Published:
May 4, 2021 at 8:05 am
The former master of Europe was now the nominal monarch of an obscure island. In exile on Elba, he was surrounded by the faded trappings of court ceremony, while the pension promised to him did not materialise. Napoleon wrote again and again to his wife, Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma, the daughter of the Austrian emperor, asking her to come to him. Even if she could not or would not, he begged her to send their infant son. Neither request was granted as, although he did not know it, the letters were intercepted by his wife’s family and never reached her.