He was after a short time joined on the island by his mother and his sister Pauline, and not a few of those who had once fought under his flag drifted gradually to Elba and took service in his guards. A plot was organized in France, and when all was ready Napoleon availed himself of the temporary absence of Sir Neil Campbell and of an English cruiser and set sail from Elba.
At four in the afternoon of Sunday, the 26th of February, “a signal gun was fired, the drums beat to arms, the officers tumbled what they could of their effects into flour-sacks, the men arranged their knapsacks, the embarkation began, and at eight in the evening they were under weigh.” He had more than one narrow escape on his voyage; for he was hailed by a French frigate. His soldiers, however, had concealed themselves, and his captain was acquainted with the commander of the frigate, so no suspicions were excited. Sir Niel Campbell also, as soon as he found out what had happened, gave chase in a sloop of war, but only arrived in time to obtain a distant view of Napoleon’s flotilla as its passengers landed.
Pianosa, the island mentioned above, lies to the north of Elba, and gets its name from its almost level surface; for the highest point is said to be only eighty feet above the sea. Considering its apparent insignificance, it figures more than could be expected in history. The ill-fated son of Marcus Agrippa was banished here by Augustus, at the instigation of Livia, and after a time was more effectually put out of the way, in order to secure the succession of her son Tiberius. We read also that it was afterwards the property of Marcus Piso, who used it as a preserve for peacocks, which were here as wild as pheasants with us. Some remnants of Roman baths still keep up the memory of its former masters. Long afterwards it became a bone of contention between Pisa and Genoa, and the latter State, on permitting the former to resume possession of these islands of the Tuscan Archipelago, stipulated that Pianosa should be left forever uncultivated and deserted. To secure the execution of this engagement the Genoese stopped up all the wells with huge blocks of rock.
Capraja, a lovely island to the northwest of Elba, is rather nearer to Corsica than to Italy. Though less than four miles long, and not half this breadth, it rivals either in hilliness, for its ridges rise in two places more than fourteen hundred feet above the sea. Saracen, Genoese, Pisan, and Corsican have caused it in bygone times to lead a rather troubled existence, and even so late as 1796 Nelson knocked to pieces the fort which defended its harbor, and occupied the island.
“The ‘stagno,’ or lagoon, the sea-marsh of Strabo, is a vast expanse of stagnant salt water, so shallow that it may be forded in parts, yet never dried up by the hottest summer; the curse of the country around for the foul and pestilent vapour and the swarms of mosquitoes and other insects it generates at that season, yet compensating the inhabitants with an abundance of fish. The fishery is generally carried on at night, and in the way often practiced in Italy and Sicily, by harpooning the fish, which are attracted by a light in the prow of the boat. It is a curious sight on calm nights to see hundreds of these little skiffs or canoes wandering about with their lights, and making an ever-moving illumination on the surface of the lake.”[2]
Elba seems to maintain some relation with the mainland by means of the hilly promontory which supports the houses of Piombino, a small town, chiefly interesting as being at no great distance from Populonia, an old Etruscan city of which some considerable ruins still remain. Here, when the clans gathered to bring back the Tarquins to Rome, stood
“Sea-girt Populonia,
Whose sentinels descry
Sardinia’s snowy mountain tops
Fringing the southern sky.”
But long after Lars Porsenna of Clusium had retreated baffled from the broken bridge Populonia continued to be a place of some importance, for it has a castle erected in the Middle Ages. But now it is only a poor village; it retains, however, fragments of building recalling its Roman masters, and its walls of polygonal masonry carry us back to the era of the Etruscans.
It must not be forgotten that almost the whole of the coast line described in this chapter, from the river Magra to Civita Vecchia, belonged to that mysterious and, not so long since, almost unknown people, the Etruscans. Indeed, at one time their sway extended for a considerable distance north and south of these limits. Even now there is much dispute as to their origin, but they were a powerful and civilized race before Rome was so much as founded. They strove with it for supremacy in Italy, and were not finally subdued by that nation until the third century before our era. “Etruria was of old densely populated, not only in those parts which are still inhabited, but also, as is proved by remains of cities and cemeteries, in tracts now desolated by malaria and relapsed into the desert; and what is now the fen or the jungle, the haunt of the wild boar, the buffalo, the fox, and the noxious reptile, where man often dreads to stay his steps, and hurries away from a plague-stricken land, of old yielded rich harvests of corn, wine and oil, and contained numerous cities mighty and opulent, into whose laps commerce poured the treasures of the East and the more precious produce of Hellenic genius. Most of these ancient sites are now without a habitant, furrowed yearly by the plough, or forsaken as unprofitable wilderness; and such as are still occupied are, with few exceptions, mere phantoms of their pristine greatness, mere villages in the place of populous cities. On every hand are traces of bygone civilization, inferior in quality, no doubt, to that which at present exists but much wider in extent and exerting far greater influence on the neighboring nations and on the destinies of the world.”[3]
South of this headland the Maremma proper begins. Follonica, the only place for some distance which can be called a town, is blackened with smoke to an extent unusual in Italy, for here much of the iron ore from Elba is smelted. But the views in the neighborhood, notwithstanding the flatness of the marshy or scrub-covered plain, are not without a charm. The inland hills are often attractive; to the north lie the headland of Piombino and sea-girt Elba, to the south the promontory of Castiglione, which ends in a lower line of bluff capped by a tower, and the irregular little island of Formica. At Castiglione della Pescaia is a little harbor, once fortified, which exports wool and charcoal, the products of the neighboring hills. The promontory of Castiglione must once have been an island, for it is parted from the inland range by the level plain of the Maremma. Presently Grosseto, the picturesque capital of the Maremma, appears, perched on steeply rising ground above the enclosing plain, its sky-line relieved by a couple of low towers and a dome; it has been protected with defenses, which date probably from late in the seventeenth century. Then, after the Omborne has been crossed, one of the rivers, which issue from the Apennines, the promontory of Talamone comes down to the sea, protecting the village of the same name. It is a picturesque little place, overlooked by an old castle, and the anchorage is sheltered by the island of S. Giglio, quiet enough now, but the guide-book tells us that here, two hundred and twenty-five years before the Christian era, the Roman troops disembarked and scattered an invading Gaulish army. But to the south lies another promontory on a larger scale than Tlamone; this is the Monte Argentario, the steep slopes of which are a mass of forests. The views on this part of the coast are exceptionally attractive. Indeed, it would be difficult to find anything more striking than the situation of Orbitello. The town lies at the foot of the mountain, for Argentario, since it rises full two thousand feet above the sea, and is bold in outline, deserves the name. It is almost separated from the mainland by a great salt-water lagoon, which is bounded on each side by two low and narrow strips of land. The best view is from the south, where we look across a curve of the sea to the town and to Monte Argentario with its double summit, which, as the border of the lagoon is so low, seems to be completely insulated.