"Elba" Topic

"Once it became clear that Ney, Macdonald, Lefebvre and Oudinot had no stomach for a civil war, and the Allies had informed Caulaincourt on April 5 that they would give Napoleon the lifetime sovereignty of the Mediterranean island of Elba off Italy, the Emperor signed a provisional abdication document at Fontainebleau for Caulaincourt to use in his negotiations.1 ‘You wish for repose,' he told the marshals. ‘Well then, you shall have it.'2 The abdication was only for himself and not for his heirs, and he intended Caulaincourt to keep it secret as he would ratify it only once a treaty – covering Elba and granting financial and personal security for Napoleon and his family – was signed. Yet of course the news quickly leaked out, and the palace emptied as officers and courtiers left to make their peace with the provisional government. ‘One would have thought,' said State Councillor Joseph Pelet de la Lozère of the exodus, ‘that His Majesty was already in his grave.'3 By April 7 the Moniteur didn't have enough space in its columns to print all the proclamations of loyalty to Louis XVIII that had been made by Jourdan, Augereau, Maison, Lagrange, Nansouty, Oudinot, Kellermann, Lefebvre, Hullin, Milhaud, Ségur, Latour-Maubourg and others.4 Berthier was even appointed to command one of Louis XVIII's corps of Guards.5 ‘His Majesty was very sad and hardly talking,' Roustam recorded of these days.6 After his stay at the Jelgava Palace in Latvia, where he had written to Napoleon asking for his throne back in 1800, Louis XVIII had moved to Hartwell House in Buckinghamshire, England, in 1807, from where he now prepared to move back to France in order to reclaim his throne, as soon as he received the news that Napoleon had abdicated…"
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