“I fell in love with the island and decided to apply,” he says. New flights open up Napoleon's hidden Atlantic island to international visitors Helena’s bleakest spots into one of its prettiest. Indeed, the garden bursting with color – which Napoleon planned himself, once he realized he wouldn’t be getting off the island – has turned one of St. “You can see the birdcage, the Chinese pavilion, the ponds, grotto and sunken paths – it’s a pleasure on its own,” he says. So over the years, he’s redone the woodwork and paint inside the house, and has reinstated the gardens that Napoleon delighted in outside. I proposed that we try to get the house how it was when Napoleon died on – both the house and his garden.” “That was a choice, but it wasn’t subjective. “The old presentation was much more towards how it was at the beginning of Napoleon’s stay – he let the trees grow very close to the house to make it look even darker than it was,” says Dancoisne-Martineau.

When he arrived, the previous curator had left things to the mercy of the elements. That conservation has also meant serious renovation. Helena, and honorary French consul, his job is to conserve these three little Gallic pockets on an island which is still a British Overseas Territory. As the director of the French Domains on St.

Michel Dancoisne-Martineau looks after them all. Helena – a British colony 5,000 miles and a 10-week boat ride away from Europe.

Having escaped his previous exile from Elba, off the coast of Italy, the French emperor was a flight risk to his fellow European rulers who wanted rid of him.

Helena after he was defeated by the British at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Napoleon Bonaparte – the first emperor of France, and conqueror of much of Europe – died at his home, Longwood House, on May 5, 1821. Helena is known all over the world for its most famous visitor, who died there 200 years ago. With a population of under 5,000, sometimes it feels like there are more dolphins in the ocean around the island than Saints, as the islanders are called. Sitting 1,200 miles west of Windhoek, in Namibia, it’s one of the most remote places in the world: a 46 square mile island of dazzling cliff walks, breath-catching drives, and swirling flax plants rippling in the ocean-whipped wind. In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, between South America and Africa, lies the island of St.

When did napoleon die