Women of the Valois Court
Author : Imbert de Saint-Amand
Publisher :
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 44,27 MB
Release : 1893
Category : France
ISBN :
Author : Imbert de Saint-Amand
Publisher :
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 44,27 MB
Release : 1893
Category : France
ISBN :
Author : Kate Williams
Publisher : McClelland & Stewart
Page : 463 pages
File Size : 29,72 MB
Release : 2014-11-04
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0771088612
From CNN’s official royal historian, a highly praised young author with a doctorate from Oxford University, comes the extraordinary rags-to-riches story of the woman who conquered Napoleon’s heart—and with it, an empire. Their love was legendary, their ambition flagrant and unashamed. Napoleon Bonaparte and his wife, Josephine, came to power during one of the most turbulent periods in the history of France. The story of the Corsican soldier’s incredible rise has been well documented. Now, in this spellbinding, luminous account, Kate Williams draws back the curtain on the woman who beguiled him: her humble origins, her exorbitant appetites, and the tragic turn of events that led to her undoing. Born Marie-Josèphe-Rose de Tascher de La Pagerie on the Caribbean island of Martinique, the woman Napoleon would later call Josephine was the ultimate survivor. She endured a loveless marriage to a French aristocrat—executed during the Reign of Terror—then barely escaped the guillotine blade herself. Her near-death experience only fueled Josephine’s ambition and heightened her determination to find a man who could finance and sustain her. Though no classic beauty, she quickly developed a reputation as one of the most desirable women on the continent. In 1795, she met Napoleon. The attraction was mutual, immediate, and intense. Theirs was an often-tumultuous union, roiled by their pursuit of other lovers but intensely focused on power and success. Josephine was Napoleon’s perfect consort and the object of national fascination. Together they conquered Europe. Their extravagance was unprecedented, even by the standards of Versailles. But she could not produce an heir. Sexual obsession brought them together, but cold biological truth tore them apart. Gripping in its immediacy, captivating in its detail, Ambition and Desire is a true tale of desire, heartbreak, and revolutionary turmoil, engagingly written by one of England’s most praised young historians. Kate Williams’s searing portrait of this alluring and complex woman will finally elevate Josephine Bonaparte to the historical prominence she deserves.
Author : Imbert de Saint-Amand
Publisher :
Page : 356 pages
File Size : 25,60 MB
Release : 1890
Category : Empresses
ISBN :
"Joséphine de Beauharnais (pronounced: [{7f0292}o.ze.fin dbo.a.n]; née Tascher de la Pagerie; 23 June 1763 ? 29 May 1814) was the first wife of Napoléon Bonaparte, and thus the first Empress of the French."--Wikipedia.
Author : Sandra Gulland
Publisher : Atria Books
Page : 448 pages
File Size : 25,41 MB
Release : 1999-08-03
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 0684856069
Passion intertwines with fate in this riveting and historically rich novel about the journey of a woman from poverty to ultimate power in Revolution-era France. In this first of three books inspired by the life of Josephine Bonaparte, Sandra Gulland has created a novel of immense and magical proportions. We meet Josephine in the exotic and lush Martinico, where an old island woman predicts that one day she will be queen. The journey from the remote village of her birth to the height of European elegance is long, but Josephine's fortune proves to be true. By way of fictionalized diary entries, we traverse her early years as she marries her one true love, bears his children, and is left betrayed, widowed, and penniless. It is Josephine's extraordinary charm, cunning, and will to survive that catapults her to the heart of society, where she meets Napoleon, whose destiny will prove to be irrevocably intertwined with hers.
Author : Madame de Rémusat (Claire Elisabeth Jeanne Gravier de Vergennes)
Publisher :
Page : 428 pages
File Size : 29,92 MB
Release : 1910
Category : France
ISBN :
Author : Michelle Moran
Publisher : Crown
Page : 338 pages
File Size : 22,39 MB
Release : 2012-08-14
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 030795305X
Two women vie to change their destinies after Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte orders marriage to a princess he hopes will bear him a royal heir in this compelling novel from the internationally bestselling author of Nefertiti and Cleopatra’s Daughter. “A fascinating tale that won’t soon be forgotten.”—Times Record News After the bloody French Revolution, Emperor Napoleon’s power is absolute. When eighteen-year-old Marie-Louise is told that the emperor has demanded her hand in marriage, her father presents her with a terrible choice: marry the cruel, capricious Napoleon, or refuse and plunge her country into war. To save her father’s throne, Marie-Louise is determined to be a good wife. But at the extravagant French court, she finds many rivals for her new husband’s affection, including Napoleon’s sister Pauline, who is fiercely jealous, utterly uncontrollable, and the only woman as ambitious as the emperor himself. When war once again sweeps the Continent and bloodshed threatens Marie-Louise’s family, the second empress is forced to make choices that will determine her place in history—and change the course of her life.
Author : Imbert De Saint-Amand
Publisher : BoD – Books on Demand
Page : 306 pages
File Size : 10,81 MB
Release : 2024-05-05
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 3387332726
Reproduction of the original. The publishing house Megali specialises in reproducing historical works in large print to make reading easier for people with impaired vision.
Author : Georgette Ducrest
Publisher :
Page : 412 pages
File Size : 12,16 MB
Release : 1905
Category :
ISBN :
Author : Carolly Erickson
Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
Page : 412 pages
File Size : 49,64 MB
Release : 2000-08-17
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1429904011
Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie, born a Creole on the island of Martinique in the French West Indies, became one of the best known and most envied women who ever lived. Sent to France to make an advantageous marriage to a young aristocrat, her naivete and lack of education left her ill prepared to deal with the sophisticated - if decadent - world of pre-Revolutionary Paris. Treated cruelly by her shallow young husband, her life had become a nightmare during the Terror, in which she was imprisoned and almost lost her life. It was during this period that she honed the skills of manipulation and seduction that would lead her from the dungeons of the terror into the beds of the post-Revolutionary powerbrokers, including the Corsican corporal who would conquer Europe. As the wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, conqueror of Europe and the wonder of his age, Josephine was assumed to be a worthy consort for her astounding husband, a woman as beautiful, wise and altogether remarkable as he was charismatic, brilliant, and invincible in battle. When in 1804 she knelt before Napoleon in Notre Dame and he placed the imperial crown on her head, making her Empress of France, her extraordinary destiny seemed to be fulfilled. The unknown woman from Martinique became the highest ranking woman in the land, as far above the average Frenchwoman as Napoleon himself was above the humblest soldier in his armies. Yet the truth behind the glorious symbolism in Notre Dame was much darker. For the eight-year marriage between Josephine and Napoleon had long been corroded by infidelity and abuse, and for years Josephine had dreaded that her husband would divorce her. Far from the love match previous biographers have described, Erickson's Napoleon and Josephine were the ultimate pragmatists, drawn together by political necessity while their emotions were engaged elsewhere. Carolly Erickson, the critically acclaimed biographer of the Tudor monarchs, as well as of Marie Antoinette and Queen Victoria, using her trademark ability to penetrate and explain the psychological make-up of her subjects, paints a fascinating portrait of an immensely complex and ultimately tragic woman.
Author : Imbert de Saint-Amand
Publisher :
Page : 334 pages
File Size : 15,20 MB
Release : 1892
Category :
ISBN :