In Conversation with Napoleon Bonaparte: J. H. Vivian’s visit to the island of Elba

John Henry Vivian (1785-1855) was a leading British copper-master and one of the makers of modern Swansea. As a young man, in 1814-15 he made a tour of the Continent of Europe during which he met the deposed Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Vivian kept a journal of his travels, and this book publishes his account of his experiences on Elba and in Italy and Eastern Europe. It paints a portrait of Napoleon and his state of mind in the months before he escaped and was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo; it describes Napoleon's tiny kingdom of Elba and its famous iron mines which later in the century gave their name to the mining community of Elba, near Swansea; and it records Vivian's fascination with the salt mines and metallurgical industries of Germany and Poland.