by Alan Schom
Napoleon Bonaparte
Alan Schom
Copyright © Alan Schom 1997
The right of Alan Schom to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
First published in the United Kingdom in 1997 by HarperCollins.
This edition published in 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
To the memory of Stefan Zweig (1881-1942), who cherished and worked for a vision of Europe far different from that of Napoleon,
And to Emile Zola (1840-1902), who gave his life to the struggle for historical truth.
*
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time were masters of their fates.
Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
*
‘I may truly say, my soul hath been a stranger in the course of my [life’s] pilgrimage.’
Francis Bacon
*
‘Napoleon’s empire, with all its faults, and all its glories, fell and flushed away like snow at Easter till nothing remained but His Majesty’s ship Bellerophon which awaited its suppliant refugees.’
Sir Winston Churchill
Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter One – “A Dangerous Islander”
Chapter Two – “To Destiny”
Chapter Three – “A New Alexander the Great”
Chapter Four – Crossroads
Chapter Five – The Decision
Chapter Six – The Armada
Chapter Seven – Land of the Pharaohs
Chapter Eight – Deep Water
Chapter Nine – In the Shadow of Defeat
Chapter Ten – Tivoli and Beyond
Chapter Eleven – Road to Damascus
Chapter Twelve – Prelude to a Coup
Chapter Thirteen – 18-19 Brumaire
Chapter Fourteen – The Consulate
Chapter Fifteen – The Foreign Minister
Chapter Sixteen – Fouché’s Police
Chapter Seventeen – Fouché the Man
Chapter Eighteen – The Christmas Eve Plot and Others
Chapter Nineteen – “The Revolution Is Over”
Chapter Twenty – War Once Again
Chapter Twenty-One – The Coronation
Chapter Twenty-Two – “A Humiliating Business”
Chapter Twenty-Three – Intermezzo à la Bonaparte
Chapter Twenty-Four – It All Began with Austerlitz
Chapter Twenty-Five – The Marches of Empire
Chapter Twenty-Six – Point of No Return
Chapter Twenty-Seven – Iberia
Chapter Twenty-Eight – Another Grave Error
Chapter Twenty-Nine – Another Danube Campaign
Chapter Thirty – Wagram
Chapter Thirty-One – The Last Rose of Summer
Chapter Thirty-Two – Chimes and Alarm Bells
Chapter Thirty-Three – Russia
Chapter Thirty-Four – Malet’s Malaise
Chapter Thirty-Five – Death March
Chapter Thirty-Six – The Saxon Campaign
Chapter Thirty-Seven – Leipzig
Chapter Thirty-Eight – “The Cossacks Are Coming!”
Chapter Thirty-Nine – “Projects of Troubles and Upsettings”
Chapter Forty – “To Conquer or Perish”
Chapter Forty-One – Final Casualties
Epilogue
Appendix One – Napoleon’s Marshals
Appendix Two – Medical Notes
Bibliography
Preface
“A few weeks before our arrival [at Borodino in September, 1991], a peasant with a horse-drawn plow snagged two corpses just under the surface. One of them was a general, the other an infantryman,” Baron de Méneval wrote me on February 26, 1996. The corpses were facing the former Russian position. The general was either Compère or Marion, both of whom were killed during that battle. The infantryman’s skeletal hands were still grasping the rusting remains of his musket and bayonet. The guide at the Borodino Museum informed the baron that over the past few decades they had uncovered several dozen such human remains dating back to September 7, 1812. When visiting Eylau in September 1993, my friend the baron came across another newly discovered corpse — all of which reminds us just how close we are to the historical events of the past. We may sometimes try to forget history, but it does not forget us.
History has always fascinated me, but not the lifeless presentation of events of former times reduced to the dates of the reigns of kings and of battles and treaties — all but devoid of human association, of the men and women who actually created those events, and of the entire circumstances surrounding them. To correct such a myopic view and presentation one must introduce a sense of reality and understanding — in this case, the full life of Napoleon Bonaparte, whom the reader must see as a human being set in his own times. One must include his personal values, family, friends, associates, problems, character, and goals.
