Citizen Emperor

by Philip Dwyer

  8. On this point see Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, pp. 536–7.

  9. Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, p. 538.

  10. Bruce McConachy, ‘The Roots of Artillery Doctrine: Napoleonic Artillery Tactics Reconsidered’, Journal of Military History, 65 (2001), 631; Rothenberg, The Art of Warfare, p. 143.

  11. McConachy, ‘The Roots of Artillery Doctrine’, p. 631; John A. Lynn, The Bayonets of the Republic: Motivation and Tactics in the Army of Revolutionary France, 1791–94 (Urbana, 1984), pp. 206–7.

  12. Antoine Henri baron de Jomini, The Art of War, trans. G. H. Mendell and W. p. Craighill (Philadelphia, 1862), pp. 318–19; Elting, Swords around a Throne, p. 533.

  13. Pasquier, Mémoires, i. p. 301.

  14. Pierre-François Percy, Journal des campagnes du Bon Percy, chirurgien en chef de la Grande-Armée (1754–1825) (Paris, 1904), p. 165.

  15. Saint-Chamans, Mémoires, pp. 57–8.

  16. Montesquiou-Fezensac, Souvenirs militaires, p. 161.

  17. Jules-Antoine Paulin, Les souvenirs du general Bon Paulin (1782–1876) (Paris, 1895), p. 50.

  18. Saint-Chamans, Mémoires, pp. 59–60, a reliable source for dissension in the army after Eylau. Robert Herbert, ‘Baron Gros’s Napoleon and Voltaire’s Henri IV’, in Francis Haskell and Robert Shackleton (eds), The Artist and the Writer in France: Essays in Honour of Jean Seznec (Oxford, 1974), p. 62. These views are countered by Béchet de Léocour, Souvenirs, p. 288, who asserts that he never heard a single insult uttered against Napoleon.

  19. Victor Dupuy, Souvenirs militaires de Victor Dupuy, chef d’escadrons de hussards, 1794–1816 (Paris, 1892), p. 79.

  20. John Holland Rose, ‘A British Agent at Tilsit’, English Historical Review, 16 (1901), 714.

  21. Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, p. 548; Lentz, Nouvelle histoire du Premier Empire, i. p. 275, gives 10,000 French and 12,000 Russian casualties.

  22. Jeremy Black, The Battle of Waterloo (New York, 2010), pp. 32–3.

  23. Jean-Jacques Régis de Cambacérès, Lettres inédites à Napoléon: 1802–1814, 2 vols (Paris, 1973), i. p. 455 (1 March 1807); Lanzac de Laborie, Paris sous Napoleon, iii. p. 53.

  24. Gerstein, ‘Le regard consolateur’, p. 321.

  25. Corr. xiv. nos. 11815, 11819, 11827, 11840, 11907, 11917 and 11988 (14, 17, 18, 20 and 28 February, 2 and 11 March 1807).

  26. Corr. xiv. n. 11847 (21 February 1807).

  27. Corr. xiv. nos. 11791, 11899, 11990, 12022, 12023 (9 and 28 February, 11 and 13 March 1807). On Napoleon’s initial attempts to manipulate public opinion around Eylau see Marrinan, ‘Literal/Literary/“Lexie”’, 177, 179–80.

  28. Corr. xiv. nos. 11789, 11800, 11801, 11813, 11990, 12610 (9, 12 and 14 February, 11 and 25 March 1807).

  29. Corr. xiv. n. 11796 (9 February 1797). The Moniteur universel, 2 April 1807, cites the figure of 5,000 killed and wounded. Bell, Total War, p. 256.

  30. Found in Bataille de Preussisch-Eylau, gagnée par la grande armée, commandée en personne par S.M. Napoléon Ier (Paris, 1807), pp. 18–23. Napoleon even executed a drawing of the battlefield that he intended to publish, but never did (H. M. A. Berthaut, Les ingénieurs géographes militaires, 1624–1831: étude historique (Paris, 1902), ii. p. 49).

  31. Corr. xiv. n. 11853 (21 February 1807); Bataille de Preussisch-Eylau, p. 13; J. M. Thompson, Napoleon Bonaparte: His Rise and Fall (Oxford, 1951), pp. 313–14.

  32. O’Brien, After the Revolution, pp. 158–9.

  33. Billon, Souvenirs, pp. 68–9; Roger Vaultier, ‘La chirurgie militaire sous le Premier Empire’, Chroniques (28 March 1951), 415.

