Marie Louise, the island of Elba, and the hundred days

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I. The Return of Marie Louise to Austria 1

II

napoleon's arrival at the island of ELBA.

MARIE LOUISE crossed the frontier of France for the last time, May 2, 1814. On the following day Napoleon reached Elba on the English frigate Undaunted. He had not been free from disquieting thoughts concerning his probable reception there. Would the French garrison, commanded by General Dalesme, the governor of the island, deliver up to him the territory they guarded? Among the islanders there were some who wished to be called English ; others who desired to be free from any master. On several promontories might be seen floating, almost side by side, the white flag and the tricolor.

Toward nightfall on May 3 the Undaunted neared Porto-Ferrajo and hove to about a quarter of a league from the town. A few minutes later she put off a small boat containing General Drouot, the Emperor's commissary, Count Klamm, and Lieutenant Smith. They were the bearers of an order from the French government, directing General Dalesme to deliver his command to General Drouot, together with the island, the forts, and all munitions of war. The

12 ELBA, AND THE HXJNBBED BAYS.

latter, on landing, received from General Dalesme the keys of the town, the forts, and three hundred and twenty-five cannon.

This accomplished, General Dalesme went on board the English frigate, accompanied by all the local authorities, who were anxious to present themselves to their new sovereign. Napoleon questioned them concerning the island and its inhabitants and then dismissed them, after having ordered the sub-prefect to convoke the mayors and the parish priests. The population of Porto-Ferrajo, convinced that the Emperor had brought great treasures with him, had already assembled in the public square, and were impatiently awaiting their illustrious monarch. But at eleven o'clock, Napoleon, having tacked about the island, caused General Dalesme to be informed that his formal entry would be deferred to the afternoon of May 4.

On the morning of that day the following proclamation of General Dalesme was found posted on the walls of Porto-Ferrajo : —

"Inhabitants of the island of Elba: the vicissitudes natural to humanity have brought the Emperor Napoleon hither; his choice has given him to you as sovereign. Before entering these walls, your new and august monarch addressed to me the following words, which I hasten to make known to you, because they are the pledge of your future happiness : ' General, I have sacrificed my rights to the interests of my country, reserving to myself, with the consent of

NAPOLEON'S ABBIVAL AT ELBA. 13

all the Powers, the sovereignty and ownership of the Island of Elba. Be so good as to make the people acquainted with the new state of affairs, and the choice I have made of their island for my residence ; I have selected it on account of the mildness of their manners and their climate. Tell them that they will always be the object of my most lively interest.' — Elbans ! there is no need of comment on these words. They fix your destiny. The Emperor has judged you rightly. I owe you this justice, and I render it. People of Elba, I shall soon leave you. My departure will pain me, for I love you sincerely ; but the thought of your happiness will sweeten my sorrow, and in whatever place I may be I shall remain near this island in spirit, through my memory of the virtues of its inhabitants and the wishes I shall form for them."

By noon the troops were under arms, and the authorities assembled at the wharf. The Emperor's landing at three o'clock was announced by a salute of twenty-one guns from the English frigate and as many from the guns of the fortress. Napoleon was at once harangued by the authorities of the island, and he responded very nearly in these words : —

" The mildness of your climate, and the romantic scenery of your island, have decided me to choose it, among all my vast domains, for the place of my abode. I hope that you will know how to appreciate this preference, and that you will love me like submissive children; you will then find me always disposed to have for you the solicitude of a father."

As soon as Napoleon had finished this little speech, three violinists and two violoncellists who accompanied the Elban officials began to play ; the Emperor placed himself under a canopy, and was conducted in procession to the church, where the Te Deum was intoned. Strange irony of fate — the fallen sovereign of an immense empire causing the Te Deum to be chanted because he has lost all his dominions except the Island of Elba !

