By the Treaty of Fontainebleau, Napoleon received sovereignty over the island of Elba. He landed there on May 4, 1814 and remained until his escape on February 26, 1815.

Historical context

The treaty of 11 April 1814 gave him full sovereignty over an island of two hundred and twenty-four square kilometres and twelve thousand inhabitants, with a guard of four hundred men and an annuity of two million charged to France. He landed at Portoferraio on 4 May, greeted by bells and a curious population.

He governed as he had always governed. A flag of his own design — white ground, red band, three bees —, a land survey, roads opened, the iron mines of Rio and the salt works revived, a theatre installed in a former chapel, a hospital. Two residences sufficed: the Mulini in town and San Martino in the country.

The court was thin. His mother Letizia and his sister Pauline joined him; Marie Louise and the King of Rome, held in Vienna, never did. The promised annuity never came, the British commissioner Campbell watched the movements of the port, and the news from France spoke of officers on half-pay and émigrés demanding their lands back.

Ten months were enough. On 26 February 1815, taking advantage of Campbell's absence, he boarded the Inconstant with eleven hundred men. The island has kept its two houses, now Italian national museums, and the memory of the only sovereign it ever had of its own.