Cruise in the Frigate “United States”—Elba—Piombino—Porto
Ferrajo—Appearance of the Bay—Naval Discipline—Visit to the
Town Residence of Napoleon—His Employment during his
Confinement on the Island—His sisters Eliza and Pauline—His
Country House—Simplicity of the Inhabitants of Elba.
I had come from Florence to join the “United States,” at the polite
invitation of the officers of the ward-room, on a cruise up the
Mediterranean. My cot was swung immediately on my arrival, but we lay
three days longer than was expected in the harbour, riding out a gale of
wind, which broke the chain cables of both ships, and drove several
merchant vessels on the rocks. We got under way on the 3rd of June, and
the next morning were off Elba, with Corsica on our quarter, and the
little island of Capreja just ahead.
The firing of guns took me just now to the deck. Three Sardinian
gun-boats had saluted the commodore’s flag in passing, and it was
returned with twelve guns. They were coming home from the affair at
Tunis. It is a fresh, charming morning, and we are beating up against a
light head-wind, all the officers on deck looking at the island with
their glasses, and discussing the character of the great man to whom
this little barren spot was a temporary empire. A bold fortification
just appears on the point, with the Tuscan flag flying from the staff.
The sides of the hills are dotted with desolate looking buildings, among
which are one or two monasteries, and in rounding the side of the
island, we have passed two or three small villages, perched below and
above on the rocks. Off to the east, we can just distinguish Piombino,
the nearest town of the Italian shore, and very beautiful it looks,
rising from the edge of the water like Venice, with a range of cloudy
hills relieving it in the rear.
Our anchor is dropped in the bay of Porto Ferrajo. As we ran lightly in
upon the last tack, the walls of the fort appeared crowded with people,
the whole town apparently assembled to see the unusual spectacle of two
ships-of-war entering their now quiet waters. A small curving bay opened
to us, and as we rounded directly under the walls of the fort, the tops
of the houses in the town behind appeared crowded with women, whose
features we could easily distinguish with a glass. By the constant
exclamations of the midshipmen, who were gazing intently from the
quarter-deck, there was among them a fair proportion of beauty, or what
looked like it in the distance. Just below the summit of the fort, upon
a terrace commanding a view of the sea, stood a handsome house, with low
windows shut with Venetian blinds and shaded with acacias, which the
pilot pointed out to us as the town residence of Napoleon. As the ship
lost her way, we came in sight of a gentle amphitheatre of hills rising
away from the cove, in a woody ravine of which stood a handsome
building, with eight windows, built by the exile as a country-house.
Twenty or thirty, as good or better, spot the hills around, ornamented
with avenues and orchards of low olive-trees. It is altogether a rural
scene, and disappoints us agreeably after the barren promise of the
outer sides of the isle.
The “Constellation” came slowly in after us, with every sail set, and
her tops crowded with men; and as she fell under the stern of the
commodore’s ship, the word was given, and her vast quantity of sail was
furled with that wonderful alacrity which so astonishes a landsman. I
have been continually surprised in the few days that I have been on
board, with the wonders of sea discipline; but for a spectacle, I have
seen nothing more imposing than the entrance of these two beautiful
frigates into the little port of Elba, and their magical management. The
anchors were dropped, the yards came down by the run, the sails
disappeared, the living swarm upon the rigging slid below, all in a
moment, and then struck up the delightful band on our quarter-deck, and
the sailors leaned on the guns, the officers on the quarter railing, and
boats from the shore, filled with ladies, lay off at different
distances, the whole scene as full of repose and enjoyment, as if we had
lain idle for a month in these glassy waters. How beautiful are the
results of order!
* * * * *
We had made every preparation for a pic-nic party to the country-house
of Napoleon yesterday—but it rained. At sunset, however, the clouds
crowded into vast masses, and the evening gave a glorious promise, which
was fulfilled this morning in freshness and sunshine. The commodore’s
barge took off the ladies for an excursion on horseback to the iron
mines, on the other side of the island—the midshipmen were set ashore
in various directions for a ramble, and I, tempted with the beauty of
the ravine which enclosed the villa of Napoleon, declined all
invitations with an eye to a stroll thither.
We were first set ashore at the mole to see the town. A medley crowd of
soldiers, citizens, boys, girls, and galley-slaves, received us at the
landing, and followed us up to the town-square, gazing at the officers
with undisguised curiosity. We met several gentlemen from the other ship
at the café, and taking a cicerone together, started for the
town-residence of the emperor. It is now occupied by the governor, and
stands on the fine summit of the little fortified city. We mounted by
clean, excellent pavements, getting a good-natured _buon giorno!_ from
very female head thrust from beneath the blinds of the houses. The
governor’s aide received us at the door, with his cap in his hand, and
we commenced the tour of the rooms with all the household, male and
female, following to gaze at us. Napoleon lived on the first floor. The
rooms were as small as those of a private house, and painted in the
pretty fresco common in Italy. The furniture was all changed, and the
fire-places and two busts of the emperor’s sisters (Eliza and Pauline)
were all that remained as it was. The library is a pretty room, though
very small, and opens on a terrace level with his favourite garden. The
plants and lemon-trees were planted by himself, we were told, and the
officers plucked souvenirs on all sides. The officer who accompanied us
was an old soldier of Napoleon’s and a native of Elba, and after a
little of the reluctance common to the teller of an oft-told tale, he
gave us some interesting particulars of the emperor’s residence at the
island. It appears that he employed himself, from the first day of his
arrival, in the improvement of his little territory, making roads, &c.,
and behaved quite like a man who had made up his mind to relinquish
ambition, and content himself with what was about him. Three assassins
were discovered and captured in the course of the eleven months, the
first two of whom he pardoned. The third made an attempt upon his life,
in the disguise of a beggar, at a bridge leading to his country-house,
and was condemned and executed. He was a native of the emperor’s own
birthplace in Corsica.
