[NAPOLÉON I]. Jean-Marie BAZIN (1815-?) ensign on the Belle-Poule. L.A.S., Cherbourg [early December 1840], to his mother; 12 pages in-8. Attached are 3 contemporary printed documents on the return of the ashes: songs and eulogy. Long letter, recounting his trip to St. Helena to collect Napoleon's ashes. He recounts the stopover in Bahia, where the Prince de Joinville wanted to go hunting and was attacked, then the arrival on St. Helena, the visit to Longwood: "Everything has been degraded in a way that is shameful for the English nation. They made a bad farm of a dwelling they should have burned to bury in the flames a part of their ignominy. The emperor's room has become a stable"... Then Napoleon's exhumation: "we proceeded to the opening: and oh astonishing prodigy after having opened the three coffins [...] we found the emperor Napoleon himself, in the same state as he had been deposited there twenty years ago [...] Everything was intact: the face, the hands, the clothes, for he was in full uniform". Then it was off to Cherbourg... Attached are 3 printed documents from the period on the return of the ashes: songs and eulogy.