Noble Blood - The Daring Prison Break of the Emperor in Exile

Episode Date: April 2, 2024

When a coalition of European nations invaded Paris in 1815, they offered Napoleon what they believed to be very generous terms of surrender: he would keep his head, but be exiled to a life as Emperor of the insignificant island of Elba off the coast of Italy. Though Napoleon claimed to be content with the thought of retirement, less than 11 months later, he had returned to France and reclaimed his throne. Support Noble Blood: — Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon — Noble Blood merch! — Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong,

dance. And then there's your body having its own program. Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and grim and mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. With the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the gunpowder and smoke clearing from the battlefields of Central Europe, there came the rebirth. of a tradition, the Grand Tour. It was something of an institution, the idea that wealthy and aristocratic young men would spend a year or so traveling the cultural centers of the continent to learn about art and music. And in the summer of 1814, a young English colonel named Montgomery

Maxwell was eager to see the world. The destinations for a young British boy were fairly well-established, Vienna, Venice, Florence, but like many boys on their grand tours in 1814, Maxwell had added a slightly unusual stop to his itinerary, a small, rocky island, a day's sail from the western coast of Italy in the Mediterranean called Elba. Maxwell wasn't coming to Elba for the pleasant Mediterranean climate or to investigate the moderately successful tin mining industry on the island, no, he was there for a single tourist attraction, Napoleon Bonaparte. A few months prior, after coalition forces invaded Paris, Napoleon had been forced to surrender and abdicate as emperor of France. Prussia, Austria, Russia, and the United

Kingdom had all gotten together to come up with the solution of what to do with this strange Corsican an upstart who had brought Europe to its knees. The answer they came up with was Elba, exile to an island that Napoleon would be allowed to rule still as an emperor, albeit an emperor of a much, much smaller landmass. Montgomery Maxwell sailed to Elba in the hopes of getting to encounter, as he put it, quote, the man who had been the idol of my imagination for years. As it turns out, it wasn't too difficult. For any Englishmen who arrived to Porto Ferrio, the largest city and capital of Elba, it seemed like all you needed to do was hang out long enough, and eventually the man who had crowned himself at Notre Dame a decade prior would just amble by. And lo and behold, he did.

Although as soon as Maxwell saw Napoleon out on a stroll with some of his men, he couldn't help but be disappointed. The idol of his imagination, he wrote, quote, stood before me with a round ungraceful figure and with a most unpoetically perturbaned stomach. The countenance in which I expected to behold a unison of the demon and the soldier appeared soft and mild in the extreme. There was nothing striking in it, and quote. Could it be the man who had terrified Europe, the best, the best of the best, big bad of the British imagination was, in the end, just a man. Maxwell was disappointed. He approached Napoleon. Here on Elba, Napoleon wasn't some distant, gilded figure hidden

behind imperial trappings, and he introduced himself. And in that moment, as the two men began to speak, Maxwell understood the emperor's power. He wrote, quote, I now became enraptured with his lively, bewitching air, with his astonishing memory, his information and the fertility with which he kept up an easy and agreeable conversation. No wonder French soldiers adored him, for he instantly proved to us all how well he knew how to tickle the human heart. Napoleon was shockingly personable and funny. When one of Maxwell's friends mentioned that he was from Kent, right on the southeast coast of England, a thin strip of water away from France, Napoleon replied, we're neighbors. Napoleon had become an expert in playing the role that people wanted him to play on Elba,

something of a genial mascot. Though he happily talked about his former military victories, he renounced war. He was retired, he said. And it seemed as though he were perfectly content about all of it. He would pour you a glass of wine, ask you about your family, and then happily chuckle about the fact that the old Napoleon was dead, and what a run he had had. If there was one uncanny skill that Napoleon had, it was the ability to subsume himself into whatever narrative was the most effective at any given moment. Like a good monarch or pop star or celebrity, he knew that his greatest power was in his symbolism, in what others could project upon him. and here on Elba, Napoleon had become the amiable retiree.

Except that wasn't how Napoleon wanted the story of Napoleon to end. Though he told tourists and visiting emissaries that he was more than content to spend his days puttering around his little island, less than ten months after arriving on Elba, Napoleon decided that his retirement was over. With a tiny fleet and a rag-tag group of loyal soldiers, Napoleon sailed from Elba to the French coast, where he marched to Paris and, without firing a single bullet, reclaimed the throne he had, less than a year earlier, been forced to abandon. The Elbin exile is a strange interlude in Napoleon's story, dwarfed by the drama of what would come next, his final defeat at Waterloo and then his. permanent, much more restrictive exile on St. Helena.

