The Escape from Elba

“A lively account” of Napoleon’s first exile and his “escape, full of cunning and daring, accident and error” ( The New York Times Book Review ). The year is 1814. The Allies have driven Napoleon’s once-mighty armies back to Paris. Trapped, forced to abdicate after two decades of triumphant rule, the emperor takes leave of his comrades-in-arms and sets sail for his new domain—the tiny, poverty-stricken, pestilential island of Elba. Yet within ten months Napoleon will enter Paris once again, at t