Citizen Emperor

by Philip Dwyer

  93. Puybusque, Lettres sur la guerre de Russie, pp. 52–3 (24 August 1812).

  94. Soltyk, Napoléon en 1812, pp. 133–6.

  95. Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, pp. 791–2.

  96. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. p. 208.

  97. Bourgeois, Tableau de la campagne de Moscou, p. 35; Lejeune, Mémoires, pp. 385, 386; Denniée, Itinéraire de l’empereur Napoléon, pp. 58–9, 62; Rapp, Mémoires, p. 157; Boulart, Mémoires militaires, p. 250.

  98. According to Soltyk, Napoléon en 1812, p. 130

  99. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. pp. 216–17.

  100. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. p. 214.

  101. Paul Britten Austin, 1812: The March on Moscow (London, 1993), pp. 157–8.

  102. Joseph de Maistre, Correspondance diplomatique 1811–1817, 2 vols (Paris, 1860), i. pp. 130–1 (no date but probably July 1812); Nabokov and de Lastours, Koutouzov, pp. 143–66.

  103. Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, p. 189.

  104. Esdaile, Napoleon’s Wars, p. 475.

  105. Maurice Paléologue, Alexandre Ier, un tsar énigmatique (Paris, 1937), pp. 140–1.

  106. Fain, Manuscrit de mil huit cent douze, ii. p. 7.

  107. Fain, Manuscrit de mil huit cent douze, ii. p. 8.

  108. Fain, Manuscrit de mil huit cent douze, ii. pp. 8–9.

  109. Colonel Rodojuzky, cited in Nabokov and de Lastours, Koutouzov, p. 172.

  110. Ducque, Journal, pp. 19–20.

  111. On the battle of Borodino see Duffy, Borodino; Parkinson, The Fox of the North, pp. 139–57; Zamoyski, 1812, pp. 252–88; Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, pp. 790–810; Soltyk, Napoléon en 1812, pp. 155–74.

  112. Duffy, Borodino, pp. 84–5; Adams, Napoleon and Russia, p. 340.

  113. Vladimir Ivanovitch Löwenstern, Mémoires du général-major russe baron de Löwenstern, 2 vols (Paris, 1903), i. p. 273. Although the militia often stole whatever valuables they could find on the wounded (Zamoyski, 1812, pp. 258–9, 327).

  114. On this point see Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, pp. 195–6.

  115. Corr. xxiv. n. 19182 (7 September 1812).

  116. Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, pp. 798–9; Duffy, Borodino, p. 85; Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, pp. 199–200.

  117. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. p. 245.

  118. Lejeune, Mémoires, p. 398.

  119. Gaspard Gourgaud, Napoléon et la grande-armée en Russie ou Examen critique de l’ouvrage de M. le comte Ph. de Ségur (Brussels, 1825), p. 242.

  120. Cited in Adams, Napoleon and Russia, p. 349. Others (Duffy, Borodino, pp. 142–3) have more or less excused both commanders from what appears to be complete lethargy, as though they were paralysed by their responsibilities.

  121. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. pp. 245–6.

  122. Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, pp. 206–7.

  123. Brett-James, 1812: Eyewitness, p. 48.

  124. Esdaile, Napoleon’s Wars, p. 414.

  125. For his health see Constant, Mémoires, v. pp. 60–1; Denniée, Itinéraire de l’empereur Napoléon, p. 74, who asserts that he was also suffering from a migraine; Marie-Joseph-Thomas Rossetti, Journal d’un compagnon de Murat: Espagne, Naples, Russie (Paris, 1998), p. 116, who says that he was ‘in pain’; Marie-Elie-Guillaume de Baudus, Etudes sur Napoléon, par le lieutenant-colonel de Baudus, 2 vols (Paris, 1841), ii. p. 83.

  126. Ducque, Journal, p. 22.

  127. Ducque, Journal, p. 21. Denniée, Itinéraire de l’empereur Napoléon, pp. 80–1; Adams, Napoleon and Russia, p. 355.

  128. Ducque, Journal, pp. 21–2.

  129. Rostopchin to Vorontsov, 28 April 1814, in Bartenev (ed.), Archiv kniazia Vorontsova, viii. p. 319.

  130. Adams, Napoleon and Russia, p. 355.

  131. On Russian losses, Zamoyski, 1812, pp. 287–8; Nordhof, Die Geschichte der Zerstörung Moskaus, p. 164 n. 209; Alexander Mikaberidze, The Battle of Borodino: Napoleon against Kutuzov (Barnsley, 2007), pp. 207–18; Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, p. 209.

