Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

Born in Sens in 1769, Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne was a French diplomat and political figure who is chiefly remembered for his long association with Napoleon Bonaparte. Sources agree that the two knew each other from their school days at Brienne, and Bourrienne later served as Napoleon’s private secretary during the rise of the Consulate.

He also held public roles beyond the writing desk, including diplomatic work and service in government. After Napoleon’s fall, he was active in Restoration politics, which gave his career a complicated shape and placed him on more than one side of French history.

Today, Bourrienne is most often read for his memoirs about Napoleon and the First Empire. Those books are famous for their color and detail, though reference works also warn that they are not always fully reliable, which only adds to their interest for readers curious about the man behind the legend.