The troops of both sides fraternised, the French guards inviting their Russian counterparts to banquets in the open air. At a higher level, Murat teamed up with Alexander’s younger brother Constantine in orgies of drunkenness and debauchery. When Murat appeared in his ‘Polish’ dress, Napoleon told him to go home and change, saying he looked like a comedian. More decorously, parades were held and uniforms inspected and compared – on one occasion two battalions of French infantry displayed the new white uniforms with which Napoleon was thinking of replacing the blue, on account of the shortage of indigo dye following the loss of France’s West Indian colonies.30
Although Alexander did persuade him to meet the King of Prussia and to admit him to the festivities, Napoleon continued to treat him as an irrelevance. He even failed to show much interest in the beautiful Queen Luise when she came to plead the Prussian cause. He adopted a tone both flirtatious and mocking, promised to do something for Prussia and then broke his word, reducing her to tears. He had already prepared the text of a proclamation dethroning Frederick William, and only relented at the request of the tsar.31
The upshot was a treaty, signed on 7 July 1807, by which Russia lost nothing except its protectorate over the Ionian islands and gained in return a small piece of territory from Prussia, seemingly a miraculous outcome after having been roundly defeated. She also bound herself to withdraw from the Danubian principalities over which she was in conflict with the Turks, but was given licence to capture Finland from Sweden instead. Furthermore, Russia bound herself to bring Britain to the negotiating table by 1 November 1807, and if this proved impossible, to join France in alliance against her. In return, Russia endorsed all of Napoleon’s arrangements in Europe, which included the dramatic reduction of Prussia, whose Polish possessions were turned into a Grand Duchy of Warsaw, ruled over by the King of Saxony, and the creation of a kingdom of Westphalia, mostly out of former Prussian provinces, with Napoleon’s brother Jérôme as king.
The treaty effectively negated Russia’s designs on Constantinople, excluded her from influence in Germany, and left in the shape of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw a French outpost on her border and an embryonic Polish state that might one day recover, or at least subvert, many of Russia’s recent western conquests. The treaty humiliated Prussia, whose population was reduced from nearly ten million to less than five by the removal of its Polish conquests and provinces absorbed into the kingdom of Westphalia. It was obliged to join the war against Britain and pay a crippling indemnity to France – and to remain under French military occupation until that was settled. Furthermore, Denmark, Sweden and Portugal would be asked to close their ports to the British and recall their diplomats from London. If they refused, they were to be considered enemies of France and Russia.
Napoleon had got his way in everything, and there was now no state independent enough to act as proxy for Britain on the Continent. But by committing his allies to the trade war, he forced an unpopular and in some cases suicidal policy on them – and on himself the obligation to ensure that no port in any part of Europe remained beyond his control.
31
The Sun Emperor
On his return to Paris Napoleon was greeted with a sixty-gun salute. When, on 15 August, his birthday, he drove across the city to Notre Dame he was cheered by people who believed they could now expect prolonged peace and prosperity. France had never seemed so great, and people began referring to him as Napoléon le Grand, an epithet last bestowed on Louis XIV. There was by now much more of the Sun King about him than of the ‘necessary dictator’ whom so many had welcomed on his return from Marengo eight years earlier.
He had been away for nine months, but every couple of days he received an estafette with most of the news and information he would have had in Paris, so he was able to hold the reins of government throughout that time, with Cambacérès regularly sending one of the auditeurs of the Council of State off to his headquarters with a batch of papers for him to sign along with the relevant minutes and reports. Everything had functioned smoothly, and while enjoying the carnival in Warsaw or sitting by the fireside at Finckenstein he had been able to continue implementing public works and supervising projects such as the Commercial Code, which was to form part of the Civil Code. He was kept abreast of the meetings of the Grand Sanhedrin, which he had summoned to discuss the status of the Jews in the empire. He inspected accounts and queried the smallest expenses. His presence haunted Paris, if only by the never-ending stream of letters, instructing, admonishing, reproving, and always firm. This, combined with the institutions he had put in place contributed to a remarkable sense of stability. Few states could have survived, let alone functioned efficiently, with their absolute ruler so far away for so long. British naval bombardments of French ports and attempted landings had been seen off. News of Eylau had caused despondency and a recrudescence of anti-government and even royalist feeling in the west, but this had been contained, and although there was still much banditry on the roads, the country functioned normally. Cambacérès and Fouché had ensured that the press, the theatre and literature all followed the official line.
