good evening, everyone.

both were welcome. welcome to bonjour books. the hosted this evening by our gracious neighbors goldsboro, glen, antique furnishings and finds beautiful place. my name is jennifer fulton and i'm the owner of bonjour books french bookstore about half a block that way on avenue where we've been serving the french and francophone community, the d.c. area since 2019. we have 3000 books in french language each and a very few special books in english. we host events throughout the year in kensington, and we also partner with the french and the alliance forces for events elsewhere in d.c. area. actually, sarah diligent, the executive director of the alliance sponsors, is here with us tonight. welcome, sarah. and i believe we have someone from the french embassy. well, welcome, governor. so pleased to inform with us, too, to on our programing and our store allows room for a

little more than our beloved books. so when we have events here in kensington, we're very lucky to have a neighboring shops like goldberg. glenn so you so much margaret for inviting into your beautiful space where everything is for sale by the way so two years ago an exceedingly courteous young man walked into bonjour books on the street, immediately asked for the classic section. and then i forgot he was there because he was so quiet. and until he to the register to pay and he bought. i checked it was a few volumes of the beautiful leather bound classic collection as well. penelope to ulysses love letters from great ancients heroines. and then he asked to order also a copy of homer's odyssey, an iliad, which i was ashamed i didn't in stock at the time when i went to pick it up to take first and last names for our orders and he said his last

name. it rang a bell as you can imagine so he's since been back a couple of times and one occasion told me about a book he was working on on napoleon's literary, which i thought was very exciting. and i said, please let us carry and host him for a talk when it was published, which he agreed to. so it's very to be here tonight to see that come fruition, even though we're a little jealous. it was published in the uk first, but we are so honored to be the first indeed physical bookstore i believe, to carry it in us publications. yes. so anyway welcome, louis sarkozy and congratulations on the publication of napoleon's library. and and just a brief introduction, louis, who for those that don't already know the, youngest son of former president french president nicolas sarkozy. louis was raised in france, but as a young teen, he moved to the united states, where he graduated from valley forge military academy and college he

studied philosophy and history at nyu and earned a master's degree, came to washington and went to american university for his master's degree, international relations. so currently resides resides in bethesda with his wife natalie and i just learned two dogs one named phasma. the other hitch hitch for christopher and phasma is a star wars reference. i was a young teenager. the other one is the military reference, though it's what makes me sound smarter. so he's not just not a first time author, he's coauthor with his mother, socialite. lots on the book conversations and disagreeing you know he did this echo and he has published articles on a range of issues including history, philosophy, religion and politics in the french and the us press. he has also been commentator recently invited by and lci to about american politics on french tv and he's an author of

this fascinating book on napoleon about which british historian, journalist and member of the house of lords says quote, this is a very ambitious book, nothing less, a chronological journey through the intellectual life of napoleon bonaparte. it attempts to delve into the mind of france's most intellectual through an in-depth investigation of everything that we know that he read and it is a prospect it would daunt the most eminent of professors oxbridge or the sorbonne. yet it has been undertaken by a man in his mid-twenties as his first book. second book was well paid for. that preface. and then he says most importantly, and it succeeds triumphantly, it's fantastic. i really love it. it's fantastic. so interviewing louis will be nastasia peteuil anastasia has been a journalist in washington dc since 2016. she regularly collaborates with french mourning voice of america

and other french speaking media, and she also has written profile in french of louis sarkozy for french morning. and she's also worked with us on several occasions, on occasions moderating our events. and so we're delighted to have her back as well. welcome, anastasia. and last but not least, welcome c-span. so necesitan, we're going to talk for about 30 to 40 minutes. and after that we'll have some questions from, the audience and then a book sale. we have copies of the book available for purchase and by the author. so let's just florida is yours everybody. thank you both. oh, sorry. so it's in english tonight. forgot. i just spent a month in france so my brand is in french right now. so we're going to talk about your book. but first i wanted to talk about where you're from. everybody knows your son of a former french president sarkozy. and when we the first time i realized how much your childhood

