Citizen Emperor

by Philip Dwyer

  24. AN F/1cIII/Aisne 12, 2 ventôse XII (21 February 1804).

  25. AN AFIV 1953, 12 ventôse an XII (2 March 1804). Other examples include a letter from the civil magistrates of Marseilles to Napoleon, F/1cIII/Bouches-du-Rhône 8, 4 ventôse an XII (23 February 1804).

  26. For this see Elaine Williamson, ‘Denon, la presse et la propagande impériale’, in Daniela Gallo (ed.), Les vies de Dominique-Vivant Denon, 2 vols (Paris, 2001), i. pp. 154–5.

  27. The assertion by Jourdan, ‘Le sacre ou le pacte social’, p. 27, that the petitions pleaded in favour of heredity or that, more specifically, the electoral colleges of the Var, the Yonne, the Nord, the Hautes-Pyrénées and the Roër (found in the Moniteur universel, 14 April 1804) ‘begged’ Napoleon to accept the crown is not borne out. There is at most a vague hint in the petition from the Yonne that ‘It is time to merge without reserve your [that is, Napoleon’s] destiny and that of the state.’

  28. For example, Moniteur universel, 19 March 1804.

  29. Moniteur universel, 1 May 1804.

  30. AN F/1cIII/Aisne 12, letter from the ‘tribunal de commerce’ of Soissons (no date but probably end of floréal an XII (May 1804)).

  31. AN F/1cIII/Bouches-du-Rhône 8, prefect of the department to the minister of the interior, 9 prairial an XII (28 May 1804).

  32. Corinne Legoy, ‘Les marges captivantes, de l’histoire: la parole de gloire de la Restauration’, in Anne-Emmanuelle Demartini and Dominique Kalifa (eds), Imaginaire et sensibilités au XIXe siècle: études pour Alain Corbin (Paris, 2005), pp. 115–24, here pp. 119–20.

  33. The quotation is from a letter by Pierre Hartmann Richard, Lyons, no date, in AN AFIV, Fond de la Secrétairerie d’Etat, 1951. Examples from these cartons have also been used by Petiteau, Les Français et l’Empire, pp. 160–6; Petiteau, ‘Les Français et l’empereur’, pp. 24–8.

  34. AN AFIV 1951, p. Barrère to the minister of the interior, 25 floréal an XII (14 May 1804).

  35. AN AFIV 1953, Paris, 3 ventôse an XII (22 February 1804).

  36. AN AFIV 1953, 24 priarial an 12 (14 June 1804).

  37. A printed example is L’avènement de Napoléon à l’empire; stance lyrique par J.B. (Paris, 1804).

  38. Jean Sarrazin, Le onze frimaire, ou Discours analytique de la vie, des exploits mémorables, et des droits de Napoléon Ier (Paris, 1804), p. 80.

  39. AN BII 850B, letter from the adjudant commandant of the Army of Saint-Domingue, General Henry, Nantes, 13 floréal an XII (2 May 1804).

  40. AN AFIV 1953, Lafontaine, 2 May 1804.

  41. AN AFIV 1953, the widow Maillet (no date, no place).

  42. AN AFIV 1953, Jean-Baptiste Chabrier, Mirmande, 14 ventôse an XII (4 May 1804).

  43. Petiteau, Les Français et l’Empire, pp. 165, 170, argues that during this period there is a reinvention of relations between monarch and subject and that there is a return to a new kind of sacralization of the monarchy, less superstitious than that which preceded the Revolution.

  44. AN AFIV 1953, Pradier, from Castres, Department of Tarn, 30 germinal an XII (19 April 1804).

  45. AN AFIV 1953, Jean-Aime Lautour, 7 floréal an XII (26 April 1804); Egron, retired commandant de Place, 11 floréal an XII (30 April 1804); Jean Jacques Nicolas André, 27 floréal an XII (16 May 1804); Jacques Nicolas André, lawyer, Turin, 27 floréal an XII (16 May 1804); and Sarrazin, Le onze frimaire, pp. 83–4.

  46. AN BII 850B, General Henry, Nantes, 13 floréal an XII (2 May 1804); BII 851A, letter from the camp of Montreuil (no date); F/1cIII/Aisne 12, letter from the sub-prefect of the Aisne, floréal an XII (April 1804).

