by Philip Dwyer
Central to that heritage was the Emperor Charlemagne (742–814), who ruled over much of western Europe, and who is regarded as the founder of both the French and German monarchies.95 Napoleon and his propagandists never tired of making the comparison.96 For example, an item in the Journal de Paris states that there is only one hand in all of Europe capable of wearing the sword of Charlemagne, that of ‘Bonaparte the Great’.97 It is no coincidence, therefore, to see in the painting by David of Bonaparte crossing the Alps the names of Hannibal, ‘Karolus Magnus’ (Charlemagne) and Bonaparte carved into the rock in the bottom left-hand corner (see p. 39). Napoleon understood the extraordinary potential of the myth of Charlemagne, a myth moreover that had been reworked and revamped in the years preceding the outbreak of Revolution in France, and which had become closely linked to debates throughout the eighteenth century on absolutism and the nature of the monarchy. Charlemagne came to represent the human face of absolutism, a legislator who had redressed the nation and had established a constitution. This is why he represented such an ideal historical type for the regime; like Charlemagne, Napoleon wanted to unite the nation around his person. Moreover, contemporaries looked on Charlemagne as a king who had restored order after a period of chaos, and who had occupied a throne left morally vacant by the previous Merovingian dynasty.
Jean Bertrand Andrieu, Alliance avec la Saxe (Alliance with Saxony), 1806. The medal shows the profiles of the Emperors Napoleon and Charlemagne.
c RMN-Grand Palais (Sevres, Cite de la Ceramique/Martina Beck-Coppola
The idea of Charlemagne was pressed home in a newspaper campaign that took place shortly before the proclamation of the Empire,98 but it had been present almost as soon as Bonaparte became a public figure.99 Admittedly, the output of pamphlets and books was not impressive – and it does not seem to have inspired the popular imagination – but the message was clear, especially since the idea of Charlemagne was meant to be flexible enough to appeal to both republicans and royalists.100 Some of the material, therefore, was written with republicans in mind. In these writings, Napoleon represented the republican ideal, a meritocratic system in which anyone could become anything. According to the official line, the title of emperor was to serve the interests, the wellbeing and the glory of the nation, and had nothing to do with the personal interests of Napoleon.101 It was, once again, a question of ‘curbing all factions, bringing together all parties and erasing even the memory of the former divisions’.102
‘The Restorer of the Roman Empire’
Bonaparte had been thinking of Augustus.103 The idea of officially associating Napoleon with the reign of Charlemagne belonged to Louis Fontanes. In September 1804, in order to make the association clearer, Napoleon paid a visit to Aachen, the city in which Charlemagne was crowned in the year 800, and where his memory was still very much alive.104 Officially, Napoleon’s visit was to be a tour of the four departments of the Rhine, but he was also to receive the homage of a number of Germanic princes. While there, he took part in a procession in which what were believed to be the relics of Charlemagne (the skull and an arm) were ceremoniously carried to the cathedral, where he stood before what contemporaries believed to be Charlemagne’s resting place.105
We now know the relics were bogus, but the gesture was nevertheless pregnant with symbolic meaning. Aachen was a kind of pilgrimage, a nod in the direction of a national hero, once emperor of the western world. But Napoleon was also testing the waters. Meeting with the Germanic princes was a way of measuring princely opinion (Charlemagne had also received the German princes at Mainz on his way to Rome to be crowned emperor). Napoleon went on to visit a dozen or so other cities as he wound his way down the Rhine to Mainz, a sort of Via triumphalis, as his new subjects turned out to greet the imperial couple; crowds got bigger the closer they got to Mainz. At a reception in Mainz on 21 September, he held court (for the first time outside Paris), and more or less received homage from most of the German princes while he did his best to charm them.106 This was designed partly to counteract the effects of the Enghien affair, and partly to bring the German princes onside in the lead-up to another war. The German princes may have made a choice based on Realpolitik, but German intellectuals and republicans were far more circumspect, if not disillusioned by Napoleon’s decision to adopt the imperial mantle.107 He had betrayed his revolutionary roots; for ancien régime nobles, he could never be anything more than an upstart.
