Napoleon Exiled to Elba: Treaty Ends Napoleonic Wars

Napoleon's first exile began with a treaty that dismantled his empire and left him with a small island and a pension. On May 30, 1814, the Treaty of Paris formally ended the War of the Sixth Coalition, restored the French monarchy under Louis XVIII, and reduced France's borders to those of 1792, erasing twenty years of conquest. The treaty followed Napoleon's abdication on April 11, 1814, forced by the defection of his marshals after allied armies entered Paris. Austria, Russia, Prussia, and Britain dictated the terms. France lost all territorial gains made since the Revolution: Belgium, the left bank of the Rhine, Savoy, and Nice reverted to their previous sovereigns or became independent states. The allies treated France with surprising leniency. There were no reparations. France retained its pre-revolutionary borders, which were larger than any other European state except Russia. The allied powers wanted a stable France under a legitimate monarchy, not a humiliated nation that would seek revenge. Talleyrand, representing Louis XVIII, skillfully exploited divisions among the victors to secure favorable terms. Napoleon was granted sovereignty over the island of Elba in the Mediterranean, with an annual pension of two million francs from the French government and permission to keep a personal guard of 1,000 soldiers. It was a remarkably generous arrangement for a man who had plunged Europe into two decades of war. The generosity proved insufficient. Napoleon spent less than a year on Elba. On February 26, 1815, he escaped with his guard, landed in southern France, and marched to Paris, gathering an army along the way. Louis XVIII fled. The Hundred Days ended at Waterloo on June 18, 1815. This time, the allies sent Napoleon to Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, 4,000 miles from the nearest land, where he died in 1821. The 1814 Treaty of Paris attempted to restore the European order that Napoleon had demolished. The 1815 Congress of Vienna, convened after his final defeat, succeeded more durably, creating a balance of power that prevented major European war for nearly a century.