by Mark Braude
The Cabinet noir, France’s postal censors, intercepted an unsigned letter from Portoferraio to Jean-Baptiste Dumoulin, the son of a wealthy glove-maker in Grenoble, thanking him for the information he’d provided. Later, another anonymous letter was discovered, which spoke of an impending escape and also mentioned the help of a confederate in Grenoble. Talleyrand read a report about a secret ceremony in which the members of an army regiment had burned the eagle standard they had once proudly waved under Napoleon’s command and swept the ashes into goblets of wine so they could toast to their emperor in exile.
French officials did little to investigate these leads. There had been so much noise over the past months, so many conflicting reports and unsubstantiated chatter, that it was as though every fresh piece of intelligence canceled out some other piece. Information from Elba flowed from different sources at different times, to many different points: to Mariotti, to Talleyrand, to Beugnot and then to Beugnot’s successor as head of police, Antoine d’André, to Dupont, and sometimes directly to Louis XVIII himself. No single overarching system guided the French operation, leading to the siloing of information that hindered any single official from getting a proper sense of what was really happening on Elba. Beugnot, for instance, received reports directly from a young clerk of Swiss origin known as Agent no. 50 who had infiltrated the Mulini, where his brother served as a footman, but Mariotti never learned about this agent, who in any case reported that he was too closely watched to learn anything significant and whose suspicious arrival soon led to his brother’s dismissal.
Besides which, it seemed too unlikely and illogical that Napoleon would actually want to leave Elba, let alone convince hundreds of others that he was capable of landing on the mainland without getting them all killed. And even if anyone in France had felt a true sense of urgency, they would have struggled to properly mobilize because the various parts of the sprawling Bourbon bureaucracy had yet to coalesce into a coherent whole. Louis XVIII did, however, authorize a naval patrol of the Tuscan archipelago, detaching two ships, the Fleur de Lys and the Melpomène, which were on course to begin sailing near Elba by early February.
French officials were in some ways correct in refusing to put much stock into the various reports they fielded. There were indeed plenty of isolated pledges by soldiers gathered in cafés and inns, and a great deal of bold talk, often fueled by alcohol, in favor of Napoleon, or at least in disfavor of the Bourbons. And some Bonapartist supporters did meet secretly to hypothesize his return. The young Dumoulin of Grenoble did reportedly visit Elba and helped disseminate Bonapartist propaganda, and may have sent Napoleon information about the kind of reception he would get in Grenoble if he ever returned to France. But there was never really any large-scale or organized plan in France to actively bring Napoleon back to power, no widespread conspiracy to discover, regardless of what people claimed after the fact.
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THE BOURBON REGIME was meanwhile stumbling. There was simply too much to accomplish, too short a time span in which to do it before people lost patience, and not enough talent necessary to pull off such a gargantuan feat. As a historian of the restoration summarized:
To bind up the wounds of war; to rebuild the house of France from the ruins of the great European Empire; to fit the old monarchical, patriarchal, theocratic, and feudal institution into the new Napoleonic, national, secular, administrative state; to balance the new society emerging from the Revolution with the old privileged classes who intended to reoccupy their places along with the king—all of this was a superhuman and infinitely delicate task, which would have required for lack of a brilliant monarch, a council of exceptional ministers. The misfortune of the Restoration was that it had to undertake this work with mediocre princes and a weak and heterogeneous government team.
Writers in the French press grew more hostile toward the government, though they waged their attacks in a roundabout way since the regime had tightened censorship laws that summer. Most often this meant poking fun at the pretensions of the nobility as a whole, as in the popular caricatures chronicling the misadventures of the courtiers Lord Gullible, Lord Bluster, and Lord City-Snob. A more pointed critique came from Lazare Carnot, famed revolutionary and Napoleon’s former minister of war, who sold more than sixty thousand copies of his Petition to the King in July 1814, which advised anyone wanting to be received at court:
Be careful not to say you are one of the twenty-five million citizens who defended their country with considerable courage against enemy invasions, because they will answer that these twenty-five million so-called citizens are twenty-five million rebels, and these so-called enemies are and always were our friends.
