Having signed his abdication, Napoleon lapsed into a state of listlessness punctuated by occasional bursts of anger, and a kind of bewilderment; for the first time in many years he had lost control not only of events, but also of people whom he had come to regard as elements of a well-oiled machine. For years he had triumphed by daring to dare, refusing to give up and eventually finding a way to surmount or circumvent obstacles, and by making failures disappear by writing a version of events in which they did not figure. He now faced a reality which was entirely impervious to his will.
‘The well-being of France appeared to be in the destiny of the Emperor,’ he wrote in his declaration to the army following the defection of Marmont. That was true for a long time. What he had lost sight of was that his destiny had been to save France from chaos and rebuild the state. Ironically, what was happening now was a testimony to the success of his endeavours; it was precisely because the state he had built was so well grounded in the institutions he had created that a change of regime was taking place without the political chaos, not to mention the bloodshed, that would have accompanied it fifteen years earlier. It was his own work that was standing up to him.1
For years he had exerted control over people around him through a simple formula of fear and favour, and in the rare cases in which these did not yield the desired results he would simply banish the person from his sight, thus avoiding the unwelcome reality that there could be limits to his power over others. Those he had brushed aside had, like Alexander, Talleyrand and the members of the Senate whose views he had ignored, now been able to stand up to him, again partly as a result of the administrative structures he had put in place and the social stability these had encouraged; he had created a new hierarchy of notables whose first duty was to the state. Even the army, which worshipped him, felt its first duty was to France, and as soon as it became clear that it was not just foreign allies he was up against, pronounced itself against civil war in his cause.
The narrative he had spun in his propaganda from the beginning of his first Italian campaign had given him faith in himself as well as projecting an image which spoke to the people of France and enabled him to carry them with him on his political enterprise. But with time it had deformed his sense of reality, leading him to believe that he really did have the power to make things happen simply because he willed it. This tendency to wishful thinking, combined with his unwillingness to formulate a long-term strategy, had led to disastrous results in Spain and Russia. For a long time, his ability to manipulate facts and people had allowed him to avoid facing the consequences. He continued to write inconvenient truths out of the narrative, and even now, when they had so rudely invaded it, he instinctively fought against them.2
Every morning one of the regiments of the Guard paraded before him, and their acclamations revived his fighting instinct; while even his most devoted generals had come to accept the inevitable, he kept revisiting various military options. On 7 April, the day after he sent off his act of abdication, the commander of the Old Guard, Marshal Lefèbvre, wrote his submission to the new government and left to take his seat in the Senate. He was followed by Oudinot, leaving only Berthier and Moncey at Fontainebleau. Yet on 10 April, having received a report based on gossip picked up from an Austrian officer to the effect that Francis was prepared to support the accession of his son, Napoleon sent to Caulaincourt revoking his credentials to negotiate the abdication, and began checking his troop numbers.3
Caulaincourt ignored Napoleon’s recall. Supported by Ney and Macdonald, he was fighting to secure the best possible terms for him. He was now having to deal not only with Alexander, but also Metternich and Castlereagh, both of whom had been appalled on reaching Paris at the promises made by the tsar, and, in the background, Talleyrand and Fouché, who had also turned up, both of them determined on the elimination of their former master. Talleyrand even engineered an intrigue aimed at provoking him to make a military move which could then be used by the allies as a justification for withdrawing from the engagements made by Alexander.4
Caulaincourt wrote explaining the situation, but on receiving the letter Napoleon fumed about betrayal, and at five in the morning wrote back ordering him not to sign anything. It was too late; agreement had been reached that night, and on 11 April the Treaty of Fontainebleau was signed by Castlereagh, Metternich and Nesselrode for the allies, and by Caulaincourt, Ney and Macdonald for Napoleon. The three of them arrived at Fontainebleau the following morning with the document for him to ratify. He listened gloomily to their report and the terms of the treaty, which were that he was to be given the island of Elba to rule in all sovereignty, be provided with an annual subsidy by the French government, allowed to take a small contingent of his Guard with him, and that his family would be provided for.
