They say you can't truly feel alive unless you've come very close to death. If that's the case, then a man who survived sixteen campaigns and forty-eight battles, only to die at the age of 89, could certainly claim to have drained the cup of life to its very last drop.

Jean Roch Couanier found himself in the lengths and breadths of Europe, covering, like his comrades, immense distances on foot, often under incredibly adverse conditions. He fought in Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria, Poland, Russia, Belgium, and even outside Paris itself as Napoleon's star began to fade.

He was decorated and denounced, starved, poisoned, and dined with aristocrats, kings, and emperors. He witnessed events that changed the course of world history, from the moment as a recruit he saw Napoleon change the regime in France and take up the role of First Consul of the French Republic.

In very advanced age, Couanier decided to reminisce about his tumultuous life and capture it on paper, along with the story of an entire continent. His memoirs reveal unknown aspects of the history of the Napoleonic Wars, the major and minor players involved, and the terrible battles that shook Europe and turned almost all the other states of the Old Continent against France.

Even professional historians and scholars of the Napoleonic Wars will find many unknown details of that tumultuous period within Couanier's writings. However, The Notebooks of Captain Couanier is such a fascinating work that it's impossible not to capture the interest of any reader. It is a journey back in time, presented with disarming honesty and read in one breath.