He reached Rochefort on 3 July 1815 from Malmaison, with a suite of some fifty people. Two frigates, La Saale and La Méduse, were fitted out to take him to the United States. But Fouché's provisional government wanted no responsibility, the English passports never came, and the Bellerophon cruised off the estuary.
Plans followed one another in disorder. The captain of La Méduse offered to attack the English ship by night so the other frigate could slip out; officers wanted to hide him in a Danish merchantman between two casks; there was talk of a fishing lugger, of leaving alone. He refused anything resembling a disguised flight: he would leave as an emperor or give himself up as a soldier.
On 8 July he crossed to the Île d'Aix, where he stayed a few days. On the 13th he wrote to the Prince Regent the letter that became famous: "I come, like Themistocles, to seat myself at the hearth of the British people. I place myself under the protection of its laws, which I claim from Your Royal Highness as the most powerful, the most constant and the most generous of my enemies."
On the morning of 15 July he boarded the Bellerophon and Captain Maitland received him with the honours due to a general. He expected an English retreat, a country house, books. On 31 July he was informed that he was a prisoner and would leave for Saint Helena. Rochefort is the last place where he still had a choice.