He still attended the daily parades, but he had been spending his days in his own rooms, occasionally walking in the garden, sometimes taking out his frustration by swishing with his stick at the flowers. He was sickened by what he saw as the desertions of members of his staff and his maison, who went off on invented errands, never to return, or simply vanished. Constant and Roustam had gone, and of those who still hovered many could barely disguise their impatience for the end to come. He complained bitterly of the ingratitude of his marshals, saying he had underestimated the baseness of men in general. Yet a handful remained faithful, most notably Maret and the marshal of the palace General Bertrand, and since the first rumours of plots against the emperor’s life some of his aides slept on mattresses laid out in passages leading to his rooms to protect him. At the same time, his pistols and powder had been discreetly removed. That day he wrote to Josephine expressing his despair, and those around him could sense it.5
Late that night he asked his valet Hubert to revive the fire in his bedroom and to bring writing implements and paper. Having done so, Hubert kept the door between Napoleon’s bedroom and that in which he slept ajar. He heard him begin a letter several times, scrunching up the paper and throwing it into the fireplace. ‘Farewell, my kind Louise,’ ran the final version. ‘You are what I love the most in the world. My misfortunes affect me only by the harm they do to you. You will always love the most loving of husbands. Give a kiss to my son. Farewell, dear Louise. Your devoted.’ Hubert then heard him go over to the commode, on which there was always a carafe of water and a bowl of sugar, and was surprised to hear the sound of water being poured into a glass and something being mixed in with a spoon, as he had noticed that the valet in charge had failed to put any sugar in the bowl. After a moment’s silence Napoleon came to the door of his room and asked Hubert to call Caulaincourt, Maret, Bertrand and Fain.
Caulaincourt was the first to arrive. He found Napoleon looking sick and haggard, having evidently taken the poison he had been wearing in a sachet around his neck since the retreat from Moscow. He began a self-justificatory ramble and asked Caulaincourt to do various things on his behalf, but Caulaincourt called for Dr Yvan. By then Napoleon was doubled up with stomach pains and complaining how difficult it was to die. When Yvan arrived he asked him to prepare a stronger poison, but the doctor instead administered a potion which made him vomit up the original dose. By morning he was out of danger.6
‘Since death doesn’t want to take me either in my bed or on the battlefield, I shall live,’ he said to Caulaincourt. ‘It will take some courage to bear life after such events. I shall write the story of the brave!’ He then told him to prepare everything for the signing of the treaty, which he did in the presence of Caulaincourt and Maret. At nine o’clock Macdonald, who was to take it to Paris, came into the room. He found Napoleon ‘sitting in front of the fire, wearing only a simple white cotton dressing gown, his naked legs in slippers, with nothing around his neck, his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees’. He did not stir at Macdonald’s entrance, and seemed lost in his thoughts. Caulaincourt roused him and he stood up, went over to Macdonald, took his hand and apologised for not having noticed him enter. ‘As soon as he had lifted his face, I was struck by the change in it; his complexion was yellow and olive-coloured,’ continues Macdonald. Napoleon told him he had had a bad night and sat down again, once more drifting off into a reverie, from which he had to be roused again. He then presented the marshal with the scimitar of Murad Bey, captured in Egypt, and embraced him, apologising for not having recognised before what a fine, loyal man he was.7
Macdonald set off for Paris bearing Napoleon’s ratification, while Napoleon set about dictating letters to some of those who had served him. He had transferred command of the army to the new minister of war, General Dupont, the ‘coward of Bailén’, and there were only 1,500 grenadiers of the Old Guard left in attendance. Berthier had gone to Paris to finalise the arrangements, and on his return he took up residence in his private residence in the park. Although he and Napoleon had worked closely for more than fifteen years they had never been friends, and following the Wagram campaign the marshal had begun to feel old and tired. He had disapproved of the war with Russia and continually urged Napoleon to make peace, which had soured relations between them.
