1

Napoleon

2

Napoleon’s Career

Artillery

Officer

General

Dictator

of France

Emperor of

most of Europe

1815

Defeated

Battle of

Waterloo

3

Napoleon’s Career

Artillery

Officer

General

Dictator

of France

Emperor of

most of Europe

1815

1821

Defeated

Exiled to

St. Helena

Battle of

Waterloo

Died

St. Helena

4

Napoleon’s death

Rumors: murdered?

No evidence

Buried

Died in his fifties

Respectable age

No exhumation allowed

5

19

th

century

After the death of famous people

Some of their hair was kept as souvenir

Artefacts

Napoleon’s death

Hair samples

6

Napoleon’s hair

NAA carried out in 1952

Presence of arsenic

Murdered?

Motive?

British?

Napoleon

7

Napoleon’s hair

Or French?

NAA carried out in 1952

Presence of arsenic

Murdered?

Motive?

Napoleon

8

Newcastle, 1980

Dr. David Jones

“

What colour was

Napoleon’s wallpaper?”

Someone knew what color the wallpaper was

Also had a sample of the wallpaper

9

St. Helena

Port of call

Napoleon’s house is a tourist attraction

Tourists tore off a piece of wallpaper

Souvenir

St. Helena

10

Arsenic from Wallpaper?

Analyze specific

microscopic objects

Historic sample

Cannot destroy it

SEM-EDX

Non-destructive

11

Arsenic from Wallpaper?

Green pigments

Copper arsenite

(Scheele’s Green)

How did it get from

the wallpaper to

Napoleon?

Napoleon’s wallpaper

12

Arsenic from Wallpaper?

AsH

3

(arsine gas)

CuAsHO

3

Mold

Arsine gas breathed in by Napoleon

St. Helena’s climate breeds mold

Green pigments

13

Who Killed Napoleon?

Autopsy results

Stomach cancer

14

Who Killed Napoleon?

Eyewitnesses

Attendants recorded what they saw

Autopsy results

15

Who Killed Napoleon?

Doctors?

Treated him with mercury chloride

Eyewitnesses

Autopsy results