listing seven articles which would have to be complied with before the Emperor received a British doctor. These were a re-run of the conditions presented to O’Meara and Stokoe. The physician was to be Napoleon’s alone; he was to act as Napoleon’s personal doctor and was not to be summarily removed; the normal rules of medical confidentiality were to apply; he was to write medical bulletins, of which the original was to remain in French hands; that he would also be able to communicate, verbally or in writing, with the French at any time of day or night; and that he would not repeat conversations heard at Longwood unless they were interpreted as a threat to his country’s security.

  Lowe’s response to these proposals was measured. He accepted that Napoleon could choose his own physician but pointed out that any British doctor would still be considered a British officer and would be employed and paid by the British Government and would not be ‘in any wise dependant upon, subservient to or paid by Napoleon Bonaparte’. The doctor would only be removed if a suitable French medical person became available or if the British Government directed it. There was no question of the doctor concealing details of any illness the Emperor might suffer – this would have to be reported, but only to the Governor. Lowe did not require routine medical bulletins but he would need access to a copy if there was any ‘serious indisposition’. Medical attention would be available at Longwood at all hours but the Governor demanded to see any written communications. Finally, he did not wish to know the content of conversations at Longwood but the physician, as a British subject, would be bound to pass on to him any discussion referring to the Governor’s duties or anything relating to a breach of security or infraction of the regulations. The studied reasonableness of this exchange belies the poisonous nature of the relationship between Longwood and Plantation House and the remoteness of a mutually acceptable solution.3

  Although Verling may not have been fulfilling his role as Napoleon’s British doctor he was nevertheless popular with the French entourage. Saint-Denis commented approvingly of the surgeon’s caring attitude to his new companions and confessed that he had soon gained ‘the confidence of us all’. The Montholons particularly liked him; when Madame Montholon wrote to her husband from Europe after her departure from St. Helena, she reminded him to give ‘a thousand thanks’ to Verling and added that she wished the doctor could have been with her during her most recent illness. This fondness for the British surgeon was manifested in the form of gifts. On New Year’s Day in 1819, he received a breakfast service of plate from Madame Bertrand and a gold watch, chain and seals from Madame Montholon. Napoleon probably encouraged this generosity. Verling was understandably concerned that he might be compromised by such valuable presents and, after consulting the Governor, he tactfully refused them. Madame Montholon was phlegmatic but Madame Bertrand took offence and launched into a violent tirade against Lowe who, she predicted, would soon be replaced.

  Verling found the Bertrands trickier to handle than the other prisoners. Madame was inclined to be sulky and was easily upset. Count Bertrand had allegedly told her that he thought Verling blamed him for Napoleon’s refusal to see the physician. Verling tried to accommodate them while avoiding over-familiarity. On 1st February 1819, he wrote in his diary, ‘It appears to me evident that the less communication I have with the Bertrands the better, as they are very strongly, and I believe very justly suspected by the Governor.’ In reality, he could hardly avoid them, particularly Madame Bertrand, who constantly sought his medical opinion.4

  The Governor was determined to make it explicit that Verling was available to be Napoleon’s doctor; all that was required was French unconditional acceptance. On more than one occasion during his stay at Longwood, he was ordered by Lowe to present himself to Bertrand and formally offer his medical services to the Emperor. Bertrand rejected the offers, referring Verling to the conditions contained in the earlier correspondence with Montholon; in essence, ‘L’Empereur ne prendra qu’un medecin de son choix.’ The irony of the situation was that both the doctor and patient were reluctant parties. Verling, no doubt mindful of the misfortunes of O’Meara and Stokoe, wrote to Lowe as early as June 1819 requesting his removal from Longwood. By September, his resolve not to be Napoleon’s medical attendant had hardened. In conversation with the French, he declared that he was only there because he was ‘a military man and obliged to obey orders’. His anxiety to escape his situation led him to write to Lowe making a formal request to be relocated.

  Napoleon’s resistance to the appointment was not attributable to any antipathy to Verling as a man. In Saint-Denis’s words, ‘It was enough that the doctor had been stationed at Longwood by the Governor for the Emperor to refuse to receive him or see him.’ Marchand agrees. ‘This refusal was not directed at the doctor himself but at the Governor who in this doctor had a man of his own choice.’ It was a touchy subject for the valet’s master. When Marchand found the Emperor vomiting, he ‘very carefully avoided suggesting the help of Dr Verling’. Despite this stand off, there was real hope in both British and French camps that Verling might, at some stage, take the place of O’Meara. Baxter wrote to Verling towards the end of 1818.

  I am glad that you have had sight of the man or ghost, but could have wished you were a little neare
r. The time approaches when I think you will be in daily attendance upon him and it would not be surprising if I was also to be of the party … I like the proceedings of Montholon and it appears to be the wish of all parties to come to an understanding. I trust you entertain no doubt of B. selecting you as his immediate medical attendant …

  This was all rather optimistic, particularly with respect to Baxter’s own part. The allusion to Montholon’s activities is more meaningful. Both Montholon and Bertrand retained hopes of Verling eventually becoming Napoleon’s doctor. They knew that the Emperor had a high opinion of British doctors. When it later became known that a Corsican physician was bound for St. Helena, Madame Bertrand acknowledged to Verling that ‘he [Napoleon] did not like the coming of the foreign surgeon and would prefer an English one.’ As the Emperor’s health worsened, the need to achieve a resolution intensified. Marchand comments that the Grand Marshal and the Count pressurised the ailing patient to accept Verling. Napoleon was stubborn. If Verling was to be his physician, it would have to be on his terms. The doctor would have to accept conditions similar to the articles presented to John Stokoe.5

  Thus it was that in the course of 1819, Bertrand and Montholon made concerted efforts – a mixture of coercion and charm – to persuade the British doctor to become ‘l’Homme d’Empereur’. We must presume that they had Napoleon’s authority for their proposals although they may to some degree have acted independently in their enthusiasm to seek a solution. The first serious approach was made by Bertrand in January. Verling was taken aback when the Grand Marshal paid him an unexpected visit in the morning. The Frenchman appeared to be in a jovial mood.