Napoleon was born in 1769, the son of a Corsican squire, at a time when the French regarded Corsica as a savage outpost. By the time Napoleon fell from power, he and his seven brothers and sisters had ruled over half of Europe.In the wake of the French Revolution, Napoleon’s military genius won him fabulous victories and, with typical Corsican tribal loyalty, he spread his new-found power throughout his family. He placed Bonapartes on the thrones of Spain, Naples, Tuscany, Rome, Holland and Westphalia. At the end of his life, while in exile on St Helena, he tried to give the impression that his family was worthy of the honours he had heaped on it – but privately, he felt differently.One quiet evening in the Tuileries, during the days of glory, he told ‘I don’t think that anyone has ever been more unfortunate in his relations. If we sum up, Lucien is an ingrate, Joseph a Sardanapalus, Louis a paralytic and Jérôme a rake. And you, ladies, you know perfectly well what you are.’ And indeed, their wild love of pleasure and ridiculous, sometimes comic, pretensions contributed to the fall of the Empire.In this colourful account of the rise and fall of the Bonaparte family, Desmond Seward uses his considerable storytelling skill and wide historical knowledge to paint a vivid picture of what can only be described as a quite extraordinary family saga.'With precision, wit and remarkable clarity, the author chronicles the intertwined lives of these half-savage squireens, scarcely more than peasants with coats of arms through an all but unbelievable saga of vanity, stupidity and mindless greed'- Washington Post'The rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte retold - and retold most engagingly - with emphasis on the greatest of all his many burdens' - The New YorkerDesmond Seward was born in Paris of a Franco-Irish family who have been wine merchants in Bordeaux since the 1860s. He was educated at Ampleforth and at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, where he was an exhibitioner in history. He has published many historical works besides contributing to historical and theological journals.