''The Saint Helena Journal of General Baron Gourgaud'' is a private journal written down by

Gaspard Gourgaud Gaspard, Baron Gourgaud (14 September 1783 – 25 July 1852), also known simply as Gaspard Gourgaud, was a French soldier, prominent in the Napoleonic wars. Biography He was born at Versailles; his father was a musician of the royal chapel. At sch ...

as a result of his conversations with

Napoleon I of France Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...

between June 1815 and March 1818 during the former's exile on

Saint Helena Saint Helena (, ) is one of the three constituent parts of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, a remote British overseas territory. Saint Helena is a volcanic and tropical island, located in the South Atlantic Ocean, some 1,874 km ...

. According to

Lord Rosebery Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, 1st Earl of Midlothian (7 May 1847 – 21 May 1929) was a British Liberal Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from March 1894 to June 1895. Between the death of h ...

, "The one capital and superior record of life at St. Helena is the private journal of General Gourgaud. It was written, in the main at least, for his own eye, without flattery or even prejudice. It is sometimes almost brutal in its realism. He alone of all the chroniclers strove to be accurate, and on the whole succeeded." This journal, which consists of about twelve hundred printed pages, was not published until 1899.

Editions

In French

* ''Sainte-Hélène. Journal inédit de 1815 à 1818'', ed. le Vicomte de Grouchy & Antoine Guillois. Two volumes, Paris: Ernest Flammarion, 1899. * ''Journal de Sainte-Hélène, 1815-1818'', augmented edition by

Octave Aubry Octave Aubry (1 September 1881, Paris – 27 March 1946) was a French novelist and historian. Biography Aubry, Ernest Seillière, Jean Tharaud, René Grousset and Robert d'Harcourt were the five members of the Académie française elected on 1 F ...

. Two volumes, Paris: Ernest Flammarion, 1944. * ''Journal de Sainte-Hélène. Version intégrale'', ed. Jacques Macé, introd. Thierry Lentz. Paris: Perrin, Fondation Napoléon, 2019.

In English

* ''Talks of Napoleon at St. Helena with General Baron Gourgaud, together with the journal kept by Gourgaud on their journey from Waterloo to St Helena xtracted from "Sainte-Hélene: journal inédit de 1815 a 1818"'. Translated, and with notes, by Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer. London, Chicago: C. F. Cazenove, 1903, republished in 1903 by A.C. McClurg & Co. (Chicago) and in 1904 by Grant Richard (London). * ''The St. Helena Journal of General Baron Gourgaud, 1815-1818''. Translated by Sydney Gallard, edited with an introduction by Norman Edwards; preface by Hilaire Belloc. London: John Lane, 1932 Books about Napoleon 1899 books {{royal-bio-book-stub