Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Napoleon's Vocabulary Book

I realize this is the second post on Napoleon in a row. It wasn't planned, funny how things turn out. While I was visiting my parents in Bonn, we went to the exhibition "Napoleon and Europe. Dream and Trauma". Well done, worth a look.
One very interesting item on display was Napoleon's vocabulary book. On exile on Saint Helena, he only had an English newspaper to read. To my surprise he couldn't read English and had to start to learn. The page on display looks like he started eagerly but got more and more distracted and annoyed, ending up in drawing of what looks like a fortress.
Napoleon's Vocabulary Book
Sorry for the bad quality---I tried to take a picture of the real exhibit but got stopped by a guard. The photo shows a screenshot of the exhibition book.