  47. See, for example, the letter from a notary in the Tarn, Pierre Guibert, in AN AFIV 1953, in which he refers to Napoleon as the father of the French people called on to conserve the glory and prosperity of the Empire. Also, F/1cIII/Lot/9, adjunct mayor of the town of Caussade, department of Lot, to Napoleon, 19 floréal an XII (8 May 1804); AFIV, 1953, François Louis Marguet, Besançon, 12 ventôse an XII (2 March 1804); and Lieutenant Boutaud, Paris, 15 floréal an XII (4 May 1804).

  48. Jay M. Smith, ‘No More Language Games: Words, Beliefs, and Political Culture in Early Modern France’, American Historical Review, 102 (1997), 1426.

  49. Marmont, Mémoires, ii. pp. 235–8; Pierre Robinaux, Journal de route du capitaine Robinaux, 1803–1832 (Paris, 1908), pp. 17–21.

  50. Albert Soboul, ‘De la Révolution à l’Empire en France: souveraineté populaire et gouvernement autoritaire (1789–1804)’, Recueils de la Société Jean Bodin, 26 (1965), 16–30; Petiteau, Les Français et l’Empire, p. 123.

  51. François Arago, Histoire de ma jeunesse (Brussels and Leipzig, 1854), pp. 52–3; Remacle, Relations secrètes, pp. 53, 74–5.

  52. Souvenirs du général baron Teste (Paris, 1999), pp. 100–1. He described the swearing of the oath to the imperial regime as a ceremony in which a ‘sad and gloomy silence’ reigned.

  53. Ernest de Hauterive, La police secrète du premier Empire, bulletins quotidiens adressés par Fouché à l’Empereur, 5 vols (Paris, 1908–64), i. pp. 22, 94 (27 July and 17 September 1804).

  54. Natalie Petiteau, ‘Insultes et hostilités politiques sous le Consulat et l’Empire’, in Thomas Bouchet, Matthew Legget, Jean Vigreux and Geneviève Verdo (eds), L’insulte (en) politique: Europe et Amérique latine du XIXe siècle à nos jours (Dijon, 2005), p. 213.

  55. Auxonne-Marie-Théodose de Thiard, Souvenirs diplomatiques et militaires (Paris, 2007), pp. 128–9; Gilbert Bodinier, ‘Officiers et soldats de l’armée impériale face à Napoléon’, in Napoléon, de l’histoire à la légende: actes du colloque des 30 novembre et 1er décembre 1999 (Paris, 2000), pp. 215–16.

  56. Noël, Souvenirs militaires, pp. 34–5.

  57. Crook, ‘Confidence from Below?’, p. 24.

  58. The minister of the interior, Portalis, reported that the number of ‘yes’ votes in the army and navy respectively were 120,032 and 16,224. Napoleon simply increased the figures to 400,000 and 50,000. No ‘no’ votes were recorded (Frédéric Masson, Le sacre et le couronnement de Napoléon (Paris, 1978), p. 117).

  59. Malcolm Crook, ‘The Plebiscite on the Empire’, in Dwyer and Forrest (eds), Napoleon and his Empire, pp. 19–20.

  60. Woloch, Napoleon and his Collaborators, p. 119.

  61. Cited in Crook, ‘Confidence from Below?’, p. 31.

  62. Isser Woloch, ‘From Consulate to Empire: Impetus and Resistance’, in Peter Baehr and Melvin Ritcher (eds), Dictatorship in History and Theory: Bonapartism, Caesarism, and Totalitarianism (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 29–52, here p. 52.

  63. Todd Porterfield and Susan L. Siegfried, Staging Empire: Napoleon, Ingres, and David (University Park, Pa., 2006), p. 8. On the creation of monarchical symbolism for later periods see Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983).

  64. It is an argument found in Porterfield and Siegfried, Staging Empire.

  65. Jean-Pierre Samoyault, ‘L’ameublement des salles du Trône dans les palais impériaux sous Napoléon Ier’, Bulletin de la Société de l’histoire de l’art français (1985), 185–206.

  66. Alfred Marquiset, Napoléon sténographié au Conseil d’Etat, 1804–1805 (Paris, 1913), pp. 29–31 (12 June 1804); Alain Boureau, L’aigle: chronique politique d’un emblème (Paris, 1985), pp. 158–74.

  67. Jean Tulard, Le Grand Empire, 1804–1815 (Paris, 1982), pp. 25–6; Annie Duprat, ‘Une guerre des images: Louis XVIII, Napoléon et la France en 1815’, Revue d’Histoire moderne et contemporaine, 47:3 (2000), 488.

