The Battle is the book Balzac always wanted to write and, beginning his story with Balzac’s own words (`On Tuesday 16th May 1809 . . .’), Rambaud has finally achieved his predecessor’s dream.
The eponymous battle – now commonly described as Napoleon’s first major defeat on land in Europe – took place at Essling, near Vienna; forty thousand men died in forty-eight hours. With vivid detail and meticulous accuracy, Rambaud paints a frighteningly convincing picture of the scene, imbuing the reader with a sense of the full horror and fascination of combat. With a cast enlivened by real people – Marshals Berthier, Lanne and Masséna, the writer Stendhal, the painter Lejeune and, of course, the Emperor himself, The Battle is at once an incredible and epic book, a captivating literary recreation and a spellbinding portrait of one of history’s most enigmatic characters.
- ISBN10 0330371479
- ISBN13 9780330371476
- Publish Date 9 March 2001 (first published 1 April 2000)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 5 September 2011
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Pan Macmillan
- Imprint Picador
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 320
- Language English