210 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



guez. France's brief sway has left but few traces. Of Napoleon 

 himself the most permanent memorial in Elba is the festival in his 

 honour celebrated on May 5. It is the anniversary of his death in 

 St. Helena. 



The iron mines were in operation in Elba two thousand years 

 before Napoleon came and they are still the basis of the chief industry 

 of the island. Their annual output is about 600,000 tons. Across the 

 narrow stretch of the Mediterranean at Piombino are smelting works 

 fed by these mines. Porto Ferraio itself has three great blast furnaces 

 and a Bessemer steel plant. The tall chimneys standing on the strand 

 of the beautiful bay pour out their black defilement on the air. They 

 may grieve the soul of the artist but they delight that of the trader 

 for they make Elba prosperous. Wages are high in the island. The 

 well known rule applies that in the vicinity of a manufacturing indus- 

 try the wages of the agricultural labourer advance. Florence has no 

 great industries and, in consequence, the labourers in the lovely vine- 

 yards on the hill-side of Fiesole receive two francs a day and count 

 themselves happy. In Elba such labourers are paid as much as four 

 francs a day with a flask of wine added. The island has every evidence 

 of well-being. There are almost no beggars: one sees no bare-footed 

 and ragged children in the villages ; work is abundant : the manager of 

 a small estate told me that he could not secure enough men. The 

 people too are proud and independent. The housewife of Porto Fer- 

 raio has great difficulty in getting domestic servants, for the Elbans 

 scorn this form of labour. 



During Napoleon's stay in Elba he naturally dwelt chiefly at 

 Porto Ferraio. At first he lived in the civic Hotel de Ville ; but there 

 he could get no privacy and on the heights between the two hills he 

 reconstructed a house that had been used as a mill and was known as 

 the Mulini. It became for him an imperial palace, for he was still 

 Emperor in Elba. It stands to-day, little changed in structure from 

 what it was in Napoleon's time, but in a pitiable state of neglect and 

 desolation. With some difficulty I found in a neighbouring street the 

 woman who had the key and she seemed frankly amused that I should 

 take an interest in Napoleon. There is only one good room in the 

 house, a salle built by Napoleon with four great windows looking out 

 towards the sea and four towards the land. It is empty but for the 

 busts of two Grand Dukes of Tuscany, brothers of Marie Antoinette, 

 and, by an odd turn of fortune, uncles, by marriage, of Napoleon 

 through his wife Marie Louise. The rooms are untidy and uncared 

 for; the kitchen, with its cooking apparatus on a scale truly imperial, 

 is laden with débris. I stepped out into the little neglected garden. 

 It is hardly as spacious as the deck of a man of war. There were a 