The second floor was occupied by his mother and Pauline. The furniture
of the chamber of the renowned beauty is very much as she left it. The
bed is small, and the mirror opposite its foot very large, and in a
mahogany frame. Small mirrors were set also into the bureau, and in the
back of a pretty cabinet of dark wood standing at the head of the bed.
It is delightful to breathe the atmosphere of a room that has been the
home of the lovely creature whose marble image by Canova thrills every
beholder with love, and is fraught with such pleasing associations. Her
sitting-room, though less interesting, made us linger and muse again. It
looks out over the sea to the west, and the prospect is beautiful. One
forgets that her history could not be written without many a blot. How
much we forgive to _beauty_! Of all the female branches of the Bonaparte
family, Pauline bore the greatest resemblance to her brother Napoleon:
but the grand and regular profile which was in him marked with the stern
air of sovereignty and despotic rule, was in her tempered with an
enchanting softness and fascinating smile. Her statue, after the Venus
de’ Medicis, is the chef d’œuvre of modern sculpture.
We went from the governor’s house to the walls of the town, loitering
along and gazing at the sea; and then rambled through the narrow streets
of the town, attracting, by the gay uniforms of the officers, the
attention and courtesies of every smooched petticoat far and near. What
the faces of the damsels of Elba might be, if washed, we could hardly
form a conjecture.
The country-house of Napoleon is three miles from the town, a little
distance from the shore, farther round into the bay. Captain Nicholson
proposed to walk to it, and send his boat across—a warmer task for the
mid-day of an Italian June than a man of less enterprise would choose
for pleasure. We reached the stone steps of the imperial casino, after a
melting and toilsome walk, hungry and thirsty, and were happy to fling
ourselves upon broken chairs in the denuded drawing-room, and wait for
an extempore dinner of twelve eggs and a bottle of wine as bitter as
criticism. A farmer and his family live in the house, and a couple of
bad busts and the fire-places, are all that remain of its old
appearance. The situation and the view, however, are superb. A little
lap of a valley opens right away from the door to the bosom of the bay,
and in the midst of the glassy basin lies the bold peninsular promontory
and fortification of Porto Ferrajo, like a castle in a loch, connected
with the body of the island by a mere rib of sand. Off beyond sleeps the
main-land of Italy, mountain and vale, like a smoothly-shaped bed of
clouds; and for the foreground of the landscape, the valleys of Elba are
just now green with fig-trees and vines, speckled here and there with
fields of golden grain, and farm-houses shaded with all the trees of
this genial climate.
We examined the place, after our frugal dinner, and found a natural path
under the edge of the hill behind, stretching away back into the valley,
and leading, after a short walk, to a small stream and a waterfall.
Across it, just above the fall, lay the trunk of an old and vigorous
fig-tree, full of green limbs, and laden with fruit half ripe. It made a
natural bridge over the stream, and as its branches shaded the rocks
below, we could easily imagine Napoleon, walking to and fro in the
smooth path, and seating himself on the broadest stone in the heat of
the summer evenings he passed on the spot. It was the only walk about
the place, and a secluded and pleasant one. The groves of firs and brush
above, and the locust and cherry-trees on the edges of the walk, are old
enough to have shaded him. We sat and talked under the influence of the
“genius of the spot,” till near sunset, and then, cutting each a
walking-stick from the shoots of the old fig-tree, returned to the boats
and reached the ship as the band struck up their exhilarating music for
the evening on the quarter-deck.
* * * * *
We have passed two or three days at Elba most agreeably. The weather has
been fine, and the ships have been thronged with company. The common
people of the town come on board in boat-loads, men, women, and
children, and are never satisfied with gazing and wondering. The
inhabitants speak very pure Tuscan, and are mild and simple in their
manners. They all take the ships to be bound upon a mere voyage of
pleasure; and, with the officers in their gay dresses, and the sailors
in their clean white and blue, the music morning and evening, and the
general gaiety on board, the impression is not much to be wondered at.
Yesterday, after dinner, Captain Nicholson took us ashore in his gig, to
pass an hour or two in the shade. His steward followed, with a bottle or
two of old wine, and landing near the fountain to which the boats are
sent for water, we soon found a spreading fig-tree, and, with a family
of the country people from a neighbouring cottage around us, we idled
away the hours till the cool of the evening. The simplicity of the old
man and his wife, and the wonder of himself and several labourers in his
vineyard, to whom the captain gave a glass or two of his excellent
wines, would have made a study for Wilkie. Sailors are merry companions
for a party like this. We returned over the unruffled expanse of the
bay, charmed with the beauty of the scene by sunset, and as happy as a
life, literally _sans souci_, could make us. What is it, in this
rambling absence from all to which we look forward to in love and hope,
that so fascinates the imagination?
* * * * *
I went, in the commodore’s suite, to call upon the governor this
morning. He is a military, commanding-looking man, and received us in
Napoleon’s saloon, surrounded by his officers. He regretted that his
commission did not permit him to leave the shore, even to visit a ship,
but offered a visit on the part of his sister, and a company of the
first ladies of the town. They came off this morning. She was a
lady-like woman, not very pretty, of thirty years perhaps. As she spoke
only Italian, she was handed over to me, and I waited on her through the
ship, explaining a great many things of which I knew as much as herself.
This visit over, we get under way to-morrow morning for Naples.
* * * * *
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