Napoleon: A Life

Napoleon: A Life is Andrew Roberts’s 2014 biography of Napoleon Bonaparte, whose battles are among the greatest in history. With 33,000 of Napoleon’s recently published letters at his disposal, Roberts allows the reader an insider’s look at the real man considered to be one of the greatest soldier-statesmen of all times. Using new documents from archives and traveling to fifty-three of Napoleon’s sixty battle sites, Roberts paints a new portrait of a well-known historical figure, drastically altering the understanding of Napoleon’s motivation and character.

Roberts opens the book with the observation that most of the source material used in previous biographies of Napoleon can be considered suspect. The supposed reminiscences and memoirs of many individuals in Napoleon’s entourage were often ghostwritten in an attempt to impugn the memory of him. Roberts contends that these accounts have acted as ammunition for those attempting to portray Napoleon as a kind of “proto-Hitler,” whose governance set the intellectual and moral stage for horrendous tyrannies to come.

On the contrary, to Roberts, Napoleon should be considered “the Enlightenment on horseback” as he promptly bestowed the gifts of liberty and law upon his conquered lands. Crowned emperor on December 2, 1804, Napoleon claimed, “I am the Revolution.” According to the Napoleon Code, “a reasoned and harmonious body of laws” was to be administered equally across all the territories of France. He sought to reform the nation through law, education, and administration.



At the same time, however, Roberts admits that Napoleon used authoritarian methods to achieve liberal ends. Religious toleration went hand in hand with the bayonet, and freedom of expression was suppressed, to say the least. “Politics is fate,” said Napoleon to his literary hero Goethe, by which he meant that political action is inevitable if personal and national glory are sought. It entails a mastery of fortune and a readiness to be merciless. In fact, Napoleon’s self-consciousness was informed by Machiavellian arguments about politics.

However, for Roberts, Napoleon’s subrogation of rationalism and uniformity where there was a chaotic legal and political patchwork was a benevolent act to civilize the country and its people. Additionally, according to Roberts, despite Napoleon’s ruthlessness, he was surprisingly magnanimous. Although he was ceaselessly cuckolded by Josephine, his wife, he was forgiving and made her his Empress. He also allowed her to carry on with a lover, perhaps taking refuge by engaging in numerous affairs of his own.

Personally, Napoleon was an outsider to the French elite. He made his way up the ranks through fierce hard work, utilizing, in particular, his natural talents of mathematics and artillery. He was among the few who were selected to attend Paris’s prestigious École Militaire, where he was quick to grab every opportunity within reach. He was appointed to the Historical and Topographical Bureau of the War Ministry, considered the most refined organization of its day.



Napoleon was known for expelling thousands of plans and letters; he slept little and insisted on being read to while taking baths in an effort not to waste even a second. He was an intense compartmentalizer and multitasker, lobbying for more brandy and shoes for the army one minute and governing the personal lives of his family members or writing love letters the next.

Napoleon’s true reputation was made on the battlefield. Roberts treks to the sites of most of his battles, vividly describing the movements and nature of the armies. Napoleon’s penchant for the “near-flawlessly executed battle” was, according to the author, a result of his inspired leadership, remarkable instincts, and extraordinary capacity to work hard. His relationship with his soldiers was unparalleled, and he had an unmatched ability to maintain a stable air of authority while, at the same time, taking advantage of unstable situations. He was as at ease in nine-hour diplomatic talks with Prince Metternich of Austria or with Czar Alexander on a raft on the Neman River as he was in the midst of bloody battle.

Despite his appreciation for Napoleon’s proficiency in battle, Roberts paints a full picture of his character, including his flaws. Accordingly, Napoleon’s impulse to embellish in dispatches and inclination to stuff ballot boxes resulted in public cynicism and served to undermine his true achievements. He also had a poor understanding of naval affairs, and due to his tactical errors, Roberts contends that Napoleon deserved to lose at Waterloo. Furthermore, Napoleon’s campaigns resulted in the loss of millions of lives.



On the other hand, Roberts is quick to remind the reader that it was the British—simultaneously at war with France—who burned the White House after invading the United States. Meanwhile, it was Napoleon who sold President Thomas Jefferson the Louisiana Territory, which doubled the size of the nation at less than four cents per acre.

When he attempted to impose a “continental system” of blockades of English goods, Napoleon wandered into imperial overreach, which promptly backfired. England built coalitions against France, and, at the same time, Napoleon was outmaneuvered in his ill-fated Russian campaign. Then, typhus eliminated one-fifth of his men. While his engineers pioneered an astounding escape by erecting bridges across the Berezina River that were hidden from the advancing Russian Army, Napoleon ultimately met defeat in Leipzig.

He was exiled on Elba, and although he quickly retook Paris in another coup, he was eventually exiled a second time on Saint Helena and died of stomach cancer at age fifty-one in 1821.



In his depiction of Napoleon, Andrews matter-of-factly presents the epic strides of a champion of Enlightenment alongside the unsavory ruthlessness of a tyrant, leaving it to the reader to decide whether Napoleon should be regarded as a hero or a villain.