“Among the Napoleonic legends, Lanfrey lets none subsist.” (Perrens, Histoire sommaire de la littérature française au XIXe siècle ) “History always has an answer for whoever questions her; there is not a situation that does not encounter, at every step, its precedent, its corrective or its example in history.” (Lanfrey, Preface to the last volume of Histoire de Napoléon Bonaparte ) This final volume of A History of Napoleon Bonaparte covers the eventful four years from 1808 to 1811. By the end of this period, Napoleon finds himself increasingly drawn towards an abyss that will devour his grande armée and cause his now gigantic empire to topple—the 1812 Russian campaign. A presentiment of the campaign’s fatality seems to cross his mind, as when he asks his librarian for detailed information about the disastrous Swedish invasion of Russia by Charles XII. But the lesson is lost and, as Lanfrey writes, “To him who is determined to perish, everything, even an instrument of salvation, becomes a snare and a danger.”