  132. On the aftermath of the battle see Faure, Souvenirs du Nord, pp. 45–7; Bourgeois, Tableau de la campagne de Moscou, pp. 47, 50–2; Dedem de Gelder, Un général hollandais, p. 240; François Dumonceau, Mémoires du général comte François Dumonceau, 3 vols (Brussels, 1958–63), ii. pp. 142–4; Roos, Souvenirs, p. 100; François, Journal, p. 666 (7 September 1812); Vionnet de Maringoné, Souvenirs, pp. 14–15; La Flize, ‘Souvenirs de la Moskowa par un chirurgien de la Garde Impériale’, Feuilles d’histoire du XVIIe au XXe siècle, 8 (1912), 419–26.

  133. Ségur, Histoire et mémoires, iv. pp. 411–12.

  134. Pierrelongue (ed.), Napoléon et Marie-Louise, p. 56 (8 September 1812).

  135. Ségur, Histoire et mémoires, iv. pp. 411–12.

  136. Alphonse Rabbe, Résumé de l’histoire de Russie depuis l’établissement de Rourik . . . jusqu’à nos jours (Paris, 1825), pp. 595–6.

  19: ‘The Struggle of Obstinacy’

  1. Méneval, Mémoires, iii. p. 62. For a description of the city see G. Lecointe de Laveau, Moscou avant et après l’incendie (Paris, 1814), pp. 1–13.

  2. Labaume, Relation circonstanciée, p. 183.

  3. Fantin des Odoards, Journal, pp. 331–2; Bourgogne, Mémoires, p. 13; Faure, Souvenirs du Nord, pp. 51–2; Soltyk, Napoléon en 1812, pp. 183–6.

  4. Bourgogne, Mémoires, p. 13; Combe, Mémoires, pp. 100–1.

  5. Guillaume Peyrusse, Lettres inédites du baron Guillaume Peyrusse, écrites à son frère André, pendant les campagnes de l’empire, de 1809 à 1814 (Paris, 1894), p. 100 (22 September 1812).

  6. Paul Bairoch, ‘Une nouvelle distribution des populations: villes et campagnes’, in Jean-Pierre Bardet et Jacques Dupâquier (eds), Histoire des populations de l’Europe, 3 vols (Paris, 1997), ii. p. 211; Alexander M. Martin, ‘Down and Out in 1812: The Impact of the Napoleonic Invasion on Moscow’s Middling Strata’, in Roger Bartlett and Gabriella Lehmann-Carli (eds), Eighteenth-Century Russia: Society, Culture, Economy (Münster, 2008), p. 430.

  7. Mavor (ed.), The Grand Tours of Katherine Wilmot, pp. 145–6; Constantin de Grunwald, Société et civilisation russes au XIXe siècle (Paris, 1975), pp. 41–5; Torrance, ‘Some Russian Attitudes to France’, 294.

  8. Martin, ‘Lost Arcadia’, 609.

  9. Count Ysarn Dunin-Stryzewski to his wife (12 October 1812). Also Prosper to his father-in-law (15 October), in Lettres interceptées, pp. 79, 148.

  10. Martin, ‘The Response of the Population of Moscow’, pp. 469–70.

  11. On this see Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, pp. 210–11.

  12. A. A. Orlov, ‘Britons in Moscow’, History Today, 53/7 (2003), 18–19. The figures are from Martin, ‘The Response of the Population of Moscow’, pp. 473, 474, based on a police report; Nordhof, Die Geschichte der Zerstörung Moskaus, p. 166 n. 218; Zamoyski, 1812, p. 576 n. 5.

  13. Ségur, Histoire et mémoires, v. p. 57.

  14. Ducque, Journal, pp. 26–7.

  15. Bourgogne, Mémoires, pp. 13–16.

  16. Martin, ‘The Response of the Population of Moscow’, p. 479.

  17. Fantin des Odoards, Journal, p. 332.

  18. Fantin des Odoards, Journal, p. 241. See also Labaume, Relation circonstanciée, pp. 194, 196, 197; Thirion, Souvenirs militaires, pp. 103–4; Duverger, Mes aventures, p. 8.

