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Napoleon: The Man Behind the Myth
Adam Zamoyski
‘Napoleon is an out-and-out masterpiece and a joy to read’ Sir Antony Beevor, author of StalingradA landmark new biography that presents the man behind the many myths. The first writer in English to go back to the original European sources, Adam Zamoyski’s portrait of Napoleon is historical biography at its finest.Napoleon inspires passionately held and often conflicting visions. Was he a god-like genius, Romantic avatar, megalomaniac monster, compulsive warmonger or just a nasty little dictator?While he displayed elements of these traits at certain times, Napoleon was none of these things. He was a man and, as Adam Zamoyski presents him in this landmark biography, a rather ordinary one at that. He exhibited some extraordinary qualities during some phases of his life but it is hard to credit genius to a general who presided over the worst (and self-inflicted) disaster in military history and who single-handedly destroyed the great enterprise he and others had toiled so hard to construct. A brilliant tactician, he was no strategist.But nor was Napoleon an evil monster. He could be selfish and violent but there is no evidence of him wishing to inflict suffering gratuitously. His motives were mostly praiseworthy and his ambition no greater than that of contemporaries such as Alexander I of Russia, Wellington, Nelson and many more. What made his ambition exceptional was the scope it was accorded by circumstance.Adam Zamoyski strips away the lacquer of prejudice and places Napoleon the man within the context of his times. In the 1790s, a young Napoleon entered a world at war, a bitter struggle for supremacy and survival with leaders motivated by a quest for power and by self-interest. He did not start this war but it dominated his life and continued, with one brief interruption, until his final defeat in 1815.Based on primary sources in many European languages, and beautifully illustrated with portraits done only from life, this magnificent book examines how Napoleone Buonaparte, the boy from Corsica, became ‘Napoleon’; how he achieved what he did, and how it came about that he undid it. It does not justify or condemn but seeks instead to understand Napoleon’s extraordinary trajectory.
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Copyright (#u8e5d4140-ff47-53a9-9ecb-06e304b52abd)
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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London SE1 9GF
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This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2018
Copyright © Adam Zamoyski 2018
Cover photograph © Getty Images
Adam Zamoyski asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Maps by Martin Brown
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable 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.
Source ISBN: 9780008116071
Ebook Edition © October 2018 ISBN: 9780008116088
Version: 2018-08-28
Dedication (#u8e5d4140-ff47-53a9-9ecb-06e304b52abd)
In memory
of
GILLON AITKEN
Contents
Cover (#ud3e0c1bf-5c5b-5bb9-bfc4-b8586cfa87f5)
Title Page (#u5a7daa5b-fafe-5813-add0-d73c813372dd)
Copyright (#ufdb7edfa-e499-578b-9ac3-932d53c89c3c)
Dedication (#ud4e77d4b-6ab3-50d2-a54e-5e4a8348d25c)
List of Illustrations (#u8a4522bd-b391-5c60-8679-7f9ea96dbcf5)
List of Maps (#u34926b74-eb3c-535f-918d-f4e4aa95c028)
Family Tree (#u5868577b-1866-5b2f-8d60-c806aae67341)
Map (#u566d0090-712e-58b0-bdf7-814e20843076)
Preface (#u70fa4200-1b12-5e1d-a0f7-f5dd1cfad3ac)
1 A Reluctant Messiah (#u53a1c406-a40a-5900-b70e-e8bbe013076e)
2 Insular Dreams (#uc4ca2e74-314a-5033-90c3-69d953c48c20)
3 Boy Soldier (#udb4b2196-7ee9-5cb5-8e43-b89d81847472)
4 Freedom (#u3d29a861-5c59-588d-8c34-020aafc62d68)
5 Corsica (#u1162c243-5d98-5afb-82a7-a2006a122291)
6 France or Corsica (#u0c96649f-7689-58c5-8bd8-5ec9a39cdb0b)
7 The Jacobin (#u5385093b-5a15-52dc-8fd8-d4eeee49ac02)
8 Adolescent Loves (#u6f0bb591-c7d6-56d5-97ce-bee1883badb0)
9 General Vendémiaire (#u56fe402a-ae69-5ad8-8cd1-6ed6c8d6b80e)
