1966 Napoleonic naval short fiction; the elderly Hornblower meets a
madman who claims to be Napoleon Bonaparte.
This is of course written primarily as a coda to the man's
life: it's thirty years after West Indies and Hornblower is prosperous and
(by his standards) happy.
Of course, to make the trick work, Hornblower has to humour the man
rather than ask him straightforwardly why he is claiming that name,
which doesn't seem entirely in character; but in any case Barbara is
won over by good manners and flattery, the trifling assistance is
provided, and of course he turns out to have been the future Napoleon
III.
But while it's one last contact with reality, I think this exists
mostly to finish the series with Hornblower as happy as he is able to
be on land.
This story is most readily found in Hornblower and the Crisis.
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