The Second Empress

Knowing very little about Napoleon's later years, I was uncertain if Moran's fictional work would mislead or guide me in this historical time period. I was happily surprised by her use of primary source documents (primarily letters) to draw me into the life of his 18 year old Austrian-born wife, Marie-Louise.

The oddities of relationships between Napoleon, Marie-Louise, his sister Pauline, his previous wife, Josephine and even the story of Paul Moreau, were all new to me. At times, I wasn't sure how much was true vs fiction. Napoleon is depicted as cold-hearted, tempermental and disparaging of women; all well-supported by documents and texts.

I fell into the world of 18th century France and admire Moran's ability to take me there. Worth reading and I plan to locate more of her historical fiction to add to my BTR pile! ( )

One of the first reviews I posted on A Fantastical Librarian was for Michelle Moran's Cleopatra's Daughter, which I loved. I had planned to get all her other works, but you know how it goes; I have a wish list a mile long and only a limited budget to buy books. However, when I saw The Second Empress, which was about Napoleon's womenfolk, I was really excited and interested. I've always had an interest in Napoleon, both because of his influence on my country – Holland was occupied by the French from 1795 until 1813 – and because I visited The Dome des Invalides, where Napoleon is buried, when I was fourteen and I was fascinated, not just by the opulence of the place, but by the idea that one who had brought so much death and suffering to so many people still would have been revered enough to be honoured like that. I also saw the painting depicting Napoleon's crowning Josephine empress in the Louvre and was gripped by their story. So I was pretty familiar with their history; who I didn't know much about was Marie-Louise, Napoleon's second wife. And with The Second Empress Michelle Moran has definitely remedied this.

Moran tells her story through three separate viewpoints interspersed with letters between Napoleon and Josephine. The three viewpoints consist of Pauline Bonaparte, Napoleon's younger sister, her chamberlain, Paul Moreau, and Marie-Louise, the second empress herself. Through these we learn not just about Napoleon's almost magnetic charm on the populace and his truly awful temper, but also about his strategic genius and his ruthless ambition. We follow the Bonapartes from 1809, when Napoleon puts Josephine aside for her barrenness and marries Marie-Antoinette's great-niece Marie-Louise, until his final defeat at Waterloo in 1815. They show us the cut-throat politics of the Napoleonic court and how the subtle, under-the-skin machinations of the women is just as deadly as Napoleon's more straightforward go-for-the-throat dealings.

The fact that Moran manages to make all three of our narrators sympathetic is really surprising, since Pauline was a rather disturbed individual, whose greatest ambition is to marry Napoleon in the tradition of the Pharaohs and rule the Empire by his side. Moran evokes pity rather than disgust for her, showing us that she's been broken by her family's past and her treatment after they fled Corsica. In addition, she is implied to be mentally impaired due to the effects of venereal disease and the medicines she takes for this. We see Pauline not just through her own eyes, but through those of the other two as well of course, but mostly through the loving eyes of Paul Moreau. Devoted to Pauline since her time on Haiti as the governor’s wife, he gives a relative outsider's view of the events in the book, one who moves between the three spheres of influence of Napoleon, Pauline and Marie-Louise. I loved his development throughout the novel. He has to let go of so much to come back to who he wants to be and be able to return home.

If not for Marie-Louise, Paul would have been my favourite character in this book. I fell in love with Marie-Louise; Moran's portrayal of her as a strong-minded nineteen-year-old, who sacrifices her future to save her father's rein, as she thinks herself a dutiful daughter, and grows into a self-assured young woman, who manages to keep herself standing in the venal court of the Bonapartes was compelling. Her friendship with Hortense de Beauharnais, Josephine's daughter from her first marriage, was surprising, but touching. Marie-Louise's growth and her composure and quick thinking when Napoleon names her Regent when he goes to war, was amazing. Young as she was, she was a power to be reckoned with.