The once-great maison had dwindled to no more than a dozen or so, and the vast Renaissance palace resounded only to the step of sentries. When Maria Walewska turned up on 14 April to show her sympathy, she found the palace deserted and walked through several rooms before encountering Caulaincourt, who went to inform Napoleon of her presence. He seemed not to hear, and remained lost in his thoughts. She waited for several hours before going back to Paris. He wrote to her the following day apologising for not having been able to receive her, and thanked her for her feelings, saying he would love to see her when he reached Elba. The probable reason he had not received her was that he was hoping to be reunited with his wife and son, and if it were known that he was seeing his mistress it might affect Marie-Louise’s and her father’s views on the subject.8
On 9 April he had written to Marie-Louise asking her to leave Blois and go to Orléans, whence he was hoping to bring her and his son to Fontainebleau. The reason he had not sent for her earlier was that while he believed there was a chance of his son succeeding him he felt he must keep his distance; the principal argument against allowing the King of Rome to succeed was that it would be tantamount to leaving Napoleon in power, so it was imperative he underline his detachment.9
Marie-Louise and her entourage at Blois were taken aback by news of Napoleon’s abdication, and her first instinct had been to join him, partly in order to get away from his brothers. Seeing in her person a form of insurance for themselves, Joseph and Jérôme planned to take her and seek refuge with Soult’s Army of Spain, encamped nearby. Understanding nothing of the politics being played out, she felt disoriented and defenceless. She had seen less of Napoleon from the time he had set off for Russia two years earlier, and had been subjected to a sustained campaign by his enemies in her entourage, who fed her stories of his supposed infidelities and tried to find her a lover. Her chief lady-in-waiting, Lannes’ widow the duchesse de Montebello, actually intercepted letters to her from Napoleon.10
The court at Blois melted away, the chamberlains, ladies-in-waiting, maids, valets and the 1,200-strong contingent of Guards going off to Paris or elsewhere, many of them heaving sighs of relief that it was all over. Commissioners arrived from the provisional government in Paris to claim the imperial treasure which had followed them to Blois, consisting of over twenty million francs in gold, a hoard of jewellery and plate. Marie-Louise’s desire to join her husband was mitigated by the prospect of accompanying him into exile, as she feared his family would congregate around him and make her life unbearable. She told Caulaincourt that she wanted to die with Napoleon, but not to live with him surrounded by them.11
The matter was resolved when on 9 April a Russian officer sent by Francis arrived at Blois and took her off to Orléans, where she was robbed first by roving cossacks and then by a government official who tried to tear from her throat the diamond necklace she was wearing. Dr Corvisart, who examined her, wrote a report that she was suffering from breathing difficulties, rashes on her face and fever, and prescribed the waters of Aix. On 12 April she was taken to Rambouillet, where on 14 April she met Metternich and a couple of days later her father. ‘It is impossible for me to be happy without you,’ she wrote to Napoleon, but she appeared to be little concerned at his fate, according to Anatole de Montesquiou, whom he had sent to her. Whatever her feelings, she was easily persuaded to follow her father’s wishes (which, unbeknown to her, were that she and her son should never see Napoleon again).12
By then, arrangements were being made for his departure. He was to be accompanied by marshal of the palace Bertrand, General Drouot, his physician Dr Foureau de Beauregard, his treasurer Peyrusse, his valets Marchand, who had replaced Constant, and the Swiss Noverraz, and the Mameluke ‘Ali’, alias Saint-Denis. He was allowed to take a small contingent of his Guard to supplement the Corsican battalion he would find on Elba. After fierce competition between volunteers, around 600 grenadiers of the Old Guard had been selected, commanded by General Cambronne, and eighty Polish chevau-légers lancers under Colonel Jerzmanowski.
