After the second abdication of the emperor (June 22nd, 1815) Gourgaud retired with him and a few other companions to Rochefort. It was to him that Napoleon entrusted the letter of appeal to the prince regent for an asylum in England. Gourgaud set off in H.M.S. "Slaney," but was not allowed to land in England. He determined to share Napoleon's exile and sailed with him on H.M.S. "Northumberland" to St Helena. The ship's secretary, John R. Glover, has left an entertaining account of some of Gourgaud's gasconnades at table. His extreme sensitiveness and vanity soon brought him into collision with Las Cases and Montholon at Longwood. The former he styles in his journal a "Jesuit" and a scribbler who went thither in order to become famous. With Montholon, his senior in rank, the friction became so acute that he challenged him to a duel, for which he suffered a sharp rebuke from Napoleon. Tiring of the life at Longwood and the many slights which he suffered from Napoleon, he desired to depart, but before he could sail he spent two months with Colonel Basil Jackson, whose account of him throws much light on his character, as also on the "policy" adopted by the exiles at Longwood. In England he was gained over by members of the Opposition and thereafter made common cause with O'Meara and other detractors of Sir Hudson Lowe, for whose character he had expressed high esteem to Basil Jackson. He soon published his _Campagne de 1815_, in the preparation of which he had had some help from Napoleon; but Gourgaud's _Journal de Ste-Hélène_ was not destined to be published till the year 1899. Entering the arena of letters, he wrote, or collaborated in, two well-known critiques. The first was a censure of Count P. de Ségur's work on the campaign of 1812, with the result that he fought a duel with that officer and wounded him. He also sharply criticized Sir Walter Scott's _Life of Napoleon_. He returned to active service in the army in 1830; and in 1840 proceeded with others to St Helena to bring back the remains of Napoleon to France. He became a deputy to the Legislative Assembly in 1849; he died in 1852.
Gourgaud's works are _La Campagne de 1815_ (London and Paris, 1818); _Napoléon et la Grande Armée en Russie; examen critique de l'ouvrage de M. le comte P. de Ségur_ (Paris, 1824); _Réfutation de la vie de Napoléon par Sir Walter Scott_ (Paris, 1827). He collaborated with Montholon in the work entitled _Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de France sous Napoléon_ (Paris, 1822-1823), and with Belliard and others in the work entitled _Bourrienne et ses erreurs_ (2 vols., Paris, 1830); but his most important work is the _Journal inédit de Ste-Hélène_ (2 vols., Paris, 1899), which is a remarkably naïf and life-like record of the life at Longwood. See, too, _Notes and Reminiscences of a Staff Officer_, by Basil Jackson (London, 1904), and the bibliography to the article LOWE, SIR HUDSON. (J. Hl. R.)