The ceremony ended, Napoleon went to the town hall, where he was to lodge. The hall which was ordinarily used for public balls had been ornamented with a few little pictures and some chandeliers. In the middle of it a throne had been hastily erected, and decorated with gilded paper and fragments of scarlet cloth. Many of the crowd that followed the sovereign were allowed to enter. He urged the mayors to maintain order in their communes, and the pastors to preach concord among their flocks. Then the new colors were hoisted, as we learn from the subjoined official report : —

'^ To-day, May 4, 1814, His Majesty the Emperor Napoleon, having taken possession of the Island of Elba, General Drouot, governor of the island in the name of the Emperor, raised the new flag above the forts ; a white ground crossed diagonally with a red band sown with three bees upon a ground of gold. This standard was saluted by the batteries of the coast forts, the English frigate Undaunted, and the French men-of-war which were in the harbor. In

NAPOLEON'S ABBIVAL AT ELBA. 15

witness whereof, we, commissioners of the Allied Powers, together with General Drouot and General Dalesme, have signed this report."

The next morning Napoleon went out on foot at five o'clock to visit all the public institutions. He did not come in until nine o'clock, having overwhelmed with questions every one he met. He commanded various alterations. He would have liked to transform the barracks of Saint Francis at once into a palace wherein he might take up his residence. On May 6, he started very early to go and see the mines at Rio. He examined everything with scrupulous attention, and gave great praise to the director of the mines. He was occupying himself as diligently with an island twenty leagues in circumference and containing twelve thousand inhabitants, as he had done with the gigantic empire which extended from Rome to Dantzic. The same day, with a view to gaining the affections of the Elbans, he contributed sixty thousand of francs toward the construction of roads long contemplated, but never begun for want of funds. He possessed this sum in uncoined gold, and he had it minted, in order that his generosity might produce a greater effect when his servants carried it in sacks across the town. Nobody talked of anything but his immense treasures and the prodigies he was going to perform. The people were enthusiastic for their new sovereign : he inflamed their southern imaginations.

On May 6, the Vicar-General Arrighi issued a charge which resembles a hymn of thanksgiving : —

16 ELBA, AND THE RUNDBED DAYS.

" To my well-beloved in the Lord, my brethren of the clergy, and all the faithful of the island, health and benediction. Divine Providence, which in its benevolence irresistibly disposes all things, and assigns their destinies to nations, has willed that in the midst of the political changes of Europe, we should become for the future the subjects of Napoleon the Great. The Island of Elba, already celebrated for its natural productions, will hereafter become illustrious in the history of nations by the homage it renders to its new Prince, whose glory is immortal. The Island of Elba, in fact, takes rank among nations, and its narrow territory is ennobled by the name of its sovereign. Raised to so sublime an honor, it receives in its bosom the Anointed of the Lord, and the other distinguished personages who accompany him. . . . What wealth is about to inundate our country ! What multitudes will hasten from all parts to gaze upon the hero I The first day that he set foot upon this shore he proclaimed our destiny and our happiness. ' / will be a good father,'' said he ; 'he my beloved children.'' Dear Catholics, what words of tenderness ! What expressions of good-will ! What a pledge of your future felicity ! May these words charm your thoughts delightfully and be strongly imprinted in your souls; they will prove an inexhaustible source of consolation ! "

Never had Napoleon been more lauded in the days of his greatest splendor. May 7, he removed to the building intended for the military engineers, ceding

NAPOLEON'S ABRIVAL AT ELBA. 17

to its officers, until they should depart, the rooms he had occupied at the town-hall. The building was only one story high, with six front windows ; but it was isolated, had a pretty garden, and commanded views of the city and the sea. From among the citizens he chose four chamberlains, giving them salaries of twelve hundred francs ; three orderlies ; and two stewards of the palace. This little court of Porto- Ferrajo bore small resemblance to the splendid court of the Tuileries.

The Emperor announced that he would receive ladies twice a week, at eight o'clock in the evening, and they accepted this flattering invitation. Napoleon made his appearance among them, and asked each the name and profession of her husband. Most of them replied that they were engaged in commerce. The Emperor desired to know what branch of commerce.. One was a baker; another a butcher; and so on. Chateaubriand says : " Bonaparte was continually returning throughout his life, to the two sources whence it sprang, democracy and royal power. His power came to him from the masses of the people ; his rank from his genius. So one sees him pass without effort from the public square to the throne ; from the kings and queens who thronged about him at Erfurt, to the butchers and oil-sellers who danced in his grange at Porto-Ferrajo."

