The Battle is the book Balzac always wanted to write and, beginning his story with Balzac’s own words (‘On Tuesday 16th May 1809...’), Rambaud has finally achieved his predecessor’s dream.
The eponymous battle – now commonly described as Napoleon’s first major defeat on land in Europe – took place at Essling, near Vienna; forty thousand men died in forty-eight hours. With vivid detail and meticulous accuracy, Rambaud paints a frighteningly convincing picture of the scene, imbuing the reader with a sense of the full horror and fascination of combat. With a cast enlivened by real people – Marshals Berthier, Lanne and Masséna, the writer Stendhal, the painter Lejeune and, of course, the Emperor himself, The Battle is at once an incredible and epic book, a captivating literary recreation and a spellbinding portrait of one of history’s most enigmatic characters.

The Battle

Literature & Fiction

Rambaud, Patrick

Genre Fiction

Picador

Following on from Patrick Rambaud's Goncourt Prize winning novel, The Battle, The Retreat offers an extraordinarily vivid and memorable depiction of the disastrous Russian campaign of 1812. A sense of dread and the knowledge that the French will have to retreat from Moscow combine with Rambaud's great narrative flair to create a mesmerizing and tense drama. A dire account of human suffering proves, in the second volume of Rambaud's acclaimed Napoleonic trilogy, a striking testament to the extremes of human behaviour in adversity.

The Retreat

Contemporary

'The second in Rambaud's Napoleonic trilogy deals with the most traumatic event in French history after the Occupation -- Napoleon's retreat from Moscow' Guardian As Rambaud's characters -- D'Herbigny, Paulin and others -- continue the story begun in The Battle, The Retreat unfolds as a convincing and gripping account of a country at war; a mesmerizing and tense drama spun from the story of the French retreat. Told with great narrative flair, precision and vivid detail, Rambaud's account of dire human suffering is both horrific and compelling; a striking testament to the extremes of human behaviour in adversity. 'A chance to get the French version of events' Guardian

A dramatic fictional recreation of the 1809 battle of Essling captures the events of the conflict, NapolTon's first major defeat, through the experiences of reallife people of the time, including the wrtier Stendhal, the painter Lejeune, and NapolTon himself. Winner of the Prix Goncourt &amp; Grand Prix du Roman de l'AcadTie Frantaise. 40,000 first printing.

Literary

Grove Pr

The stunning finale to the award–winning Napoleonic trilogy presents the legendary figure as you have never before seen him — exiled and humiliated and vividly real. Patrick Rambaud closes his epic trilogy, which began with The Battle, winner of the Prix Goncourt and the Grand Prix Roman de l'Academie Francaise, and The Retreat. In 1814 Napoleon is racing back to Paris from the debacle of his Russian invasion. A plot afoot in the capital — to return a royal to the throne — succeeds, and Napoleon's marshals force him to abdicate and go into exile. Octave Senecal, Napoleon's loyal aide and savior, tells the tale of their journey south through the angry, mob–filled countryside to Elba, a tiny island off the coast of Tuscany. Here Patrick Rambaud brings to life not the Napoleon of the history books, but Napoleon the man — a man horribly bored by exile, gambling with his mother to pass the time, spearing the occasional tuna with local fishermen, and fretting constantly that secret agents and murderers surround him. He is soon planning his escape, while in France his former soldiers spend their evenings drinking to the return of "l'absent." They won't have long to wait.

Napoleon's Exile

United States

GROVE PRESS

The winner of the Prix Goncourt and Grand Prix du Roman de l'Academie Francaise, The Battle is a brilliant, compelling novelization of the battle of Essling, Napoleon's first major defeat. The battle of Essling has long been overlooked by historians and novelists, but Rambaud, relying on research notes compiled by Honore de Balzac, has re-created the confrontation with exceptional skill. Balzac had always wanted to write this novel, but he never moved past the research stage. Picking up where his predecessor left off, Rambaud renders the epic battle in all its pageantry, violence, and chaos. The Battle opens on May 16, 1809, as Napoleon's forces confront the assembled armies of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at Essling, near Vienna. Angered by the Austrians' challenge to his rule over their land, Napoleon is determined to crush the enemy troops with the quick maneuvers that won so many previous battles. Yet the French soon find that the wide-open Austrian plains are not conducive to their techniques, as the enemy's sheer manpower begins to overwhelm them.

