Citizen Emperor

by Philip Dwyer

  73. Huet, ‘Napoleon I: A New Augustus?’, p. 68. The plea of the wife of Prince Hatzfeld was the subject of at least three other paintings, including Louis Lafitte at the Salon of 1808; Pierre Antoine Vafflard at the same Salon; and Charles Boulanger de Boisfremont at the Salon of 1810 (Robert Rosenblum, Transformations in Late Eighteenth Century Art (Princeton, 1967), pp. 99–100).

  74. Journal de Paris, 6 November 1805. The account was reprinted in several other newspapers. Porterfield and Siegfried, Staging Empire, pp. 77–8.

  75. O’Brien, After the Revolution, p. 130.

  76. Porterfield, The Allure of Empire, p. 76; Huet, ‘Napoleon I: A New Augustus?’, p. 67.

  77. Porterfield, The Allure of Empire, pp. 68–74.

  78. See Dwyer, Napoleon: The Path to Power, pp. 401–7.

  79. Gerstein, ‘Le regard consolateur du grand homme’, pp. 321–31.

  80. Cabanis, La Presse, pp. 278–81.

  81. On Napoleon’s intervention in Spain see Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, pp. 625–58; Gates, The Spanish Ulcer, pp. 94–105.

  82. Esdaile, Peninsular Eyewitnesses, pp. 50–61.

  83. Lecestre (ed.), Lettres inédites, i. p. 163 (11 March 1808); and pp. 268–9 (12 January 1809).

  84. Alphonse-Henri, marquis d’Hautpoul, Mémoires du général marquis Alphonse d’Hautpoul (Paris, 1906), pp. 63–4; Marbot, Mémoires, ii. p. 69.

  85. Hautpoul, Mémoires, pp. 63–4.

  86. Gaspard de Clermont-Tonnerre, L’expédition d’Espagne: 1808–1810 (Paris, 1983), pp. 175–6; Nicole Gotteri, Soult: maréchal d’Empire et homme d’Etat (Besançon, 2000), p. 274.

  87. Miot de Mélito, Mémoires, iii. pp. 36–7.

  88. Esprit Victor Elisabeth Boniface Castellane, Journal du maréchal Castellane, 1804–1862, 5 vols (Paris, 1895–7), i. p. 33.

  89. Corr. xviii. nos. 14470, 144473, 14499 (13, 14 and 20 November 1808).

  90. Cited in Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War, 7 vols (Oxford, 1902–30), i. p. 467.

  91. Oman, A History of the Peninsular War, i. pp. 469–70.

  92. Jean-François Bourgoing, Nouveau Voyage en Espagne, ou Tableau de l’état actuel de cette monarchie, 3 vols (Paris, 1789), i. pp. 209–10, 233–6. For a description of Spain and Madrid in this time see Lovett, Napoleon and the Birth of Modern Spain, i. pp. 47–84.

  93. Fierro, La vie des Parisiens sous Napoléon, p. 32; Jacques Soubeyroux, Paupérisme et rapports sociaux à Madrid au XVIIIe siècle, 2 vols (Paris, 1978), i. chs 1–2.

  94. Moniteur universel, 10 April, and 1 and 8 April 1808; Lejeune, Mémoires, p. 77.

  95. Corr. xviii. nos. 14526, 14527, 14528, 14429, 14554 (4 and 12 December 1808); Oman, A History of the Peninsular War, i. pp. 473–80.

  96. Ilse Hempel Lipschutz, Spanish Painting and the French Romantics (Cambridge, Mass., 1972), pp. 27–56; Jean-Joël Brégeon, ‘Les appropriations d’oeuvres d’art par les français au Portugal et en Espagne, de 1807 à 1813; les suites muséales et dans les collections’, in Pontet, Napoléon, Bayonne et l’Espagne, pp. 377–88.

  97. Boulart, Mémoires militaires, pp. 193–4.

  98. On Soult see Hempel Lipschutz, Spanish Painting, pp. 31, 33, 35–9. For other examples see Véronique Gerard-Powell, ‘Les prises d’oeuvres d’art en Espagne pendant l’occupation napoléonienne: diversité des responsables, diversité des choix’, in Pontet, Napoléon, Bayonne et l’Espagne, pp. 392–8.

  99. Boudon, ‘Les clémences de Napoléon’, p. 16, and for what follows. See also Méneval, Mémoires, ii. p. 217; Lejeune, Mémoires, p. 164.

