Napoleon and the Rebel A Story of Brotherhood, Passion, and Power

by Simonetta, Marcello; Arikha, Noga

• ISBN13: 9780230111561
• ISBN10: 0230111564
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-06-07
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Summary

Lucien was the most talented of the Bonaparte brothers, who not only can be credited for helping Napoleon seize power, but who also had a promising political career of his own. He was a romantic, an idealist, and an anti-monarchist whose love for Alexandrine, the woman he married in spite of Napoleon's objections, caused him to fall out of favor with his powerful brother. Here, authors Simonetta and Arikha draw from a massive trove of first-hand documents, allowing them to present a rare, detailed portrait of this remarkable dynasty that reveals Emperor Napoleon and his family at their most intimate and vulnerable moments. The turbulent relationship between Napoleon and his favorite brother, Lucien, of whom the emperor said, "of all my siblings, he was the most gifted, and the one who hurt me most," creates the perfect springboard to illustrate the bloody power struggles, romantic idealism, and corruption that characterized nineteenth-century Europe, as well as the rise and fall of the French empire.

Author Biography

Marcello Simonetta has a PhD in Italian literature and history from Yale. His first book, The Montefeltro Conspiracy: A Renaissance Mystery Decoded, solves one of the most scandalous crimes of the Renaissance: the attempted assassination of the celebrated Medici brothers. He lives in New York.

Noga Arikha has a PhD in history and philosophy from the Warburg Institute. She has taught at Bard College and the Bard Graduate Center. Her first book, Passions and Tempers: A History of the Humours, was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice and one of the The Washington Post’s Best Nonfiction Books of 2007. She lives in New York.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. ix
Preface	p. xi
Youth (1775-1799)	p. 1
Diplomacy (1800-1802)	p. 55
Love (1802-1803)	p. 107
Exile (1804-1807)	p. 153
Empire (1808-1815)p193
Epilogue(1815-1840)	p. 241
Notes	p. 267
Bibliography	p. 277
Index	p. 281
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