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extraordinary character of the age . Any thing respecting &uch a man , especially on the important topic of r eligion , must be gratifying to the curiosity .
Dr . O'Meara , In his interesting work , A Voice from St . Helena , has several paragraphs on the subject . But I ihall draw my information from a more recent source—The Last Days
of the Emperor Napoleon , by Dr . f % Jn tommarchi , his Physician . This gentleman attended him after Dr . O'Meara had left him , was with him in his last illness , and witnessed his
dissolution . He went over to him from Italy , and has returned with a pension , for his attendance on the illustrious exile , whose sufferings ha mitigated , whilst his work may be pronounced a monumental tribute of regard to his memory .
The paragraphs I shall transcribe shall be taken chronologically . Napoleon died May 5 th , 1821 . " He had been long ill , of a liver complaint , brought on by the climate of St . Helena , which allows few of its inhabitants to exceed forty years of age , and is awfully fatal to visitants from
any country . br . Antommarchi , on his arrival at St . Helena , found Bonaparte ( about nine months previous to his dissolution ) much worse for want of exercise , and forced him into his garden . " One day / ' ( says Dr . A ., ) " as Bonaparte was arranging a bed of French beans he perceived some small roots , and
began a dissertation upon the phenomena of vegetation . He analyzed and descanted upon them with his usual sagacity , drawing- from them the conclusion of the existence of the Supreme Being-, who presides over the wonders < 4 nature i < You do not believe in —» — ¦ - — -w- ™— - ™ — — - — —ir — ~^^ m - ^^* - ^ - ~^^ m
^ ^^ Ji 1 that , Doctor— -you physicians are above those weaknesses . Tell me , you who are so well acquainted with the h » inaa frame , who have searched it 111 all its turnings and windings ; have you ever mot with the soul under your ^ al pel ? In tcJwt or ^ an ?> I
hesi-P \ ° answer . < Come , be sincere : uiere is lU ) t a physician that believes ! P 7 j ftere ? ' ' No , Sire j they are so > ltt by Matliematicians / ' How jj . ' " * hematicians are generally rer *» t - ^ ovrevcl > your recrimination umads me of a singular expression u *< w * by one of lllQm ^ i enliven-
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ing with L ., and congratulating him upon a hew work he had just put * lished . I asked him how it happened that the natne of God , &o oiften used in the works of Lagrauge , had never once occurred in his . * * It is , ' answered he , because I have not found
it necessary to have recourse to that s hypothesis !'" Thus it appears that Booaparte had an HI opinion of the creed of medical
men . Few of them , indeed , are Atheists , but morQ Deists , though manyhave written excellent treatises in behalf of revealed religion . Of this fact Cheyne and various others might be adduced . The avocations of the
faculty are against their attendance on public worship , and hence their low repute for any sort of piety . What Bonaparte thought of the providence of God does not exactly appear 5 but he often refers to his destiny ; and of human life he
imagmed that a limit was assigned it , eyond which it could not be protracted . His physician one day proposing medicine , to which he had an insuperable aversion , he replied , " Doctor , no physicking . We are , as I have
often already told you , a machine made to live . We are organized for that purpose , and such is our nature . Do not counteract the living principle . Let it alone 5 leave it the liberty to defend itself ; it will do better than
your drugs I Our body is a , watch that is intended to go a given time . The watchmaker cannot open it , and must , in handling it , grope his way blindfold and at random . For once that he assists and relieves it , by dint of tormenting it with his crooked instruments , he injures it ten times , and at last destroys it 1 "
Not following the advice of his physician , either as to medicine or exercise in that dreadful climate , the Emperor became worse and worse . On March 19 , 1820 , he addressed Dr . A . in the following atfecting manner :
" Doctor , what a delighttul thing rest is I The bed is become for me a place of luxury . I would not exchange it for all the thrones in the world . What an alteration—how fallen am I ! I ,
whose activity was boundless , whose mind never slumbered , am now plunged in a lethargic stupor , and must make an effort to raise noy eyelids 1 I sometimes dictated upon different
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last Illness and just previous to his Dissolution . , 529
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Vo xx . Zx
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1825, page 529, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2540/page/17/
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