Finding Napoleon

In 2011, research took me to Paris (of course!), Corsica (Napoleon’s birth place), and St Helena (an island—still without an airport—in the middle of the south Atlantic Ocean where Napoleon died in exile).

Now, in 2013, I'm completing my manuscript and hope to have it presented to publishers.

Come along on the adventure and add your opinions to my blog.

He is the epitome of France, yet he didn’t speak French until he was nine. The second son of minor, impoverished Corsican nobility, he attended military school on the French king’s sou. By age thirty, he had supplanted that monarch as France’s ruler.

He faced battle fearlessly but could be petulant over a slight head cold.

Although he knowingly played the fool for an unfaithful wife, he never gave up on romance.

Famous for ruthlessness, no ruler forgave betrayal so easily. Remembered for his empire’s splendor, he always ate plain food and watered down his wine.

In the midst of revolutionary chaos, he imposed stability. Out of stability came power, devastation and loss.

Napoleon the man (and the people called him “l’homme”) is a mass of contradictions. How did he become the intricate personality he was?