But those strange ten months on Elba fascinate me, the period during which Napoleon was forced to stop and take stock of both himself and his narrative. And of course, Napoleon realized that the story of Napoleon required a coda, a dramatic comeback, a heroic gambit. As Montgomery Maxwell had seen, Napoleon the man was merely human. But Napoleon wasn't interested in being a man. He self-mythologized in real time, and he wanted to become a legend, no matter the cost.

I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. I'm no scholar of military history, but you don't really need to be in order to understand that Napoleon's failed invasion of Russia was, in short, a disaster. As he retreated, his numbers dwindled. In just three weeks, 60,000 of Napoleon's men died from cold, disease, hunger, and thirst. And so the stage was set for a new coalition of European powers, Prussia, Austria, Sweden, Russia, Great Britain, Spain, and Portugal to come together to rid the continent of the Bonaparte problem. Facing an army twice his size, Napoleon lost at the Battle of Leipzig in October of 1813. A few months later, the coalition forces invaded France.

Napoleon, still racing towards Paris, attempted to gather enough support to fight, but citizens were already waving white handkerchiefs of surrender out of their windows. They were simply done with fighting. Too many boys had died and Paris had no interest. in sustained warfare in its streets. Napoleon made it as far as Fontainebleau, a chateau about 70 kilometers south of Paris, where he got word that the city had fallen.

The provisional government, backed by the foreign coalition, deposed Napoleon as emperor, and in his place they decided on the next leader of France. The revolution had toppled the monarchy and beheaded King Louis XVI, but France somehow needed to figure out a way to wipe out the Napoleonic era, to go back to the country they had been before the Corsican general had painted the nation with his imperial symbols. The coalition would ultimately determine that France would revert back to its 1792 borders,

and so why not return as well to its 18th century systems of belief? the provisional government decided to reinstate a king, to invite back to France the brother of the beheaded king who had been living in exile since the French Revolution so that he could rule, albeit as a constitutional, not absolute monarch. He would take the title Louis the 18th. A few decades prior, the French Revolution had toppled the monarchy and beheaded King Louis XVI.

And the republic that had replaced the monarchy had hardly been stable. Now France somehow needed to figure out a way to wipe out the Napoleonic era, to go back to the country they had been before the Corsican general had painted over the nation with his imperial symbols. The coalition determined, eventually, that France would revert back to its 1792 borders, and so why not return as well to its 18th century monarch? The provisional government decided that, for a sense of national unity and cohesion, that they would reinstate a king. And so they invited back to France the brother of the beheaded Louis XVI, who had been living in exile since the French Revolution, so that he could rule, albeit as a constitutional, not absolute monarch, under the title Louis XVI.

In the early morning hours of April 13, 1814, still at Fontainebleau, Napoleon pulled a poison lozenge from the silk sachet he had kept around his neck since the Moscow campaign. He swallowed it. A valet had heard a commotion in the other room and called a doctor who hastened to Napoleon's side. Fortunately, the poison, a combination of opium, belladonna and white hellbore, had degraded in the two years since November. Napoleon had had it. And after being induced to vomit by eating ashes from the fireplace, Napoleon was left with nothing more serious than a sharp pain in his stomach to contend with. He had survived his suicide attempt, which meant that now he would have to face the ignimony of his defeat. The question remained. What was the world going to do with Napoleon? In the spring of 1814, the Coalition of European Power,

gathered together to try to figure it out. The terms would be generous. After all, Napoleon famously inspired loyalty among his soldiers and his followers. There was no need to make him a martyr or induce a civil war in France. Besides, he was a former emperor. As Mark Brod writes in his book,

The Invisible Emperor, quote, Europe's sovereigns still thought of themselves as a band of equals, cousins, as he liked to call them, bound despite intern-seen conflicts by blood, history, and protocol. They alone understood the heavy task of ruling, and they alone understood that a defeated emperor must be treated with the deference due his title,

even if, in this case, the ruler in question, had invented that title for himself, end quote. It was Tsar Alexander of Russia who decided, on Elba, a tiny island with no real economic value. Even though it was only a quick sail over from Italy, the fact that it was an island, surrounded on all sides with water, provided a comforting mental barrier to Napoleon's confinement. Plus, he would be close enough for them to keep an eye on.

