The Escape from Elba

The Fall & Flight of Napoleon, 1814–1815

Norman MacKenzie

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781844156047
• eBook ISBN: 9781473813953
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

"A lively account" of Napoleon's first exile and his "escape, full of cunning and daring, accident and error" ( The New York Times Book Review).
The year is 1814. The Allies have driven Napoleon's once-mighty armies back to Paris. Trapped, forced to abdicate after two decades of triumphant rule, the emperor takes leave of his comrades-in-arms and sets sail for his new domain—the tiny, poverty-stricken, pestilential island of Elba.
Yet within ten months Napoleon will enter Paris once again, at the heels of the fleeing Bourbon king, flushed with victory and cheered by the masses. The Escape from Elba tells the heroic story of Napoleon's exile and phoenix-like return. In this classic account, Norman MacKenzie chronicles this extraordinary year: the tense last hours of Napoleon's empire, his humiliating exile, his midnight escape, and his whirlwind march over snowbound mountains to Grenoble where, in a dramatic confrontation with the French army, he became a reigning prince again.
Also described in vivid detail are Napoleon's adventures as the head of Elba. He brought society, splendor, organization, and political intrigue to this run-down backwater—and displayed on this small stage the many sides of his charismatic leadership.
Includes illustrations

CONTENTS

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List of Illustrations
Cast of Characters
	Prologue
1	The fall of the colossus
2	Surrounded by wolves
3	An ambiguous mission
4	Journey into exile
5	A change of fortunes
6	The King of Elba
7	A very small island
8	The fruits of victory
9	Family affairs
10	Two kinds of love
11	A man of ordinary talents?
12	The game of secrets
13	Confidential friends
14	The threat of default
15	Perfidious intrigues
16	Necessary preparations
17	The last of Elba
18	The flight of the eagle
19	The test of success
20	Caught in a whirlwind
21	Imperial magic
	Epilogue
Bibliographical Note
Index

ILLUSTRATIONS

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Between pages 176–177

Napoleon, 1815. An engraving by Sandoz
The Mansell Collection

Napoleon’s Arrival on Elba (French cartoon, 1814)

‘The Robinson Crusoe of the Island of Elba’ (French cartoon, 1814)

‘Nap Dreading His Doleful Doom.’ (English caricature, April 1814)

General Drouot
BBC Hulton Picture Library

General Cambronne
BBC Hulton Picture Library

General Bertrand
BBC Hulton Picture Library

Pons de l’Hérault

Colonel Sir Neil Campbell

Count Neipperg
BBC Hulton Picture Library

Marie-Louise and the King of Rome
The Mansell Collection

Portoferraio from the anchorage

Portoferraio: the harbour and walls

Portoferraio: Fort Stella

The house at San Martino

Napoleon’s departure from Elba, 26 February 1815

Napoleon meets the troops at Laffrey

The Congress of Vienna’, caricature by George Cruikshank

MAPS

Elba, 1814

Portoferraio

The Escape from Elba, 26 Feb–1 Mar 1815

The Route Napoleon: Golfe Juan to Grenoble, 1–7 March 1815

CAST OF CHARACTERS

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This list is provided for easy reference, and it does not include persons who are of minor importance or those who are given only passing notice in the text.