When I began my research a decade ago, I was astonished to find there was no one-volume biography covering all aspects of his life. I also found that most existing books tended to concentrate on “pieces” of his life — his military campaigns, or his foreign policy, or his administrative and political reforms — thereby revealing only part of the man. Over the last 150 years there have been thousands of these studies, most of them now out of print. There have also been thousands of articles about Napoleon and his empire. Needless to say, deciding to set aside several years of my life to undertake such an enormous task as a one-volume biography of an individual about whom there was such a massive amount of primary and secondary research and source material was a decision I did not take lightly.
I began working on Napoleon in the summer of 1987, coming at him at first indirectly, so to speak, with research for my book on his attempt to invade England, concluding with Trafalgar, the great naval defeat of the French and Spanish fleets by Nelson’s powerful squadron, which Napoleon only heard about, to his dismay, during the Austerlitz campaign. This was followed by my book on Napoleon’s Hundred Days, which covers the period of his escape from exile on the island of Elba in the Mediterranean, his arrival on the south coast of France for a triumphal return to Paris, his raising of a new army to fight the large allied forces congregating against him, and his final battle and defeat at Waterloo.
It was after the completion of One Hundred Days that I decided, somewhat reluctantly, to commit myself to covering all of Napoleon’s life from beginning to end, not just parts of it. I felt — and still do — that Napoleon badly needed to be dealt with fully and properly in one volume covering every aspect of his life and character, employing all the new research and archival documents.
This undertaking required visits to libraries and other archival sources on the Continent, in England, and in the United States, including the Bibliothèque Nationale, the Quai d’Orsay, and the Naval Museum in the Trocadero in Paris; the French Army and Navy Archives in Vincennes; the Musée Masséna in Nice; dozens of châteaux, including Talleyrand’s Valencay, Malmaison, Fontainebleau, Pont de Briques in Boulogne, and Hougemont; public buildings, including in Paris the Conciergerie, the Naval Ministry, the Invalides, the Ecole Militaire, the National Assembly, and the Senate. In Britain I visited Oxford’s Bodleian Library, the British Library, and various naval museums. In the United States I worked in the Main Library of the University of California, Berkeley, Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library, and Dartmouth’s Baker Library.
I also at
tempted to retrace Napoleon’s steps through Egypt, Italy, Spain, throughout the whole of France, including its major ports on both coasts, through the Rhineland and up to Copenhagen, east by train to Berlin and Potsdam, across Bohemia to Vienna and Salzburg, along the Danube to Regensburg and Ulm, thence to Switzerland, and finally to Waterloo in Belgium. It has been a long, arduous, but fascinating odyssey requiring almost every minute of every day.
Being neutral about Napoleon has never been easy for Europeans. To the French he is almost universally a national hero, his excesses overlooked and unmentioned. By most other Europeans, whose ancestors suffered terribly under his conquests, he is, understandably, hated. My view of him is based upon what I found in the course of my research. I have attempted to suppress nothing, and have tried to be as impartial as humanly possible. As an American, whose young country at the time, apart from some minor naval clashes, was neither an enemy nor an ally of Napoleon, I have been able to avoid, I hope, emotional or nationalistic commitment to any one side. Using all I could glean from the French documents and memoirs available, I have endeavored to deal with every aspect of his character and life, whether regarding his private family life; or in the State Council; before diplomatic receptions; or on the field of battle. I have re-examined his many military campaigns, his treatment of those countries and peoples he conquered, his relations with colleagues and subordinates, and his ideas, motives, and performance.
My goal is to provide a balanced insight into Napoleon and his actions. And I hope that my biography will inspire my younger colleagues to undertake the multivolume study this subject so richly deserves and requires.
