How the French Won Waterloo - or Think They Did

by Stephen Clarke

  One question remains about the deceased Napoleon Bonaparte’s return to France in 1840: why do the French refer to the repatriation of his partially decomposed body as le retour des cendres? After all, he was not cremated.

  The Larousse French dictionary defines cendres as ‘incombustible elements of a thing, which, after its combustion, remain in a powdery state’, and as ‘volcanic fragments of less than two millimetres projected by an eruption’. Neither of these definitions seems to fit.

  Perhaps ‘the return of the ashes’ is just more elegant than ‘the return of the body’, which sounds coldly medical, or ‘the return of the remains’, which evokes putrefaction. But more than this, it seems to be about the difference between the physical Napoleon and his immortal, heroic spririt. Ashes are light, and as close as a body can get to abstraction (short of being blown to smithereens by one of Napoleon’s cannons). Ashes are the essence of a dead person, almost like a powdered soul – and they will never decompose, thereby allowing everyone to remember the deceased in all the vigour of his or her youth.

  In this way, the decision by Bonapartists to refer to cendres is understandable, even if there were in fact no ashes. These are people who have what one might define as ‘definition issues’. After all, they are the ones who define Waterloo as a ‘defeat won by the British’. And their passion for redefining Napoleon has been growing ever since the so-called cendres were enshrined in what is still today the biggest and most-visited tomb in Paris.

  * * *

  fn1 In fact, Napoleon had thought of calling himself Duroc well before it became an appropriate pun, and used the pseudonym for his escape from Paris to Rochefort at the end of June 1815. It was the name of one of his most faithful generals, Michel Duroc, who had been with him since the siege of Toulon in 1793, who fought at the battles of Austerlitz and Wagram, and who was killed in Germany in 1813.

  fn2 In a peach of a sentence, Napoleon declares that a woman ‘is the property of a man as a fruit tree is the property of a gardener’.

  fn3 Napoleon used the word faits, which also means ‘actions’.

  fn4 Translated, this borders on the comic: ‘Our Emperor who art in Saint Helena / Respected be thy name / Thy reign return / Thy will be done / Against the extremists who take away our pensions / Rid us of the accursed Bourbons / Amen.’

  fn5 As a veteran of the Battle of Valmy, Louis-Philippe’s own name was inscribed in the roll of honour.

  fn6 For a full account of Louis-Philippe’s farcical dash for safety, see my book 1000 Years of Annoying the French.

  fn7 Napoléon II was Napoleon’s young son, whom he named as his successor in 1815, but who was never crowned.

  7

  CONSTRUCTING THE IDOL

  ‘Tous voulaient lui parler, le toucher, l’entendre, au moins le voir.’

  ‘Everyone wanted to talk to him, touch him, hear him, or at least see him.’

  – nineteenth-century French historian Georges Barral, describing how the Belgians welcomed Napoleon in June 1815

  I

  MODERN BONAPARTISTS HAVE no intention of letting their idolatry of Napoleon fade away. Every year the Fondation Napoléon offers six grants of 7,500 euros to post-graduate students writing a thesis on Napoleon. The Fondation Napoléon is an organisation whose mission statement is to ‘support the work of historians, to study Napoleonic history and inform the general public about it, and to help preserve and highlight Napoleonic heritage’, so it is a pretty sure bet that subjects like ‘Damage caused to the French economy by Napoleon’s use of his conscripts as cannon fodder’ or ‘Trying to trace the lost artistic treasures looted by Napoleon’s soldiers throughout his empire’ probably won’t receive a grant. And 7,500 euros may not sound very much, but French universities charge almost no tuition fees, so the grant represents about a year’s rent for a student – a useful sum that also ensures the continued survival of Napoleon’s glory.

  Not that the foundation has much to worry about. There have always been plenty of volunteers willing to step forward and fire barrages of Bonapartist propaganda at a sceptical world.

  Early anti-Napoleonic historians like Jean-Baptiste-Adolphe Charras failed to puncture the idolatry. Charras wrote in 1857 that the image of the betrayed, misunderstood hero was ‘invented by the prisoner of Saint Helena, this Napoleon who spontaneously and sincerely converted to liberal ideas … who faithfully practised constitutional government … who only fell because of the accumulated errors of his lieutenants’.