The Thaumaturge King
In keeping with the drive to portray Napoleon as monarch, artists were also enlisted. The highlight of the Salon of 1804, measuring five metres by seven, was Gros’ Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa.108 The painting’s public and critical reception at the Salon that year was enthusiastic. A secret police bulletin reported that all classes of society had been ‘moved’ by the painting.109 It was helped by the fact that the memory of the expedition to Egypt was still fresh in people’s minds. The artist, Antoine-Jean Gros, later recounted that when the doors of the studio in which the painting was executed, the former Jeu de Paume in Versailles, were closed shortly before its transfer to the Louvre, a crowd of workers gathered outside and begged him, money in hand, to be allowed to see it.110 One witness recalled that ‘the sincere admiration which this composition excited was so general that painters from all the respected schools united to carry to the Louvre a great laurel wreath to hang above Gros’s picture’.111 The press described it as the greatest success of the Salon.112
Two aspects of the paintings are worth dwelling on. The first is that it portrays the French army in defeat, or at least decimated by the plague. The scene is one of dire misery in which the arrival of the saviour – Bonaparte – appropriately recognized by the light cast on him in contrast to the dark shadows that engulf the dying, illuminates the whole and brings the promise of healing. The real subject of the painting is, after all, not so much the army as Bonaparte as active hero who extends his hand in a Christ-like gesture to heal a victim of the plague, as if in the royal tradition his touch could heal the sick. At the same time, both Arab and French medical personnel are busy around him trying to stem the tide of death. The contrast between light and darkness is meant as a metaphor to highlight Bonaparte’s supernatural qualities. Bonaparte gives life, an image mirrored in a poem that appeared a year later in the Mercure de France, ‘L’Hospice de Jaffa’ (The hospital at Jaffa), in which Napoleon appears on a chariot accompanied by both Glory and Humanity to bring light and life.113 The failure of the Syrian expedition was thus transformed through Bonaparte’s glamorous gesture into a victory, of sorts.114
This painting is not only another element in the construction of the Napoleonic legend, it was meant to provide an alternative vision to the rumours about Bonaparte’s order to poison plague victims at Jaffa.115 This rumour reached France through the returning army,116 as well as appearing in the clandestine publications that circulated. In 1802, for example, Robert Wilson published an account of the Egyptian and Syrian campaigns that accused Bonaparte of having massacred the prisoners at Jaffa and of having poisoned sick French troops.117 It seems to have gained wide currency, even if it was dismissed by most supporters of the regime as simply British propaganda.118
Placed between Bonaparte and the plague victim whose arm is raised so that his bubo can be examined is Nicolas René Desgenettes, the very man whose criticism of Bonaparte’s policies towards the plague helped fan the rumours about poisoning in the first place. His inclusion was a clear attempt to negate those rumours by associating him with Bonaparte’s gesture.119 A man who might be Berthier has his arm around Bonaparte’s waist as if to hold him back from the victim, while pressing a handkerchief against his face. The gesture is repeated by General Jean-Baptiste Bessières, who was with Bonaparte in Egypt, hardly discernible in the shadows behind Berthier. Bonaparte’s face, on the other hand, is uncovered, as though he were immune to the stench. The Turk, a local Christian, who is kneeling to cut a bubo is based on an actual character: he was almost a
lways drunk but was considered to be a local specialist in the disease. Desgenettes often saw him dragged from an alcohol-induced sleep and led, or sometimes driven by a baton, into the hospital where, without any precaution, he would incise the buboes, wipe his bistoury or surgical knife and then replace it between his forehead and his turban. The doctor who has succumbed to the plague in the right-hand corner is probably a man by the name of Saint-Ours who did die at Jaffa. He represents the many medical personnel who died of the plague during the Syrian campaign. Finally, just above Saint-Ours is a man suffering from what was commonly referred to as ophthalmia (a general term used to describe several kinds of conjunctivitis), who is trying to grope his way towards Bonaparte, an image inspired no doubt by the biblical gesture of the blind man at Jericho.
