The doctor was unable to resist the pull of Longwood and his former patient and in the months of late 1819 and early 1820 he made several social visits. He informed Lowe that he was acting out of politeness and respect. Livingstone, who was willing to administer medical help to the Countess and her child without specific guidance, had by now taken over the role of her private physician.
Verling’s continued attachment to the French despite the lack of any medical objective only served to heighten the suspicions of Lowe and his associates. Reade, always sniffing around for a conspiracy, commented to Nicholls that he thought it ‘odd’ that Verling still socialised with Madame Bertrand. Nicholls helpfully warned the surgeon of Reade’s curiosity and told him that it would be prudent to make no more visits. Lowe had already advised Verling that he did not believe the Countess to be a free agent. Although she might not be always aware of it, the Governor thought her to be often the ‘instrument’ of indirect attacks upon him. His distrust of both doctor and patient is well illustrated in a private letter to Bathurst written in November 1819. He admits that, ‘It was not easy for me to judge what were the views of the persons at Longwood and what were those of Dr Verling’. Was it all innocent or was the doctor hatching plots with his confrères? Lowe comments acidly that Verling gave him no information about events at Longwood beyond the bare minimum required by his professional duty – ‘he could not have maintained a greater degree of secrecy in regard to them.’ The Governor implies that the surgeon is scheming and manipulative.
If Dr Verling was sincere in his desire of breaking off all relations with the persons at Longwood, there was a natural and obvious way of doing so, by simply acquainting Madame Bertrand of it, without involving me in any discussion on the subject, but his perfect readiness to attend upon her, and the persons at Longwood in general, if he obtained an order from me, is hardly reconcilable with the desire of breaking of all relations with them and rather betrays a secret inclination to have become the medical attendant upon them, on the same footing as he was before, if he could cover the renewal of his visits as a duty forced upon him by me, and not as an act of his own free will.
Lowe concluded that the doctor’s behaviour was ‘very extraordinary’. As for his own conduct, he assured Bathurst that he had tried to give Verling as much freedom as possible at Longwood. He had not issued restrictive instructions as this might have given Bonaparte an additional pretext to refuse to see the British surgeon. ‘The latitude enjoyed by Dr Verling and the persons at Longwood themselves left no cause of objections, or dissatisfaction, either on his part or theirs.’ By giving the surgeon free rein, or plenty of rope, he could not himself be blamed for French disapproval. In a heated discussion at the end of November, the Governor criticises Verling for again demanding his orders. ‘You would not act upon your own responsibility.’ The doctor must surely have immediately thought of O’Meara and Stokoe, medical colleagues who had dared to hold their own opinions.15
Verling left St. Helena on 23rd April 1820 (the date usually given is the 25th but references in his journal suggest two days earlier). He made his final farewells at Longwood a few days before his departure. Madame Bertrand had accepted that the surgeon was not to blame for the difficulties of the previous months and that he was acting according to the force of circumstances rather than from inclination. He sat with her for an hour and a half. Bertrand and Montholon also came to say goodbyes. Historians have singled out Verling as one of the few men who left St. Helena on good terms both with the French and the Governor. They were persuaded of his healthy relationship with Lowe by the evidence of the official correspondence in which the Governor praises the doctor on more than one occasion. Indeed, Lowe had the decency to acknowledge to Verling in conversation that his position at Longwood was an extremely disagreeable one and that he knew that it required great delicacy. In May 1819, the Governor had written to Bathurst,
I do not hesitate to submit Dr Verling’s name to your Lordship as a person whose conduct hitherto has given every reason to suppose he is activated by right principles and who is in other respects fully competent to the discharge of all the duties required of him.
Lowe goes on to compare Verling favourably with O’Meara and to stress that, unlike his predecessor; he had resisted designs from Longwood. Six months later, Lowe communicated with Verling directly, telling him of his ‘fullest approbation’ and again applauding him for rejecting French proposals. He asked his secretary to assure the doctor of ‘the favourable sense he entertains of the general line of your proceeding’ in a situation which he believed to be ‘irksome and painful’. In a letter of the same month to Bathurst, he expressed the view that the surgeon was ‘entitled to every consideration’ and he confessed that he would miss his professional services following his departure. Entries in Gorrequer’s diary show that Lowe was not averse to discussing additional pay or even a promotion for Verling.16
This was all a smokescreen. We have seen that, in reality, the Governor was highly suspicious of the surgeon and that he had missed no opportunity to smear him, even lowering himself to question Verling’s family connections. His true opinion of Verling is confirmed in a conversation with Reade in early August 1820. Gorrequer is the ever-present fly on the wall. After a volley of invective directed at Nicholls, who had not seen Napoleon for three days, the Governor suddenly redirected his fire.
