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Henry Beyle, Napoleon's messenger, passed from passionate enthousiasm for Napoleon to deep desillusion, only to meet his destiny as a writer amidst the cannons and the slaughter. Nicolas Boussard teaches philosophy at the University of Tours and is at present working on Stendhal's political philosophy.

Jean-Paul Laurens, official painter of IIIrd RepublicLaurens, very much the official painter to the IIIrd Republic, took certain episodes from the history of the First and Second Empires so as to defend and highlight republican values.L'Histoire, n° 214, octobre 1997, Pierre Vaisse, p.13-15Some periods in the life of the Prince impérial His childhood, his place […]

Mark Conrad has put online a selection of translations relating to Russian military history. Of particular interest to the Napoleonic enthusiast are: Historical notes on the Orenburg Cossack host On entering military service under Alexander I Don Cossack, Opolcheni, 1812 Crimean Tartar patriotism Lt Gen. Raevskii's report of the Battle of Borodino, and Markov's Horse […]

Reviewed by Mike Rapport of the University of Stirling (UK) in the British periodical French History, vol. 12, no. 3, Sept. 1998.

The saga of Baring Brothers begins in the 18th century, reaching its first peak when the bankers financed a loan to the United States allowing it to purchase Louisiana from Napoleon, despite England being at war against France. They would become the most celebrated banking house in Europe as is witnessed in the verse of […]

Originally published in 1873 and, until recently, difficult to find in translation, this is Zola's sad sad tale of a schoolteacher's ill-fated life during the Second Empire. Napoleon III's Paris is painted with the kind of colour that recalls Dickens' evocations of London. Zola's prose is brutally descriptive of his setting, which are the new markets […]

Amini’s interesting book on Napoleon’s relations with Persia (published by the Napoleon Foundation) is still available.

This is part of a series which provides studies of key, political figures in world history since 1500. The books are not biographies as such; rather they are designed to be succinct interpretative essays analysing the major features of the career within the context of its own time. This book covers the career of Tsar […]

A detailed discussion of the life and work of von Cetto and the way in which Franco-Bavarian relations in the period 1805-1815 were established. Neri illustrates how the triumvirate, Cetto, Montgelas and Maximilian I Joseph, organised the political decision-making process in the Bavarian government. Contrary to previous theories, von Cetto was not simply the executive […]