  68. Masson, Le sacre et le couronnement de Napoléon, pp. 75–6.

  69. Cited in Chanteranne, Le sacre de Napoléon, p. 67.

  70. Cited in Cabanis, Le sacre de Napoléon, p. 129.

  71. On the Legion of Honour see André Fugier, ‘La signification sociale et politique des décorations napoléoniennes’, Cahiers d’histoire, 4 (1959), 339–46; Louis Bonneville de Marsangy, La Légion d’honneur (Paris, 1982), pp. 52–120; Michael J. Hughes, ‘
Making Frenchmen into Warriors: Martial Masculinity in Napoleonic France’, in Christopher E. Forth and Bernard Taithe (eds), French Masculinities: History, Culture and Politics (Basingstoke, 2007), pp. 58–9; Hughes, ‘Vive la République, Vive l’Empereur!’, pp. 127–44; Natalie Petiteau, ‘Pourquoi Napoléon crée-t-il la Légion d’honneur?’, in Jean Tulard, François Monnier and Olivier Echappé (eds), La Légion d’honneur: deux siècles d’histoire (Paris, 2004), pp. 35–48; Olivier Ihl, Le mérite et la République: essai sur la société des émules (Paris, 2007), pp. 167–92; Natalie Petiteau, ‘Légion d’honneur et normes sociales’, in Bruno Dumons and Gilles Pollet (eds), La fabrique de l’honneur: les médailles et les décorations en France, XIXe–XXe siècles (Rennes, 2009), pp. 17–30.

  72. Historians often write that, through a law passed on 20 May 1802, Bonaparte restored slavery. That is one way of seeing it, although it is not entirely accurate. In fact, Bonaparte maintained slavery in those colonies that had not abolished it in the first place – namely, Martinique and the Réunion – reintroducing the slave trade in the process (Philippe R. Girard, ‘Napoléon Bonaparte and the Emancipation Issue in Saint-Domingue, 1799–1803’, French Historical Studies, 32 (2009), 611). In other colonies, such as Guadeloupe and Saint-Domingue, he left matters alone. The revolutionaries themselves regretted the haste with which slavery had been abolished and freedom granted, as a result of which there was no opposition or outcry to the decree re-establishing slavery. See Yves Bénot and Marcel Dorigny (eds), 1802, rétablissement de l’esclavage dans les colonies françaises: aux origines d’Haïti: ruptures et continuités de la politique coloniale française, 1800–1830 (Paris, 2003); Thierry Lentz and Pierre Branda, Napoléon, l’esclavage et les colonies (Paris, 2006); Philippe R. Girard, The Slaves Who Defeated Napoleon: Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian War of Independence, 1801–1804 (Tuscaloosa, 2011).

  73. Jean-Paul Bertaud, The Army of the French Revolution: From Citizen-Soldiers to Instrument of Power, trans. R. R. Palmer (Princeton, 1988), pp. 328–34.

  74. According to Petiteau, ‘Pourquoi Napoléon crée-t-il la Légion d’honneur?’, pp. 41, 42.

  75. Rafe Blaufarb, ‘The Ancien Régime Origins of Napoleonic Social Reconstruction’, French History, 14:4 (2000), 415.

  76. Hughes, ‘Vive la République, Vive l’Empereur!’, pp. 69–72. Some historians argue that Napoleon was replacing the revolutionary notion of ‘virtue’ with the monarchical notion of ‘honour’. See Lynn, ‘Toward an Army of Honor’, 153–5; Norman Hampson, ‘The French Revolution and the Nationalization of Honour’, in M. R. D. Foot (ed.), War and Society: Historical Essays in Honour and Memory of J. R. Western, 1928–1971 (London, 1973), pp. 211–12.

  77. Charles-Hyacinthe His, Théorie du monde politique, ou de la Science du gouvernement considérée comme science exact (Paris, 1806), pp. 209–10. This was part of a ‘social management technique’, a way of channelling energies and passions for the good of the nation. See Olivier Ihl, ‘The Market of Honors: On the Bicentenary of the Legion of Honor’, French Politics, Culture & Society, 24 (2006), 10–11.

  78. Moniteur universel, 29 floreal an X (19 May 1802); Thibaudeau, Mémoires sur le Consulat, pp. 89–90.

  79. In fact, very few civilians received the Legion in Napoleon’s time – 1,400 out of 48,000 between 1802 and 1814 – that is, only about 3 per cent of recipients. It was largely awarded to the military (Alan Forrest, ‘The Military Culture of Napoleonic France’, in Philip Dwyer (ed.), Napoleon and Europe (London, 2001), p. 52).

