Andrew Roberts

over the course of his short but eventful life he fought sixty battles and lost only seven.

Even if Napoleon hadn’t been one of the great military geniuses of history, he would still be a giant of the modern era.

Alexander the Great

Napoleon’s second wife, Marie Louise,

Napoleon’s love affair with Josephine

He was one of the most unrelenting micromanagers in history,

Above all he was no totalitarian dictator, as many have been eager to suggest:

He believed that one can control foreign lands only by winning over the population

Above all he hoped to modernize Europe.

‘They seek to destroy the Revolution by attacking my person,’ he said after the failure of the royalist assassination plot of 1804. ‘I will defend it, for I am the Revolution.’