The Battle: A Novel

The spectacular sequel to The Battle, winner of the Prix Goncourt and the Grand Prix Roman de l'Académie Française, this stunning second volume of Patrick Rambaud's Napoleonic trilogy opens in September 1812 with the French army at the gates of Moscow. Exhausted and demoralized, they are only a quarter of the 400,000-strong force that crossed the river Niemen three months before. But the sight of this famous city feels like a triumph and a chance, at last, to enjoy a conqueror's spoils. Napoleon rides to the Dorogomilóv Gate expecting to be met by city elders bearing tokens of surrender, but no one appears; Moscow has been evacuated. Oblivious to their predicament, Napoleon sends to Paris for comic novels and imagines that it is only a matter of time before Tsar Alexander sues for peace. Finally, a month later, Napoleon gives up and the Grand Armée begins its tragic retreat. The French will endure their most brutal test as they lose over twenty thousand men due to fighting, the cold, and starvation. With the same pulse-quickening dramatic power he showed in The Battle, Rambaud brings this disastrous campaign to brilliant, near-hallucinatory life in The Retreat.

The stunning finale to the award-winning Napoleonic trilogy presents the legendary figure as you have never before seen him exiled and humiliated and vividly real. Patrick Rambaud closes his epic trilogy, which began with The Battle, winner of the Prix Goncourt and the Grand Prix Roman de l’Academie Francaise, and The Retreat. In 1814 Napoleon is racing back to Paris from the debacle of his Russian invasion. A plot afoot in the capital to return a royal to the throne succeeds, and Napoleon’s marshals force him to abdicate and go into exile. Octave Senecal, Napoleon’s loyal aide and savior, tells the tale of their journey south through the angry, mob-filled countryside to Elba, a tiny island off the coast of Tuscany. Here Patrick Rambaud brings to life not the Napoleon of the history books, but Napoleon the man a man horribly bored by exile, gambling with his mother to pass the time, spearing the occasional tuna with local fishermen, and fretting constantly that secret agents and murderers surround him. He is soon planning his escape, while in France his former soldiers spend their evenings drinking to the return of l’absent.” They won’t have long to wait.

The sequel to The Battle, winner of the Priz Goncourt, continues the story of the Napoleonic Wars with the demoralized, exhausted, and much diminished French army in September 1812 at the gates of Moscow as Napoleon and his forces confront their most brutal challenge amid the cold and starvation of the Russian winter.

Atlantic Monthly Press

September 1812. Napoleon is master of Europe, and strikes at Russia with 600,000 men. He enters Moscow with no resistance, a conqueror at the height of his glory... and everything crumbles. The last volume of a trilogy. The terrible Russian winter has engulfed the retreat, and the Grande Armee is no more. Mercilessly harassed by the fierce Cossacks, a few thousand men only continue to trudge forward, weak, starving, emaciated, leaving a trail of frozen dead behind. And as Russian regular forces prepare to surround and trap them, the weather suddenly turns warmer, making rivers impassable. To escape, they will have to somehow cross a river whose name would soon become synonymous with tragedy: the Berezina... Ages 15+

Berezina Book 3/3 (Volume 3) (Berezina, 3)

Comics & Graphic Novels

Richaud, Frédéric

Graphic Novels

Cinebook, Ltd

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Rambaud, Patrick. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Rambaud, Patrick

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Rambaud, Patrick. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Battle

The Retreat

The Retreat

The Battle

Napoleon's Exile

The Battle: A Novel

The Retreat

Napoleon's Exile

The Retreat

Berezina Book 3/3 (Volume 3) (Berezina, 3)