  100. Dumas, Souvenirs, iii. p. 335.

  101. Aymar-Olivier Le Harivel de Gonneville, Souvenirs militaires du colonel de Gonneville (Paris, 1875), p. 106.

  102. Tourtier-Bonazzi, Lettres d’amour à Joséphine, pp. 323–4 (31 December 1808).

  103. Corr. xviii. nos. 14716, 14717 (15 January 1809).

  104. Cambacérès, Mémoires inédites, ii. p. 250; Lentz, Nouvelle histoire du Premier Empire, i. pp. 431–2.

  105. Corr. xviii. n. 14716 (15 January 1809).

  106. Corr. xviii. n. 14731 (16 January 1809).

  107. Corr. xviii. n. 14684 (11 January 1809).

  108. Corr. xviii. n. 14717 (15 January 1809).

  109. Dumas, Souvenirs, iii. p. 338.

  110. Thiébault, Mémoires, iv. p. 280.

  111. Anonymous letter to Davout in Louis Nicolas Davout, Correspondance du maréchal Davout, prince d’Eckmühl, 4 vols (Paris, 1885), ii. pp. 372–4 (20 January 1809).

  112. Cambacérès, Mémoires inédites, ii. p. 250.

  113. Hauterive, La police secrète du premier Empire, iv. p. 521; Anatole de Montesquiou, Souvenirs sur la Révolution, l’Empire, la Restauration et le règne de Louis-Philippe (Paris, 1961), pp. 154–6, who makes no mention of the insult; Mathieu Couty, ‘Quand Napoléon prononca la disgrace de Talleyrand’, Historia, 506 (February 1989), 68–77; Waresquiel, Talleyrand, pp. 400–1.

  114. Most of the accounts of this episode are second hand: Pasquier, Mémoires, i, pp. 357–8; Mollien, Mémoires, ii, pp. 333–43; Forgues (ed.), Mémoires de Vitrolles, i. pp. 287–8; Méneval, Mémoires, ii. pp. 227–9.

  115. See Waresquiel, Talleyrand, p. 695 n. 5, for a discussion of the sources on this question.

  116. Bourrienne, Mémoires, ii. p. 415.

  117. Jean-Claude Courtine and Claudine Haroche, Histoire du visage: exprimer et taire ses émotions: du XVIe au début du XIXe siècle (Paris, 1994), pp. 238, 243–4; and the preface by Chantal Thomas in Madame de Genlis, De l’esprit des étiquettes de l’ancienne cour et des usages du monde de ce temps (Paris, 1996), pp. 8–10, 14.

  118. Smith, ‘No More Language Games’, 1433.

  119. The transformation was completed by 1813. See Tour du Pin, Journal d’une femme de cinquante ans, 1778–1815, pp. 337–9, in which she speaks of Talleyrand’s hatred and bitterness towards Napoleon; and Hortense, Mémoires, ii. p. 173.

  120. Cambacérès, Mémoires inédits, ii. p. 251.

  121. Mansel, The Eagle in Splendour, pp. 112, 121.

  122. Coignet, Note-Books, p. 136. See also Rémusat, Mémoires, ii. p. 338.

  123. François-Yves Besnard, Souvenirs d’un nonagénaire, 2 vols (Paris, 1880), ii. pp. 197–8; Remacle, Relations secrètes, pp. 44–5.

  124. He admitted to Fain that his anger was simulated, ‘Otherwise they would come and bite me in the hand’. C. W. Crawley (ed.), The New Cambridge Modern History, vol. ix: War and Peace in an Age of Upheaval, 1793–1830 (Cambridge, 1965), p. 317; Annie Jourdan, ‘La Hollande en tant qu’“objet de désir” et le roi Louis, fondateur d’une monarchie nationale’, in Jourdan (ed.), Louis Bonaparte, pp. 9–30, here p. 22.

  125. Eynard, Journal, i. p. 138.

  126. Bausset, Mémoires anecdotiques, i. p. 14; Agathon-Jean-François, baron Fain, Mémoires du baron Fain, premier secrétaire du cabinet de l’empereur (Paris, 1908), pp. 202–3; Branda, Napoléon et ses hommes, p. 271.

  15: The Tide Turns

  1. Oskar Criste, Erzherzog Karl von Österreich, 2 vols (Vienna and Leipzig, 1912), ii. p. 436; Ingrao, The Habsburg Monarchy, p. 234; and James Allen Vann, ‘Habsburg Policy and the Austrian War of 1809’, Central European History, 7:4 (1974), 305.

