May 5, 1821. Napoleon Bonaparte, deposed emperor exiled on the island of St. Helena, is about to take his last breath. The son of a Corsican family, he has been close to death on many occasions since, as a young captain in the revolutionary army, he seized Toulon from the royalists in 1793.
Jean-Marie Rouart (born 8 April 1943 in Neuilly-sur-Seine) is a French novelist, essayist and journalist. He was elected to the Académie française on 18 December 1997. Source: Article "Jean-Marie Rouart" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.