Far from glorious, Napoleon's hundred days are a period of defeat and retreat, beginning with the Emperor's flight from Elba and running up to his defeat at Waterloo. In Roth's conjuring, we see the disgruntled and distracted figure mostly through the eyes of his laundress in Paris. Working at the Tuileries palace, Angelina Pietri is a shy devotee of the great man, aware of his hubris but sympathetic to his overwhelming loneliness. Her love goes unrequited, and her life goes on, with other clients and a son to care for, but her heart remains with the Emperor to the end. A thoroughly realised work of imaginative sympathy, the novel shows Roth at the height of his powers.