He bewailed his unfortunate choice in him [Nicholls] and Great Gun Magnesia [Verling] who the moment he had found he could not become our Neighbour’s [Napoleon’s] attendant, became perfectly indifferent to anything else, particularly towards him, besides his being ‘orbo’ [blind].
Lowe sensed that the dislike was reciprocated. The Governor was not intuitive but, following a meeting with Verling in November 1819, he conceded to Bathurst that there appeared to be ‘a gleam of dissatisfaction’ in the doctor’s manner. Verling was more than unhappy – he feared the destruction of his career. After a meeting with Lowe and Reade in March 1820, he writes ruefully in his journal, ‘It is evident that I have made a powerful enemy.’ Frustrated by the surgeon’s repeated requests for orders relating to his attendance at Longwood, the Governor had stamped his foot on the ground in a characteristic attack of temper. That the two men parted company on anything other than good terms is proved by Verling’s final journal entry for Sunday 23rd April 1820, his last day on St. Helena.
I rode to leave my card at Plantation House; on my return I met Sir H. Lowe. He stopped me and asked when I sailed, I said in the evening, and that I had just called at Plantation House. He paused for some time and then informed me that he had just been writing to Lord Bathurst such a letter as would be sure to do away with any unfavourable impressions, which might have been made upon his mind, by my remaining upon the Island; to which I could not avoid replying that if such existed they must have arisen from erroneous views of my conduct. A long and angry conversation in consequence ensued which terminated however by my saying that since he had thought proper to declare his opinion of the correctness of my conduct, I begged once more to return him my thanks for his former recommendations. He observed in parting, ‘Well sir, I shall send my letter to Lord Bathurst.’
I saw Sir T. Reade in Town, who asked me if I had seen the Governor, and told me he had desired him to mention the letter to me. I asked him if he had seen the letter and he said that he had copied it, and that it was of such a nature as to remove every unfavourable impression. I made no further remark and we parted.
In the conversation with Sir H. Lowe, on my observing that I had not been treated with the confidence I expected, he remarked that I had not sought his confidence but had endeavoured to fill the situation in as independent a manner as possible. To this I made no answer, and do not conceive it any imputation on my conduct.
Verling’s later affidavit in favour of Lowe in the legal proceedings against O’Meara was very likely provided out of expediency rather than because of any sympathy for the Governor’s cause. This interpretation is justified by a c
omment in Gorrequer’s journal for 1st February 1823, the time at which Lowe was canvassing support.
Mach [Lowe] speaking about the letter he had read a day or two before from Great Gun Magnesia [Verling] said it was a mean, low, vulgar, piece of cunning to elude giving him a direct answer to that from himself to him …
Verling had contrived to give Lowe as little ammunition as possible and the Governor erupted into one of his rages;:‘He had himself behaved with the greatest candour and openness with him and that was the return he received; but he would yet make him answer the whole; he had not done with him.’ According to Gorrequer, he ranted on for some time in a similar strain.17
Fortunately for Verling, the persisting rancour of the discredited ex-Governor did him no harm and, on his return home, he pursued a successful career in the army, rising to the rank of Inspector-General of the Ordnance Medical Department in 1850. He retired in 1854 and died at Cobh in 1858 in his seventy-first year. Verling has left no writings from his later years but there are clues that he still carried scars from St. Helena. It was common knowledge that the old doctor disliked discussing his time at Longwood. When Forsyth asked for his help in compiling his history of the captivity, Verling refused.18
Notes
1. Markham, JD, Napoleon and Dr Verling on St. Helena, p. viii; Journeaux de Sainte-Hélène, pp. 9–10, 64.
2. Journeaux, p. 9; Chaplin, A, A St. Helena Who’s Who, pp. 131–2; Drew, R, Commissioned Officers in the Medical Services of the British Army, Vol. I, p. 209; Marchand, Mémoires de Marchand, Vol. II, pp. 197–8; Henry, W, Trifles from my Portfolio, Vol. I, p. 239.