had to where we are today talking about napoleon. so let's go back, i guess 15 years and how your childhood as the son of a french president impacted the way you grew an interest towards anything military. so i'm sorry if i disappoints of you with this answer, but as child, at least while my father was in politics, i paid almost no attention to napoleon or french. i remember when i was a child right by the private kitchens of the elysee palace, the french white house was where i stored of my legos. and it's a room that i only recently learned was called the winter salon. and it is in that very room where napoleon bonaparte signed his second abdication. he lived at the alesia, as some of you may know, after the campaign of waterloo, an 11 year old me didn't care all about where he was placing his legos and was completely oblivious to

the magnificent history of the place where i was living. it's only much later, after i did my stint as, as you mentioned, that military academy that i started to take a deeper in things military and. it's even later when i history at nyu that i first realized my complete lack of education on napoleon and thus started at about six or seven year obsession with the man. and in many ways, this book is is an attempt to get him out my system to try to stop thinking and talking about him because he was very sort of an all encompassing figure for me, especially for poor young men, as and women, but especially young men as. many of you must know you're at that age. you're 16, 17, and you're looking a hero. you're looking for model. and that's smack on the time when i stumbled upon. napoleon and when one looks for heroes, i mean few match the caliber of that man who's not all good, obviously. and i go through lengths in the book to talk about the bad.

but in many ways he was sort of the incarnation of everything that is human the greatest qualities, the greatest creativity, greatest courage, the greatest energy and also the worst faults, the greatest ego, the most catastrophic mistake. so so he's a massive paradox and an a fascinating figure in right when i turned that age i started sort of a relationship with him that that lasts to this day and culminated in this this humble book. so i talk to a few of you here and i feel like we have a love people about napoleon. so i feel i shouldn't be in that chair right now, but i have questions. so why is he so fascinating to you? well, it's just that he remained france for around 15 years. so a relatively very short amount of time. and in those years, he created not only the modern french state, but left legal, military,

political, philosophical, musical that reverberated throughout the world and fundamentally changed the way europe and the looks today. i mean, this is a man whose mind was all encompassing, and this is why he was so fun to write about his many readings. this is a man who would, during a dinner party would walk in would run to the nearest mathematician and impress him with his knowledge of equations. he would do the same with chemists, he would talk musical with composers. he impressed perhaps the greatest german philosopher and of all time with his knowledge of his work, and apart from being of this, he was probably the greatest military commander of all time. at least he's very much in the conversation. he completely created the modern political france creating all of the institutions that survive things that to this day, he was a great builder, building the temples and the monuments must be a spirit rushing behind me, but also the useful stuff.

the stuff that nobody sees the sewers and the collection systems. he's the one behind numbered streets. i mean a million different facets that this man touched. and again, in 15 years. and what makes it even more amazing, perhaps the most amazing facet about his life is this is a who's born of unremarkable and low almost impoverished nobility in a backwater corsica. my apologies if there's any corsicans here, but it was and sort of remains of a backwater. so this is a man who was born to almost no future or, a very unremarkable future. i mean, it was completely likely at his birth that the bonaparte be confined to the dark and unexplored of history, and yet through intense work, amazing energy and unbridled luck and genius, he governs not only friends, but europe and does it for 15 years like a shooting star illuminates. everything around him makes the fiercest of oceans and the

greatest enemies. and then and loses everything. and so i had the chance to talk with some ceos about the in london and i asked them, could you tell me if you know of a man who sort of has the ultimate self-made man story of self-made women story came from absolutely nothing. build this fortune 500, world renowned number one company. and within ten years lost everything. i mean. and no, i mean, nobody could come with a name that virtually does not exist in the business or i would say the historical record. and when you're looking for i mean his life was just unbelievable just imagine him on his final exile. right going from living in the greatest palaces, commanding the vast us most powerful armies at the head of the most crazy fiscal resources in human history to not being able to talk to his own son, to not even being able to order the books he wanted to, not being able to drink the wine he wanted. i mean, complete complete downfall and abdication

unmatched in world history. it's heartbreaking. and i mean, if you wrote a of this guy's life and read it, somebody who had never heard of him, you'd say okay, what do you think of the story? he'd answer probably something like, listen, it's amazing. it's unbelievable. it's a bit too much. don't you think? i mean, what do you mean? this happened and this at a time when social mobility is practically nonexistent in europe. and yet it did. it's more amazing than what hollywood writers could ever produce. and so that's probably why i think i was so drawn to him and why so many others are drawn to him. this very long winded answer. my apologies. i should probably say my book is is one of innumerable books on. him there have been more books written about napoleon than any other figure in world history. so we count about a book and a half a day every day since his death in 21 rounds to couple of hundred thousand texts. and i think that's why the man was a complete completes the complete vortex shattered we

