The 15th October was fixed on for the day of the exhumation: that day
five-and twenty years, the Emperor Napoleon first set his foot upon the
island.
On the day previous all things had been made ready: the grand coffins
and ornaments brought from France, and the articles necessary for the
operation were carried to the valley of the Tomb.
The operations commenced at midnight. The well-known friends of Napoleon
before named and some other attendants of his, the chaplain and his
acolytes, the doctor of the "Belle Poule," the captains of the French
ships, and Captain Alexander of the Engineers, the English Commissioner,
attended the disinterment. His Royal highness Prince de Joinville could
not be present because the workmen were under English command.
The men worked for nine hours incessantly, when at length the earth was
entirely removed from the vault, all the horizontal strata of masonry
demolished, and the large slab which covered the place where the stone
sarcophagus lay, removed by a crane.
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