Citizen Emperor

by Philip Dwyer

  105. Cited in Keith Michael Baker, Inventing the French Revolution (Cambridge, 1990), p. 225.

  106. Chanteranne, Le sacre de Napoléon, pp. 209, 211. More than 75,000 silver medallions were distributed along the boulevards by heralds in arm during the coronation procession.

  107. J.C., Précis historique-chronologique du voyage du saint-père le pape Pie VII en France (Brussels, 1804), p. 46; Aulard, Paris sous le Premier Empire, i. p. 397 (20 November 1804).

  108. Bernard Chevallier, ‘Préparatifs des fêtes données par la ville de Paris à l’occasion du sacre’, in Napoléon le sacre, p. 83.

  109. Corr. x. n. 8781 (24 May 1805).

  110. Chevallier, ‘Préparatifs des fêtes’, p. 86. Abby Zanger, Scenes from the Marriage of Louis XIV: Nuptial Fictions and the Making of Absolutist Power (Stanford, Calif., 1997), pp. 100–12, is, as far as I am aware, the only person to have studied ‘the role of fireworks in organizing political culture’ in any depth.

  111. Dusaulchoy de Bergemont, Histoire du couronnement, pp. 282–3.

  112. Accounts of the festivities can be found in Pierre-Maurice Saunier, Tableau historique des cérémonies du sacre et du couronnement de S.M. Napoléon Ier (Paris, an VIII); Lanzac de Laborie, Paris sous Napoléon, iii. pp. 43–4. For a broader discussion of Napoleonic festivities, including the participation of women, see Denise Z. Davidson, ‘Women at Napoleonic Festivals: Gender and the Public Sphere during the First Empire’, French History, 16 (2002), 299–322.

  113. Bovet, Notice sur les solennités célébrées à Strasbourg . . . le jour du couronnement de Napoléon . . . (Strasbourg, 1804).

  114. Rémusat, Mémoires, i. p. 80.

  115. See Masson, Le sacre et le couronnement de Napoléon, pp. 257–60.

  116. Chatel de Brancion, Le sacre de Napoléon, p. 313.

  117. Hauterive, La police secrète du premier Empire, i. p. 222 (24 December 1804), and pp. 207, 249; ii. p. 110 (15 December 1804; 16 January; 5 October 1805).

  118. Bertaud, Bonaparte et le duc d’Enghien, pp. 416–17.

  119. Cited in Gaubert, Le sacre de Napoléon, p. 184.

  120. See the Moniteur universel, 3, 4 and 5 December 1804. The pretext used was that ‘The magnitude of these solemnities, the order, the brilliance and the pomp with which they were celebrated . . . does not allow the freedom to depict so succinctly such a magnificent spectacle.’

  121. Cited in Gaubert, Le sacre de Napoléon, p. 235.

  CONQUEST, 1805–1807

  10: ‘The Rage of Conquest and Ambition’

  1. For the following see Edouard Driault, Napoléon en Italie (Paris, 1906), pp. 62–81; Albert Pingaud, La domination française dans l’Italie du Nord (1796–1805): Bonaparte, président de la République italienne, 2 vols (Paris, 1914), i. pp. 264–381; André Fugier, Napoléon et l’Italie (Paris, 1947), pp. 159–64; Desmond Gregory, Napoleon’s Italy (Madison, 2001), pp. 45–66; Alain Pillepich, Napoléon et les Italiens: République italienne et Royaume d’Italie, 1802–1814 (Paris, 2003), pp. 51–69.

  2. Pillepich, Napoléon et les Italiens, p. 58.

  3. Driault, Napoléon en Italie, pp. 292–339; Pingaud, La domination française dans l’Italie du Nord, ii. pp. 392–401; Fugier, Napoléon et l’Italie, p. 159.

  4. According to Cambacérès, Mémoires inédites, ii. pp. 26–7, Napoleon never had any intention of giving the Italian crown to Joseph, or to anyone else for that matter. Historians have mirrored these sentiments: Harold C. Deutsch, ‘Napoleonic Policy and the Project of a Descent upon England’, Journal of Modern History, 2 (1930), 548–9; Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, p. 266; Kagan, The End of the Old Order, pp. 169–70. A good general overview of the history of Italy during this period is to be found in Christopher Duggan, The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy since 1796 (London, 2007), esp. ch. 2.

