Customer Reviews

Napoleon's Family

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Desmond Seward is a popularizer, and this book has no footnotes, but it is a fantastic book and is fast reading. It tells the almost unbelievable story of Napolean and his siblings: Joseph (1768-1844), Lucien (1775-1840), Elisa (1777-1820), Louis (1778-1846), Pauline (1780-1824), Caroline (1782-1839) and Jerome (1784-1860). What an immoral lot--one is shocked by the sexual excess thay all indulged in. This is a good book, with a genealogical table and telling what became of them and their descendants. But the way Seward writes, it is not serious history. But it is fun to read, and you will be amazed by how quickly Napolean and his family assumed the vices of royalty.

Napoleon stands alone as a towering figure dominating the history of his age, so it's sometimes easy to forget that he came from a large family (5 brothers including Nappy, 3 sisters). But *he* didn't forget them--like any good boy from a poor Corsican family, he provided for them when he was master of France, and then of Europe: obscene riches, dynastic marriages, crowns and thrones. This is the story of the notorious Bonapartes, their rise and fall along with their famous brother.

Seward tries to avoid sensationalism and maintain a scholarly style, but his biases do keep showing through: he rather avoids giving Murat any credit for his military competence, and on the rare occasion that Jérôme acts at all decently it comes as a great surprise to Seward and he then rushes on and pretends it never happened. Sometimes he almost seems to verge on malicious gossip--I think he only included Bernadotte in the family in order to have plenty of occasions to badmouth him. But compared to the more usual military histories of the period, this kind of more personal story is frankly a fun change.

Where else would I have come across such an interesting character as the Emperor's niece:
"Napoléone (1806-69) was among the most high-spirited of the clan's later members. Even more masculine than her mother Elisa, she went so far as to wear men's clothes, fenced and enjoyed driving carriages. She married a sensitive Italian, Count Camarata, whom she reduced to a nervous wreck before deserting him in 1830 and reverting to her maiden name.... Very much her mother's daughter, she later acquired a keen interest in drainage."

This book, was mostly about Napoleon. The title of the book, is of course about all of his family. This does not let you down. You can read about all of his brothers and sisters, and of course his courageous mother and father. Not much usually is documented so long ago and we struggle to find answers to questions about history. This is a good book to read if you wish to know about Napoleon in a deeper aspect.