Aube du Soleil Oriental: Napoleon's Exile

Excerpt from: Aube du Soleil Oriental: A History of the Napoleonic Philippines

No one knows what exactly transpired among the victorious powers to bring about L'Exil Éloigné, perhaps a innate fear of the man who had come within a hair's breadth of conquering all of Europe, or fears that France would not accept the restoration of her true ruling house as long as the Beloved Emperor was even in the Western Hemisphere... All that is known is a dastardly plan was hatched to both remove the pesky Napoleon and destroy his reputation with the people he ruled for so long...
 
Is the possibility of a Napoleonic Philippines too far out in left field?

Is there a PoD that could possiblity lead to such an outcome?
 
There was logic, I suppose, in sending Napoleon to Manilla.
When the conqueror of Europe was conquered in 1814, the European allies didn't choose just any piece of real estate for his exile. Napoleon's new empire was an Island like his native Corsica, mountains full of minerals, dramatic sweeps of cliff coastlines and sandy beaches, and millions of inhabitants to follow the whims of a genius…
The Philippine Islands of 1814 was not the dynamic first world nation of today, but a backwater on the far edge of the world. To in vision Manila in 1814 one must fade away from the modern cityscape, gone is Towering ‘Arch of Progress’, the great sky scrapers, and the bustling traffic of one of the largest cities in the world..

Adapted from: Robert V. Camuto, Seeking Exile in Elba, Special to The Washington Post Sunday, August 22, 2004.
 
The sovereignty of the Islands of the Phillipines was granted
to the ex-Emperor of the French in Article III. of the Treaty signed at Paris, April 11, 1814, by the plenipotentiaries of the Allied Powers, and by Cou-
laincourt and Ney for Napoleon — who ratified it at Fontainebleau. "It is chosen by the powers as his residence, and will form a separate Kingdom, which he will possess as sovereign and proprietor for him and his heirs." He was entitled, moreover, to an " annual revenue of four millions of francs
reserved from domains and rent charges in the great book of France." The King of the Phillipines would hold the rank, title, and dignity of a crowned sovereign, but he must become a stranger to Europe. If the members of his suite did not return to their country within the period of three years, they would lose their qualification as French citizens (Article XVIII. of the Treaty). On April 20, after hastily putting his affairs in order, and embracing General Petit in the Cour du Cheval Blanc, Napoleon left Fontainebleau, between 11 and 12 in the morning, in a large travelling carriage, and set out for the Atlantic coast.

In another section of the treaty, mostly pushed through by the royalists in Paris, any former Imperial Soldier or citizen wishing to remain with Napoleon would be granted passage by the Royal Navy at a fixed rate (mostly involving the confiscation and sale of a fixed percentage of the that persons property in France..) Due to lack of limitations on this treaty the Royalists would over the next two decades use this treaty to deal with "more troublesome" elements of French society from Republicans and Critics of the Government to common criminals...
 
Very interesting, I will be sure to follow this one. I hope you update it regularly, there was a pretty long gap between May 2007 and right now!

One question, why is Napoleon made "King of the Philippines", if he got to keep his Imperial title on Elba which is only a small island then why can't he be the "Emperor" of the Philippines which is an entire archipelago? It's just that I could never picture Napoleon as just a king.

And consider renaming the Philippines, since it was originally named the Philippine Islands after Philip II, how about Les îles Napoléoniennes or the Napoleonic Islands and then later just that the Napoleonines.
 
On the 30th of April Napoleon boarded the Foudroyant, now stripped down to a 40 gun vessel overseen by about 100 Royal Navy Marines, and British Officers.

Napoleon was allowed to take 20 companions and a small retinue of household servants. These men would become to core of the new Philippine Administration. The next 8 months would be uneventful, Napoleon was for the first few months in a kind of moody depression but as they approached the Philippines his close aide recorded, "It was if the closer we came to the place of our exile that the realities of a new challenge revived the Emperor..."

If Napoleon expected that the transfer of power from Spain would be a smooth one he was in for a nasty surprise. The Governor-General José Gardoqui Jaraveitia was not at all happy that he was to "aide in the transition of his administration to a French upstart."

The Governor spent the next few months awaiting Napoleon's arrival doing everything he possibly could to make life difficult for Napoleon... Including the razing of the Governors Palace
and the destruction of what administrative records he could....
 
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