Napoleon's Shadow Wife

<p><strong>How is it that an emperor like Napoleon Bonaparte could be so entranced by twenty-year-old Polish Countess Marie Walewska-of minor nobility-that their affair would outlast his relationships with wives Josephine and Marie Louise?</strong></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Countess Marie Walewska is a fascinating Polish beauty and patriot who catches the eye of Napoleon Bonaparte. When Marie's first taste of possible love with a young dashing soldier comes to a bad end she is pressured by her family at seventeen to marry a wealthy sixty-eight-year-old noble in order to save the family estate. She is married and the mother of one by the time Napoleon shows his keen attentiveness to her.</span><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> Initially her interest in him has to do with her hopes that he would reestablish Poland's independence after having been partitioned by Russia Prussia and Austria. </strong></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Marie resists the emperor for a good while but pressured by family and Polish politicians she at last accedes to his passion. However she comes to love him deeply. </span><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Because he has not had children he thinks that he is sterile. Marie proves him wrong presenting him with his first child a boy.</strong></p><p></p><p><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Marie's dual wishes are for a serious relationship with Napoleon as well as his promise to bring independence to Poland.</strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> Set in several European cities and against his European wars their relationship continues six years. </span><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Napoleon calls her my Polish wife. She calls herself his shadow wife.</strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> When he loses his empire the first time and is exiled to the Island of Elba Marie follows him thinking she will remain with him for the foreseeable future. </span><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Fate has other plans.</strong></p>