In the shadow of Napoleon's eagle, Etienne Duval, a young Parisian carpenter, is conscripted into the Grande Armée in 1803. What begins as reluctant duty transforms into a twelve-year odyssey through the blood and glory of Europe's most cataclysmic wars. From the invasion flotillas at Boulogne to the burning ruins of Moscow, from the frozen hell of the Berezina retreat to the final thunder at Waterloo, Etienne rises from private to lieutenant, decorated yet increasingly disillusioned. A story of love tested by endless war, of loyalty amid betrayal, and of one ordinary man who marches through history's furnace only to choose, at last, the hearth over the eagle.
