by Philip Dwyer
These swings between a sort of physical agitation and complete inactivity hardly enamoured him to the locals. Within a month of arriving, Campbell noted, there were no longer any cries of ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ when he went about.29 We know the inhabitants soon became disillusioned with the amount of taxes they were now being asked to pay. In the town of Capoliveri, in the south of the island, probably egged on by the local priests, they simply refused to pay. Napoleon was obliged to send in 400 Corsican troops along with the fifty-four Polish lancers who had arrived on the island in October, to bend the inhabitants to his will. A couple of priests and a few local notables were arrested and thrown into the dungeons of Fort Falcone, and the townspeople eventually paid up. It was the Empire all over again on a smaller scale, what had happened countless times throughout Europe, as the state increasingly inserted itself into the daily lives of its subjects and citizens. But it is also the kind of thing that must have irked Napoleon.30 Life on Elba after ruling Europe must have been stultifying.
John Barber Scott, an English tourist, met Napoleon along the roads and described his encounter with him.
The first impression on my mind was – Can this be the great Napoleon? Is that graceless figure, so clumsy and awkward, the figure that awed emperors and kings, has gained victory on victory, and the sight of whom has been equivalent of ten thousand men on the field of battle? Surely, it is impossible? That countenance – it is totally devoid of expression, it appears even to indicate stupidity. Such were the thoughts that rushed through my mind, and though I soon found reason to change my opinion as far as his countenance was concerned, I still think the figure of Napoleon unmartial, clumsy and awkward.31
Scott, as was the case for most Englishmen, could not help but notice that Napoleon was paunchy if not fat by this stage of his life, that he was so addicted to snuff that his clothes were stained with it, that his hair was long and in ‘candle-ends’, that his complexion was ‘doughy’, that he looked seedy and that his clothes were dirty and unkempt – a hat that had seen much better times, shabby boots and so on – as though the Emperor, depressed, had completely let himself go.32
It was only when these men spoke to him that they were able to overcome their first impressions. He spoke to them with a great deal of ease, appeared to be perfectly frank and, just as importantly for his English visitors, did not appear to hold any resentment at the way in which he had been treated. Of course, he was going out of his way to be polite, thinking that if he were able to influence a few well-placed British they might persuade their government to offer him asylum. But it was also a means of dispelling the idea that he might have been thinking of a return to France. ‘I think of nothing outside my little island. I no longer exist for the world,’ he told Campbell. ‘I am a dead man. I only occupy myself with my family and my retreat, my cows and mules.’33 Some of the English began to believe him. Even Campbell began to think that Napoleon was ‘tolerably happy’.34 At least one English observer saw this for what it was – a feint. ‘The accounts which show him as indifferent, resigned and wanting peace and quiet don’t seem to be sincere but are a political front on his part since, all the time the Congress [of Vienna] is in session, he must keep up a pretence that doesn’t upset the powers on whom his fate depends.’35 Nor were a number of French royalist agents convinced that Napoleon had resigned himself to his fate. On the contrary, they were writing back to Paris that he still represented a danger and that he would attempt to regain the Continent at some time in the near future.36
A feint it was. The whole time Napoleon was asserting that he was politically dead he was building a network of informants and spies who kept him abreast of the state of play on the mainland. Much of what they told him fed into his own misconceptions about the mood in France, his popularity and the disapproval of the returned Bourbon regime. He had another reason for being so talkative with his British visitors: he was trying to elicit information from them about the situation in England, and the impressions they had formed as they travelled through France and Italy.37 In this, there was always a bit of projecting going on. In a conversation with Campbell held on 16 September, for example, he claimed that the main failings of the French people were ‘pride and love of glory, and it was impossible for them to look forward with satisfaction and feelings of tranquillity’.38 It is difficult not to read ‘Napoleon’, in place of the ‘French people’, but if that is too tenuous a connection to make, one need only look to other similar conversations to realize what was going on in his mind in this autumn of 1814. The topics mentioned time and again by Napoleon to his British visitors are: a desire to keep Italian nationalists at play as a distraction; a willingness to let discontent with Bourbons simmer in France; and a desire to see Belgium remain part of France (he played on French glory and the idea of a ‘natural frontier’). This might be a ‘coherent programme’, as one historian put it, but there was yet no indication that Napoleon had anything definite in mind.39 He was simply getting a feel for things.
