Similar unfortunate conciseness appears on p. In Markham's treatment of the Concordat, for example, no mention is made of the key 'organic articles', without which it is impossible either to understand why the Concordat was in the end a thorn in Pius VII's side or the main reason as to why the Pope finally made the huge concession to leave the Vatican to come and consecrate Napoleon Emperor in Paris. As ever when dealing with Napoleon, attempts at brevity lead to lack of clarity and sometimes even the suppression of important information. Markham is largely uncritical and mostly simplistic – some unfortunate errors (typographical?) have crept in – after Waterloo, Markham makes Blucher say (meaninglessly) 'Quelle d'affaire'. A general public, 'légende dorée', treatment of Napoleon, this book suffers greatly in comparison to Englund's recent book Napoleon: a political life (Simon and Schuster, 2003).
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