  5. Corr. x. n. 8250 (1 January 1805).

  6. For this see Roederer, Oeuvres, iii. pp. 520–2; Masson, Napoléon et sa famille, iii. pp. 4–18; Driault, Napoléon en Italie, pp. 307–14; Haegele, Napoléon et Joseph Bonaparte, pp. 170–2.

  7. Pingaud, La domination française dans l’Italie du Nord, ii. pp. 437–8; Masson, Napoléon et sa famille, iii. pp. 18–20.

  8. Masson, Napoléon et sa famille, iii. pp. 31–4.

  9. On this episode see Carola Oman, Napoleon’s Viceroy, Eugène de Beauharnais (London, 1966), pp. 169–79; Françoise de Bernardy, Eugène de Beauharnais: 1781–1824 (Paris, 1973), pp. 107–28; Alain Pillepich, Eugène de Beauharnais: honneur et fidélité (Paris, 1999), pp. 14–18. Napoleon then set about instructing his stepson on how to become a ruler. Much of the correspondence can be found in Albert Du Casse (ed.), Mémoires et correspondance politique et militaire du prince Eugène, 10 vols (Paris, 1858–60), i. pp. 110–265.

  10. Gregory, Napoleon’s Italy, pp. 68–9.

  11. Asserts Alain Pillepich, ‘Napoléon Ier et la couronne de fer’, in Graziella Buccellati and Annamaria Ambrosioni (eds), La corona, il regno e l’impero: un millennio di storia, 2 vols (Milan, 1995–9), i. p. 202.

  12. Corr. x. n. 8445 (17 March 1805).

  13. Napoleon’s interference in Italy was fundamental in pushing Austria into the arms of the Third Coalition (Driault, Napoléon en Italie, pp. 313–14).

  14. See, for example, Bigarré, Mémoires, p. 152.

  15. Pingaud, La domination française dans l’Italie du Nord, ii. pp. 399–449; Gregory, Napoleon’s Italy, p. 67.

  16. Contends Kagan, The End of the Old Order, p. 169. See Pillepich, ‘Napoléon Ier et la couronne de fer’, pp. 203–4; Valla, La nostalgie de l’Empire, pp. 81–104. It was not the same crown used in the coronation of Charlemagne.

  17. For the following see Adolf Beer, Zehn Jahre österreichischer Politik, 1801–1810 (Leipzig, 1877), pp. 82–91; Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, pp. 268–9.

  18. Kagan, The End of the Old Order, p. 139.

  19. On the Franco-Bavarian alliance see Harold C. Deutsch, The Genesis of Napoleonic Imperialism (Cambridge, Mass., 1938), pp. 238–53; Marcel Dunan, Napoléon et l’Allemagne: la Système Continentale et les débuts du Royaume de Bavière, 1806–1810 (Paris, 1943), pp. 8–22; Marcus Junkelmann, Napoleon und Bayern: von den Anfängen des Königreiches (Regensburg, 1985), pp. 85–97.

  20. Corr. x. n. 8282 (22 January 1805).

  21. Pitt left the formation of the new coalition to Russia. John M. Sherwig, Guineas and Gunpowder: British Foreign Aid in the Wars with France, 1793–1815 (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 149–51.

  22. Kagan, The End of the Old Order, p. 219.

  23. Alexander to La Harpe, in Jean Charles Biaudet and Françoise Nicod (eds), Correspondance de Frédéric-César de La Harpe et Alexandre Ier, 3 vols (Neuchâtel, 1978–80), ii. pp. 44–5 (7 July 1803).

  24. Zawadzki, ‘Czartoryski and Napoleonic France’, 255.

  25. Cited in Zawadzki, ‘Czartoryski and Napoleonic France’, 252.

  26. Zawadzki, ‘Czartoryski and Napoleonic France’, 248–9; Janet M. Hartley, Alexander I (London, 1994), pp. 60, 68, 70–1; Marie-Pierre Rey, Alexandre Ier (Paris, 2009), pp. 197–205.