  2. On how he did this see Vann, ‘Habsburg Policy’, 300–4.

  3. Vann, ‘Habsburg Policy’, 307.

  4. See, for example, Metternich, Mémoires, ii. pp. 214–15 (26 August 1808); Grunwald (ed.), ‘Les débuts diplomatiques de Metternich à Paris’, 503–5, 512, 518–19;Grunwald (ed.), ‘La fin d’une ambassade, Metternich’, 840–1, 846 (20 January and 10 April 1809); Manfred Botzenhart, Metternichs Pariser Botschafterzeit (Münster, 1967), pp. 88–95; Kraehe, Metternich’s German Policy, i. pp. 85–6; Alan Sked, Metternich and Austria: An Evaluation (Basingstoke, 2008), pp. 35–42.

  5. Metternich, Mémoires, ii. pp. 289–90, 290–2, 292–5, 296–9 (3, 11, 18 and 25 April 1809); Grunwald (ed.), ‘Les débuts diplomatiques de Metternich à Paris’, 525.

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p; 6. Metternich, Mémoires, ii. p. 170 (27 April 1808); Kraehe, Metternich’s German Policy, i. pp. 63–4.

  7. Grunwald (ed.), ‘La fin d’une ambassade’, 839 (11 January 1809).

  8. Text in Beer, Zehn Jahre österreichischer Politik, pp. 516–35; Botzenhart, Metternichs Pariser Botschafterzeit, pp. 279–84; Vann, ‘Habsburg Policy’, 309. Metternich’s role in the preparations for war is unclear. Kraehe, Metternich’s German Policy, i. p. 65, argues that he was an intimate of the war party; Botzenhart, Metternichs Pariser Botschafterzeit, pp. 262–4, 270–84, argues that throughout the autumn of 1808 Metternich was against war with France, but that his reports about the internal divisions at the court of Paris strengthened the hand of the war party.

  9. Vann, ‘Habsburg Policy’, 305.

  10. Corr. xxvii. n. 14380 (14 October 1808). He supposedly told Jérôme in the spring of 1809 that the Austrian Emperor would cease to reign within two months (Grunwald (ed.), ‘La fin d’une ambassade’, 485).

  11. Vann, ‘Habsburg Policy’, 305; Gunther E. Rothenberg, Napoleon’s Great Adversary: Archduke Charles and the Austrian Army, 1792–1814 (Staplehurst, 1995), pp. 160–1. It would appear that Charles was not in favour of war when it was declared, on 8 February 1809, on the grounds that the army was not ready. See Moritz von Angeli, Erzherzog Carl als Feldherr und Heeresorganisator, 5 vols (Vienna, 1896–8), iv. pp. 9–10; Criste, Erzherzog Karl von Österreich, ii. pp. 432–8; John H. Gill, 1809: Thunder on the Danube: Napoleon’s Defeat of the Habsburgs, 3 vols (London, 2008–10), i. pp. 35–6.

  12. Ernst Zehetbauer, Die Landwehr gegen Napoleon: Österreichs erste Miliz und der Nationalkrieg von 1809 (Vienna, 1999).

  13. Gunther E. Rothenberg, The Emperor’s Last Victory: Napoleon and the Battle of Wagram (London, 2005), pp. 43, 60–1.

  14. Karl Wagner, ‘Die Wiener Zeitungen und Zeitschriften der Jahre 1808 und 1809’, Archiv für Österreichische Geschichte, 104 (1915), 254–348, 383–6; Walter C. Langsam, The Napoleonic Wars and German Nationalism in Austria (New York, 1930), p. 60.

  15. On Stadion’s propaganda campaign see Wagner, ‘Die Wiener Zeitungen und Zeitschriften der Jahre 1808 und 1809’, 197–400. On the pamphlet literature see Langsam, The Napoleonic Wars, pp. 56–93; Helmut Hammer, Oesterreichs Propaganda zum Feldzug 1809: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der politischen Propaganda (Munich, 1935); Jörg Echternkamp, Der Aufstieg des deutschen Nationalismus (1770–1840) (Frankfurt, 1998), pp. 195–203.

  16. Elaborated on by Karen Hagemann, ‘“Be Proud and Firm, Citizens of Austria!” Patriotism and Masculinity in Texts of the “Political Romantics” Written during Austria’s Anti-Napoleonic Wars’, German Studies Review, 29 (2006), 41–62.