I am indebted to many people and institutions for their help or advice over the years, although I should like to emphasize that I alone am responsible for the views expressed, and conclusions reached, in this book. I thank the following:
Librarians and archivists at the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the British Library, the Public Record Office, and Dr. Thomas Arkell, chairman of the Morrab Library, Penzance, for the use of many rare illustrations, and, in particular, Mrs. Gillian Green, who spent many hours selecting them; not to mention photographer W. J. Watton, the Hulton Deutsch Collection, for permission for some illustrations; Mr. Ian Robertson, director of the National Army Museum, London, and Miss Lucinda Brown, for permission to use this art gallery as the setting for the author photo; Dr. Lynn Orr and the associate curator of the San Francisco Fine Arts Museum, Dr. Marion C. Stewart; the curators of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, and the Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth, as well as the faculty and staff of the Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, for their unstinting contributions.
In the United States the main library of the University of California, Berkeley, and the Baker Library at Dartmouth, aided me most generously in making available numerous rare first editions. Most of the research and writing, however, were carried out in France, of course, where, in addition to dozens of small museums and châteaux, the scene of events or the property of individuals discussed in this biography, I am much obliged to M. Jacques Perot, conservateur en chef of the Musée de l’Armée, at the Invalides, and to M. Gerard-Jean Chaduc, conservator of the “1789-1871 Department” also at the Invalides, and to the conservateur des Estampes, Musée Carnavalet, Mr. Bernard Chevallier, director of the museum at Malmaison, who patiently answered many questions about that property, while his colleague at Fontainebleau further aided me. I am also grateful to the curators of the Musée Bonnat of Bayonne; the Musée Masséna in Nice; the Musée de la Marine, Paris; and of the Services Historiques of the Army and Navy at Vincennes. Once again the Bibliothèque Nationale and the splendid new Archives Nationales of Paris proved a godsend. M. Philippe Martial, directeur de la Bibliothèque et des Archives du Sénat was of invaluable help, as were Général de Division Bruno Chaix, French Army (Ret.); Col. J-L. Reynaud (Ret.), and Col. Lawrence S. Burr, OBE, RAOC, at SHAPE.
In the fields of science and medicine I was aided by Prof. Roger Hahn, University of California, Berkeley; and Drs. William Jago, F. Barham, and Bruce McCully. I am also indebted to my good friend, a former gunner and regimental commander, John Greenwood, for explanations of the technicalities of his art, not to mention the many books he made available to me from his personal library. Nor can I possibly omit Jeffery Burr, undoubtedly Britain’s premier lawyer, for his advice and for making private library facilities available to me. David Chandler, the finest Napoleonic military authority of this century, helped me time and again, as only a very good friend could possibly do. Dr. Piers Branden, director of the Churchill College archives, Cambridge, expedited valuable research in my behalf; and I am grateful to Dr. Thomas Anfalt of the University Library, University of Uppsala, Sweden, for his research into the Germaine de Stael papers. I should like to thank Count Alexandre Walewski and M. Jacques Jourquin for their help, and in particular Baron de Méneval, to whom I owe so much. I am grateful to the Prince and Princess Napoléon Murat for a delightful luncheon, Proctor Jones for his inimitable wit and many personal kindnesses, and Dr. Ben Weider for sharing with me the scientific evidence he has gathered concerning the poisoning of Napoleon. Special thanks are due to Byron Farwell for his encouragement. It would be most remiss on my part not to thank Françoise Coménie for her help and many kindnesses over the past several years, and without whose yeoman service, indeed, this book would never have been completed. Finally, I should like to express my special appreciation to my editor at HarperCollins, Buz Wyeth, for his wise counsel and inordinate understanding as the manuscript of this biography expanded far beyond the scope of the original project until it literally towered over his busy desk.
Alan Schom
Le Bois St.-Laumer
France
Chapter One – “A Dangerous Islander”
‘I was born even as my country was perishing.’