From the 7th of May to the 25th, the Emperor busied himself with the repairs on his house, and in fencing the approaches to it. He superintended the work himself ; by five o'clock in the morning he was among the masons in buckles and silk stockings. On May 25, arrived the frigate Dryade^ commanded by Vicomte de Moncabri^, and the brig Inconstant^ commanded by Vicomte de Charrier-Moissard. The frigate was to take back the French garrison from the island, and the brig to remain for Napoleon.

Before the departure from Fontainebleau, General Drouot had chosen for the Emperor among the Old Guard, all of those ready to follow their sovereign, something like six hundred grenadiers and foot-soldiers, one hundred cavalry-men, and a score or so of marines; in all, seven hundred and eighty picked men. Having marched from Fontainebleau to Savona, these brave and faithful soldiers embarked on five English transports, and landed at Porto-Ferrajo, in the night of May 25-26, 1814. Their arrival caused Napoleon great joy. At the sight of them he felt all his ambition and military ardor rekindle. Chateaubriand, in his Memoires d^oiitre-tomhe, has remarked : " The Allied Powers felicitated themselves on having left him, in derision as it were, a few hundred soldiers ; he needed no more than that to summon all Europe once more to arms." To his little band the Emperor added sixty Poles whom he sent for from Parma ; moreover, just as the two French battalions of the 35th Light Infantry were about to take ship for France, he announced that he would keep with him as many as, having been released from military service, would consent to enroll themselves under

NAPOLEON'S ARRIVAL AT ELBA. 19

his flag. He managed in this way to retain about three hundred, nearly all Corsicans. He further added some three hundred Elbans to his little army, and thus found himself at the head of fifteen hundred soldiers. He organized a vigilant police throughout the island and made an excellent place of Porto- Ferrajo. The town was no longer recognizable. Workmen of all trades established themselves there. Foreigners flocked in, drawn either by curiosity or the hope of speculating to advantage. The price of all wares doubled ; rents rose to extravagant figures. General Bertrand wrote, May 27, 1814, to M. de M^neval : " The Emperor is very happy here, and seems to have entirely forgotten how different^ he was situated a short time ago. He is very busy adorning and furnishing his house, and in finding a site for a country-seat. We often speak of our excellent Empress." And again, June 25 : " We learn from the newspapers that the Empress has arrived at Vienna. The Emperor continues well. We go about a good deal on horseback, as well as in boats and carriages. The Emperor's dAvelling is already much improved, and others are being arranged in various places throughout the island. We hope soon to receive news from the Empress and the Prince her son."

Napoleon was still under the delusion that liis wife and son would rejoin him at Elba in a few weeks, and this hope delighted him. On June 26, the imperial guard gave an entertainment to the inhabitants.

There was a ball, at which the Emperor made his appearance, and walked about the room, chatting with and questioning the ladies, as he had done at the Tuileries.

On the whole, the time which Napoleon passed at Elba was not unhappy. After so many emotions, he needed some repose. A delightful climate, the seaviews, the language of the people, which was his mother tongue, the battalions of his Old Guard, the fanatical devotion of his attendants, who were ready to shed the last drop of their blood for him, — all this was not without charm. He gave his little island the same solicitous care that he had given his immense empire. Does not a captain occupy himself with his company as fully as a commander-inchief with his army? The interest one takes in things is not measured by their importance. A laborer often loves his thatched hut more than a sovereign does his palace. Napoleon regarded himself as spending the season at Elba, so to say, and had a presentiment that some day or other he would leave it. Moreover, he experienced a malicious pleasure in following attentively the mistakes the Bourbons were making ; and to read the French journals gave him infinite joy. It was all very well for him to say, as he sometimes did, that, as a philosopher weaned from human grandeur, he wished to live hereafter like a justice of the peace in an English shire. But one morning, when, on climbing a knoll which overlooks Porto-Ferrajo, he beheld the sea

NAPOLEON'S ARRIVAL AT ELBA. 21

breaking at the foot of the cliffs on every side, he could not refrain from exclaiming, '' The devil ! It must be owned, my island is small enough ! "

At bottom he was tired neither of war nor of glory; and the ambitious sovereign of the Island of Elba, in his pretended retreat, resembled neither Diocletian in the gardens of Salona, nor Charles Fifth in the convent of Saint- Just.

