More than 200,000 books have been written about Napoleon Bonaparte. (My own modest library contains about two hundred.) A complete bibliography is a near impossibility, even if I had time and life enough to read them all. Here are a handful I found useful in writing and vetting The Eagle and the Viper:
Cassin-Scott, Jack. Uniforms of the Napoleonic Wars in Colour, 1796–1814. Dorset, UK: Blandford Press, 1973.
The book is what it claims to be, and extremely helpful in describing military dress during this martial period; a rainbow should have this spectrum.
(NOTE: Please don’t blame Cassin-Scott for the policeman’s cap I eventually gave Prefect Dubois; the design belongs to a later Paris. I had difficulty picturing him in any other headgear.)
Chartrand, René. Napoleon’s Guns 1792–1815: Heavy and Siege Artillery. Botley, Oxford: Osprey, 2003.
Surely a Napoleonic novel with only one battle scene, and that a flashback, is a rarity; but being able to identify the cannon that were likely used to quell the riot of 13 Vendémiaire (Gribeauval twenty-four-pounders) provided verisimilitude. This is an excellent source for Bonaparte scholars and firearms aficionados.
Clayton, Tim. This Dark Business. London: Little, Brown, 2018.
This book appeared after I’d finished The Eagle and the Viper, but Clayton’s premise is nearly identical to mine, and deserves mention. England’s campaign to disguise its many attempts on Napoleon’s life and its self-serving motivations are the subject of this book, and the author cites names, dates, and details of the ongoing conspiracy (beginning with the Christmas Eve Plot) all the way to King George III and William Pitt, the bipolar, paranoid British prime minister who green-lighted the attempts and drank himself to death shortly after Napoleon conquered all Europe during the Battle of Austerlitz. Clayton makes the case that the UK managed to sell the fallacy of the Corsican’s power-hungry persona and England’s role as his courageous nemesis well into the twenty-first century. (Significantly, he points out that the term “propaganda” came into general use in this connection, coined by its employers.)
Cronin, Vincent. Napoleon Bonaparte: An Intimate Biography. New York: Morrow, 1972.
First published in Great Britain in 1972, Cronin’s book is meticulously researched and reads like a thriller novel. It’s especially useful for the personal information: Napoleon’s appearance, dress, habits, relationships, preferences, and dislikes. It was in this history, when I was in college, I first learned the rudimentary details of the Christmas Eve Plot, and conceived of The Eagle and the Viper on the instant.
Durant, Will and Ariel. The Age of Napoleon. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975.
The Durants—the Lunt and Fontanne of world history—claimed to have written this one as an afterthought, to pass time while waiting for the Grim Reaper. Most of us would have chosen less rigorous pursuits; but Napoleonic literature would have a decided gap without this 800-page bagatelle. They devote a significant number of pages to Cadoudal and his co-conspirators, most remarkable considering the breadth of their subject: the world from pole to pole, from the French Revolution through the re-burial of Napoleon’s remains in Paris more than fifty years later. Their labor helped me triangulate the versions presented by Cronin and Schom. (See below.)
Forssell, Nils. Fouché: The Man Napoleon Feared. New York: AMS, 1970.
This book first appeared in 1925, revised three years later on the basis of newly discovered information, and remains unparalleled on its subject. Monster that Fouché was, Forrsell (or his translators; his opus debuted in Swedish) chronicles his life and career with remarkable objectivity. Not until John Toland’s massive Adolf Hitler did anyone to my knowledge dissect and examine a thoroughly evil man so clinically. This was rare in the somewhat emotional field of biography in the early twentieth century. Without Forssell I could not have written this book.
Ludwig, Emil. Napoleon: The Man of Destiny. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1926.
Ludwig’s immensely readable tome was a runaway bestseller: Al Capone, the Napoleon of Chicago crime, is said to have read it while imprisoned in Alcatraz, and compared his career and island exile to the Emperor’s. It also suffers from some emotionalism. Ludwig was a Bonapartist, and it’s obvious he was infatuated with his subject. This isn’t great scholarship, but it’s largely accurate, and as much fun to read the fifth time around as the first. “What is Paris saying?”; his recurring trope. Irresistible.
Markham, Felix. Napoleon. New York: New American Library, 1963.
This is the Shane of Napoleonic biography. Just as Jack Schaefer’s frontier retelling of the story of David and Goliath brought American western mythology to generations of schoolchildren under the Scholastic imprint, Markham’s compact biography can be found in most university bookstores, introducing Napoleon to whole new audiences. He adds nothing to established history, but serves it up in a reader-friendly format, a trademark shared by bestselling American history scholars Stephen Ambrose and David McCullough. It has seldom if ever been out of print.