And even though the rest of the European powers might have had their own thoughts and opinions on how to deal with the Napoleon problem, they also understood that time was of the essence. The longer that Napoleon stayed in France, the longer his followers might have to rally support around him. They needed him gone. And so the Treaty of Fontainebleau set the terms. He would be Emperor of Elba, its own principality, and receive a pension from the French government of two million francs, and permitted 400 veterans from his old guard, one Corvette worship, and a tiny fleet in order to protect himself, and the island from assassins or barbary pirates. Napoleon would be going from a household staff

of 3,000 people to 40. Reluctantly, Napoleon signed the terms of his exile, and after a final salute to the men at Fontainebleau, he allowed himself to be escorted by coalition representatives toward his forced retirement. The representative from the United Kingdom joining the escort was an English colonel named Neil Campbell. Campbell had, to put it mildly, a rough go getting there. He had been fighting as part of the coalition forces invading France, an Englishman fighting alongside Russian soldiers. Campbell knew French, and so he shouted out to a group of enemies, surrender, speaking in French. But the Russians that he was fighting alongside got confused and assumed he was on the opposing side, and a Russian soldier lanced him through the back.

Fortunately for Campbell, he also knew a little bit of Russian, just enough to say, Anglisky Pakovnik, English colonel. Otherwise, the Russians probably would have killed him. He received medical treatment in time, but then, truly adding insult to injury, while he was recovering from his wounds, his luggage was stolen.

Still, when Campbell coalesced and made it to Paris, the British foreign minister, Castleray, assigned him a unique task, quote, to attend the late chief of the French government, end quote, on his way to Elba. I like Castleray's phrasing there, revealing that no one was quite sure yet exactly what Napoleon's new official title was. Campbell was also told to remain on Elba until further notice. Quote, if Napoleon should consider the presence of a British officer,

can be of use in protecting the island and his person against insult or attack. But Campbell's presence wasn't just altruistic. He was also delicately instructed to, quote, use discretion as the mode of communicating with His Majesty's government, meaning that there was some spying going on as well. But the vagueness of the diplomatic language meant that no one seemed quite to understand what exactly, Campbell was supposed to be doing on Elba, including Campbell. Was he there to protect Napoleon,

to flatter him with a sense of importance, by granting his little island the diplomatic recognition of the United Kingdom? Was Campbell just there to spy? Or was he meant to be Napoleon's jailer? All of that uncertainty would come later. In the early spring of 1814, Campbell knew exactly what his job was, gets Napoleon to Elba. The problem was Napoleon was perfectly content to take his sweet time. He was probably biding his time, hoping that the volatile political landscape might swerve in his favor if he waited long enough. But eventually, enough was enough, and Campbell and representatives from Austria, Russia and Prussia, all joined Napoleon down from Fontainebleau to the French coast. The south of France was more Catholic and old-fashioned than Paris, and more royalist.

Napoleon's tariffs had hit port cities especially hard, which meant that as they all rode through the small towns, Napoleon saw himself hanged in effigy and swinging from a tree. Angry French citizens climbed onto his carriage to try to physically attack him. After Avignon, Napoleon chose to borrow a tattered jacket from one of the Austrian soldiers and a great coat from one of the Russians. He also wore a hat with a Bourbon white rosette. To complete the ruse, he rode ahead of the entourage, pretending to be a courier. The disguise was so convincing, apparently, that when Napoleon stopped at an inn, the innkeeper asked if he had come across the scoundrel Bonaparte on the rube.

ride down. Napoleon shook his head and the innkeeper continued, I hope he drowns on the way to Elba. Napoleon left the inn without eating. Finally, the group made it down to the coast unharmed. There in the harbor was the small French ship, the inconstant, that Napoleon was supposed to take to Elba. The inconstant would also remain with him there as his defensive navy. The ship was, admittedly, run down and worse for where, and Napoleon declared that it would be beneath his dignity to sail on it. Instead, he said he wanted to sail on the British ship, the undaunted, that was going to escort the inconstant to Elba.