The government antagonized many people on January 21 by marking the anniversary of the execution of Louis XVI on that day in 1793, the first time the event was officially commemorated. Louis XVIII ordered that the remains of his brother and sister-in-law be exhumed from the common grave they occupied on the rue d’Anjou and returned to the Basilica of Saint-Denis, traditional necropolis of French kings, where their bodies had briefly lain following their executions, until the basilica was ransacked. The funeral procession, involving several Bourbon family members, took ten hours. Businesses were closed for the day. In the pages of the Gazette de France and the Moniteur the dead king Louis XVI was made to speak, telling his brother that “God has willed that the error of the French people be forgotten,” and asking his subjects to “stifle the memory of your disastrous dissensions.”
Traveling through France in 1815, the writer Walter Scott heard people speaking of their sovereign as though he were some kind of placeholder; “Louis the Inevitable,” they called him. In roadside inns, workmen and soldiers on half-pay were heard loudly toasting “Long Live the King!” and then muttering “of Rome, and his Papa” under their breaths. Prompted by a false story that when leaving Fontainebleau, Napoleon had promised to return in a year’s time along with the blooming violets, some of his supporters took to wearing that flower neatly tucked in alongside their Bourbon cockades. “Do you believe in Jesus Christ?” someone would ask a potential ally to sound them out, and the proper response was “yes, and his resurrection.” People spoke of Napoleon lying in wait, an ember burning low, about to burst into flame. “I no longer take snuff,” says a pipe-wielding Napoleon in one French caricature. “I smoke.”
A French memoirist and politician, Antoine Thibaudeau, cut to the heart of why the Bourbons struggled during the time of Napoleon’s exile. “There were many eloquent attacks on the emperor,” he wrote. “He was called usurper, despot, tyrant, Nero, and Attila. But the man in question had pulled himself up alone by his genius, he came from our ranks, we gave him our votes. If he oppressed our liberties, that was between him and us. He wasn’t imposed on us by the foreigner, he was eminently national. The Bourbons weren’t.” In other words, Napoleon, dangerous though he may be, was still their Napoleon, and whatever new story “Louis the Inevitable” and his ministers were trying to tell about France could never be as exciting as the one Napoleon and the French people had authored together.
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NIGHTS AT THE THEATER
A BRITISH POLITICIAN NAMED John Macnamara arrived at Elba, having come down from Paris for no other reason than curiosity. He arranged to be standing at the edge of the main road out of Portoferraio as the emperor’s carriage passed. Napoleon spotted the well-dressed stranger, interrogated him, and, after learning that he’d just been in Paris, invited him to the Mulini for a long talk that touched on everything from Napoleon’s supposed suicide attempt (which he denied), to his marital difficulties, to his plans for a hypothetical surprise attack on Britain.
Napoleon was thrilled to hear Macnamara’s slyly worded answer to one of his usual attempts to take the temperature of French public opinion. “We had a storm last night,” said Macnamara. “Now there is no wind, but the sea is agitated.” Macnamara asked him for his imp
ressions of Campbell, to which he answered, “I know him very little, this Monsieur.” Napoleon in turn asked why he thought Campbell was so often at Elba, to which Macnamara answered plainly, “To watch [you].”
The diarist John Cam Hobhouse, who recorded Macnamara’s recollection of his conversation with Napoleon verbatim, wrote that halfway through their interview Napoleon “told Macnamara to wait for him whilst he went into another room, which he did. Macnamara went near the door, half-tempted to look, which did not please Napoleon. He had been to make water. . . . During this conversation Macnamara once or twice rubbed his eyes, and Napoleon asking him for what, said, ‘I can scarcely believe my eyes, that I am alone talking with you.’” When Macnamara said he feared he was taking up too much of his time, Napoleon said, “I assure you, I am as glad to talk to you as you are to me—a stranger is a great entertainment for me.” He left the talk so impressed by Napoleon’s friendliness that he told Bertrand, “I think it is impossible he should ever be in a passion or other than in the best humour,” to which Bertrand smiled and said, “I know him a little better than you.”
