My goal here is to create a space where we can all see the congruent aspects of these memoirs. Caulaincourt, Marchand and Hortense were honest and they wrote their memoirs separately. I believe all three memoirs read together like this can show the real Napoleon. I’m also planning on reading Napoleon’s letters to Josephine. Some of them are a bit tawdry but we should feel we know him after that. I’m planning on reading War and Peace afterward - For something of an opposing view.
All of these accounts came from real events and I believe it is essential for an educated person to have acquired this knowledge. I wrote three Napoleon plays which were all performed - two of them off Broadway. I am a fellow of the International Napoleonic Society. I won a Phi Beta Kappa award for artistic excellence from the University at Stony Brook for my Napoleon play set on St. Helena (Longwood).
I’ve read books about Napoleon but I always preferred credible first hand accounts like what we’re examining here.
You can find a complete version of With Napoleon in Russia by General Armand de Caulaincourt here:
Marchand’s Memoirs (in progress) are here:
This was Napoleon’s stepdaughter and sister in law Hortense. She was the mother of Napoleon III.
