“A Journey of a Modern Hero to the Island of Elba” – British caricature, 1814.

This print was published by J. Phillips, May 1814. It shows Napoleon seated backwards on a donkey on the road “to Elba” from Fontainebleau; he holds a broken sword in one hand and the donkey’s tail in the other while two drummers follow him playing a farewell(?) march. The following verse is printed at the bottom:

Farewell my brave soldiers, my eagles adieu;
Stung with my ambition, o’er the world ye flew:
But deeds of disaster so sad to rehearse
I have lived–fatal truth for to know the reverse.
From Moscow to Lipsic; the case it is clear
I was sent back to France with a flea in my ear.

A lesson to mortals regarding my fall:
He grasps at a shadow, by grasping at all.
My course it is finish’d my race it is run,
My career it is ended just where it begun.
The Empire of France no more it is mine.
Because I can’t keep it I freely resign.