Do not take too seriously the demand of Roger Karoutchi, a Républicain who rejoices in the title of deputy speaker of the French Senate, that the mortal remains of Napoleon III, the last Emperor of France, be repatriated from Farnborough, in Hampshire, where they have lain in an immense sarcophagus since 1879, to Metropolitan France itself. ‘He is the only reigning sovereign who is buried abroad,’ Karoutchi complains.
This business of moving Napoleon comes up from time to time, but there is no chance of it happening. The body, which is guarded by fierce Benedictine monks who have never forgotten or forgiven the murder of the Carmelite nuns beheaded by French revolutionaries in 1794, will stay put, no matter how many French senators make it their project.
I am well enough informed on this subject because I have actually visited Napoleon at St Michael’s Abbey, in what was once an isolated site in a tranquil corner of Hampshire that is forever France. The
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