Henry Lachouque (1883–1971)

Lavish Illustrations, sadly the budget did not run to many in colour, but overall not a bad coffee table book on the subject. to an english speaker, the more pro-French stance taken is refreshing, and sometimes valuable in discussing the War. there are portraits of most of the prominent soldiers on either side and some maps. There is a four piece reproduction of the fine nineteenth Century Map of Spain that adorned Gen. Foy's account of the War, a book analogous to Napier's British book. It show more is at a scale of one centimetre equals 40 kms. (You don't get a scale on every section.) A fun book, but I would not use it as a closely footnoted source. Pretty good set of uniforms, though the Osprey books are more detailed. show less

A Lavish Book, with good paper, and a great many illustrations. The guard travels first class in these pages, and a great deal of research went into this presentation of the unit followed in its pages. All the way from the splendid but tiny Mamluk unit to the durable engineers of the Marines of the Guard, they followed Napoleon to his final fate. The details relate to the organization, weapons, and the uniforms, and there is very little on the social and technical life of these elite troops. show more Another omission is coverage of the guard units of the client kingdoms. If the translation was good, this book was not a lively read, but the author tried to be exhaustive on his topics. I read the Greenhill Books reprint. show less

This is a great classic work abut Napoleon and his Imperial Guard. The story of the Guard is told in all its adventure. There may be books about the Guard that contain a lot more detail, but this is the best work for capturing the spirit of this legendary military unit.