The Sorrows of Boney, or Meditations in the Island of ELBA!!!, April 1814. This is a reworking of another caricature, Crocodile’s Tears: or, Bonaparte’s Lamentation. A New Song, first printed in 1803. Napoleon weeps on a rock in the sea inscribed ‘Elba’. The mushroom on the rock is the emblem of the upstart. Three birds of prey and three bats fly menacingly around his head.
In a four-hour conversation Napoleon had in November with a certain John Nicholas Fazakerley and George Venables Vernon, the latter a Whig MP and cousin of Lord Holland, he shrugged off responsibility for anything that had happened in Europe, arguing that Russia had forced his hand, and repeated the phrase, ‘I am like a dead man; my role is finished.’40 The idea seemed to be to flatter the English, to underline how much they had been deceived about him and to point out that he simply wanted to live peacefully. As we have seen, despite this façade, Napoleon kept himself well informed about what was happening on the mainland, receiving pamphlets and newspapers that had been published in Paris since the restoration of the Bourbons.41 In addition, thousands of letters were secretly delivered to him, and he eagerly questioned any French visitors about conditions in France. Legend has it – it is impossible to verify – that one of these people was an old soldier who supposedly told him, ‘They are waiting for you; the present state of affairs cannot last another six months.’42 When Napoleon said that he was tired, and that in any case he had only one battalion of troops, the veteran is supposed to have assured him that ‘Not one soldier will fire on you.’ It feeds into the notion that Napoleon abandoned Elba because he was urged to by those loyal to him. He was not, in other words, acting out of self-interest. Urging him to come to the mainland also were Italian patriots who wanted him to put himself at the head of an uprising that would unite Italy. There was little chance of that; he cared little for the idea of a united Italy. Nevertheless, throughout his months on the island, and given the number of visitors who came through with reports of what was happening, he formed an idea of France that would allow him, indeed compel him, to gamble his future.
Wife, Lover, Sister, Mother
Pauline joined Napoleon on the island at the beginning of June. She had been visiting her sister and brother-in-law in Naples, and stayed but two days before sailing back again. It is possible that she brought Napoleon secret letters from agents loyal to him in France, although this cannot be confirmed. She wrote to her mother and her siblings exhorting them to come and join Napoleon on Elba – ‘do not leave the Emperor alone. He is unhappy and we must show him dedication’ – but most of them saw no reason to.43 Eugène had gone to Vienna and was perhaps the only person in the family to be well treated and well considered by both the authorities and the Austrian public.44 Lucien had left England (where he had been held prisoner, as we have noted) and was living in Rome protected by the pope, accepting from him the title Prince of Canino. He nevertheless sounded out Talleyrand about becoming a member of Louis XVIII’s Chamber of Peers. Jérôme, who had fled to Trieste, kept
in touch by mail, but dreamt silly dreams of ruling over all of Italy.45 Louis also took refuge in Rome but was still hurting from having his kingdom occupied and annexed.46 Elisa was trying to get back her lost property in Italy, confiscated by her ‘successor’, Ferdinand of Tuscany. She went to Vienna to plead her cause at the Congress, but as soon as she set foot in Tuscany she was detained by Austrian police. Joseph made the best of his life in exile in Switzerland. He managed to pass messages to Napoleon orally through intermediaries but did not visit him on Elba.47 Pauline was the exception; she returned to Elba in October with the intention of sharing her brother’s exile, lending a certain amount of glamour and gaiety to their gatherings in the process.
Nor was there any contact with Josephine. Napoleon’s last letter to her was written from Fontainebleau in April 1814 in which he admitted that his ‘mind and heart [were] free of an enormous burden’. Josephine died of diphtheria on 29 May that year. Napoleon read about her death in the newspapers and was so overwhelmed with grief that he locked himself away for two days.48 Her funeral took place on 2 June at Malmaison where the representatives of several foreign sovereigns took part. The allies used Josephine’s funeral to make a political statement – namely, that peace was indeed concluded and that the French had nothing to fear.49 Relations had returned to normal.