  34. Gallo, Lettres d’amour, p. 159 (9 February 1807).

  35. Tourtier-Bonazzi, Lettres d’amour à Joséphine, p. 252 (14 February 1807).

  36. Saint-Chamans, Mémoires, p. 61; Percy, Journal des campagnes, pp. 175, 179–80.

  37. John L. H. Keep, Soldiers of the Tsar: Army and Society in Russia, 1462–1874 (Oxford, 1985), p. 195.

  38. Chaptal, Mes souvenirs, p. 342.

  39. Louis-Florimond Fantin des Odoards, Journal du général Fantin des Odoards, étapes d’un officier de la Grande Armée, 1800–1830 (Paris, 1895), p. 143.

  40. Corr. xiv. nos. 11810, 11890 (13 and 26 February 1807); Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, p. 311.

  41. Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, pp. 559–60.

  42. English-language accounts of the battle of Friedland include: Harold T. Parker, Three Napoleonic Battles (Durham, NC, 1983), pp. 3–26; Petre, Napoleon’s Campaign in Poland, pp. 304–29; Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, pp. 572–85; Gates, The Napoleonic Wars, pp. 77–80; Laurence Spring (ed.), An Englishman in the Russian Army, 1807: The Journal of Colonel James Bathurst during the East Prussia Campaign, 1807 (Knaphill, 2000).

  43. Marbot, Mémoires, i. pp. 364, 370.

  44. Savary, Mémoires, iii. p. 91; Emmanuel-Henri de Grouchy, Mémoires du maréchal de Grouchy, 5 vols (Paris, 1873–4), ii. pp. 330–1; Sir Robert Wilson, Brief Remarks on the Character and Composition of the Russian Army and a Sketch of the Campaigns in Poland in the Years 1806 and 1807 (London, 1810), p. 160.

  45. Tourtier-Bonazzi, Lettres d’amour à Joséphine, p. 292 (15 June 1807).

  46. Fantin des Odoards, Journal, p. 114.

  47. Fantin des Odoards, Journal, p. 328.

  48. Patricia Kennedy Grimsted, The Foreign Ministers of Alexander I: Political Attitudes and the Conduct of Russian Diplomacy, 1801–1825 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969), p. 165.

  49. Granville, Private Correspondence, ii. p. 228.

  50. Grimsted, The Foreign Ministers of Alexander I, pp. 152–64.

  51. Financially, on the other hand, the campaigns of 1806–8 cost France little. See Tulard, Napoléon ou le mythe du sauveur, pp. 197–8; Pierre Branda, Le prix de la gloire: Napoléon et l’argent (Paris, 2007), pp. 314–19.

  52. There are a number of letters from Napoleon to Talleyrand in March 1807 that point in this direction. Corr. xiv. nos. 11918, 11977, 12028 (3, 9 and 14 March 1807).

  53. Bertrand (ed.), Lettres inédites, pp. 468–9 (18 June 1807).

  54. Cited in Plongeron, ‘Cyrus ou les lectures d’une figure biblique dans la rhétorique religieuse’, 42, 64.

  55. For another period see Jan Hennings, ‘The Semiotics of Diplomatic Dialogue: Pomp and Circumstance in Tsar Peter I’s Visit to Vienna in 1698’, International History Review, 30 (2008), 515–44.

  56. François, Journal, p. 536 (25 June 1807); Johannes Paulmann, Pomp und Politik: Monarchenbegegnungen in Europa zwischen Ancien Régime und Erstem Weltkrieg (Paderborn, 2000), p. 46.

  57. See Albert Vandal, Napoléon et Alexandre Ier. L’alliance russe sous le premier Empire, 3 vols (Paris, 1893–6), i. pp. 57–8; Herbert Butterfield, The Peace Tactics of Napoleon, 1806–1808 (Cambridge, 1929), pp. 181–276; Jean Thiry, Eylau, Friedland, Tilsit (Paris, 1964), pp. 189–218; Gherardo Casaglia, Le partage du monde: Napoléon et Alexandre à Tilsit, 25 juin 1807 (Paris, 1998), pp. 203–34; Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, pp. 320–3. The Russian perspective is treated in Marie-Pierre Rey, Alexandre Ier (Paris, 2009), pp. 235–8.

