The Chosen Four

Who remains friends with a fallen emperor?

Of the books and memoirs about Napoleon there is indeed no end, but of the veracious books such as this there are remarkably few.

It aims to penetrate the deliberate darkness which surrounds the last act of the Napoleonic drama.

This is an historical narrative recounting the careers of the four men who were destined to accompany the First Napoleon into exile at St. Helena.

Its pages open with a brief sketch of their early years, revealing the circumstances under which Charles Tristan Montholon, Henri Gratien Bertrand, Gaspard Gourgaud, and Emmanuel de Las Cases came to be acquainted with their great leader.

The ensuing chapters disclose those events that drew them into a closer association with him, leading up to an account of the fortuitous happenings that bound them to his side, and ended in their sailing away with him into captivity under the aegis of the British Government.

The final chapters betray them struggling manfully against the disasters that wrecked the Imperial cause, and involved the four of them in hopeless ruin.

Stranded and proscribed, we behold them in the end casting in their lot with their fallen chief, trusting for their redemption in the resourcefulness of his genius.

Praise for The Chosen Four

‘Students of Napoleon will find that Mr. John Theodore Tussaud's The Chosen Four fills, succinctly and interestingly, a few minor gaps in their knowledge’ – The Spectator

John Theodore Tussaud (1858 – 1943) was the great grandson of Marie Tussaud. Although his father had sold ownership of Madame Tussauds, John worked in the museum as manager and chief artist for many years. In 1935 John was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. In addition to The Chosen Four, John wrote The Romance of Madame Tussaud, a biography of Marie Tussaud.