  19. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. p. 259; Soltyk, Napoléon en 1812, p. 191.

  20. Adams, Napoleon and Russia, p. 408. About 260,000 men were still operating in various parts of Russia at this point (Ralph Ashby, Napoleon against Great Odds: The Emperor and the Defenders of France, 1814 (Santa Barbara, Calif., 2010), pp. 12–13). About 100,000 of those had been left to guard the route to Moscow (Marie-Pierre Rey, ‘De l’uniforme à l’accoutrement: une métaphore de la retraite? Réalité et symbolique du vêtement dans la campagne de Russie de 1812’, in Natalie Petiteau, Jean-Marc Olivier and Sylvie Caucanas (eds), Les Européens dans les guerre napoléoniennes (Toulouse, 2012), p. 238).

  21. Paradis to Bonnegrâce (20 September 1812), in Le
ttres interceptées, p. 19.

  22. Ducque, Journal, p. 27.

  23. Martin, ‘The Response of the Population of Moscow’, p. 476.

  24. Frédéric List to his wife (22 September 1812), in Lettres interceptées, p. 26. Most others had suffered the same conditions (R.S. to Mme Lebrun (13 October 1812), in Lettres interceptées, p. 81).

  25. Captain Richard to Colonel Borthon (22 September 1812), in Lettres interceptées, pp. 333–4.

  26. General Baraguay d’Hilliers to his wife (31 October 1812), in Lettres interceptées, pp. 343–4.

  27. Baron Boulart to his wife (1 November 1812), in Lettres interceptées, pp. 184–5.

  28. Germaine de Staël-Holstein, Dix années d’exil (Paris, 1904), p. 311; Angelica Goodden, Madame de Staël: The Dangerous Exile (Oxford, 2008), pp. 204–16.

  29. Martin, Romantics, Reformers, Reactionaries, pp. 125–36.

  30. Nordhof, Die Geschichte der Zerstörung Moskaus, pp. 113, 118, 133–5, 143–5, 146.

  31. Torrance, ‘Some Russian Attitudes to France’, 294.

  32. For the following, Marina Peltzer, ‘Imagerie populaire et caricature: la graphique politique antinapoléonienne en Russie et ses antécédents pétroviens’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 48 (1985), 190; and Marina Peltzer, ‘Peasants, Cossacks, “Black Tsar”: Russian Caricatures of Napoleon during the Wars of 1812 to 1814’, in Alan Forrest, Etienne François and Karen Hagemann (eds), War Memories: The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars in Modern European Culture (Basingstoke, 2012).

  33. Martin, ‘Lost Arcadia’, 612.

  34. Martin, Romantics, Reformers, Reactionaries, p. 128.

  35. Martin, Romantics, Reformers, Reactionaries, p. 135.

  36. Adams, Napoleon and Russia, p. 320.

  37. Zamoyski, 1812, p. 294.

  38. Nordhof, Die Geschichte der Zerstörung Moskaus, pp. 154–6; Martin, Romantics, Reformers, Reactionaries, pp. 129–30.

  39. Torrance, ‘Some Russian Attitudes to France’, 296.

  40. Cited in Torrance, ‘Some Russian Attitudes to France’, 296–7.

  41. Edling, Mémoires, pp. 74–6; Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, p. 210.

  42. Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, p. 242.

  43. Maistre, Oeuvres complètes, xii. p. 180.

  44. Edling, Mémoires, pp. 79–80.

  45. It is impossible to know how many prisoners were released, but we know that around 540 were nevertheless transferred to the prison of Nizhni Novgorod (Nordhof, Die Geschichte der Zerstörung Moskaus, pp. 154 n. 172, and 157, 159. Bourgogne, Mémoires, p. 17; Adams, Napoleon and Russia, pp. 360–1.

  46. According to Muhlstein, Napoléon à Moscou, p. 162.

  47. Boulart, Mémoires militaires, p. 261; Denniée, Itinéraire de l’empereur Napoléon, pp. 94–5.

  48. Bellot de Kergorre, Journal, p. 54.

  49. Fantin des Odoards, Journal, p. 335.

  50. Ségur, Histoire de Napoléon et de la grande-armée pendant l’année 1812, ii. p. 49. Ancient authors describe the people occupying the region between the north of the Danube and the northern Caucasus, which today would largely incorporate the Ukrainian steppes, as Scythians. In Greek sources, they were archetypal barbarians.

