Napoleon Returns to France – Part 1: How Napoleon Arrived on the Island of Elba and Why He Left It

In 1932, a new road was inaugurated in the south of France. The road is numbered N85. The road crosses the eastern mountainous region of the Provence region from south to north. It leaves the city of Cannes, which lies on the Mediterranean coast and climbs up the nearby Alps to Grasse, and beyond.
On its way, it winds between mountains and ravines, skims over formidable cliffs, passes through chasms, passes through rock-hewn crevices, rises to heights exceeding a thousand meters, covered in snow in the winter, and descends into valleys where vast rivers flow, which it crosses on bridges.
Then, after 324 kilometers of spectacular scenery, it reaches the city of Grenoble.

Route 85 is known as La route Naopoleon – Napoleon's Road, and it tells a wonderful story, one of the most wonderful in the history of France And of the world: the story of Napoleon's return from exile in Elba and his re-takeover of France, by the power of his personality alone, without shedding a single drop of blood.

Today the road is passable for all types of vehicles. Back then, it was a rugged road, long stretches of which were impassable except on foot and on mules. In our places we would call it: goat paths, or donkey paths, in France these are mule paths.

This journey, which began in the city of Cannes, passed through Grenoble and ended in Paris, lasted twenty days, but when we say “Napoleon’s route” we mean the section of the road between Cannes and Grenoble, which Napoleon covered in a week, not because of the particularly spectacular scenery on this section, but because these days were fateful for the journey, but as a step between success and failure, and as Napoleon sometimes used to express himself: “Only a small step separates the sublime from the ridiculous.” And as he said while he was in Saint Helena: “Until Grenoble I was an adventurer, in Grenoble I became a prince.”

Every year, people from all over the world gather and reenact Napoleon's campaign, some on foot and some on horseback, wearing the uniforms of Napoleon's soldiers.

San Juan Bay (Golf Juan)

Our story begins on Wednesday, March 1815, XNUMX. On the horizon at sea opposite the Gulf of Zoan, located between Cannes and Antibes Eight ships appear. The largest of them is called the Inconstant – a two-masted ship, a “sloop” in sailors’ terminology, of the brig type. It is equipped with twenty-seven cannons and flies the flag of Napoleonic Alba: a white flag with a diagonal red stripe and three bees on it.

The ships make their way towards the coast and as they progress they replace the flag of Alba with the tricolor flag (Bleu Blanc Rouge).
They anchor off the coast and unload their human cargo: about eight hundred soldiers of the Old Guard, about a hundred Polish cavalry – horseless Lancers under the command of Colonel Zerzmanovsky, and about three hundred Corsican soldiers under the command of Colonel Gusaco – the worst Corsican commander. They also unload: four small cannons Four Ponders, three horses, one fancy carriage and fifteen hundred muskets.
Last to descend is Napoleon.
His servant: Louis Marchand hears him declare as his feet step onto the shore:

French soil!
Fifteen years ago I crowned you with the crown of the land of the great nation.
I salute you again.
One of your sons, proud to bear this title,
Came again to rescue you from anarchy.
Nothing for me!
All for France!

What motivated Napoleon to leave the tranquility of the island of Elba and return to turbulent France?
Before we answer this question, let's go back a year and a half.

The campaign of 1814

Between October 16 and 19, 1813, a massive battle was fought around the city of Leipzig in Saxony, Germany. The French army, under the command of Napoleon, retreated before the armies of the Great Powers, which greatly outnumbered it. This retreat marked the beginning of the disintegration of the Napoleonic Empire. The French army retreated beyond the borders of France, leaving pockets of resistance in the cities of Danzig and Dresden, which also fell and the army within them was captured.

Riots break out in Amsterdam against the French. Wellington, the commander of the British forces in the Iberian Peninsula, crosses the Pyrenees and arrives at Bayonne. In Italy, Murat, King of Naples, Napoleon's brother-in-law, married to his sister Caroline, signs a non-aggression pact with Austria, France's enemy. On the east bank of the Rhine, a formidable military force of nearly four hundred thousand soldiers is concentrated - 120 thousand Austrians under the command of Schwarzenberg, 70 thousand soldiers under the command of Bleicher and the rest Russians. Cossack units are already withdrawing from the French border - looting, burning and raping.

And Napoleon? Napoleon is Napoleon. He is built for extreme situations but he needs an army to fill the depleted ranks.

He addresses the legislative body: Corp Legislatif in order to receive permission to recruit soldiers, and says:

France needs a general. France needs me more than I need France. I do not desire the throne of power. The throne of power is four joined wooden planks, painted gold and upholstered in velvet. But power is a man, and that man is me.

