This book takes us into the alcove secrets of the Bonaparte family. The legitimate children, the even more numerous illegitimate children of Napoleon’s brothers and sisters, not to mention his own of which only one will be legitimate.
Gonzague Saint Bris takes on the role of a society chronicler. Through the work of a historian, we browse a family album. It’s difficult to find our way among the children born from marriage, those legitimized, and those natural.
That’s the whole appeal of this book, to flip through the album, recognize someone, their story, the circumstances of their birth, their real father, their declared father, their mother, and their fate whether brilliant or sad and pitiful. The honor, the emperors, uncle and nephew, the half-brothers, the half-sisters, a broken family? No, but children scattered to the four corners of Europe, due to the laws of exile after the restoration, after the second empire.
Ultimately, a history book: The History of the Romances in the History of France in the 19th century. In this turbulent period which experienced: the consulate, the empire, the restoration, the July monarchy, the Second Republic, the Second Empire, and the Third Republic. To this, add two revolutions, the Franco-Prussian war, the commune. The eaglets could only be scattered.
Thierry Jan