III. Queen Marie Caroline

WHILE Napoleon was getting settled on the Island of Elba, Marie Louise was resuming, at Schoenbrunn, the habits of her childhood and early youth. The life she led in this peaceful retreat must have been agreeable after so many tumults. Her mornings were devoted to her son, whose apartment communicated with her own, through a dressingroom. During the day, she drew, practised music, and studied Italian, a language she would need at Parma ; she rode ; she walked or drove in the park of Schoenbrunn or its suburbs ; she visited the curiosities of Vienna. Silent and respectful crowds always showed themselves eager to see her ; and the beauty of her son, who was the most charming child in the world, excited general admiration. She took great pleasure in the company of her young sisters : Leopoldine, born in 1797 (future Empress of Brazil) ; Marie Clementine, born in 1798 (future Princess of Salerno) ; Caroline Ferdinande, born in 1801 (future Princess of Saxe) ; Marie Anne, born in 1804 (future Abbess of the Chapter of the Noble Ladies of Prague). 22

QUEEN MARIE CABOLINE. 23

She saw her brothers very often also : Ferdinand, the Prince Imperial, born in 1793; and Francis Charles Joseph, born in 1802. This Prince, who was the father of the present Emperor of Austria, was the playmate of the King of Rome, now called the Prince of Parma.

The saddle and carriage horses, state carriages, and wagons laden with the private property of Marie Louise, which had left Rambouillet under the escort of Austrian troops, reached Vienna in June. Among the saddle horses was an Arabian which had been Napoleon's favorite mount. Some one proposed that the Emperor of Austria should use it when he made his ceremonious entry into Vienna, but he had the good taste to decline this sort of triumph.

Marie Louise was awaiting her father with impatience. She had seen him last at Rambouillet, and in him were centred all her hopes. Early in the morning of June 15, 1814, she left Schoenbrunn to meet him. She stopped at Siegartskirchen, two leagues from Vienna. She had been preceded by her brothers and sisters and her step-mother. She received her father at the station, in the same room where Napoleon, in 1805, had received the deputation which brought him the keys of Vienna. The Emperor Francis got into his daughter's carriage, and went with her to Schoenbrunn. He left her under no illusions concerning the kind of protection he meant to give her. "As my daughter," he said frankly, "all that I have is yours; as a sovereign I do not know you." The next day he made his triumphal entry into his capital, where he had not been since the last war. He passed through all its streets amidst joyful acclamations. The procession lasted five hours, and ended at the cathedral of Saint Stephen, where a Te Beum was intoned. Then the Emperor returned to Schoenbrunn with Marie Louise. The entire family of the former Empress of the French conspired to alienate her from her husband. There was but one among her relatives who sought to recall her to sentiments of duty. This was her grandmother, Marie Caroline, the Queen of the Two Sicilies, who had but just arrived at Vienna. She was the daughter of the great Empress Maria Theresa, and the sister of Marie Antoinette, the unfortunate Queen of France. Prolific, like her illustrious mother, she had borne eighteen children, among whom was Marie Th^r^se, the second wife of the Emperor Francis and the mother of the Empress Marie Louise. The life of Queen Marie Caroline had been full of vicissitudes. Courageous to heroism, energetic to cruelty, religious to superstition, autocratic to despotism, her existence was crowded with revolutions, troubles, and crises of every description. Born August 8, 1752, she married, on April 7, 1768, Ferdinand IV., King of the Two Sicilies, who began to reign in 1759. In 1800 she came to Vienna, to be near her daughter and her son-in-law. She remained two years, seeking with all her might to augment, if that were possible, the hatred felt

QUEEN MABIE CABOLINE. 25

towards France and French ideas by the court, the aristocracy, and the whole Austrian people.