The one thing I would have liked to see addressed more is how Marie-Louise viewed Josephine. The latter must have been an intimidating figure for her, not just because Napoleon obviously still loved her even if he divorced, but also because she was well-loved by the French and Marie-Louise was seen as an Austrian interloper. For the great-niece of the last Austrian queen, who was beheaded by her subjects, this must have been at least a little frightening. The continuing love between Napoleon and Josephine is showcased in the book through the interspersion of several of their letters throughout the book. It shows the depth of their love and the very real passion between them, even after their divorce. For a young girl like Marie-Louise, this must have been hard, as it must have made her feel even more of an object—Pauline even refers to her as 'the womb'. However, beyond her initial trepidation at having Hortense as Mistress of the Robes, Marie-Louise doesn't really mention anything about it, which was a little puzzling.

Despite my wish for a deeper look at Marie-Louise's feelings about Josephine, The Second Empress was a riveting read, rich in descriptions of the gorgeous Parisian buildings and wonderful characterisations of not only its narrators, but of the secondary characters as well. It's once again convinced me that I need to catch up on this author's backlist as soon as I can. While the events the book follows a grand in scale, the book is an intimate narrative and lets the reader into the characters' minds and hearts and feel for them. If you're interested in the Napoleonic era and aren't as familiar with his court as with his military exploits, this is a good book to get you started. Michelle Moran has once again delivered a delightful novel and I can't wait to see whether her next book, which will be set in India, will be just as engaging as the works I've read so far.

This book was provided for review by the publisher. ( )

If Princess Maria Lucia of Austria doesn’t marry Napoleon Bonaparte, he’ll topple her father from his throne and ruin her family’s future. It’s not even a choice, in her mind, and so she leaves everything she loves behind to become the next Empress of France, in a journey startlingly reminiscent of Marie Antoinette, the beheaded Austrian queen of France. In Napoleon’s court, she meets his sister, Pauline, whose mood swings and affairs are legendary, and her chamberlain Paul, a Haitian who longs to return to his native land but can’t stop loving Pauline. Together they endure one of France’s most turbulent periods.

Michelle Moran has penned some of my favorite historical novels and I love the way she gives a focus to women in history who haven’t really been spotlighted in her last three. Marie-Louise has always existed in the shadow of Napoleon’s great love story with Josephine, his first wife and empress, and it’s lovely that Moran chose to give her a focus with this book. Napoleon’s sister Pauline is better known, but still not usually in the limelight, and Paul is a completely different focus altogether.

Unfortunately, while this premise was good, I actually preferred Marie-Louise to both Paul and Pauline. I felt much more for her as she left her home and her actual lover to marry this man that extorted money from her country and threatened her father. I should have felt more for both Paul and Pauline, but the former didn’t really appeal to me and the latter just seemed out of touch with reality. I kept hoping to get back to Marie-Louise’s story and I rushed through the other chapters so that I could spend more time with her. I can understand how Pauline in particular might appeal to another reader because she really is a character, and I know a lot of the elements here were taken from fact, but I couldn’t really feel for her at all.

Another reason I didn’t really love this one as much as some of Moran’s other books was because I found out that Marie-Louise only met Adam, the lover she leaves in the book when she has to go marry Napoleon, much later on when she’s already a married woman. I felt disappointed by this; it’s such a huge part of the plot in the beginning, when we discover Marie-Louise isn’t an innocent and that everyone knows she loves someone else, that I felt let down to discover it wasn’t really close to the truth. I would have preferred a narrative constructed more around the historical reality, and I think her departure already had the potential to be quite emotional. It isn’t a minor detail, either, like moving a date around, and it just made me feel that the way the historical gaps had been filled in wasn’t believable any more. It was a real shame and I will confess that it left me disappointed. Am I being unfair here? Maybe a little – but I always prefer the gaps in the historical record to be filled in, and an emotional reality imagined, and discovering that the emotional reality simply couldn’t have happened does have an impact on my feelings about the book.

