coughs, and all the melancholy signs of the approach of death. He made a
last effort to ride a few miles round Longwood on the 22d of January
1821, but it exhausted his strength, and from that time his only exercise
was in the calash. Even that slight motion soon became too fatiguing.

He now kept his room, and no longer stirred out. His disorder and his
weakness increased upon him. He still was able to eat something, but
very little, and with a worse appetite than ever. "Ah! doctor," he
exclaimed, "how I suffer! Why did the cannon-balls spare me only to die
in this deplorable manner? I that was so active, so alert, can now
scarcely raise my eyelids!"

His last airing was on the 17th of March. The disease increased, and
Antommarchi, who was much alarmed, obtained with some difficulty
permission to see an English physician. He held a consultation, on the
26th of March, with Dr. Arnott of the 20th Regiment; but Napoleon still
refused to take medicine, and often repeated his favourite saying:
"Everything that must happen is written down our hour is marked, and it
is not in our power to take from time a portion which nature refuses us."
He continued to grow worse, and at last consented to see Dr. Arnott,
whose first visit was on the 1st of April He was introduced into the
chamber of the patient, which was darkened, and into which Napoleon did
not suffer any light to be brought, examined his pulse and the other
symptoms, and was requested to repeat his visit the next day. Napoleon
was now within a month of his death, and although he occasionally spoke
with the eloquence and vehemence he had so often exhibited, his mind was
evidently giving way. The reported appearance of a comet was taken as a
token of his death. He was excited, and exclaimed with emotion,
"A comet! that was the precursor of the death of Caesar."