Historical Dictionary of the Napoleonic Era

by George F Nafziger

  The Dictionary

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  ABDICATION. Abdication is the process of a king or emperor renouncing the throne. There were several abdications during the period 1792 through 1815.

  Napoleon abdicated twice. The first time was on 4 and 6 April 1814, after the allied armies had captured Paris and the French marshals forced Napoleon to abdicate. Earlier, on 31 March, while at Fontainebleau, Napoleon learned that Marshals Marmont and Mortier had surrendered Paris to the Allies the day before. He had left his brother Joseph in command of Paris and blamed him. Napoleon decided to move against Paris, in an attempt to recover his capital, but his marshals refused. Those marshals were Ney, Macdonald, Oudinot, Moncey and Lefebvre. Unable to do otherwise, Napoleon abdicated in favor of his son by Marie-Louise. He sent de Caulaincourt, his foreign minister and Marshals Ney and Macdonald to defend his son’s rights, only to learn upon their arrival that Marshal Marmont had defected to the Allies on 3 April.

  Napoleon’s son was rejected by the allies and the Bourbons were restored to the French throne. Napoleon’s wife and son were sent to Vienna where they would live with her father, the Emperor of Austria. Napoleon was exiled to Elba.

  Napoleon’s second abdication occurred on 22 June 1815, after the disaster at Waterloo (18 June 1815), Napoleon again abdicated in Paris. When he returned to Paris on 21 June, his brother Lucien and Marshal Davout, the minister of war, had recommended that he declare the nation in danger, dissolve the legislature and establish a dictatorship to carry on the war. There were 120,000 troops immediately available and more ready to be called up. The crowds of Paris shouted their support. Rather than continue the war, however, he again abdicated in favor of his son. He retired to Malmaison on 25 June, made his farewells, and then on 29 June, traveled to Rochefort, where he joined his brother Joseph. Joseph urged him to flee to the United States, but Napoleon refused and surrendered himself to Captain Maitland of the HMS Bellerophon.

  Carlos IV of Spain was forced to abdicate on 19 March 1808 by his son, Fernando VII. He appealed to Napoleon, hoping that Napoleon would restore his ally. Napoleon responded by calling both Carlos and Fernando to Bayonne where he forced both to abdicate in favor of the other. Napoleon then declared the throne vacant and appointed his brother Joseph to fill it.

  ACADÉMIE FRANÇAISE. Founded in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, abolished during the Revolution and restored under Napoleon, it is France’s oldest scholarly and honorific body. In 1795 the Convention replaced it and the other royal academies with the Institut de France. It contained 144 members, divided into three classes: First Class: Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Second Class: Literature and Fine Arts, and Third Class: Moral and Political Sciences.

  The third section was vocal in its opposition to Napoleon’s establishment of the empire and his authoritarian rule. In 1803, in order to deprive them of a forum, Napoleon dissolved the institute and reestablished it with four divisions: Physical and Mathematical Sciences, French Language and Literature, History and Ancient Literature and Fine Arts. The Académie Française continued in the second division and was generally referred to as such. It had forty members, known to this day as the “Forty Immortals.” Among its members were Lucien Bonaparte, Napoleon’s brother, and Comte Louis-Philippe de Ségur.

  ADDINGTON, HENRY, 1ST VISCOUNT SIDMOUTH (1757–1844). Addington entered English politics at the age of 26 when elected to Parliament and went on to serve as Speaker for 11 years between 1789 and 1800. Though part of the Pitt administration, he fell out with Pitt over Irish emancipation. In 1801 King George III invited him to form a government. He did so and immediately entered into negotiations with France that would lead to the signing of the Treaty of Amiens (27 March 1802). He was forced to resign on 30 April 1804. He was created a viscount in January 1805 and for a few months served as president of the council before a new dispute forced his resignation. He returned to politics in 1812 under Perceval. Perceval’s successor, Lord Liverpool, appointed Addington to the post of Home secretary, where he served until 1821. He earned a reputation for severity and ruthlessness on a par with Fouché. He was a target of the Cato Street Conspiracy and became involved in the divorce proceedings brought against Queen Caroline. He stayed in the cabinet until 1824 and remained in politics for some time beyond that.

