Historical Dictionary of the Napoleonic Era

by George F Nafziger

  BONAPARTE, LOUIS, KING OF HOLLAND AND LATER GRAND DUKE OF CLÈVES-BERG (1788–1846). Louis was born on 5 September 1778 as the third brother of Napoleon Bonaparte. He joined the artillery on 25 July 1790 as a cadet. His first combat was during the expedition to Dego on 24 September 1794. Louis participated in the 1796 campaign in Italy, fighting in the revolt of Pavia, the siege of Mantua, Caldiero, Arcole and Rivoli. Louis participated in the Egyptian campaign, but was sent back to France early in the campaign to present to the Directory the flags captured at Malta and Alexandria. On 24 March 1803 he was promoted to the rank of général de brigade.

  Louis had little taste and less interest in military operations and did not participate in any military operations after his promotion. On 24 May 1806 Napoleon made him King of Holland. Louis took his duties as King of the Dutch people seriously and fought for their best interests. When Napoleon implemented the Continental System, it brought great suffering on the Dutch people, who depended heavily upon trade. His turning of a blind eye to their smuggling of goods into and out of Britain brought the wrath of Napoleon down upon Louis and he was stripped of his throne, abdicated formally on 1 July 1810 and sent to replace his brother-in-law, Murat, as Grand Duke of Clèves-Berg.

  He separated shortly after from his wife, Hortense de Beauharnais, daughter of Empress Joséphine by the Revolutionary General Alexandre-Françoise-Marie de Beauharnais.

  BONAPARTE, NAPOLEON I, EMPEROR OF FRANCE (1769–1821). Napoleon was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, on 15 August 1769. He died on St. Helena on 5 May 1821. His first schooling was in Corsica. On 1 January 1779 he entered the Collège d’Autun. On 23 January 1779 he was nominated to the military academy of Brienne-le-Château. On 22 October 1784 Napoleon was named a cadet gentilhomme at the Paris Military Academy. On 30 October 1784 he left Brienne and joined the 2nd Artillery Regiment La Fère in Valence as a lieutenant en second on 1 September 1785. In 1786 Napoleon took an extended leave because of his health and returned to France on 12 September 1787. Early in the French Revolution he had little involvement with politics, but when war erupted he became adjutant-major in the battalion of Volunteer National Guards of Ajaccio. Napoleon became a 2nd lieutenant colonel of the 2nd Corsican Volunteer Battalion on 1 April 1792 and arrived in Paris on 28 May, where he was made a second captain in the 4th Artillery Regiment. Napoleon was quickly sent to Toulon, returned to Ajaccio and resumed command of his battalion. In 1793 Napoleon participated in the expedition against the Island of Madeleine under Colonel Colonna-Cesari, where he commanded the artillery. By July 1793 Napoleon had returned to France and commanded a company of bombardiers at Nice. In the operations before Toulon, he replaced the artillery commander and was responsible for the artillery fire that drove the Allies from the city. Rumors that he turned his artillery on the French citizenry of the city are purely British propaganda. On 22 December 1793 Napoleon was quickly elevated to the provisional rank of général de brigade and confirmed in that grade on 6 February 1794.

  Napoleon was an idealist and became involved with the Jacobin Club, soon becoming an ardent supporter of Robespierre. When Robespierre fell from power Napoleon was imprisoned on 9 August 1794 as an accomplice at Fort Carré at Antibes. Nineteen days later he was restored to his duties. On 13 June 1795 Napoleon was nominated as général de brigade of infantry in the Army of the West, but refused the appointment, an act for which he was stripped of his rank on 15 September 1795. Napoleon came to the attention of Barras, who appointed him to second in command of the Army of the Interior on 4 October, where he defeated the royalist insurgents on 13 vendémiaire Year IV (4 October 1795). For this Napoleon was appointed and confirmed as général de division. In 1796 Napoleon married Joséphine de Beauharnais, a widow and former mistress of Barras. On 2 March 1796 he was appointed commander of the Army of Italy in the place of Schérer and launched his historic campaign against the Austrians that ended in his dictating to them the terms of peace under the Treaty of Campo Formio (17 October 1797).

  On 8 May 1798 Napoleon took command of the Army of Egypt and launched his famous Egyptian campaign. The Mamelukes were quickly defeated and Egypt conquered, but his efforts to expand into Palestine were stopped before the walls of Acre. Napoleon passed command of the army to Kléber on 22 August 1799 and returned to France, arriving on 16 October.

