Word: napoleons
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...like a modern U. S. Army fatigue cap. The sapper of grenadiers of the Imperial Guard wore a big black fur busby, a forked beard, white gaiters, a pure white cassock under a black white-cuffed jacket, crossed white bandoliers. He carried his sapper's axe. The typical Napoleonic uniform included high stiff headgear, tight white trousers or very baggy ones, crossed bandoliers. Charles Sandré made one of each to the number of 900, including every rank in every regiment in Napoleon's armies...
...some miracle this amazing collection survived in nearly perfect condition, the only collection of its kind in the world. Last year its owner, granddaughter of one of Napoleon's secretaries, sold it to an unknown buyer...
...coast of Tuscany, 100 miles northwest of Rome, lies the tiny port of Orbetello. The protecting shoulder of a great mountain (from which Napoleon's Elba can be seen 40 miles out to sea) guards it from high winds. Long sand spits make the mountain look "like a great ship moored by its three ropes of sand"; more important, they make smooth as a millpond the blue lagoons lying on either side of the town. There in winter fat eels are snared for the Christmas tables of Italy. There in summer wealthy Italian families lounge. And there...
...story loses track of some promising minor characters whose disappearance is disappointing, whose reappearance is sometimes anticlimactic. From France to Italy to Cuba to Africa to Europe again the story goes, then heads west to Louisiana and loses itself among the deserts and mountains of Mexico. Spanning the Napoleonic period, it introduces many a historical personage in human guise: Napoleon himself, Talleyrand, Slaver Mongo Tom, the Rothschilds (né Meyer). Though this lavish scene forms only the background for the hero, he is the least "real" (i. e., objectified) person in the book. A picaresque Everyman, he wanders the world...
...hours after a girl has nearly killed him. The rest of the time he goes drifting about making a lot of noise like a ship upon which a perpetual mutiny is going on. He is always steered in the direction which his bowsprit indicates." Napoleon telling Anthony why he does not like bankers: "And in another hundred years if I do not stop them they will own Europe - the world. Financiers cannot act. They never do anything. They are passive, they spin webs and every wind, blow peace blow war. brings them flies. They are not the fit repositories...