Download or read book Ambition and Desire written by Kate Williams and published by McClelland & Stewart. This book was released on 2014-11-04 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From CNN’s official royal historian, a highly praised young author with a doctorate from Oxford University, comes the extraordinary rags-to-riches story of the woman who conquered Napoleon’s heart—and with it, an empire. Their love was legendary, their ambition flagrant and unashamed. Napoleon Bonaparte and his wife, Josephine, came to power during one of the most turbulent periods in the history of France. The story of the Corsican soldier’s incredible rise has been well documented. Now, in this spellbinding, luminous account, Kate Williams draws back the curtain on the woman who beguiled him: her humble origins, her exorbitant appetites, and the tragic turn of events that led to her undoing. Born Marie-Josèphe-Rose de Tascher de La Pagerie on the Caribbean island of Martinique, the woman Napoleon would later call Josephine was the ultimate survivor. She endured a loveless marriage to a French aristocrat—executed during the Reign of Terror—then barely escaped the guillotine blade herself. Her near-death experience only fueled Josephine’s ambition and heightened her determination to find a man who could finance and sustain her. Though no classic beauty, she quickly developed a reputation as one of the most desirable women on the continent. In 1795, she met Napoleon. The attraction was mutual, immediate, and intense. Theirs was an often-tumultuous union, roiled by their pursuit of other lovers but intensely focused on power and success. Josephine was Napoleon’s perfect consort and the object of national fascination. Together they conquered Europe. Their extravagance was unprecedented, even by the standards of Versailles. But she could not produce an heir. Sexual obsession brought them together, but cold biological truth tore them apart. Gripping in its immediacy, captivating in its detail, Ambition and Desire is a true tale of desire, heartbreak, and revolutionary turmoil, engagingly written by one of England’s most praised young historians. Kate Williams’s searing portrait of this alluring and complex woman will finally elevate Josephine Bonaparte to the historical prominence she deserves.

Download or read book The Life of the Empress Josephine written by Phineas Camp Headley and published by . This book was released on 1851 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Rose of Martinique written by Andrea Stuart and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 734 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed biography of Josephine Bonaparte, the Caribbean-born Creole who became the first wife of Napoleon and Empress of France. One of the most remarkable women of the modern era, Josephine Bonaparte was born Rose de Tasher on her family’s sugar plantation in Martinique. She embodied all the characteristics of a true Creole—sensuality, vivacity, and willfulness. Rescued from near starvation, she grew to epitomize the wild decadence of post-revolutionary Paris. It was there that Josephine first caught the eye of Napoleon Bonaparte. A true partner to Napoleon, she was equal parts political adviser, hostess par excellence, confidante, and passionate lover. Josephine managed to be in the forefront of every important episode of her era’s turbulent history: from the rise of the West Indian slave plantations that bankrolled Europe’s rapid economic development, to the decaying of the ancien régime, to the French Revolution itself, from which she barely escaped the guillotine. Using diaries and letters, Andrea Stuart brings her so utterly to life that we finally understand why Napoleon’s last word before dying was the name he had given her: Josephine. “A comprehensive and truly empathetic biography. Andrea Stuart, who was raised in the Caribbean, combines scholarly distance with a genuine attempt to understand her heroine.” —The Washington Post

Download or read book Letters of Napoleon written by J. M. Thompson and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2013-03-06 with total page 550 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This vintage book comprises a fascinating collection of Bonaparte's letters; selected, translated, and edited by J. M. Thompson. This anthology forms one of the most truthful and interesting collections of historical documents pertaining to the famous French military and political leader - Napoleon Bonaparte. It offers the reader an interesting and unparalleled insight into his mind and personal life in 292 letters. The letters contained herein include: 'The Brothers', 'His Father's Death', 'The Corsican's Patriot', 'History of Corsica', 'Brothers Louis', 'The Young Jacobin', 'Paris in Revolution', 'Heroics', 'Brother's Joseph', 'Paris Life', 'Fatalism', 'Whiff of Grape-Shot', 'First Night', 'Separation', etcetera. Many antiquarian books such as this are becoming increasingly hard-to-come-by and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this text now in an affordable, modern edition - complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.

Download or read book Napoleon s Other Wife written by Deborah Jay and published by . This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Life of the Empress Josephine written by Phineas Camp Headley and published by . This book was released on 1850 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Letters of Napoleon to Josephine written by Napoleon I (Emperor of the French) and published by Ravenhall Books. This book was released on 2004 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This collection of letters reveals much about the times through which Napoleon and Josephine prospered and about the forces which played upon a couple who rose at astonishing speed to the very height of power and success. This edition includes detailed commentaries on the letters, a chronology and biographies of key personalities."--Jacket.

