Napoleon Bonaparte
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May 5th, 1821. On a remote island in the South Atlantic Ocean, a sick man writhed in his bed. He had a swollen abdomen, rashes on his legs and feet, and rotting gums. A team of doctors checked his pulse and his breathing. He was getting worse by the minute, barely clinging to life. He thought back to a time when things were better.

A decade before, he was one of the most feared military generals the world had ever seen. He led armies and revolutions. He built and ruled an empire across Europe. Some considered him a monster. Others, a hero. He was so powerful, he was known by a single name. Napoleon. Napoleon.

And yet that day in 1821, the former emperor was just a shadow of his former self. According to the history books, Napoleon died that night of natural causes. But some believe there was a lot more to the story. Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast. I'm Carter Roy. You can find us here every Wednesday and be sure to check us out on Instagram at theconspiracypod.

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Napoleon. Over the years, his name and likeness have become a caricature, a punchline, a reportedly short man with a bicorn hat. You've probably seen versions of him in comedic Hollywood films like The Minions and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. His name even graces a pastry. And, of course, a psychological complex for people of diminished height. But in the late 1700s and early 1800s,

His name hits a bit differently. It struck fear all across Europe. At one point, Napoleon Bonaparte commanded an army of close to 600,000 troops. And according to Stanford University historian Victor Hansen, it's possible he was responsible for nearly 6 million deaths in Europe.

But before we get to that, let's briefly jump back to the emperor's origins on the French island of Corsica, to a time when he likely never imagined becoming the ruler of France. Napoleon was born into nobility in 1769, but his family wasn't considered wealthy. In school, he was allegedly bullied.

Perhaps for his short stature, though historians claimed this was a giant misconception. In fact, we'll put the rumor to bed now because Napoleon wasn't as petite as the history books made him seem. He was of average height, especially for the times, around 5 foot 6 inches.

So, no matter what the reason for the bullying, the ill-treatment and humble origins may have sparked something in the young Corsican, a desire to prove himself and rise above his modest family position. In 1779, when he was only nine years old, he left home to attend the French military school at Brionne, followed by the military college of Paris in 1784.

Upon graduation, he was made an officer in the artillery division, one of many young men hoping to work his way up the ranks. But Napoleon was ambitious and needed a way to distinguish himself. Fortunately for him, an opportunity arose in 1789, the French Revolution.

Rather than bore you with a long-winded history lesson, we'll give you the Cliffs Notes. French commoners revolted against the king and aristocracy. Nobles were executed. Many had their heads chopped off in front of cheering crowds. Even though Napoleon detested the executions, he saw the revolution as a way to create a more equitable republic, not to mention prove his military prowess.

And he did just that. After quashing an insurrection in 1795, 26-year-old Napoleon was promoted to Major General. After that, he was the golden boy of the French military and citizens. With fighting in the country nearly extinguished, Napoleon and the new government turned their attention to expansion, specifically to the neighboring kingdom of Austria.

Even though Napoleon's forces were oftentimes outnumbered, his cunning military strategy put him two steps ahead. In the 1790s, he defeated regiments of the Austrian army and seized more territory for his homeland. But that wasn't all he seized. In November 1799, Napoleon made another strategic move.

He and a team of allies staged a coup d'etat known as the coup of 18 Brumaire. The faction removed the current French government and instituted a three-member consulate. And who did they place at the head of it? None other than Napoleon. At just 30 years old, he became the de facto leader of France. And that was just the start of his reign.

Three years later, in 1802, the French people approved a constitutional amendment that made him Consul for Life. Two years after that, he crowned himself Emperor of France. With his position cemented, Napoleon's hunger for power grew.

He declared war on just about every neighboring kingdom, Britain, Spain, Russia, various German-speaking regions and Italian states, even the Ottoman Empire. During much of this time, Napoleon was nearly unbeatable, but he didn't consider one detrimental detail. Winter in Russia. After pursuing the Russian army deep into their territory,

Napoleon and his forces ran headlong into the snow. Lacking the proper clothing and supplies, his men suffered. In 1812, Napoleon ordered a retreat, but it was too late. The Russians hounded the French the whole way out. It was a bloodbath. According to historians, five out of every six French soldiers were killed.

Napoleon survived, but his reputation didn't. Back home, the people of France turned on him. He was no longer their golden boy. Sensing his weakness, Napoleon's enemies invaded Paris. The French government was forced to accept a truce, which came with one big condition. Napoleon had to be banished to exile forever.

