" And, secondly, "whether there were any person who could
possibly be considered his sovereign, after the treaty of 1814 had
clothed him with the character of Emperor of Elba, with imperial dignity
and imperial revenue." Lord Liverpool himself, however, raised another
question: whether, by his invasion of France, he had not forfeited his
right to be regarded as an independent sovereign; resting this doubt on
a suggestion which, among others, he proposed to the Lord Chancellor,
that "at Elba he enjoyed only a limited and conditional sovereignty,
which ceased when the condition on which he held it was violated."
This last suggestion, it must be confessed, appears untenable, as
totally inconsistent with the language of the Treaty of Fontainebleau,
under the provisions of which Napoleon became sovereign of Elba, and
which does not contain a single article which bears out the opinion that
his sovereignty was limited or conditional. On the contrary, the words
of the treaty expressly agree that "Elba should form during his life a
separate principality, which should be possessed by him in full
sovereignty and property."
There is no need to discuss the views of Blucher. On the news of
Napoleon's landing at Frejus reaching the plenipotentiaries assembled at
the Congress of Vienna, they at once issued a declaration that, "in
breaking the convention which had established him at Elba, Buonaparte"
(for they refused him his imperial appellation of Napoleon) "had
destroyed the only legal title on which his existence depended.
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