Was Napoléon really buried without his heart?

That's right, we are talking of Napoléon Bonaparte, a towering general and statesman who rose to prominence in the aftermath of the French Revolution and dominated most of Europe in the following years. But that, everybody knows. What is less known surrounds his death and, more particularly, the fate of some of his organs.

From death to burial, a controversy

For starters, questions remain over whether the French emperor was the victim of a pathological cause or deliberate poisoning. Persuaded that the stomach cancer which had taken his father was about to take him, too, Napoléon weakened rapidly in his home in Longwood, more than 7,000 kilometres away from the French capital, on the island of St. Helena.

In his last month, he refused most of the medication prescribed by his doctors, until he was subtly given a dose of calomel diluted in a glass of water. A large dose, it seems, as he died the next day, at the age of 51. The year was 1921.

The British government, whose authority Napoléon had constantly undermined, opposed his burial in France to let the former general rest on St. Helena. King Louis XVIII and his successor, Charles X, were not keen on repatriating his remains to France, which risked reviving Bonapartist sentiments. The same went for Louis Philippe, who became king in 1830.

But historian Adolphe Thiers, who was serving as prime minister and foreign minister at the time, convinced the latter to support bringing the body back in an expedition known as the "retour des cendres" in 1840, fulfilling Napoléon's wish "that my ashes may repose on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of the French people, whom I have loved so well."

The French general now lies in the Dôme des Invalides.

Locating Napoléon's heart and other body parts

Physician François Antommarchi was the one in charge of performing the autopsy, assisted by British doctors, including army surgeon Archibald Arnott. After examining Napoléon's body, he concluded that the emperor had died of a cancerous growth in his stomach. Antommarchi removed the stomach, as well as the heart, so that it could be sent to Marie Louise, whom Napoléon married to secure an heir after divorcing Josephine.

While there is no historical evidence of that, some say that it was his wish that his heart be disposed of this way.

Both organs were placed in two different silver vases filled with spirit of wine, hermetically sealed, then entrusted to Arnott's keeping. Back then, it was not usual to have organs removed from a body before burying it. Britain's Hudson Lowe, the governor of St. Helena, however, got between Napoléon's heart and Marie Louise and insisted that the vessels be put inside the coffin. So, to be pedantic, Napoléon was buried with his heart; it's just that his heart was not inside of his body.

But that's not all. There have been reports of other parts of Napoléon's body wandering around the world.

Antommarchi is said to have discreetly taken two pieces from his rib before he sewed up the body. His hair was also shaved off to be given to his family. Meanwhile, a year after the repatriation of Napoléon in Paris, the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London acquired two pieces of what was alleged to be his intestine, but this was rapidly called into question. And it gets worse: a "mummified tendon taken from Napoléon's body during the post-mortem," purported to be his penis, was displayed at the Museum of French Art in New York in 1927.

Whether these indeed belong to Napoléon or not, one thing is certain: everybody wanted a piece of him.