  58. Metternich believed that there was something missing from Alexander, but that it was impossible to put his finger on it (Metternich, Mémoires, i. pp. 315–17).

  59. Captain Coignet, present during the evening, was a little disgusted to see how the Russian Guard, once they had had their fill of food and drink, stuck fingers down their throats to make themselves vomit and start all over again (Coignet, Note-Books, pp. 154–6).

  60. Vandal, Napoléon et Alexandre, i. p. 108.

  61. Vandal, Napoléon et Alexandre, i. p. 61; Adams, Napoleon and Russia, p. 180.

  62. Tourtier-Bonazzi, Lettres d’amour à Joséphine, p. 297 (25 June 1807).

  63. Cited in Alan Palmer, Alexander I: Tsar of War and Peace (New York, 1974), p. 157.

  64. According to Abel-François Villemain, Souvenirs contemporains d’histoire et de literature, 2 vols (Paris, 1854–5), i. p.
164.

  65. Caulaincourt, Mémoirs, i. p. 67.

  66. Belissa, Repenser l’ordre européen, pp. 249–51.

  67. Adams, Napoleon and Russia, p. 197.

  68. Alexander agreed to mediate between France and Britain, an offer that was politely but firmly rejected by London, whose position was intractable. On the mediation efforts see Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, pp. 328–9.

  69. Adams, Napoleon and Russia, pp. 192–3.

  70. Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, pp. 320–1.

  71. Frederick William to Luise, 4 July 1807, in Paul Bailleu, ‘Die Verhandlungen in Tilsit (1807): Briefwechsel König Friedrich Wilhelm’s III. und der Königin Luise’, Deutsche Rundschau, 110 (1902), 29–45, 199–221, here 216.

  72. Stamm-Kuhlmann, König in Preußens großer Zeit, pp. 252–4.

  73. Las Cases, Mémorial, i. pp. 736–8; Paul Bailleu, ‘Königin Luise in Tilsit’, Hohenzollern-Jahrbuch. Forschungen und Abbildungen zur Geschichte der Hohenzollern in Brandenburg-Preussen, 3 (1899), 221–40; Lenz Max, ‘Tilsit’, Forschungen zur brandenburgischen und preussischen Geschichte, 6 (1893), 181–237; Stamm-Kuhlmann, König in Preußens großer Zeit, pp. 258–66. On Queen Luise see Günter de Bruyn, Preußens Luise: vom Entstehen und Vergehen einer Legende (Berlin, 2001); and for the fascinating cult that developed after her death see Philipp Demandt, Luisenkult: die Unsterblichkeit der Königin von Preußen (Cologne, 2003).

  74. François, Journal, p. 537 (27 June 1807).

  75. T. C. W. Blanning, ‘The Bonapartes and Germany’, in Baehr and Richter (eds), Dictatorship in History and Theory, p. 55. The following figures are from: Karl Obermann, ‘La situation de la Prusse sous l’occupation française, 1807–1813’, in Occupants Occupés, 1792–1815 (Brussels, 1969), pp. 263–75; Rudolf Ibbeken, Preussen 1807–1813: Staat und Volk als Idee und in Wirklichkeit: Darstellung und Dokumentation (Berlin, 1970), pp. 91–5; Bernd von Münchow-Pohl, Zwischen Reform and Krieg: Untersuchungen zur Bewusstseinslage in Preussen 1809–1812 (Göttingen, 1987), pp. 49–56; Harald Müller, ‘Napoleon in der Gruft der Garnisonkirche’, in Bernhard Kroener (ed.), Potsdam: Staat, Armee, Residenz in der preussisch-deutschen Militärgeschichte (Frankfurt, 1993), pp. 345–60; Matthew Levinger, Enlightened Nationalism: The Transformation of Prussian Political Culture, 1806–1848 (Oxford, 2000), p. 44; Karen Hagemann, ‘Mannlicher Muth und teutsche Ehre’: Nation, Militär und Geschlecht zur Zeit der antinapoleonischen Kriege Preußens (Paderborn, 2002), pp. 24–8; Karen Hagemann, ‘Occupation, Mobilization, and Politics: The Anti-Napoleonic Wars in Prussian Experience, Memory, and Historiography’, Central European History, 39:4 (2006), 589–94.

  76. C. B. A. Behrens, Society, Government and the Enlightenment: The Experiences of Eighteenth-Century France and Prussia (London, 1985), pp. 190–1.

