I) Elba, Napoleon’s ‘principality and personal property’

1 The Treaty of Fontainebleau of 11 April 1814, which decided Napoleon’s fate and which placed him in Elba, is delicately formulated. [1] In article 1, Napoleon renounced all sovereignty and domination over the French Empire and Italy. Article 2 allowed him to retain the title Emperor. Article 3 notes that Elba was the site ‘selected’ by Napoleon for his residence. [2] It was to be “an independent principality possessed by him in complete sovereignty and as personal property” (“une principauté séparée qui sera possédée par lui en toute souveraineté et propriété”). Before Napoleon’s arrival, Elba was a sub-prefecture in the Département of Mediterranée and therefore part of ‘metropolitan’ France. It was to change on the signing of the Fontainebleau treaty. Once the allies (but not Britain) signed the treaty of Fontainebleau with Napoleon, the Provisional French government (represented by Talleyrand and Dalberg) acceded to it in a separate document (on the same day), as did Louis XVIII by a declaration signed one month and a half later (30 May, signed on Louis’ behalf by Talleyrand). Elba thus ceased to be France and became the principality of Elba. Great efforts were made by the allies to disguise the fact that Napoleon had been compelled to go there and that there would be, if not a guard, at least surveillance in the form of the British agent, Neil Campbell. [3] Furthermore, Napoleon was to receive financial assistance for the running of the island. Perhaps the most crucial and portentous article was the one stipulating that two million francs were to be paid to him by France every year.

2 When Napoleon arrived on Elba, it was not the ex-sub-prefect Giuseppe Balbiani who received the new sovereign of the island, but rather the mayor of Portoferraio, Pietro Traditi, whose granting of the keys of the city to Napoleon on the morning of 4 May 1814, provided a symbol of the handing over of authority – the formal written transfer of power had been executed by Drouot and Bertrand on Napoleon’s behalf the day before. [4] The island of Elba was Napoleon’s personal property, and as for the running of it, the new sovereign was to dictate to Bertrand a sort of ‘constitution’ laying out the foundations. Though short (a mere three pages), the document divided the running of the sovereign island into five sub-departments, namely, civil administration (funded by land taxation), the communes (funded by various local taxes), the domains reserved for the emperor (the palaces and their respective lands, the mines, salt flats, fisheries, and the island of Pianosa), the emperor’s household and the army (financed by the emperor’s reserved domains; and when this was insufficient, the emperor’s private purse). [5] There were four officers at the head of these sub-departments, directly under the sovereign emperor, all (apart from Balbiani) trusted collaborators from the old days: General Bertrand, Grand Maréchal of the palace and in charge of all the civilian administration on the island, General Drouot, Governor of the island and in charge of military matters (replacing the imperial governor, Dalesme), Balbiani (ex-imperial sous-préfet), the Intendant General, and Guillaume-Joseph Roux, Baron de Peyrusse, the treasurer. Almost all of Napoleon’s surviving ‘official’ correspondence from the Elba period is addressed to the first two of these four men and to no one else. That the administration of the island was entirely under the control of the sovereign and his ‘Maison’ or household is shown by the accounts published in Peyrusse’s Mémorial. [6] The ‘Maison de l’empereur’ provided the context for the administrative institutions, and the institutions themselves stood under the aegis of the household.

3 It is true that Napoleon instituted a council of state on the island, just as he had done in Paris, but here it was called the ‘Conseil souverain’ or sovereign council. Its twelve members comprised the four ‘Frenchmen’ mentioned above and certain important Elbans. [7] It never played a significant role in the running of the island government. The only surviving ‘official’ letter by Napoleon related to it refers to its judicial role. Five of the councillors were to act as a ‘Tribunal de première instance’, with Balbiani as president. [8] The remaining members of the Conseil souverain would be the court of appeal (or ‘Cassation’) – over which either Bertrand or Drouot would preside. This was however not a major change from the judicial system in place before Napoleon’s arrival, when three judges, three ‘juges suppléants’ and an imperial procurer from Livorno (the chef-lieu of Méditerranée) presided over litigation. The Conseil Souverain never achieved the influence or importance of its Parisian forbear – the sovereign ruled for only 300 days. The rest of Napoleon’s ‘official’ correspondence on the island reveals the emperor (and his staff of four) dealing with almost every issue arising, whether administrative or other.