After that, Napoleon decided to bring Maria Walewska to the island. He planned to do so, however, in the greatest secrecy so that no rumours would get back to his wife, and so that he would not become the object of ridicule among the courts of Europe. Those, in any event, are the reasons traditionally given, but it is difficult to fathom Napoleon’s state of mind and his treatment (or rather mistreatment) of Maria. When he was at Fontainebleau, for example, fretting about his own future, Maria had come to him hoping to share his exile. She spent the night of 4–5 April waiting for him in an antechamber, only to be sent away without so much as seeing him. Admittedly, he had fallen into a ‘sort of slump, to the point of seeing nothing of what was around him’.50 When he finally came around, he is reported as having said, ‘The poor woman! She feels humiliated! Constant [his valet], I am really angry about it. If you see her again, tell her as much. But I have so much going on inside here!’, and with that he hit his forehead. Still, she was steadfast in her loyalty and contacted Napoleon again of her own accord, offering to come to Elba.51 He agreed.
The tryst smacks of comic-opera.52 He had a little hermitage at Marciana restored and renovated for the purpose; it was about as far away as anyone could get on the island. In an attempt to avert prying eyes, he ordered the brig bringing her to the island at the beginning of September 1814 to moor off the coast, which immediately aroused the curiosity of the townspeople of Portoferraio; they imagined that Marie-Louise and her son had at last landed. Maria Walewska was obliged to travel to Marciana in the evening. When she got there, she had supper with Napoleon, possibly with Bertrand’s wife Fanny acting the hostess. Maria slept at the hermitage while Napoleon slept in a tent outside. On the nights he was there, Napoleon came out of his tent in a dressing gown and went to her room where he stayed until daybreak.53 His behaviour was a tad hypocritical. Those officers who had been lucky enough to come to the island to live with girlfriends or mistresses were not received at the Villa Mulini.54 Apart from Maria Walewska, Napoleon does not appear to have taken any lovers before the autumn of 1814, after he had given up hope of ever seeing Marie-Louise and his son. Maria had been on the island for almost two weeks before she was again unceremoniously sent away – rumour of her presence had spread throughout the island and he supposedly wanted to avoid any scandal – never again to see Napoleon. She divorced her old husband in 1812 and remarried in 1816. She died one year later of a kidney disease at the age of thirty-one.
Part of the problem was that Napoleon still had no idea whether Marie-Louise would come to join him or not. He wanted to have her by his side, of that there is no doubt, not only because he loved Marie-Louise and his son, but also because it would have been a powerful political gesture. Communications between the two were bad at best, sometimes intercepted by the Austrian secret police and simply not passed on. Napoleon did not receive any letters from her until July; four others that she had written never reached him at all. He complained bitterly to the British about the Austrian Emperor preventing his daughter from joining him.55 In August he nevertheless wrote to her to say that ‘Your accommodation is ready and I am waiting for the month of September for the harvest . . . Come then. I am waiting impatiently. You know all the feelings I have for you.’56 He must have known, however, that the allied powers were not favourably disposed to seeing Marie-Louise leave for the island.57 Napoleon simply hoped, something that ran counter to past experience, that she would be strong-willed enough to impose herself on her father.
It is true that she still held feelings for Napoleon, and that she wrote to him during her voyage from France to Vienna, letters Napoleon never got.58 When she arrived in Vienna on 21 May 1814, amid the hurly-burly that was the Congress, she and her son were warmly received. She did not take part in any of the social activities underpinning the Congress, which suited her just fine after the stuffy atmosphere of the French imperial court. It did not even cross her mind that she could have lobbied on behalf of her husband. A simple life is what she hankered after and it is what she was accorded.59 In July, after being at Vienna for only two months, she was given permission to take the waters at Aix-en-Provence, but she had to leave her son behind. To take him to France, ‘one might think I wanted to disturb the peace, which could cause me and my son problems’. In the same letter, however, she wrote that Napoleon should ‘reserve a small lodging, because you know I intend to come as soon as I can’.60 Her plan was to travel to Parma after Aix, and from there to Elba. Along the way to Aix, she made a point of meeting members of the Bonaparte family – Louis in Baden, Jérôme in Payerne in Switzerland and Joseph at the Swiss Château d’Allaman. Is it true that she appeared calm and imperturbable in public but that she cried when alone?61 All of this gives the impression that as late as August she was still pining for her husband. Her circumstances, however, were about to change.
