Abstract
This paper is a description of the court which Napoleon briefly established on the island of Elba — a mere ten months. It is also a reflection upon Napoleon in terms of his legitimacy and kingship, and the way in which he dealt with his brief exile on the island. I have focused on this first exile, and not the second on St Helena, because here Napoleon not only maintained a fully-fledged court but also had pretensions to a return from exile. It is true that there are the outward signs of a court in exile on St Helena: Napoleon’s insistence upon being addressed as Emperor;1 the establishment of Tuileries etiquette at Longwood, with no admittance to the Emperor except via the Grand Maréchal Bertrand. And we know that there were plans to steal Napoleon away from that island (though not for a return to a rightful throne). But it is only the keeping up of appearances. The Grand Maréchal Bertrand decided to live off-site at Hutt’s Gate, choosing when to come to formal dinner. Never does Napoleon describe Longwood as ‘my palace’.2 As far as escape is concerned, this seems to have been a chimaera in the minds of his supporters, Napoleon preferring to spend his time writing his way into posterity.3 Indeed, the fallen emperor’s manner of dressing on St Helena was an indication that this exile was not really monarchical and emperorship had been set to one side. At Longwood, Napoleon did not wear military uniform as he had done on Elba.
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Notes
On the contentious issue of the title, ‘Emperor’, which Napoleon demanded on St Helena and which the British government refused to grant, see Lord Rosebery (1900), Napoleon, the Last Phase (London: Arthur Humphreys), pp. 77–91. Lord Rosebery thought Napoleon had a right to the title but recognized that there is a technical (though unavoidable) ambiguity in Napoleon’s imperial character (at least for a royal regime), which can be seen in the events of the imperial coronation in Notre-Dame in December 1804. The Pope anointed (and so consecrated) Napoleon emperor but Napoleon crowned himself and did not take communion. This ambiguity is explicit in the coronation oath. Napoleon waited until the Pope had left the building to swear the oath in which he is styled emperor ‘by the grace of God and the constitution’. This had developed from the title given to Napoleon in May 1804 ‘by the senate and by the people’. This ambiguity (or modernity) tempts the reader into thinking that when one part is missing the imperial quality is impaired: on St Helena, the constitution is no longer there and Napoleon is no longer self-determining.
See P. Hicks (2003), ‘Un Sacre Sans Pareil’, in T. Lentz (ed.), Le Sacre de Napoléon (Paris: Nouveau Monde Editions), pp. 100–39.
On Sundays this was blue, see C. Bourachot (ed.) (2000), Mameluck Ali, Souvenirs sur l’Empereur Napoléon (Paris: Arléa), p. 159.
For the text in French, see M. Kerautret (2004), Les Grands Traités de l’Empire: la Chute de l’Empire et la Restauration Européenne (1811–1815) (Paris: Nouveau Monde Editions/Fondation Napoléon), p. 126.
For the text in English, see Norwood Young (1914), Napoleon in Exile: Elba (1814–1815) (London: Stanley Paul & Co), pp. 43–8.
See A.-L.-A. de Caulaincourt (1933), Mémoires du Général de Caulaincourt Duc de Vicence Grand Écuyer de l’Empereur, introduction and notes by Jean Hanoteau (Paris: Plon), III, pp. 226 and 240ff. Tsar Alexander had initially been against the idea of Elba, as was Napoleon, it being too small and not continental. Corsica, Sardinia and Corfu were also suggested but rejected. In the subsequent negotiations with Alexander, Elba was the preferred site of Napoleon’s negotiator, Caulaincourt, since it had good weather and good defences.
Baron Peyrusse (1869), Mémorial et Archives de M. le Baron Peyrusse (1809– 1815) Trésorier Général de la Couronne. Pendant les Cent-Jours Vienne, Moscou, Ile d’Elbe (Carcassonne: Labau et Lajoux), I, pp. 236–7.
J Napoleon (1897), Le Registre de l’Île d’Elbe: Lettres et Ordres Inédits de Napoléon 1er, 28 Mai 1814–22 Février 1815 (Paris: A. Fontemoing), pp. 58–60.
L.-J. Marchand (1985), Mémoires de Marchand: Premier Valet de Chambre et Exécuteur Testamentaire de l’Empereur/Publiés d’Après le Manuscrit Original par Jean Bourguignon, … (Paris: Tallandier), p. 109.
For short biographical sketches of nearly all these figures, see André Pons de l’Héraut (1897), Souvenirs et Anecdotes de l’Île d’Elbe (Paris: Plon), pp. 74–82, 192.
