In 1779, nine-year-old Napoleon arrived at military school in Brienne. Barely speaking French in a heavy Corsican accent, he faced five years of isolation, austerity and mockery. Yet, despite his ardent Corsican nationalism, it was here he became a Frenchman. He also became an impassioned reader of history, devouring Plutarch’s Lives and demanding access to …
Yesterday was our first day in Paris. After settling into our apartment on Rue Bonaparte a few blocks from the Seine, we walked to Les Invalides, Napoleon I’s burial site. During the mile-long walk, I was reminded that the truism about Parisians having style is remarkably true. Trim women gracefully navigate cobblestones on spiked heels, …
As a writer, especially a fiction writer, I collect details and search for interesting, memorable ways to describe them. My quest to capture the essence of Napoleon requires recreating, first in my mind and then in my readers’ imaginations, a sense of his everyday life. For example, when he got out of bed, did his …
The breadth of Napoleonic material amazes and at times overwhelms me. Of course, its volume results from the huge impact he had in so many physical, political and cultural areas of the world, but I am grateful to the multitude of scholars who have painstakingly recorded the details, both small and large. I’m not a …