  On 18 brumaire VIII (9 November 1799) Napoleon overthrew the Directory in a coup d’état. In 1800 Napoleon fought the battle of Marengo, which established him as First Consul in the French government and would eventually result in the end of the Second Coalition. Though he established universal male suffrage, Napoleon ruled France absolutely. In 1802 Napoleon became Consul for Life and in 1804 he was made Emperor of France. This act ended the peace forged at Amiens and by December 1805 he had decisively crushed the Austrians and Russians at the battle of Austerlitz. War would continue through the spring of 1807, by which time Napoleon had destroyed the vaunted Prussian army at the battles of Jena-Auerstädt and the Russians at Friedland. The war with Austria, Prussia and Russia ended with the signing of the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807.

  Britain remained obstinate in its war with France and since Napoleon was unable to bring his army against theirs as long as they hid behind their navy, he embarked on an economic war against Britain by means of the Continental System. To do this Napoleon obliged the Prussians, Russians and Austrians to join him in blockading his ports to all British trade.

  With a tenuous peace restored to continental Europe Napoleon turned to Spain and through trickery obliged Carlos IV and his son, the future Fernando VII, to simultaneously abdicate the throne of Spain. Napoleon then appointed his brother Joseph to the then vacant Spanish throne. This trickery and the subsequent invasion of Spain by French armies would provoke a war in the Peninsula that would last until 1814. The purpose of this invasion was twofold: (1) close Spanish and Portuguese ports to British trade, and (2) get rid of the last Bourbon dynasty in Europe. Napoleon would lead his armies briefly in Spain in 1808, but soon returned to France and left the war to his lieutenants.

  In 1809 the Austrians launched an attack on the French in Bavaria and Napoleon responded with lighting speed, quickly driving the Austrians back and occupying their capital of Vienna. Napoleon was defeated in the battle of Aspern-Essling, but was victorious later at Wagram.

  In December 1809 Napoleon divorced Joséphine and in March 1810 he married Archduchess Marie-Louise, the daughter of the Austrian Emperor. His first legitimate son was born in 1811.

  In 1812, in order to bring Russia back into the Continental System, Napoleon invaded Russia. Though victorious in the battles, the Russian refusal to quit and the harsh winters destroyed Napoleon’s armies. As his armies approached Poland after a long and horrendous retreat, he left the army under the command of Murat and returned to Paris.

  Napoleon rapidly rebuilt his armies and launched the 1813 campaign, which was largely fought in Germany. After being victorious at the battles of Lützen and Bautzen, Napoleon agreed to an armistice with the Allies, now consisting of Russia and Prussia. On 15 August 1813 the war resumed with Austria joining the Allies. Operating from a central position in Saxony he chased the allied armies that refused to come to battle with him. Eventually the Allies encircled him and simultaneously engaged him in the battle of Leipzig (16–19 October 1813) where Napoleon was decisively defeated.

  Napoleon led his shattered army back to France and once again began rebuilding it. The 1814 campaign was marked by a brilliance that had abandoned Napoleon in his 1813 campaign. Napoleon won overwhelming victories at Champaubert, Château-Thierry, Montmirail, Vauchamps, and Montereau, almost gained another at Craonne, and came close to disaster at La Rothière, Laon and Bar-sur-Aube. After the defeat of the French armies defending Paris, Napoleon was forced to abdicate when his marshals mutinied. Napoleon abdicated and was exiled to Elba, remaining there until March 1815. Napoleon returned to France beginning what would become known as the Hundred Days. The unpopular Bourbons quickly fled France and Nap
oleon resumed his throne. The Allies, however, were unwilling to accept this and mobilized. Napoleon was forced to mobilize and decided to take the offensive, moving into the Lowlands against the isolated British and Dutch-Belgian armies. On 18 June 1815 Napoleon was decisively beaten at the battle of Waterloo by the combined British, Dutch-Belgian and Prussian armies. The French army collapsed and Napoleon fled to Paris. Napoleon again abdicated on 22 June and left Paris for Rochefort, where he surrendered to Captain Sir Frederick Maitland, commanding officer of the British HMS Bellerophon. Napoleon was exiled to St. Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died on 5 May 1821. There is controversy over the cause of his death. It was long believed to have been of stomach cancer, but there have been numerous proponents of an assassination plot, some say by the Bourbons and others by a cuckolded husband. In 1840, at the request of Louis-Philippe, Napoleon was returned to Paris and buried in the chapel of the Invalides.