called him the enlightenment horseback and to this day remains a profound mystery mystery. but so, like you said, lots of but you find one these his library how did you had the idea to write about his library and why did you choose to research his library so is it's it's not completely unique other works have dealt with this specific there's a number of theses as in the 1950s that deals specifically with his literary my friend charlotte viola wonderful historian wrote about the imperial libraries had built meaning the physical places whereas i wanted to write a sort of biography of his life through books from his earliest influences when he was reading plutarch and cornelius depots. he's nine years old and he's dreaming of becoming the great to the great libraries he had built through the egyptian campaign, which in itself i'm sure we can talk about, is a great literary expedition all the way to the end when, you

know, reading is all he has left. after he he lost the kingdoms, he lost the empire, he lost the armies. books were the only thing that. so i had read, of course, the work of it, but also of lance and and tudor and also of of english and american authors. and i thought it was a good a good idea to try to excel, to a little niche, to not focus specific on the egyptian campaign and its literary aspects, to not only focus on the palatial libraries, to not only focus on the war. as some of you may know, he brought books with him on campaign and his books gave him an immeasurable when he fought his wars but rather to do everything and also and this was very important for me to do something that was academically at least survivable academic early, doable. i did my homework. i read the literature, but also something that is accessible to the general public. so if you've never read about the poorly and if you don't who the guy is, you think he's some short guy with an ego problem.

you can still pick up the book and know how to how to head across the t's and dot the i's and understand what's on. so that was the the humble mission i set myself and i hope you all will tell me if it succeeded. yeah. let's talk a little bit more about your research because you spend years doing research to write that book. can you tell us like where did you go? why did you do how did you do it? sure. it was it was a horrible. i've had pleasurable writing. this was not one of them. and specifically the mass of the bibliography is infinite. i mean, this this is something that is very, very scary. notably for a non historian as i am, i'm not a professional historian over history degree, but i'm not a history professor. am i specifically paid to publish works? i mean this was more of a passion than than anything else and so you start to write something and you try to, to be authoritative. but the mass of bibliography

just means that, you know, you've missed something. and on many occasions the writing of this book, you, you write a page or a paragraph or even a chapter, you think it's solid sort of fits and makes sense. it's not written only to find something in the sources two or three weeks later that completely negate the premise of your chapter or your page or your paragraph. that lady, a german. i can't tell you how many times that happened to the point where up until my publisher was asking me because i was a year late on the delivery of the manuscript or the book was, i still didn't think it was going to happen just because of the mass of that bibliography. but i was helped and i'll be completely honest, you again, as i said, i'm a non historian and i thought, oh god, i'm a young i'm not a historian and i'm going to approach some of these eminent historians in france who have studied the subject for their entire lives. and so i'm writing something on that. but they're also who is this guy, you know, trying to to claim a name for himself in his field. and i really was was a little afraid of of bringing this project to them.

and i could not have been more wrong. the historians whether it's jerry learns, the director of the national police or shani davis, who i mentioned, atul chevallier, who wrote about it in napoleonic legend, have welcomed with with open arms quite physically took me to the archives when i didn't know where i was going brought the manuscript for me and just guided me throughout the whole process. so this is a very, very open community contrary to my own preconceptions and without them, the book look very much indeed. and so through all your findings, was it one thing that really surprised you, when you saw it, read it? yeah, absolutely the man is full of surprises, but there's one that stands out. so if we were to stop anybody on the street and ask him, you know, what are the three things you know about napoleon? you'd get something about war, probably something about politics. one thing that i discovered through my research that probably nobody knows, and it's definitely one of the secondary missions of the book is to make

