I've just uploaded a short piece on the Empress Josephine, Napoleon I's first wife.  She is a very interesting character to me, and I wanted to use her in a novel so I wrote Court Lady, where she is a distant relative of the heroine, Corisande, who takes her into her household at Court as a lectrice or reader.  Corisande's duties would be to read to the Empress.. there was no TV in those days, and to assist her with administrative work and be a helping hand with her charities and artistic patronages.   Josephine's life was very circumscribed as Empress.  Napoleon did not like her to have too much day to day contact with men so she was dependent on her ladies for company.  I wanted my heroine to have a job, and this was a job that well born girls with no fortune could do without being stigmatised.  And it meant that Corisande was in the hub of the Empire... meeting important people.  Eleonore Deneulle the mother of Napoleon's first child, had a similar job in the home of Princess Caroline Murat Napoleon's sister. I've read many books on Josephine and the Napoleonic court and social circles.