Discover the man behind the legend in this first book in English to take a look inside the court of Napoleon

Napoleon’s military conquests changed the world and dominate most portraits of him, but it was through the splendour of his court - more extravagent even than that of the Sun King - that Napoleon governed his empire. His palaces at Saint-Cloud and the Tuileries were the centres of his power, the dazzling reflection of the greatest empire in modern European history.

Using the unpublished papers of the Emperor’s leading courtiers, and his second Empress Marie Louise, Philip Mansel brings to life the intoxicated world and sheds light on the man behind the legend; the mistresses; the hierarchy and class structure he craved; his relationship with his family; his rude behaviour to ambassadors; his insecurities. Mansel illuminates the nature of a personality that conquered half the world yet, in the end, was “devoured by ambition”, abandoned by his courtiers, leaving behind him a country smaller and weaker than he found it.