uharnais encounter during and after her marriage with Napoleon. Tarbell includes just as much detail about Napoleon as he does with Josephine. Tarbell goes into depth about how Napoleon went to Italy and Josephine went Milan. While her husband was fighting a war in Italy she was living the live of a princess in Milan. Napoleon would write her letters daily asking her to reply and let him know she was okay but she still would refuse to do so. Although the two were married it seemed evident that the two wanted different things. At a gathering of the magnitude and splendor of this at Erfurth it would have been fitting that the Empress be present, but Napoleon did not deem it wise for her to leave France. That Napoleon meant to indicate by leaving her at home that his decision to have a divorce was taken and that this was the beginning of the separation is not clear, though it is certain that the subject was much in his mind at Erfurth (Pp. 405). This is a quotation which helps people understand what napoleon was thinking while he was off fighting. Although he was married and still writing letters to her it is easy to see that things were not going to work. Tarbell explains how the majority of Europe loved Josephine and though of her as a great queen. So it is easy to see why this biography was written so well, and that is because of his intent to show both sides of the marriage and to show what Napoleon and his wife did throughout their lives. Napoleon was the first emperor of the French, one of the most celebrated personages in the history of the West. He revolutionized military organization and training; sponsored the Napoleonic Code; the prototype of later civil-law codes; reorganized education; and established the long-lived Concordat with the papacy (Encyclopedia Britannica). Ida Tarbell did an excellent job on writing A life of Napoleon Bonaparte because of his usage of quotations and his extent of knowledge that he mus...