Yet on his return Napoleon felt a need to take matters more firmly in hand. He made a number of ministerial changes and named new senators, and on 19 August he abolished the Tribunate, allowing some members to retire and others to join the Legislative. The closing down of the ‘chattering chamber’ did not cause much surprise or alarm, and many felt the system would function better without it. Whatever people thought of it, the Napoleonic regime delivered stability and prosperity, and that was what most people wanted. Yet he seemed to be gradually losing sight of that crucial fact, and his vision was beginning to diverge from that of the majority of his subjects.
His latest victories had not produced the same effect on public opinion as earlier ones, partly because people no longer believed the Bulletins – the phrase ‘to lie like a Bulletin’ had entered common parlance – but mostly because they could see no point to them. As the Austrian ambassador put it, they felt no excitement at the news of a victory, only relief that it was not a defeat. Napoleon expressed disappointment when he was made aware of this, but did not reflect on the cause, which was that his role as the longed-for victorious hero and saviour of France had been played out; what the people now wanted was a strong ruler who could safeguard what had been achieved. That was not how he saw things.1
His triumph over Russia and Prussia had opened up limitless new vistas to his imagination, in which mirages of eastern conquest now fought with concepts of a grand new arrangement of Europe. The exhilarating experience of Tilsit, and possibly also of knowing that he was not after all sterile, was not calculated to make him settle down to a quiet life. On 3 August Frederick William wrote him a letter, addressing him as ‘the greatest man of the century’ and begging for an alliance, but Napoleon did not answer; he preferred to bleed Prussia dry. Thanks to the huge sums she was forced to disburse, the war had largely paid for itself, and there was more to be squeezed out. Estates seized by the Prussian government when it had taken over its part of Poland were not returned to the government of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw but given to French marshals and dignitaries instead – part of a plan to bind Napoleon’s growing imperium in a great web controlled by himself. He distributed titles of nobility to faithful servants and potential enemies alike, in the conviction that all men could be bought, creating 3,263 princes, dukes, counts, barons and knights by the end of the empire. Fifty-nine per cent of them were soldiers, and most of the rest either state functionaries or notables: 22.5 per cent were from the old nobility, 58 from the middle class, and 19.5 from the working classes.2
Since they owed everything to him, he believed he was their master. Pontécoulant was struck by the change that had taken place in his manner during his absence, noting that ‘there was in his deportment a kind of constraint, a sort of stiffness, which inspired fear rather than respect and seemed to put distance between him and those closest to him’. He also found his con
versation less scintillating, and felt that in the Council of State he seemed ‘more intent on imposing than convincing’. The court of the Tuileries reflected this process: ‘it was no longer the tent of the hero crowned by victory, but the ridiculous show of an old-fashioned royal court with all the exaggerations of the past, without the politeness, the urbanity and the good manners’. As Josephine’s lady-in-waiting Claire de Rémusat pointed out, the entire brilliant structure of Napoleon’s power ‘rested on an authority whose foundations were in opposition to the irresistible march of the human spirit’. Not only was he no longer in tune with the spirit which had brought him to power, he seemed to be regressing in time.3
Perhaps the most significant change he made on his return was to remove Talleyrand from the Ministry of Foreign Relations. This was not a mark of disgrace or even displeasure, and he was honoured with the rank of vice-grand elector, which kept him at the heart of the court. It was a question of policy. Talleyrand may have been an opportunist by nature, but he was also a strategist. He had repeatedly and forcefully given Napoleon his opinion that he was moving in the wrong direction, and urged a reorientation of French foreign policy based on a strategic alliance with a strengthened Austria.