  Among Napoleon’s many accomplishments were the establishment of the Code Napoleon, which is the second great legal system of the world, the restructuring of the French administrative and judicial systems, the placement of education under national control and competitive examinations that determine admittance to universities. Napoleon established a civil service where promotions were based on examinations and qualifications, not marital or personal relationships. He also spread the metric system throughout Europe, replacing the metrological chaos that had preceded it.

  BONAPARTE, PAULINE (1780–1825). Napoleon’s second sister, Pauline, was born Marie-Paulette on 20 September 1780 in Ajaccio. She was a very beautiful woman and had numerous proposals of marriage. When Pauline was about to marry the infamous Fréron, the revolutionary procurer for Madame Guillotine, the pending ceremony was interrupted by a wife he had abandoned. This marriage vanished and in 1797 she married General Leclerc, whom she hated, but still bore one son. Pauline refused to accompany him on the expedition to Santo Domingo and had to be forcibly carried aboard the ship by order of her brother. Feeling no loss when her husband succumbed to one of the various tropical diseases of Santo Domingo, Pauline returned to Paris. Here she acquired a reputation for sexual impropriety that forced Napoleon to seek frantically to find her another husband. In 1803 she married Prince Camillo de Borghese, a Roman nobleman, and was established with a principality in Italy. Pauline’s behavior, however, was not subdued by matrimonial vows and her husband soon shunned her society.

  When Napoleon caught Pauline mocking Marie-Louise, his new wife, in a mirror, Napoleon banished her to Italy. However, the affection between the two was very strong and when Napoleon’s fortunes were at their lowest in 1814 and 1815 she stood by him, offering him jewels and other possessions to support him. After Napoleon’s exile to St. Helena, Pauline moved to Rome and lived in one wing of her husband’s palace, yet away from his company. She died in Florence of stomach cancer. Pauline was a beautiful woman and her beauty was captured forever in the seminude sculpture of her by Antonio Canova (1757–1822). The sculpture currently resides in the Villa Borghese museum in Rome.

  BORODINO, BATTLE OF. Fought between 5 and 7 September 1812. Napoleon, at the head of a greatly reduced Grande Armée, some 130,000 men found 120,800 Russians under Kutusov in prepared positions awaiting their advance. Napoleon, fearing that the Russians would withdraw if he attempted to maneuver around their position to strike their flanks or rear, chose to execute what would become a bloody frontal assault. The key position, the Great Redoubt, withstood hours of attack until overridden by a force of French and Polish cuirassiers, under the command of August Caulaincourt. A scare went through the French army when a great turning movement by Cossacks and Russian light cavalry attempted to turn their left flank. The attack, however, fizzled out, causing no significant impact. The battle was little more than a shoving match and when the time came for the decisive assault, Napoleon refused to launch his Guard in the coup de grace. As a result, the savaged Russian army was allowed to withdraw. Various sources put the Russian losses at Borodino at between 38,500 and 44,000, but the official records show 43,924 dead, wounded and missing. Among the Russian losses were 23 generals. The French lost 6,600 killed and 21,400 wounded, including 47 generals.

  BOULAY DE LA MEURTHE, ANTOINE JACQUES CLAUDE JOSEPH, COMTE (1761–1840). Antoine Boulay was born in Chaumousey, France, on 19 February 1761, the son of an agricultural laborer. He was educated and called to the bar in Nancy in 1783. From there Boulay went to Paris where he acquired a reputation as a lawyer. Boulay served in the Revolutionary army at Valmy and Wissembourg, but during the Terror, because of his moderate beliefs, he went into hiding. After the Terror he represented La Meurthe in the Council of Five Hundred and twice served as one of its presidents.

  Boulay actively plotted the overthrow of the Directory in November 1799 and was rewarded with the presidency of the legislative commission formed by Napoleon to draw up the new constitution. As president of the legislative section of the Council of State, he revised the draft of the civil code. As director of a special land commission, he settled the titles of land acquired by the French nation during the Revolution and placed the rights to them by the new proprietors on an unassailable basis.

  After Waterloo Boulay struggled to obtain the rights of the Duke of Reichstadt to the Imperial Crown of France, but failed. In 1815 Boulay was proscribed by the Bourbons and spent four years in exile. He returned to France in 1819, but took no further part in French politics. Boulay died on 4 February 1840.

