Vanished Kingdoms

by Norman Davies

  On arrival on Elba, Napoleon had declared ‘Ce sera l’île des repos’ (‘This will be the Isle of Relaxations’). He had been on the move, more or less non-stop, for twenty years. He had fought sixty major battles, criss-crossed the Continent from Madrid to Moscow, and had seen millions of men die. The break was welcome, but his health faltered. He put on weight and suffered from urine retention. He lavished attention on his residences, building an Egyptian room at the Palazzo Mulini and an ornamental garden at the Villa San Martino. In high summer he was particularly fond of the hermitage of La Madonna del Monte, whence he strolled around the hills and looked out over the sea to his native Corsica. His favourite viewpoint lay atop a rocky perch still known as the Sedia de Napoleone, ‘Napoleon’s Seat’.

  According to the leading nineteenth-century historian of the consulate and Empire, the exiled ex-emperor displayed fine qualities of character:

  His life was quiet and fulfilled, for it is in the nature of superior minds to know how to submit to the severities of fate, especially when deserved… His mother, tough and imperious, but very conscientious… enjoyed a place of honour… And Princess Pauline Borghese pushed friendship for her brother to the point of passion… She was the centre of a small company of people on the island, who… treated [Napoleon] as their sovereign. He showed himself to be gentle, well-mannered, serene and attentive. When his monarchical duties were done, he spent his time with Bertrand and Drouot, walking, or riding round the island, or sailing a canoe… He cherished the idea of writing a history of his reign, discussing the more controversial aspects of his career with great frankness. He often returned to the subject of the failed Peace of Prague*– the only mistake to which he readily admitted… He read the newspapers with a remarkable intellectual penetration, that helped him to find the truth among the thousand assertions of the journalists… According to him, the march of the French Revolution had only been halted for a moment… Further conflicts between [the supporters of ] the ancien régime and of the Revolution were to be expected; and they would provide the opening for him to reappear on the scene.62

  Plans for L’Envol de L’Aigle, ‘The Eagle’s Flight’, were veiled in secrecy. The Bonapartists in France had certainly not lost hope; and the return of thousands of French prisoners from Germany, Russia and Spain was feeding a large pool of trained but unemployed veterans. The freshly restored Bourbon king of France, Louis XVIII, was showing no talent, and had broken an undertaking to pay the ex-emperor a subsidy of 2 million francs. The Allied Powers had dropped their guard. Napoleon’s chief jailer, Sir Neil Campbell, instead of watching his charge, was in the habit of sailing over to Livorno for entertainment.

  A plot, therefore, could be hatched. Whether Napoleon was the instigator or the willing accomplice is immaterial. His troops trained for a journey. A sloop appeared off the coast during the night of 25/26 February 1815. In the morning, the escape route was open:

  Napoleon allowed the soldiers to continue their duties until midday, when they were given some soup. They were then assembled in the harbour with their arms and baggage… Although no one said that they were about to sail for France, they never doubted it, and broke into transports of indescribable joy! They were immensely excited by the prospect of… seeing France again, and of entering once more on the path of power and glory. And they filled the bay of Porto Ferraio with shouts of Vive l’Empereur! 63

  At the last moment, the ‘king of Elba’ stepped into a rowing boat to be ferried to the sloop and to seek his destiny once more. Landing near Antibes on the French Riviera, he set out on the road for Grenoble and Paris. Somewhere before Grasse, he passed the carriage of the prince of Monaco. ‘Where are you going?’ he enquired. ‘Chez moi,’ the prince replied. ‘Moi aussi,’ said Napoleon.64

  The Battle of Waterloo followed in June. The British army under the duke of Wellington was drawn up to the south of Brussels. The Prussians under Field Marshal Blücher were approaching from the east. Napoleon was confident of victory. His fellow exiles from Elba were with him. But finally the fortunes of war turned against them, and Napoleon quitted the field defeated. General Cambronne, gravely wounded, was lying in a pool of his own blood when called on to surrender by a British officer. According to the official version, he replied, ‘La Garde meurt, mais ne se rend pas’ (‘The Guard dies, but doesn’t surrender’). Rumour spread, however, that ‘le Mot de Cambronne’ was not meurt, but a different five-letter m-word. A hundred years later, French encyclopedias were still refusing to quote him exactly.65 ‘A mistake may be admitted after one day,’ it has been said; ‘if delayed, the truth will emerge after one century.’66 Bertrand would survive to accompany his master on the second exile.67 Drouot lived on, and was made famous by his great oration when Napoleon’s remains were interred in Les Invalides in 1840.68