R. Martinelli (ed.) (2005), Le Mobilier: Inventario della Residenza Imperiale di Napoleone all’Elba (Livorno: Sillabe), p. 86.
Napoleon (1858), Correspondance Publiée par Ordre de l’Empereur Napoléon III (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale), p. 17.
P. Branda (2007), Napoléon et l’Argent (Paris: Fayard), ‘Les Difficiles Finances de l’Île d’Elbe’, pp. 60–8.
C. Metternich, xx Mémoires: Documents et Écrits Divers / Laissés par le Prince de Metternich, …; in Richard de Metternich (ed.) (1881–84), classés et réunis par M.A. de Klinkowstroem (Paris: E. Plon), I, p. 283: ‘One of his deepest and most constant regrets was not being able to invoke the principle of legitimacy as the basis of his power. Few men have been so profoundly marked as he by the realisation of how precarious and fragile authority is once deprived of this foundation, and how strong a bastion legitimacy provides against attack.’
During the Revolutionary period, the Tuileries palace was occupied by the ‘Representatives of the People’, notably the Comité de Salut Public and later the Conseil des Cinq Cents or Senate. Antoine-Claire Thibaudeau considered this Revolutionary occupation ‘a sort of homage given to the majesty of “La Nation”’, A.-C. Thibaudeau (1827), Mémoires sur le Consulat: 1799 à 1804/par un Ancien Conseiller d’Etat (Paris: Ponthieu), p. 1.
Fouché seems to have been mistaken when he noted at the time that “‘the consuls” new residence should cause no concern whatsoever for real Republicans’, quoted in Jean Tulard (ed.) (1999), Dictionnaire Napoléon (Paris: Fayard), s.v., ‘Cour Impériale’ (Tulard), p. 581; although perhaps there is an ironic force in the expression ‘real Republicans’?
P. F. L. Fontaine (1987), Journal (Paris: Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts: Institut Français d’Architecture: Société de l’Histoire de l’Art Français),
cited in B. Chevallier (2004), Napoléon, les Lieux de Pouvoir (Paris: Artlys), p. 33.
For the gradual creation of Napoleon’s monarchical court during the Consulate, see P. Hicks, ‘Napoleon und sein Hof’, in V. Veltzke (ed.) (2007), Napoleon: Trikolore und Kaiseradler über Rhein und Weser (Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau Verlag), pp. 23–32.
Term coined by T. Lentz (1999), xx in Le Grand Consulat: 1799–1804 (Paris: Fayard), pp. 331–51.
J.-J. de Cambacérès (1999), Mémoires Inédits: Éclaircissements Publiés par Cambacérès sur les Principaux Événements de sa Vie Politique, présentation et notes de Laurence Chatel de Brancion (Paris: Perrin), I: La Révolution, le Consulat, p. 489.
See J. Holland Rose (1912), Pitt and Napoleon: Essays and Letters (London: G. Bell and Sons), p. 179.
Comte de Las Cases (1951), Le Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène (Paris: Flammarion), 17 April 1816.
Sir Neil Campbell (2004), Napoleon on Elba: Diary of an Eyewitness to Exile (Welwyn Garden City: Ravenhall Books), ‘May 25’: ‘On it being remarked that he had many adherents still in France, he said, ‘Oh! The Emperor is dead. I am no longer anything’.
See A.-C. Thibaudeau (1913), Mémoires de A.-C. Thibaudeau: 1799–1815 (Paris: Plon), p. 451,
and A. Thiers (1845–62), Histoire du Consulat et de l’Empire (Paris: Paulin), XIX, p. 32.
See J.-O. Boudon (2005), ‘Pourquoi Sainte-Hélène?’, in B. Chevallier, M. Dancoisne-Martineau and T. Lentz (eds), Sainte-Hélène: Île de Mémoire (Paris: Fayard), pp. 47–51.
The Elban exile has been described as a scene from a comic opera. L. Mascilli Migliorini (2002), Napoleone (Roma: Salerno editrice), p. 403 noted: ‘Here time and history are only slower and on a small scale, and what is asked of the Emperor is that he should adapt himself to these smaller dimensions […] Here is not the first step in the great fall but rather a colourful play, a comedy of equivocations, if you will, where each actor — Sovereign, courtiers, diplomats, soldiers, administrators and subjects — consciously play their part against an almost theatrical backdrop.’ This is however too glib. It was an expensive exercise, taken quite seriously at first, but finally rejected for lack of means.
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Hicks, P. (2011). Napoleon on Elba: An Exile of Consent. In: Mansel, P., Riotte, T. (eds) Monarchy and Exile. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230321793_11
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