  80. Remacle, Relations secrètes, p. 239 (25 January 1803).

  81. Arago, Histoire de ma jeunesse, p. 52.

  82. According to Abel Hugo, ‘Souvenirs et mémoires sur Joseph Napoléon en 1811, 1812 et 1813’, Revue des Deux Mondes, 1 (1833), 300–24, here 315.

  83. Martin van Creveld, ‘Napoleon and the Dawn of Operational Warfare’, in John Andreas Olsen and Martin van Creveld (eds), The Evolution of Operational Art: From Napoleon to the Present (Oxford, 2010), p. 21.

  84. On this event see Hughes, ‘Vive la République, Vive l’Empereur!’, pp. 30–2; Michael J. Hughes, Forging Napoleon’s Grande Armée: Motivation, Military Culture, and Masculinity in the French Army, 1800–1808 (New York, 2012), pp. 51–2.

  85. Commandant Giraud, Le carnet de campagne du commandant Giraud (Paris, 1899), pp. 67–8 (29 September 1804).

  86. Charles François, Journal du capitaine François: dit le Dromadaire d’Egypte 1792–1830 (Paris, 2003), p. 476 (15 August 1805); Laurence Chatel de Brancion, Le sacre de Napoléon: le rêve de changer le monde (Paris, 2004), pp. 102–4.

  87. Philippe-Auguste Hennequin, Un peintre sous la Révolution et le premier Empire: mémoires de Philippe-Auguste Hennequin écrits par lui-même (Paris, 1933), p. 228; Jérémie Benoît, Philippe-Auguste Hennequin, 1762–1833 (Paris, 1994), pp. 64–6.

  88. Jean-Marguerite Tupinier, Mémoires du baron Tupinier: directeur des ports et arsenaux, 1779–1850 (Paris, 1994), p. 69; Constant, Mémoires, i. pp. 262–5; Louis Béchet de Léocour, Souvenirs: écrits en 1838–1839 (Paris, 2000), pp. 207–9; Porterfield and Siegfried, Staging Empire, pp. 29–30.

  89. Moniteur universel, 1 fructidor an XII (18 August 1804). ‘Et vous soldats, vous jurez de défendre, au péril de votre vie, l’honneur du nom français, votre patrie et votre Empereur?’

  90. Tupinier, Mémoires, p. 69; Cabanis, Le sacre de Napoléon, pp. 129–30.

  91. See Dubroca, Les quatre fondateurs des dynasties françaises, and Jean-Gabriel-Maurice-Rocque, comte de Montgaillard, Fondation de la quatrième dynastie, ou la Dynastie impériale (Paris, 1804), both of which present Napoleon as the fourth dynasty after the Merovingians, the Carolingians and the Capetians. The term ‘fourth dynasty’ was not used though till 1810 (Jean Tulard, ‘Les empires napoléoniens’, in Jean Tulard (ed.), Les empires occidentaux de Rome à Berlin (Paris, 1997), pp. 363–82, here p. 365).

  92. Avner Ben-Amos, Funerals, Politics and Memory in Modern France, 1789–1996 (Oxford, 2000), p. 4.

  93. Tulard, ‘Les empires napoléoniens’, p. 365; Peter R. Baehr, Caesar and the Fading of the Roman World: A Study in Republicanism and Caesarism (New Brunswick, 1998), pp. 92–102.

  94. Thomas Biskup, ‘Das Schwert Friedrichs des Großen: universalhistorische “Größe” und monarchische Genealogie in der napoleonischen Symbolpolitik nach Iéna’, in Andreas Klinger, Hans-Werner Hahn and Georg Schmidt (eds), Das Jahr 1806 im europäischen Kontext: Balance, Hegemonie und politische Kulturen (Weimar, 2008), p. 197.

  95. For this and the following see Masson, Le sacre et le couronnement de Napoléon, pp. 60–9; Gaubert, Le sacre de Napoléon, pp. 22–32; Robert Morrissey, La barbe fleuri: Charlemagne dans la mythologie et l’histoire de France (Paris, 1997), and Morrissey, ‘Charlemagne et la légende impériale’, pp. 331–47; Jean-Claude Valla, La nostalgie de l’Empire: une relecture de l’histoire napoléonienne (Paris, 2004), pp. 41–80; Porterfield and Siegfried, Staging Empire, pp. 79–82.

