by Desmond Seward
A life of the last empress of France by a not totally unbiased biographer. He clearly is a fan and has a remote family connection back to the second empire.
That aside, I enjoyed this book and it gives a good introduction to the workings of the second empire and the contradictions it contained. She is painted as a formidable woman but with a love for France that was never wholly accepted by its citizens. The book discusses but reaches no clear conclusion on the thing that drove her. Was she swayed more by her desire to see her son as emperor or by her love for France? 8/10
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