Mark Twain’s Short Story, ‘The Lost Napoleon’

On a boat cruising down a river in France, the famous author comes upon a ‘grand apparition.’

Bronze statue of Napoleon on horseback in the Place de la Légion d'Honneur in Montereau-Fault-Yonne, 1867, by Charles-Pierre-Victor Pajol. Public Domain

On a beautiful day with nothing special to do, it’s pleasant to lie on the grass and just stare at the clouds. Up in the sky, we might see a sheep, elephant, or some other wonderful cloud sculpture slowly moving by. Wondrous shapes have also been seen in other natural places, like faces in trees, figures in the water, or men in mountains.  

In his short story “The Lost Napoleon,“ Mark Twain (1835–1910) contemplates the many surprises that await one when seeing the world with a sense of wonder: ”We have all seen mountains that looked like whales, elephants, recumbent lions [...] but we did not discover them, somebody pointed them out to us, and in the same circumstances we have seen and enjoyed stately crags and summits known to the people thereabouts as ‘The Old Man’s Head,’ ‘The Elephant’s Head.’”

Down the Rhône

Twain made his own discovery on a river excursion down the Rhône River in France. For his river trip to Marseilles, he hired a boat, a courier, and a boatman to take him on a relaxing journey down the river. He describes the journey as days filled with hours of reading, writing, smoking, note-taking, snacking, and just lazing about. He and his small crew rowed down the river during the day, getting lunch from the locals who lived along the river. In the evening, they stopped at a village or house where Twain ate and slept. In the morning, they moved on.