  The subsequent fate of the main players in the drama of ‘Etruria’ can be shortly told. The Emperor Napoleon, of course, was shipped off to St Helena, whence he did not escape. By decree of the Congress of Vienna, his empress, Marie-Louise of Austria (1791–1847) – of whom he had said unkindly ‘Je marie un ventre’ (‘I am marrying a belly’) – was given the former Bourbon Duchy of Parma for life. Her son, the consumptive Aiglon or ‘Eaglet’ (1811–32), was raised and educated in Vienna, where he used the title of duke of Reichstadt; in the view of the Bonapartist purists, he was the Emperor Napoleon II. After his death the Napoleonic succession passed to the Aiglon’s uncles, first to Giuseppe and in 1844 to Luigi. Countess Maria Walewska, whom Napoleon last saw briefly on Elba, returned to Poland, divorced her husband and was remarried to one of Napoleon’s marshals, Count Philippe Antoine D’Ornano (1784–1863), another Corsican. Maintained by an estate near Naples, she died in 1817 leaving three sons from three different fathers, and some highly controversial memoirs. The handsome son born from her liaison with Napoleon, Alexander Florian Colonna-Walewski (1810–68), fled from service in the Russian army, emigrated to France, served in the Foreign Legion and rose under Napoleon III to be senator, duke and minister of foreign affairs. He married the daughter of Princess Poniatowski in Florence in 1846, resolutely insisting to the last that he was the son of his mother’s first husband.69

  The Grand Duchy of Tuscany, including Florence and Elba, was restored in 1815 to Ferdinando III of Habsburg-Lorraine, who returned to the Pitti Palace after an absence of fifteen years and found it in much better condition than when he had left it. He and his descendants reigned in Florence until 1859–60, when the French came back and the second Kingdom of Italy was formed (see Chapter 8). The former grand duchess of Tuscany, Elisa Buonaparte-Bacciochi, pregnant and still only thirty-eight, was arrested in March 1814 and spent some months in detention in Austria; she took up residence near Trieste, where she died prematurely from a contagious disease, predeceasing her imperial brother. Her husband, Félix Bacciochi, survived her by twenty-one years, but was buried alongside her in the Basilica of St Petronius in Bologna. Her daughter, Elisa Napoleone Bacciochi Levoy (1806–69), sometime princess of Piombino, became the duchess of Camerata by marriage, and her eldest brother, Giuseppe, sailed away to make a new life in the United States.70 Her ex-royal brother-in-law, Joachim Murat, who changed sides for a second time in 1815, ended up being executed by the post-war Neapolitan authorities. Fearless to the last, he put himself in command of the firing squad that killed him. ‘Soldats, faites votre devoir,’ he ordered; ‘Soldiers, do your duty. Aim straight at the heart, and spare the face. Fire!’71

  The dramatis persona of the story who recovered against the greatest odds was the ex-queen and ex-queen-regent of Etruria, Maria-Luisa. Resisting multiple misfortunes, she secured a future both for her children and for herself. The Congress of Vienna rewarded her with the Duchy of Lucca, where she replaced the deposed Bacciochi, and where a memorial now stands in the palace that was grandly restored under her guidance. She developed the port of Viareggio, and founded seventeen monasteries. Sadly, she lost the affection of her son, Charles-Louis/Carlo-Luigi (
1799–1884), once the boy-king of Etruria and known after 1815 as the ‘prince of Lucca’, who claimed to have been ruined by her ‘physically, morally and financially’. Despite strenuous efforts, she failed to find a new spouse for herself, but arranged her son’s marriage to a princess of Savoy, and that of her daughter, Marie-Louise-Charlotte (1802–57), to a prince of Saxony. She died of cancer in Rome in 1824, and her body was taken to the Escorial for burial beside her late husband. She is not short of biographers.72 Twenty-three years later, her thankless son succeeded to the Duchy of Parma after Napoleon’s ex-empress, and lived to a ripe old age.

