|
Résumé :
|
A fittingly impetuous conclusion to his controversial impact on history, Napoleon's return to power in 1815--nullified by the Battle of Waterloo--was chronicled in Napoleon biographer Alan Schom's One Hundred Days (1993). Coote (Samuel Pepys, 2001) traverses the same terrain in a more popular, less scholarly manner, spicing a fast-moving story with pithy characterizations of the main figures involved. Napoleon's escape from exile and return to France with several hundred followers confronted officials of the shakily restored Bourbon regime, from local prefects to the ministers of Louis XVIII, with a decision about whether to turn coats or not. Coote smoothly dramatizes Napoleon's progress to Paris where, reenthroned as emperor, he politically posed as the liberal that the wars he previously conducted had prevented him from being. Singed by experience, the victors of 1814 rejected the new and improved Napoleon, declared him an outlaw, and mobilized. Sketching in attributes of Napoleon--charisma and egotism--that propelled the madcap adventure, Coote delivers a splendidly flowing rendition of the tragic affair.
|