10 Italy (#u1e19bf98-7f3f-5ae1-b69d-51efe4e4a2a4)
11 Lodi (#u9ca6af2b-0e97-595f-a2c4-0ea733f98373)
12 Victory and Legend (#u4afbc937-317f-5f5c-980a-4ce32b84f7aa)
13 Master of Italy (#ud817ca2d-fcff-5418-af3e-947c2816b984)
14 Eastern Promise (#udd726a8c-4787-59f1-a0c7-d4d5e7866607)
15 Egypt (#uca7b7f92-223a-567d-a27f-4f8d8986dad4)
16 Plague (#uf5607a25-4727-5db9-a1ec-f943ebcb9c1d)
17 The Saviour (#u72e9860a-180c-5af3-9cb9-8ef3f86b1b5e)
18 Fog (#u46e9d1f6-a949-5b82-ace8-c5d7a3c15672)
19 The Consul (#udd2be6ad-92d6-54da-b902-6deb35bce3b5)
20 Consolidation (#u75c664ab-3310-5ceb-bcfb-a1e9f424547f)
21 Marengo (#u6f054667-9319-588e-80b2-fefcff590c1c)
22 Caesar (#u55a52008-12f1-5230-b71c-83f8f8fc850a)
23 Peace (#u633ce7b1-e7e0-5bd8-872e-c87d9ff2dbb9)
24 The Liberator of Europe (#u75737731-eb6e-5596-8db6-02f3e9880168)
25 His Consular Majesty (#u1e1ea299-543d-5443-816e-affc8bdaae60)
26 Towards Empire (#uc018cd54-7ac7-58bd-a073-c3b3b7e6f3d0)
27 Napoleon I (#u09c1d99f-32d2-5b94-a67c-d0cc5decec46)
28 Austerlitz (#u6adb08b6-522c-5648-8e1c-963a760767cf)
29 The Emperor of the West (#u4b5f7dd7-1b0c-5256-9880-f3c467c1fb7c)
30 Master of Europe (#u9f7a57fe-f946-593e-a414-ea915b5868af)
31 The Sun Emperor (#u859ebaff-4485-5368-9a95-8a1edc8201cc)
32 The Emperor of the East (#uc2e2781c-efb9-5aa1-9550-655dec5c01d1)
33 The Cost of Power (#u2a496977-34ee-5fb6-8c72-ab76d6f30670)
34 Apotheosis (#uddf32027-5ca4-5ab4-bf30-6c675c3b9c18)
35 Apogee (#u475b414f-c0be-51e3-9d2e-4b538ee0c48b)
36 Blinding Power (#ud2622263-2bf0-5249-9e18-869aabe6f810)
37 The Rubicon (#uf1526288-c792-5830-8df7-fe0ef5029eb5)
38 Nemesis (#u9c40a6d5-54c6-5912-8703-87811b710cc3)
39 Hollow Victories (#u965dbeeb-1a27-53e3-9795-44d24841dd43)
40 Last Chance (#uc163125a-c9df-567d-80d7-0adf819aff2c)
41 The Wounded Lion (#u62ab3de2-94b4-5d5f-af14-082aa73b923d)
42 Rejection (#ufb859098-8844-5b0b-9554-f11ee593b485)
43 The Outlaw (#u08651b32-87ab-5689-b8e2-80884f85ed8b)
44 A Crown of Thorns (#u9e90a072-7ed8-559b-87f8-943970bc3812)
Notes (#ueb560e5c-fc0e-55a3-b243-100e9e5078e9)
Picture Section (#u9b75558c-1a06-5db9-8bfa-241c2bf3cbcc)
Bibliography (#ud8c46d7f-d1a8-569a-a8b4-384a77da9e0f)
Index (#udc9c64df-fc53-5e04-8c42-a8b91158cc6c)
Also by Adam Zamoyski (#u3cc709a0-7b05-5c77-9d1f-27d114a69193)
About the Author (#u8db78a0c-8b5d-5c4a-be35-f3cb6f47e6aa)
About the Publisher (#u7e881d2b-ec2e-5e8f-9a1d-95ff924aa90a)
Illustrations (#u8e5d4140-ff47-53a9-9ecb-06e304b52abd)
Napoleon’s mother Letizia Bonaparte in 1800, by Jean-Baptiste Greuze. (Granger Historical Picture Archive/Alamy Stock Photo)
Two sketches of Bonaparte by Jacques-Louis David. (Sketches of Napoleon Bonaparte, 1797 (pencil), David, Jacques-Louis (1748–1825)/Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Palais Massena, Nice, France/Bridgeman Images)
Bonaparte during the Italian campaign of 1796, by Giuseppe Longhi. (Paul Fearn/Alamy Stock Photo)
Bonaparte leading his troops across the bridge at Arcole, by Antoine-Jean Gros. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)
Bonaparte in 1797, by Francesco Cossia. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)
Josephine Bonaparte in 1797, by Andrea Appiani. (ART Collection/Alamy Stock Photo)
Auguste Marmont, by Georges Rouget. (Wikimedia Commons)
Andoche Junot, by David. (© President and Fellows of Harvard College)
Joachim Murat. (ART Collection/Alamy Stock Photo)
Josephine’s son Eugène de Beauharnais, by Gros. (Hirarchivum Press/Alamy Stock Photo)
Napoleon’s younger sister Pauline, by Jean Jacques Thérésa de Lusse. (flickr/lost gallery/Pauline Bonaparte, Princess Borghese/De Lusse/CC by 2.0)
Bonaparte visiting plague victims at Jaffa during his Syrian campaign, by Gros. (Photo by Archiv Gerstenberg/ullstein bild via Getty Images)
Joseph Bonaparte. (Photo by Stefano Bianchetti/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, by Nicolas Joseph Jouy. (Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo)
Napoleon’s younger brother Lucien, by François-Xavier Fabre, c.1808. (ART Collection/Alamy Stock Photo)