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MACNAMARA DIDN’T STAY on Elba long enough to witness Napoleon presiding over the opening night of Portoferraio’s Teatro dei Vigilanti on the night of January 22. The theater was housed in a former Carmelite chapel that had been used for storing military supplies. Napoleon funded its renovation, which had been ongoing since at least November, when the Oil Merchant reported that laborers were at work on the project. Napoleon appointed Pauline as “Organizer of Theatrical Performances on the Island of Elba,” and she sold boxes in advance to the wealthier Elbans. Subscriptions to its sixty-five seats went quickly. All subscribers were also enrolled in the newly created Elban Academy of Arts, whose motto was “A noi la sorte!” (We are the lucky ones!). A troupe of players was brought in from Livorno for the opening run. A smokescreen, monument, and parting gift to the Elbans, all in one little building.
Bertrand sent an invitation to the opening night gala to the British officer John Adye, who as captain of the Partridge was still making regular patrols between Livorno and Elba. Adye declined. “I’ll explain that I’m indisposed,” he wrote to his wife. “In fact, I have no desire to go and be insulted by some French officer, as is their habit.” The opening gala was one of more than half a dozen celebrations hosted by Pauline between late January and the first weeks of February. Her parties took place in a makeshift gazebo on the Mulini’s terrace. Pauline’s ladies-in-waiting and Napoleon’s officers made up the bulk of the guest list.
But while nights at the theater offered a little bit of levity, members of Napoleon’s entourage noticed that he seemed preoccupied by other matters. Pons recalled that Napoleon “adopted a dreamier look than was his custom” and that Pauline and Drouot had also made comments to him about his change in mood and preference for solitude. Bertrand also noticed a change. In the first months in exile Napoleon had written as many as five directives a day, but he issued only ten for all of January and February, most having to do with petty financial matters.
As news of the little theater and its related frivolities reached London, Paris, and Vienna, along with reports of Napoleon’s increased isolation, the stories morphed into tales of senility, or in some versions, outright madness. Campbell made a passing reference to Napoleon’s increasing “decrepitude” in a letter to Castlereagh around this time, which might have helped to fuel such talk.
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THE FINAL REPAIRS to the Inconstant were completed, after Drouot had put out a call for every skilled laborer on Elba to come contribute to the work so that it would be done as quickly as possible. With the Inconstant back in commission, Napoleon sent Pons a message asking him to produce a report on the feasibility of “organizing an expeditionary flotilla.” It was the first inkling Pons had that Napoleon was considering an escape. They talked privately at the Mulini a short while later. Napoleon asked Pons, “Shall I listen to the wishes of the army and the nation, who hate and mistrust the Bourbons?” Pons answered that Napoleon’s return to France would be a cause for joy so long as it didn’t lead to war.
Napoleon later explained that he’d chosen Pons as the first person to hear his plan “because his cooperation was essential to the preparation of the necessary ships.” He controlled the transport vessels that worked the Rio mines: a brig, the Saint-Joseph, and two old feluccas, the Abeille and the Mouche. Without these ships Napoleon wouldn’t have had enough space to carry the men and materiel necessary for his landing. It may be possible that he knew Pons would be a good person to negotiate, as he later did, with Marshal Masséna, who was then in command of the French regiment in Toulon.
Shortly after speaking with Pons, Napoleon asked Peyrusse to amass five hundred thousand francs in cash and to stuff another cashbox and hide it at Fort Stella. “I knew enough to guess at the reason for this removal,” wrote Peyrusse. “So, in great secrecy, I put by some flour, some wine, some potatoes and some salt beef, and I waited to see what would happen.” When Peyrusse saw some Neapolitan ships sail by Portoferraio and exchange salutes with the forts early in February, he suspected that Napoleon was planning something with Murat.