He gets what he wants. Empress Marie-Louise is appointed regent and signs the conscription orders. The new recruits are mostly very young, some under eighteen, and are called: “Marie-Louise.”

The heads of state, meeting in Frankfurt, make a proposal to Napoleon: “France will give up the Principality of Savoy, the west bank of the Rhine, and the Netherlands, but will be able to retain part of Belgium.” England objects. It does not want to see a French army on the other side of the Channel.
And Napoleon? Napoleon hesitates. He says:

I am a man who can be killed but not insulted.

He says:

Between the Elbe and the Rhine we were betrayed, but between the Rhine and Paris There are no traitors!

He will be deceived again.

The proposal is rejected and Napoleon says:

We need to recreate the success of Italy (eighteen years ago). Strategy is the science of utilizing space and time, with time being the main thing. Space can be recaptured, time – never!

He hears that the armies of the Great Powers are about to cross the Marne River, and he is encouraged:

They made a mistake again - they split their forces.

He intends to attack the divided enemy forces through a war of movement and relentless battles.
On January 23, he hugs his wife, kisses his infant son – “King of Rome” – and heads to the front. He doesn’t know that he will never see them again.

The winter of early 1814 was one of the hardest that France had ever known. At that time, snow covered large areas.

Napoleon conducts a brilliant war of maneuver. Some say it surpasses his achievements in Italy eighteen years earlier.

A series of battles in which he wins battle after battle: Brienne; Montmirail; Chateau Thiery; Champaubeur; at Montrereau he walks upright amidst the shells exploding around him. The soldiers are terrified. They fear he will be killed, and he calms them down by saying:

Don't worry, the shell that will kill me hasn't been cast yet.

In Toreys, an explosive shell falls near the horse he is riding. The fuse hisses and the shell is about to explode any second. The soldiers are paralyzed with fear, and Napoleon? He mounts the horse on the shell. The shell explodes. It tears the horse's entrails to pieces. And Napoleon? He gets out without a scratch.

Betrayal and defeat

But news of the Ayoub ranks reaches him. Marshal Victor retreats from the Vosges; Marshal Marmont retreats from the Sarre; Marshal Ney abandons Nancy without a fight. And finally – Marshal Augereau, the veteran of the marshals, he who commanded the most excellent units of the army – the Old Guard – retreats from Lyon without a fight. Napoleon dismisses Victor and he begs tearfully to be allowed to fight as a simple soldier. Napoleon relents and restores him to his post.

And he has a plan. Marmont, who still has an army of about ten thousand soldiers under his command, will defend the outskirts of Paris, and he, Napoleon, will flank the enemy advancing on Paris and crush it with a pincer movement. He takes control of Rheims, fights at La Rothier, at Mery, Laon; Craon, Saint Dizier; Neufchatel. But then a messenger arrives from Paris. The loyal postmaster Lavalette calls on him to come immediately, as the enemy is at the gates of Paris.

Napoleon arrives at Fontainebleau determined to fight to the death. However, five marshals, led by Ney, inform him that the army will no longer listen to him but to his generals and pressure him to resign. He agrees to give up his throne in favor of his son. The powers tend to accept this offer, but then Marmont's act of betrayal occurs. He surrenders and surrenders his entire army to the enemy. Tsar Alexander I withdraws from the first offer, and another, ultimate offer is made to Napoleon: he will give up his throne, receive the island of Elba, and retain the title of emperor. The Bourbons, who will return to control France, will give him an allowance of two million francs per year. His wife, Empress Marie-Louise, will receive the principality of Parma with the right of inheritance for her son.

The road to Elba

Napoleon feels the poison capsule hanging around his neck, since it was given to him by his doctor Dr. Ivan in Russia, when he feared he would be captured by the Cossacks. On the night of April 13-14, 1814, he takes the poison, but, as he said on Saint Helena: “I am a man condemned to live.” Napoleon writhes in severe stomach pains, vomits his soul and spits out the poison, and in the morning, exhausted and pale, he descends the famous “Horseshoe” steps of the Palace of Fontainebleau to the “White Horse” square, where the veteran guard in parade awaits him. He delivers the famous farewell speech: the Adieu speech:

Soldiers of my old guard.
I say to you – hello.
For the past twenty years, we have walked together on the path to honor and glory.
In times past, in our days of glory, you never ceased to serve as an example of courage and loyalty.
With people like you, our fight is not lost.
But, a civil war could have developed, and France would have become even more miserable.”
He pauses for a moment. Sobbing sounds are heard. And he continues:
“Therefore, I sacrificed our interests for the sake of those of our country.
I am leaving, brother, to continue serving France.
Only the good of France is before my eyes.
And she will always be the object of my prayers.
Don't pity me and my fate.
If I have decided to stay alive, it is so that I can serve your glory.
I want to write about the great things we did together.”
The sobbing sounds are getting louder.
Hello my children,
I would like to embrace you all to my bosom.
Let me at least kiss your flag.