  Of the people who had worked with her in Florence, Count Fossombroni resumed his earlier career as chief adviser to Grand Duke Ferdinando. Jean-Gabriel Eynard stayed on after 1807 to work for Grand Duchess Elisa. He then settled in Geneva, and became a pioneer of daguerreotype photography and one of Europe’s leading philhellenes; he was a co-founder of the Bank of Greece. General Clarke rose to be Napoleon’s minister for war; the Marquis de Beauharnais headed several Napoleonic embassies. General Menou died in service on leaving Florence. General Radet was made a baron of the Empire for his exploits in Italy, only to be court-martialled during the Restoration and to serve a four-year sentence of imprisonment.

  After Napoleon’s death, the surviving Buonaparti felt much more comfortable in Italy than anywhere else. ‘Madame Mère’ went from Elba to Rome with her daughter, Paolina Borghese, whom she outlived, and died at an advanced age in 1836, never having learned a word of French.73 Her personality was described by an English art collector, who met her in 1817, when he called to examine her brother’s pictures:

  The mother of Napoleon… resides with her brother, Cardinal Freschi, in the Palazzo Falcone. She was even said to have become a devotee… She affects none of the reserve of Lucien in certain matters, but speaks with tears in her eyes about the ex-emperor, displays the feeling of a mother in her language, and laments that he has not written since being on St Helena, fondly cherishing the hope that the English government would finally set him at liberty… Madame has evidently been a very fine woman; she still looks well with the aid of her toilette, and her manners are ever dignified. She appears a queen, and refutes those notions, so easily accredited in Britain, [about] the vulgar manners of the Bonaparte family.74

  The same art collector also records seeing ‘Papa Chiaromonti’, Pius VII, General Radet’s former prisoner:

  We have often met his Holiness taking his favourite walk near the Coliseum. His morning dress is a scarlet mantle, a scarlet hat with a very broad brim edged with gold, and scarlet stockings and shoes. When he is met by the Romans, they invariably fall on their knees, and he gives them his blessing. The British stand and take off their hats, and their bows are graciously returned… His Holiness’s carriage, which is a plain, crazy-looking machine drawn by six horses with riders in purple livery, always follows him.75

  Paolina, in contrast to her mother, became extravagant in her later years, insisting, it was said, on being carried to her bath by African slaves.76 Luciano, prince of Canino, the ex-Jacobin, also chose Rome, devoted himself to Etruscan archaeology and died in Viterbo in 1840.77 His son, Charles-Lucien Bonaparte (1803–57) became a zoologist and ornithologist of international fame, and compiled the first major survey of Italy’s natural fauna.78

  Camillo Borghese, the Roman prince, chose Florence over Rome. Long separated from Paolina, he spent seventeen peaceful years living by the Arno with his mistress and dabbling in Bonapartist plots. For a brief period, when Paolina was mortally sick, Pope Leo XII persuaded him to take in his dying wife. He never left Florence, and both he and Paolina were laid to rest in the Borghese Chapel at the Roman church of Santa Maria Maggiore. Carolina Buonaparte-Murat, the ex-queen of Naples, was the subject of scandalous rumours during the Congress of Vienna about her alleged dalliance with Prince Metternich. It is more certain that Talleyrand said of her, ‘she has Cromwell’s head on the shoulders of a pretty woman.’ (‘Cromwell’s head’ presumably meant ruthless brains.) She moved to Florence in 1830 with her second husband, Francis Macdonald, residing in the Palazzo di Annalena on the Via Romana. A cenotaph in her memory stands by the Murat family tomb in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.79 Giuseppe, the eldest brother and sometime king of Naples and of Spain, sailed back from the United States to settle in Florence too, and died there in 1844.80 Girolamo Bonaparte, the youngest brother and erstwhile king of Westphalia, lived in Florence with his third wife until 1853 before moving to Paris as a ‘prince imperial’ under the Second Empire.81 Luigi, the ex-king of Holland, who was expelled from his much-loved kingdom by Napoleon and dispossessed by the Restoration, formally renounced French citizenship and spent the second half of his life abroad. But he, too, found his way to Tuscany and died in Livorno.82 Ironically, it was Luigi’s son, Charles Louis-Napoleon (1803–73), who finally inherited the Bonapartist mantle, climbed the political ladder and emerged as the Emperor Napoleon III.83 Except for his aunt Carolina, who had once sought brief asylum in Ajaccio when Murat was on the run,84 no single member of the Buonaparte clan ever returned to Corsica.

