In 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte faced enemy armies advancing upon France from all quarters, a country exhausted from decades of war, and key political allies and chief military lieutenants turning on him. So he threw in the towel and abdicated. The former emperor who had dominated Europe and dreamt of conquering the world was exiled to rule the small Mediterranean island of Elba. He remained in exile for less than a year, before he mounted a thrilling comeback, returned to France, and regained power. The thrilling ride proved brief, however, and ended with a crushing defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. This time, with all hope definitively gone, Napoleon contemplated fleeing to America and starting afresh in the New World. As seen below, a King Bonaparte ended up in America after Waterloo – but it was not Napoleon.
14. Napoleon’s Shattered Dreams, and Dreams of a Fresh Start
After his dreams of European hegemony were finally shattered once and for all at the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte mulled the idea of a fresh start by sailing to America. As advance units of the Prussian army neared his home near Paris, Napoleon was busily devouring books about the New World, and its geographical and botanical features. By then, he had abdicated – again. To emphasize that it was a final surrender of power this time, he wrote in his abdication that his “political life was over“. He pictured a new life in America as a private individual, who would live out the rest of his days as a devotee of science. Napoleon was so serious about immigrating to the United States, that he considered a variety of pseudonyms to use on the other side of the Atlantic. He finally settled on one: he would be “Colonel Murion” in America.
