26 February—After his defeat in 1815 at what’s known as the Battle of Waterloo by Blücher and Wellington, Napoleon was exiled to Saint Helena. You’ll recall that Saint Helena is a little island in the South Atlantic, about 1,200 miles west of Africa, part of the British Overseas Territory known as Saint Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha.

In other words, it’s in the middle of nowhere. Space shuttles orbiting at 400 miles above the planet are closer to somewhere. So in the absence of internet as well as spotty TV and cellphone reception, the former emperor, who had been forced to abdicate a second time, undertook to learn the language of his captors, the bloody Brits, in order to write a best-selling memoir.

You’ll also recall that poor Napoleon had first been exiled to but was able to escape from Elba, an Italian island in the Mediterranean (about where the Tyrrhenian becomes the Ligurian), just several miles off the west coast of the northern boot. In other words, close to somewhere. In fact, Elba is part of the province of Livorno, inelegantly called Leghorn in English. (The Leghorn chicken—the most common breed exploited and abused on factory egg farms—originated there and is known as Livorno or Livornese back home.)

Reports are that while Napoleon was fluent in Italian and French (with his distinctive Corsican dialect, of course) he never became too proficient in English. It’s known, moreover, that after his army’s defeat in the 1814 Battle of Paris (which actually was fought in Paris) and he was shipped off to Elba, he wasn’t at all pleased nor happy. Can you blame him? It’s no surprise, then, that Napoleon had lost the will to run for a second term, as it were.

But after soaking up some Mediterranean sun and regrouping his loyal henchmen, Napoleon was able to escape from Elba and make his way back to France for what came to be known as the Hundred Days.

As it happens, today is the 210^th anniversary of Napoleon’s escape from Elba. Great, you’re thinking. So what? And what the hell does his lack of proficiency in English have to do with anything? Well, remember the memoir he wanted to write? Besides everything else, he wanted to vindicate himself. And in all honesty, Napoleon had some pretty good intentions.

A savvy dude, he knew his tell-all memoir would need pathos to become a best-seller. So Nappy looked back on his short stay on Elba and thought, “Stavo bene prima di vedere l’Elba.”

But between London, New York, and Saint Helena, English was where it was at even back then. So, like it or not, it behooved Napoleon to translate his catchy confessional hook into God’s second favorite language. And that’s how Napoleon Bonaparte translated his heart-rending lament into “Able was I ere I saw Elba.”

(In the interest of topicality, it must be noted that Napoleon’s popular palindrome was recently displaced by one created on Donald Trump’s behalf: “A man, a plan, a canal, Panama.”)