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THE FIRST STEP OF A MIGHTY FALL

“Le premier degré d’une chute profonde,” says Victor Hugo, speaking of Elba in connection with Napoleon. And it is impossible to remain in the island long without conjuring up the figure of the fallen prince hurrying hither and thither with one or two attendants, building his villa, enquiring into the agricultural and mineral wealth of his new kingdom, collecting his taxes and his customs duties, strengthening his fortifications, holding the tiny court of which the people of Portoferraio were so inordinately proud, carrying on his amours, chatting with the peasants and the proprietors – and under the mask of all this activity enlisting men, collecting stores, conducting a continuous secret correspondence with Naples, with Corsica, with France, undecided whether to make himself King of Italy or to go back to be Emperor of the French.

Elba, towering above her satellites Pianosa, Monte Cristo, S. Stefano, Giglio, with the rocky islet of Palmaiola as sentinel in the very narrow channel towards Piombino, is an excellent place to plot in, and a very difficult place to watch. Napoleon, as was but natural, took in the advantages of his position at a glance. He had hardly arrived in Elba before he claimed the neighbouring islands as part of his domain, and began to establish outposts on them. Thus he surrounded himself with a barrier within which no foreign ship could penetrate without violating the independence secured to him by the Treaty of Fontainebleau; and which at the same time afforded him a valid excuse for short sea-trips and for a constant movement of small vessels eminently adapted to conceal secret negotiations of every kind, and especially his intercourse with Corsica. In this most favourable position, shut off from prying eyes by diplomacy and nature combined, within easy communicating distance on the one hand of Tuscany and of Murat, on the other of Corsica and France, Napoleon remained from May 4th, 1814, to February 26th, 1815. With his political intrigues during that time we do not propose to concern ourselves, nor with the vexed question raised by some disappointed Frenchmen, who seem to have understood neither the Treaty of Fontainebleau nor the geography of Elba, as to England’s complicity in his escape; rather we would picture him in the places with which we too are familiar, would shadow him forth not as the banished Emperor of France, but as Monarch of Elba.

By the time the English frigate, the Undaunted, that bore him, reached Portoferraio, Napoleon had decided on the line of conduct he intended to pursue: that of a monarch on a small scale, intent on developing the resources of his kingdom, firm in exacting respect for his new flag from all maritime powers. And so well did he play his part of miniature kingship that even Sir Neil Campbell, English Commissioner in the island, thought that he was contented; and more than once opined that if Napoleon were well supplied with money – as he should have been by the terms of the treaty – he would remain quietly where he was; but he was such a very eccentric person that, if he ran short, there was no knowing what improper conduct he might pursue.

He assumed this position at once on his arrival in the harbour of Portoferraio. He refused to land until his new subjects should have had time to prepare an ovation suitable to the reception of a monarch, and he issued an address to General d’Alhesme, then commanding in the island, in the following terms: —

“General! I have sacrificed my rights to the interests of my country, reserving the sovereignty and possession of the island of Elba. To this the Powers have consented. Have the kindness to make known the new state of things to the inhabitants, and the choice that I have made of their island as my abode on account of the mildness of their customs and their climate. Tell them that they will always be the objects of my warmest interest.”

The Portoferraiesi took the Emperor at his word. They were overwhelmed with gratitude at the honour he showed them. They received him with flags, with fireworks and with Te Deums; they sent deputations to wait on him; they presented him with a map of his dominions – a very bad one, by-the-by – on a silver tray; they gave up their best furniture to furnish, provisionally at least, the Palazzina dei Mulini, just under Forte Falcone, where he was to live; they took his officers into their homes; they put on their finest dresses and went to receptions in the town-hall in the evening, telling themselves that their city already seemed like one of the capitals of Europe. And Napoleon fostered their delusion. He proposed to readopt the name given to the city by Duke Cosimo de’ Medici, and to call it Cosmopoli; deriving the first part of the word, not from Cosimo, but from the Greek kosmos, world, declaring that his Cosmopoli was to be the City of the World. At the same time he built and altered extensively in and around his house, adding another storey, planting a garden, forming a library, erecting a tribunal and theatre; he shipped over furniture from the mainland; he prepared a residence close to his own for his mother; he bought land and built a country-house not far from Portoferraio; he sent for his sister Pauline; he prepared extensive stabling; he established a lazaretto in the harbour, which was to compete with that of Leghorn: everything pointed to complete acquiescence in his position.