On April 11th, 1814, at the age of 44, Napoleon was shipped off to an island in the Mediterranean Sea called Elba. At first, Napoleon complied with his exile, but after less than a year, the wily general somehow escaped, returned to France, and reclaimed the throne.

Fearing Napoleon's wrath, a coalition of European powers, including Britain and Russia, prepared to go to war with France yet again. For a time, Napoleon was back to his old self. He kept the foreign militaries at bay, and as a result, the French people embraced him again. But only temporarily. The tide was about to turn on him once more.

In June 1815, Napoleon faced off against British forces in the countryside of modern-day Belgium, near a small village named Waterloo. It should have been an easy win for the Frenchman. He had the British-led troops outnumbered 72,000 to 68,000. But the English had a secret weapon waiting in the wings: the Prussian army.

Not long into the battle, the Prussians swooped in, sandwiching Napoleon's forces between the two sides. The French general was forced to retreat, and the Battle of Waterloo went down in history as Napoleon's single biggest defeat.

Following that loss, many French citizens disowned him. In 1815, he was forced to surrender to the British and for a second time, his enemies banished him to exile. Except this time, they learned their lesson. They didn't send him to a picturesque island in the Mediterranean.

No, no, his enemies had a new place in mind. 5,000 miles from Europe off the coast of Africa, Saint Helena. On October 15th, 1815, Napoleon reached the tiny British ruled island, arguably one of the most remote places on earth. Now at first he might have thought another escape attempt would be easy,

But this place was different. St. Helena was defended by at least four ships that kept a constant eye on the coastline. 500 British guns and cannons and 3,000 soldiers. Seeing what he was up against, Napoleon's spirits were dashed.

Almost immediately, the once-virile emperor's health declined, and over the next six years, it only got worse. On May 5th, 1821, he fell into a coma. At 5:49 p.m. that evening, Napoleon Bonaparte was pronounced dead. An autopsy found he had stomach cancer and hepatitis. At least, that's what the history books said.

because his symptoms also resembled something quite different. Poisoning. May 5th, 1821, Napoleon Bonaparte was dead. Doctors on the island of St. Helena attributed it to natural causes, but some found it a bit more suspicious than that. Which brings us to our first conspiracy theory, that Napoleon was murdered.

Interestingly enough, the first person to suspect it was Napoleon himself. In his last will and testament, he wrote, quote, I die prematurely, murdered by the English oligarchy and its hired assassin. But he wasn't the only one making these claims. One of Napoleon's doctors believed it as well. An Irish surgeon named Barry O'Mara

O'Mara was one of Napoleon's first doctors on the island, and the two apparently struck up an immediate friendship. According to historian Peter Hicks, the doctor became the deposed emperor's close confidant. Three years later, in 1818, O'Mara's friendship was tested.

According to him, the governor of St. Helena, a man named Hudson Lowe, allegedly ordered the physician to, quote, shorten Napoleon's life. But Omar refused. He even wrote a letter back to England accusing the governor of treachery. Well, the doctor may have saved Napoleon's life, but it was only a temporary reprieve.

Not long after he sent the letter, O'Mara was dismissed from the island. We don't know whether O'Mara was removed because of his friendship with Napoleon or because he denied those orders, but with him gone, the French dictator was assigned new doctors. Only three years later, he was dead.

We can't say for sure, but it's possible one of these new physicians didn't have the same principles as O'Mara. Perhaps they followed Governor Lowe's alleged orders to kill Napoleon. But what we can say for sure is this: The British weren't the only ones who wanted Napoleon out of the picture permanently. There was another prime suspect: Napoleon's own people, the French.

Even though Napoleon had been a national hero in the past, by the time he reached St. Helena, there were many who saw him as a pariah. According to historian Victor Hansen, France was bankrupt at the time of Napoleon's final exile. Not to mention, he caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of French citizens during the wars. If he escaped again and returned to power,

It likely would have meant another brutal war. Put yourself in any French citizen's shoes. If it were a choice between one rogue ruler or thousands, if not millions, of your countrymen, which would you choose? Of course, it would have been difficult for a French civilian to take out Napoleon on St. Helena.

We already said how remote and well defended it was. It wasn't like there were many Frenchmen living on the island. But what if a Frenchman with power, money, and influence wanted to get rid of Napoleon? And by that we mean the king of France, Louis XVIII. As I said earlier, the French Revolution had removed the monarchy from power...