  51. Feodor Vasilievitch Rostopchin, La vérité sur l’incendie de Moscou, par le Cte Rostopchine (Paris, 1823). For a detailed analysis of this ‘controversy’, which is nothing of the kind, see Daria Olivier, The Burning of Moscow, 1812, trans. M. Heron (London, 1966), pp. 186–97. Rostopchin was dismissed from office in August 1814. Despite his virulent Francophobia during the war, he spent the years 1815–23 in Paris where he was fêted as the man who had burnt Moscow and defeated Napoleon. He died in Moscow in 1826. Even Rostopchin’s daughter, in an otherwise exculpatory memoir, wrote of her father setting fire to Moscow. See Natalie Narychkin, Le comte Rostopchine et son temps: 1812 (St Petersburg, 1912), pp. 151, 158.

  52. Torrance, ‘Some Russian Attitudes to France’, 297.

  53. Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, p. 213.

  54. François-Joseph d’Ysarn Villefort, Relation du séjour des Français à Moscou et l’incendie de cette ville en 1812, par un habitant de Moscou (Brussels, 1871), p. 9.

  55. On these conflicting views see Torrance, ‘Some Russian Attitudes to France’, 297.

  56. Joseph de Maistre wrote about how the burning of Moscow ‘fanaticized’ the people and contributed towards the acts of barbarity committed against the invader (Maistre, Oeuvres complètes, xii. pp. 295, 307).

  57. Grand Duc Nicolas Mikhaïlovitch (ed.), Perepiska imperatora Aleksandra I so sestroi Velikoi knyaginei Yekaterinoi Pavlovnoi (St Petersburg, 1910), pp. 83, 84, and 86–93 (3, 6, 7 and 18 September 1812); Daria Olivier, L’incendie de Moscou (Paris, 1964), pp. 130–1; Zamoyski, 1812, pp. 313–14; Rey, Alexandre Ier, pp. 325–6.

  58. Reported in Adams (ed.), Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, ii. p. 409 (30 September 1812).

  59. Maret to Berthier, 21 September 1812, in Arthur Chuquet (ed.), Lettres de 1812: première série (Paris, 1911), p. 47.

  60. Ysarn Villefort, Relation du séjour des Français à Moscou, pp. 30–1; (abbé) Adrien Surrugues, Lettres sur l’incendie de Moscou en 1812 (Paris, 1823), p. 18.

  61. Berthezène, Souvenirs militaires, ii. pp. 73–4; Adélaïde-Louise d’Eckmühl, marquise de Blocqueville, Le maréchal Davout, prince d’Eckmühl, raconté par les siens et par lui-même, 4 vols (Paris, 1879–80), iii. p. 177; Ségur, Histoire et mémoires, v. p. 92; Villemain, Souvenirs contemporains, i. p. 230.

  62. Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, p. 246.

  63. Labaume, Relation circonstanciée, p. 225.

  64. Bellot de Kergorre, Journal, p. 54; Bourgogne, Mémoires, p. 17; Duverger, Mes aventures, pp. 11–12; Waresquiel (ed.), Lettres d’un lion, p. 89 (27 September 1812); Lecointe de Laveau, Moscou avant et après l’incendie, pp. 119–20; Bourgeois, Tableau de la campagne de Moscou, pp. 65–6; Puybusque, Lettres sur la guerre de Russie, pp. 96–7 (24 October 1812); Dedem de Gelder, Un général hollandais, pp. 252–3, 256; Soltyk, Napoléon en 1812, pp. 221–3; Maret to Berthier, 21 September 1812, in Chuquet (ed.), Lettres de 1812, p. 49, wrote that they had enough supplies for six months.

  65. Bourgogne, Mémoires, p. 55. On the looting of Moscow in general see Nordhof, Die Geschichte der Zerstörung Moskaus, pp. 185–202. On life in Moscow during the French occupation see Muhlstein, Napoléon à Moscou, pp. 197–215.