4 The army under Drouot was commanded by the fiery General Cambronne (soon to be of Waterloo fame), and it comprised a staff headquarters, a battalion of Grenadiers (the “Bataillon de l’île d’Elbe”), a free battalion of about three hundred men, for the most part Corsican (the “Chasseurs Corses”), a military band, a group of local gendarmes. The 566 loyal soldiers of the elite Garde impériale (both infantry and cavalry) came from France and represented by far the biggest expense on the island.

5 The navy of twenty-one men was placed under the direction of Ensign Taillade (a Corsican). He was promoted to lieutenant de vaisseau and made commander of the two-masted brig Inconstant. With its eighteen carronades, six officers and sixty-man crew, Inconstant was the flagship of the Elban flotilla. [9] However, Taillade’s cowardly behaviour during a storm (he nearly lost his ship) led to his being replaced by lieutenant J. Chautard, the naval man who ferried Napoleon back from Elba in 1815. Filidoro was port captain, the Corsican Paoli (lieutenant when Napoleon arrived) was soon appointed captain of the Gendarmerie and the latter’s lieutenant was Bernotti. The combined armed forces by 1815 on Elba numbered about 1,000 men. [10]

II) The imperial household and court at the ‘Palais impérial des Mulini’

6 As for the emperor’s household, this was run by Bertrand, Grand Marshal of the palace. Unlike in Paris, however, the household was not explicitly divided up into ‘palais’ and ‘chambre’, nor was there a separate Grand Chamberlain to oversee the ‘chambre’, Bertrand doing duty for both. Napoleon’s surviving correspondence shows us that Bertrand’s duties involved matters such as uniforms for the domestic service, cottons (lingerie), gardens (in both palaces), palace fabric, furniture and furnishings. [11] Beneath Bertrand were four chamberlains (all Elban locals), the louche aristocrat, Vincezo Paolo Vantini, the respected doctor, Christian Lapi (commander of the Elban national guard - Lapi was also director of domains and forests), Pietro Traditi (mayor of Portoferraio), and Giovanni Gualandi (the blind - and supposedly useless - mayor of Rio). As mentioned above, the four chamberlains were also members of the Conseil Souverain. These Elban locals were of little influence but served to give a semblance of ‘amalgame’ to the imperial court, the four chamberlains being representatives of four different social and political strata on Elba. [12] By an order dated 15 May, 1814, [13] six ordnance officers were appointed in the service of the emperor, headed by chef d’escadron Jacques Roul: Zenone Vantini (son of the chamberlain), Antonio Binelli from Rio, Bernotto Bernotti from Marciana (Gendarmerie Captain Paoli’s lieutenant), Fortunio Senno, Domenico Pons de Leon de la Gorgone and Carlo Perez from Longone. [14] The household secretariat was run by Pierre Deschamps and Pierre Quintin Joseph Baillon, and they bore the titles Préfets or Adjoints de palais – they had been two of the four administrative secretaries at the Tuileries and ex-gendarmerie d’élite, and were consequently the lynchpins of the household. [15] The household was completed by Rathery, secretary to Bertrand but detailed to the emperor, the Doctor Foureau de Beauregard, pupil of Corvisart, and the Pharmacist, Gatte. [16] In addition to the largely French household were two Elbans (one of Corsican origin), Vincenzo Foresi, supplier to the imperial court on Elba, and Jean-Noël Santini (the Corsican, Garde de portefeuille and huissier (usher)). [17]

7 Only the staff indispensable to the emperor were lodged at the ‘palace’, namely Bertrand (he had the next biggest apartment after Pauline and Madame Mère), then Drouot (who was allotted only three poorly furnished rooms), Cambronne, chef d’escadron Roul, [18] Baron Peyrusse. The doctor and pharmacist lodged in a ‘pavillion’ near the hospital, [19] and almost all the rest of the emperor’s personal service, namely, Deschamps and Baillon, then Gillis (valet), Denis or Dorville (garçon de garde-robe), Santini, Rathery, Totin (maître d’hôtel), Ferdinand (chef de cuisine, with his two assistants, Lafosse and Chandelier), Lejeune (wine steward), Ali and Noverraz (chasseurs), lodged in numbered rooms in a building (now no longer standing) referred to as ‘the pavillion’. [20] Those not residing in ‘the pavillion’ included Chauvin (head of the stables) and Amodru (piqueur) who lived in the stables, Hollard (gardener) who lived in the ‘garden pavillion’, and Pierron (chef d’office) who resided in ‘one of the four new lodgings’. [21]

