Spurred by a lifelong fascination with the figure of the Great Emperor, French novelist Honore de Balzac set himself the painstaking task of collecting a selection of Napoleon's aphorisms from his public speeches and the gazettes of the time.Divided into four parts (covering social life, the military arts, the exercise of power and the teachings of experience and misfortune), Napoleon's pithy pills of wisdom - often machiavellian, cynical, dry and even cruel - offer a unique insight into the mind of a man who prided himself on preferring action over thought and the sword over the pen, and conjure up one of the most eminent and influential historical figures of all time.