  Boulay‘s oldest son, Comte Henri Georges Boulay de la Meurthe (1797–1858) was an ardent Bonapartist and after the election of Louis Napoleon to the presidency, was named in January 1849 to be vice president of the Second Republic.

  BOURMONT, LOUIS AUGUSTE VICTOR, COMTE GHAISNES DE (1773–1846). Bourmont was born in 1773. He entered the Gardes françaises shortly before the Revolution. Being a member of the nobility, Bourmont emigrated in 1789 and served in the royalist Army of the Condé. Bourmont was exempted from the amnesty of April 1796 and fled to Switzerland, where, under Louis XVIII, he was promoted to the rank of maréchal de camp (major general). Bourmont was permitted to return to France by the first consul, but would eventually be imprisoned. Escaping to Portugal, when the French invaded he offered his services to Junot, who accepted him as chief of staff of a division.

  Bourmont returned to France under the Convention of Cintra but was promptly arrested, then released upon Junot’s insistence. Bourmont would serve throughout the rest of the Napoleonic Wars, and under the First Restoration, was accepted into service by the Bourbons. During the Hundred Days Bourmont rejoined Napoleon, only to desert the first day of the Waterloo campaign. After Waterloo Bourmont acted as accuser of Marshal Ney.

  In 1816 Bourmont was given command of a division of the Royal Guard. In 1823 Bourmont participated in the invasion of Spain and commanded the whole army for a period in 1824, became minister of war in 1829, and in 1830 was placed in command of the invasion of Algeria. The 1830 revolution ended his career when Bourmont refused to take the oath to Louis-Philippe. In 1832 he took part in the uprising of the Duchess de Berry and, when it failed, he withdrew to Portugal. In 1840 he accepted an amnesty and returned to France. Bourmont died at the Château de Bourmont on 27 October 1846.

  BOURRIENNE, LOUIS ANTOINE FAUVELET DE (1769–1834). Bourrienne was born in Sens on 9 July 1769. He died in Caen on 7 February 1834. Bourrienne was educated at Brienne, where he became a friend of Napoleon. After Brienne he pursued legal and diplomatic studies at Leipzig and Vienna. Bourrienne returned to Paris in 1792. Bourrienne was given a diplomatic assignment to Stuttgart, returning in 1794 to find his name on the list of political émigrés. It would eventually be removed under Napoleon’s influence. Bourrienne was employed by Napoleon in the negotiations of the Treaty of Campo Formio, signed 17 October 1797. Bourrienne accompanied Napoleon to Egypt as his private secretary. In 1802 he incurred Napoleon’s displeasure as a result of questionable financial dealings, but in 1805 he was once again serving Napo
leon as the French envoy to Hamburg. There Bourrienne was charged with enforcing terms of the Continental System against England. However, he was corrupt and took advantage of this to line his pockets handsomely by turning a blind eye to actions of the various rich merchants. Bourrienne was recalled in disgrace to France in 1813 and in 1814 he embraced the Bourbons. Bourrienne’s legacy was not his career, but his written Mémoires.

  BOYER, JEAN-PIERRE (1776–1850). Boyer was born in Port-au-Prince on 28 February 1776. Despite being a mulatto, he went to France and received an education. In 1792 Boyer entered the Haitian army and commanded a battalion during the British invasion from 1794–98. Toussaint Louverture forced him to flee to France, but he returned to Haiti in 1802 as part of Leclerc’s expedition. When the French attempted to reestablish slavery, Boyer joined the Haitians and was instrumental in expelling the French from Haiti. When the black government of Dessalines proved indescribably corrupt and cruel, he joined Pétion and Christophe to overthrow the Dessalines government in 1806. Christophe established himself as king of most of Haiti, while Pétion, with Boyer’s support, founded a republic in a small portion of southern Haiti. Pétion died in 1818 and Boyer took his place as president. In 1820, when Christophe died, Boyer reunited all of Haiti, and in 1822, when the Spaniards were weak, Boyer occupied the rest of the island of Santo-Domingo. Boyer emancipated all the slaves and initially established a reasonably benevolent government. Arbitrary rule, corruption and loans from France, however, soon resulted in revolution and he was forced to flee to Jamaica, then on to Paris, where he died on 9 July 1850.

  BRESLAU, TREATY OF. Signed on 29 March 1813 by Prussia and Russia, it was the formal military alliance between the two states against France.