If the painting is clearly meant to counter the poison rumours, it can also be interpreted as part of the tradition of the thaumaturge king.120 The anointed kings of France would appear outside the cathedral at Rheims and demonstrate the miraculous character of their office – the king’s body being rendered sacred by the anointing ceremony – by laying hands on the sufferers of scrofula. It meant that people were allowed to touch the king’s mantle, or at least its hem. The practice was discontinued under Louis XV, but was revived under Louis XVI.121 Napoleon could not renew this practice, but we see the idea of the king’s sacred body reintroduced in Gros’ painting, albeit elliptically, so that for the first time the dignity of the citizen and that of the monarch are combined to form a new amalgam, the dignity of the citizen-monarch.
Detail of Antoine-Jean Gros, Bonaparte visitant les pestiférés de Jaffa (Bonaparte visiting the plague victims at Jaffa), 1804. It is an image, as one historian has put it, of ‘Christ in a republican uniform’.122
That interpretation is contested, but it certainly shows Napoleon as the ‘caring father’, in the tradition of the clement ruler (about which more below).123 Moreover, the painting’s political message is ambiguous.124 An alternative interpretation is the use of illness as a metaphor to describe the sickly French body politic.125 Gros quite possibly thought in terms of metaphor – Bonaparte arriving as saviour to heal a sick, faction-ridden France. Moreover, the plague was often associated with political upheaval, an expression of anarchy, literally a ‘pest’.126 Gros’ painting, therefore, represents the ravaged body politic, portrayed by French soldiers languishing in various postures. An alternative to chaos and death is presented to the onlooker – the uniformed soldier, in the form of Bonaparte and his generals. The logical conclusion is that allegiance to Napoleon was the only alternative to the dissent and factionalism that had riven French society.
Rendering Napoleon Sacred
And that was the message driven home time and again by the regime: namely, just as Brumaire was necessary to bring all Frenchmen together, so too was the Empire designed to heal the festering social and political wounds of the Revolution. The crowning moment of this campaign was to be a religious ceremony in the Cathedral of Notre Dame designed to impress the people of Europe and at the same time lend weight to Napoleon’s claim to the throne.
Once again, Louis Fontanes seems to have had the idea for a religious coronation, although it did not go down well with everyone.127 Comte Jean-Baptiste Treilhard in the Council of State, for example, questioned the need for it. He was among a number of politicians who preferred a civil ceremony on the Champ de Mars, to be put off till the following year.128 For most in the Emperor’s entourage, however, the political symbolism of a religious ceremony was understood. Fontanes, for example, suggested that Napoleon adopt the pomp traditionally associated with the kings of France, urging him not to neglect the religious elements of the sacre (consecration).129 As Jean-Etienne-Marie Portalis, later to become director of religious affairs, pointed out to Napoleon, ‘anything that renders sacred the person who governs is a good thing’.130 Contemporaries were well aware, in other words, that the ceremony was about constructing an appearance of legitimacy through the use of tradition, costume and symbolism.
The choice of Notre Dame for the ceremony is itself an interesting one. Napoleon at first proposed that the coronation should not take place in Paris, which obliged the councillors of state to debate alternatives, each one eliminated in turn so that Paris soon became the obvious choice.131 Rheims, the cathedral where every French king except two (Louis VI and Henry IV) had been crowned, was for that reason eliminated: it was too closely associated with the former monarchy. Aachen, where not only Charlemagne but thirty-four other emperors and ten empresses had been crowned, was ruled out by the pope on the grounds that he did not want to visit the region because it contained too many Lutherans.132 The clergy of Orleans proposed that city’s cathedral, but the offer does not appear to have been seriously considered.