General Petty, commander of the guard, approaches and lowers the flag bearing the eagle, adorned with the tricolor.
Napoleon kisses the flag.

Hello again, my dear friends. May this kiss penetrate your hearts.

He takes the quill and signs the agreement, which will be called the Treaty of Fontainebleau, (or the First Treaty of Paris). He enters one carriage of a convoy of fourteen carriages, which will take him to Provence and from there to Elba.

On the way, the convoy passes through towns. Napoleon is greeted with applause: “Long live the Emperor.” However, as the convoy moves south, the applause diminishes, and when it reaches Provence, which is hostile to Napoleon, real displays of aggression begin. Residents try to attack the carriage and overturn it. A woman brandishes a knife and shouts: “Who will kill the monster that killed my son?”

Napoleon is a brave man, but he has a prominent phobia. He fears the crowd. It is precisely the crowd, which is the center of his power, that terrifies him. He fears a humiliating death at the hands of the crowd. He cannot forget the terrible sights of the mob's attack on the Tuileries Palace in 1792. The crowd that slaughtered the Swiss Guards, and the women, those "knitters," who dismembered the bodies of the Swiss Guard with knives.

Napoleon knew the nature of the crowd, as Heinrich Heine described it: “The king is a rat” “The crowd is the most despicable of tyrants.” Then he does a very shameful, un-Napoleonic act. He wears the uniform of an Austrian soldier and rides among the soldiers accompanying the carriage. When the convoy reaches Frejus, his sister Pauline, who has come to say goodbye to him, sees him in the Austrian uniform. She does not approach him. And the ashamed Napoleon hurries to change his uniform back into a French one.

Napoleon will sail to Elba in an English ship: Undaunted. He trusts the English more than the ship. French, lest the Bourbon agents assassinate him.

Napoleon arrives in Elba

Alba welcomes him with a magnificent reception befitting an emperor. He immediately sets about organizing the small island. First of all, he orders the filthy town of Portoferraio to be cleaned up. He organizes agriculture and the iron mines, which are the island's main source of income. He establishes his residence in Vila Mulini, and renovates a summer house in nearby Saint Martino. His mother, Letizia, comes to live on the island, as does his sister Pauline. His former mistress, the Polish Maria Wolveski, also arrives with their infant son, Alexander, who will later become Minister of Foreign Affairs in the government of Napoleon III.

But then news reaches him from Vienna, where the rulers of the powers are gathering to divide up the fragments of the crumbling Napoleonic Empire. The seeds of the conflicts that will accompany Europe for the next hundred years are already emerging. Russia and Prussia seek to divide Poland between them. Prussia has its eyes set on annexing Saxony, whose queen collaborated with Napoleon.

England, Austria and France, led by Talleyrand, Napoleon's cunning foreign minister, are opposed. But on one thing they are all unanimous. The island of Elba is too close to the mainland and Napoleon's presence there endangers peace. Rumors are circulating about Napoleon's exile to the island of Saint Lucia in the Caribbean, and the name of the island of Saint Helena is also mentioned for the first time as a possible destination.

Napoleon also knows that the Bourbon envoys and their servant, Talleyrand, his treacherous foreign minister, are seeking to assassinate him. The Bourbons are failing to fulfill their promise to transfer the two million francs and the island is about to go bankrupt, and worst of all. Napoleon's father-in-law, the Austrian Emperor Franz, prevents his daughter Marie-Louise from reuniting with her husband and keeps his son, the "King of Rome" who is the apple of his eye, away from him, who is growing up in Vienna as an Austrian prince.

Then a mysterious man arrives in Alba disguised as a sailor: Fleury de Chaboulon, a messenger from Maret, his trusted secretary of state who tells him that France needs him and that the army is eager for his return.

What happens in France during Napoleon's absence?

Louis XVIII, brother of Louis XVIII, who had been guillotined twenty-two years earlier, was no fool. He understood that it was impossible to turn back the wheel. Napoleonic institutions remained intact. Civil liberty was preserved. The sale of national property was not abolished. The Legion d'Honeur was preserved, but the Order of the Cross of Saint Louis was restored. Only one fundamental thing changed. The sovereignty of the king did not derive from the people. The ministers were appointed by him and not by an elected assembly.

But Louis XVIII, sixty years old, is sixty years old – an old man in the terms of that time – a man exhausted by an exile that lasted twenty-four years. A sick man. He suffers from “gout” (podgere, secondly, gout – a chronic arthritis resulting from the presence of uric acid in the blood). He can hardly walk and is carried by others. He has difficulty withstanding the pressures exerted on him by the emigrants returning to France and demanding their property confiscated by the Revolution, and the army suffers most of all. Those loyal to Napoleon are deposed, or reduced to “half pay” and the ranks of command are occupied by noblemen. The Old Guard is disbanded and the Swiss Guard is reinstated.