On 16 April Napoleon wrote to Josephine reassuring her that he was reconciled to his fate. ‘I will in my retirement substitute the pen for the sword. The story of my reign will be interesting; I have only been seen in profile, and I shall reveal myself entirely. How many things I have to tell. How many people of whom the public has a false opinion! … I have showered with favours thousands of wretches! What have they done for me at a moment like this? They have betrayed me, yes, all of them …’ He excepted Eugène, whom he believed to have remained loyal, and assured her that he would love her always and never forget her. His trust was misplaced. ‘It is all over,’ Josephine had written to Eugène on 8 April. ‘He is abdicating. As far as you are concerned, you are no longer bound by any oath of loyalty. Anything you might do on his behalf would be pointless. Look to your family.’ She and Hortense received Alexander to dinner at Malmaison, and Hortense even met Bernadotte.13
That evening, the four allied commissioners who were to escort him to Elba arrived at Fontainebleau, and he received them the following morning. Colonel Sir Neil Campbell represented Britain, Count Shuvalov Russia, General Franz Köller Austria and Count von Truchsess-Waldburg Prussia. Campbell, who had an informal meeting with him that evening, found him unshaven and dishevelled, and ‘in the most perturbed and distressed state of mind’. Tears poured down his face when he spoke of being separated from his wife and child, and he paced up and down the room ‘like a caged beast’.14
The next day, 20 April, he rose early and had a final conference with Maret, who was to stay behind and who would be his main correspondent in France. He then wrote to Caulaincourt, whom he had sent on a mission to Paris the previous day, thanking him for his loyal service. He also wrote a letter to Marie-Louise, which he handed to Bausset, who was to accompany her to Vienna, expressing his hope that once she had recovered and he was installed on Elba she would join him there.
He then received the commissioners. He was cool with the Russian, expressing anger at Alexander’s fawning over Josephine at Malmaison, saying it was an insult to him, and appearing jealous of the tsar’s popularity with the Parisians. He also protested at having to go to Elba without his wife and child, and stated that he would insist on being taken to captivity in England instead. He ignored the Prussian but was consistently polite with Köller, meaning to maintain the best possible relations with his father-in-law, and cordial with Campbell, as he had never quite shed his admiration for the British. He had demanded to be taken to Elba on a British ship, as he did not wish to place himself in the hands of the provisional government, with some reason.15
Just before midday he came down into the grand courtyard of Fontainebleau, in which the first regiment of grenadiers of the Old Guard was drawn up. Beyond, a crowd was gathered at the railings to catch sight of him for the last time. He made a short speech, reminding his men of the glory they had shared and asking them never to forget him. Saying he could not embrace them all, he embraced their colours and kissed the eagle that topped the shaft. Everyone, including the allied commissioners, was in tears. ‘Farewell, my children,’ he concluded. Captain Coignet ‘shed tears of blood’, while Colonel Paulin admitted that he ‘cried like a child who has lost his mother’.16
Napoleon climbed into his carriage, followed by Bertrand. He was in tears himself. The convoy of fourteen carriages drawn by sixty horses set off for the south coast, escorted by mounted chasseurs, cuirassiers and grenadiers of the Guard. Another convoy, consisting of baggage wagons and simple carriages, bearing furniture, furnishings, china, table silver and 695 books, under the supervision of Peyrusse and a skeleton staff, had been despatched already. The 700 or so troops who had volunteered to accompany their emperor into exile took a different route.17
Napoleon was cheered wherever they stopped to change horses, but after Valence, where they were received by a less than enthusiastic guard of honour, they entered traditionally royalist country. The French cavalry escort was to have been replaced by Austrians and Russians, but Napoleon had refused to be escorted by his enemies like a prisoner. On 24 April outside Valence he met Augereau, whose corps was stationed along the road. He went up to his old comrade-in-arms, removed his hat and embraced him, but the other only tipped his forage cap and did not return the embrace. They exchanged a few words, but Augereau showed no wish to prolong the encounter.18
At Orange they were met with shouts of ‘Vive le Roi!’ and stones were thrown at his carriage. At Avignon there was no more than a sullen crowd hissing, but at Orgon he and his party were treated to the sight of a dummy representing Napoleon in a uniform covered in red paint swinging from a gibbet with a placard saying that was how the tyrant would end up. The carriage was besieged by a crowd of people ‘drunk with hatred and some with wine’, in the words of Shuvalov, who, along with Köller and the powerfully-built Noverraz, fought them off with fists while Napoleon cowered in the carriage. The event had been orchestrated by local royalists, probably with the support of the authorities, and Shuvalov was convinced that it was only a matter of luck that Napoleon himself had not replaced the dummy on the gibbet.
