[Role of the ordinary surgeon Yvan beside Napoleon I on the night of April 12 to 13, 1814].

Alexandre-Urbain Yvan was born on April 28th, 1765 in Toulon, where he entered the military hospital as a student at 14. He got acquainted with Napoleon Bonaparte during the campaigns of Italy. On May 6th, 1800 the Secretary of the war appointed him to the care of the First Consul. He became a close friend of the Bonaparte family and obtained the post of ordinary surgeon of the Emperor. He was going to follow his illustrious patient as his shadow until April 1814. Several arguments evoke Napoleon Ist's suicide attempt, during the night from 12 to 13 April, in Fontainebleau, after the abdication. He absorbed a poison with opium but his menservants thwarted his plan, especially Caulaincourt. Baron Yvan was called at the bedside of the dying sovereign and managed to save him by making him vomit. For fear of being accused of murder, or for some other reason, the surgeon ran away without telling the Emperor. This episode ended definitively the relation between Napoleon and Yvan.