Napoleon wanted to direct foreign policy himself, and as Talleyrand’s successor he appointed Jean-Baptiste de Champagny, previously minister of the interior, a conscientious executor of his will without much experience of the outside world. Unwilling or unable to take into account the interests and aspirations of others, Napoleon could not develop a fixed strategy. Most of his actions were henceforth dictated by a determination to bring Britain to book by destroying her economic power, while encouraging industrial development in mainland Europe by eliminating British competition, which was to be achieved by closing Russian, Prussian and Danish ports to her shipping. The Royal Navy would suffer for lack of supplies of Baltic timber, hemp and tar, there would be food shortages for lack of Polish wheat, and British industry would lose some of its most lucrative markets. With Louis reigning in Holland, Jérôme in Westphalia and Murat in the Grand Duchy of Berg, the entire coastline from St Petersburg to France was in theory secure, and Central Europe out of bounds to British commerce. This hurt the British economy, as some 36 per cent of exports had gone there.4
An early setback in Napoleon’s economic war came at the beginning of September 1807. Acting on intelligence that Denmark was being pressured by France to join in alliance against Britain with her large fleet, the British cabinet ordered an attack on Copenhagen which resulted in the capture of the entire Danish fleet. Fouché noted that he had not seen Napoleon react to any news with such fury since hearing of the assassination of Tsar Paul I. But he quickly realised he had to secure the other weak link in his alliance against Britain.5
Ruled since 1700 by Bourbon kings descended from Louis XIV, Spain had been France’s closest political and commercial partner. Along with the Bourbon kingdom of Naples and Sicily, it had formed part of the pacte de famille, a defensive alliance against principally Austrian and British designs. This had been shaken by the outbreak of the French Revolution, and following the execution of Louis XVI his Spanish cousins invaded France. They were soon expelled, and fearing the contagion of revolution, Spain made peace, and by the Treaty of Basel in 1795 became an ally of France once more.
The King of Spain, Charles IV, was an amiable but foolish man more interested in hunting and making things – particularly shoes – than affairs of state. More interested in these was his wife, Maria-Luisa of Parma, commonly referred to as la puta for her supposedly insatiable sexual appetite. She was governed by her favourite, the minor noble Manuel de Godoy, two years older than Napoleon, who had been showered with rank and honours, becoming virtual ruler of the country by 1792. Insofar as he had any principles beyond accumulating as much power and wealth as possible, he was a conservative and ill-disposed to France. He was widely hated. Most of his enemies and those of the status quo pinned their hopes on the heir to the throne, Ferdinand Prince of the Asturias, a dim-witted but treacherous twenty-four-year-old.
Because of its geographical position and colonial empire Spain was of immense importance to France, and Napoleon did not trust Godoy to keep the country from falling under British influence. When he reached Berlin after Jena he found letters from Godoy to the King of Prussia offering to attack France in support of Russia and Prussia. The risk of such an attack would not have worried Napoleon much, even when he was occupied in Central Europe, but the possibility of the British getting a foothold on the Iberian Peninsula did, because it would breach the commercial blockade. As an ally of France, Spain was committed to it, but Portugal was not.
In September 1807 Napoleon wrote to the regent of Portugal, Dom João, telling him to choose between France and Britain. He responded favourably and declared war on Britain, but he was too late. On 27 October an impatient Napoleon had concluded the Treaty of Fontainebleau with Charles IV, by which France and Spain would jointly take over Portugal.
