Garden of Venus (52 page)

1802:
Napoleon sends part of the Polish Legion to Saint-Domingue to fight the rebellion of Toussaint L’Ouverture. Yellow fever and despair over what is seen as the French betrayal of the Polish cause decimate the legion.

1804:
Jean Jacques Dessalines proclaims Haiti free.

1805:
Battle of Austerlitz. Napoleon wins over Austro-Russian forces.

1807:
Napoleon establishes the Duchy of Warsaw and promises that a successful Russian campaign will allow him to turn it into a kernel of independent Poland.

1812:
Napoleon attacks Russia on June 24. His forces, joined by Polish troops, defeat the Russians at Smolensk and Borodino, and enter Moscow. Defeated, Napoleon retreats from Moscow. Out of 550,000 soldiers, only 20,000 survive the Russian campaign.

1814:
A defeated Napoleon is sent to Elba. With Louis XVIII, the Bourbon dynasty is restored to the French throne.

1815:
Napoleon leaves Elba. Louis XVIII flees. The Hundred Days War begins. On June 18, the armies of the Duke of Wellington and Field Marshal Blucher defeat Napoleon at Waterloo. Napoleon abdicates for the second time and is banished to St. Helena. At the Congress of Vienna, part of the former Polish territory is
given to Russia as Congress Poland, with the Russian tsar as the Polish king. To many Poles this is the fourth de facto partition of Poland.

1821:
Napoleon dies on St. Helena.

1822:
Greece adopts a liberal Constitution and proclaims independence. The Turkish fleet captures the island of Chios and massacres its inhabitants. The Turks invade Greece.

November 12, 1822:
La Belle Phanariote
, Countess Sophie Potocka dies. She is survived by two daughters and four sons.

Adam Zamoyski,
The Last King of Poland

A fascinating biography of Stanislaw August Poniatowski (1732–98), the last king of Poland (1764–95).

Norman Davies,
God’s Playground:

A History of Poland

The most comprehensive survey of Polish history in English.

Sebag Montefiore,
Prince of Princes:

The Life of Potemkin

A biography of Potemkin, Catherine the Great’s co-ruler and lover.

Czesław Miłosz,
The History of Polish Literature

A comprehensive discussion of Polish literature by the Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet and scholar.

www.batguano.com/spotocka.jpg
A portrait of the young Sophie.

www.batguano.com/potockacopy.jpg

A surviving copy of a portrait of Countess Sophie Potocka by Elisabeth Vigèe-Le Brun, formerly in the Berlin Museum. The original was destroyed in World War II.

tour.km.ua/kampod/efort.htm

Kamieniec Podolski, the fortress where Sophie lived with her first husband, Joseph de Witt, until her meeting with Count Felix Potocki in 1891.

info-poland.buffalo.edu/classroom/Zamek/castle.html

The Royal Castle in Warsaw where Sophie appeared in 1781 with her first husband, invited by King Stanislaw August Poniatowski.

www.answers.com/topic/stanislaus-ii

A short biography of Stanislaw August Poniatowski, the last king of Poland. Includes details of his reign and portraits of him, some of which are mentioned in the novel.

www.zislin.com/pictures/gallery/2005-05-06/DSC_4717

Tulchin Palace of the Potockis, where Sophie lived with her second husband.

www.sofiyivka.org.ua/index_en.htm

Sofievka
—a beautiful park named after a beautiful woman. This official site includes details of Sophie’s story and pictures of her lovers.

www.rootsweb.com/~polwgw/history.html

A comprehensive timeline of Polish history.

www.polandembassy.org/Virtual_Tour/polish_history.htm

A virtual tour of Polish history.

Visit Eva Stachniak at

http://www.-acad.sheridanc.on.ca/~stachnia/

Garden of Venus
© 2005 by Eva Stachniak.
P.S. section © Eva Stachniak 2005

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition © MAY 2012 ISBN: 978-1-443-41748-8

Published by Harper Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

Eva Stachniak asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

First published in Canada in original trade paperback by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd: 2005. This trade paperback edition: 2006

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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www.harpercollins.ca

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Stachniak, Eva, 1952–

Garden of Venus / Eva Stachniak.

ISBN-13: 978-0-00-639543-0
ISBN-10: 0-00-639543-0

I. Title.

PS8587.T234G37 2006           C813’.6
C2005-905598-7

RRD 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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