Bonaparte, a Condottiere in Revolution
Annie Jourdan

"It took the revolutionary meritocracy for the military, organizational, and administrative genius of the future emperor to emerge. In the first volume of his biography (up to 1802), Patrice Gueniffey shows that Bonaparte was at the same time a “king of a new kind”, an enlightened despot, a revolutionary, and a postrevolutionary, always driven by an iron will."

http://www.booksandideas.net/IMG/pdf/20150114_jourdan_cr_bonaparte.pdf