A Complete Biography of Napoleon Bonaparte

‘A Complete Biography of Napoleon Bonaparte’ is a biographical account based on years of intimate friendship and professional association of the author, Louis Antoine Bourrienne with Napoleon. Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the latter stages of the French Revolution and its associated wars in Europe. He is one of the most fascinating and polarizing figures in history. Bourrienne, a French diplomat met Bonaparte at the Military Academy at Brienne in Champagne when eight years old. His book gives a vivid, intimate, detailed account of his interactions with Napoleon and his mother, brothers, and sisters, with his first wife Joséphine de Beauharnais and her children. His narrative is invigorated by many dialogues, not only of those in which he was a speaker but even of conversations that he only was told about by others. As an author, Bourrienne tried to put his friendship with Napoleon aside and to be balanced. He gives many examples of Napoleon's brilliance, his skill at governance, and his deft political maneuvers, while deploring his inexorable grabs for personal and familial power and wealth, his willingness to sacrifice French lives, and his abhorrence of a free press.

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