Joachim Murat - Marshal of France and King of Naples

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A first-rate biography of the famed Marshal Murat, the most famous cavalry leader of the Napoleonic Wars. Joachim Murat was born in Gascony, the department of Lot, and although his father was relatively affluent, no-one realized the spectacular rise that would lead him to a the crown of Naples and an indelible imprint on the history of his native France and all of Europe.

Atteridge wrote a number of books on the men who worked as satellites to Napoleon, Emperor of the French, his commanders on the battlefield and the brothers he placed, or tried to place in power as a buffer to a vengeful Europe. Marshal Murat has often been caricatured as a dashing cavalry commander with little more brains than the horse he rode, however the portrait here painted is much more complex than the simplistic view carted out by some other historians. More than a superlative leader of cavalry, in the short campaigns of the emergent French army, he grew distant from Napoleon due to constant goadings and rebukes, he was a varied man, vain and pompous, a dedicated family man, yet possibly also cuckold. He was to find a ignominious grave, for firing squad, at Pizzo having attempted to emulate his former master’s march on Paris in his adopted Naples.

Highly recommended.

Atteridge’s book forms a companion to his other single volume biography of Marshal Ney and his work on the varied personalities on Napoleon’s Brothers.

Text taken, whole and complete, from the 1911 first edition, published in London by Metheun and Co. Ltd. Original - 338 pages.

Author- Andrew Hilliard Atteridge (1844–1912)

Linked TOC and 7 Illustrations and 3 maps.