  One of the prime concerns of Bonapartist historians, starting with veterans of the Napoleonic army, has therefore been to document the most minor details of his life, and paint a portrait of the man behind the tough military façade. They have been spectacularly successful in documenting the countless gestures that point to Napoleon’s profound, almost divine, goodness and love for humanity. In doing so, they are only obeying the Emperor’s call to arms dictated to Las Cases on 1 May 1816: ‘I have inspired every form of praise … pushed back the limits of glory! … Is there any attack against me that a historian could not rebuff?’

  A prime example of the historians who have responded to the Emperor’s call is Henry Houssaye, who in 1904 published a book called Napoléon homme de guerre. It paints a picture of a hero idolised by his men in a way no other general could aspire to. ‘If Napoleon demanded a lot of his men, he preached by example,’ Houssaye says. ‘Whatever the weather, he never postponed a review of the troops. But the soldiers patiently endured rain heavy enough to fill rifle barrels with water because they saw their Emperor sitting motionless on his horse, without a coat, the rain flowing down his thighs.’ An erotically charged piece of historical writing from a die-hard fan.

  Houssaye tells many stories of Napoleon’s human touch. Once, we learn, he went over to a group of soldiers who were drinking water out of a bucket. When all of them had drunk, he took the cup that they had used, and drank from it. An emperor drinking from the same cup as mere footsoldiers? It was like Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, n’est-ce pas?

  On another occasion, Houssaye tells us, Napoleon ordered a surgeon to continue operating on ordinary soldiers rather than go and save a wounded general: ‘Your duty is to all men, not to one.’ Houssaye admits that Napoleon might have been overdoing his democratic act for an audience, but adds that ‘even so, he was an actor with the whole of Europe for a theatre, twenty nations as his audience, half a million soldiers to applaud him and, to protect his memory, the long succession of centuries’.

  Other historians underline the fierce devotion Napoleon inspired in his men because of his obvious love for them. A much-recounted anecdote is the story of how, at 2.30 p.m. on 15 June 1815,fn1 after his dash to Belgium, Napoleon arrived at Charleroi dead tired, and fell asleep on a chair in the courtyard of a farm. Marching past, some of his soldiers saw the Emperor and applauded even the act of sleeping. Some part of Napoleon’s sleeping brain seemed to notice that the soldiers were slowing down their advance to look at him and, without opening his eyes, he waved them on. The historian Jean-Claude Damamme sees this as proof that the Emperor’s brain never rested, that he was totally focused on defending France, though a more cynical observer might suggest that Napoleon had simply been trying to wave away the noisy rabble that was disturbing his Corsican siesta.

  In historical accounts presenting Napoleon as a tragic hero, the observations naturally get more acute the closer he gets to Waterloo. As he rode among his men on the morning of 18 June 1815, infantrymen hoisted their tall fur hats on their bayonets, cavalrymen lifted their helmets on the tips of their swords, and they all shouted ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ (not, we are meant to notice, ‘Vive la France!’).

  When Napoleon inspected troops on his white mare Marie,fn2 an officer noted that ‘never has “Vive l’Empereur!” been shouted with more enthusiasm. It was like madness.’

  By contrast, French historians like to stress that Wellington’s men were merely silent and respectful. ‘He was their general,’ Jean
-Claude Damamme tells us, ‘not their idol.’ Not only this, Napoleon was such a good guy that British soldiers who came into contact with him, or even saw him, fell under his spell. In Chapter 5 we saw the effect of Napoleon’s charisma on the sailors aboard the Bellerophon. They were of course reacting to the star quality of the famous general, but French historians tell many stories of Napoleon’s kindness towards his enemies.

  On one occasion, for example, some British prisoners of war were made to rebuild a broken bridge over the River Meuse so that Napoleon could cross without getting his boots wet. To show his gratitude, Napoleon offered them all a sniff from his personal snuffbox, and then had them freed.

  Another time, Napoleon, ensconced in his army camp at Boulogne, vainly hoping that he would be able to cross the Channel and invade England, heard that someone else had almost beaten him to it. A young English sailor, who had escaped from capitivity in France, had been hiding in the woods near Boulogne. Almost starved to death and completely naked, he had been caught trying to set off for England in a makeshift raft. Napoleon asked to see the lad, and was touched by his plea that he wanted to go home and see his sick mother. Even if it was a made-up sob story, Napoleon ordered his men to give the sailor clothes and money, and send him back to England.

