The book's wealth of detail about the relationship of the ever-intriguing couple offers a rich panorama of the exhilarating and violent time on which they left their mark. The author draws on a multitude of eyewitness accounts and other sources to present a full-bodied Napoleon - his contempt for the masses, his ardor for the emotionally shallow Josephine, and the opportunism that led him to divorce her. Josephine is no less distinctive, with her charm, bad teeth, seductiveness, affairs, extravagances and her reluctant but growing love for Napoleon.