Adolphe Thiers, who becomes President of the Council—Prime Minister of France—on March 1, 1840, keeps for himself the title of Foreign Minister.

His most notable accomplishment is to obtain from Britain the return of Napoleon's ashes from Saint Helena.

The idea is particularly pleasing to Thiers, because he had just begun writing a history of the Consulate and Empire, in twenty volumes.

Rather than making the request public, he writes to a personal English friend, Lord Clarendon, who is a member of the British government, saying: "to keep a cadaver as a prisoner is not worthy of you, nor is it possible on the part of a government such as yours. The restitution of these remains is the final act of putting behind us the fifty years that have passed, and will be the seal placed on our reconciliation, and our close alliance."

The British Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, considers and accepts the request.

The transfer is opposed by some in the French parliament, including Alphonse de Lamartine, who fears that it will stir republican sentiment in France, but it is welcomed by the population.

A warship, the frigate Belle-Poule, is dispatched to Saint Helena, and Thiers works on the details of the design of the tomb and the plan of the parade that will carry it to the tomb, constructed within Les Invalides.

The Belle-Poule arrives in Cherbourg on September 15.

The return of the ashes is a huge success, attracting enormous crowds in Paris, but by the time it takes place on December 15, Thiers is no longer in the government.