  Napoleon even extended his clemency to the hated Prussians. After the Battle of Ligny on 16 June 1815, at which 12,000 French and 20,000 Prussians fell, dead or wounded, he came across a group of Prussian casualties who were not being cared for. He immediately gave orders for them to be issued with brandy. How many wounded men this sudden dose of alcohol killed has not been recorded, but Napoleon was presumably working on the basis that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. In any case, a story about kindness to Prussians, when everyone knew of their murderous cruelty to French casualties after Waterloo and their call for Napoleon to be executed, only makes him seem more Christ-like. It was a case of turning the other cheek and waiting for a Prussian sword to slash it.

  There are countless tales of Napoleon’s excellent relations with the Belgians in June 1815, a fully reciprocated love that Bonapartist historians cite in order to give legitimacy to his campaign, the aim of which was not only to defend his own regime but to liberate Belgium from foreign (as opposed to French) occupation. Not that the Belgians had much choice. As Napoleon once told a French farmer, ‘Les Belges sont des Français’ (‘Belgians are French’).

  As he crossed the country in his carriage, en route for Ligny and Waterloo, we are often told that Napoleon was hailed by Belgian civilians. The nineteenth-century French historian Georges Barral says that ‘everyone wanted to talk to him, touch him, hear him, or at least see him’. Father-like, Napoleon responded kindly: ‘Thank you, my children, thank you, but keep out of the way because today or tomorrow there will be a great battle here.’ Barral concludes the scene by telling us that ‘they scattered his route with flowers, among them many red poppies that looked like splashes of blood’. (Bonapartist writers are very fond of these poetic, prophetic touches that add to the legend of the tragic hero.)

  Wherever he went in Belgium, despite the colossal weight of worry on his shoulders, Napoleon stopped to chat, producing banalities that are quoted in memoirs as though they were pearls of wisdom distributed by a visiting god. In a small village near Charleroi, he asked a priest, ‘Monsieur l’Abbé, do you plan to end your days here in Jamioulx?’ The old clergyman replied, ‘Yes, Sire, life is very pleasant here.’ A touching exchange just before a monstrous battle, perhaps, but surely no more meaningful than the Queen asking, ‘Did you bake these cakes yourself?’

  After the battle, the Belgians repaid this debt to their French godfather by harbouring wounded Napoleonic soldiers and giving them civilian clothes. They did this at considerable risk to their own personal safety. As Pierre Alexandre Fleury de Chaboulon, who was Napoleon’s private secretary until Waterloo, wrote in his memoirs, ‘defying the anger of the ferocious Prussians, they [the Belgians] came out of their homes to point out escape routes and direct us through the enemy columns’.

  And all this for love of Napoleon …

  II

  Napoleon once said admiringly of himself, ‘What a novel my life has been.’ It might have been a touch more arrogant, but much truer, if he had said, ‘What a lot of novels my life will be. And quite a few poems too.’ Because it is not only Bonapartist historians and anonymous Belgians who have ensured Napoleon’s enduring image as a hero. Both during his lifetime and since his death, Napoleon has attracted the attention of some very big-name literary admirers.

  First among them are, naturally, the French.

  Stendhal, author of the classic romantic novel Le Rouge et le Noir, published in 1830, was a huge fan. As a young man he was an officer in Napoleon’s army (albeit more of an organiser than a combatant), and even took part in the disastrous Russian campaign. Nevertheless, he emerged from the ice and snow as a Bonapartist, and when Napoleon’s empire came to an end, he emigrated from France rather than stay on in a country that had scorned its greatest hero.

  Stendhal wrote two essays about Napoleon’s life, giving space to the errors as well as the achievements: he thought, for example, that the pompous coronation ceremony in 1804 was ‘absurd’, and that Napoleon’s attitude to politics was ‘despotic’, but that overall, Bonaparte was ‘one of the greatest men since Caesar, and in my opinion he surpassed him’. This was from a man who caught syphilis while on service in Italy, and who only just managed to cross the frozen River Berezina with his life – proving once again that those who served with Napoleon were willing to forgive him anything, apparently out of gratitude for letting them come along for the ride.

