Napoleon: Secret Stories
Content : Saint Helena, 1815–1821
Philibert, Napoleon’s young servant, recounts the Emperor’s final years in exile.
Between the sadness of life as a prisoner, reading, chess games and rainy walks, Napoleon looks back on his youth in Corsica during the Revolution, his austere military schooling and his meteoric rise. A general at twenty-four, he soon became First Consul, then Emperor.
Over some fifteen years, through sheer hard work, this exceptional soldier—ambitious and authoritarian—made decisions, some good, some bad. He loved Joséphine, reshaped France, waged wars, often winning but sometimes losing. His soldiers admired him, while Europe’s kings wanted him dead.
Young Philibert leaves us to judge this extraordinary life.
A novel about Napoleon as seen through his own eyes, dictating his memoirs to Las Cases with young Philibert listening closely. The extraordinary life of one of the most controversial figures in French history.
About the author: Viviane Koenig is a historian and teacher. She was fortunate enough to spend several years in Egypt, where she took part in archaeological excavations and wrote her first book. Back in Paris, she continued teaching and writing documentaries, historical novels, fairy tales, mythological stories and, more recently, graphic novels.
