Napoleon's Religious Testament (Déclaration de foi de Napoléon)
Testament de Napoléon, 15 avril 1821
Je meurs dans la religion apostolique et romaine dans le sein de laquelle je suis né il y a plus de cinquante ans.
Our renderingI die in the Apostolic Roman religion, in the bosom of which I was born more than fifty years ago.
What it is
Napoleon's will, dictated on 15 April 1821 at Longwood, Saint Helena, opens with a formal profession of Catholic faith: 'Je meurs dans la religion apostolique et romaine dans le sein de laquelle je suis né il y a plus de cinquante ans.' The document records his instructions to Abbé Vignali to celebrate daily Mass in the house, observe the Forty Hours devotion, administer Extreme Unction at the moment of death, and ensure his devotional objects — including a crucifix to be placed on his body — were preserved. Henri Gatien Bertrand's contemporary diaries complicate the picture, recording the Emperor as speaking privately in more deist terms, and scholarly opinion divides on whether the will's declaration reflects genuine piety or political image management. The sacramental arrangements, however, were carried out as specified.
Why it still matters
The will's opening profession is a model of terse sincerity as a personal act of faith before death, useful as a template for one's own written profession; and the sacramental programme Napoleon ordered — daily Mass, Forty Hours, Extreme Unction — maps directly onto traditional Catholic practices anyone can observe in preparation for death.
Kept alongside
Sentiment de Napoléon sur le Christianisme (Napoleon's Reflections on Christianity at Saint Helena)
Sentiment de Napoléon sur le Christianisme : conversations religieuses recueillies à Sainte-Hélène par M. le général comte de Montholon
A posthumous collection, compiled and published by the Chevalier de Beauterne in 1840 (revised 1843), presenting Napoleon's attributed theological conversations at Saint Helena on the nature of Jesus Christ, the uniqueness of Christianity, and the distinction between Christ and all other historical founders. Beauterne drew on Montholon's testimony and that of others present; Montholon confirmed the general substance in writing, though he did not vet Beauterne's selective editing. The most widely circulated passage argues that Jesus alone, among all those who ever commanded human allegiance, founded his empire on love rather than force — a claim Beauterne deployed for Catholic apologetic purposes. Multiple editions were held by the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the work achieved wide European distribution in the mid-nineteenth century.
Catéchisme du diocèse de Meaux (Bossuet's Catechism)
Catéchisme du diocèse de Meaux
Bossuet's landmark Gallican catechism, composed 1685–1686 and published in 1687, was one of the two primary sources — alongside Fleury's Catéchisme historique — from which Napoleon's mandatory Imperial Catechism of 1806 was directly derived. The Organic Articles of 1802 specified that the Empire's single catechism should be drawn from existing Gallican models; the drafting commission under Abbé d'Astros explicitly revised and condensed Bossuet and Fleury for that purpose. The work comprises nineteen lessons of basic doctrine, an advanced catechism, morning prayers, and a catechism of feasts and Sundays, all in Bossuet's celebrated plain and luminous French prose. Its Gallican ecclesiology was also mandated teaching in all French seminaries under the Organic Articles, giving it an institutional reach well beyond Meaux diocese.
Catéchisme historique (Historical Catechism)
Catéchisme historique, contenant en abrégé l'histoire sainte et la doctrine chrétienne
Claude Fleury's celebrated catechism, first published in 1679, taught Christian doctrine by narrating the full arc of salvation history through the Old and New Testaments before moving to doctrinal instruction on the commandments, sacraments, and prayer. Its narrative-first method distinguished it sharply from the question-and-answer catechisms dominant since Trent. Alongside Bossuet's Meaux catechism, it was a named source for the drafters of Napoleon's Imperial Catechism of 1806, with new editions appearing in 1803, 1805, and 1806 — precisely the years of Napoleon's catechetical project. Its wide use in French royal education from Louis XIV onward gave it a continuous institutional life across regime changes, even after its placement on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.