He had, in fact, scarcely landed before he began to take possession of his new dominions, as a good monarch should do, and had soon visited the places of importance in Elba and its dependant isles. His corpulence rendered climbing and even walking difficult, but his active spirit overcame all difficulties; and the Elbans who met him, his officers and attendants, continually on the roads and mountain paths, felt quite convinced that the Emperor was devoting himself to their welfare.

One of his first expeditions brought vividly before him the extent of his fall. He had visited all the forts and surroundings of Portoferraio, had collected information concerning the salt manufacture (a Government monopoly) and the tunny fishery; and turning to the left from the land gate of Portoferraio, had pushed as far as the iron mines of Rio – then, as now, Government property – and the fort of Longone; but he had not yet climbed the hills that shut in his capital at the back. These are crossed by a few bridle-paths and by a road, sheer up and down, paved now with the native rock, now with loose, rolling stones, and known as the Colle Reciso. About half-way up the Portoferraio side of this road, a breakneck path leads to the right, up the face of a hill called St. Lucia, whence the Etruscans once drew copper for their bronze. The Emperor, Colonel Campbell, General Bertrand, and their attendants, riding to the top of this hill, found themselves among the ruins of a very large ancient castle. The towers lie prone in enormous masses of masonry, the walls have partly fallen in, partly been quarried for surrounding buildings; of roof there is no trace; the place is simply a large grass-grown square surrounded by naked, ruined blocks of masonry. Not quite abandoned, either, for in one corner is a tiny church with a couple of rooms built on to it in which a hermit once lived and died. Here the party halted and looked round. They were dominating the narrowest part of the island. Right and left the hills stretch away in barren, fantastic peaks now crowned with ruins, now sheer with granite cliffs; before and behind the sea is visible in four different places. Napoleon looked around for a little while, taking in the principal points of the landscape, and then, turning to Campbell, said, with a quiet smile: – “Eh, mon île est bien petite.”

Later on he would often follow the Colle Reciso down into the fertile, vine-covered plain of Lacona, which lies at its foot on the southern side. The conditions here, even now, are truly patriarchal. The mountains form a semi-circle about the coast; and in the midst stands the proprietor’s villa surrounded by eucalyptus trees, prickly-pears and aloes – an island among the spreading vineyards. To see the contadini waiting at the well for the master, his arrival with his family, and the respectful familiarity with which they take their orders from their padrone, is to get a glimpse into old world ways and ideas such as does not fall to the lot of everyone.

From this plain springs the headland known as Capo di Stella. It is narrow and low at its base, but rises and swells as it advances into the sea, and becomes a wild rocky hill, with sheer precipices down to the water, covered with lentisks, with aromatic herbs, with great silvery shining thorn-bushes known to the inhabitants as prune caprine. It is the home of hares and innumerable birds. Here Napoleon proposed to make a preserve for game; and actually went the length of arranging matters with the proprietor, Jacopo Foresi, and of making some show of beginning the wall which was to span the isthmus, cutting off the headland from the rest of the estate. Needless to say that the game on Capo di Stella was not in reality profoundly interesting to Napoleon, and that the plan was never carried out. There is an incident recounted of the Emperor in these parts, commemorated by an inscription affixed by the present proprietor, Mario Foresi, to the walls of the house of one of his peasants. A certain Giaconi was ploughing when Napoleon came along, and in his character of one interested in everything, took the ploughshare out of the man’s hands and attempted to guide it himself. But the oxen refused to obey him, overturned the share and spoilt the furrow. Foresi’s inscription runs as follows:

napoleone il grande

quivi passando nel MDCCCXIV.

tolto nel campo adiacente l’aratro d’un contadino

provavasi egli stesso ad arare

ma i bovi rebelli a quelle mani

che pur seppero infrenare l’europa

precipitosamente

fuggirono dal solco.¹⁴

Farther along the coast, to the west of Lacona, and separated from it by a semi-circle of almost pathless hills, is the beach and village of Campo, where are extensive granite quarries. To this place also Napoleon paid several visits, and caused a road to be made winding round the base of the hills and joining it with Portoferraio. Must he not develop the resources of his island by providing for the carriage of its granite? Or rather, would not such a road be extremely convenient for keeping up communication with the outlying island of Pianosa, where he was collecting troops and training cavalry? The room where Napoleon passed the night on one of his visits to the village is still shown; an old man, too, blear-eyed and tottering, is listened to with a certain respect by the villagers as he relates how he was nursed and caressed by the Emperor. His father had been a sailor in one of Napoleon’s fleets, had been taken prisoner by Nelson, had spent many years in England, had been ultimately accepted as a sailor on an English ship, and had made his escape from Genoa. Napoleon visited the man, made him relate his experiences, and showed himself affable with the children, as was his general way in Elba.

