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'Napoleon's hair' analysis boosts murder theory, By Patrick Bishop in Paris

THE theory that Napoleon Bonaparte was assassinated by one of his companions in exile has been resuscitated following an analysis of what are thought to be samples of the emperor's hair.

Three French experts said yesterday that the follicles contained excessively high levels of arsenic. Their findings confirm the results of tests carried out in America and Britain.

The analysis was commissioned by Ben Weider, a wealthy Canadian who has promoted the idea that Napoleon was murdered - a theory that most experts contest - in a spate of articles and books. The official cause of the emperor's death on the Atlantic island of St Helena on May 5, 1821, was cancer or an ulcer.

According to Dr Pascal Kintz, deputy director of the Strasbourg medico-legal institute, five locks of hair, one dating from 1816 and the other cut after death by Napoleon's confessor or valet, show "very large concentrations of arsenic". He told the Parisien newspaper that the traces were too heavy to be explained by natural contamination. He added: "We can't know the origin of the arsenic, nor be 100 per cent certain that the locks in question are those of Napoleon."

Mr Weider is convinced that the findings are further proof that the emperor's demise was due to skulduggery. His chief suspect is Count Charles de Montholon, one of Napoleon's companions in exile. He contends that motivated by jealousy, lack of money or political reasons, he was manipulated by the British, or French royalists desperate to prevent another comeback.

De Montholon, who bottled his master's wine, would, in theory, have been in a good position to administer the poison. Mr Weider and his brother Joe made a fortune out of body-building equipment. His fascination with Napoleon was inherited from his father who revered the emperor for his role in emancipating European Jewry.

Despite the sceptical reaction of experts, he remains undeterred. "The truth goes through three stages," he declares on his "Assassination of Napoleon" website. "First it is ridiculed, second, it is violently attacked; finally it is accepted as self-evident."

-- Anonymous, June 02, 2001