Martial-Lapeyre Library

The Fondation Napoléon’s Bibliothèque Martial-Lapeyre Library comprises mostly printed matter, of which mostly books, dating from the end of the 18th century to the present day, covering not only the history of the two French Empires but also that of the French Revolution and the Restorations. Whilst the majority of the books are in French, the library also has works in English, German, Russian, Italian and Spanish. With very few exceptions, the books are on open access and arranged thematically.

Books digitised either by us or by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BnF) on the Gallica site include in their references links directly to their online versions.

The rarest books, or those in a fragile state, are kept in the reserve and are available upon request from the librarian. 

The library makes available to its readers nearly 100 journals, newspapers and newsletters, some that are still in print and others that have ceased to be published. Among them, period newspapers such as Le Moniteur  (1799-1814), Le Journal de l'Empire-puis des débats  (1805-1816), Le Bulletin des Lois (1793-1816) ; and historic Napoleonic reviews such as Le carnet de la Sabretache (1893-1938), La Revue des Etudes napoléoniennes (1912-1939 ) or the Revue de l'Institut Napoléon (1938->); recent periodicals : Napoléon Ier magazine (2000->),  Revue Napoléon (2000->), and publications by associations such as the Revue du Souvenir napoléonien (1956->),  Revue de l'ACMN (1983 ->), Cavalier et roi, musée Murat (1969 ->), Société des Amis de Malmaison (1968 ->).

Articles are important sources of information but they are often hard to find using search engines. That's why most of the articles in our catalogue have their own catalogue entry. In this way, a search in the catalogue often leads not only to a list of books but also to articles, all of which can be consulted at the library.

Works by several authors, exhibition catalogues and conference proceedings are systematically analysed in detail, and catalogue entries specify the titles and authors.   

Letters or extracts of letters by the family members of Napoleon I and Napoleon III have been found in nearly five hundred auction catalogues published from the 19th century to the present day. These texts are inserted in our catalogue entries, stating the author, the addressee, the date and the place of writing, insofar as these details have specified.

The iconographic collection, although still fairly limited, is regularly enriched with old photographs relating to the Second Empire and exhibition posters. These documents can be requested from the librarian.