Markham, J. David. Napoleon for Dummies. Indianapolis: Wiley, 2005.
I know what you’re thinking: What a friend said when he saw my shelves. “Really?” But it’s a handy place for a morsel needed in a hurry. Markham pompously lectures Napoleon on where he went wrong, from his marriage to Josephine to the Battle of Waterloo. He’d have been stood before a firing squad in a hot Paris minute.
Roberts, Andrew. Napoleon: A Life. New York: Penguin, 2015.
At this writing, Roberts’ is the latest on its subject, the first to benefit from some 200,000 of Napoleon’s letters that were previously unreleased; a jaw-dropping figure, considering the many thousands already available and all his other works, politically and militarily, undertaken during his fifteen years in power. The result is a balanced account, criticizing Napoleon where his errors are clear and complimenting him in the many cases where his decisions contributed to the welfare of his country, of Europe, and of the world. A monolithic and entertaining history, enlivened by Napoleon’s own words.
Schom, Alan. Napoleon Bonaparte. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.
When I acquired this one, it was the most recent popular biography of Napoleon. There have been many since, proving that the man is still fascinating: At sixteen he was a lieutenant of artillery; a general at twenty-four; at thirty, he ruled France; at thirty-six he was Master of Europe; and he was dead at fifty-one, an age when most world leaders are just getting started. Schom’s style is easy-go, and he’s earned it by dint of years of close study and detective work. He corrects Cronin—discreetly, without criticism—on a number of details concerning the Christmas Eve Plot, and helped clear up some confusion for me when I compared his findings with those of other scholars.
The above are secondary sources. For the personal details of a titanic personality, nothing compares to consulting with his intimates. I present the following without publication details; they’re seldom out of print, and available in many editions:
Armand de Caulaincourt, Duke of Vicente. With Napoleon in Russia.
Caulaincourt was a member of Napoleon’s cabinet and his general factotum for years. His memoirs of lengthy conversations with the Emperor aboard a sledge during the retreat from Moscow in 1812 provide the sort of revealing details and reminiscences that can only be confided during a long, tedious journey in flight from disaster.
Constant, Louis. Recollections of the Private Life of Napoleon.
As quoted in the present book, “No man is a hero to his valet.” Although this premiere valet de chamber would abscond with 5,000 francs from the French treasury during Bonaparte’s first exile, this memoir suggests he worshipped his master. Three massive volumes catalogue his character, opinions, toilet habits, and physical appearance in a way no man could who had not seen his subject frequently naked.
C. F. Méneval. Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Méneval was Bonaparte’s private secretary for many years, and commander-in-chief of a small army of scribes who struggled to keep up with his dictation: His employer was known to keep many letters going simultaneously, to his wife Josephine, the crowned heads of Europe, U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, his many mistresses, and generals in the field. Méneval examines his subject in meticulous detail throughout three highly readable volumes.
Emmanuel de Las Cases. Life, Exile, and Conversations with the Emperor Napoleon.
The Comte de Las Cases immigrated to England during the French Revolution, and became fluent in English. Napoleon brought him along to his final exile on St. Helena, to translate his memoirs—and, I suspect, eavesdrop and report on the conversation of his British captors. These four hefty volumes are the closest thing we have to a Napoleonic autobiography; although it’s been criticized as “sweetening” the truth, I subscribe to Las Cases’ claim that Napoleon sought to create the United States of Europe, making war to preserve peace. When the European Union was founded in the twentieth century, he ought to have received credit (as well as the idea for the Chunnel; which in Napoleon’s case was conceived in an effort to invade England without naval interference). Las Cases’ detractors dismiss him as an opportunist, enduring the hardships of “that God-forsaken rock in the Atlantic” in order to write about Napoleon and become rich. I can hardly fault him that; I’d like to do it myself.
Latimer, Elizabeth Wormeley. Talks of Napoleon at St. Helena.
Actually, Wormeley was the translator; the author was General Baron Gourgaud, who accompanied Napoleon into his last exile; but Wormeley’s is the name that appears on the spine of the 1903 edition. (Forgivable: Her familial connections with Napoleon’s British enemies, personal contact with surviving Bonapartes, reported in footnote, are invaluable, as much for their balance as for the information provided.) Quoted at length, the deposed emperor reflects on his life and career, including the murderous scheming of Cadoudal, Moreau, and Pichegru. Although he makes no mention of the Christmas Eve Plot, he refers to the “infernal machine,” demonstrating that the affair was still in his thoughts after fifteen years.
So many books about Napoleon; so little time.