Napoleon knew that he was taking an enormous gamble by breaking out of Elba. But he had every reason to believe that if an assassin did not get him first he would awake one morning to find the island blockaded by the Royal Navy and invaded by Austrian troops from the Italian mainland. He realised that he was too dangerous for his enemies to leave where he was. He believed he had no choice. He sensed that time was running out. He reckoned that he had a good chance of succeeding, and he was right. It was timing, the factor in the equation over which he had no control, that would prove his
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