That left Paris, but Napoleon nevertheless hesitated. Since the Moreau affair, public approval of the regime had been tepid, and the capital remained a hotbed of republicanism.133 In June, Napoleon suggested that the Champ de Mars would be an appropriate place for a coronation, and at first the members of the Council of State agreed.134 He revisited the question a couple of weeks later, having had second thoughts in the meantime. He had decided that the people were to be excluded from the event. If an altar was placed in the middle of the Champ de Mars, he declared, it would become a populist ceremony. It was important that Paris should not think of itself as the nation. This was no longer the Revolution, when the people of Paris had intervened directly in the political process.135 Besides, there was always the risk of bad weather; it would not look dignified if the imperial family were exposed to the rain and the mud, as had been the case during the Festival of the Federation in 1790.136
The Church of Saint-Louis at the Invalides was considered as an alternative location – it had been the site of a number of civil and military ceremonies during the Revolution and the Consulate – but Fontanes thought the church inadequate for such a grand occasion and recommended instead Notre Dame.137 Napoleon agreed. Notre Dame had undergone a number of transformations during the Revolution, from a cathedral to a Temple of Reason, to a Temple of the Supreme Being, to the principal church of the Theophilanthropists, before finally reverting to the Catholic faith in April 1802. It was transformed once again for the coronation. The gothic interior of Notre Dame was hidden behind decorations of red and blue silk designed by Charles Percier and François-Léonard Fontaine, who thereby converted it into a vast theatre, a neo-Greek temple. Buildings around the cathedral were demolished to make room – the space in front of the building was cleared, resulting in the square that we see today – while triumphal arches along the route leading to the cathedral were erected.
A member of the Council of State, Portalis, suggested the idea of having the pope confer on Napoleon a blessing that would transform the Empire into a Christian monarchy, and Napoleon into a legitimate monarch.138 Bringing the pope to Paris, however, was no easy thing. In the past, the pope had travelled to crown the king of France on only two occasions: when Stephen II (III) crowned Pepin (the Short) King of the Franks in 754; and when Stephen IV (V) crowned Louis the Pious emperor in 816 at Rheims, almost a thousand years before. All other kings and emperors anointed by the pontiff had gone to Rome, including Charlemagne. Napoleon, however, wanted the pope to come to him, thereby asserting the power of the French Church,139 and the power of the Emperor over the pope. The presence of the pope, moreover, would help cut the religious base from under the counter-revolution, and bring about the national reconciliation Napoleon was aiming at. This is not to say that there was no opposition to the pope’s presence, but Napoleon’s wishes prevailed. It was in that respect an attempt to recreate, at least on the surface, the coalition between throne and altar that had existed before the Revolution, as well as challenging Francis as Holy Roman Emperor for the domination of Germany.140
Negotiations with the Vatican began in May, very tentatively at first.141 Napoleon told the papal legate in Paris, Cardinal Caprara, of his wish to be conse
crated by the pope, but added that he did not yet want to make a formal request for fear of its being rejected.142 The pope at first baulked, arguing that there would have to be a serious religious motive for him to leave Rome. The Curia pointed to the illegitimacy of the monarch, the pope’s poor health, the fear that he would not be respected in revolutionary France, and the policy of freedom of religion practised under Napoleon. If the negotiations took several months to conclude, it was because Rome had every advantage in drawing things out: it would leave a better impression with the courts of Europe (a too hasty agreement would look bad); and it hoped to receive from Napoleon as many changes in its favour as possible (the pope was looking to alter the situation that had developed ever since Napoleon imposed the Organic Articles on the Church). Eventually, however, the pope had to concede on almost every point, but the process was exhausting and made him very anxious and in the end quite sick.143
Accompanied by an imposing entourage of ecclesiastics and servants – 108 people divided into four convoys, though it was not as imposing as Napoleon had hoped – the pope did not leave Rome until 2 November. Fêted along the route in Italy, he took at least two weeks to reach Paris. At Lyons (19 November), in spite of torrential rain, 80,000 people turned out to see him.144 Napoleon sent his uncle, Cardinal Fesch, to hurry things along, while Cardinal Cambacérès, Archbishop of Rouen and the arch-chancellor’s brother, was also sent to greet the convoy.145 The date of the coronation kept having to be put back – from 9 to 25, to 26, then to 29 November and finally to 2 December. The pope would have preferred Christmas Day, the day on which Charlemagne had been crowned in 800, and was no doubt dallying in order to get his way.
