In the enthralling Ambition and Desire: The Dangerous Life of Josephine Bonaparte, Kate Williams (Becoming Queen Victoria), CNN's official royal historian, brings the life of Josephine Bonaparte out from the shadow of her husband, Napoleon.
Born Marie-Josèphe Rose Tascher de la Pagerie, Josephine grew up on her family's sugar plantation in Martinique, carefree and isolated from the world. She had little formal instruction typical of young women who aspired to participate in the courts of Paris. Yet even in her youth, she wanted to go to Paris, and when the opportunity arose for an arranged marriage, she took it.
Her early life did not prepare her for the pressures of Parisian society, and her marriage with Alexandre de Beauharnais was not happy. After having two children, they separated in 1783. She spent the next decade largely on her own, in poverty. At the convent to which Alexandre had exiled her, she learned how to conduct herself and adopt manners that would later come to define her character. Against the backdrop of the Reign of Terror, Josephine learned how to be resourceful. And then she met Napoleon.
Drawing on a remarkable number of sources, including many original manuscripts, Williams's thoroughly research account is compulsively readable. Visceral details leave readers feeling as though they are walking the streets of Paris, witnessing the revolution and overseeing Josephine Bonaparte's carefully constructed ascent to the throne. What on the surface seems to be one of history's greatest rags-to-riches stories is, in Williams's hands, a story of ambition, intention, opportunity and unmatched desire. --Justus Joseph, bookseller, Elliott Bay Book Company