Enchanted By Napoleon

Have you ever been fascinated by an historical figure? I have. Since grade school I have held an obsessive interest in Napoleon Bonaparte. I read every book in the school library that even remotely related to Napoleon. I found romance novels set in his time period thrilling. When I started college and decided to become a history major, my fascination with Napoleon was never far from mind. I lapped up all the historical details relating to Napoleon like a cat with a saucer of sweet cream. It wasn't until I had the opportunity to visit Vienna in the early nineties that my obsession took a turn toward the really strange. We flew out in the late afternoon, leaving Atlanta just before a winter storm closed the airport. Our crossing was uneventful, we flew east and into the sunrise. It was a fascinating experience. I remember looking down as dawn was breaking and seeing the white cliffs of Dover and then the English Channel. Somewhere at the back of my mind a tiny voice whispered. "I'm going home at last." I found the thought beyond weird, but pushed it aside as the fanciful imagination of a romance writer. I am an American, born and breed Southern. Until that flight, I had never been out of the States. While in Vienna my two friends and I visited lots of museums, palaces and the various historical sites. It was a thrilling experience. But the event that made the greatest impression on me was my first sight of the portrait of Napoleon that hangs in the Armory. I stood there before the painting and wept! I knew that portrait, remembered it. Somewhere in the hidden, buried depths of my memory, I remembered when it was painted, remembered watching as Napoleon posed for it. Crazy, I told myself, and it probably is, but for a moment, for that instant, I remembered, and the love I felt for the man was very real. In those silent moments, as I stood before his portrait, a little piece of the puzzle clicked into place. Who knows, perhaps in a past life I was struck with an extreme case of hero worship!