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The definitive portrait of Napoleon's court from the unpublished papers of the Emperor's leading courtiers and his second Empress Marie Louise.Napoleon's military conquests changed the world and dominate most portraits of him, but it was through the splendour of his court - a world fashioned beyond the battlefield - that Napoleon governed his empire. The court of Napoleon I, in its grandeur and extravagance, surpassed even that of that the Sun King. Napoleon's palaces at Saint-Cloud and the Tuileries were the centres of his power, the dazzling reflection of the greatest empire in modern European history.
The life of the court illuminates the life of Napoleon himself and the nature of a personality that conquered half the world. Yet, he was in the end abandoned by his dynasty and courtiers, his past glories fading into lonely and ignominious exile.
Philip Mansel brings to life the intoxicated world of a court 'devoured by ambition', as Stendhal called it: its visual magnificence and rigid hierarchy, mistresses, artists and manipulators.
List of contents
List of Illustrations
AcknowledgementsIntroduction : The Court Goes On
1. Steps to the Throne
2. The Emperor and his Court
3. A Passion for Palaces
4. The Courtiers
5. Ends and Means
6. The Family Courts
7. Power and Illusion
8. The Return to Grandeur
Notes
Sources and Bibliography
Index
About the author
Philip Mansel, who has lived and taught in Paris, is one of Britain's leading historians of France and the Ottoman Empire. His first book, Louis XVIII, together with subsequent works such as Paris Between Empires, 1814-1852, established him as an authority on the later French monarchy. He currently lives in London, and is editor of The Court Historian, the journal of the Society for Court Studies (www.courtstudies.org).
Summary
The definitive portrait of Napoleon's court from the unpublished papers of the Emperor's leading courtiers and his second Empress Marie Louise.
Napoleon's military conquests changed the world and dominate most portraits of him, but it was through the splendour of his court - a world fashioned beyond the battlefield - that Napoleon governed his empire. The court of Napoleon I, in its grandeur and extravagance, surpassed even that of that the Sun King. Napoleon's palaces at Saint-Cloud and the Tuileries were the centres of his power, the dazzling reflection of the greatest empire in modern European history.
The life of the court illuminates the life of Napoleon himself and the nature of a personality that conquered half the world. Yet, he was in the end abandoned by his dynasty and courtiers, his past glories fading into lonely and ignominious exile.
Philip Mansel brings to life the intoxicated world of a court 'devoured by ambition', as Stendhal called it: its visual magnificence and rigid hierarchy, mistresses, artists and manipulators.
Foreword
The definitive portrait of Napoleon's court from the unpublished papers of the Emperor's leading courtiers and his second Empress Marie Louise.
Additional text
Mansel's book derives from a sound archival and bibliographical base... It is hard not to agree with [his] perceptive comment
that it has really been the manufactured splendour of style which accounts for the continuing fascination with the Emperor, of which this is a not unworthy example.