Napoleon lost his nerve. Once they had left the town he stopped to relieve himself, then put on a blue cloak and a round hat with a white Bourbon cockade, mounted a horse and rode on ahead of the conspicuous convoy. When the commissioners caught up with him at an inn at La Callade, they found him slumped at a table with tears pouring down his face; he had not been recognised, and the innkeeper had told him that Napoleon was travelling down the road and would be lynched, as he deserved to be, being responsible for the deaths of her son and her nephew. Thereafter he wore Köller’s uniform, and an escort of Austrian hussars was provided.
The party stopped for the night at a château outside Le Luc, where Pauline was staying. The two siblings spent the evening together, and she promised to visit him on Elba. The journey continued without incident to Fréjus. On the evening of 28 April he boarded the British frigate HMS Undaunted, Captain Ussher, greeted by a twenty-one-gun salute. The Prussian and Russian commissioners took their leave, and only Campbell and Köller went aboard with him.19
The crossing took five days, and it was not until 3 May that the Undaunted arrived off Portoferraio, Elba’s principal port and town. The 245 square kilometres of rocky island, fifteen kilometres off the Tuscan coast, was not the most hospitable place, and its 12,000 inhabitants, who had been Napoleon’s subjects since 1802, were not well disposed – there had been minor revolts against French rule recently and some of the garrison had mutinied, so both Napoleon and the British officers accompanying him were nervous. The islanders had no inkling of recent events in France, but when they discovered the war was over and they were to host the great Napoleon, they assumed a golden era had dawned for them. They greeted him with all the pomp that an island port town of 3,000 inhabitants could muster.
The day after coming ashore, Napoleon was up at four in the morning inspecting the city’s defences, a presage of what was to follow; over the next few months he would apply himself to what he referred to as his ‘little cabbage-patch’, as he had to rebuilding France after 1799. He identified a suitable building, the Villa Mulini, for his ‘palace’, and had it refurbished and extended with another floor (to accommodate Marie-Louise and the King of Rome). He did the same to a smaller summer retreat in the hills, at San Martino. He designed a flag for his new kingdom, a white square with a left-to-right diagonal red band with three of his armorial bees on it. He set up a court under the marshal of the palace Bertrand, nominating chamberlains from among local notables, and a military establishment under General Drouot. Bertrand, a military engineer by profession, had been campaigning with him since the Egyptian expedition; he had succeeded Duroc in his charge and was utterly devoted. The same was true of Drouot, a talented gunner who had commanded the hundred-piece battery that had tipped the scales at Wagram.
Within a week of landing, Napoleon had scouted the whole island in detail. He set about making roads, which were almost entirely lacking, and from there went on to building aqueducts, organising drainage, sanitation, wheat cultivation, dictating letters on the subject of poultry farming, tuna fisheries and horticulture with the same concentration with which he had treated matters of state at the Tuileries. His principal collaborator was André Pons de l’Hérault, the director of the island’s only major resource, its iron mines. Pons was a former Jacobin and artillery officer whom Napoleon had met at Toulon in 1793; he was then twenty, and had treated Buonaparte to his first taste of the local speciality, bouillabaisse. Originally a supporter, he had disapproved of Napoleon’s assumption of the imperial title and become a declared enemy, but within a few weeks of working with him was won over and became one of his most devoted supporters. For Napoleon it was essential to get the mines working as efficiently as possible, since they were practically the only source of revenue of the barren island.