  Stendhal paid Napoleon the ultimate literary tribute. In Le Rouge et le Noir, Stendhal makes his main character, Julien Sorel, one of the great romantic heroes of French literature, a Napoleon fan. The narrator tells us that ‘Julien hardly spent an hour of his life without thinking that Bonaparte, a poor young lieutenant, had made himself master of the world with his sword alone.’ Julien seems to forget the hundreds of thousands of men who gave their lives during the Emperor’s battles, but then romantic heroes – like Bonapartists – rarely have a detached view of the facts.

  Someone who was more aware of the human cost of the Napoleonic saga, but no less of an admirer, was Honoré de Balzac, one of the most prolific novelists ever. The ninety-three books of his Comédie Humaine cycle, begun in 1829, chronicle the whole of early nineteenth-century France, starting just after Waterloo.

  There are veterans of the Grande Armée in several of Balzac’s novels, and Napoleon makes two personal appearances, in La Vendetta (a Romeo and Juliet-like tragedy about warring Corsican families) and Une Ténébreuse Affaire (‘A Dark Affair’), a crime story about a royalist anti-Napoleon plot. In the latter book, a woman goes to Jena in Germany, where Napoleon is preparing for battle, and begs the Emperor to spare the plotters’ lives, insisting that they are innocent. Balzac gives Napoleon a wonderful line in reply – he points to his soldiers and says, ‘They are certainly innocent, but tomorrow, 30,000 will be dead.’

  It was a highly credible quip that highlights Balzac’s only reservation about Napoleon – the endless bloodshed. In everything else, Balzac aspired to be a Napoleonic figure. He had a statue of l’Empereur in his study, inscribed with the motto ‘What he achieved with the sword, I will accomplish with the pen’.fn3 Balzac seriously saw himself as a literary Napoleon, comparing the all-embracing scale of his writing with the Emperor’s more physical endeavours. He wrote that ‘Ideas set off like the battalions of the Grande Armée … Memories charge forward, their standards deployed; the light cavalry of similes breaks into a magnificent gallop; the artillery of logic moves up with its weapons and powder charges; attacks of wit advance as skirmishers … The paper is covered with ink as the conflict begins and ends with torrents of black liquid, just like a battle with its black gunpowder. Every day is a Battle of Austerlitz of creation.’

  Despite th
e playful exaggeration, Balzac almost certainly meant his army of metaphors to be taken seriously. After all, he was a French novelist.

  However, as we have already seen, the greatest of Napoleon’s French literary fans, and the one with the keenest sense of Napoleon’s place at the heart of history, was also arguably the grandest figure in nineteenth-century French literature – Victor Hugo. The son of a Napoleonic general, Joseph Léopold Sigisbert Hugo, and a royalist mother, young Victor’s parents separated because of their political differences. He went to live with his mother, and his first poems were pro-royalist. In one of them, published in 1822, he went so far as to describe Napoleon as a ‘living plague’. Napoleon had in fact just died, but it was clearly a case of poetic licence.

  Hugo’s mother also died around the same time as the Emperor she hated, and as Hugo grew closer to his father, he began to express pride at being the son of a Napoleonic veteran. In 1823 he published a poem in honour of the Arc de Triomphe, the monument to Napoleon’s victories, when Louis XVIII was thinking of having the arch completed. It lists the Emperor’s glories, and ends with a strange (but no doubt well-meaning) line that seems to hint at Napoleon’s diminutive height: ‘May the giant of our glory be able to pass through without bending down.’

  A few years later in 1829, in a poem called ‘Lui’ (‘Him’), Hugo summed up Napoleon’s role in history: ‘You dominate our age, no matter if it is as angel or demon.’ And he went on to publish several more poems that were almost entirely positive about Napoleon and his empire. In 1840, when Napoleon’s remains finally arrived back in France, Hugo even wrote an elegy in which he referred to Waterloo as ‘the falsehood of a victory’.

  This admiration led Hugo to be one of the foremost campaigners in favour of a return to power for the Bonaparte family in 1848. But when Louis-Napoléon, nephew of the first Napoleon, failed to deliver the democracy he had promised, and then declared himself Emperor Napoléon III, Hugo began making speeches comparing the sadly departed ‘Napoléon le Grand’ with the new upstart ‘Napoléon le Petit’ (yet another unfortunate height reference), and in 1851 he was forced into exile in the Channel Islands.