Napoleon's Exile
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A "colorful" novel about the fall of one of history's most notorious figures—and the defeat that would come to define him (Publishers Weekly).
It is 1814, and Napoleon Bonaparte retreats to Paris following the debacle of his Russian invasion. Once there, the leader is met with more resistance—a plot to restore a royal to the throne of France succeeds and a humiliated Napoleon is forced to abdicate and go into exile.
Octave Senecal, Napoleon's loyal aide and savior, tells the tale of their journey south through the angry, mob-filled countryside to Elba, a tiny island off the coast of Tuscany. Horribly bored by this turn of events, Napoleon passes the time gambling with his mother, spearing the occasional tuna with local fishermen, and fretting constantly that secret agents and murderers surround him. He also secretly plans his escape and return to glory.
With captivating historical detail and "the allure of an epic," this novel by the award-winning author of The Battle brings to life the complex man behind the renowned general, and offers a fitting send-off to a legend (Anita Brookner).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Glory is in short supply, but there is plenty of bad behavior detailed in this colorful, exhaustively researched conclusion to Rambaud's popular trilogy (volume one, The Battle, won the Prix Goncourt), mostly a character study of Napoleon during the era of his first abdication. Told from the point of view of Octave S n cal, a fictional, loyal aide-de-camp, the book opens in March 1814, as Bonaparte's battered armies retreat toward Paris, pursued by forces from half a dozen opposing nations. While Napoleon peppers his generals with orders to assemble nonexistent armies, royalist conspirators within the terrified city are again working to restore the monarchy. This time, with the cooperation of Napoleon's marshals, the royalists force him to abdicate and exile him to the island of Elba, off the coast of Italy. Rambaud depicts numerous historical personages, warts and all, but he's at his best with his characterization of Napoleon on Elba: a seedy, overweight, petulant tyrant fighting boredom by abusing his staff, gambling, fretting, scheming and plotting his return which he does, of course, at the book's end.
