AustLit

'Noblesse Oblige, the third book of the exciting Anjou Trilogy, continues from where The Countess of Anjou ended – in the thick of France’s bloody Revolution. It goes with the countess’s son, François, as he sails with Captain Arthur Phillip and more than 700 convicts to the new penal colony in New South Wales, and then it continues with the totally unknown Captain Bonaparte, as he ousts the British fleet from Toulon. It then goes with Napoléon to Paris where he marries the voluptuous Comtesse Rose Beauharnais (Josephine) with whom he has a frustrating one-night honeymoon, the highlight of which was when he was bitten by the bride’s dog, Fortuné, who insisted on sharing the newlyweds’ marriage bed.

'During this time the Countess of Anjou is working with the French Government to restore Lyon’s international silk trade and is snatching condemned nobles from the arms of Madame Guillotine. In England her sons are continuing their quest to build the world’s first ocean-going steamship while, in Frankfurt, the Rothschilds are emerging as successful bankers.

'At the turn of the century Napoléon returns to Paris to become, first, First Consul and then Emperor. He invites hundreds of guests to his coronation in Notre Dame Cathedral where they eat sausage rolls during their six-hour wait for the emperor and his wife to arrive. The climax of the ceremony is reached when Napoléon upstages Pope Pius VII – and his eighteen cardinals and bishops – by snatching the crown from the altar and crowning himself Napoléon I, Emperor of France.

'Within a few months he begins his triumphant military campaign through Europe as he occupies almost all its big cities – and spends his nights in the beds of a succession of young beauties. This campaign is followed by his divorce from Josephine, his unsuccessful invasion of Russia – and his humiliating retreat back to France.

'The story ends with his imprisonment on the Isle of Elba, his escape back to France, his glorious 100 days and his nemesis on the rain-drenched – and blood-soaked – battlefield at Waterloo.' (Publication summary)