that facet of him more known that. he was a great lover of romance and not any romance sort. rose water, corny overdone romance. he loves those things. i mean, we have scenes of him and this is surreal his own secretaries didn't believe it when he's presiding over battle. i mean, there's tens of thousands casualties, cavalry charges, bullets and cannonballs ricocheting the air. there's blood and gore everywhere and he retires into his tent and reads a love story about. a swiss noblewoman falling in love with her young tutor. and he's crying over and his subordinates like this. this can't be happening. i mean, this is this is this is and in fact, he was fun of at the time when final campaign library was captured after the battle of waterloo. it was sacked by the prussians and then delivered the english. and when they opened the books, i mean, yes, you had history. he was and i should tell you, history for him was was the mother's subject. he called it the true philosophy history. but about 30, 40% were romance

is. and they were shocked that such a great warlord and they had built image of him as his great conqueror was. reading novels about marie antoinette's ladies in waiting and commenting on the various affairs of the court of louis, the 16th. so it made him also a very human figure because and even as as the writer or the historian tries to get through propaganda, whether his or his opponents propaganda. you're always kind of caught up on these images. i mean, especially with him, it's so poignant, it's so all encompassing. the messaging was so potent that it's very hard to pierce through. that's one way that i was able to pierce to the man. it's knowing his love of romance and the many conversations he had with his friends and subordinates about romance and about about women specifically for which, by the way, he held a lifelong admiration but was universally bad at talking to he he was known to be i'm sorry to disappoint a terribly bad lover. i mean, we have this one very humorous scene. he's in italy. i think in rome.

he's at the opera. and he falls completely head over heels over the lead opera singer of the night. and so as the first consort believe at the time arranges for her to be brought back to the imperial apartments and there we know this happened because there's a young andrew card at the door of the apartment so he walks in with with this lady walks out exactly two and a half minutes later and, quips or remark, as in one must make love as one makes war and walks away and. then this poor opera singer was left was left ruminating on the on the lightning experience. so, so disappointingly fast lover, but nonetheless a great a great lover of romance and romantic novel. so that was definitely a surprise. so remember your reaction when we talked about the movie that came out last year? yes, pretty controversial because some people loved it here. so, brother mind, i'm sorry to you as some people here have terrible tastes, but let so tell us. what did you think about the movie, though?

i should preface this by saying i am a huge, lifelong fan of ridley scott. i thought kingdom of was a masterpiece. i thought not in terms of historical accuracy, just in terms of what makes good movie. gladiator was it was a pillar of my youth and really one of the things that first got me into studying antiquity. so the man is clearly incredibly talented. i think with napoleon there's a huge problem. he completely dropped the ball. i think when you compare movies, do not at all the same. and again, i really don't want to say that it's because of historical accuracy. i'm the guy who's going to sit here. wife might contradict me on point but a pause. the movie every 5 minutes and say the uniforms not right now it's a movie right and ridley scott quite rightfully said if you want to get your history, you know, watch the documentary, read a book. i'm not here to make perfect history. i make to make good movies. i thought it was a bad and happily here any opinion of the country, but i thought it was virtually no character development beyond napoleon and

josephine. they put this this color filter. everything is blue, gray. and yet anybody who's ever seen a painting of the napoleonic wars knows that color is one of the most important and memorable facets. i mean, the uniforms was, splendid, the gold and the purple, the polish lancers, the emperor's dragoons carried a helmet with with the leopard's mane. i mean, everything to war dressed today as we would go to a gala dinner and of that showed in the movie i thought the battle were disappointing, too. i mean, we have some cavalry charges but it's it's guys running around in a field i mean some of the cavalry charges that era we have records they're true or not is another conversation but we have sources that tell us that people died heart attacks upon witnessing cavalry charges. i mean just try to imagine we're talking about 10,000 horsemen clad in the most beautiful attire and you can imagine charging a full gallop shoulder to shoulder. the earth shook for miles the

sound was was intimate able and yet we have on screen 50 guys running in a disorderly mob. i mean i thought the potential huge and the end result was it was a complete disaster i thought it was incredibly vulgar to it made him seem like this this this sort of frustrated violent petty man who got to his position mostly by luck and listen luck has a huge to play in the napoleonic we go through it in the book but the man inspired an entire generation almost quite literally to run their deaths for him. i mean, he had an electric charisma that even most dire enemies commented on, but his most staunch enemies said, you know, he has all these faults. he's a horrible, terrible for france, horrible for europe. we need to rid of him. but by god, you know what the men accomplished? i mean, he would walk into a room. no, he was not that short relative to average height, but just immediately captivate people with his eyes with this