  66. Surrugues, Lettres sur l’incendie de Moscou, p. 23.

  67. Labaume, Relation circonstanciée, p. 242 ; Bellot de Kergorre, Journal, p. 55; Waresquiel (ed.), Lettres d’un lion, p. 58 (20 June 1812); Larrey, Mémoires, iv. pp. 77–8.

  68. Ségur, Histoire et mémoires, v. p. 83.

  69. Solignac, La Bérézina, p. 161.

  70. Peyrusse, Lettres inédites, p. 100 (22 September 1812). See, too, Labaume, Relation circonstanciée, pp. 109–1.

  71. Castellane, Journal, i. p. 162 (28 and 30 September 1812).

  72. Corr. xxiv. n. 19213 (20 September 1812); Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. p. 285.

  73. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. pp. 302–3; Ségur, Histoire et mémoires, v. p. 75; Ségur, Histoire de Napoléon, ii. pp. 75–7.

  74. Corr. xxiv. n. 19213 (September 1812); Adams, Napoleon and Russia, pp. 366–70; Lieven, Napoleon against Russia, pp. 251–2.

  75. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. p. 305.

  76. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. p. 306.

  77. Puybusque, Lettres sur la guerre de Russie, pp. 142–5 (11 December 1812); Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, p. 252.

  78. Puybusque, Lettres sur la guerre de Russie, pp. 35–6 (19 August 1812).

  79. Ségur, Histoire et mémoires, v. p. 71.

  80. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. pp. 277.

  81. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. p. 313.

  82. François, Journal, p. 668 (1–5 October 1812).

  83. An employee of the General Intendancy, 19 October 1812, in Lettres interceptées, p. 175.

  84. Mortier to Berthier, 18 September
1812, in Chuquet (ed.), Lettres de 1812, pp. 43–4.

  85. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. p. 310.

  86. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. pp. 297–8, 302, 323; Blocqueville, Le maréchal Davout, iii. 181.

  87. Waresquiel (ed.), Lettres d’un lion, p. 92 (8 October 1812).

  88. François, Journal, p. 670 (13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 October 1812).

  89. Adams, Napoleon and Russia, p. 370.

  90. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. pp. 301–3.

  91. Corr. xxiv. nos. 19238 and 19245 (1 and 4 October 1812).

  92. According to Ségur, Histoire et mémoires, v. p. 93.

  93. Adams, Napoleon and Russia, p. 372.

  94. Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, pp. 251–2.

  95. Adams (ed.), Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, ii. p. 410 (2 October 1812).

  96. Corr. xxiv. n. 19237 (no date, but probably 1 October 1812), although, according to Fain, Manuscrit de mil huit cent douze, ii. pp. 93–5, plans were drawn up to threaten Petersburg.

  97. For this and the following: Adams, Napoleon and Russia, pp. 370–1; Napoleon’s options are to be found in a number of documents in Corr. xxiv. nos. 19237, 19250, 19258, 19275 (1, 5, 6 and 16 October 1812).

  98. Van Boecop to his father (27 September 1812), in Lettres interceptées, p. 50.

  99. Adams, Napoleon and Russia, pp. 371–2, believes that Napoleon had lost confidence and that he was avoiding Kutuzov.

  100. Fain, Manuscrit de mil huit cent douze, ii. pp. 95–7.

  101. Berthier to Dumas, 10 October 1812, in Chuquet (ed.), Lettres de 1812, pp. 77–80.

  102. Corr. xxiv. n. 19273 (14 October 1812); Berthier in Chuquet (ed.), Lettres de 1812, pp. 81–2 (14 October 1812).

  103. Fain, Manuscrit de mil huit cent douze, ii. p. 153.

  104. Castellane, Journal, i. p. 168; Ernest Picard and Louis Tuetey (eds), Correspondance inédite de Napoléon Ier, conservée aux Archives de la guerre, 5 vols (Paris, 1912–25), v. p. 595.

  105. Castellane, Journal, i. p. 161 (27 September 1812).

  106. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. p. 327.

  107. Zamoyski, 1812, pp. 352–3.

  108. Corr. xxiv. n. 19285 (18 October 1812); Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. pp. 327–30; Nicolas-Louis Planat de la Faye, Vie de Planat de la Faye, aide de camp des généraux Lariboisière et Drouot, officier d’ordonnance de Napoléon Ier. Souvenirs, lettres et dictées recueillis et annotés par sa veuve (Paris, 1895), p. 92.