Napoleon realizes that he will not live long if he remains in Alba and decides to return to France. He reveals his decision to his mother, and she tells him as a Roman mother would:

My son, follow your destiny. If you are destined to die, it is better that it be the way you have chosen.

He sets the departure date for February 26th because of the moonless nights on those days. As fate would have it, the English representative Neil Campbell will also be absent from the island on that day. He will sail to Tuscany on the ship Patrigde for medical treatment, or to visit his mistress, and some say both.

While the ship is underway, Napoleon drafts a proclamation to the army, which is copied by hand. Napoleon regrets that he did not bring a printing press with him. This is the wording of the proclamation:

Soldiers!!
We were not defeated.
Two soldiers who left our ranks betrayed our honor, their country, their leader, their benefactor!!
They tore down the white flag, which was denounced by the nation, and which had served the enemies of France for twenty-five years.
Show us the tricolor badge, which you wore proudly in our glory days.
Come, gather under the banners of your leader.
Let's gather under the Telugu flag.
Victory will be achieved at half time.
The eagle, adorned with the national colors, will fly from one bell tower to another and from there to the spires of Notre Dame.
So be proud of the scars you carry on your body.
So be proud of what you did.
You will be the liberators of the homeland!!!

Napoleon's companions

This is the place to mention several figures who accompanied Napoleon on his journey:

Antoine Drouot

General of Division. Artillery Corps. Five years younger than Napoleon. Served as the military commander of the island of Elba under Napoleon.
Napoleon called him, in his own words, “La Sage de la Grande Armée,” because he spent every free moment reading books. Perhaps he also liked him for that reason.

At Waterloo he held the position of corps commander – a position reserved for a marshal. He never forgave himself for the rest of his life for advising Napoleon to delay the start of the battle so that the ground could dry out from the rain that had fallen all night so that the guns could be moved. This was one of the reasons for the defeat.

Henri Gatien Bertrand

A member of the Corps of Engineers. He participated in most of the Napoleonic Wars. Four years younger than Napoleon. Since 1813 he served as Marshal de Paly or Grand Marshal, under Drouot, who was killed. This is the position of a sort of chief of staff to Napoleon. The man closest to him. A trusted servant of the highest order.
Served as the civil commander of Elba under Napoleon.

His wife Fanny was the daughter of an English officer. Bertrand and his wife, along with their three children, accompanied Napoleon in his exile on St. Helena. When their fourth son, Arthur, was born on St. Helena, his mother introduced him to Napoleon, saying: "I am proud to present to you the first Frenchman who did not need a license from the English to enter St. Helena."

Pierre Jacques Eteau Cambron

A general of the Old Guard. One year younger than Napoleon.

A man of unrestrained direct speech. At Waterloo he commanded the last square of the old guard that maintained its organization and did not flee in the panic that arose. The English surrounded him and suggested that he surrender before they opened fire with cannons, and then Cambronne said the “well-known word” “mutiny,” which in English means “to revolt” and in Hebrew: “a word beginning with the letter H.” Some say that he did not say this word but replied: “Le garde mer a ne rond pa” (The guard will die and not surrender). He himself denied this. The English opened fire and Cambronne was wounded. He was treated by a compassionate English nurse, Mary Osborne, whom he also married.

Cambronne has become a concept in French culture. There is a verb: “cambronneise” which means: “to speak in a vulgar language” even though Cambronne did exactly the opposite.
While they were on the ship, Napoleon called Cambronne and said to him: “Cambronne, pay attention, I want to get my crown back without shedding a single drop of blood.”

Ali, Napoleon's servant

Despite his oriental dress and Arab name, he was born Louis-Étienne Saint-Denis. He was Napoleon's valet, one of the assistants to Marchand, the chief valet. He replaced Rustam, the Mamluk valet – an Armenian who served Napoleon until he left for Fontainebleau. Rustam would still want to return to Napoleon, but Napoleon would never want to see him again – a man without loyalty was considered dead in his eyes.

William Faires: The Treasurer

The whole of the army. Seven years younger than Napoleon. Served as treasurer at Alba and also on the expedition. He carried with him three million francs in gold coins, which were placed in wooden boxes, which were intended for books. These boxes were carried on mules and Piers was in charge of them. Piers would later become the highly respected mayor of Carcassonne.

The end of the first chapter of our story

This concludes the first chapter of our story, which deals with Napoleon's return to France and his miraculous journey to Paris. In the next chapter, we will deal withJourney from Cannes to Grenoble.