Napoleon was imprisoned and deported by the British to Île Sainte-Hélène, commanded first by Admiral Cockburn and then by Sir Hudson Lowe, with a small troop of followers, among them the Comte de Las Cases, General Montholon, and General Gourgaud, he devoted himself to writing his memoirs for posterity which he dictated to Las Cases.
He also tried to learn English; he received several visitors passing through Saint Helena, which at the time was an important stopover for any ship circumnavigating Africa. Once settled in Longwood, he avoided going out because Lowe had given orders that the Emperor should be under guard everywhere.
Gradually, Napoleon fell ill and weakened. He asked in his will to General Baron de Marbot to continue to work in his writings "for the greatness of France". In the second half of April 1821, he wrote his last will and several codicils himself, some forty pages in all. Her last words were:“France, army, Josephine”, or, according to the memoirs of Saint Helena:“head... army... My God! ". Nerval, in his poem À la mort de l'Exilé, notes:"The dying Napoleon's last words were:'My God and the French nation... French... my son... armed head.' We don't know what those words meant. and a common version claims that he actually said "head of the army", which is much less enigmatic.
Napoleon died on a Saturday, May 5, 1821, "at 5:49 p.m.". The causes of his death have been the subject of controversy, officially the doctors concluded that he died of stomach cancer, but the hypothesis was put forward of arsenic poisoning.