The Press., 1896-12-31
EMPEROR OF ELIZA.
HOW NAPOLEON CONDUCTED HIM.
 SELF DURING EXILE.

The Powers Which Swayed the Larger
 World Shown to Good Advantage In His
 Pygmy KingdOm-The Darker Side of a
 Brilliant Career.
 EIt;. was an island divided against itself, there being both imperialists and ruyalists among it's inhabitants and considerable party which desired inde- pendence. By representing that Napo- Icon had brought with him fabulous F1ms the Austrian and English commits toners easily won the Elbans to fer vor of loyalty for their new emperor. Before nightfall of the 4th the court was established, and the new admins tration began it's labors. Having mas tered the resources and needs of his pygmy realm. tha emperor began to de- ploy all his powers, mending the high ways, fortifying the strategic points and creating about the nucleus of 400 guards which were sent from FOntainebleau an efficient little army of 1,6O0 men. His expenses were regulated to the minutest detail both at homo and abroad. The salt works and iron mines, which were the bulwarks of Elban prosperity, began 1t once to increase thelr output, and taxation was regulated with scrupulous nicety. By that supereminent virtue of the French burgher, good management, the islandwas made almost independ- ent of the remnants of the Tuileries treasure (about 5, 900, 900 francs) which Napoleon had brought from France. The same powers which had swayed world operated with equal success in a sphere almost microscopic by comparison.
 Before long the Princess Borghese, separated soon after her marriage from her second husband and banished since 1910 from Paris for impertinent conduct to the empress, came, according to prom i ise, to be her brothers companion, and Madame Mere, though distant in prosperity, came likewise to soothe her son in diversity. The intercepted letters of the former prove her to have been at least as loose in her life at Elba as ever before, but they do not afford sufa- cient basis for the scandals concerning her relations with Napoleon which were founded upon them and industriously circulated at the court of Louis XVIII The shameful charge has no adequate foundation of any sort.
 Napoleon's economies were rendered not merely expedient, but imperative by the fact that none of the money from France was forthcoming which had been promised in his treaty with the powers. After a short stay Roller frankly stated that in his opinion, it would never be paid and departed. The island swarmed with Bourbon spies, and the only conversation in which Ma poleon could indulge himself unguard- edly was with Sir Neil Campbell, the English representative, or with the ti- tied English gentlemen who gratified their curiosity by visiting him. During the summer heats, when the court was encamped on the heights at Marciana for refreshment, there appeared mys- terious lady with her child. Both were we'll received and kindly treated, but they withdrew themselves entirely from the public gaze. Common rumOr said it was the empress, but this was not true. It was the Countess Walewska, with the son she had borne to her host, whom she still adored They remained but @ few days and departed as mysteriously as they had come.
 Base females thronged the precincts of the imperial residence, openly strug- gling for Napoleon's favor as they had SO far never dared to do. Success too frequently attended their efforts. But the one woman who should have been at his side was absent. It is certain that she made an honest effort to come, and apartments were prepared for her recep- tion in the little palace at Porto Terra jo. Her father, however, thwarted her at every turn, and finally she was vir- tual prisoner at Sohonbrunn.
 | So manifest was the restraint that her grandmother, Caroline, queen of the two Sicilies, cried out in indignation, "If were in the place of Maria Louisa, I would tie the sheets of my bed to the window frame and flee." Committed to the charge of the elegant and subtle Neipperg, favorite cham mberlain, whom she had first seen at Dresden, he piled her with such insidious wiles that at last her slender moral fiber was entirely broken down and she fell victim to his charms. As late as August Napoleon received impassioned letters from her. Then she grew formal and cold. At last, under Metternich's urgency, she ceased to write at all. Her French attendant, Meneval, managed to convey the whole sad story to her husband, but the em- peror was incredulous and hoped against hope until December. Then only he ceased from his incessant and urgent appeals. of Napoleon; the Ex- ile and His Return,'' by Professor W.
 M Sloane. in Centnrv-