Download or read book Empress Josephine written by Ernest John Knapton and published by . This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Napoleon and Josephine written by Evangeline Bruce and published by Citadel Press. This book was released on 2001-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set against the pomp and splendor of prerevolutionary France, Napoleon and Josephine is an enthralling tale of desire, betrayal, and ambition. It chronicles Napoleon's rise to power and ascent to the imperial throne; the first meeting between Napoleon and Josephine; and the subsequent stormy marriage and Josephine's inability to produce an heir, their divorce...and wrenching separation. Drawn from the lovers' private letters and journals, this biography brings to life a tumultuous era and two of history's most fascinating people in a story so compelling, romantic, and compulsively readable it could be fiction.

Download or read book The Life of the Empress Josephine First Wife of Napoleon written by Phineas Camp Headley and published by . This book was released on 1859 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Many Lives Secret Sorrows of Josephine B written by Sandra Gulland and published by Atria Books. This book was released on 1999-08-03 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Passion intertwines with fate in this riveting and historically rich novel about the journey of a woman from poverty to ultimate power in Revolution-era France. In this first of three books inspired by the life of Josephine Bonaparte, Sandra Gulland has created a novel of immense and magical proportions. We meet Josephine in the exotic and lush Martinico, where an old island woman predicts that one day she will be queen. The journey from the remote village of her birth to the height of European elegance is long, but Josephine's fortune proves to be true. By way of fictionalized diary entries, we traverse her early years as she marries her one true love, bears his children, and is left betrayed, widowed, and penniless. It is Josephine's extraordinary charm, cunning, and will to survive that catapults her to the heart of society, where she meets Napoleon, whose destiny will prove to be irrevocably intertwined with hers.

Download or read book Josephine written by Carolly Erickson and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2000-08-17 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie, born a Creole on the island of Martinique in the French West Indies, became one of the best known and most envied women who ever lived. Sent to France to make an advantageous marriage to a young aristocrat, her naivete and lack of education left her ill prepared to deal with the sophisticated - if decadent - world of pre-Revolutionary Paris. Treated cruelly by her shallow young husband, her life had become a nightmare during the Terror, in which she was imprisoned and almost lost her life. It was during this period that she honed the skills of manipulation and seduction that would lead her from the dungeons of the terror into the beds of the post-Revolutionary powerbrokers, including the Corsican corporal who would conquer Europe. As the wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, conqueror of Europe and the wonder of his age, Josephine was assumed to be a worthy consort for her astounding husband, a woman as beautiful, wise and altogether remarkable as he was charismatic, brilliant, and invincible in battle. When in 1804 she knelt before Napoleon in Notre Dame and he placed the imperial crown on her head, making her Empress of France, her extraordinary destiny seemed to be fulfilled. The unknown woman from Martinique became the highest ranking woman in the land, as far above the average Frenchwoman as Napoleon himself was above the humblest soldier in his armies. Yet the truth behind the glorious symbolism in Notre Dame was much darker. For the eight-year marriage between Josephine and Napoleon had long been corroded by infidelity and abuse, and for years Josephine had dreaded that her husband would divorce her. Far from the love match previous biographers have described, Erickson's Napoleon and Josephine were the ultimate pragmatists, drawn together by political necessity while their emotions were engaged elsewhere. Carolly Erickson, the critically acclaimed biographer of the Tudor monarchs, as well as of Marie Antoinette and Queen Victoria, using her trademark ability to penetrate and explain the psychological make-up of her subjects, paints a fascinating portrait of an immensely complex and ultimately tragic woman.

Download or read book Becoming Josephine written by Heather Webb and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-12-31 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping historical debut about the Creole socialite who transformed herself into an empress Readers are fascinated with the wives of famous men. In Becoming Josephine, debut novelist Heather Webb follows Rose Tascher as she sails from her Martinique plantation to Paris, eager to enjoy an elegant life at the royal court. Once there, however, Rose’s aristocratic soldier-husband dashes her dreams by abandoning her amid the tumult of the French Revolution. After narrowly escaping death, Rose reinvents herself as Josephine, a beautiful socialite wooed by an awkward suitor—Napoleon Bonaparte. “A debut as bewitching as its protagonist.” —Erika Robuck, author of Hemingway’s Girl and Call Me Zelda “Vivid and passionate.” —Susan Spann, author of The Shinobi Mysteries From the Trade Paperback edition.