8 As for the court and its physical surroundings, Bernard Chevallier has noted simply with respect to the furnishings in the Palace on Elba “with the limited means at his disposal, Napoleon desired at all costs to base himself on the ‘garde-meuble de la Couronne’, and that it was the ‘Etiquette du Palais imperial’, published in 1806, which served as the point of reference.” [22] The residence I Mulini was to be renamed ‘Palais impérial des Mulini’. [23]

9 In his memoirs Marchand, Napoleon’s valet, gives interesting details as to the way this court functioned: “For the palace on Elba the ceremonial was just like in the Tuileries, but on a smaller scale. One was admitted into this small court after being presented by the Grand Marshal or a chamberlain. ‘Entrées’ were accorded. Every Sunday, mass was said in one of the rooms in the Emperor’s apartment, namely, the one which stood before the salon; it was celebrated by the Vicar General, Abbé Arrighi (another Corsican and distantly related to Napoleon). [24] The Emperor was careful in his attendance, and the civil and military authorities were invited. The Emperor received them after mass. The church bells often rang in the town.” [25] Treasurer Peyrusse in his memoirs backs this up: “The honour service was regulated exactly as it had been in France, with the reception and audience day established as Sunday after mass.” [26] On his promenades, Napoleon was systematically accompanied by an escort (four or five Poles or Mamluks under colonel Raoul, commander of engineers), a chasseur (Noverraz or Ali), and Amodru (Napoleon’s piqueur). [27] When driving out, if Bertrand and Drouot were in his carriage, they had to keep their hats off.

10 Another eye-witness, a captain in Louis XVIII’s navy, Jean Lacroix, Vicomte de Charrier-Moissard, recounts Napoleon’s presence at High Mass on 29 May for the festival of San Cristino (the patron saint of Portoferraio) in that town’s parish church. [28] The emperor was given full honours, accompanied by an escort in full dress uniform. When he reached the church, he was greeted at the door and accompanied into the building under a canopy. He did not however use the imperial throne provided for him, but preferred to take a seat at the entrance to the choir. The troops formed a battalion square outside the church. On the emperor’s departure from the church, the troops presented arms, a tattoo was beaten, the band played, the church bells rang, and cannons were fired. [29] Other official occasions included the ‘cercle’. Charrier-Moissard informs us that it lasted fifteen minutes, people stood in a circle and Napoleon passed from one person to the next, exchanging a few words with each. [30] This is almost an exact replica of the diplomatic ‘cercle’ held during the Empire. The naval man also gives a bare account of a formal ball over which Napoleon presided. The emperor wore a military uniform, and when he entered the room, everyone rose and stood in silence. He was then led to the throne, where he sat during the ball. [31]

11 Members of the imperial family present on the island (Napoleon’s mother, Madame Mère, and his sister, Pauline) likewise played a role in the court. As had been the case during the Consulate and Empire, every Sunday there was the “diner de famille”, to which people in town were invited. Every evening there was a ‘cercle’ over which Madame Mère and the Princess Pauline presided. All those who had permission to enter the palace were admitted. On the stroke of ten, the Emperor retired to his apartments. The ‘cercle’ normally finished at midnight. [32]

12 Again, matching the court first at Malmaison and then that later at Saint-Cloud, Napoleon established an official troop of actors. He converted a church to provide a court theatre. The actors were selected from amongst the soldiers, and the military band provided the orchestra. [33]