  Nabuleone, Giuseppe and Girolamo were buried in the Parisian Invalides. They were joined in 1940 by the Aiglon, whose remains were sent to Paris from Austria with the compliments of Adolf Hitler. In some people’s eyes, as veterans of the French service, they rightly belong there. Yet they and their kin were all, in essence, outsiders – as the French might say unkindly, des intrus, or as their mother would have said, intrusi.

  III

  So who cares to remember the Kingdom of Etruria? Not the Italians, for whom it occurred during a period of national humiliation. It barely gets a mention in the Museo Napoleonico in Rome.85 Not the French either, for whom it was a far-away, dead-end episode; nor the Spaniards, for whom the Napoleonic era is both painful and embarrassing. And certainly not the Florentines, who have so many more uplifting things to remember. The answer, therefore, is ‘not many’. Historians who study Italy in the early nineteenth century do so to ‘the almost total exclusion of the direct and indirect impact of the French Revolution’.86 One interested party (one imagines) is the Bourbon family, which has survived intermittently on the throne of Spain and whose followers maintain a thriving genealogical industry.87 Apart from them, there is only the occasional Bonapartist pilgrim, and the faithful readers of nonconformist historians. Elba is for ever associated with Napoleon. Florence is not.

  Yet a ‘Napoleonic Tour’ of Florence and Tuscany might prove a worthy addition to those already operating. Day 1 could start at the Piazza della Signoria, to see if anyone among the admirers of Michelangelo’s David has heard of the Albero della Libertà or of Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker. An extended stop at the Pitti Palace, where Napoleon met the grand duke of Tuscany, could concentrate on the contrasting management styles of the queen-regent of Etruria and of Grand Duchess Elisa Bacciochi. A short trip out to the beautiful Certosa di Galluzzo, where two popes were held prisoner, would serve as a reminder of the ingrained coercion of Napoleonic regimes. In the evening, there is time to drive down the Val d’Arno to the ruined castle at Fuccechio and the church at San Miniato, whose hillside perches face each other across the valley. San Miniato del Tedesco, to give its full name, once an imperial residence on the pilgrim route to Rome, where Napoleon met the Abbé Filippo Buonaparte, is a good place to stay overnight. The Torrione Tower was the scene of the suicide of Pier della Vigna, secretary to Emperor Frederick II, as recounted in Dante’s Inferno;88 the Palazzo Buonaparte still stands in the town square and a copy of Napoleon’s death mask is on display nearby.89 The best time to visit is mid-November, when one can combine historical explorations with the Mostra Mercato Nazionale del Tartufo Bianco (‘National Commercial Fair of the White Truffle’).90 Truffle-based recipes can be sampled at the Ristorante Accademia degli Affidati on the Piazza Napoleone.91

  Day 2 starts with a gentle downhill trip to Lucca, where the palace is stocked not only with more memories o
f Elisa and Maria-Luisa but with many art treasures. In the afternoon, one sails across the strait on the ferry from Piombino to Portoferraio on Elba, admires the Villa San Martino and finishes with the steep climb above Marciana to a well-deserved rest at La Madonna del Monte. Sunset over the sea, as viewed from the Sedia de Napoleone, provides the finest of settings for thoughts on the fickleness of fortune both for individuals and for kingdoms.

  On this issue, both Dante and Machiavelli have much to say. Machiavelli regards Fortune as the creator of opportunities, which some men exploit to their advantage and others neglect at their cost. The important thing is for a ruler to be flexible, adaptable and enterprising. ‘It is better to be bold than timid and cautious,’ he wrote, ‘because Fortune is a woman, and the man who wants to control her must treat her roughly.’92