Apartments companions of Napoleon's exile on St. Helena (who are now the subject a restoration campaign) were destroyed in 1859 by Captain Francis Eugene Masselin [1] responsible for the restoration of Longwood House by Napoleon III.
Longwood House made in its statement of 1815, before the construction of apartments fellow exile.
Masselin in a report, gave us his explanation:
"[...] the French Government, informed on what was supposed to cost the reconstruction of that part of the buildings, the maintenance that they could require thereafter, and the even greater difficulty of bringing in workers from Jamestown for the necessary repairs, ordered the demolition of these buildings. There is no longer the place they occupied used as grass and some curbs. "
However, he fails to tell us that the Foreign Ministry had simply followed the recommendations of the Commander Gauthier de Rougemont, the first curator of the areas" imperialists "who did not absolutely have to live at Longwood House. The first curator was also suggested in Paris that the land of 13 hectares (the same one that was bought two years before in France!) Surrounding the tomb is sold ... his recommendation was never subject of any response from the Department.
In terms of apartments of Napoleon, Captain Masselin repairs more than restores:
"... valuable information collected from the time of Napoleon, and some feeble remains found on the walls, helped to make the partitions, doors, windows, ceilings and floors, and the fireplace in the bedroom, the places they once occupied. The two large pieces of paper were the same color as the old muslin stretched on their walls, so that the appearance of this house, both inside and outside, at any point is one that it had before 1827. [...] Both houses of the Silver and kitchen were found exactly to their former places, with the same dimensions: the first was covered with tiles from the second, and it was covered with zinc, failing tiles. "
This first" restoration "of Longwood House was not in fact a restoration of the apartments of Napoleon and the demolition apartments companions in exile of the Emperor.
[1] Born August 31, 1825 in Paris, he died December 4, 1903 in Paris.
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