The Napoleonic Quarterly

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The Fresh Prince of Brumaire (screenplay plotting, mins 90-105)

July 08, 2026

In the seventh and penultimate 15 minutes of our screenplay treatment, Napoleon is back in France to go for the top prize - power. But his bid for his ultimate goal is not going to be straightforward and he has to accept that in order to achieve this, he'll have to put aside romantic dreams and do what matters to get this one last job done. That means a new approach to his unfaithful wife Josephine; a reckoning with our antagonist Paul Barras; and a new kind of battlefield - the Council o...

1799 recap: The French go backwards

July 04, 2026

Our recap episodes, which offer a synthesis of our 1792-1804 coverage one year at a time, have reached 1799 - a year in which Napoleon Bonaparte achieves an astonishing turnaround in fortunes which ends with him in power. Chris Sloan talks presenter Alex Stevenson through specific key clips he's picked out from our old episodes grouped around four themes which, we argue, help frame the period and shape our understanding of it in a whole new way. We hope this will provide a helpful refresh...

Napoleon's dark night of the soul (screenplay plotting, mins 75-90)

June 24, 2026

In the sixth 15-minute section of our screenplay, Napoleon plunges into his darkest hour. Reeling from betrayal and defeat, he confronts the plague-ridden horrors of his campaign in the Levant and faces the brutal consequences of war, both on the battlefield and within himself. The myth of his invincibility shatters as failed sieges and the massacre at Jaffa weigh on his conscience. Josephine’s infidelity and his own disillusionment reach a crisis, forcing Napoleon towards a reckoning with hi...