John Bull's trials, however, were in reality just commencing. Only seven months before he had held a grand "jubilee" in the parks, to celebrate the return of peace, treating his little difficulty with the Americans as a _bagatelle_ not worth serious consideration. Four months before that celebration, "his majesty the Emperor Napoleon" had formally "renounced for himself, his successors, etc., all right of sovereignty and dominion, as well to the French empire and the kingdom of Italy, as over every other country." In return for this concession, as if in absolute mockery, "the isle of Elba, adopted by his majesty the Emperor ... as the place of his residence," was formed during his life into a separate principality, to "be possessed by him in full _sovereignty and property_," besides a certain annual revenue mentioned in the articles of treaty of the 18th of April, 1814. Here the Regent and his very good friends the allied sovereigns had been content to leave him, dreaming apparently, that the man whose military genius had held Europe at defiance, was disposed of "for ever and a day;" disregarding the feeble capacity of the Bourbon who succeeded him; the magic influence wielded by the man who thought the world too small for his ambition over a soldiery he had created and trained into perfection, and who regarded him in the light of a demi-god.
On the 26th of February, 1815, Bonaparte embarked at Porto Ferrago on board a brig, followed by four small vessels conveying about 1,000 men--French, Poles, Corsicans, Neapolitans, and natives of Elba. On the 1st of March the expedition anchored off the town of Cannes, in Provence, where these heterogeneous forces were landed. The small and motley force of filibusters was forthwith marched on Grenoble, which was reached on the 8th. The seventh regiment of the line, under Colonel Labedoyère, had meanwhile joined the adventurer; the rest of the garrison opened their gates, delivered their arsenal and magazine, and thus placed him at the head of a body of regular troops with a train of artillery. Only five short months afterwards, while the unfortunate emperor was on his way to St. Helena, poor Labedoyère was shot on the plain of Grenelle, for the "treason" of re-swearing fealty to the original master he had loved so well.