  27. Kagan, The End of the Old Order, pp. 152–62.

  28. Cited in Zawadzki, ‘Czartoryski and Napoleonic France’, 248.

  29. Talleyrand to Oubril, 9 thermidor an XII (28 June 1804), in Sbornik, lxxvii. pp. 681–4.

  30. Vneshniaia politika rossi, ii. n. 104 (17 February 1805).

  31. W. H. Zawadzki, A Man of Honour: Adam Czartoryski as a Statesman of Russia and Poland, 1795–1831 (Oxford, 1993), pp. 92–110; Sparrow, Secret Service, p. 329.

  32. Prussia decided to continue its policy of neutrality, even if its sympathies lay with the coalition. See Brendan Simms, The Impact of Napoleon: Prussian High Politics, Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Executive, 1797–1806 (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 198–201.

  33. Mavor (ed.), The Grand Tours of Katherine Wilmot, p. 168; A. D. Harvey, ‘European Attitudes to Britain during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era’, Histor
y, 63 (1978), 356–65; A. D. Harvey, Collision of Empires: Britain in Three World Wars, 1793–1945 (London, 1992), pp. 79–90; Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, p. 402.

  34. Edouard Driault, Napoléon et l’Europe, 5 vols (Paris, 1912), ii. pp. 116–18.

  35. Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, p. 274.

  36. Corr. x. n. 8252 (2 January 1805).

  37. Emsley, British Society and the French Wars, p. 112; Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (New Haven and London, 1992), pp. 305–6; Tombs and Tombs, That Sweet Enemy, p. 248.

  38. For Anglo-French rivalry in earlier periods see David A. Bell, ‘Jumonville’s Death: War Propaganda and National Identity in Eighteenth-Century France’, in Colin Jones and Dror Wahrman (eds), The Age of Cultural Revolutions: Britain and France, 1750–1820 (Berkeley, 2002), p. 49; David A. Bell, The Cult of the Nation in France: Inventing Nationalism, 1680–1800 (Cambridge, Mass., 2001), pp. 78–106; Hampson, The Perfidy of Albion; Bertaud, Forrest and Jourdan, Napoléon, le monde et les Anglais, pp. 13–32; Tombs and Tombs, That Sweet Enemy, pp. 211–14. Lentz, Nouvelle histoire du premier Empire, i. pp. 142–7, 160, argues that public opinion remained ‘uncertain’ during this time, but he seems to base this assertion on royalist opposition in the military.

  39. Corr. ix. n. 7333 (29 November 1803).

  40. Vivant Denon to Napoleon, 27 July 1803, in Marie-Anne Dupuy, Isabelle Le Masne de Chermont and Elaine Williamson (eds), Vivant Denon, directeur des musées sous le Consulat et l’Empire: correspondance, 1802–1815, 2 vols (Paris, 1999), ii. p. 1249; Porterfield and Siegfried, Staging Empire, p. 29.

  41. Letter from Denon (around 16 December 1803), in Dupuy, Le Masne de Chermont and Williamson (eds), Vivant Denon, p. 1253.

  42. Moniteur universel, 12 November 1803; Staël, Considérations, ii. pp. 350–1; Williamson, ‘Denon, la presse’, pp. 161–2.

  43. Letter from Denon (around 16 December 1803), in Dupuy, Le Masne de Chermont and Williamson (eds), Vivant Denon, pp. 1253–4; Elaine Williamson, ‘A Vraie-fausse Statue of William the Conqueror: Representation and Misrepresentation of Anglo-French History’, Franco-British Studies, 19 (1995), 22–4.

  44. Porterfield and Siegfried, Staging Empire, pp. 28, 33.

  45. Corr. xi. n. 9264 (23 September 1805).

  46. Cambacérès, Mémoires inédits, ii. p. 45.

  47. François Crouzet, ‘La guerre maritime’, in Jean Mistler (ed.), Napoléon, 2 vols (Paris, 1969–1970), i. p. 322.

  48. See, for example, Corr. ix. nos. 7832, 7833 (2 July 1804); Edouard Desbrière, 1793–1805: projets et tentatives de débarquement aux Îles Britanniques, 4 vols (Paris, 1900–2), iv. pp. 3–8.