When she heard of Bonaparte's victory at Marengo, Marie Caroline lost consciousness, and nearly died of apoplexy. She detested France as heartily as she did Napoleon. The Revolution had slain her sister, and the Empire had robbed her of the throne of Naples. There was one man, however, for whom her aversion was even greater than for Napoleon. She was probably the first to perceive, in 1813, that Murat was inclined to abandon France, and seek an alliance with Austria. She was then reigning with her husband in Sicily, under the domination of the English, whom she regarded rather as tyrants than as protectors. At this time she was half inclined to seek a reconciliation with Napoleon, and she sent an agent to Vienna to warn the French ambassador of the approaching defection of Murat.

In 1814 there were, singularly enough, two queens of the Two Sicilies, each of them named Caroline — one the sister of Marie Antoinette, the other the sister of Napoleon ; and at this epoch, the most Napoleonic of the two was not Murat's wife. Nor is it less strange that, when these two women were struggling with equal fury for the throne of Naples, Prince Metternich was far more favorable to Caroline the sister of Napoleon, than to Caroline the Hapsburg, who had been the mother-in-law of his sovereign, the Emperor of Austria. The monarch of Elba must have been more than a little surprised if he learned

26 ELBA, AND THE HUNBBED BAYS.

wlio it was that befriended him with most energy, and was alone in exhorting his wife to remain faithful to her conjugal duty.

Marie Louise remembered having seen her grandmother when she was a child, and was glad to meet her again. The old Queen's journey had been a veritable adventure. Accompanied by a few faithful attendants, she had stolen away from Sicily, which her hatred of the British domination made her consider as a prison. So fearful was she of being arrested by one or other of the English vessels crowding the harbors of Malta and the Adriatic, that she hastened through the Archipelago and never stopped until she reached Constantinople. After resting there a few days, she crossed the Bosphorus, entered the Black Sea, and landed at Odessa after a long and perilous voyage. From there she went to Vienna, proposing to employ every means in her power to dethrone Murat and repossess herself of the Kingdom of Naples.

Queen Marie Caroline installed herself in the little castle of Hetzendorf, which communicated by an avenue with the park of Schoenbrunn. She saw Marie Louise and the little King of Eome, her greatgrandchild, constantly. Not only did she show extreme affection for them both, but she was very gracious to all the French who made part of the household of Marie Louise. Baron de Meneval says of Marie Caroline : " This Princess, who had been Napoleon's declared enemy during the time of his

QUEEN MARIE CAROLINE. 27

prosperity, and whose opinion could not be suspected of partiality, professed a high esteem for his great qualities. Learning that I had been his secretary, she sought occasions to talk with me about him. She said he had formerly given her great reason to complain; that he had wounded her pride ('for I was fifteen years younger, then,' she added) ; but that now, since he was unfortunate, she had forgotten all. She could not restrain her indignation at the manoeuvres by which they were trying to detach her grandchild from the ties which were her glory, and thus deprive the Emperor of the sweetest consolation he could receive after the immense sacrifices exacted from his pride. She added that if their reunion was forbidden, Marie Louise should tie her sheets to the window and escape in disguise. ' That is what I would do in her place,' said she; 'for when one is married, it is for life.' "

After quoting these words, M. de Meneval goes on to say : " But such a bold act, which would have had an attraction for the daring spirit of the old Queen, agreed neither with the character of Marie Louise, nor with her ideas of decorum. Besides, she had begun to be pleased with the thought of going presently to Parma, where she would be her own mistress and free to go and come as she chose." At this time, however, she was not yet under the influence of Count Neipperg; and as she had not given up the idea of going to visit Napoleon now and then at Elba, she listened with a certain sympathy to the

28 ELBA, AND THE HUNBBED DATS.

counsels of her grandmother concerning conjugal fidelity.

