Hey there! Sorry to just drop this on you like that, but I though you might know something about this.
As far as I can tell Soult was basically banished from France for some time after 1815 and lived in Prussian exile thanks to his wife Louise who was from the Rhineland. I'd be very surprised if the Prussian government was really all that chill about letting one of Napoleon's top marshals, who had still been fighting for him as late as the hundred days campaign and who also didn't really make himself all that popular during the forth coalition, just live in their country. So my question would be do you know something about the Soults lives at that time? What did they think about their situation? Did they face some kind of restrictions or repressions?
Oh, thank you for the question! That's a good one! 💖 I think I've talked about Soult in exile at some points but as far as I'm aware I've never tried to give a summary of this period of his life. As to sources, I'll mostly refer to Nicole Gotteri once again, because what else.
Soult was already condemned to be exiled in an ordonnance royale from 24 July 1815, immediately after Louis XVIII had returned to Paris. While Ney's name topped the list of those condemned to death, Soult's was at the top of those to be driven out of France. However, execution of this decree was postponed, and after Soult had (barely) managed to get back to his mother in distant Saint-Amans, he was allowed to stay there (under strict surveillance, of course) some months longer. He spent the time working on a memorandum for his defense and to worry about the future: while public rumours abounded about how many millions he supposedly owned, the family had real problems to pay the 16,500 francs due as extra taxes for the contributions to the allies.
However, the loi d'amnistie from 12 January 1816 confirmed Soult's exile. He left Saint-Amans on 28 January and reached Maubeuge at the border of France on 6 February. Louise and the children, accompanied by Soult's younger brother Jean-François, followed mid-February. The family reunited at Barmen, where Louise's mother Wilhelmine now lived with the family of one of Louise's sisters, on 19 February 1816.
That was the beginning of an exile of three years. After a brief stay at Barmen, the family rented (on 21 April 1816) a house in Düsseldorf in Alleestraße (today: Heinrich-Heine-Allee) No. 7, close to the Ratingen gate and, more importantly, to the local gymnasium for Napoléon Hector. According to contemporary newspaper articles, it was an appartment of seven rooms (which is comfortable for a family of soon-to-be five, but rather modest for a duke), and the family did not even have a carriage of their own. They lived a rather secluded life, according to all sources. It was here where Louise, at the age of 46, gave birth to a daughter on 27 January 1817, whose death a couple of months later devastated the family. By that time, the two older children had already returned to France, in order to complete their education.
In February 1818, Louise also left for Paris, in order to look after the children, and Soult stayed behind, alone. As the house in Düsseldorf was far too big for him, he moved back in with his mother-in-law Wilhelmine. Louise and the children joined him in July 1818 for a prolonged summer vacation that they spent at a rented little chateau and that saved Soult from his growing depression. But it took another long winter that he had to spend alone, until May 1819, before Louis XVIII allowed Soult to return to France. Among other people, Soult's former aide Saint-Chamans (despite being at odds with Soult, as usual) had interfered on Soult's behalf and pleaded his case.
So, that's the timeline. Now to your actual question, how was Soult treated. For context: Louise Soult's family lived in what had been the Grand-Duchy of Berg-Kleve (and had belonged to one Joachim Murat), a region now governed by the King of Prussia. And it may have been quite fortunate for Soult that most people in these regions did not like their new Prussian overlords much 😁.
As mentioned above, Soult had already been under surveillence by French secret police while he waited for the final decision in his case. Once he had crossed the border, Prussian police took over. The director of police for the region, some guy named Schnabel, dispatched a police inspector to observe Soult and report about his comings and goings literally from day one. According to these reports, Soult arrived in Barmen accompanied by his 14-year-old son in a heavily laden carriage pulled by four horses. He entered the house of his relatives - and was then not be seen again for several days. Some young people rioted loudly in front of Wilhelmine Berg's house, without police interfering. And of course, there were the usual rumours about Soult having brought a wealth of 27 millions with him.
Those malicious rumours seem to have been all that the inspector hanging out on the street in front of Wilhelmine's house was able to report. Inside, Soult had asked the mayor of Barmen to come to visit, informed him officially that he would stay for a bit with his German family, and asked for a teacher in Greek and Latin for Napoléon Hector.
Just because we've been kicked out France does not mean that you can skip homework, young man.
He also had the Prussian notary in Barmen, a Monsieur Leopold Alhaus, draft a document that would allow Soult's brother to manage his French possessions in his absence.
A week after Soult's arrival, by the end of February, Prussian police decided to tighten the reins, just so that this Frenchman would not get too comfortable. Police director Schnabel informed Soult that he needed permission by the Prussian government if he wanted to take up residence in the Rhine region, and gave him four weeks to obtain it. Soult answered on 2 March that he had not decided yet about where he wanted to go and that so far, he was only visiting. On 11 March, Schnabel triumphantly announced that the King of Prussia had just decreed that, while he allowed the French exiles to stay in his domains, he would only tolerate them staying in Pommerania and Magdeburg.
However, before following her husband, Louise Soult had already talked about the possibility of staying in her home region with Prussian ambassador Golz in Paris. Golz in turn had written to prince Hardenberg in Berlin about it. So did Soult now himself from Barmen, as soon as this overzealous police director started to harrass him. Among other things, he wondered if it might be possible for him to stay in Düsseldorf, because his son could go to school there. (Obviously still a major point for Soult.)
And guess what? On 24 March (almost miraculously fast for Prussian bureaucracy), Hardenberg sent the official permission for Soult and his family to stay in the duchy of Berg as long as he wished. For Soult, the King of Prussia had explicitly made an exception to the rule that applied to the other exiles.
Which put an immediate stop to director Schnabel and his ilk. I mean, you don't want to get on the worng side of the government. Who would have thought that this Frenchman had friends in Berlin?
I do not know why high-ranking Prussians showed themselves so lenient towards Soult in this case. To some degree, this was likely a concession to Louise. But it also may have had something to do with the fact that Soult had governed a Prussian province for so long and had been tasked with the details of several difficult negotiations. While contemporary reports from that period often badmouth him, and while Prussian historiography from the 1860s and 1870s can be really vicious towards Soult, Prussian books from the 1890s and later seem to treat him with much more benevolence, explaining that Soult in all these negotiations had tried to be as generous as Napoleon allowed him to be, and always fair. I suppose his contemporaries, especially the Prussian government at the time, were quite aware of this (even if they never would have admitted it out loud). This may have been their way to thank him.
Of course both Prussian and French police kept a watchful eye of Soult all the while (even when he was allowed back his entry into France was immediately reported to Paris). But armed with the permission of the King, he could at least avoid all real harassment.
As to the locals in Düsseldorf, they seem to have liked Soult well enough. While Soult did not go out much he must have had some contacts in town and occasionally invited people to dinner who, as a French police report stated, did not talk about anything but trade and agriculture. Soult himself, as to him, apparently loved to tend to the garden. But I have seen a mention of him being member of a club in Düsseldorf, and I have come across the report of a book seller who visited him. So he had not completely disappeared from view.
I hope this answers your question somewhat. There are some more details about Soult's life in Düsseldorf (local newspapers occasionally mention his name, Napoléon Hector successfully graduated from Düsseldorf's gymnasium and even had the honour to hold the graduation adress in Latin etc.) But this has already gotten quite long.
Thank you once more for the Ask!
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