Four walks through Paris trace Napoleon and Josephine’s courtship, Napoleon’s student days at the École Militaire, the coronation and reign, and, finally, the path that Napoleon’s funeral cortège took nearly twenty years after his death. Readers visit the prison where Josephine was held during the Terror, the site of the house where Napoleon plotted the coup d’état, restaurants where the couple dined, and the jewelers Napoleon commissioned to make the dazzling royal crowns, timepieces, and swords; itineraries for Malmaison and Fontainebleau are also included. This pocketable guide evokes a panoramic sweep of French history and describes the public grandeur as well as the daily intimacy of Napoleon and Josephine’s lives.  

“Another Paris guide? Hold on, this isn't the usual fare. Six walks, four in central Paris and at Fontainebleau and Chateau de Malmaison, take the reader past sites and sights associated with the doomed romance of the Little General and his high-born wife. There are, of course, maps and detailed walking directions in this lovely, compact hardcover. Reid also includes beautiful contemporary portraits and sketches of the royal couple and Paris as it used to be. Reid's prose is informed and readable, and she has a gift for citing the telling detail: Josephine, who nearly lost her head in the Terror before meeting Napoleon, cut her long hair in prison, inspiring one of the first French fashion fads: “coiffure a la guillotine.”—San Francisco Chronicle