On December 17, 1778, thirty-two-year-old Carlo Maria (or Charles, as he now called himself) Buonaparte boarded a coastal vessel in the Corsican port of Ajaccio. At his side, Joseph, ten, his eldest son; Napoleone, or “Nabulio,” nine, the second surviving son; and Charles’s brother-in-law, Joseph Fesch, waved to their brothers, sisters, and friends. They had just left their weather-beaten four-story stone house in the Strada Malerba (Weedy Street), where Joseph and Nabulio had kissed their mother good-bye. They were bound for France, where Joseph would enter the Collège d’Autun, preparatory to a career in the church. Nabulio would continue on to the Royal Military School of Brienne-le-Château, where he would learn what to many Corsicans was still an elusive language, French, along with history, geography, mathematics, and the other courses required prior to entering the Ecole Militaire of Paris. The boys’ amiable and mild young Uncle Fesch, their mother’s half-brother, was off to the seminary at Aix-en-Provence to prepare for the priesthood. Such was the end of Napoleon’s brief childhood.
Rushed home from high mass in the cathedral of Ajaccio on August 15, 1769, Letizia Buonaparte had barely reached the house when she gave birth to Napoleon, in the sparsely furnished drawing room. She had timed it too closely, as she did everything. Letizia Ramolino, the daughter of a state inspector of roads and bridges, and the stepdaughter of her mother’s second husband, a banker named Fesch, was fourteen on June 2, 1764, when she married eighteen-year-old Carlo Maria di Buonaparte.
Originally from Lombardy, her family had gradually moved across much of Italy, including Florence and Naples, before setting out from Genoa for Corsica in the fifteenth century. Letizia was a slender, dark, not very tall girl who rarely smiled. Life was a serious, if not grim, affair for a female with no formal education, intended only to marry and bear children — as indeed she would — of whom eight ultimately survived. Her Corsican dialect of Italian was not flawless, and her grammar and writing were adequate at best; French was to remain a great mystery to her. As for books, she never read them in any language. But because France had purchased Corsica from the Genoese Republic on May 15, 1767 — though conquering the defiant Corsi
cans, led by Pasquale Paoli, only the following year — she was destined to hear a lot of French spoken, in spite of her own antipathy to it and its people. She had brought a dowry of approximately seven thousand livres (considered quite respectable at the time) and a little land. She was a hard woman, a survivor of the rigors of tumultuous Corsican history, and was to prove a severe mother, reflected by her house with few furnishings, not even a single rug in the two lower stories the family occupied. The Buonaparte residence was hardly a welcoming place, and her brood found little kindness there. Although she attended mass when required — her husband’s uncle, Lucien, was the archdeacon of Ajaccio — she was not “religious” by nature. She limited her world to her husband, who was rarely there; her children, who were always there; and the responsibilities involved in managing the family’s income and affairs.
Charles Buonaparte’s family had originally come from Florence to Ajaccio in 1520, where they were members of the small ruling “noble” (though titleless) class. Charles’s first, and last, eminent ancestor, one Guglielmo di Buonaparte, had, as a nobleman, been a member of the municipal council of Florence in the thirteenth century, then under the control of the Ghibellines. But with the return of the Guelphs, he and his entire family were forced to flee the Tuscan capital and retire to Sarzana in Liguria and San Miniato, where they grew more and more impoverished, finally forcing Francesco di Buonaparte to sail to Corsica in the sixteenth century for a fresh start.
Alas, the Buonaparti were not the best of businessmen, and although always educated, frequently serving in the law in one capacity or other, they left no fortunes behind. Indeed, when Charles had married Letizia in 1764, he was almost penniless. His law degree from Pisa enabled him to become “royal assessor” for the judicial region around Ajaccio. Though granted the title of equerry, his salary was only nine hundred francs a year.[1] But he had “expectations” — the ailing Uncle Lucien, a priest with no family, promised to leave the good-natured if rather chaotic Charles his entire estate. And thus they now had the large house in Ajaccio, where the portrait of the island’s French governor, Monsieur de Marbeuf, proudly hung in the otherwise dingy and unused drawing room.
