One condition stipulated for a Count of the Empire was that he should have an income of at least 30,000 francs. In France as in Britain, the increased use of various forms of paper money to fund the European War led to currency depreciation, which makes it particularly hard to impute a modern equivalent value to the requirement, but it does appear that in De Paellaert was enjoying a life style that he could not afford. This was a normal condition for many of Napoleon's courtiers: the endlessly devious Talleyrand himself was under financial pressure during this period. The assumption at court was that when the time came the emperor would help his loyal servants expunge their debts. However, for De Peellaert as for many others, when the time came it was the emperor himself who had problems. By now massively outnumbered on the battlefield by their enemies, the French surrendered Paris at the end of March 1814 and their emperor was exiled to Elba, off the coast of Tuscany.