Most thickly do reminiscences of Napoleon cluster round the lovely village of Marciana. The road leading westwards from Portoferraio skirts the seashore. On the left hand rise cliffs densely overgrown with white heather; below, on the right, lies the shore in a succession of bewitching bays and headlands. A ride of between two and three hours brings one to a village lying along a graceful curve, backed by dense chestnut woods, over which hang the frowning precipices of Monte Capanne, the highest mountain in the island. This is Marciana Marina. Behind it a steep, boulder-paved path, running along a ridge above the chestnut woods, where cicale sing all day long to the sound of falling waters, leads to Marciana Alta, a fortified place defended once by a huge castle. The castle is now a mere shell within which fowls are penned; they pick up a living among the heaps of débris, and drink out of the two halves of the large iron crown which once hung proudly above the Medici arms. To the right of Marciana Alta, a long Via Crucis leads to a church known as the Madonna del Monte. The road is absolutely breakneck, formed of blocks of stone, which devout visitors to the shrine have hammered into the soil at their somewhat eccentric pleasure. The church is one of the richest in the island, possessing beautiful massive silver chalices and lamps, rich vestments, vineyards and fields. It stands in a wood of magnificent chestnut trees, and has at the back a charming semi-circular wall of grey stone, divided by pilasters into three sections, each of which contains an ancient stone mask spouting the coldest, lightest of water. Close by the church is a little house in which a lay hermit lives. What wonder that Napoleon should take a liking to so picturesque a place, renowned throughout the island for the excellence of its air and its water? What wonder that he should love to retire thither, and to wander through the woods to the truculent little village of Poggio that stands up so defiantly on its granite prominence? That he should even like to picnic on the road in the fold of the hills where the five springs keep up a continuous splashing? That he should choose this place to receive that mysterious lady (in reality, the Polish Countess Walewsky) whom the unlucky mayor of Marciana wanted to fête as no less a person than the Empress Marie Louise in person? Surely all this was harmless and natural enough. But follow up the path that leads off to the right of the hermitage, pass out of the shade of the trees and across the granite boulders to the promontory that commands the coast of Elba, the mainland, and Corsica. There two huge masses of rock tower above their comrades. Between them is a little stairway, partly natural, partly artificial, which leads to the top of the outer rock. This presents a natural platform shielded along part of its length by a natural parapet. The parapet has been added to with brickwork, and a deep hole big enough to hold a large flagstaff has been driven into the platform. This was a favourite resort of Napoleon’s. What place could be better for taking the air? And what place could be better for signalling to Corsica, the window-panes of whose villages glitter at so short a distance? As a matter of fact it is some thirty-five miles away; but in the limpid atmosphere of this “isle of the blessed,” distance, like time, seems to be annihilated. Here then, like the hero of Balzac’s tale, would the prodigal sit gazing at his peau de chagrin, now so wofully shrunken, and scheming for some way to reverse the spell and restore it to its former amplitude. Vain dream! from which he was finally awakened by the rude shock of Waterloo. After Napoleon left the island, the people of Marciana put up a pompous inscription on the outer wall of the church. It runs as follows: —

napoleone I

vinti gli imperi

i regi resi vassalli

da rutenici geli soprappreso non dalle armi

in questo eremo

per lui trasformato in reggia abitava

dal 23 agosto al 14 settembre 1814

e ritemprato il genio immortale

il 24 febbraio 1815

da qui slanciossi a meravigliare di se

novellamente il mondo.