While I still enjoyed actually reading The Second Empress, I’m afraid that I’d recommend one of Moran’s other books first, and to accept that this read might land much more on the fiction side of historical fiction. ( )

3.5 stars

Napoleon is desperate for an heir and is about to divorce his wife Josephine. For his second wife he chooses 18-year old Marie-Louise, daughter of the king of Austria and great-niece of Marie-Antoinette.
Marie-Louise is not happy to be married to a man she despises but she knows her duty which keeps her father from losing his crown and the country out of war. Agreeing to this she know she won’t be acting as her brother’s regent when the time comes, and must leave behind the man she loves.

In France she gets an enemy of Napoleon’s sister Pauline, Princess Borghese. Pauline believes Napoleon is set to be the next Pharaoh of Egypt and the would rule it together like the ancient Egyptians did. Pauline is very jealous of her brother and the women he marries.

Paul Moreau is Pauline’s servant who came with her from Haiti to France. He’s been in love with her for years from afar but also sees her faults and feels sympathy for the new empress.

I’m surprised how much I enjoyed this because I don’t know much about France and I’m not a fan of Napoleon. But this was fairly quick and easy read.

I liked Maria-Lucia, or Marie-Louise as she was known in France, and how she was portrayed. She had to mature fast to survive in France and she managed to act with dignity despite being humiliated by Napoleon on numerous occasions. I liked how she became friends with Josephine’s daughter Hortense and found some friendship there.

Napoleon isn’t portrayed here in good light but I didn’t have good image of him before either. Pauline went little to the crazy side but Napoleon was just an idiot.

Maria-Lucia was in love with Count Adam von Neipperg and in this book they were lovers before Maria-Lucia went to France. I know she and Adam got married later but it got me thinking how accurate this was. She was king’s daughter, and meant to be future regent, and was just having an affair that wasn’t even a huge secret? Her father just accepted it? This had me rolling my eyes but I liked Adam and he was way better than Napoleon so I’ll just live with that.

I would have wanted to read more about what Maria-Lucia thought about when she heard that Hortense was to be her lady-in-waiting and what she thought about Josephine.

This wasn’t her best book but then again I’m fan of Egypt anyway but I liked this. I’m curious about her next book because I haven’t read anything about India so that should be interesting. ( )

Almost every historical fiction novel I've seen dealing with the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte has focused on his first wife Josephine. Second Empress tells the story of his second wife Marie-Louise-the woman he set his soul mate Josephine aside for because he saw in Marie-Louise a greater chance of conceiving a much needed heir. At just 18 years of age, Marie-Louise seems mature for her age, recognizing that she must go through with the marriage for the well being of her empire. I'm not sure that given Napoleon's not so nice guy reputation that any normal eighteen year old would just accept that fate but she does and off to the French court she goes. The narrative alternates between Marie-Louise, Napoleon's crazy sister Pauline, and her Haitian chamberlain Paul as each gives their view of what occurs in Napoleon's court from 1809 to 1815.

As with her previous novels I felt sucked right into life in the French court. Michelle Moran really does tell a good story. While I normally like alternating viewpoints in a novel, I wish this book had delved into each character's point of view a bit more. Paul's view I kind of liked but could take it or leave it while poor young Marie-Louise having to navigate the political boundaries of her new homeland and put up with the brusque uncaring nature of her new husband and mad Pauline with her outlandish ideas of ruling alongside her brother and her deviant ways both made for compelling characters. When the book ended I found myself wishing it was longer so more of their story could have been told.

As someone who has read more about the life of Marie-Louise's great Aunt the ill-fated Marie Antoinette, this was a fascinating look at a period in French history I knew next to nothing about. I enjoyed watching Marie-Louise blossom from a young woman resigned to her fate to a stronger willed one determined to do what she must to protect what is most precious to her. Although I was really wishing for more character development and a longer story in general, this was an entertaining fast paced read. If you liked Moran's previous novels you are probably going to like this one too.

http://theroyalreviews.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-second-empress-by-michelle-moran...