Campbell said, that was fine. And then, likely still stalling for time, Napoleon made another demand, as an emperor, he would only board the ship if he got a 21-gun salute. Campbell called his bluff and gave him the 21-gun salute, and so Napoleon had no other choice but to step off French soil for what was supposed to be the last time. Ever a master of messaging, before Napoleon arrived on Elba,

he had the island's biggest city plastered with his official greeting, claiming that he had decided to come to Elba for his sojourn because of its kind people and mild climate. Before he disembarked, Napoleon had a new flag designed for his island, white with a red stripe and three golden bees. Bees had been his emblem when he had been Emperor of France. And ever the overachiever, even before Napoleon had officially disembarked, he snuck onto the island on a small rowboat to scope it out. When he did finally make his official landing, Napoleon was presented with a key to be able to. to the city. In the crowd, he recognized a face, a soldier who had once fought for him, and Napoleon called him out, that famous Bonaparte charm and memory at work. The new emperor of Elba was given temporary rooms on the top floor of the city's town hall, which was a former bakery that was still known as the Biscotaria.

Napoleon wasted no time in trying to whip the island into imperial shape, waking up early to scope out sites for not only his permanent residence, but also a country house. As Campbell wrote, quote, I have never seen a man in any situation of life with so much personal activity and restless perseverance. He appears to take so much pleasure in perpetual movement and in seeing those who accompany him sink under fatigue, as has been the case on several occasions. I do not think it is possible for him to sit down to study on any pursuits of retirement as proclaimed by him to be his intention, so long as his state of health permits corporeal exercise. Napoleon was not going to be the

type of retiree to take up painting or Tai Chi. His days were long and grueling, and he had no shortage of ideas for improvements that he wanted to make on Elba, from widening streets to planting trees, to resuming taxes and reorganizing the tin mines. And his addiction to conquest continued. Napoleon had Elba conquer an island even smaller than Elba, which was basically just an uninhabited rock called pianosa, seemingly just because. As Talley Rand once famously quipped, what a pity the man wasn't lazy. And work began quickly on the palace Napoleon wanted overlooking Portoferi,

with rooms for Napoleon and, optimistically, also rooms for his wife, Mary Louise, who Napoleon still hoped would join him in exile. One evening, Elbans were shocked and delighted to see Mary Louise and the son she shared with Napoleon coming on to the beach secretly by rowboat. Their empress, people could not stop talking about her mysterious arrival, who had been the man rowing her, was at her step-side. son, Prince Eugene, and who had been the other lady on the boat? What had she been wearing? Was she wearing dazzling jewels?

A local mayor attempted to pay respects, and when people heard that Napoleon and his wife were spending time in the little hermitage he used as his country retreat, the people hiked up to try to get a glimpse of their empress. Except there was one problem. It was a woman, and the son she shared with Napoleon who had arrived on the island, but it wasn't his wife. It was Napoleon's Polish mistress, Marie Wallachka, and their son, Alexander. Once Napoleon got word that people thought that she was the empress,

Napoleon sent Marie away after only two evenings. Back when he was emperor of France, Napoleon had divorced his much more famous first wife, Josephine, though he still loved her, because she hadn't provided him a male heir. And so to that end, he had married the 18-year-old Marie Louise, daughter of the Austrian emperor, Francis. Francis had reluctantly married his daughter to a non-blood royal because he had been the emperor of France. Now, four years later, his daughter was locked in a political alliance that was completely useless. When Napoleon surrendered back at Fontainebleau, Marie-Louis had gone with their infant son, back to Vienna to be with her family for safekeeping. And though she wrote loving letters to her

exiled husband during those first few weeks, Marie Louise almost certainly never received the sweet letters Napoleon was sending back. Though Marie Louise's feelings for Napoleon, a man only two years younger than her father, were fairly negative when the marriage was first arranged, whether out of wifely duty or genuine affection, it seemed that something like love had grown over the years. And though her Austrian family had made it very clear that they had no intention of sending her to Elba to be with her groom, there was a part of Marie-Louise that thought she really should.

When Marie-Louise made plans to travel to a spa town in the South of France for a vacation, where, ostensibly it might be easy to take a boat, ride to Elba, the Austrian foreign minister sent along as her escort a general named Adam von Nyberg, who was given a simple task to, quote, turn the Duchess away from all ideas of a journey to Elba, a journey which would greatly upset the paternal feelings of his majesty, who cherishes the most tender wishes for the well-being of his well-loved daughter. He must not fail, therefore, to try by any means, whatsoever to dissuade her from such a project. It was no accident that Von Nyberg was incredibly handsome, and though he can't be certain what his methods of persuasion were, in the end, Marie-Louise

did not travel to Elba, and later, after Napoleon's death, he would become her lover. And so, the rooms on Elba that had initially been designed for the Empress gradually began to be talked about as the rooms for Napoleon's sister, who did come. Josephine, Napoleon believed, was the wife who would have joined him on Elba, and he was devastated that spring when he got word that Josephine died back in France before her 51st birthday.

