The growing popularity of "living history" has allowed Stephen Maughan to follow the European re-enactment circuit for four years, assembling an astonishing portfolio of color photographs that bring the troops of the First French Empire to life.
Here is a dazzling photographic re-creation of Napoleon's elite Imperial Guard regiments -- the handpicked veterans who provided the bodyguard, and the ultimate battlefield reserve, of one of the greatest military leaders in history. Rewarded with extra pay and superb equipment, Napoleon's Guard perhaps represented the peak of military splendor.
The painstaking re-creation of these troops allows modern access to a subject invaluable to modellers, war-gamers, and students of military history.