III) The emperor as micro-manager

13 Many of the commentators on Napoleon time on Elba have highlighted the emperor’s excessive bureaucracy and his hyperactivity. A large majority of the surviving ‘official’ letters [34] show Napoleon behaving more like a governor than a monarch and administering the island down to the last degree – rebuilding the latrines in Portoferraio because they smelt, for example, and organising the drapery in the imperial palaces. They also show us Napoleon paying great attention to public works, building roads and bridges, providing towns with water (Elba was notorious for its summer droughts), setting up corps of firemen, and providing corn. He even went so far as to try set up workshops for sculpture and an institution for the teaching of drawing. On 11 September, Napoleon wrote to Bertrand regarding the organisation of the imperial stables. [35] This hyperactivity has been viewed (then and now) as un-imperial and even a sign of mental illness. Bertrand in his text describing Napoleon on Elba (corrected by Napoleon himself and published in Napoleon III’s edition of the Correspondence of Napoleon I) was keen to downplay how much Napoleon ‘got his fingers dirty’, remarking: “Tout se faisait par eux [Drouot, Boinod, Bertrand himself and Peyrusse]; l’Empereur ne s’occupait de rien”. [36] Norwood Young picks up on this managerial aspect to the exile and makes great sport of its futility, recounting an incident where the emperor turned his mind to the problem of bread rolls for the hunting dogs. Bertrand presented a written report to Napoleon requesting one bread roll per dog. Napoleon initialled the request in the margin of the document, but changed the bread to bran bread detailing the line in the budget from which the costs should be debited. [37] Pélissier, editor of Napoleon’s Elban correspondence, too saw this micro-management as signs of the beginning of the emperor’s “décadence intellectuelle”. [38] It would not appear, however, that Napoleon is here deliberately experimenting with a new sort of sovereignty, where the ruler becomes a sort of maxi-prefect. Throughout his consular and imperial ‘reigns’, one of his specific character traits is his inability to stop trying to control every sort of administration, even down to the smallest detail, whether the shoes for soldiers and the hay for the horses during the First Italian Campaign, or the laws in the code civil (he attended nearly two thirds of all the redaction meetings) during the Consulate, or the laundry at the Tuileries palace (he once asked to inspect several years’ worth of laundry archives after having received a dirty napkin) during the Empire period, or the incessant instructions sent to Eugène as viceroy of Italy and the marshals in Spain telling them what to do in minute detail – despite the fact that he was thousands of miles away and the orders arrived too late to be followed. On Elba, this trait is not new but simply exacerbated.

IV) Finances

14 We can see from Napoleon’s accounts for his period on Elba, [39] that the two things of quintessential importance on Elba were the household and the military administration, the household costing only 10% less than the military. The remaining civil administration (‘intendance’, tribunals, the imperial receiver, post office, church, roads, mine administration, and tax collection) was funded at 90% less than either of these. The money to pay for these ‘outgoings’ was supposed to come from tax revenue from the island, revenue from the mines in Rio, tax on salt, money from fisheries and sundries, Napoleon’s own finances and, of course, the two million francs stipulated in the Fontainebleau treaty. However, when France refused to pay the two million, Napoleon soon realised that he could not make ends meet. [40] Tax collecting on the island soon became crucial, and therefore a matter causing social unrest. Refusal to pay tax arrears in the town of Capoliveri can be considered as emblematic of reaction on the island. Here the locals claimed that the uncollected taxes from before Napoleon’s reign did not belong to the emperor. And when gendarmes and mounted police came to enforce collection, they were driven back by the inhabitants, led by two local priests. A second force of 200 men had to be sent to sort the problem out. [41] Tax requisitions were so disliked that the inhabitants sent to the British agent, Campbell, asking for protection against “the exactions of their sovereign”. [42] Finances remained however a problem. In the surviving ‘official’ correspondence, from 20 October on, accounts and money saving schemes are frequently the subject. [43]

15 As Pierre Branda has shown in his book, Napoléon et l’argent, [44] the regime on Elba could not have continued for more than another year without the money from France, as per the Treaty of Fontainebleau. Whilst it is true that the emperor could have borrowed money, [45] he was however wary of usury and perfectly aware than loans would not have sorted out his fundamental insolvency caused by the lack of the two million. That Napoleon was unwilling to take the obvious decision of saving a great deal of money by laying off the Guard, shows that for him military protection and prestige were worth more than living on credit. It is of course true that without his six hundred elite soldiers, he would not have been safe from foreign attack, particularly from North Africa. The cost of the presence of guard was therefore an important factor in the decision to leave the island.

V) Napoleon, the ‘legitimate’ ruler of Elba

16 Throughout his time at the head of the French state Napoleon was sensitive to what you could call his ‘legitimacy’, understandable given that, unlike his ‘cousins’ (as he called the other heads of royal Europe), he was not born into his role. On St Helena he described his situation as follows: “I had emerged from the crowd. I needed, as a necessity, to create myself an exterior, to give myself a certain gravitas, succinctly put, a certain etiquette. Otherwise people would always have been slapping me on the back.” His position, his court, his polity – he had it all tailor-made for himself. The emperor is supposed to have said to Ségur: “I have dethroned no one. I found the crown in the gutter. I picked it up, and the People put it on my head. Their deeds must be respected”.