3. Markham, pp. 15, 26, 36; Richardson, F, Napoleon’s Death: An Inquest, pp. 132–3; Lutyens, E, Letters of Captain Engelbert Lutyens, p. 73; Kemble, J, Napoleon Immortal, p. 244; Gregory, D, Napoleon’s Jailer, p. 149; Forsyth,W, History of the Captivity of Napoleon, Vol. II, pp. 621–4; Montholon, CJT de, Récits de la Captivité, Vol. II, pp. 345–8.
4. St. Denis, LE, Napoleon from the Tuileries to St. Helena, p. 217; Montholon, Comte de, Lettres du Comte et de la Comtesse de Montholon, p. 37; Markham, pp. 42–3, 47, 58, 73; Bertrand, Général, Cahiers de Sainte-Hélène, p. 216.
5. Markham, pp. 81–98, 64, 34; Bertrand, pp. 381–91; Masson, F, Autour de Sainte-Hélène, Vol. III, p. 200; Young, N, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. II, p. 124; St. Denis, p. 217; Marchand, Vol. II, pp. 196–8..
6. Masson, pp. 216–7; Markham, pp. 48–64, 130–1, 82, 143, 95; Forsyth, Vol. II, pp. 15, 51–2; Young, Vol. II, pp. 154–9; Bertrand, p. 391; Henry, Vol. I, p. 239.
7. Young, Vol. II, pp. 155–6; Markham, p. 109, 132, 85; Korngold, R, The Last Years of Napoleon, pp. 318–9; Gregory, p. 165.
8. Markham, p. 90; Gorrequer, Major G, St. Helena during Napoleon’s Exile, pp. 125–7, 140–1.
9. Markham, pp. 56–9, 75, 48; Bertrand, pp. 314–8, 150; St. Denis, p. 194, Marchand, Vol. II, pp. 197–8; Montholon, Lettres du Comte et de la Comtesse de Montholon, p. 46.
10. Stokoe, J, With Napoleon at St. Helena, p. 82; Markham, pp. 113, 37, 91, 83, 135, 60–7, 165; Chaplin, p. 95; Bertrand, p. 377; Young, Vol. II, p. 157.
11. Bertrand, pp. 220–1; Markham, pp. 62, 96–7.
12. Markham, pp. 61, 155–9, 100–1.
13. Markham, pp. 107–113.
14. Markham, pp. 103–6, 117, 153.
15. Gonnard, P. The Exile of St. Helena, p. 100; Markham, pp. 102–15, 148–58; Young, Vol. II, pp. 160–1.
16. Forsyth, Vol. II, p. 82; Markham, pp. 118, 103, 128–9, 150–2; Chaplin, A, Thomas Shortt, p. 58; Gorrequer, pp. 144–6.
17. Gorrequer, pp. 123, 266; Markham, pp. 117–8, 155.
18. Chaplin, A St. Helena Who’s Who, p. 132, Drew, Vol. I, p. 208; Chaplin, Thomas Shortt, pp. 56–7.
7
CORSICAN UPSTART
From August 1818, when O’Meara left St. Helena, until September of the following year, Napoleon saw no doctor except for the few visits by Stokoe. This was, of course, largely his own choice, but the British Government remained wary. The Liberal opposition might make political mischief, claiming that ministers had deliberately deprived the Emperor of proper medical supervision. Earl Bathurst was keen to end the impasse and, as early as the summer of 1818, an unexpected opportunity arose to solve the problem of Napoleon’s physician once and for all.
Cardinal Fesch, Napoleon’s uncle residing in Rome, had applied to The Prince Regent for permission to procure and send out a Roman Catholic priest to give spiritual succour to the exiles. This was prompted by the death of Cipriani – Napoleon’s maitre d’hôtel had had to be buried in a Protestant ceremony overseen by a minister of the same religion. Bathurst had no objection to the appointment and he asked Lowe to inform the Emperor that permission had been given for the priest to reside at Longwood. In his letter to the Governor, Bathurst added that, as Napoleon had expressed his wish for a French surgeon of reputation and a cook, he had asked Fesch to also select ‘proper persons’ for these posts.