Money was a major preoccupation, and on reaching the island Napoleon had sat down with his treasurer Pierre Guillaume Peyrusse to take stock. Elba’s taxes brought in 100,000 francs a year, and the iron mines yielded no more than 300,000. That would barely pay for the administration of the island. Napoleon had brought with him 489,000 francs in his petite cassette. Peyrusse had managed to save 2,580,000 from the imperial treasury which had followed the Regency Council to Blois, and to bring it to Fontainebleau. Marie-Louise had withdrawn another 911,000 at Orléans and despatched it to her husband. But according to their calculations, the total of just under four million francs would not last beyond 1816, given that along with his own household Napoleon had to pay for the upkeep of military personnel totalling 1,592. Under the terms of the Treaty of Fontainebleau he was to receive an annual subsidy of two and a half million francs from the French government, but nobody was under any illusion that Louis XVIII, who had assumed the throne of France, would honour them.20
Napoleon would say to anyone he met that he was ‘dead to the world’, and he appeared content in the role of Lilliputian monarch. Although he held receptions and balls, receiving the wives of the local functionaries as though they had been those of French notables and the numerous tourists who called at the island (over sixty Britons alone dropped in as part of their Grand Tour) as though they had been visiting princes, he lived a quiet and, by his own admission, a very ‘bourgeois’ life. He felt the absence of female company keenly, and was anxious to have his wife and son join him. He kept writing, urging her to come, but she only received some of the letters he sent through trusted secret channels to Méneval, whom she had kept on as her secretary; those sent openly were confiscated. Letters from her only got through sporadically. At the end of June she was still declaring her intention to join him (by now it was clear that his brothers were not going to settle on Elba), but within a month she had succumbed to various pressures that changed her mind. One was that while the Treaty of Fontainebleau had awarded her the duchy of Parma, it was now clear that she would not be getting it, and the only way she could assure her future and that of her son was by staying close to her father at Vienna. Another was that an Austrian officer assigned to act as her equerry with a brief to dissuade her from going to Elba had been so successful as to become her lover (and, in time, husband). She was being urged to make a public declaration against Napoleon, and was gradually being worn down by various people telling her to be reasonable.21
At the beginning of June news reached him that Josephine had died at Malmaison. He was so upset that he would not see anyone for two days. But a few days later he received a rare mark of affection and loyalty when Jérôme’s wife, who was the daughter of the King of Württemberg, wrote asking him to stand godfather to the child she was carrying. ‘Circumstances can have no bearing on our feelings, and we will always take pride in regarding you, Sire, as the head of our family, and I, for myself, will never forget that Your Majesty never ceased to give us proofs of his friendship and that you made my happiness by uniting me with the King,’ she wrote. The arrival of Pauline at the beginning of July also cheered him; she only stayed for two days, but would be back for good in October. His mother arrived on 2 August and settled into a house close by the Villa Mulini, and they often dined together and played cards afterwards. She was the only person who dared confront him about his cheating, whereupon he would, according to Peyrusse, shuffle all the cards on the table around, scoop up the money and reply that he had played fair, but later hand it to his valet Marchand, who would give it back to its rightful owners. With the return of Pauline in October the little court grew merrier, although her hypochondria often put everyone to inconvenience. She also contrived to have the furniture from her husband’s palace at Turin brought to Elba, adding some splendour to the ‘palace’ of Mulini.22
At the beginning of September, Maria Walewska arrived with their son, accompanied by her younger sister Antonia and her brother Theodore Łączyński. Napoleon made elaborate plans to house them in an abandoned hermitage next to which he had erected a tent in which he occasionally spent the night. The party arrived at dusk on a small vessel which put into a quiet bay far away from Portoferraio, and were discreetly taken up to the hideaway, where Napoleon spent a couple of idyllic days playing with his son and visiting his mistress at night. But a small island is no place for secrets, and word soon got around that Marie-Louise and the King of Rome had arrived. The population grew excited, and Napoleon realised that if news of the visit were to leak out it would both scupper any remaining chances of Marie-Louise coming, and damage his reputation. So after two days the little party were smuggled off the island.23
Napoleon could not keep anything secret for long, as he was surrounded by spies. Talleyrand had a network of informers based in Livorno, with an agent in Napoleon’s household. The French government had another based on nearby Corsica, and another handled from the south of France. The British had one run by a former consul in the area, and Metternich had a formidable web of spies all over northern Italy which extended to the islands. Napoleon had his informers in Tuscany and on Corsica, and was the recipient of a great deal of information from sympathisers in France. He also gleaned much from visiting Britons.24
He knew of a number of plans by French royalists and government agents to remove or assassinate him, and felt dangerously exposed; the seas around were infested by pirates operating from North Africa for whom he would have constituted a rich prize, and this greatly facilitated anyone bent on landing in order to assassinate him. At one point he became so nervous that he slept in a different room every night. His contingent of grenadiers and lancers were a defence, but as it was now almost certain that the French government was not going to pay him his due, he would soon have to let them go, and then he would be defenceless. Colonel Campbell believed Napoleon was resigned to his fate, and warned his superiors in London that the only thing that might make him restive was lack of funds.25
Whether Napoleon was temperamentally capable of remaining the sovereign of a tiny island or not is academic, as the allies would not let him. Louis XVIII would not provide him with the means of support, and Francis had no intention of letting him see his daughter and grandchild again. To deprive a man of an income and the company of his wife and child is to deny him the basics of a settled life, and in this case it was also to rob him of his last remaining status symbol. The message was clear: he had been allowed to possess a princess as a conquering Attila, but now he had been defeated he was to be put in his place as the undesirable upstart he was. With a Habsburg princess at his side he had to be treated with a modicum of respect. Without, he could be treated as the allies wished.