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PIETRO ST. ERNEST, OTHERWISE KNOWN AS FLEURY DU CHABOULON
CAMPBELL NOTICED THAT NAPOLEON traveled around the island less frequently than before and adopted a strangely formal demeanor during his rare public appearances. He seemed not to have any new projects on the horizon and all roadwork and renovation projects had been brought to a halt. “This is, I think, on account of the expense,” Campbell wrote in his journal. He learned that the Council of State had met to discuss whether Napoleon could sell Portoferraio’s town hall to a private buyer, though opinions were divided and the sale was delayed indefinitely.
But along with these warning signs, Campbell had also seen Napoleon’s troops planting gardens all around the palace and the barracks as though they were settling in for a long stay. And during his brief talk with Napoleon on February 2, the emperor seemed smug and aloof, which Campbell attributed to some secret information he must have received that had relieved him of any worry about being transported to another island. Sending a cursory summary of the interview to colleagues on the mainland, he reported little other than that Napoleon had appeared “unusually grave and dull.” It was the last time he would ever speak to Napoleon.
A few days later, some of Napoleon’s troops went over to the tiny islet of Palmaiola, in the Piombino Channel about two miles from Elba’s northeastern tip. The French had once used Palmaiola to fire on passing British ships, and two abandoned cannons and a howitzer still remained. Campbell guessed that Napoleon had sent soldiers there either to spot and capture deserters or to hold meetings with confederates coming over from the Italian coast. He tried to broach the subject in conversation with Bertrand by mentioning that he’d heard the maneuvers on Palmaiola had attracted attention in Italy and that it might be wise to tread carefully, but Bertrand made no effort to explain the matter and treated the whole thing “quite lightly.”
This pushed Campbell to formally request a personal inspection of Palmaiola. Bertrand replied that while Napoleon was indebted to him for the role he performed as the British commissioner, he couldn’t grant the request, and he tried to convince Campbell that whatever he might have heard about Palmaiola was surely overblown, and besides which, “there could be no treason or injury to the British Government in a few small vessels arriving there from Genoa or Naples. . . . The Emperor lived quietly in his retreat and therefore considered all of this as meddling.”
During the ensuing conversation, which grew “loud and warm,” Campbell told Bertrand that it was his “duty to notify him that neither Pianosa nor Palmaiola had been given over to the possession of Napoleon, and that I should report to the British Government what had passed in regard to the points now under discussion.” In
reality, as he noted in his journal, he had no official “right to interfere in these matters, holding no ostensible situation excepting that of Commissioner, which had been prolonged there originally for their advantage and at their request.”
Napoleon had also sent soldiers to be quartered in some villages on the western side of the island. Campbell wasn’t sure if this was meant to stop Napoleon’s Corsican troops on Elba from deserting, or if it was “a blind” meant to draw people’s attention away from Portoferraio. He was also hearing the first rumors that Taillade had grounded the Inconstant on purpose as part of some covert Bourbon mission. Fanny Bertrand told him she thought Taillade was about to quit the island for good, with his Elban wife in tow.
To add to his confusion he spotted the two French cruisers that had started patrolling the coast with more frequency, and all sorts of visitors were showing up daily at Portoferraio aboard smaller private ships. “Mysterious adventurers and disaffected characters continually arrive here from France and Italy and then proceed to Naples,” he wrote. He was bothered by the unexpected appearance of a Greek named Theologue, who “was much attached to Napoleon and had been greatly employed by him in the affairs of Turkey and Persia,” who arrived from Paris and left soon afterward for Naples, and by a Norwegian named Kundztow who met with Napoleon and left dazzled by his knowledge of the population of Norway, which Campbell guessed was the result of research in his library in advance of the man’s visit.
There were too many arrivals and departures in the first two weeks of February for him to track them all properly:
It is scarcely possible to convey an idea of Portoferraio, which is like the area of a great barrack, being occupied by military, gendarmes, police officers of all description, dependents of the court, servants and adventurers—all connected with Napoleon, holding some place of honour or emolument in subservience to him. The harbor is constantly filled with vessels from all parts of Italy, bringing over almost hourly supplies of provisions for this great increase of population, as the island itself furnishes nothing but wine. Vessels, too, of all nations frequently anchor here, from motives of curiosity and speculation, or detained by contrary winds.