The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-10-11
The Great Surprise

The Great Surprise
 The inhabitants hustled about just as the people of a wooden town in America do when the fire alarm rings. for it was no new thing for Elba to be captured. They had already heard the startling news that the French empire was no more, and the French governor had promptly unfurled the white banner Of the Bourbons. But when they were told that the great Emperor was coming to settle down among them, they warlly dismissed the absurdity as intended 10 cover some secret design of the British, who had been blackading the island for many months; and the guns on the old wall were loaded, in readiness to repel the frigate.
 Under a flag of truce, however, the. townspeople were convinced that he who was but yesterday the lord of the earth had consented to accept the sovereignty of the Island of Elba, in lieu of all claims to the rest of the planet, and that in sailors souwester he was even then in the outer harbor pacing the deck of his Brittanic majestys ship In- daunted. "The mildness of your climate, he flatteringly assured them in a proc lamation, and the romantic scenery of your island has decided me to choose 1t among all my vast domains.
 As their strange, new fortunes dawned upon their understanding the alarm of the people gave way to stupefaction and then to a delrous joy, for they learned that the Emperor came with chest full of gold and a pension of S40O 900 year from France. Instantly they took off their white cockades and stuffed them in their pockets, and they hastily stitched together and hoisted in place Of the Bourbon lilies the imperial Elban flag. in accordance with a design which his Elban majesty had thought out while on his voyage from the shore of France three bees on a reddish-orange stripe running dia gonally across q field of white.
 When Napoleon came asbore the next afternoon the guns of Fort Stella-the fort of his new star-boomed over the crowded rooftops, while to an accom- paniment by volunteer orchestra of ac- cordions and guitars, flutes, hddles and tambourines. the civil, military and re- ligious dignitaries in such court costumes as their wardrobes afforded, hurnbly knelt on the dock to receive him. But the tongue of the overawed mayor cove to the roof of his mouth and he could only mutely hold forth the keys which, through the kindness of his granddaugh- ter. the visitor may see today.
 The Emperor. under a paper canopy adorned with paper roses and tinsel and attended-or mobbed--by an excited, talkative, jostling, struggling crowd of islanders. who had flocked in from the several villages. was then conducted to the cathedral. where he knelt in the door way while the Te Deum was sung.
 Ten crowded years stretched between that month of May. when he was hailed Emperor of E,lba and another May when he had been acclaimed Emperor of the French-tne two extremes of imperial fortunes. The very dc Y before he went cown on his knees at the portal of the simple village church of Portoferraio, Louis XVIII, his successor on the throne of France, obseuuiously attended by phantic fattery by Berthier, had en- tered Paris. and webbing into the Tuil- cries after an exile of 9 years had emil- ingly remarked as he saw the changes in the palace: Well, I must admit that Bonaparte has been a very good tenant. But Talleyrand. his chief minister, rave him a cynical warning of the mutability of governments sin France when he ob- served as he took the oath of alleeian nee to the King. Sire this is ny thirteenth.' v While that fat Swear old brother Of Louis XVI was sitting in the Emperor s old room at the THileries and calmly signing royal decrees as of the nine teenth year of my reign Napoleon was entering his new palace. the City Hall of Portoferraio where over night two or three rooms on the second floor had been dtted up for his occupancy.
 The Mimic Empire
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