NAPOLEON’S ELBA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 December 1938, Page 9

NAPOLEON’S ELBA

AN ISLAND OF TRANQUILLITY TODAY. MEMORIES OF MAN OF DESTINY. Whose idea was it that Napoleon should be s’erit to Elba? The island is little enough khowh even lit these day’s, and must have seerried incredibly remote then to the fdw Who knew it existed. Those Who agreed cduld hardly have known that both Italy and Corsica could be sSen ffoffi Elba’S hills, arid would be ah ever-pfCsdht teffifitation to the Mari of Destiny (writes the Rome correspondent of the Lotidon “Sunday Times.” Elba is still an out-of-the-way place. It probably shares With its smaller neighbour, Monte Cristo, the honour of being knoWn by name throughout the world and yet visited by singularly few outsiders. When we decided to spend the summer vocation there we could get no first-hand inforrhation about the island in Rome. The only solution was evidently to go and see. fof Ourselves. We did; dhd felt, amply repaid. In this small corner of the world, a heap of mountains 25 miles long and only five miles wide at its narrowest, tranquillity is still to be found despite the radio and despite a, decree contemporary with our arrival; making Elba and the neighbouring islands a military zone. This was announced by large placards threatening full rigours of the law against anyone who made pictures. sketches, or photographs of the scenery, towns, villages, ports or ships trading therein, or looked through telescopes or binoculars, and ffiuch more to that effect. The islanders; an independent lot, were rather sardonic about it. , , . , ■ . •... So they are about tourists. They like their old ways, and if visitors do not, they can go elsewhere; if thesy do, they are welcome. Most of them go only to see Napoleon’s house at San Martino, near Portoferraio, and an ugly ironworks. , ~ The Fascist Government has recently begun tidying up Napoleon’s residence, a modest country house commanding a magnificent view of Portoferraio and the Piombino Channel. An ugly great house of the Worst period of nineteenth century marzipan architecture, Which blocked the view, is being torn down. Some of Napoleon’s furniture and the silk curtains have been recovered, and the mUseurn which he planned is being put in order. .. It is in the little scattered villages, however, that one feels the most intimate connection with Napoleon. Boon after he arrived he took stock of his little kingdom, riding over the rough mule paths which are still in some places the only approach except by sea to the remotest villages. The houses where he stayed were marked in local memory. About a century later pious historians supplemented memories with marble slabs. Their Wording-var-ies, but their content is the same. That on the pink-washed Walls of the milk shop at Marina di Campo is typical. It is inscribed: “In this modest house, while visiting the realm which destiny, stronger than his genius, imposed on him. Napoleon the Great stayed three At the western tip of the island a rocky seat was carved for him on the side of a hill from which he could gaze on his native Corsica. During his nine months in Elba he reorganised the non mines that are still the island s chief asset, and planned the roads that wind along the hillsides. After Waterloo the island reverted to the Grand Due y Tuscany, and to its ancient inconspicuousness. ■