  17. For this see Alan Sked, Radetzky: Imperial Victor and Military Genius (London, 2011), p. 25.

  18. On the battle of Eckmühl see F. Loraine Petre, Napoleon and the Archduke Charles: A History of the Franco-Austrian Campaign in the Valley of the Danube in 1809 (London, 1909), pp. 167–85.

  19. Tourtier-Bonazzi, Lettres d’amour à Joséphine, p. 331 (6 May 1809). We do not know, in fact, where exactly on the foot Napoleon was wounded, nor which foot it was. In the large toe of the left foot, according to Ségur, Histoire et mémoires, iii. pp. 328–9.

  20. Rothenberg, The Emperor’s Last Victory, pp. 75–6.

  21. Peter Csendes and Ferdinand Opll (eds), Wien: Geschichte einer Stadt, vol. iii: Von 1790 bis zur Gegenwart (Vienna, 2002), pp. 94–5.

  22. Ouvrard, 1809: les Français à Vienne, pp. 42–55.

  23. Cited in Ingrao, The Habsburg Monarchy, p. 236; Eduard Wertheimer, ‘Zur Geschichte Wiens im Jahre 1809. (Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Krieges von 1809.)’, Archiv für Österreichische Geschichte, 74 (1889), 164–94.

  24. For the following description of Vienna see John Bramsen, Letters of a Prussian Traveller, 2 vols (London, 1818), i. pp. 85–6, 93–9; Stendhal, Correspondance de Stendhal: 1800–1842, 3 vols (Paris, 1908), i. p. 343 (18 May 1809);

  25. On the battle of Aspern-Essling see Petre, Napoleon and the Archduke Charles, pp. 274–98; Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, pp. 694–707; Parker, Three Napoleonic Battles, pp. 27–98; Gill, 1809: Thunder on the Danube, ii. pp. 129–98.

  26. F. Gunther Eyck, Loyal Rebels: Andreas Hofer and the Tyrolean Uprising of 1809 (Lanham, Md, 1986); Martin p. Schennach, Revolte in der Region: zur Tiroler Erhebung 1809 (Innsbruck, 2009). The uprising was not so much about hatred of the French as about hatred of Bavaria. Napoleon responded in his habitual manner, ordering General Lefebvre to wipe out six big villages as an example, threatening to put the whole of the Tyrol to fire and blood if the inhabitants did not surrender all their arms (Napoleon to Lefebvre, in Lecestre (ed.), Lettres inédites, i. p. 337 (30 July 1809)).

  27. Altough both uprisings ended in failure, they were exploited by German nationalists. See Boudon, Le roi Jérôme, pp. 283–8; Sam A. Mustafa, The Long Ride of Major von Schill: A Journey through German History and Memory (Lanham, Md, 2009).

  28. On the Tugendbund see Gérard Hertault and Abel Douay, Franc-maçonnerie et sociétés secrètes contre Napoléon: naissance de la nation allemande (Paris, 2005), pp. 109–75.

  29. Schama, Patriots and Liberators, pp. 595–600. The significance of the expedition has been clearly demonstrated by Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, pp. 360–1.

  30. See, for example, Roger Dufraisse, ‘La crise économique de 1810–1812 en pays annexé: l’exemple de la rive gauche du Rhin’, Francia, 6 (1978), 407–40.

  31. Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, p. 699.

  32. Ouvrard, 1809: les Français à Vienne, pp. 99–105.

  33. Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, pp. 699–700; Parker, Three Napoleonic Battles, pp. 57–8.

  34. Robert M. Epstein, ‘Patterns of Change and Continuity in Nineteenth-Century Warfare’, Journal of Military History, 56:3 (1992), 375–88. Figures in Charles-Gaspard-Louis Saski, Campagne de 1809 en Allemagne et en Autriche, 4 vols (Paris, 1899–1902), iii. p. 380 n. 1; Jean Thiry, Wagram (Paris, 1966), p. 140; Parker, Three Napoleonic Battles, p. 82.

  35. Jean-Michel Chevalier, Souvenirs des guerres napoléoniennes (Paris, 1970), p. 108, who claims he let out a long ‘cry of pain’ (cri de douleur); Chaptal, Mes souvenirs sur Napoléon, p. 252. See also Brian Joseph Martin, Napoleonic Friendship: Military Fraternity, Intimacy, and Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century France (Durham, NH, 2011), pp. 41–7

  36. Dominique-Jean Larrey, Mémoires de chirurgie militaire et campagnes, 4 vols (Paris, 1812–17), iii. pp. 282–5.

  37. Chevalier, Souvenirs, p. 108.

  38. Cited in Patrick Turnbull, Napoleon’s Second Empress (London, 1971), p. 26.

  39. Stamm-Kuhlmann, König in Preußens großer Zeit, pp. 289–90.

  40. Kraehe, Metternich’s German Policy, i. pp. 83–5.

  41. Savary, Mémoires, iv. p. 147.

  42. On this point, Hauterive, La police secrète du premier Empire, v. pp. 99–100 (30 June 1809); Petiteau, Les Français et l’Empire, p. 202.

