Facing the firing squad, Joachim Murat told them to aim for his heart. Courageous until the end, his life is one of the great rise and fall stories. And Alexandre Dumas is the perfect author to tell it.
Murat was a trusted general under Napoleon Bonaparte. His marriage to Napoleon's sister, Caroline, only served to deepen the bond between the two men. But he would eventually betray the emperor by switching allegiances during the Napoleonic Wars. This fateful decision would prove to be Murat's undoing.
Dumas paints a fascinating portrait of Murat; a brave commander with a taste for extravagance. It makes his fall from grace all the more tragic.