So it was that the selection of Napoleon’s new doctor was left in the hands of a man of the Church. It was soon apparent that Cardinal Fesch was not up to the task. His choice of appropriate persons was compromised by his irrational belief that Napoleon had already escaped from St. Helena. The Cardinal and his sister were under the influence of a German visionary who informed them that the Emperor had been miraculously removed from the island by angels; she was less certain where he was. Distracted by his supernatural leanings, Fesch made only laboured efforts to find his priest, doctor and cook. There was, however, an obvious candidate for the medical post. Las Cases, now in Europe, proposed Fourreau de Beaurégard (see Chapter 1). The French physician was still anxious to go to St. Helena to join his former patron and there is no doubt that Napoleon would have been delighted to have him at Longwood. Fesch now showed himself to be also influenced by earthly matters. Several members of Napoleon’s family – Madame Mère, Jerome, Pauline, Lucien and Louis – owed their security to the Cardinal’s reputation. He was under the control of a Church which was antagonistic to the ex-Emperor. If the Cardinal were to send a Frenchman of Napoleon’s choice he could be accused of Bonapartism. There were elements in Paris who remembered that it was Napoleon who had given the priest his Cardinal’s hat. Fesch extricated himself by rejecting Fourreau on the spurious grounds that he was not a surgeon and that he had made unreasonable demands for remuneration and assistance. The doctor had asked for a salary of 12,000 francs – the same pay as the humble naval surgeon Barry O’Meara – and to be accompanied by a valet and a pharmacist to prepare medicines.
Fesch now decided upon Francesco Antommarchi, a Corsican doctor, as the most suitable candidate. This was an astonishing rise from obscurity for the young man who was connected to Madame Mère through his friendship with a certain Simon Colonna di Leca who had attached himself to the Bonaparte family. It was Colonna who first suggested Antommarchi; Napoleon’s mother supported him as he was Corsican and Fesch because he was not Fourreau. Also he was cheap. He settled for a salary of only 9,000 francs and asked for no servants or medical assistance. He appeared willing to exile himself on St. Helena indefinitely.1
Antommarchi was born in 1789 at Morsiglia, a small village in the extreme north of Corsica. All aspects of his life and all facets of his personality have been rubbished by historians. No other in the St. Helena saga has attracted so much odium; even Lowe has had his staunch supporters. Many attacks have started with the assumption that his medical qualifications were bogus; in Norwood Young’s words, he was unsuitable for his unexpected promotion because he was ‘neither a physician, nor a surgeon, nor a Frenchman, nor had he ever been in medical practice at all’. This statement is strictly correct only in the reference to his nationality. In recent times, Antommarchi has attracted a more sympathetic press and unbiased research has confirmed that he did have a respectable medical education. He first studied at Pisa and, in 1808, at the age of nineteen years, he obtained a diploma as a doctor of philosophy and medicine. This was not
a high flying qualification but, in an age when many ‘doctors’ had no certificate at all, neither was it an insignificant achievement. He then moved to Florence to continue studies in surgery at the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. Here he attended lectures in subjects such as physiology, pathology, operative surgery, obstetrics, chemistry and botany. His great passion was anatomy and he made the acquaintance of Professor Mascagni, one of the most renowned anatomists of the era.
The Napoleonic Wars were raging around him but he avoided conscription as an army doctor and, in 1812, the year of the Russian Campaign, he successfully submitted his surgical thesis on cataracts of the eye. It might have been expected that he would now pursue a career in surgery, but the prestigious post of Prosector was created at Santa Maria Nuova. This was what we would term an ‘Anatomy Demonstrator’, an essentially academic attachment in which the incumbent was expected to make the dissections, give lectures, and instruct the medical students. Supported by his patron Mascagni, Antommarchi successfully applied for the new position. This was a feather in his cap but it meant that the young doctor’s practice was now composed of corpses rather than patients.2
Those who opposed Antommarchi’s surprising appointment to St. Helena were quick to decry his lack of real experience. Planat de la Faye, Napoleon’s old officier d’ordonnance from the Hundred Days and a friend of Fourreau, wrote to King Louis in protest. Antommarchi, he said, was ‘a man without knowledge and was no more than a preparer of dissections in the Florence hospital amphitheatre’. News of the newcomer’s shortcomings reached St. Helena before him and, shortly after his arrival, Bertrand interrogated him as to his actual experience of practical medicine and surgery. Amtommarchi, to his credit, made no attempt to exaggerate his achievements, giving the Grand Marshal an honest account of his training and his particular attachment to anatomy. It was soon common knowledge on the island that the Emperor had been sent an odd choice of doctor. Walter Henry comments in his memoirs, ‘Signor Antommarchi had been a pupil of the celebrated Mascagni at Florence and was a good anatomist but not remarkable for a profound knowledge of the other therapeutic sciences.’ Captain Charles Harrison wrote home that the new man ‘had not had sufficient experience in the world’.
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