Author Description

A crowd had gathered on the headland now -- a crowd made up of barefooted fisher-folk, men, women, children, and of the laborers from the neighboring fields and vineyards: they have all come to greet the Emperor -- the man with the battered hat and the grey redingote, the curious, flashing eyes and mouth that always spoke genial words to the people of France! Traitors turned against him -- Ney! de Marmont! Bernadotte! those on whom he had showered the full measure of his friendship, whom he had loaded with honors, with glory and with wealth. Foreign armies joined in coalition against France and forced the people's Emperor to leave his country which he loved so well, had sent him to humiliation and to exile. But he had come back, as all his people had always said that he would! He had come back, there was the topsail-schooner that was bringing him home so swiftly now. Another hour and the schooner's name can be deciphered quite easily -- L'Inconstant, and that of the polacca Le Saint-Esprit... and beyond these L'Etoile and Saint Joseph, Caroline. And the entire little fleet flies the flag of Elba.