Andrew Roberts

his family nickname of ‘Rabulione’, or troublemaker.

but he had little interest in equality of outcome, human rights, freedom of the press or parliamentarianism

‘Do you know how I managed?’ Napoleon later recalled of this period of his life. ‘By never entering a café or going into society; by eating dry bread, and brushing my own clothes so that they might last the longer. I lived like a bear, in a little room, with books for my only friends . . . These were the joys and debaucheries of my youth.’

Sturm-und-Drang

‘To spend the night between a pretty woman and a fine sky, and spend the day recording observations and making calculations, seems to me to be happiness on earth.’

‘If I were black,’ Napoleon said, ‘I would be for the blacks; being white, I am for the whites.’