pace of his speech with his gait. i mean, he fascinated an entire generation. i thought that was one mission the movie had to succeed that even if you fail the accuracy, you fail in the battles you fell, the collars you fell in the history at. least show us or try to show us the man. i thought he did not. all right. my question for tonight, what's next. i really you got an opponent out of your system or. are we going to get another book? not so much, it turns out, but but a little. a little more, yes. so in terms of books you mention, yes, i am thinking about what i'm currently under contract for a book on my other nation, the united states. and it will be a history. what period? i don't exactly know yet, but it looks like that's the subject i'm going to gravitate towards next. but as and as i hope you will, if anybody comes to our house one day, you'll see on every

wall and every shelf and every carpets there is a trace of the emperor everywhere. and i hope that you can purchase the book freely available at the counter. there will be a piece of napoleon in your house to thank you. thank you, rico. can take some questions right from audience. do you want to share? please don't be shy. all right. that's never going over there. yes, sir. i haven't read book yet and looking forward to it. but so maybe this is in your book. napoleon believes in the roman policy was taken by that book. yes. so what a great question to some of you who know. and by the way, this was one of the great fun parts of the research i should mention you come across all these great literary figures of the 17 and

1800s that today nobody about and then they're completely forgotten but were you know the stefan king of the time and mean were the bestsellers at the time oh show is one of them so napoleon was obsessed with what he thought was an antique celtic bard, a sort of scottish a poet who supposedly had lived in the first century and told these mythic stories of great celtic warriors, warriors, etc. napoleon and his generation thought that this was a legitimate story. it was scottish homer. we now know ossian was a fabrication and was really written by a near of napoleon, a guy who died a little. he was born called james mcpherson. and it's a great mystery because had mcpherson, who all the ocean poems been honest and said these are my probably he would today be considered one of the greatest poets of 1700s. but no, he lied. he said that he had found these stories. he said he heard about them in folk tales traveling the scottish highlands and that he

just translated them. so a very funny. but you're completely right, sir. he believed it at least through most of his life on st helena. he meets a scottish noble woman and they have a conversation about oceania. asks her, is it true the rumors that apparently ocean was not a real celtic girl from the first century? and she says, sire, it looks like it's not true. it looks like it was an imitation. and he brushes it off and he seems to to not care, indicating that he truly loved the quality of the work rather than the alleged personality of the author. but he loved it so much that virtually every one of his libraries, the campaign libraries, but also the palatial libraries, he had a copy of john's poems. he also had operas commissioned and many paintings commissioned in. fact if some of you are ever in paris and you walk through one of his many libraries, specifically the one at his house in malmaison to the east of paris, you'll see paintings, ocean everywhere. so, yes, he much befell for that fabrication.

that's it. yes. so i have a question for you because said something which i found particularly amusing about him reading romance books. and i was wondering, was it for your reason to actually also read authors who after his death, he wrote novels in which they included napoleon and then, of course, the greatest novel of all time is war and peace by william tolstoy, where we find out a lot during the battle he's reading a friend. woman that's right. so did you read that did you read to my russian? what read like dostoyevsky and tolstoy talked about napoleon. yeah. so that's such a great point. the problem is it was so often repeated in napoleon loved romances that any fiction after him when other people of the period read the same thing you to say okay is this a napoleon esque image here that the author is trying to build or is it not? this is the specialty. my friend arthur chevalier, the great french author who focuses on the napoleonic legend in

literature. so i'd counsel you to go to his work. but you're absolutely right. you see, the napoleonic template, the sort the romantic hero is very much a napoleonic. now, the guy who charges into the fray who who's able to do the dirty, the battles, but is also very emotional and sits down to read jean-jacques rousseau, la nouvelle louise, for example, a book that napoleon adored and said he read eight times by the time he was 18. for your context, ladies and gentlemen, this is a 900 page book, the one i mentioned about a young swiss noblewoman who falls in love, her tutor and her family. he's trying to get her married off to a noble man. and of course, it's forbidden love. it's the story of suicide. and i think one of the reasons why napoleon was so fascinated by that, because it is unique him that no man see otherwise is unique for him to be loving those books. but he's also very much a child of his age because at that time, in the early 1800s, the novel had existed. but the romance novel, especially with adultery, infidelity or suicide, forbidden love, was very much new.

