CHAPTER LVII.
NAPOLEON’S ESCAPE FROM ELBA—UNIVERSAL CONSTERNATION—FLIGHT OF THE BRITISH FROM FRANCE—CARICATURES ON HIS RETURN.
A somewhat elaborate caricature is by George Cruikshank (January 1815), and is entitled ‘Twelfth Night, or What you Will! now performing at the Theatre Royal Europe, with new Scenery, decorations, &c., &c., &c.’ It represents a theatre, on the stage of which sit Wellington, Austria, Russia, and Prussia. The former has been dividing an enormous Twelfth Cake, with the help of a huge knife and Britannia’s trident. Austria simply takes the whole of Germany, and remarks, ‘I shall get my piece cut as large as I can. I don’t think it is large enough.’ Russia, who is not content with his huge piece of Russia in Europe, puts his hand on Poland, and, turning to a Pole, who is drawing his sword, says: ‘Here brother, take possession of this piece, I think I can manage them both; besides, this has more plumbs on it, which will mix with mine.’ Prussia, besides his own country, lays hands on Saxony, exclaiming: ‘If I add this Saxon piece to my Prussian one, and put the figure of an Emperor on it, I think my share will look respectable.’ Wellington, however, reflects, ‘I have been assisting to divide the Cake, but I don’t much like my office, the Gentlemen seem so dissatisfied.’ Bernadotte comforts himself with ‘Now I have got Norway, I can get a wind to blow which way I please.’ Louis the Eighteenth and a Dutchman are in a private box; and in one of the stage-boxes is John Bull and his dog, the former of whom shakes hands with and welcomes an American Indian, saying, ‘I hope you won’t disturb the peace.’ In the opposite box are two Turks and a Hungarian; whilst in the box above is Spain, his crown stuck all over with gallows, and attended by a fearful-looking Jesuit, reading from a ‘list of Prisoners to be hung for supporting a free Constitution.’ The other Powers are on their knees on the stage, abjectly begging, ‘Pray, Gentlemen, spare us a few of the small pieces, for we are almost starving.’
Napoleon was still at Elba, and Europe was enjoying a fool’s paradise, as cannot be better shown than by a quotation from Rogers’s ‘Recollections’ (if reliable): ‘When Buonaparte left Elba for France, I (the Duke of Wellington) was at Vienna, and received the news from Lord Burghersh, our Minister at Florence. The instant it came, I communicated it to every member of the Congress, and all laughed; the Emperor of Russia most of all.’
Doubtless they thought themselves secure, for they left Elba unguarded in the most singular manner. As Napoleon told O’Meara: ‘I do not believe that Castlereagh thought I should have ventured to leave Elba, as otherwise some frigates would have been stationed about the island. If they had kept a frigate in the harbour, and another outside, it would have been impossible for me to have gone to France, except alone, which I would never have attempted. Even if the King of France had ordered a frigate, with a picked crew, to cruise off the island, it would have prevented me.’
Napoleon did not leave Elba till February 26, nor did he land at Cannes till March 1, when the news of his landing spread like wildfire. The ‘Times’ of March 11 says: ‘Early yesterday morning we received by express from Dover, the important, but lamentable intelligence, of a civil war having been again kindled in France, by that wretch Buonaparte, whose life was so impoliticly spared by the Allied Sovereigns. It now appears that the hypocritical villain, who, at the time of his cowardly abdication, affected an aversion to the shedding of blood in a civil warfare, has been employed during the whole time of his residence at Elba, in carrying on secret and treasonable intrigues with the tools of his former crimes in France,’ &c.
The caricaturists soon fastened on this event, which fell upon Europe like a thunderbolt, and some time in March was published ‘The Devil to pay, or Boney’s return from Hell BayElba, 25 Feb. 1815,’ by I. L. Marks. Napoleon is crossing the sea in a boat filled with soldiers, rowed by the Devil, and steered by Death. He sees the dove of peace, and immediately kills it with his pistol, saying, ‘Away from my sight, Peace, Thou art hateful to me.’ The Devil opines, ‘We shall wade through seas of Blood after this;’ and Death, waving a tricoloured flag on his dart, says, ‘A more expert hand at my Trade does not exist.’ The populace are running to the shore to meet their returned Emperor with effusion, whilst poor gouty Louis is being carried away on pickaback, lamenting, ‘Oh Heartwell,[51] I sigh for thy peacefull Shades.’
I. L. Marks drew ‘1 Mar. 1815. The European Pantomime. Princeaple Caracters Harliquin Mr. Boney. Pantaloon Louis XVIII. Columbine Maria Louiza. Clowns &c. by Congress.’ Here Napoleon is making a terrific leap from Elba to the French coast, where the poor pantaloon, all gouty, shakes his crutch in impotent rage. The Empress and her little son welcome him, and Congress is represented by the different sovereigns of Europe, who are in a tent; Russia pointing to a globe in the midst of them.
Here is a somewhat homely, but contemporary, account of how the news of Napoleon’s escape was received in London:—