Waiting for her when she arrived at Aix on 17 July was a young, dashing officer, Adam Adalbert von Neipperg, whom she had met briefly in Paris in 1810 and again in 1812. It has been assumed, usually by French historians, that Metternich deliberately chose Neipperg to escort her so that he could seduce her to help her forget Napoleon, and that he had indeed received secret instructions to that effect, but there is nothing to support this claim.62 On the contrary, it would appear that the names of other officers were put forward to accompany Marie-Louise in order to keep Vienna informed about her progress and whereabouts, to make sure that she did not head off for Elba. It was General Schwarzenberg who suggested Neipperg.63 Metternich instructed Neipperg to turn her away, ‘by any means whatsoever’, from ‘all ideas of a journey to Elba’, naturally with the greatest tact, and to provide detailed reports on her.64 Marie-Louise was no doubt of a sensuous nature, but it is unfair to suggest that she could simply be seduced by the first comer. Even if Neipperg had had a reputation for being a rake in his youth, he was now forty years old with a wife and children and perhaps did not cut as dashing a figure as he once had.65 He had lost an eye in battle, so he always wore a black eye band.
Her first meeting with him did not make a very agreeable impression on her, but that did not last long.66 A few days later she was writing that he was ‘full of attention’ and that his manner pleased her very much.67 Neipperg, who at first seemed a bit of a nuisance, knew how to make himself indispensable so that, very soon, she started to have feelings for him. It naturally tormented her. ‘I am’, she confided in her secretary, Claude François de Méneval, in August, ‘in a very critical and very unhappy position. There are times when my head turns so that I think the best thing to happen would be for me to die.’68 That is not the confession of a woman entering into an affair lightly; it is a woman attempti
ng to come to grips with conflicting feelings. That is why she was still able to confide in Méneval on Napoleon’s birthday (15 August), ‘How can I be happy . . . when I am obliged to pass the feast day, so solemn to me, so far from the two people who are dearest to me?’69
Aix was amusing, full of balls, garden parties and excursions, but not only did she have to contend with her own feelings, she was also being bombarded with unflattering stories about Napoleon, portrayed as a bad husband who had always been unfaithful. This fell on what was now fertile ground. Napoleon had been sending letters to her directly, through his officers, first a Colonel Laczynski and then a Captain Hurault de Sorbée, whose wife was Marie-Louise’s Austrian reader, saying that a ship was waiting for her at Genoa and that Hurault de Sorbée would arrange everything.70 Marie-Louise baulked at this. To Napoleon she answered that she had to go to Vienna and that it would be impossible to go to the island without her father’s permission. To her father she wrote to say that she ‘felt less than ever like wanting to take the trip’.71 Napoleon’s imperious tone, ordering her to set out with Hurault de Sorbée, was the excuse used not to go, unless her father obliged her to. There was little chance of that. It was Metternich, and her father, who wrote to her to say that, at the Congress, the House of Bourbon – that is, Spain and France – did not want a Habsburg princess to reign in Parma. She should, therefore, return to Vienna to defend her interests and the interests of her son. In fact, it is possible that the idea of journeying to Elba inspired more fear in her than either her father or Metternich could instil. If then Marie-Louise was writing to Napoleon to say that she was being obliged to return to Vienna from Aix, she was only half telling the truth. It was on the return voyage from Aix to Vienna (she left on 5 September) that her party, surprised by a storm on the 24th, was obliged to find refuge in the town of Küsnacht at an inn called the Soleil d’Or. It was probably during that night that she consummated her relationship with Neipperg.72
