Napoleon's will left 10,000 francs to the man who tried to shoot the Duke of Wellington

Napoleon died a British prisoner at Longwood on Saint Helena. On 15 April 1821 he wrote: "It is my wish that my ashes may repose on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of the French people." His executors were Montholon, Bertrand and Marchand, and his legacies totalled 6,810,000 francs. A codicil of 24 April left "ten thousand francs to the subaltern officer Cantillon". Marie André Cantillon had fired at Wellington in Paris on 11 February 1818 and was acquitted in May 1819. Napoleon wrote that Cantillon had as much right to assassinate "that oligarchist" as Wellington had to send him "to perish upon the rock of St. Helena." The government of Louis XVIII refused to register the will in France. Codicil legatees received about 60 percent. In 1848 a credit of 8 million francs paid the remaining bequests. Cantillon got part of his money in 1823-26; the Moniteur reported full payment with interest under Napoleon III on 6 May 1855. In 1840 King Louis-Philippe sent the frigate Belle Poule to bring the body home. It was exhumed on 14-15 October 1840, witnesses said it was recognisable, and it reached Paris on 15 December 1840. In 2026 the body lies in Les Invalides and the will is kept in the Armoire de fer at the Archives nationales. A 2008 Italian study found arsenic levels in his hair too low to kill him.