Historians say that Napoleon Bonaparte died on St. Helena Island in 1821, though the cause of death is still in dispute. Monsieur N., directed by Antoine de Caunes, adds to the mystery by fabricating a tale about his secret escape from exile. The film begins on October 15, 1840, when his remains are received in Paris to be placed in a public tomb at Les Invalides; the coffin is exhumed, and a face is exposed. Later, filmviewers realize that the face may not be that of Napoleon, but the scene quickly shifts to October 17, 1815, when Napoleon (played by Philippe Torreton) arrives at the remote British island of St. Helena, located in the South Atlantic nearly 1,250 miles from the African mainland. (His intended home, named Longwood House, was not finished when he arrived, so he stayed at the residence of a British merchant family, the Balcombes, and the family's younger daughter Betsy fell in love with him.) Bonaparte, in any case, is under house arrest at Longwood in accordance with terms agreed by the multinational coalition that defeated him at Waterloo. Sir Hudson Lowe (played by Richard E. Grant), the governor and commanding officer of the island, has the task of preventing Napoleon's escape. Since Bonaparte escaped from his previous enforced exile on the Island of Elba (only six miles from the Italian mainland) in 1815 and then fought his way to Waterloo, General Lowe wishes to maintain tight security, assigning one thousand from a contingent of three thousand soldiers at fortifications surrounding Longwood. Basil Heathcote (played by Jay Rodan) is assigned the role of Liaison Officer, that is, the job of monitoring Napoleon twice daily; he is Bonaparte's shadow, to use the latter's description. Of course, Napoleon seeks to escape, but Longwood is on top of a hill, two men on horseback circle the house daily, and the only port of the isolated island is at the base of a steep precipice, an unlikely place for a secret departure. Bonaparte is accompanied by faithful friends, servants, and their families, including General Charles de Montholon (played by Stéphane Freiss), Napoleon's mistress Albine de Montholon (played by Elsa Zylberstein), General Gourgaud (played by Frédéric Pierrot), Maréchal Bertrand (played by Roschdy Zem), his servant Ali (played by Igor Skreblin), and a butler, his supposed half-brother Cipriani (played by Bruno Putzulu); however, the latter soon dies and is buried on the island. While Napoleon's entourage bickers among themselves, hoping for a portion of his estate, Betsy Balcombe (played by Siobhan Hewlett) professes her love for Bonaparte, infuriating Albine and in due course winning Napoleon's reciprocation. Beginning his exile at the age of forty-six, the robust Bonaparte might be expected to live many years, so he begins writing his memoirs, noting at one point that his aim of overthrowing despotic monarchies would have brought a common market to all Europe. However, General Lowe, tiring of his assignment, one day hints to the Irish military physician on the island, Doctor O'Meara (played by Stanley Townsend), that he might be poisoned; when O'Meara indignantly refuses to abandon his Hippocratic oath, he is ordered off the island for disobedience. Meanwhile, Napoleon hatches an elaborate plot. He tries to turn the tables on his captors, at first gaining their admiration and later making them at weary of imprisoning him, even offering bribes. In 1817, through coded messages in crossword puzzles, an escape is planned with friends in Río de Janeiro: During an evening celebration of Lowe's birthday, amid stormy weather, a ship at sea sends a rowboat to the port; notified that the boat has arrived, Bonaparte prevaricates to Heathcote that a slavetrader has arrived to kidnap him, thus ensuring that the British will drive away the intruders and subsequently will let their guard down in the belief that Napoleon prefers an honorable death in exile. In 1818, Bonaparte sends away most of his retinue, and from 1819 he is reportedly so sick that he will not accept visitors and does not leave his quarters, thus frustrating Lowe's insistence that Heathcote must keep tabs on the prisoner. When Lowe then orders him to be, in effect, a Peeping Tom, Heathcote resigns. In 1821, Napoleon is reported dead, with Bertrand, General Montholon, and Ali at his bedside, and he is presumably buried on the island. In 1840, Napoleon's body is brought back to Paris (because King Louis-Phillipe bowed to pressure from Napoleonists). Throughout the film, there are flashforwards to Paris during 1840, when Heathcote he clearly does not believe that Bonaparte died on May 5, 1821. Accordingly, he interviews some of Napoleon's associates and even General Lowe to ascertain the truth. The most gripping part of the film is the detective story, which not only unmasks unexpected facts about Napoleon but also reports on the downfall of many of the principals in the story. Voiceovers by Heathcote, the only major fictional character in the film, tie many of the loose ends together. Heathcote, who never reveals to Betsy that he is in love with her, later learns that Cipriani's corpse was not in the grave at St. Helena, and moreover that pages concerning his death were ripped out of the death register. His curiosity finally takes him to a plantation in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where Betsy Balcombe now resides, only to learn from a house slave that her husband died in 1834. A title at the end indicates that the body of Cipriani was never found. The French government may perhaps conduct DNA tests on the body lying in Les Invalides in Paris, but the cause of death may remain a mystery. Aside from poison and a stomach ulcer, possible causes of death mentioned in the film, some physicians who observed the occupant of Bonaparte's coffin have suggested that he suffered from a glandular disease called the Zollinger-Ellison syndrome, which gradually transforms a male body into that of a female. If so, Napoleon may have escaped in 1818 dressed as a woman, a hypothesis that Monsieur N. curiously and perhaps wisely does not explore. MH
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