Captain John Adye	Commanding the British sloop Partridge during the escape in 1815
Alexander I	Tsar of Russia from 1801 to 1825
Comte d’Artois	Younger brother of Louis XVIII, who became Charles X in 1824
Giuseppe Balbiani	Sub-Prefect on Elba
Eugene de Beauharnais	Son of the Empress Josephine, a successful soldier and Napoleon’s viceroy in Italy
Hortense de Beauharnais	Daughter of the Empress Josephine, wife of Louis Bonaparte, known during the first Restoration as the Duchess of St Leu
Josephine de Beauharnais	Widow of a guillotined aristocrat, Napoleon’s first wife and Empress until divorced in 1810
Colonel de la Bédoyère	Commanding the 7th Infantry at Chambéry
Marshal Berthier	Napoleon’s chief of staff from 1805 to 1814
General Bertrand	Appointed Grand Marshal of the Palace in 1813, and Napoleon’s chief assistant on Elba
Fanny Bertrand	The wife of General Bertrand, and daughter of an Irish general serving in the French army.
Jacques-Claude Beugnot	Royalist Director-General of police
Comte Blacas	Chief minister to Louis XVIII
Caroline Bonaparte	Napoleon’s youngest sister, married to Joachim Murat, King of Naples
Elisa Bonaparte	The eldest of Napoleon’s sisters, Grand Duchess of Tuscany from 1809 to 1814, married to Felix Bacciochi
Jerome Bonaparte	Napoleon’s youngest brother, King of Westphalia from 1807 to 1813
Joseph Bonaparte	Napoleon’s elder brother, King of Naples from 1806 to 1808, King of Spain from 1808 to 1813
Letizia Bonaparte	Napoleon’s widowed mother, known as Madame Mère
Louis Bonaparte	Napoleon’s third brother, King of Holland from 1806 to 1810
Lucien Bonaparte	The only one of Napoleon’s brothers and sisters who declined royal honours
Napoleon Bonaparte	Former Emperor of France
Pauline Bonaparte	Napoleon’s second sister, separated from her husband Prince Borghese
Louis Guérin de Bruslart	Former royalist resistance leader, appointed military governor of Corsica in 1814
General Cambronne	A veteran of the revolutionary wars, who commanded the detachment of the Imperial Guard which accompanied Napoleon to Elba
Colonel Neil Campbell	British commissioner on Elba in 1814 and 1815
Lord Castlereagh	British Foreign Secretary from 1812, and chief delegate to the Congress of Vienna
General Caulaincourt	French ambassador to Russia from 1807 to 1811, Foreign Minister in the last months of the war, and Napoleon’s closest adviser during the abdication crisis
Captain Chautard	Commanding the Inconstant on which Napoleon made his escape from Elba
General Dalesrne	Commanding the French garrison on Elba at the time of Napoleon’s arrival
Marshal Davout	The most loyal of Napoleon’s marshals, he continued to hold Hamburg for a month after the Emperor had abdicated
General Drouot	A much respected artilleryman, known as ‘the sage of the army’, who became governor of Elba and then commanded the Imperial Guard at Waterloo
Cardinal Fesch	Half-brother to Letizia Bonaparte, who owed his successful career to Napoleon’s patronage
Fleury de Chaboulon	A young official who took himself to Elba early in 1815 as a self-appointed and clandestine emissary from Bonapartists in France
Joseph Fouché	A notable Jacobin who became Minister of Police and supported Napoleon in his rise to power. A master of secret intrigue, he was again appointed Minister of Police after Napoleon’s return to France, but after Waterloo he stage-managed the second Restoration
Francis I	Emperor of Austria from 1792 to 1835, and father of Marie-Louise
Frederick William III	King of Prussia from 1797 to 1840
George, Prince of Wales	Prince Regent from 1811, he was effectively king during his father’s long illness. He became George IV in 1820
Baron Hager	Head of the Austrian secret police
Prince Hardenberg	Chancellor of Prussia, and the most trusted adviser of Frederick William III
Hyde de Neuville	French royalist agent, who undertook many secret missions
Comte de Jaucourt	Talleyrand’s deputy in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under Louis XVIII
King of Rome	The son of Napoleon and Marie-Louise, born in 1811, also known as Napoleon II and the Duke of Reichstadt
General Köller	Austrian commissioner accompanying Napoleon to Elba
Colonel Téodor Lacynski	Brother of Maria Walewska, and one of several Polish officers closely attached to Napoleon
Dr Christian Lapi	Commander of the National Guard on Elba
Count Lavalette	A former aide of Napoleon’s, married to the niece of Empress Josephine, and Postmaster-General in the last days of the Empire. An ardent Bonapartist
Lord Liverpool	British Prime Minister from 1812
Louis XVIII	Brother of the guillotined Louis XVI, leader of the royalist emigration, he returned to Paris in 1814, and again after Waterloo, remaining king until his death in 1824
Marshal Macdonald	Son of a Jacobite exile, he served through all the wars and played a leading role in the abdication crisis
General Marchand	Commander of the garrison at Grenoble in 1815
Hughes Bernard Maret	One of Napoleon’s closest advisers, a trusted diplomat, Foreign Minister from 1811 to 1813, and one of the leaders of the Bonapartist faction in France under the first Restoration
Marie-Louise	Daughter of the Emperor Francis of Austria, she became Empress of France on her marriage to Napoleon in 1810
Chevalier Mariotti	French consul and secret agent at Livorno
Marshal Marmont	One of Napoleon’s closest comrades-inarms, he negotiated the surrender of Paris in March 1814, and planned the defection of the Sixth Corps a few days later.
Comte de Maubreuil	Royalist intriguer, involved in abortive assassination plots against Napoleon
Baron de Méneval	Personal secretary to Marie-Louise
Prince Clemens Metternich	Austrian ambassador in Paris from 1806 to 1809, he became Foreign Minister, and he was the dominant figure at the Congress of Vienna
Marshal Moncey	Commander of the National Guard in Paris in 1814
Marshal Mortier	Commanded the Old Guard during the fighting in Champagne and the defence of Paris
Joachim Murat	Married to Napoleon’s sister Caroline, and King of Naples from 1808, he abandoned Napoleon’s cause in 1814 after secret negotiations with the Austrians
Count Neipperg	Austrian general and diplomat who negotiated Murat’s defection in 1814, and was charged with the supervision of Marie-Louise after Napoleon’s defeat
Marshal Ney	Commander of the rearguard during the retreat from Moscow, he was spokesman for the dissident marshals during the abdication crisis and then became a senior officer under the first Restoration
Oil Merchant	The name given to a French secret agent on Elba reporting to Mariotti, who was probably an Italian named Alessandro Forli
Louis Philippe	The duc d’Orléans, who fought with the revolutionary armies in 1793, though a member of the French royal family. He then defected and spent twenty years in exile. Considered a liberal, and an alternative to the more reactionary Bourbons, he was long a focus for intrigue though he was never personally compromised. He became King of France after the 1830 revolution
Guillaume Peyrusse	Napoleon’s treasurer
Pons de l’Hérault	Administrator of the iron mines on Elba
Pozzo di Borgo	Corsican exile who became one of Tsar Alexander’s advisers
Marshal Schwarzenberg	Commander in chief of the Allied armies from August 1813
General (Count) Shuvalov	Personal envoy of the Tsar and Russian commissioner accompanying Napoleon to Elba
Lieutenant Taillade	Commanding Napoleon’s small flotilla on Elba until shortly before the escape
Prince Charles Maurice de Talleyrand	Former bishop, first appointed Foreign Minister in 1797, a strong supporter of Napoleon until 1807. Thereafter much involved in political intrigue, and after secret negotiations with the Allies he became the organizer of the Provisional Government in 1814. A notable champion of French interests at the Congress of Vienna
Traditi	Mayor of Portoferraio
Count Truchsess-Waldbourg	Prussian commissioner accompanying Napoleon to Elba
Captain Thomas Ussher	Commanding the British frigate Undaunted in 1814, which carried Napoleon to Elba
Maria Walewska	Known as Napoleon’s ‘Polish wife’, she became his mistress in Warsaw in 1807 and their son Alexander was born in 1810

