"The Second Empress: A Novel of Napoleon's Court " by Michelle Moran

   

"The Second Empress: A Novel of Napoleon's Court," by Michelle Moran. 

 

This novel reads with a feminist point of view, of the French Revolution.  Although the second empress is characterized as being weak and without much power over her destiny and over her new Kingdom in France, Michelle Moran does an excellent job in her research of Napoleon.

 

Napoleon takes a second empress, Marie Louise.  Louise will have a task keeping France together as she is left in charge while Napolean begins one of France's worst Revolutions.The empress convinces French citizens to take refuge at the Chateau de Rambouillet.  Once its obvious that Russia is winning, Napoleon makes a retreat to France while his Army is still fighting Russia and, so as not to draw attention to his self, Napoleon dresses like an Austrian when he visits his sister Pauline.  How cowardly is that?

Marie Louise is worried about her solitary son whom she has, had with Napoleon.  Napoleon wrote a letter to Joseph, a former king of Spain telling him his hopes for his son: "Id rather see my son's throat cut than imagine him brought up as an Austrian prince in Vienna. 

 

The fact that Napoleon would rather cut his son's throat, than have him live in Austria tells the empress that she'd better make like a bandit and get her and her son out of Napoleon's line of vision.  She decides to take her son, against the father's will to live in  Austria with her family.  When Napoleon flees France, his carriage is stalked by villagers on his way out of Paris, and the people throw rocks at his carriage.  He tries to win the people over one more time, by giving the people a speech: telling them he wasn't a traitor for leaving Russia with his army still there, that he was helping the dying by returning to France. (the Global Dig)