A
I visited Elba last June, joining Mary and John on a cycling vacation. They made the arrangements for the car, hotel and bicycles. I studied the history of the island, which of course particularly features Napoleon.
Napoleon picked Elba as a place for peace when he was forced to give up the throne as Emperor of France in 1814. Far from being a prison island, Elba is beautiful with towering mountains, thick forests and sweeping bays and beaches.
It is also an island filled with treasures. Very early on this island, the locals discovered rich deposits of iron. Soon outsiders, too, discovered the iron and 150 other valuable minerals on this little piece of land. Long before Etruscans and other Greeks set foot on it, Dorians had moved in by the tenth century B.C. and were mining the island. The Romans ruled next, obtaining the minerals and building grand houses overlooking the sea. From the twelfth century until the nineteenth, the island was traded back and forth and was passed to France in 1802. Then came Napoleon, the new ruler of Elba.
I was eager to visit his house in Portoferraio. The Emperor lived with his court and his mother, but his wife, Marie Louise had ensconced herself in the splendid Viennese palace of her father, Emperor of Austria. She lived safely there and showed little interest in visiting her husband in his mini-kingdom. Apparently, Napoleon wasn't troubled much by this. He was too busy riding everywhere on horseback, building roads, modernizing agriculture and, above all, sharpening his tiny army and navy into readiness for his escape.
In the formal gardens behind the house, it seemed to me that I could imagine the exiled (流亡的) conqueror's anxious thoughts. He might gaze over where I stood now, toward the lighthouse of the Stella fort, the sandy bay, and across it, the green mountains of the Tuscan coast. Napoleon spent only ten months here before making his victorious return to France and the throne.
21. Who might be the earliest outsiders to Elba according to the text?
A. Napoleon and his army. B. Etruscans and other Greeks.
C. Dorians. D. Romans.
22. What does the underlined word “ensconced” probably mean?
A. Settled. B. Locked. C. Cured. D. Controlled.
23. What came to the author's mind during his visit to Napoleon's gardens?
A. Beautiful views on Elba.
B. Terrible living conditions on Elba.
C. Napoleon’s ambition to regain power.
D. Hardship of Napoleon's return to France.
