Betsy and the emperor : the true story of Napoleon, a pretty girl, a regency rake and an Australian colonial misadventure / Anne Whitehead.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Whitehead, Anne, 1942-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821--Relations with women.

Napoleon.

Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821.

Relations with women.

Abell, Lucia Elizabeth Balcombe, -1871.

Abell, Lucia Elizabeth Balcombe.

Emperors--France--Biography.

Emperors.

France.

Empresses--France--Biography.

Empresses.

France--History.

History.

Genre:

Biographies.

History.

Physical Description:

452 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps, photographs, portraits ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Sydney : Allen & Unwin, 2015.

Summary:

After Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, he was sent into exile on Saint Helena. He became an 'eagle in a cage', reduced from the most powerful figure in Europe to a prisoner on a rock in the South Atlantic. But the fallen emperor was charmed by the pretty teenage daughter of a local merchant, Betsy Balcombe ... Anne Whitehead brings to life Napoleon's last years on Saint Helena, revealing the central role of the Balcombe family. She also lays to rest two centuries of speculation about Betsy's relationship with Napoleon ... After Napoleon's death, Betsy travelled to Australia in 1823 with her father, who was appointed the first Colonial Treasurer of New South Wales. When the family lost their fortune, she returned to London and published a memoir which made her a celebrity ... With her extraordinary connections to royalty and high society, Betsy Balcombe led a life worthy of a Regency romance, but she was always fighting for her independence. This new account reveals Napoleon at his most vulnerable, human and reflective, and a woman caught in some of the most dramatic events of her time.

Contents:

Part 1

1 The News 3

2 The Prisoner 12

3 Friends and Foes 20

4 The Briars 31

5 The Pavilion 42

6 Boney's Little Pages 51

7 The French Suite 63

8 The Admiral's Ball 70

9 Last Days at the Pavilion 81

10 Longwood House 90

11 The New Governor 106

12 Gold Lace and Nodding Plumes 115

13 This Accursed Place 126

14 The Thinning Ranks 138

15 The Sick Lion 146

16 Our Beautiful Island 157

17 The Company of a Green Parrot 165

18 At the Mercy of the English 175

19 Farewell to the Island 187

Part 2

20 The Ties that Bind 201

21 The Embattled Surgeon 214

22 An Impending Tempest 223

23 The St Helena Plot 231

24 Official Disgrace 243

25 An Item of News 252

26 The One that Got Away 263

27 Marry in Haste... 270

28 'La Petite Angleterre' 286

29 The Clearing Fog 297

Part 3

30 Sydney Town 309

31 The Interesting Mrs Abell' 320

32 The Fashionables 335

33 A Fleeting Entente Cordiale 346

34 The Treasury Under the Bed 356

35 'Terrible Hollow' 371

36 A Fractured Family 383

37 Recollections of the Emperor Napoleon 394.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781760112936

1760112933

OCLC:

930369171