Helfert, Joachim Murat, Chapter 6, Part 3
We left with Murat kinda hiding in the open on Corsica while fantasizing about sneaking into the royal palace of Naples.
A flicker of prudence came over him when he decided to send one of his confidants, Simone Cambruschini from Bastia, who was to visit Elba and Naples: there to contact General Dalesme, the commandant of the French garrison left behind by Napoleon; here to obtain information about the prevailing mood in the city and the country. But weeks would pass before the messenger could return with his news, and was Murat, once his head was on fire, the man to bide his time?
Elsewhere in Europe, it was not known for a long time what had become of the ex-king. On 23 July, London papers had brought the news that he had left Toulon, but they did not know where he had gone. Some thought he had gone to Tunis, and Murat himself had helped to spread this rumour; others had him sailing for America; the third wanted to know that he was near Paris, in Fontainebleau, in Compiègne. According to still other rumours, he was lying near Lyon - the country house of the president of the Court of Appeal was called Vouti - mortally ill from wounds he had received, or was wandering about on land or at sea.
Here, again, there is a somewhat cryptic source in a footnote:
M*** Vie de Joa. Murat p. 95 f., probably written in September, at any rate before the bloody drama in Pizzo: "Murat ne parait pas s'être éloigné de la Provence"; he is said to have spent some time in Antibes and then been in Toulon, "enfermé avec divers corps armés qui, comprimant le voeu bien prononcé du peuple, méconnaissaient encore l'autorité du Roi ... Il erre maintenant dans des montagnes déguisé sous des vêtements communs et suivi, dit-on, de deux seuls domestiques". The "Journal du Departement du Var", on the other hand, brought the news that Murat, who had pretended to be a naval officer named Campomele, had been recognised and arrested on his arrival in Bastia.
The text continues:
In the meantime, without paying attention to such groundless talk, diplomacy in Paris dealt with the future fate of the dethroned king. According to a document signed by Prince Metternich on September 1st, Emperor Franz offered him admission and protection in his states, provided that he accepted a private title, possibly the one chosen by his wife, and undertook not to leave his place of residence without first obtaining the consent of the emperor. A passport for him was also issued on the 7th under that name "von Lipona", "in order to go from southern France to Trieste", by the Imperial and Royal Court Chancellor Count Mercy, signed by the English envoy Lord Steward.... It was previously related that Colonel Maceroni, whom Murat had sent from Toulon to the Duke of Wellington, had been arrested in Paris; the latter was now brought out of his custody and entrusted with the task of delivering the two documents to his former king and master. Maceroni left without delay for the south, where it was already known that Murat had succeeded in escaping to Corsica, and that is where the colonel went in the second half of September, first to Bastia.
In Naples, too, people were not only aware of Murat's presence in Corsica at this time, they also suspected that he was up to no good against the kingdom. Perhaps it was precisely Lambruschini's mission, whose appearance and covert reconnaissance could not have escaped the attention of the police, that caused the first unrest in Neapolitan government circles. Lambruschini had reached Porto-Ferrajo on September 1st at a time when General Dalesme, in accordance with an agreement concluded with the Tuscan troops, was about to evacuate the island. The first part of his mission had thus come to an end and only the second remained: to find out the prevailing mood for the ex-king on the Italian mainland. Consequently, he had gone to Livorno, to Florence, to Rome, September 8 to 11, where he endeavoured to put his travel documents into order so as to be able to sneak into Naples. It is certain that both in the capital and in Gaëta, still occupied by Lauer's troops, fears were harboured in the second half of September about Murat's activities in Corsica and from Corsica. On the 18th, our envoy had a lengthy discussion on this matter with the King, to whom he advised: first, to have several larger warships cruise along the most exposed stretches of coast from Gaëta to Terracina, then along the Calabrian shores; second, to reinforce the garrison of Gaëta with Sicilian troops; third, to have the forts of Naples provisioned for at least a fortnight. It does not appear, however, that these precautionary measures were carried out in any great hurry; at least there was no sign of frigates crossing the coasts for a long time. On the other hand, the Minister Medici sent a trusted man, Ignazio Carabelli, in a hurry to Corsica, from where he was a native, with the order to approach Murat and to talk him out of any hostile enterprise against King Ferdinand.
Lambruschini did not arrive in Naples until September 28th, where he had secret talks with both General Filangieri and the banquier Falconet, both of whom implored him to leave the city as quickly as possible, since the police could track him and them down and the mood in the country was such that his patron should not entertain any favourable expectations. At this, Lambruschini, after barely a four-day stay in Naples, left for Rome again, with the firm resolution to dissuade the king in the strongest possible terms from carrying out his foolhardy plan.
But in the meantime everything had changed on Corsica. Verrière had retreated to the Citadelle in the face of Murat's daily growing number of followers and, on September 15, issued an appeal in which he called Murat a "disturber of the peace", an "agitator" and called on the loyal followers of King Louis to take up arms and be ready to march out against the high-treasonous gatherings in Vescovato.
Now Murat too believed that he should no longer delay. On the 17th, he set off with his men from their previous base, but not to Bastia, but over mountains and valleys in short marches to Ajaccio. On the 20th they camped for the night in Bogognano, from where Murat sent General Franceschetti on ahead to Ajaccio to hire vehicles in the harbour for the crossing, but also to find money and bills of exchange, as the funds he had taken with him on his escape from Naples were running out. It was also in Bogognano that Murat dictated into the pen of his secret scribe a very verbose manifesto, which he intended to distribute on entering the soil of his kingdom. "Neapolitans," it said, among other things, 'do not fear that the allied powers will arm themselves anew against your king. Your Joachim never abdicated. A military failure could not make him lose the crown of Naples. By regaining his throne, he only imitates the example of the sovereigns who have regained theirs. The Emperor of Austria, who, misled as to the true policy of the Cabinet of Naples, and thinking that your Joachim was in agreement with Napoleon, has overtaken him with such a disastrous war, will again become his ally, do not doubt it." He spoke of his conciliatory disposition, with a scarcely veiled sidelong glance at Ferdinand who, as his courtiers had always told him, was nothing but a hateful tyrant: "Your King does not speak to you of forgiveness, you have never offended him, he rather renews the oath he made to you in former times: to make you happy. He will not be like those who pause only for the moment with their revenge, in order then to allow it to shoot the reins all the more freely". This was followed by outbursts at Ferdinand's letter to Bianchi, in which Murat's troops were spoken of in a contemptuous manner, at the treaty of May 20: "the castle of Casa Lanza, this monument to Ferdinand's disgrace, shall be razed to the ground, and Ferdinand, who has called your brave army covered with glory a bunch of enemy bands, shall be declared by the nation unworthy to govern it and deprived of the throne!"
Sometimes I wonder if these men, as they had grown up in the army, simply were mistaken about the little importance military matters had for most civilians, particularly in times when everybody was so war-weary. I do not think many people outside the army were ready to rise up against a king because he had talked badly about the army.
But seeing how so many people actually tried to save Murat’s life, with him actively working towards his own distruction, is heartbreaking.