jean-jacques rousseau had only it and popularized it a of decades before napoleon's birth. so readers who were used to the drier texts of the enlightenment, very serious treatises, very proper treatises, suddenly before these novels where you talk about adultery, you talk about suicide, and to them it was the equivalent of seeing you a super gory hollywood movie for i mean, it was very, very revolutionary. and so napoleon, when he's and he falls into those books, is very much of that generation who's completely shocked at finding that genre. now, some people read that and thought it too much and were sort of disgusted by it. he very much fed into it and, read it throughout his life. so in looking at the books that influenced thinking, was there anything you found that i suggested why he was so taken with the idea of attacking, which, you know, as i as a ruler

of france, spain, prussia, etc. that's all kind very much in the tradition. but when you talk and if is obviously one decision he made that led to his downfall, that was probably attacking russia there anything that you found in his books that suggest as to why he became taken with the idea that the french army sure sure march east no but i'll tell you something else. he invaded russia. this is one of the most hotly debated issues not only in napoleonic studies, but in european history, because he thought he could beat them, he wanted it to be a short war. he had beat the russians before it. friedland he thought they an unprofessional army. he didn't believe in the quality of the taurus leadership, didn't believe in russian generals. he thought it's going to be a short he says, i want to fight within ten days of the border, win a great battle. they'll sue for peace. so it's a great illusion. of course, he's entirely wrong and leads to the greatest disaster in military history.

i mean, isn't that a paradox? the greatest military genius of all time presides and is directly for the greatest military calamity in human history. that's enough for meditation an entire lifetime. but i'll tell you something else he read and had with him in russia had with him at the kremlin when he stayed over there. voltaire's biography of charles the 12th the king of sweden, who had a century before invaded russia. the had refused to give him the battle, had lured him in into russian territory, had for the winter to come. of course it was the worst in four centuries. and charles's were decimated and he was beaten, killed in russia. napoleon read that book, talked it to his subordinates while in the kremlin and while committing the very same mistake that he was reading about in the 12th, in fact, quote unquote, his advisor and former ambassador to russia says you should read that book. he says, i've read it already. and yet did he not heed the lessons that it's so evidently exclaimed and that's that's

another thing where the author or the enthusiast just tears hairs out. he had the book with him in the kremlin the book which screamed that it was a terrible idea to be in, that this was the russian strategy. learn them in the scorched earth policy that they were avoiding the big battle they were waiting the winter to turn exactly what happened. so this is one of those times, as i say in the book, where the readings not only did not influence them but should have and fundamental certainly did not. and as you correctly point out, so correctly point out, it's probably the one single event that most led to his to his downfall. so thank you, sir. well, i have a question can you give us a number? do you know how many books napoleon were read through his life? read it. no, we know how many books had amassed. so he built libraries and all of his residences and all of his great palaces at fontainebleau. and like in at malmaison in the trinity plus the traveling libraries i mentioned the war libraries that he carried with him on campaign. these grew to encompass over

60,000 volumes by his downfall. now that was and it pains me to say this, but it's rather shocking to say this, but almost insufficient for him because of his literary ambitions. so by the end, by 1811, 1812, he makes plans. this is this is true. we have have the text. he makes plans, have a copy of every book published in europe, in sweden and denmark and spain and italy, in france, everywhere in the original language and in french. he wanted to create in france a sort of literary deposit of world knowledge. he wanted to create libraries for the princes that he imagined would come after him of his dynasty. he created what call the great libraries for his ministers and his diplomats and his advisers and also the smaller of the private libraries for his family and his friends and his his private colleagues. so if you think his military ambition was encompassing his literary ambition is virtually unheard of. so 60,000 is the number that we sort of give for all of

libraries, he read. it's only guesswork. we don't know. also, he had this detestable habit as a as a bookworm. he would is many librarians and i talk about them because they were amazing characters of their own right. i talk about them in the book people like people and biology who were trained and educated to only his bibliographies and librarians would bring him new releases. and so would get this big wicker basket and every night he would get the new releases and would get one, you know, flip through one or two pages if you found something you didn't like, he would chuck it in the fireplace or check it out the window. in fact, again, to go back to russia, a russian soldier picked up a copy of rousseau's confessions in the snow. that is to this day in in a lithuanian library that was thrown out of napoleon's carriage during the retreat of of all the books, the thorough can imagine if this is really the image that is in my mind more often than i'd like to admit. i mean this this probably

