Roustam Raza was Napoleon's shadow. Born in Georgia around 1783 to an Armenian family, kidnapped as a boy by slave traders and sold in Cairo to a Mamluk household, raised in the elite Egyptian warrior caste that had ruled the country before the Ottoman conquest, he was given as a gift to General Bonaparte by Sheik El Bekri of Cairo during the French Egyptian campaign of 1798. The Mamluks had been Napoleon's most formidable opponents in Egypt — defeated at the Battle of the Pyramids that July under Murad Bey — and the future Emperor was impressed enough by their fighting skill to bring back a personal Mameluk attendant and to raise a Mameluk squadron of the Imperial Guard cavalry from veteran soldiers who had crossed over to French service. Roustam served Napoleon as bodyguard, personal valet, and constant companion for more than fifteen years: he slept on a mat at the door of the Emperor's bedchamber every night of those years, carried his coffee, looked after his arms and clothes, and rode behind him in the field at every major campaign. He famously abandoned Napoleon during the 1814 abdication crisis, refused to accompany him into Elba exile, and lived out the rest of his life in France writing the memoirs that became one of the most intimate eyewitness accounts of the Emperor's household.

This King & Country figure shows Roustam mounted in the traditional Mameluk service dress that distinguished him within Napoleon's household — a white turban wound around the head with a crescent ornament on top, a sash of red at the base; a green velvet vest with crimson and gold embroidered facings, open at the chest to show the white undershirt; baggy red sherwal trousers gathered at the ankle; yellow leather ankle boots. The horse furniture mirrors the rider's color palette: black leather harness trimmed with red and gold, the saddle blanket of the same green-and-gold pattern as his jacket. A curved Mameluk sword (the kilij) rides at the saddle. He follows close behind Napoleon Bonaparte himself mounted on Marengo and rides at the Emperor's right hand on every march and at every review. He shares the personal-household role with the figures of the Napoleon as Colonel and Napoleon as Colonel of the Imperial Guard — the man inside the bedchamber as opposed to the man at the head of the army.

Model: NA440 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 1 piece set