17 The First Consul and then Emperor felt that he had to work hard to keep the crown on his head, deeply conscious as he was of the fragility of his ‘legitimacy’. How could he not be, surrounded as he was by his colleagues of not so long ago, all of whom might have had designs upon his spot? Metternich reported how the emperor regretted not being able to claim the ‘legitimacy’ of the ancien régime. [46] As a result, Napoleon expended a great deal of energy establishing different sorts of legitimacy, experimenting with at least five different types during his rule in France. [47]

18 The first was what you might call ‘law of the jungle’ legitimacy (I won the crown by might). Napoleon may not have deposed a single individual, but he did depose five in the form of the Directory. From his success as the sword of the Brumaire coup d’état, he claimed a legitimacy based on the concept of the rule of strongest. Having thus established himself in place, he shored up this position by means of national votes; what could be called a popular and representative legitimacy. The three successful plebiscites of the Consulate (on the consulship, on the life consulship, and on the elevation to imperial status) enabled Napoleon to point to the massive majority in his favour and say that the people had backed his rule and were his legitimacy. In this way, Napoleon replaces divine right with the sovereignty of the people. Enclosed in this popular legitimacy was a Republican legitimacy derived from the fact that the political actors had accepted Napoleon as consul, life consul and then emperor. However, this permanent quest for legitimacy did not confine itself to Republican political forms and structures. It also merged apparently seamlessly into a quasi-, and then outrightly, monarchical legitimacy. The quasi-monarchical appeared in the shape of ancien régime ‘borrowings’ introduced almost immediately upon the creation of the Consulate, in the face of the latter’s resolutely Republican essence. A mere two months after the Brumaire coup, First Consul Bonaparte moved the seat of government from the symbolically anodyne Palace of Luxembourg, where the Directors had met, to the highly charged ‘realm of memory’, the Tuileries Palace. [48] It was also no accident that here Napoleon chose for his apartments what had been the rooms of Louis XVI. Appearances were not deceptive. Napoleon was there as monarch. [49] Indeed, the architect Fontaine later noted in his Journal that Napoleon regarded the Tuileries Palace as “the sanctuary of monarchy”. [50] And as the consular regime progressed, its ‘monarchisation’ [51] increased, with weekly masses at Saint-Cloud (post the 1802 Concordat with the Holy See) and with the compilation of a book of etiquette for the consular ‘court’ based on ancien régime practices. [52] But the outrightly monarchical took the form of the Senate appointing Napoleon emperor (May 1804) and then the pope coming from Italy to perform emperor’s imperial consecration and coronation at a religious ceremony later on the same year. Dovetailing with this constitutional and monarchical legitimacy stood the comparison (and inheritance) which Napoleon himself boasted that his own emperorship had with that of Charlemagne. [53] Cambacérès, the Second Consul after Brumaire, gives a striking description of Napoleon and his hankering after Charlemagne in his Mémoires noting how Napoleon, at the very beginning of office, was obsessed with “the idea of giving his government the ancient character which it lacked. He would have preferred to have drawn a veil over the authorities which had preceded him post 1792 and to have made the consular power the heir of the monarchy. For this reason, much later on, he tried to place no intermediary between Charlemagne and the proclamation of Empire.” [54] Metternich in his memoirs backs this up: “His [Napoleon’s] heroes were Alexander, Caesar and above all Charlemagne. He was strangely obsessed with the pretension that he was de facto and de jure the latter’s successor. I have seen him many times lose himself in interminable discussions with me, supporting this strange paradox with some of the feeblest arguments. It was apparently my status as Austrian ambassador which led him to harp on this subject to me.” [55]

19 Napoleon’s legitimacy or self-‘monarchisation’, then, was dependent upon time and place (his dynasty had reigned for barely fourteen years). Once in exile, his claim to the French throne is severely compromised. And this situation is the opposite of the case for a hereditary monarch in exile. In that situation, legitimacy is in no way hindered by absence. The hereditary monarch in exile pursues a return to a ‘rightful’ throne and has no doubts about his own legitimacy. Indeed, he is convinced that his claim is more legitimate than that of the ruler who has deposed him. Such was the case with the long exile of Louis XVIII. The Bourbon’s perception of his divine and familial right to be sovereign of France provided the fuel for his long campaign. Napoleon’s claims for legitimacy, on the other hand, is circumstantial and has shallower roots.