  43. Chastenay, Mémoires, ii. p. 97.

  44. Cited in Boudon, Le roi Jérôme, pp. 340–1.

  45. Boigne, Récits d’une tante, i. pp. 291–2.

  46. On the battle of Wagram see Petre, Napoleon and the Archduke Charles, pp. 351–79; Thiry, Wagram; Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, pp. 677–94; Robert M. Epstein, Napoleon’s Last Victory and the Emergence of Modern War (Lawrence, Kan., 1994), pp. 129–70; Rothenberg, Napoleon’s Great Adversary, pp. 208–16; Gill, 1809: Thunder on the Danube, iii. pp. 185–264.

  47. Ouvrard, 1809: les Français à Vienne, pp. 163–6.

  48. Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, p. 1121.

  49. Petre, Napoleon and the Archduke Charles, pp. 360–1.

  50. Corr. xix. n. 15505 (8 July 1809), which states that 1,500 were killed and 3,000 or 4,000 wounded.

  51. Thiry, Wagram, p. 188.

  52. Kraehe, Metternich’s German Policy, i. p. 89.

  53. Angeli, Erzherzog Carl, iv. pp. 553–64.

 
; 54. On the changing nature of battle see Marie-Cécile Thoral, From Valmy to Waterloo: France at War, 1792–1815 (Basingstoke, 2011), pp. 14–20.

  55. There are two exceptions: one is a painting by Gros, commissioned by Berthier, who was, after all, given the title ‘Prince of Wagram’ (Brunner, Antoine-Jean Gros, pp. 296–302); the other a painting passed to Carle Vernet and never completed (O’Brien, After the Revolution, pp. 124, 181–2). Even then, it was a private and not an official commission.

  56. One such example was the construction of a panorama in Paris, which one critic described as having been so real that he was ‘transported to the scene’ (Maurice Samuels, ‘Realizing the Past: History and the Spectacle in Balzac’s Adieu’, Representations, 79 (2002), 86).

  57. Corr. xix. n. 15894 (3 October 1809); Nicolet, La fabrique d’une nation, p. 147.

  58. Serge Tatistcheff, Alexandre Ier et Napoléon, d’après leur correspondance inédite, 1801–1812 (Paris, 1891), pp. 465–500; Thiry, Wagram, pp. 112–14; Kraehe, Metternich’s German Policy, i. p. 73.

  59. Vandal, Napoléon et Alexandre, ii. pp. 95–6; Rey, Alexandre Ier, pp. 262–3.

  60. Domokos Kosáry, Napoléon et la Hongrie (Budapest, 1979), pp. 51–3. Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, pp. 282, 366; Ingrao, The Habsburg Monarchy, pp. 236–7.

  61. Corr. xix. n. 15215 (15 May 1809); Kosáry, Napoléon et la Hongrie, pp. 53, 67–71, 75. The Hungarian political elite rejected the proposition.

  62. Beer, Zehn Jahre österreichischer Politik, p. 427; Kraehe, Metternich’s German Policy, i. p. 91.

  63. Scott, Birth of a Great Power System, p. 343. According to Sked, Radetzky, p. 30, Napoleon attempted to ruin Austrian finances by flooding the country with 300 million Gulden in counterfeit notes, but I have been unable to verify this claim.

  64. Kraehe, Metternich’s German Policy, i. p. 119.

  65. Cited in Kraehe, Metternich’s German Policy, i. p. 119.

  66. Dunan, Napoléon et l’Allemagne, pp. 260–3; Sked, Radetzky, p. 27.

  67. Rapp, Mémoires, pp. 112–17; Ernst Borkowsky, ‘Das Schönbrunner Attentat im Jahr 1809 nach unveröfentlichten Quellen’, Die Grenzboten. Blätter für Deutschland und Belgien, 57:4 (1898), 293–301; Tulard, Napoléon: Jeudi 12 octobre 1809, pp. 85–130; and Jean Tulard, ‘Les attentats contre Napoléon’, Revue du Souvenir napoléonien, 391 (1993), 13–14.