  77. Corr. xiii. n. 10992 (13 October 1806).

  78. According to Enno E. Kraehe, Metternich’s German Policy, 2 vols (Princeton, 1963), i. p. 98.

  79. Branda, Le prix de la gloire, pp. 332–5.

  80. As does, for example, Stamm-Kuhlmann, König in Preußens großer Zeit, p. 257, but he repeats what many others before him have asserted.

  81. As has been demonstrated by Ilya Mieck, ‘Die Rettung Preußens? Napoleon und Alexander I. in Tilsit 1807’, in Ilya Mieck and Pierre Guillen (eds), Deutschland–Frankreich–Rußland: Begegnungen und Konfrontation (Munich, 2000), pp. 15–35.

  82. Alan Palmer, Metternich: Councillor of Europe (London, 1972), pp. 56–7.

  83. Alexander M. Martin, ‘The Russian Empire and the Napoleonic Wars’, in Dwyer (ed.), Napoleon and Europe, pp. 255–6.

  84. Rey, Alexandre Ier, p. 225.

  85. Roxandra Edling, Mémoires de la Comtesse Edling (née Stourdza), demoiselle d’honneur de S.M. l’impératrice (Moscow, 1888), pp. 29–30, 50; Hartley, Alexander, pp. 78–9; Martin, ‘The Russian Empire’, 257; Rey, Alexandre Ier, pp. 245–6.

  86. See André Ratchinski, Napoléon et Alexandre Ier: la guerre des idées (Paris, 2002), pp. 275–84.

  87. Hugh Ragsdale, ‘Russian Foreign Policy, 1725–1815’, in Dominic Lieven (ed.), The Cambridge History of Russia, 3 vols (Cambridge, 2006), ii. p. 526.

  88. Savary to Talleyrand (23 August 1807), report by Auguste de Saint-Aignan (no date), Savary to Napoleon (9 September 1807), and Savary to Napoleon (23 September 1807), in Sbornik, lxxxiii. pp. 33, 41–3, 58–9, 80, 86, 140; Comte de Björnstjerna (ed.), Mémoires posthumes du Feld-Maréchal comte de Stedingk, 3 vols (Paris, 1844–7), ii. pp. 354–5 (10 October 1807); Lentz, Savary, pp. 165–9.

  89. Caulaincourt, in love with the married Mme de Canisy, was promised by Napoleon that if he went away for a year everything would be sorted out when he returned. It was a promise the Emperor did not keep. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. pp. 53–60.

  90. Dominic Lieven, Russia against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807 to 1814 (London, 2009), p. 61.

  91. Martin, Romantics, Reformers, Reactionaries, p. 50.

  92. Charles Francis Adams (ed.), Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, 12 vols (New York, 1970), ii. p. 69 (16 November 1809).

  93. Martin, ‘The Russian Empire’, p. 256; Martin, Romantics, Reformers, Reactionaries, pp. 16–17, 39–56; Tim Blanning, The Romantic Revolution: A History (New York, 2011), pp. 146–7.

  94. Dimitri Sorokine, Napoléon dans la littérature russe (Paris, 1974), pp. 23–6.

  95. Marc Raeff, Michael Speransky: Statesman of Imperial Russia, 1772–1839 (The Hague, 1969), pp. 82–169; David Christian, ‘The Political Ideals of Michael Speransky’, Slavonic and East European Review, 54 (1976), 192–213.

  96. The event was offered as a spectacle to the French public in the form of a Panorama of Tilsit the following year. Girod de l’Ain, Dix ans de souvenirs militaires, p. 61.

  97. Hauterive, La police secrète du premier Empire, iii. pp. 302, 314, 316, 318 and 330 (10, 25, 28 and 30 July, and 11 August 1807).

  98. Cited in Kôbô Seigan, ‘La propagande pour la conscription, l’armée et la guerre dans le département de la Seine-Inférieure, du Directoire à la fin de l’Empire’, in Michel Biard, Annie Crépin and Bernard Gainot (eds), La plume et le sabre: volume d’hommages offerts à Jean-Paul Bertaud (Paris, 2002), p. 276.