She had been ill, but the more tabloid version of her demise was that she had taken a scandalous walk with Tsar Alexander I, and had worn just a thin muslin wrap that didn't protect her from the cold. Napoleon's final letter to Josephine, which he had sent a few months earlier, had ended with the lines, quote, Goodbye, my friend, let me know you're well. They say you're fattening up like a good Norman farmwife, Napoleon. The Treaty of Paris actually signed the day after Josephine's death, officially ended the war and restored Paris to its 1792 border.

Napoleon was settled on Elba with a garrison of guards and the feeble but passable ship the inconstant for his protection. Technically, Campbell's job should have been done. Napoleon had early on treated him like a friend or diplomat. Now that Napoleon was settled into his manor home with his sister and mother and guards, he didn't really see a need to hang out with Campbell. And so Campbell was stuck on Elba like a vestibular. undure exactly what it was that he was supposed to be doing, with no other British diplomats posted nearby, no friends, no one to talk to, and the foreign office seemed to be ghosting him. He sent

letters requesting a formal extension to his stay with no reply. Eventually, the foreign minister sent a note telling Campbell to basically keep on keeping on and also stop bothering him. He informed Campbell that he, the foreign minister, was going to the peace conference in Vienna, but don't bother to update your address book. Keep sending your dispatches to London unless something really important comes up. To Campbell, it didn't really seem like anything important at all was happening. Though Napoleon was busy with seemingly endless half-finished ideas for improvements on Elba and new properties he wanted to develop for himself, he was living in what Campbell called, quote, perfect bourgeois simplicity, spending his evenings playing dominoes or cards with his family,

and playing piano before bed. In a scene that strikes me as almost adorably domestic, Napoleon was playing cards with his mother when she called him out. Napoleon, you're cheating, she said. Mother, you're rich, he retorted. But peaceful as that scene is, the political situation back in France was a little less stable than the European powers probably wanted. The new king, Louis XVIth, wasn't making a dazzling first impression. He traveled through London on his way back to Paris, and here's the Lord Byron cameo. Lord Byron commented on the scene, writing, quote, At this present writing, Louis the Gaudy is wheeling in triumph into Piccadilly in all the

pomp and rabblement of royalty. And the new King Louis made perhaps one very early PR error. When he signed the document agreeing to the Constitution and bicameral legislature, he dated it the 19th year of his reign. The implication was, of course, that he had been king that entire time, albeit in exile. Complicated as Napoleon was as a figure, there was

was a significant amount of civic pride that he had inspired among the French people. His military victories, his conquests, the pomp and symbolism Napoleon wielded so well had had an effect, and effectively erasing all of that had the effect of embarrassment and a bit of shame, especially considering that the restored Bourbonne dynasty had obviously been installed by foreign troops. There was a growing sense of dissatisfaction, especially among veterans who had fought for Napoleon. As Brode points out, there was an irony that soldiers, the men who would have sacrificed the most for Napoleon and his endless wars, remained the most loyal to him. Napoleon got the sense that a comeback might be possible.

He was also hearing rumors that the European powers were planning on sending him further afield, to a more distant exile on St. Helena off the coast of Africa, which would make any escape impossible. And with the end of the War of 1812, Europeans would no longer need to have ships around America, which meant that more ships would be patrolling the Mediterranean. All of that meant Napoleon understood that if he wanted to pull off an escape, he would need to do it quickly.

The English officer Campbell, feeling as though he were the one in exile, in exile, began to spend more and more time off the island proper and on the Tuscan coast. He justified his sojourns with the 19th century equivalent of someone saying they're taking a mental health day, writing that it would, quote, relieve my mind and prove a very acceptable release from the sultry confinement of Elba. Of course, it didn't hurt that Campbell had also met an Italian noble woman named Contessa Miniachi, who, whose origins and background were mysterious enough that she's invited speculation that she was secretly a spy, either on Napoleon's behalf or someone else's.

