With Napoleon – Journal

One of the greatest testimonies on Napoleon.

Throughout his reign, Napoleon received Pierre-Louis Roederer — accomplice in the Brumaire coup, Councillor of State and later Senator of the Empire — a countless number of times in his study. This figure had taken to noting down scrupulously, often on the very same evening, the substance of these meetings, which were frequently very candid, whether on political or personal subjects. Published in the 1850s in eight large volumes now impossible to find, these notes are the gold dust of historians.

On the basis of work carried out at the beginning of the twentieth century by the publisher Maurice Vitrac, Thierry Lentz presents a selection, which he introduces and comments upon. One will find both the finest exchanges between Napoleon and his counsellor, an incomparable "insider" testimony, anecdotes from the life of consular and imperial power, and finally judgements and portraits of leading contemporaries. Throughout the text, one will also recognise some of the great quotations so often repeated, such as "power is as sad as greatness", "I will not let myself be insulted like a king", "a Constitution must be short and obscure", "I have but one passion, one mistress; it is France: I sleep with her", "[Joseph is the eldest] for our father's vineyard, no doubt", not forgetting the famous tirade: "It is by making myself a Catholic that I ended the war in the Vendée, by making myself a Muslim that I established myself in Egypt, by making myself ultramontane that I won minds in Italy.

"If I governed a people of Jews, I would restore the Temple of Solomon", pronounced at the Council of State on 16 August 1800. And since the elder brother of Napoleon has been mentioned, the friendship that bound him to Roederer explains his omnipresence in this volume, whether regarding the affairs of the Consulate, those of Naples and Spain (whose thrones Joseph occupied) or his downfall. A capital testimony indispensable to all those who are passionate about the study and understanding of the Consulate and the Empire.