  99. Noël, Souvenirs militaires, p. 36.

  100. Roman Töppel, Die Sachsen und Napoleon: ein Stimmungsbild 1806–1813 (Cologne, 2008), pp. 93–5.

  101. Brendan Simms, ‘Britain and Napoleon’, Historical Journal, 41:3 (1998), 886.

  102. See, for example, [Audibert], ‘L’accueil des Alpes-Maritimes à la paix de Tilsit’, Revue de l’Institut Napoléon, 101 (1966), 191–2.

  103. Lanzac de Laborie, Paris sous Napoléon, iii. pp. 11–12.

  104. On the history of the Arc de Triomphe see Isabelle Rouge-Ducos, L’Arc de Triomphe de l’Etoile: panthéon de la France guerrière: art et histoire (Dijon, 2008), esp. chs 1–3.

  105. Barrès, Souvenirs, p. 103.

  106. Louis Dubroca, Discours à la gloire des armées françaises, pour la célébration de la mémorable paix de Tilsit (Paris, 1807).

  107. Lanzac de Laborie, Paris sous Napoléon, iii. pp. 55–65; Hughes, Forging Napoleon’s Grande Armée, pp. 90–8.

  108. Barrès, Souvenirs, pp. 107–8.

  109. Descriptions of the festivities can be found in the Moniteur universel, 25, 26 and 29 November 1807; and in Jean-Antoine-Guillaume Bailleul, Histoire des triomphes militaires, des fêtes guerrières et des honneurs accordés aux braves chez les peuples anciens et modernes; particulièrement aux armées françaises, jusqu’au 1er janvier 1808 (Paris, 1808), pp. 457–64.

  110. See, for example, François-Louis Darragon, Le Bouquet impérial, ou le Tableau Napoléon (Paris, 1807); Eustache (sons), Ode à Sa Majesté l’empereur Napoléon, roi d’Italie (Paris, 1807); J. Leroy, Epître à Napoléon-le-Grand, poème en trois chants (Paris, 1807); Jean-Baptiste Rouvier, Hymne nouveau sur la paix à S.M.I. et R. Napoléon Ier, empereur des Français et roi d’Italie (n.p., 1807); Essai sur l’é
loge de Napoléon (Châlons, n.d.).

  111. J.-J. Dupont, Portrait historique de Napoléon le Grand (Paris, 1807), p. 6.

  112. Charles Messiers, 1769: Grande Comète qui a paru à la naissance de Napoléon le Grand, découverte et observée pendant quatre mois (Paris, n.d.), and in 1801, with the signing of the Treaty of Amiens, the planets were aligned.

  113. Pierre-Charles Lecomte, Les Fastes du génie militaire dirigés par l’héroïsme . . . de Napoléon le Grand (Paris, 1808).

  114. Cited in Bertho, ‘Naissance et élaboration d’une théologie de la guerre chez les évêques de Napoléon’, p. 90. 115. See, for example, M. Lemoyne, Discours prononcé dans l’église paroissiale de Saint-Louis de Blois, le premier dimanche du mois de décembre 1808, en mémoire du couronnement de S.M. l’Empereur et de la victoire d’Austerlitz (Blois, n.d.), pp. 7, 13.

  116. Plongeron, ‘Cyrus ou les lectures d’une figure biblique dans la rhétorique religieuse’, 33–4, 54–66.

  117. This included Protestant pastors. See Pierre de Joux, La Providence et Napoléon, ou les Victoires d’Ulm, d’Austerlitz, de Iéna, de Golymin, de Pultusck, de Dantzick, d’Eylau et de Friedland (Paris, 1808), p. 206, where one can read, ‘It is God who gave this prince . . . the capacity to reign . . .’

  118. Gustave de Pontécoulant, Souvenirs historiques et parlementaires du comte de Pontécoulant, ancien pair de France, 4 vols (Paris, 1861–5), iii. pp. 105–6.

  119. Lentz, Nouvelle histoire du Premier Empire, i. pp. 348 and 349.

  120. François Piétri, Napoléon et le Parlement ou la dictature enchaînée (Paris, 1955), pp. 207–21; Collins, Napoleon and his Parliaments, pp. 114–15.

  121. Méneval, Mémoires, ii. pp. 123–5.

  122. Gabriel Vauthier, ‘L’épuration de la magistrature en 1808’, Revue des études napoléoniennes, 15 (1919), 218–23; Jean Bourdon, ‘Les sénatus-consulte de 1807: l’épuration de la magistrature en 1807–1808 et ses conséquences’, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, 17 (July–September 1970), 829–36.