1823 Most literary people expire as unmemorably as unliterary people. The death of the poet Heinrich Heine is an exception on two counts.
The first is his last words – the wittiest on record and among the most authentically attested-to. Heine was born in Düsseldorf (then under French occupation) in 1797, a German-speaking Jew. He converted to Lutheranism in 1825, taking on the ultra-German forename ‘Heinrich’ – largely to avoid impediments put in the way of ambitious young intellectuals of Jewish origin in Germany. For the same reason he emigrated to France in 1831, spending the next 25 years in Paris. In 1835 his works were banned in Germany, on the grounds of his association with the radical ‘Young Germany’ movement (the forerunner of Disraeli’s ‘Young England’ movement).
Heine died in Paris in 1856. He is buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre, among predominantly Catholic graves. His famous last words similarly allude to the Last Rites: ‘Dieu me pardonnera. C’est son métier.’ (‘God will forgive me, it’s his line of business.’)
A letter that Heine wrote on 27 November 1823 suggests that his religious views were never anything but extremely relaxed:
There is nothing new to tell you, my dear Robert, except that I am still alive and still love you. The last will endure as long as the first, for the duration of my life is very uncertain. Beyond life I promise nothing. With the last breath all is done: joy, love, sorrow, macaroni, the normal theatre, lime-trees, raspberry drops, the power of human relations, gossip, the barking of dogs, champagne.
Born a Jew, converted to Lutheranism, a death-bed flirt with Rome, and a constitutional disbeliever, Heine has been disowned by every one of the nations that might lay claim to him. His books were burned by the Nazis (unaware, presumably, of the fact that he was the author, in Almansor, of the proverb ‘Where Books are Burned, Men are Burned’). Düsseldorf has always been nervous about owning him with commemorative street or place names. In Israel his religious defections are often held against him.
The other aspect of Heine’s death that has provoked speculation is what actually brought him to his ‘last breath’ (breath he employed so wittily). He was a long time dying, and lay on his death-bed (‘the mattress coffin’) for eight years. It was traditionally suspected that the cause of death may have been syphilis, or multiple sclerosis (‘creeping paralysis’). Or it may have been precipitated by his abuse of opium. In 1997, analysis of one of his hairs (left as a souvenir) revealed that it was chronic lead poisoning. How he ingested the toxin is not clear. God only knows.