PROLOGUE

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In the first months of 1814 the Emperor Napoleon was defeated, forced to abdicate, and banished to the island of Elba. Within a year, after an escape which startled Europe like a thunderclap, he was back in France and preparing for the campaign which ended in the ruin of all his hopes at Waterloo. There was nothing more remarkable in his whole remarkable career than these rapid changes of fortune, and his response to them, which are the subject of this book.

There have been many biographies of Napoleon, as the legend of his victories echoes down the years, but on Elba we see him at close quarters, stripped of his panoplies and perquisites, yet still displaying the habits of power, deprived of his army and his host of functionaries, yet still moved by the impulses that drove his troops to the Pyramids and to the Kremlin and created an empire that briefly rivalled ancient Rome. Against his two decades of fame the year on Elba seems small, like an image seen through the wrong end of a telescope, but it shines sharp, with every characteristic clear. It shows the egotism of the Corsican soldier of fortune who has tamed a revolution, crowned himself like a Caesar, married a Habsburg, and become the master of Europe. It reveals the brooding patience and the capacity for sudden decision that mark a brilliant commander, the systematic vision of the lawgiver, the benevolence with which he patronizes the arts and sciences, encourages manufacturers, trade, improves agriculture, education, and sanitation, builds roads and harbours. And it focuses on the personal charm and the petulance with which he gets his way, the soldierly camaraderie which seems the only spontaneous aspect of a man so absorbed in his self-created role of greatness that he finds it easier to strike attitudes than to show real pity, anger, remorse or affection.

Napoleon on Elba was indeed a complete miniature of the Man of Destiny, with all his virtues and all his faults scaled down to human size, with no field of action for his abounding energy except the tiny kingdom in which his enemies had with derision installed him; and the contrast between past glories and present adversity was peculiarly humiliating. He had been the foremost man of his time, shaking kingdoms and redrawing maps as the fancy took him, etching such battle-honours as M...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgements
• Contents