It has been an epic tale and, having followed the lives of two of history’s greatest figures, I imagine that many readers will want to know what became of Napoleon and Wellington after their titanic struggle came to an end.

For Napoleon, there remained less than six years of life. He spent these at Longwood House on St Helena, a meagre accommodation for a former emperor. Napoleon continued to be bitter about his imprisonment, perpetually complaining to the governor of the small colony, and writing letters to the British government to demand better conditions and relocation to a less desolate place of exile. When he was not protesting about his captivity, Napoleon set about writing, or rather dictating, his memoirs. These were fabulously partial and depicted Napoleon as an heroic, moral and infallible figure. That his empire had collapsed he put down to the betrayals and incompetence of his subordinates. His enemies were portrayed as foolish and corrupt, and he regarded Wellington with increasing resentment. This was partly because he blamed the Duke for the decision to send him to St Helena (wrongly, since the location was suggested by a civil servant) but mostly because Wellington had beaten Napoleon, as he had beaten the emperor’s best marshals, and thereby demolished their reputation of invincibility.

When he put aside his protests, and his rewriting of history, Napoleon occasionally walked about the small island, always under the watchful eyes of his captors. He ate excessively and put on a great deal of weight. His health began to fail and in 1821 he complained about a sharp pain in his stomach which grew steadily worse as the weeks passed. Napoleon died on 5 May and was buried with full ceremonial honours four days later. His grave was covered over with a plain cement slab and there his body lay until 1840, when it was returned to France and entombed in Les Invalides. The funeral procession was attended by the surviving veterans of the Grand Army, tearfully following their former master to his final resting place.

There is still a debate about the cause of Napoleon’s death. At the time it was said to be cancer, the same fate that had befallen Carlos Buona Parte, Napoleon’s father. More recent tests on samples of Napoleon’s hair revealed the concentrated presence of arsenic, however, and certainly the symptoms noted at the time are consistent with such poisoning. It is possible that the arsenic had been administered in small doses for as long as two years prior to his death and the accumulated affect was fatal. The identity of any poisoner is unknown. Some argue that it was an assassin acting on behalf of the British government, but it is equally likely that it was an agent within Napoleon’s small household, paid to do the deed by the Bourbons.