Longwood House

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Longwood House (2014)

Longwood House was Napoleon Bonaparte's exile residence after his exile on the island of St. Helena . He lived there from December 10, 1815 until his death on May 5, 1821. The building is located in the northeast of the island in the Longwood district of the same name .

history

Napoleon's stay

Napoleon's death room (around 1870)

Longwood was initially the residence of the British governor and was specially prepared for the entry of Napoleon and his entourage. Shortly before his death, the construction of a replacement house called New Longwood began, but it was not finished in time. In February 1818, then Governor Sir Hudson Lowe proposed to Lord Bathurst that Napoleon move to another house, which was in a friendlier climate. But Gourgaud's publications in London persuaded Lord Bathurst to leave Napoleon in Longwood to prevent a possible escape. The house is located in the windy and humid part of the island and has climatically unfavorable conditions for health, which Napoleon, who in his exile repeatedly assumed that he was deliberately physically weakened and poisoned by the British authorities, in a certain way agreed .

After Napoleon's death

After Napoleon's death, the house was given to the East India Company , but came back into direct possession of the British Crown in 1833. At first it was used for agricultural purposes. Reports of the increasing decline of the house reached Napoleon III. who negotiated the sale of the property to France with the British government in 1854. In 1858, Longwood House and the area around the grave were finally handed over for a total of 7100 pounds. Since then, both properties have been under the administration of the French Foreign Ministry . A government representative lives in Longwood and is responsible for the maintenance, care, and administration of both properties. 1959 also was the home of the family Balcombs of Mabel Brookes handed over to the French nation as a gift. Here the emperor spent the first two months on St. Helena with a befriended family before he could move into Longwood.

Today Longwood House is a museum and the residence of the French consul on the island.

gallery

  • Longwood House, 2008

  • Longwood House, 1970

  • Longwood House, 1837

  • Longwood House planning map

See also

literature

  • Jean-Paul Kauffmann: Chambre noire de Longwood. Le voyage à Sainte-Hélène . Édition La Table Ronde, Paris 1997, ISBN 2-7103-0772-3 (German: The dark chamber of Longwood. My trip to Sankt Helena . Zsolnay, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-552-04916-9 ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Napoleon's death island St. Helena - The end of the world seeks connection . In: Deutschlandfunk Kultur . ( deutschlandfunkkultur.de [accessed on August 27, 2018]).

Coordinates: 15 ° 57 ′ 0.8 ″  S , 5 ° 40 ′ 58.9 ″  W.