If she was, she was incredibly subtle about it, but she and Campbell did become lovers. Campbell wrote to his superiors about the possibility of Napoleon absconding, but he hedged his bets. Quote, I think he is capable of crossing over to Pianbino with his troops. or of any other eccentricity. But if his resident in Elba and his income are secured to him, I think he will pass the rest of his life there in relative tranquility. Unfortunately, Napoleon's income was not secure.

Napoleon wasn't receiving the stipend that he was promised in the Treaty of Fontainebleau, which was supposed to be paid by the French Bourbons. Apparently, they decided funding the man they saw as their enemy was an expense they could put on the back, And though later in his writings, Napoleon would assure the reader that taxes and the Elbin mining industry would have paid for his expenses, the reality was funds were insecure and rapidly diminishing. When his ship, the inconstant, needed repairs, Napoleon took the opportunity to use that as cover to outfit it for his invasion of France. After nine months and 21 days, Napoleon was done with retirement, and he was going to reconquer the nation he loved. On February 26, 1815, a small fleet comprised of the inconstant, four transports, and two feluccas set sail for the south of France.

There were a few reasons Napoleon chose to land directly in France. First, and perhaps most importantly, it would cause confusion and. delay, because the European powers assumed that any escape attempt Napoleon might make would be through Italy. His brother-in-law was king of Naples, and it seemed logical that Napoleon would take the short boat ride, rendezvous with him to bolster his troops, and then march on land through Italy back to France, adding troops along the way. But France was also a symbolic landing point for Napoleon. Napoleon wouldn't be invading with his army. this was to be a glorious homecoming.

Later, Campbell would be blamed for allowing Napoleon to escape, especially considering before and during the actual departure, he was off in Tuscany. But he justified himself later in his writing with every possible rationale. Quote, no part of Napoleon's plan for quitting Elba could have increased my general suspicions, even if I had been there from the 16th to the 26th. nor could have authorized me to report to the British government any fact which could be considered as certain proof.

He adds, quote, there's no criminality in the act previous to his embarkation of the troops and actual departure. Campbell finishes with the conclusion that it's actually a good thing that he and his ship weren't in the harbor at the time because then Napoleon could have captured his ship and added it to his invading fleet. From Napoleon's landing on the southern coast of France, it was an almost comically easy and heroic march up to Paris. Later, Napoleon would say that the march was the happiest time in his life. To me, it reads as a perfect moment of Napoleon's self-mythologizing, manifesting in real time. Napoleon was a master of his own story, and what could make a man like that, happier than living through its dramatic climax, a come-from-behind victory in which he

escapes exile from under the noses of the European powers in order to reclaim his nation. The most dramatic and famous incident on Napoleon's march came outside Lafrey, where a troop of 800 French infantrymen, who had sworn an oath to protect the Bourbon government, stood brandishing their weapons and blocking Napoleon's way. Napoleon didn't attack. Instead, he ordered his musicians to play the patriotic song Marciez, and he walked in front of the enemy soldiers alone. He thrust open his jacket, an open target, and shouted,

Soldiers, I'm your emperor. Do you not recognize me? With his chest exposed, he called, if any of you will shoot his emperor, here I am. Among the 800 infantrymen, someone shouted fire, but no one did. And then someone shouted something else. Long live the emperor! The shout became joyful cheers as the men embraced their exiled leader.

Rather than stopping Napoleon's invasion, the royal infantry men joined him. Word reached Paris of Napoleon's incoming invasion, but the mood was strangely unbothered and relaxed. No one actually considered that Napoleon might succeed in reclaiming the government, and it was partly how strange and how shocking the whole thing was that gave Napoleon the advantage. The audacity of Napoleon's escape stupefied his opponents into numb surrender. Before Napoleon even made it to Paris, King Louis 18th had fled, and when Napoleon reclaimed his palace, the carpets that the Bourbon king had installed were peeled back to reveal that Napoleon's symbols, the imperial bees, were still there beneath. Napoleon's escape from Elba had happened so quickly after his exile began that the Congress of Vienna, where world leaders were meeting to try to figure out what to do. due in the power vacuum of post-Napoleonic Europe was still meeting when Napoleon landed back

in France. Surely Napoleon recognized that all of those leaders in one geographical location would allow them to plan their countermove against him far more efficiently than they otherwise could have via exchanging letters, but the advantages to Napoleon acting quickly had outweighed that. A week before Napoleon reached Paris, the Congress of Vienna officially declared that he was an outlaw, breaking the terms of his surrender in exile, and Austria, Prussia, Russia, and the UK all committed men to bring him down again, this time for good. Despite her loving letters at the start of Napoleon's exile, when his wife Marie-Louise got word of his reclamation, she said that she would rather join a convent than join her husband.