20 So when we come to Napoleon’s exile on Elba we are presented with a situation which is upside down with respect to the normal ‘rules’ of exile. The allies and the provisional French government (ratified by Louis XVIII) grant Napoleon Elba via the treaty of Fontainebleau. His rule is therefore entirely legitimate. It is furthermore royal – the island is his principality. There is no democracy or consensus, there is no Bonapartism or system, only pure Royalism; and no emblazoned desire to regain his French throne. Indeed it is almost as if Napoleon is not in exile at all. Major I. H. Vivian, a British visitor to Napoleon in 1815, noted perceptively after his interview with the emperor on Elba that: “Bonaparte held the island in full sovereignty, having his army, […], his navy, his treasury – he imposed taxes; in short, no monarch could be more absolute.” [56] In the centralisation of all power on the island into himself and with the combination of the island accounts with those of the crown, Napoleon de facto renders the whole island his “domaine privée”. His reign there is thus very ‘traditional’.

21 As to the difficult question as to whether Napoleon never intended to stay on Elba, it seems that, as usual, the emperor was keeping his options open. Pons l’Héraut thought that he probably intended to stay. In a chapter on Napoleon’s coaches on Elba, the Frenchman noted that “the emperor brought in his train a quantity of fine coaches and horses, which could only have been an annoying complication and excessive expense for a temporary establishment”. [57] Napoleon himself (speaking through the mouthpiece of Las Cases in the Memorial) blamed the politicians in Vienna for his early departure, and perhaps we should take him seriously: “My existence […] on Elba”, he noted, “was still very enviable, very pleasant. I was soon going to create there a new sort of sovereignty; the most distinguished people in Europe began to pass in review before me. I would have offered the world a spectacle never before seen; that of a monarch who had come down from the throne but who saw parade eagerly before him the civilised world. People might object, it is true, that the allies would have taken my island away from me, and I agree that this circumstance hastened my return. But if France had been well governed, if the French had been content, my influence would have been at an end, I was history, and no one in Vienna would have dreamed of moving me on.” [58]

22 To recapitulate, then, Napoleon paid his own bills on Elba, he owned the court buildings, and he continued to run a full blown imperial court (despite the expense). The locals reacted positively to his arrival but later became disenchanted at the excessive taxes. In dynastic terms however, Napoleon was correct to say “Je suis un homme mort”. [59] He had no contact with other rulers, or indeed his wife and son. None of his court travelled to other courts, and his international relations were perforce limited. But this did not prevent him, ever the politician, from seizing a chance when it came: he was clearly able to communicate covertly with supporters both in Italy and in France, and that the loyal soldiers of his guard kept communication channels open with the homeland. Nevertheless it is generally accepted (following Antoine-Claire Thibaudeau and Adolphe Thiers) that these contacts did not in any way represent a massive ‘Napoleonist’ plot for the emperor’s return. Indeed Napoleon is reported to have proudly claimed that the ‘eagle’s flight’ owed its success not to a conspiracy of his supporters, in particular Carnot, Fouché, Cambacérés, Savary, Thibaudeau and Queen Hortense, but rather to the affection of the people and army. And Thibaudeau goes on to note that the conspiracy theory was propounded particularly by Chateaubriand in the Moniteur as an attempt to downplay the shame of the Bourbon fall. [60]

23 And as for whether Napoleon really could (would?) have stayed on the island we cannot in the end provide an answer, since as Napoleon himself avowed, the decision of the Vienna congress to send him on to St Helena forced his hand and led him to chance all in a return to France. [61] That being said, Napoleon’s idyllic, ‘perfect’ situation on Elba was however mined by two key structural features of the kingdom. Firstly, the rule could not be independent since it relied upon an external power for finance. And secondly, the Elban polity could have no relationship with the outside world – despite the delicate phrasing of the Fontainebleau treaty, Napoleon had been banished there. He did not (and could not) have a minister for foreign relations – not even he himself could perform the role. The edifice was fundamentally flawed, despite Napoleon’s serious attempts to make a go of it (it cost him a lot of money). [62] Whether he wanted to go or not, circumstances drove Napoleon to return to France, to leave the perfect legitimacy of Elba and to chance his arm for contingent legitimacy of France.