  49. Deutsch, ‘Napoleonic Policy and the Project of a Descent upon England’, 541, 550–1; John Holland Rose, ‘Napoleon and Sea Power’, Cambridge Historical Journal, 1 (1924), 146, who believed that a fleet was assembled in 1801 simply as ‘a means of intimidating the Addington Ministry’. For a contrary view see Marmont, Mémoires, ii. pp. 212–17.

  50. Bailleu (ed.), Preußen und Frankreich, ii. p. 264 (17 May 1804).

  51. Metternich, Mémoires, iii. pp. 38–9.

  52. Wheeler and Broadley, Napoleon and the Invasion of England, pp. 505–6. In Greek mythology, Antaeus was a giant, the son of Poseidon. The reference was, therefore, to Britain. Hercules represented the French people. For the use of Hercules as a symbol during the French Revolution see Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (Berkeley, 1984), pp. 94–116.

  53. Corr. ix. n. 7801 (3 June 1804).

  54. On the former see Marmont, Mémoires, ii. pp. 210–12. On the latter see Wheeler and Broadley, Napoleon and the Invasion of England, pp. 245–55; David Whittet Thomson, ‘Robert Fulton and the French Invasion of England’, Military Affairs, 18 (1954), 57–63.

  55. Desbrière, Projets et tentatives de débarquement, iii. pp. 82–113, 381–413. The plans to invade England had a long history that stretched back as far as Louis XIV. For plans proposed in the reigns of Louis XIV–XVI, see P. Coquelle, ‘Les projets de descente en Angleterre, d’après les archives des affaires étrangères’, Revue d’histoire diplomatique, 15 (1901), 433–53; and 16 (1902), 134–57; Michèle Battesti, Trafalgar: les aléas de la stratégie navale de Napoléon (Saint-Cloud, 2004), pp. 33–8.

  56. See Dwyer, Napoleon: The Path to Power, pp. 354–6. Kagan, The End of the Old Order, p. 285, considers it to have been ‘the most grandiose project Napoleon ever developed’.

  57. Deutsch, ‘Napoleonic Policy and the Project of a Descent upon England’, 562.

  58. Fernand Nicolay, Napoléon Ier au camp de Boulogne, d’après de nombreux documents inédits (Paris, 1907), pp. 181–213; Constant, Mémoires, i. pp. 274–8; Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, p. 323; Alan Schom, Trafalgar: Countdown to Battle, 1803–1805 (New York, 1990), pp. 97–9; Lloyd, The French Are Coming, pp. 47–8; Battesti, Trafalgar, pp. 82–3.

  59. Tourtier-Bonazzi, Lettres d’amour à Joséphine, pp. 164–5 (21 July 1804).

  60. Schom, Trafalgar, p. 142.

  61. Deutsch, ‘Napoleonic Policy and the Project of a Descent upon England’, 560–1.

  62. Maurice Dupont, L’amiral Decrès et Napoléon ou La fidélité orageuse d’un ministre (Paris, 1991), pp. 157–8.

  63. Rémi Monaque, Latouche-Tréville, 1745–1804: l’amiral qui défiait Nelson (Paris, 2000), pp. 595–6.

  64. Deutsch, ‘Napoleonic Policy and the Project of a Descent upon England’, 551, asserts that he had abandoned the idea in the short term.

  65. Outlined with maps in Battesti, Trafalgar.

  66. Schom, Trafalgar, pp. 206–7.

  67. See, for example, Corr. ix. nos. 7677, 8060 (7 April, 29 September 1804); x. nos. 8206, 8209, 8231, 8232 (12 and 23 December 1804), 8279, 8654 (16 January and 29 April 1805);Deutsch, ‘Napoleonic Policy and the Project of a Descent upon England’, 553–4; Schom, Trafalgar, pp. 173–8.

  68. See Schom, Trafalgar, pp. 226–7.

  69. Schom, Trafalgar, pp. 229–36.

  70. According to Ségur, Histoire et mémoires, ii. pp. 329–37, when later Napoleon found out the details about the engagement, he too went into a fit, under the impression that Villeneuve had wasted an opportunity and had again bottled up the fleet.

  71. Corr. xi. n. 9066 (11 August 1805).

  72. Schom, Trafalgar, pp. 240–2.

  73. Desbrière, Projets et tentatives de débarquement, iv. pt 3, pp. 775–86.

  74. Corr. xi. n. 9220 (15 September 1805).

  75. On the tergiversations surrounding the departure, including at one stage a written refusal on the part of the naval officers to leave port, see Schom, Trafalgar, pp. 295–304.