shoeless toothless russian cossack you know chasing he's just got done you know killing french people finds a copy of rousseau's confessions in the snow and picks it up and has the presence of mind to keep it. and it survives centuries. and it's today in a lithuanian library. i mean, if that does not exemplify napoleon's downfall, then i don't know what does. yes, sir. and you put it to me. yeah. my question is on the psychology. well, we know that he has you have to the agents with his story, his model. yes. but we don't know a lot about his body. yeah. and the same question is the weight of corsica, which. yeah, that's that's a great question. so would my subject in particular his love of books, his love of literature. one might say that he sort of gets that his dad his dad was a

man of letters. his dad wrote essays on montana. also, he was a theoretician of the philosophers as well. he's not too present in napoleon's after they leave corsica of napoleon is getting his education at the military academy. his that is not there and his dad dies relatively quickly. i think the one historian has said that napoleon got nothing from his from his dad except his blue gray and the cancer that would eventually kill him. they died of the same cancer. i say that's wrong. i would say he also got probably his early love of literature as young kid in corsica, probably came from his father. at least it's safe to assume, because carlo dad was so was so prominent in the letters and letizia was course the great defining parent for him. he loved mother. she survived them, which is amazing to think about with a man who achieved so much. his mother survived him to take, as she said and this is to our years today sounds kind of backwards but to napoleon i assure you this is a great compliment, she said. this is the body of a woman and

the head of a man. so today this may sound distasteful to him, who is very much stuck. 18th century views on the better sex. this was very much a compliment. he loved his mother profoundly. she was also a great reader. the sources, i'm afraid, were relatively dry when it comes to. her personal libraries. yes, madam. which, you know, which is where he able to read directly with that translation. yeah. so that's again a very funny point. he spoke horrible french and this is another thing when when foreign diplomats enter the meetings with him, they were shocked to hear french monarch speak such broken. in fact, i have in the introduction his secretaries made lists of words that he was systematically and he's like, what? he says this, he really means this. and i mean, it's bad. i mean, there's some words you no idea how one gets to that. so of course italian he loses it. and the corsican dialect, which is half italian, half, you know, he definitely spoke that.

yes, of course. again, french, he learns quickly but maintains a very bad accent and horrible spelling. i say this is kind of a cheap shot, because spelling was not very standardized back then. but i would say mostly at the end of his life, french because that's what he spoke for the past 15 years. and earlier it be italian and i would leave you with this. i'm cut off because again, a very long way to answer. but another surreal and very touching during the coronation of him as emperor. he's in notre dame v he is subdued the french nation it's now it's in the palm of his hand, as he says, picked up the crown of france from the gutter and, thrusted upon his own head. he's standing full ceremonial robes next to his joseph and in the middle of notre dame, the entire french nation looking at their new monarch and looks jerome, his brother joseph sorry, his and says to him in italian what if daddy could see us now right now people who say that he was a butcher and

egotistical and a monster, a maniac. i say look at what he was reading. look at these little and remarks. butchers. don't say that little connection. we know he weirdly for his love the ancient world and probably should have talked that more fascinated with history. of course, julius caesar, alexander the great great heroes, loved reading cornelius near and plutarch hated studying latin. and we have we have the notes of his latin teachers he was terrible in terrible in german his german professor him the beast or the animal so very bad at languages in with latin very weird for guy who loves history so much. thank you so much this was fascinating. i think if we didn't have an interest in my friend pauline before listening to you i think i kind of feared. i bet that most of us are now pretty curious about the man and because it's pretty contagious, your enthusiasm him.

i appreciate that. so thank you much for presenting this this passion to. and one more word if i may. every single thing in this store, ladies german is for sale. so please rush rush to your wallet and not only purchase that wonderful about napoleon, but also any of the furniture and the many that we have here. yes. so thank you so much for. books for sale in the other room and louis will be happy to sign any book purchased so please and keep continue to help yourself to refreshments and if you need another fantastic book you've finished with napoleon's library, please head down to bonjour books barnes