January 01
Anniversary of the First Meeting of Napoleon and Marie Walewska

Conquest (Aka Marie Walewska), Top Center from Left: Charles Boyer, Greta Garbo, 1937 Premium Poster

Film poster for the film Marie Walewska.

New Year's Day marked the beginning of one of the world's great love affairs - the romance between Napoléon Bonaparte and Marie Walewska. After Napoleon’s humiliation of Prussia, on the field of Jena, the French Emperor turned his attention to subduing his Russian foe and marched into Poland in the winter of 1806. Napoléon met Marie on New Year's Day in 1807, shortly after the Russians had been beaten and brought to the peace table.  Napoléon was driving through a blinding snowstorm. His carriage stopped at a small Polish town to change horses. A blond, blue-eyed, teenaged girl, Marie Walewska, came to the carriage and begged for Poland's independence.  

Marie related the meeting in her diary: "Napoléon raised his hat, bent toward me, I don't know what he said to me then because I was too eager to express what I was feeling. Be welcome, a thousand times welcome to our country. Nothing that we could do would express strongly enough either our admiration for you personally or the pleasure we have in seeing you set foot on the land which expects you to reestablish it.... Napoléon looked at me closely and took a bouquet which happened to be in the carriage, and as he gave it to me he said, 'Keep it as a pledge of my good intentions; I hope that we shall see each other in Warsaw and that I shall receive a thank-you from your beautiful mouth.'"

Napoléon saw Marie again a few days later at a ball in Warsaw. When he asked who she was, he learned that the eighteen-year-old girl was the wife of the seventy-year old Polish patriot, Count Walewska. Napoléon developed a sudden passion for Marie and sent her a love letter which was intercepted by Prince Ponitowski, the leader the Polish liberation movement. Ponitowski and a group of the most influential in Poland begged Marie to use her body as a pawn for Poland's independence. 

Marie did her patriotic duty and became Napoléon's mistress.  Napoléon never gave Poland the freedom that he promised, but it didn't matter any more. Marie was in love and gave him a son (Alexandre Florian Joseph Walewski who became a a Polish and French diplomat), and continued as his mistress until his death. In September of 1816 after Count Walewski died, Marie married a cousin of Napoléon I, Count Philippe Antoine d’Ornano. She died giving birth to her third son in 1817. Her heart was placed in the crypt of the d'Ornano family in Père Lachaise in Paris and her body was brought back to Poland. Their love affair was immortalized in the 1937 film Conquest (also called Marie Walewska) with Greta Garbo as Marie and Charles Boyer as Napoléon.

The great French chef, Escoffier, commemorated the 100th anniversary of Napoleon and Marie's first meeting by creating Filets de sole Walewska, an extravagant dish of sole topped with sliced lobster and truffles, then covered in a Béchamel sauce.
 
 

Filets de sole Walewska
 (Sole with Lobster and Truffles)
 

  
Ingredients
 
6 fillets of sole
2 cups court bouillon*
2 cups Béchamel sauce *
6 slices of cooked lobster

*See Appendix A
 		 2 TB grated Parmesan cheese
2 TB butter
1 truffle cut into 6 slices



 
Instructions
 
  1. Poach fillets in court bouillon for 6 to 8 minutes. Remove fillets to an a dish and keep in a warming oven.
  2. Boil down court bouillon over full heat to 1/2 cup. Heat Béchamel sauce stock. Bring sauce to a boil and cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir cheese and butter into sauce.
  3. Top fillets with sliced lobster and truffles and pour the sauce over them. under broiler for a minute to glaze surface of sauce.

Serves 6
 
© 2012 Gordon Nary