From the moment they heard of Alexander’s gesture of giving him Elba, the allied ministers determined to remove him to a more remote place. The British had presciently weaselled out of ratifying the Treaty of Fontainebleau with a bizarre formula whereby they ‘took notice’ of it, even though Castlereagh had signed it along with the other ministers. The prime minister Lord Liverpool had already mooted the possibility of imprisonment on some more distant island, such as St Helena in the South Atlantic. By October 1814, as the ministers and monarchs gathered at Vienna for the peace congress that had been convoked to settle the affairs of Europe, it was no secret that they intended to move him; it had even been mentioned in the press. Napoleon brought up the matter with Campbell, protesting that lack of funds and the intentions of the Great Powers were making his position untenable.26
He was not the man to sit tight and wait to be assassinated or incarcerated, and he began considering his options. Short of evading the Royal Navy and making a dash for the United States, where he could settle as a private citizen, there was nowhere he could go. Only France seemed a possibility. He had never entirely accepted what had happened; when they met on his arrival at Portoferraio, he had spoken to Pons de l’Hérault of recent events as though they had nothing to do with him, and he appeared to have persuaded himself that if Marmont had not betrayed him he would still be emperor. In conversation with Campbell, he sometimes gave the impression that he was expecting to be called back to France at any moment.27
In royalist parts of the country the restoration of the Bourbons was welcomed; elsewhere it was accepted with varying degrees of relief and hope. But the behaviour of Louis XVIII, and particularly of his brother Artois and the émigrés who returned with them, soon began to offend. The hierarchy that had grown up to manage France over the past decade and a half was humiliated and often penalised, there were demands for property to be returned to its former owners, the Church began a religious crusade to recapture the soul of the country, and an atmosphere of hatred and revenge entered village as well as Paris life. The army was the object of particular vindictiveness, with men and officers being humiliated and retired on half-pay. Its glorious achievements were denigrated, its regiments renumbered, its colours changed. Within six months of recovering the throne, the Bourbons had alienated a considerable proportion of the population and almost the entire army.
Active and retired officers and men began to talk of the good old days, and to conspire to bring them back. News of this reached Napoleon, and a return to France presented itself as the only way to avoid being deported to a grim island prison. It was a gamble, but daring had always worked for him in the past, and his return from Egypt must have haunted his thoughts. He began taking note of the movement of the British ships on station in the area, and of the comings and goings of Campbell, who was acting as an informal gaoler, visiting the island for days at a time and then going off to mainland Italy. By the beginning of February 1815 Napoleon had made up his mind.
He repaired the French brig Inconstant, which he had inherited, and improved the seaworthiness of a number of smaller vessels, on which he surreptitiously loaded stores. He had his grenadiers lay out new gardens near the port, and invented excuses for his other troops to ready themselves. They received their order to embark on 26 February. It was a Sunday, and that morning at the lever he had informed those present of his plans, after which he heard mass as usual in a provincial simulacrum of the Saint-Cloud custom. His mother, who along with Pauline had been informed on the previous day, expressed severe reservations, but Napoleon ignored them. As his men marched down to the harbour, accompanied by the townsfolk, who had no idea what was happening but warmed to a spectacle, he prepared a proclamation to the troops and to the French people. In the evening he went down to the harbour and, after a brief speech to the local authorities who had assembled and who expressed grief at his departure, he went aboard.28