il municipio di marciana

con animo grato e riverente

a tanto nome

decretava di erigere questa memoria

il 18 febbraio, 1863.¹⁵

Of regular residences Napoleon may be said to have had three in the island of Elba: the Mulini in Portoferraio, the country-house at St. Martino, and a house at Longone. The Mulini is a small, two-storeyed house, with a garden behind it, and a winding path leading down to the sea; the path ends in a little grotto known as “Napoleon’s bath.” The Emperor occupied the lower storey, giving the upper one, which he himself had built on, to his sister Pauline. No trace of the illustrious occupant now remains: the furniture has been entirely removed, some of it, as in the case of a bed in my possession, having left the island altogether; even the library, presented by Napoleon to the town, and lodged in the town-hall, has been to a great extent scattered, owing to the carelessness of the municipal authorities. Only one tangible record of the Emperor remains: the bronze mask in the chapel of the Misericordia. Antonmarchi, Napoleon’s doctor, made in Paris three bronze masks from the plaster cast which he had taken immediately after the death in St. Helena. One of these masks passed through the Murat family into the hands of the sculptor, Hiram Powers, in Florence, and is now¹⁶ exposed for sale in London. The second I have not been able to trace. The third is at Portoferraio, kept in a handsome sarcophagus, and exposed to the public gaze every 5th of May, when a funeral service is performed over it. The face, as shown by the mask, is thin and drawn, the brow heavy and projecting; the likeness to the bust of Julius Cæsar in the British Museum is quite extraordinary.

Napoleon’s country-house at St. Martino lies in the fold of the hills west of Portoferraio. The building of it enabled him to play to perfection the rôle he had determined to adopt. He bought up the ground from the small proprietors who owned it, respecting, however, the rights of one old woman who refused to sell; and as soon as the works were well under way was continually to be seen riding along the road from Portoferraio to inspect their progress, supervising everything, chatting with everybody, talking to the children and giving them money. A tree is still shown which he is said to have planted with his own hand. Round the house, which was quite small, is a wood with fine old ilex-trees through which a path leads to the spring at which Napoleon loved to drink, and to the right rises a hill which the peasants still call the hill of sighs, because, they say, Napoleon used to go up there to sigh for his beloved France. The Emperor’s bedroom has been preserved intact, with its pretty decorations and its charming Empire furniture. Near the bed are two windows, of which one, just at the level of the eyes of a person lying there, opens on to a superb view of Portoferraio, the sea and neighbouring coast-line.

The house within the fort at Longone is now as bare as that at Portoferraio. The place, however, is interesting, for it was with the excuse of repairing the fortifications there that the Emperor supplied himself with guns and ammunition; while the ostensible sale, at Genoa, Leghorn, and other places, of the old iron found in the fort, afforded him an additional means of communication with the Continent. He was very frequently at Longone while maturing the final details of his escape.

Notwithstanding his apparent affability towards the Elbans, intended, we must believe, rather to mislead outsiders than the people themselves, Napoleon was not popular in the island. Being in continual want of money he was obliged to tax the people beyond their resources; and they naturally saw clearly that, whatever he might say and however condescending he might show himself, the money he drew from them was by no manner of means applied to the improvement of their position. His tax-gatherers were insulted; riots took place in the very churches when the priests gave out the date by which the taxes were to be sent in; in one village troops were billeted on the inhabitants until the last penny should be paid. The cries of “Vive l’Empereur!” which had originally greeted him on his various expeditions, ceased to be heard.

Before matters reached a veritable climax, however, Napoleon had played out his part, and had left the island in which he had landed with so many fine promises. He had shown himself a clever actor, a skilful intriguer to the outside world of European diplomacy; debauched, tyrannical and exacting to the inner Elban world, into which foreign diplomats could pry with difficulty. In his vices, in his astuteness, in his ambition, Napoleon, as he revealed himself in the island of Elba, moves backwards through history, and takes his place beside the Borgia, the Orsini, the Medici of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Of the caricatures of the period the most interesting is the grimly ingenious German portrait of the Conqueror, to which the following explanation is attached: The hat is the Russian eagle which has gripped with its talons and will not leave go; the face is composed of the bodies of some of the thousands he has sacrificed to his ambition; the collar is the torrent of blood shed for his vain-glory; the coat is a bit of the map of the confederation arrayed against him and of his lost battlefields. On his shoulder, in the guise of an epaulet, is the great hand of God, which plucks the cobweb and destroys the spider that fills the place where a heart should have been.