But they weren't completely eradicated. In fact, during Napoleon's first exile, Louis temporarily stepped in to fill the void. So perhaps the ruler thought killing Napoleon would put him back on the throne permanently. Now, there's no evidence that Louis tried to kill Napoleon, just like we don't know for sure whether Governor Lowe or anyone else ordered the death of the former emperor. But it seems reasonable that one of them did.

Which is why for hundreds of years, rumors and conspiracy theories about his death persisted. That is, until 1961. That's when a Swedish researcher named Dr. Sten Forshuvud published a study that shook the historical community, especially Napoleon scholars.

Before we get to the report, let's just say Dr. Forshuvud was an unlikely source for such info. He wasn't a pathologist or even an internal medicine specialist. He was a dentist. A dentist who just happened to be an amateur toxicologist, fascinated with history and the French ruler's demise. And somehow, Forshuvud managed to obtain a sample of Napoleon's hair.

From there, he sent it to a high-tech lab to be analyzed for traces of rare chemicals, including poisons. And in 1961, he declared Napoleon's hair contained arsenic. Arsenic is one of the most ancient poisons we know of. And according to Dartmouth Medical School's Dr. Robert Gosselin, Napoleon's hair had over 10 times the amount of an average person's.

Plus, his symptoms seemed consistent with arsenic poisoning. According to the US Centers for Disease Control, the toxic substance causes skin changes, abdominal pain, neurological deficiencies, and it has been linked to cancer, just like Napoleon had.

But Dr. Forshuvud's report wasn't a smoking gun. He was careful to point out he didn't have enough information to make a definitive conclusion. After all, he was only given a small sample of the ruler's hair. According to Forshuvud, with such a limited sample size, he couldn't determine if Napoleon's entire scalp was contaminated or just one section.

If his whole head had signs of arsenic, that might indicate prolonged exposure, which could have been an accident or environmental contamination. But if only part of the Emperor's cranium tested positive, he might have had one significant exposure to the poison, which could mean acute poisoning and possibly murder.

Even though Dr. Forshuvit's study was inconclusive, it spurred other researchers to look for evidence. Believe it or not, scientists were able to obtain more hair samples from Napoleon's childhood, his early years as a ruler, and from his exile on Elba.

We don't know exactly who saved the hare, but it proved to be incredibly helpful when examining this mystery. Because according to the results, Napoleon's hare always had high concentrations of arsenic.

Not to mention, the toxicity wasn't limited to the former emperor. Scientists also found elevated levels in his son, Napoleon II, as well as his first wife, Empress Josephine, who didn't join him on St. Helena.

There are multiple explanations for this. Back in the 17 and 1800s, arsenic was used in many common household items, including paint, tapestries, food preservatives, even hair products. We don't know exactly which item might have contaminated Napoleon. It's possible he put arsenic-laced powder in his hair, or maybe he ate food containing the substance.

It's also extremely likely that his house on St. Helena had high levels of arsenic in the wallpaper and water. That doesn't completely rule out the assassin theory, but it means his health problems may have been caused by long-term environmental toxicity too. Now, some scientists disputed whether he died of arsenic contamination at all.

As we heard earlier, many of Napoleon's symptoms fit the profile of arsenic, abdominal pains and skin changes amongst others, but some of his health defects didn't, like his weight gain. According to medical experts, arsenic poisoning usually results in severe weight loss.

And Napoleon had the opposite problem. But that was just one symptom of many, and in my eyes, isn't enough to disprove our first conspiracy theory, that Napoleon didn't die of natural causes, that he was murdered. If you're feeling conspiratorial, you might be inclined to side with the former emperor and his doctor, Barry O'Mara, on this one.

The fact that both of them said the British were trying to kill him seems entirely possible, coupled with the fact that his hair did have so much arsenic. On the other hand, if you're feeling skeptical, you might agree that the history books got this one right. Napoleon died of natural causes. Not only did his autopsy show no proof of murder,

We have plenty of evidence that his family had long-term arsenic exposure, which might have killed him slowly over the years. Either way, we've got one more conspiracy to run by you. Some believe Napoleon wasn't murdered on St. Helena. In fact, some think he didn't die on the island at all. He may have escaped to America.

