The year is 1814. The Allies have driven Napoleon's once-mighty qrmies back to PAris. Trapped, forced to abdicate after two decades of triumphant rule, the Emperor takes leave of his comrades-in-arms and sets sail for his new domain - the tiny, poverty-stricken, pestilential island of Elba. Yet within ten months Napoleon will enter Paris once again, at the heels of the fleeting Bourbon king, flushed with victory and cheered by the masses. The Escape from Elba tells the heroic story of Napoleon's exlie and phoenix-like return. In this classic account, noe republished in paperback, Norman MacKenzie chronicles this extraordinary year: the tense last hours of Napoleon's empire, his humiliating exile, his midnight escape and his whirlwind march over snowbound mountains to Grenoble where, in a dramatic confrontation with the French army, he became a reigning prince again. Described in vivid detail are Napoleon's adventures as the head of Elba. He brouhgt society, splendor, organization and political intrigue to this run-down backwater. And he displayed on this small stage many sides of his charismatic.