They would never see each other again. Napoleon's second act, cinematic as it was, was also brief. 100 days. Audacity would allow him to grab power, but it wasn't enough to hold it. And when the European forces finally defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, this time they wouldn't be making the same mistake twice. Napoleon was exiled to St. Helena, far too remote and under far too much guard, to even entertain the notion of anything but full retirement. Napoleon died there, likely of stomach cancer, not too long after. If you're wondering what happened to poor Campbell, the lone English officer who, in the minds of the British public, had one job, after Napoleon's flotilla sailed off, he scrambled, trying to,

to figure out where Napoleon was off to, which he incorrectly assumed would be Italy. All of Campbell's efforts came too late. He did not stop Napoleon, and, once again, adding insult to injury, as Campbell was traveling along the Lagreen Coast, he was accosted by highwaymen and had all of his possessions robbed. It was a fitting and terrible bookend to his miserable Alba assignment. That's the story of Napoleon's exile to Elba. But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit about two different outlaws who became entangled with Napoleon's history.

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Listen to soccer moms on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Will Ferrell's Big Money Players and IHeart Podcasts presents Soccer Moms. So I'm Leanne. This is my best friend Janet. Hey. And we have been joined at the Hipsons High School. Absolutely. Now a redacted.

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Could you pull? I would buy it. Cut through the defense like a hot knife through sponge cake. That sounds delicious. Oh, you're lucky I'm not a drug addict. You're lucky I'm not an alcoholic. You're lucky I'm not a killer. I love this team and I'm really trying to be a figure in their lives that they can rely on. Oh.

Listen to soccer moms on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. An American professor of history named John William Rooney was working in the French National Archive when he did. decided to take home a very unique souvenir. Rooney walked out of the archives with a woven paper treaty more than 150 years old, sealed with a red wax and tied with a green cord. Rooney had stolen the last remaining French copy of the Treaty of Fontainebleau,

the document with which Napoleon accepted the surrender of his role as Emperor of France and his new life as Emperor of Elba. It wasn't until 1996 that a National Archive employee was looking through a Sotheby's catalog when he noticed something peculiar, a long-missing treaty up for auction. With the investigation underway, it was discovered that dozens of other important French documents were missing, including 30 letters conveniently with the National Archives stamp sliced off.

Most of the letters were concerning Louis XIII and the Restoration Guard. government, which were found by the FBI in a search of Rooney's home in 2001. The documents and the Treaty of Fonteinbleau were returned to France, but with no extradition agreement, the punishment was light. Rooney, 71 years old, was charged with customs violations and fined $1,000. His friend Marshall Pierce, a novelist, had been the one to actually put the documents up for sale on Sotheby's, and he was fined 10,000. thousand dollars. Though France attempted to prosecute Rooney in 2005, the statute of limitations on the robbery had expired, and America was not going to extradite a citizen. As far as I can tell,

Rooney, if he is still alive, never returned to France to stand trial. Rooney maintained that he bought the items and did not know they were stolen, though in an interview, he said, if you were to stand in front of the pyramids of Egypt, you might pick up a chip too. I have to say there is something about the bald audacity with which Rooney and Pierce attempted to pull off their robbery. That's frankly Napoleonic. During Napoleon's conquests of Egypt and Italy, he stole countless works of art, sculptures by Michelangelo, the Venus Di Medici sculpture, paintings by Vasari, Veronese, Jojo, and more. Some were returned to Italy after Napoleon fell from power, but some are still in the Louvre.

An audacious act of international thievery of items related to Napoleon might even be considered an homage. Noble Blood is a production of I-Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Menke. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Danish Schwartz, with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender, Julia Melani, and Armand Kasam. The show is edited and produced by Noami Griffin and Rima Il K. Ali, with supervising producer Josh Thane and executive producers Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.

For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist. and hosts of the podcast a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. You can have opinions, you can have like a strong stance,

and then there's your body having its own program. Listen to a slight change of plans. on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.