Baron de Bausset observes that there was at this moment a likeness between the positions of these two dethroned sovereigns, one of whom was claiming the Duchy of Parma and the other the Kingdom of Naples. More vivacious and ardent than her granddaughter, Marie Caroline seemed greatly irri- .tated by the legal obstructions put in her way by all the Powers, not excepting Austria. " I do not know," adds M. de Bausset, " whether to attribute the fact to her vexation at the circumspect Austrian diplomacy, or simply to her natural politeness and the sympathy she thought it her duty to feel for the innocent victim of a greater political convulsion than that of which she complained and which she had, in fact, provoked. In any case, it is certain that she had sufficient greatness of soul to appreciate the fidelity and devotion of those who had followed the fortunes of her granddaughter. Even in speaking of Napoleon, though she did so with the frankness of an enemy, yet it was that of an enemy not blind to his great qualities. Convinced by all the Empress said, that the Emperor had always treated her with the utmost kindness, and that she had been overwhelmed with the most touching and tender solicitude, the Queen of Sicily prevailed on her to wear again a portrait of Napoleon which her timidity had caused her to hide away in a jewel-case. Nor did she fail to ^e most amiable and caressing to the young Napoleon, though

QUEEN MARIE CAROLINE. 29

he was her enemy's son." M. de BaiLsset says very justly that such conduct displayed as much intelligence as delicacy.

Marie Louise and her grandmother, Queen Marie Caroline, were together only a few weeks. The Empress went to Aix, in Savoy, June 29, 1814, to take the baths. They were never to meet again. On September 7 the old Queen went to bed, feeling very well. Tavo hours later she was found dead, with her right hand extended to the bell-rope she had been unable to reach, and her mouth half-open, as if she had vainly tried to call for assistance. A stroke of apoplexy had put a sudden term to her troubled career.

Baron de La Tour-du-Pin, then the French Minister at Vienna, communicated the news to Prince Talleyrand in a despatch dated September 8, 1814: " I have the honor to inform you that the Queen of Naples had an attack of apoplexy during the night, which carried her off instantly. The Princess had never been in better health. That very morning Count de Preville, formerly an officer of the French navy, and now attached to that of the King of the Two Sicilies, had arrived here from Parma. He brought news from the King which fully satisfied the Queen. She approved the applications he had^ made to the Austrian court. The Queen kept M. de Preville with her all day, and chatted about Sicily and all her affairs with her usual vivacity. She sent him away at ten o'clock, and went to bed; at midnight, the maid who slept near her, hearing a slight movement, asked if she needed anything, and, receiving no answer, she rose, and found that the Queen was already dead."

She was buried at Vienna, with great pomp. Baron de La Tour-du-Pin wrote to Prince Talleyrand, September 14, 1814: "The obsequies of the Queen of Naples took place on the 10th; the Mass was celebrated on the 12th. The whole imperial family assisted at it, with the exception of the Empress. The Diplomatic Corps was not invited, as it is not customary. I thought, however, that the French Minister could hardly allow this circumstance to interfere with his giving some more particular mark of interest than was due from others, and I was present at the funeral. It seemed to me that they were pleased with this attention. Prince Leopold's sorrow has been most touching to everybody. On the day of his mother's death he sent a messenger to Madame the Duchess of Orleans [Marie Amdlie, daughter of Marie Caroline and wife of Louis Philippe], by whom the news was doubtless carried more quickly than by the one I sent Your Highness."

Marie Louise heard of her grandmother's death with great pain. In spite of the short time they had spent together, her sorrow was deep and keen. With Marie Caroline disappeared one of the most singular figures of the century.

IV. Isiaeie Louise At Aix In Sayoy

MARIE LOUISE left Schoenbmnn, June 29, 1814, to take the baths at Aix in Savoy. She had found it somewhat difficult to obtain her father's permission to undertake a journey which must have appeared strange. In 1814 Savoy still belonged to France, and the former Empress of the French was going to live simply as a private person in a town whose sovereign she had been only three months before. Napoleon felt strongly the singularity of this proceeding. General Bertrand wrote to M. de M^neval from Porto-Ferrajo, July 3, 1814: "If the Empress has waited at Vienna for an answer to her letter, the Emperor desires that she should not go to Aix ; if she is already there, that she should not remain more than one season, and that she should return as soon as may be to Tuscany, where there are baths which have the same properties as those of Aix. They are nearer to us and to Parma, and the Empress could have her son there with her. When M. Corvisart recommended the waters of Aix, he was reasoning as if the Emperor and she were still