{"id":74161,"date":"2018-10-12T17:10:59","date_gmt":"2018-10-12T15:10:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.napoleon-cologne.fr\/?p=74161"},"modified":"2020-09-14T09:53:21","modified_gmt":"2020-09-14T07:53:21","slug":"longwood-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.napoleon-cologne.fr\/en\/longwood-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Longwood House"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row row_height_percent=”0″ override_padding=”yes” h_padding=”3″ top_padding=”2″ bottom_padding=”2″ overlay_alpha=”50″ gutter_size=”3″ column_width_percent=”100″ shift_y=”0″ z_index=”0″][vc_column column_width_use_pixel=”yes” gutter_size=”3″ overlay_alpha=”50″ shift_x=”0″ shift_y=”0″ shift_y_down=”0″ z_index=”0″ medium_width=”0″ mobile_width=”0″ width=”1\/1″ column_width_pixel=”900″][vc_custom_heading text_size=”h1″ text_weight=”300″ text_height=”fontheight-1-6″ text_color=”color-150243″ sub_reduced=”yes”]When Napoleon Bonaparte arrived on October 17th, 1815 at his place of exile while his residence at Saint Helena was not yet ready. He moved to Longwood two months later on December 10th, 1815 and remained there until his death on May 5th, 1821. Between piteous furniture and glorious memories of the past, the interior of this dilapidated Longwood was both a disrespectful prison and cradle of the myth birth.[\/vc_custom_heading][vc_custom_heading heading_semantic=”h3″ text_size=”h3″ text_height=”fontheight-168105″ text_color=”color-150243″]Between respect and bitterness: the British reluctance to keep its commitments to its famous prisoner.[\/vc_custom_heading][vc_column_text]Longwood House is from Napoleon’s arrival a second rate house poorly built where water seeps everywhere. During the 68 months in which Bonaparte was confined there, many rotting pieces of furniture were burned, repaired or redone. Far from the vast and comfortable palaces of Saint-Cloud or the Tuileries, this house of 150 m2<\/sup>was, in the opinion of all, as deposed he was. Longwood was divided into an antechamber, which became a billiard room in 1816 (Napoleon nevertheless used it as a “topographic salon”), a lounge, a dining room, a study, a bedroom, a library, and a bathroom with copper tub. The English, who were obliged to cover the expenses of Bonaparte’s imprisonment, did not shine here by their fair play. In addition to the dilapidated decay of Longwood, the attentive observer will note in Sir George Cockburn (1772 – 1853) – in charge of finding all the necessary furniture – a certain resentment towards our Corsican since he acquired at a low price from the local disparate furniture that they themselves held thanks to their haggling with the British, Dutch, Portuguese and American ships passing on the island for supplies. Some of the finest furniture on loan from the East India Company came to enrich the house interior, as well as some of those specially designed by George Bullock (1778-1818), a London cabinetmaker, originally intended to furnish Longwood New House, a residence under construction when Bonaparte arrived but in which he will never live.[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image media=”74146″ caption=”yes” media_lightbox=”yes” media_width_percent=”100″ lbox_title=”yes” lbox_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]This shameful disrepair in the eyes of the French as of those of several English visitors nevertheless found a major adversary in the strict imperial etiquette\u00a0<\/em>applied throughout the estate, in the splendor of the furniture and objects brought back from France and in the very dignity of the imperial prisoner.[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]