Napoléon III and his Women

The morally difficult question of elite adultery among world leaders propelled Hector Fleischmann to gather the available evidence in the case of Napoléon III, last Emperor of France. One of his early mistresses helped to fund his second coup d'état attempt. Another has the record for most known photographic portraits in the 19th century, done on her commission. Bastards were the result of some of the adulteries, and Napoléon took care of them, though not publicly. His wife, Empress Eugénie, was extremely opposed to such conduct, if she knew.

Contents include the youth of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, his career as a conspirator against the entire Restoration regime of France as the backdrop to his affair with Mrs Gordon; assignations during his period of imprisonment at the Fortress of Ham; another English mistress in Miss Howard; his preference for non-French mistresses, namely Mme de Castiglione and Marie-Anne Walewska; his last true favorite, the French Julie Leboeuf, known as Marguerite Bellanger; elucidation on alleged mistress of the Emperor; his rewards for the husbands of his elite mistresses; his bastards.