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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?
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. 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.
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. Because he has not had children, he thinks that he is sterile. Marie proves him wrong, presenting him with his first child, a boy.
Marie's dual wishes are for a serious relationship with Napoleon, as well as his promise to bring independence to Poland. Set in several European cities and against his European wars, their relationship continues six years. Napoleon calls her "my Polish wife." She calls herself his "shadow wife." 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. Fate has other plans.