For over two centuries, historians have wondered how Napoleon died on St. Helena. Was it natural causes or murder? But what if he didn't die there at all? Some conspiracy theorists find it difficult to believe that a brilliant military mind like Napoleon allowed himself to pass away quietly in exile. He'd already escaped from one island. Why not St. Helena too? Not to mention, at the time, Napoleon...

was filthy rich. It's difficult to estimate exactly how wealthy he was, but according to the Napoleon Foundation, he had at least one bank account containing gold coins worth millions. Which means he had plenty of money and motive to get off the island. And that brings us to our second and final conspiracy theory.

Napoleon wasn't murdered on St. Helena at all. He actually escaped. Okay, to dig into this one, let's dial back the clocks to the summer of 1815. Napoleon just lost the Battle of Waterloo and retreated back to Paris with his hat in his hand. Put yourself in his shoes. You've waged war for decades against your enemies. You're responsible for millions of deaths across Europe.

it's only a matter of time until your enemies come for you. Well, most of us would probably be freaking out. But according to NPR, Napoleon sat peacefully inside his home reading a book, not a romance novel or volume on military strategy. It was a book about the geography and botany of the United States. That's because Napoleon had no interest in being a prisoner

He only had one destination in mind, the new world, America. According to Inez Murat, author of Napoleon and the American Dream, Napoleon planned to jettison his life as a ruler and become a student of science. In his letter of abdication, he wrote that his, quote, political life was over. In other words, he was ready for a new beginning.

Life as a civilian. And to fulfill that dream, Napoleon made detailed logistical plans for his life across the Atlantic. He readied three million gold coins to transfer to an American bank. He gave orders to transport his vast collections of books, fine china, and horses across the ocean. He'd even picked out a new identity for his life abroad, Colonel Muran.

The only thing left to do was get there. Luckily for the emperor, he had a trusted loyalist named Stephen Girard. Girard was born in France but moved to America in 1776. He settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and became a wealthy banker. But he maintained tight connections with the ruler and his family...

Well, not only did his niece marry one of Napoleon's generals, he was also friends with Napoleon's brother. So when Napoleon needed help getting to America, he knew exactly who to go to.

According to a story in the Baltimore American newspaper, Girard concocted a plan to smuggle Napoleon out of France. First, secreting him across the ocean to Virginia, then sneaking him to a hideout in nearby Maryland. Napoleon's relatives even wrote letters to each other about the mission. One in particular scribed, quote,

He's going to the United States, where we shall all join him. Except Napoleon never made it to the U.S. In July 1815, his travel plans were derailed. Instead of boarding a ship to the New World, he had to surrender to the British, and they shipped him off to their island of St. Helena.

As I noted earlier, the island was basically an inescapable fortress, defended by British Navy ships, hundreds of guns, and thousands of soldiers. It seemed like a hopeless cause to get Napoleon out. But maybe the feisty general didn't give up. According to some historical accounts, Napoleon and his loyalists recruited a British man named Tom Johnson to help him escape.

Johnson was an unlikely ally for Napoleon. He had a criminal history and had once helped the British during the Napoleonic Wars. But he had one thing on his resume that made him perfect for the job. He'd escaped prison. Not once, but twice. So to Napoleon and his lieutenants, Johnson may have been seen as the ideal candidate to bail him out of St. Helena.

But it wouldn't be easy. The British Navy effectively blockaded the island, so there was no way through or around them. Except Johnson had an idea. What if they could go under them? For that, he'd need the help of a relatively new, daring invention. The submarine. Primitive underwater vessels had been around since the 1500s,

But it wasn't until the mid to late 1700s when designs really picked up steam. According to the Smithsonian Magazine, Johnson planned to build two subs to shuttle Napoleon out of St. Helena, a small one and a large one. And in case the vessels were detected by the British, Johnson planned to equip them with torpedoes. As soon as the submersibles were built, the mission was relatively straightforward.

During daylight hours, the vessels would slip unnoticed beneath the British squadron. Then, that night, the small sub would surface on the shore. Johnson would sneak onto the island, locate the former emperor, and the two would sneak back to the sub, one disguised as a coachman, the other a horse groom.

The vessel would then usher Napoleon to the big one and they'd escape forever. Maybe even to America. At least that was the plan anyway. Despite Johnson's claims that he worked on the caper for Napoleon, there was no evidence the subs were ever built or the escape ever attempted. Some historians believe Johnson concocted the tale to bolster his image.

and drum up business for his submarine venture. But even if the underwater mission didn't happen, there was talk of other attempts. Around 1820, British correspondence to and from the island mentions multiple escape plots. We don't know if any of them were successful. Of course, history books indicated they failed. According to them, Napoleon remained on the island until his death.