  76. John Holland Rose, The Life of Napoleon I, 2 vols (London, 1902), ii. pp. 26–8. The literature on the battle is vast. Among the better, more recent works are: Schom, Trafalgar, pp. 307–56; Tim Clayton and Phil Craig, Trafalgar: The Men, the Battle, the Storm (London, 2004); Roy Adkins, Trafalgar: The Biography of a Battle (London, 2004); Adam Nicolson, Men of Honour: Trafalgar and the Making of the English Hero (London, 2005).

  77. There was, as a result, some speculation among contemporaries about whether he was murdered. See Henry Rollin, ‘L’amiral Villeneuve et Napoléon’, Revue des études napoléoniennes, 3 (1913), 200–34; Dupont, L’amiral Decrès et Napoléon, pp. 175–6; Battesti, Trafalgar, pp. 308–10.

  78. Dupont, L’amiral Decrès et Napoléon, pp. 176 and 303–12.

  79. Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, p. 325.

  80. Adkins, Trafalgar, p. 24; Kagan, The End of the Old Order, p. 283.

  81. See Samuel Horsley, The Watchers and the Holy Ones: A Sermon (London, 1806), pp. 24–7.

  82. Corr. xi. n. 9069 (13 August 1805).

  83. Corr. xi. n. 9070 (13 August 1805).

  84. Corr. xi. n. 9115 (22 August 1805).

  85. Corr. xi. nos. 9120, and 9117 (23 August 1805).

  86. Corr. xi. nos. 9038, 9068, 9069 and 9070 (3, 12 and 13 August 180
5); Deutsch, ‘Napoleonic Policy and the Project of a Descent upon England’, 547.

  87. See, for example, his letters to Domenico Pino in Corr. x. n. 8581 (13 April 1805).

  88. Paul-Claude Alombert and Jean Colin, La campagne de 1805 en Allemagne, 4 vols (Paris, 1902–8), i. pp. 20, 29–30 and 32–4 (23 January 1805).

  89. Kagan, The End of the Old Order, p. 285.

  90. Kagan, The End of the Old Order, pp. 231–54, 255–82.

  91. Corr. x. n. 8791 (26 May 1805); Kagan, The End of the Old Order, pp. 295–6. My thanks to Frederick Kagan for this point on Murat’s knowledge of the treaty.

  92. Corr. x. n. 8790 (26 May 1805).

  93. Corr. xi. n. 9032 (31 July 1805); and Campagnes de la grande armée et de l’armée d’Italie en l’an XIV (1805) (Paris, 1806), pp. 51–9 (the letter is dated 17 thermidor an XIII).

  94. Declaration from the court of Vienna to Napoleon, 5 August 1805, in Leopold von Neumann (ed.), Recueil des traités et conventions conclus par l’Autriche avec les puissances étrangères depuis 1763 jusqu’à nos jours, 12 vols (Vienna, 1877–88), ii. pp. 162–7.

  95. Corr. xi. n. 9070 (13 August 1805).

  96. See Kagan, The End of the Old Order, pp. 307–13; Lentz, Nouvelle histoire du Premier Empire, i. p. 154.

  97. Kagan, The End of the Old Order, p. 362.

  98. See Creveld, ‘Napoleon and the Dawn of Operational Warfare’, pp. 18–24.

  99. Englund, Napoleon, p. 273.

  100. James A. Arnold, ‘A Reappraisal of Column versus Line in the Peninsular War’, Journal of Military History, 68 (2004), 540; Kagan, The End of the Old Order, p. 58.

  101. Bertaud, Bonaparte et le duc d’Enghien, p. 70.

  102. Raymond de Montesquiou-Fezensac, Souvenirs militaires de 1804 à 1814 (Paris, 1870), pp. 31–3.

  103. Ideville, Le maréchal Bugeaud, p. 71.

  104. Kagan, The End of the Old Order, p. 377; and on the difficulties of supplying the army see Martin van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 42–61.

  105. Ideville, Le maréchal Bugeaud, pp. 71, 74.