Edith Saunders

This was a surprisingly good book. From reading most books, one would think that the affair between Napoleon & Mademoiselle George was brief, a few months at most & only worth a paragraph or two. But Ms. Saunders proves otherwise, the result being a well-researched & interesting work.
While most books never fail to mention the visit of Maria Waleska to Napoleon before his exile, this is the first book I have read that states that Mademoiselle George had done the same. She was truly devoted to him & his cause. When most had deserted him, she boldly flaunted the fact that she was a Bonapartist in the face of the returning Royalists.
This book also gives doubt to the common reason of why the affair ended. It may possibly be that Napoleon did suffer an epileptic seizure & that she had awoken the entire household in her panic to get some medical assistance. However, it is just as probable that they simply drifted apart, since neither one states in their memoirs what actually did happen. It is doubtful that such an instance did occur, since neither one nor the other ever spoke (or wrote) about it. No matter how “discreet” they kept the affair while it was going on, there would have been no reason for her to have left such an extraordinary event out of her memoirs considering the fact that they were written long after the death of Napoleon. It seems more likely that it had been Napoleon’s ambition that separated them more than anything else had.… (meer)