But what if the man who died on St. Helena wasn't Napoleon at all? What if he was a body double and the real Napoleon had already escaped? For this, let's go to May 6th, 1821, the day after Napoleon allegedly died. That's about the time a doctor made a mold of the former emperor's face.

It may sound a little morbid, but this was a common practice for wealthy people and leaders back then, creating what was known as a death mask. The plaster cast preserved the person's facial features to create accurate sculptures later. The only problem was, not long after Napoleon's cast was created, it disappeared.

At that point, it was too late to make a new one, so it seemed like Napoleon's death mask was lost forever. That is, until ten years later, when a mold of his face showed up in Paris. Right off the bat, there were suspicions about its authenticity. According to witnesses, it was too youthful and thin to be Napoleon, who was bloated and sick at the time of his death.

And it was missing an important detail. A scar on his cheek. Apparently, the general had suffered a wound to his face late in life. It only appeared in an unofficial portrait painted just before he was taken to St. Helena. And besides the physical discrepancies, people questioned where the mask had been for almost a decade. Despite the strange circumstances...

The face was apparently confirmed by one of the doctors who conducted Napoleon's autopsy, as well as his mother. Except some experts weren't so sure. They thought it resembled another man, Napoleon's longtime valet and confidant, Jean-Baptiste Cipriani.

When scholars compared the death mask to portraits of the two men, they concluded that, indeed, the mold resembled the valet, not the former emperor. In spite of the objections, the cast was deemed authentic and eventually went on display in a Paris museum. But that wasn't the end of the mask saga. In 1947, another mold of Napoleon's face showed up,

This time at a museum in London. Unlike the Paris version, this one portrayed the emperor as more bloated and it had another prominent feature: his scar. Some researchers claim this was Napoleon's true death mask, meaning the one in Paris was a fake. Now this might fit our earlier explanation and match perfectly with our conspiracy theory.

Perhaps the Paris mask was authentic, not of Napoleon, of course, but of the man who died on St. Helena in 1821. So maybe it was Napoleon's body double, who was thinner and more youthful and didn't have a scar. Which makes the London mask, the bloated one with a scar on the cheek, Napoleon's real face. Only maybe it wasn't made on St. Helena.

Perhaps it was cast somewhere else, like America, and was transported to England years after his actual death. The death mass controversy wasn't the only strange thing that happened after Napoleon's death. Twenty years later, a new mystery emerged.

In 1840, after years of requests from the French government, the British agreed to repatriate Napoleon's remains from St. Helena to Paris. When workers unearthed his coffin, they made the fateful decision to peek inside, and they found something nobody expected. Instead of a collection of bones, they allegedly found a well-preserved body.

According to forensic experts in Scientific American magazine, dead bodies generally turn into skeletons within two years. Napoleon's body had been in the ground for nearly 20. If true, the mystery certainly would have stumped experts, but there might have been a simple answer. It wasn't his body in the coffin.

Perhaps Napoleon's accomplices swapped the body much later to cover their tracks. Now, to this day, the French government refuses to allow DNA tests on Napoleon's remains. Maybe they're just trying to protect the sanctity of his grave. Or maybe they're worried the results will reveal a startling truth. The emperor's body wasn't on St. Helena, and he really did escape.

Escape may seem unlikely. Sneaking him past thousands of British troops and multiple Navy ships just seems too improbable. But crazier things have happened, and Napoleon had the money and motivation to do it. What we can all agree on is that Napoleon's life was a wild adventure. From humble origins on Corsica...

to military genius. So, even if we never learn the truth behind his fate, perhaps his greatest victory was his immortality in the history books. I mean, even Napoleon was quoted as saying, "History is a set of lies agreed upon."

Thank you for listening to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast. New episodes come out every Wednesday, and be sure to check us out on Instagram at TheConspiracyPod. Do you have a personal relationship to the stories we tell? Send a short audio recording telling your story to ConspiracyStories at Spotify.com. Until next time, remember, the truth isn't always the best story. And the official story

isn't always the truth. Conspiracy Theories is a Spotify podcast. This episode was written by Alex Bernard, edited by Adam De Silva and Lori Marinelli, researched by Sapphire Williams, fact-checked by Bennett Logan, and sound designed by Sam Baer. Our head of programming is Julien Boisreau. Our head of production is Nick Johnson, and Spencer Howard is our post-production supervisor.

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