To carry out the operation Napoleon had chosen Junot, telling him his marshal’s baton was waiting for him in Lisbon. Among his reasons for sending him was that during Napoleon’s nine-month absence Junot, who was military governor of Paris, had been having an affair with Napoleon’s sister Caroline Murat (who some thought was thus positioning herself for the struggle over the succession were her imperial brother to meet with disaster on campaign). Napoleon did not wish Paris to witness the confrontation between Junot and a returning Murat. He could count on Junot, whose devotion since their first meeting at Toulon some compared to love. What he did not appreciate, or chose to ignore, was that the swashbuckling bravoure, the hard drinking and the happy-go-lucky manner of the handsome, curly-headed Junot, concealed the beginnings of mental problems.
Junot crossed the border into Spain with 20,000 men on 17 October, with no maps and only a hazy idea of where he was going. His force was made up of young French conscripts unused to the rigours of war, supplemented by detachments of Swiss, Italians and Germans. They were inadequately equipped and supplied, and while they were unopposed by the bemused Spanish garrisons they passed on their way, they could not count on their assistance. Men soon began to fall behind and die, so that when he entered Lisbon on 30 November after a forced march of over a thousand kilometres, Junot had only 1,500 left, no cavalry and not one piece of artillery. It was a feat, but it misfired: the British had sailed into Lisbon, embarked the Portuguese royal family and taken them to their colony of Brazil, along with the Portuguese fleet which Napoleon had counted on seizing. Junot did not get his marshal’s baton, only the title of duc d’Abrantès.
The situation in Spain itself was deteriorating rapidly as supporters of Ferdinand had begun plotting to overthrow Godoy, encouraged by the French ambassador in Spain, Josephine’s brother-in-law François de Beauharnais, acting independently of Napoleon. Charles IV arrested his son on charges of treason, but then pardoned him and wrote to Napoleon asking on his behalf for the hand of a princess of the house of Bonaparte, something Ferdinand’s supporters had been urging for some time.
At the end of November 1807 Napoleon began a tour of his Italian dominions, which were of key importance if he was to exclude the British from the Mediterranean and keep Spain allied to France. He had set in motion an ambitious shipbuilding programme which would over the next years produce seventy ships of the line, and while he had not given up hope of recovering some of France’s colonies, his first priority was the Mediterranean, where he ordered the fleets at Brest, Lorient and Rochefort to join that of the Adriatic, based in Venice. He was already making new plans concerning the Middle East and India. Having, by the Treaty of Tilsit, recovered the Ionian islands, he was preparing to turn Corfu into a naval base to rival Malta. In the interests of making Italy secure against British interference, he pressed Joseph to invade Sicily and expel the British who were using it as a base. He dislodged the queen of Etruria, who did not apply the rules excluding British trade rigorously enough.
He added her kingdom, which reverted to its name of Grand Duchy of Tuscany, to the French Empire as a fief for his sister Élisa, and gave the ex-queen a piece of Portugal in exchange (it was done quite amicably, and they went to the opera at La Scala together afterwards). Similarly, he annexed the papal province of Le Marche to the kingdom of Italy; that and the other Papal States had several strategic ports, and the Pope could not be relied on to deny use of them to the British or the Russians, as his relations with Napoleon had soured.
Napoleon’s doings in Germany had affected the status of the Church by boundary changes and the introduction of French-style administration, not to mention financial extortion and outright looting of Church property. This was compounded by the extension in January 1806 of the Civil Code to Italy, which impinged on areas governed by the Church. The Code established the primacy of civil over religious marriage, and legalised divorce. The Pope’s protests over this and over the French occupation of Ancona during the Austerlitz campaign angered Napoleon, who assumed he was siding with the allies at a moment when it looked as though they were winning. ‘Your Holiness is sovereign in Rome, but I am its emperor,’ he had reminded him in a brusque letter in February 1806. He insisted that 15 August, the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, be henceforth celebrated as that of St Napoleon, and that the Imperial Catechism be taught in schools. At every opportunity he drove home the message that as temporal ruler of the Papal States, the Pope was vassal of the emperor of the French. He had not forgotten Rousseau’s thesis that Church and state were in fundamental conflict.6
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