Clisson and Eugénie: A Love Story By Napoleon Bonaparte
Translated by Peter Hicks
Gallic Books £7.99, 77 pages
FT Bookshop price: £6.39

Napoleon Bonaparte wrote this wafer-thin tale of love and honour when he was a 26-year-old officer in 1795. “From birth”, it begins, “Clisson was strongly attracted to war”.

A young French general, feted but also envied, our hero forsakes conflict and worldly success to find happiness in love. At a friend’s chateau, he meets two women, flirty Amélie and reserved Eugénie. The latter dislikes him but, like a Gallic Mr Darcy, Clisson nevertheless manages to win her over. They fall in and out of love. He goes back to war. He dies.

The editors desperately pad out this “definitive” version of the 17-page love story with a brazen 60 pages of commentary. Yet, as interesting as it is to witness the future emperor’s attempts at sentimental self-mythologising, as a literary decision it is difficult to make the case for pushing this manuscript to the crowded bookshops of today. Napoleon complex? If only.