Download or read book The Secret Life of Josephine written by Carolly Erickson and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2007-09-04 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling author of The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette and The Last Wife of Henry VIII returns with an enchanting novel about one of the most seductive women in history: Josephine Bonaparte, first wife of Napoleon. Born on the Caribbean island of Martinique, Josephine had an exotic Creole appeal that would ultimately propel her to reign over an empire as wife of the most powerful man in the world. But her life is a story of ambition and danger, of luck and a ferocious will to survive. Married young to an arrogant French aristocrat who died during the Terror, Josephine also narrowly missed losing her head to the guillotine. But her extraordinary charm, sensuality, and natural cunning helped her become mistress to some of the most powerful politicians in post-Revolutionary France. Soon she had married the much younger General Bonaparte, whose armies garnered France an empire that ran from Europe to Africa and the New World and who crowned himself and his wife Emperor and Empress of France. He dominated on the battlefield and she presided over the worlds of fashion and glamor. But Josephine's heart belonged to another man--the mysterious, compelling stranger who had won her as a girl in Martinique.

Download or read book The Life of the Empress Josephine First Wife of Napoleon written by Phineas Camp Headley and published by Theclassics.Us. This book was released on 2013-09 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1850 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VIII. FRANCE AND JOSEPHINE AT THIS PEEIOD OF HISTORY.--REJOICINGS OF THE PEOPLE. IMPORTANT EVENTS. TOUR TO MILAN. NAPOLEON VISITS BRIENNE. WITH JOSEPHINE CROSSES THE ALPS. PLAIN OF MARENGO. THE CORONATION AT MILAN. SOJOURN THERE. NEWS OF PROBABLE HOSTILITIES. JOSEPHINE AT GENOA. THE RAPID TRAVEL TO PARIS. PREPARATIONS FOR WAR.--JOSEPHINE REGENT OF FRANCE. LETTER TO CAMBACERES. NAPOLEON'S VICTORIES. ARRIVAL OF A COURIER. MARRIAGE OF EUGENE. JOSEPHINE'S LETTER UPON THE EXPECTED MARRIAGE OF HER NIECE STEPHANIE DE BEAUHARNAIS. THE ROYAL FAMILY. DOMESTIC ARRANGEMENTS. BONAPARTE'S HABITS AND ILLNESS. HUNTING EXCURSIONS. HATRED OF BONAPARTE'S RELATIVES TOWARDS JOSEPHINE. HER KINDNESS IN RETURN. NAPOLEON'S MOVEMENTS. There is that stirring interest in the position of France immediately after the restoration of monarchy, and also of Josephine, which belongs to the consummation of a long series of events--a point of observation from which we can look back and mark intelligently the deep and decisive causes lying below the agitations that revolutionized governments, and changed the aspect of the world. We gaze not only upon the past as from an illumined height, but almost prophetically read the future in the same broad light. In the very capital where four years before the blind Polyphemus, of a horrid democracy, had declared with ghastly triumph and bacchanal shouts, "Royalty is abolished forever!" the joyous salutation rang over assembled thousands, and a throne of imposing grandeur, " Long live the Emperor!" Within the temple-courts where altar and cross were demolished, and "There is no God," was unblushingly uttered amid the vilest blasphemies, the venerable Pope reverently stood, and pronounced the benediction of Heaven; while the...

Download or read book Josephine written by Kate Williams and published by Random House. This book was released on 2013-11-07 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the incredible rise and unbelievable fall of a woman whose energy and ambition is often overshadowed by Napoleon’s military might. In this triumphant biography, Kate Williams tells Josephine’s searing story, of sexual obsession, politics and surviving as a woman in a man’s world. Abandoned in Paris by her aristocratic husband, Josephine's future did not look promising. But while her friends and contemporaries were sent to the guillotine during the Terror that followed the Revolution, she survived prison and emerged as the doyenne of a wildly debauched party scene, surprising everybody when she encouraged the advances of a short, marginalised Corsican soldier, six years her junior. Josephine, the fabulous hostess and skilled diplomat, was the perfect consort to the ambitious but obnoxious Napoleon. With her by his side, he became the greatest man in Europe, the Supreme Emperor; and she amassed a jewellery box with more diamonds than Marie Antoinette’s. But as his fame grew, Napoleon became increasingly obsessed with his need for an heir and irritated with Josephine’s extravagant spending. The woman who had enchanted France became desperate and jealous. Until, a divorcee aged forty-seven, she was forced to watch from the sidelines as Napoleon and his young bride produced a child.

Download or read book Josephine written by Eleanor P. Delorme and published by . This book was released on 2002-10 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An anecdotal, illustrated biography of Napoleon Bonaparte's exotic empress discusses Napoleon's dependence on her sense of style to set the tone of his empire, her patrongage of the arts, and significant events in her life.