"Napoleon:
Memoirs of a Corsican" by Edward Radzinsky, summary

This book, published in 2013, is a stylized diary by Emmanuel de Las Cases, secretary to Napoleon Bonaparte. According to the plot, while exiled on the island of Saint Helena, the deposed ruler secretly ordered a loyal servant to poison himself with arsenic. The great Corsican deliberately staged the slow murder to blame the English and forever cement his status as a saintly martyr.

The beginning of the manuscript and the days after Waterloo

The narrative opens with the notes of the elderly Marquis de Las Cases. In 1840, he recalls the return of Napoleon’s ashes to Paris. The old man takes out his notes, smuggled in the double bottom of a suitcase from Saint Helena. The text transports the reader to the sweltering days after the defeat at Waterloo. Napoleon returns to Paris completely detached. Despite the pleas of his brother Lucien and loyal generals, he refuses to disperse the Chamber of Deputies and arm the crowd.

The Emperor fears civil war and abdicates in favor of his son. Under pressure from the provisional government led by Joseph Fouché, Bonaparte retreats to Rochefort. Instead of attempting to flee to America, he voluntarily surrenders to the captain of the British battleship Bellerophon. The former ruler naively hopes for a peaceful life in Britain. The British, predictably, declare him a prisoner and exile him to Saint Helena.

Dictation of Memories on the Way to Exile

Aboard a British ship, Napoleon dictates the story of his achievements to Las Cases. He recalls his childhood in Corsica, his strict mother, Letizia, and his studies at the Paris Military School. The young Bonaparte dreamed of the exploits of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, preparing himself for great deeds. The future emperor first demonstrated his military talent at the siege of Toulon. There, he personally manned guns under enemy fire and forced the invaders to flee. Then, the young commander calmly suppressed a royalist rebellion in Paris, spraying the crowd with grapeshot at the Church of Saint-Roch.

Napoleon openly describes his torrid affair with the Creole Josephine de Beauharnais. Despite her constant infidelities and frivolity, he deeply loved her. As commander of the Army of Italy, Bonaparte transformed the starving, ragged troops into an invincible military machine. Resounding successes at the battles of Lodi and Arcola brought him colossal fame. During the Egyptian campaign, he captured Cairo, but found himself cut off from France due to the destruction of his fleet at Aboukir. Abandoning the army, the commander secretly returned to Paris to seize power.

The rise of the empire and great victories

The coup d’état of 18 Brumaire nearly cost the general his life. Enraged deputies nearly tore the usurper to pieces, but loyal grenadiers led by Joachim Murat dispersed the Council of Five Hundred. As First Consul, Bonaparte imposed unprecedentedly harsh order, eradicated banditry, and forced embezzlers to return their plunder. He created the famous Civil Code, guaranteeing property rights, and restored Catholicism to France by signing a concordat with the Pope. Soon after, Napoleon declared himself emperor.

The ceremony at Notre Dame Cathedral was openly defiant. Bonaparte snatched the crown from the Pope’s hands and placed it on his own head, after which he crowned Josephine. An era of large-scale wars against European coalitions began. The defeat of the Austrians and Russians at Austerlitz was a triumph of military tactics. The Prussian army was wiped out at Jena. Russian forces were defeated at Friedland. At Tilsit, Napoleon and Alexander I formed an alliance on a raft in the middle of the Neman River. The empire reached unprecedented dimensions.

Fatal mistakes and the campaign in Russia

Bonaparte instituted the Continental Blockade, seeking to economically strangle the British. To secure a legitimate heir, the monarch, heartbroken, divorced Josephine. He married the Austrian princess Marie-Louise, who bore him a son. The Emperor confessed to Las Cases that during this period he began to make grave political miscalculations. The war in Spain devolved into a bloody guerrilla war. A quarrel with the Pope and his arrest alienated the entire Catholic world. The secret intrigues of Joseph Fouché and Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand systematically undermined the state from within.

In 1812, the Grande Armée crossed the Neman. Napoleon dreamed of taking Moscow and from there advancing to India. The Russians wore down the enemy with constant retreat and scorched earth. After the horrific massacre at Borodino, the French occupied the empty capital. Soon, the city was ablaze, destroying any hopes of a warm winter. After waiting in vain for peace offers from Alexander I, Bonaparte gave the order to retreat. The winter cold, food shortages, and Cossack raids turned the return into a disaster. The terrifying crossing of the Berezina cost the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers. The Emperor abandoned the freezing remnants of his troops and rushed to Paris to raise a new army.

The Fall of the Empire

In the 1813 campaign, Napoleon won several resounding victories at Dresden and Bautzen, but the allies had pulled together colossal reserves. In the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig, the French suffered a crushing defeat due to the betrayal of Saxon units and the premature destruction of a bridge. The war spread to France. Despite Bonaparte’s ingenious maneuvers and a number of battles won, the marshals completely lost their fighting spirit. Talleyrand persuaded the allies to march directly on Paris. When the capital fell, generals led by Michel Ney openly forced Napoleon to abdicate at Fontainebleau.

The first exile to the island of Elba did not last long. The Emperor secretly landed in France with a small force. He regained power without firing a shot, forcing the regiments sent against him to lay down their arms and defect to his side. But after the Battle of Waterloo, where Blücher managed to come to Wellington’s aid, the Grand Army was completely destroyed.

The Last Battle of Saint Helena

At Longwood, on a windswept, rotten rock, Napoleon wages a subtle psychological war with Governor Hudson Lowe. The former emperor deliberately creates scandal and refuses to leave the house, driving the jailer to panic. Through his secret channels, the prisoner spreads complaints throughout Europe about the inhumane treatment of the British. Las Cases uncovers the Corsican’s most important secret. The house manager, Charles Montholon, and the valet, Louis Marchand, have long suspected the servant, Francesco Cipriani, of poisoning the emperor. Later, the stunning truth is revealed.

Cipriani laced his wine with arsenic on direct orders from Bonaparte himself. The commander deliberately killed himself with a slow poison so that the British government would forever be remembered as a vile executioner. By provoking a scandal with Hudson Lowe, the ruler succeeded in having Las Cases exiled. The secretary took the completed manuscript of his memoirs to Europe. With this final maneuver, the dying emperor secured for himself the aura of a saintly martyr and immortal historical glory.

Epilogue

The novel concludes with a scene set in Geneva in 1832. François René de Chateaubriand discusses the published memoirs of Las Cases with Madame Récamier. The writer advances the daring theory that a double died on the island of Saint Helena. The real Napoleon allegedly secretly hid in a remote Breton monastery to atone for his sins. The old baron, present during the conversation, vehemently rejects this idea. The veteran argues that only Bonaparte himself could have dictated such memoirs. The book’s pages reveal the icy pragmatism of a commander who sent half of Europe to their deaths. As the baron asserts: "And herein lies his main trait: never, ever repentance!"