TWO hundred years ago, on the 5th of May 1821, Napoleon died in an isolated house on an isolated island. Without fuss, without a bang, although the French poet Chateaubriand later described the death in a dramatic way: “Finally, on the 5th, at eleven minutes to six in the evening, in the midst of wind, rain and the thunder of the waves, Bonaparte rendered up to God the mightiest breath of life that ever animated human clay.”