  96. Napoleon may have thought of using Charlemagne as a more substantial political symbol, but he was called to the throne by his people, whereas Napoleon presented the imperial title to the French people as a fait accompli. It would not have been prudent or politic to push the analogy too far.

  97. Journal de Paris, 1 prairial an XII (21 May 1804).

  98. Moniteur universel, speech by Duveyrier (2 May), Arnould (4 May), and an address from the camp of Montreuil (9 May 1804). See also the extract of C. Théveneau, ‘Charlemagne, ou la Carolëide’, in La Décade philosophique, littéraire et politique, 18 (1804), 543–8; 19 (1804), 27–31; and 23 (1804), 283–92.

  99. Mercure de France, 1 messidor an VIII (20 June 1800), in the article entitled ‘Pièces divers relatives aux opérations militaires’; Journal des Débats, 28 thermidor an XII (16 August 1804). A few months later, a book entitled the Histoire de l’Empereur Charlemagne, translated from the German, was reviewed in the Moniteur universel, 18 December 1804. See also Jacques Mallet du Pan, Correspondance
inédite de Mallet du Pan avec la Cour de Vienne (1794–1798), 2 vols (Paris, 1884), ii. pp. 277, 293 (10 May, 17 June 1797); André Cabanis, ‘Les courants contre-révolutionnaire sous le Consulat et l’Empire’, Revue des sciences politiques, 24 (1971), 56; Dean, L’Eglise constitutionnelle, pp. 43–6.

  100. See Jean Chas, Parallèle de Bonaparte le Grand avec Charlemagne (Paris, 1803); Barbet Du Bertrand, Les trois hommes illustres; and Dubroca, Les quatre fondateurs des dynasties françaises, pp. 39–41.

  101. See, for example, his response to the Senate offering him hereditary power, in Lentz and Clot (eds), La proclamation du Premier Empire, p. 22 (25 April 1804).

  102. Chas, Coup d’oeil d’un ami, p. 82; Chanteranne, Le sacre de Napoléon, p. 203.

  103. Pillard, Louis Fontanes, pp. 191, 195–6; Morrissey, La barbe fleuri, pp. 247–348; Cabanis, ‘Les courants contre-révolutionnaire’, 57; Jean Tulard, Le sacre de l’empereur Napoléon: histoire et légende (Paris, 2004), p. 14.

  104. Alain Ruiz, ‘Napoleons Rhein- und Moselreise im Jahre 1804’, in Elisabeth Dühr and Christl Lehnert-Leven (eds), Unter der Trikolore: Trier in Frankreich, Napoleon in Trier, 1794–1814, 2 vols (Trier, 2004), ii. pp. 649–68; Thomas R. Kraus, ‘Napoleon–Aachen–Karl der Große: Betrachtungen zur napoleonischen Herrschaftslegitimation’, in Mario Kramp (ed.), Krönungen: Könige in Aachen, Geschichte und Mythos, 2 vols (Mainz, 2000), ii. pp. 699–707.

  105. J.-B. Poissenot, Historique et statistique sur la ville d’Aix-la-Chapelle et ses environs, pouvant servir d’itinéraire (Aix-la-Chapelle, 1808), pp. 113–14; Marie-Jeanne Avrillon, Mémoires de Mlle Avrillon sur la vie privée de Joséphine, sa famille et sa cour, 2 vols (Paris, 1833), i. pp. 92–3.

  106. Chatel de Brancion, Le sacre de Napoléon, pp. 122–4.

  107. Alain Ruiz, ‘Napoléon vu par les Allemands de son temps’, in Françoise Knopper and Jean Mondot (eds), L’Allemagne face au modèle français de 1789 à 1815 (Toulouse, 2008), pp. 47–9.

  108. See Norman Bryson, ‘Representing the Real: Gros’ Painting of Napoleon’, History of the Human Sciences, 1 (1988), 75–104; Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby, ‘Rumor, Contagion, and Colonization in Gros’s Plague-Stricken of Jaffa (1804)’, Representations, 51 (1995), 1–46; Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby, Extremities: Painting Empire in Post-Revolutionary France (New Haven, 2002), pp. 65–103; O’Brien, After the Revolution, pp. 97–104, 111–16. For a medical/scientific interpretation of the painting see Todd Porterfield, The Allure of Empire: Art in the Service of French Imperialism, 1798–1836 (Princeton, 1998), pp. 53–61.