  ADMIRALTY. The department of the British state that regulated, controlled and maintained the Navy. The term “Admiralty” was used to mean “The Lord High Admiral for the time being . . . and when there shall be no more such Lord High Admiral in office, any two or more of the Commissioners executing the office of Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom.”

  ALBUERA, BATTLE OF. Fought on 16 May 1811 in Spain. Marshal Soult, commanding 19,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry and 40 guns engaged the allied forces under General William (later Viscount) Beresford. Beresford’s forces consisted of 10,449 British and 10,201 Portuguese, supported by 14,634 Spanish under Blake and Castaños. Albuera was a British victory, but an extremely bloody one. The principal French assault was badly beaten and saved from destruction by a timely cavalry charge that destroyed the British Light Brigade. Though technically a British victory, it was a Pyrrhic one at best.

  ALESSANDRIA, CONVENTION OF. Signed 15 June 1800 by the French and Austrian armies declaring an armistice after Marengo, it was preliminary to the Treaty of Lunéville.

  ALEXANDER I (ALEKSANDER, PAVLOVICH), EMPEROR OF RUSSIA (1777–1825). Born the son of Grand-Duke Paul Petrovich, who later became Paul I, and Maria Fedorovna, daughter of Friedrich Eugene of Württemberg, on 28 December 1777. In 1801, after the murder of his father, he ascended the Russian throne. One of his first acts as Emperor was to appoint a secret committee, often ironically referred to as the Comité du salut public (Committee of Public Safety, a sarcastic reference to the French revolutionary committee that oversaw the guillotine). This group consisted of his young and enthusiastic friends—Victor Gavovich Kochubey, Nikolai Nikolaevich Novosiltsov, Paul Alexandrovich Strogonov and Adam Dzartoryski, and they were to draw up a program of internal reform. Unfortunately, few of their proposed reforms were realized.

  Shortly after assuming the throne, he reversed the policies of his father, denounced the League of Neutrals, made peace with Britain (April 1801), and opened negotiations with Austria. He would shortly later enter into an alliance with Prussia.

  In 1805 he sent his armies west to join the Austrians in their war with France and Napoleon. These operations ended in 1807 with the Russian defeat at Friedland. On 25 June Alexander met with Napoleon at Tilsit, where he was won over by Napoleon, signed the Treaty of Tilsit, and brought Russia into the Continental System.

  In 1806 he began a war with the Ottoman Turks in an effort to conquer Romania and Bulgaria, which ended in 1811. In 1808 he launched the Russian armies into Finland in a two-year war that took Finland from Sweden and incorporated it into Russia. In 1809 he met his obligations to support Napoleon in a war that had erupted with Austria. However, the Russians did little and did not engage in any combat with the Austrians.

  Between 1810 and 1811 relations between Russia and France steadily grew worse. Alexander was distressed by the growth of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, Napoleon’s marriage with Marie-Louise of Austria, and economic hardships brought on because of Russian involvement in the Continental System. These economic hardships caused Alexander to turn a blind eye to British goods filtering into Russia and this infuriated Napoleon.

  In 1812 the French invaded Russia and three years of war resulted. Alexander stood as an ardent opponent of Napoleon and committed himself and his armies to the destruction of the French state. At the Congress of Vienna, he proved an obstacle to European peace. Castlereagh confronted him directly for refusing to release his hold on Poland, a violation of his treaty obligations.

  In 1818 he was threatened by a revolutionary conspiracy among the officers of his guard to kidnap him on his way to the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle. The plot was foiled, but his attitude toward his rule and revolutionarie
s changed radically. He died at Taganrog on 1 December 1825.

  ALFIERI, VITTORIO, COUNT (1749–1803). Born at Asti, in Piedmont, of rich and noble parents, his father died when he was an infant, and his mother remarried. An uncle took interest in his education and sent him at age ten to the Academy of Turin. When his uncle died, Alfieri was 14, and he was left to enjoy his vast inheritance. Alfieri continued his studies for a further three years, but learned little but contempt for his studies. He left Turin in 1766 and traveled, wasting much of his life in dissipation. Alfieri was influenced by Voltaire, Rousseau and, above all, Montesquieu, and developed a tremendous love of freedom. He continued reading the great authors of his time and turned to writing as well. By 1783 Alfieri had 14 tragedies to his credit, 10 of which were published in Siena.

  In 1777 Alfieri found a new love in the Countess of Albany, to whom he remained faithful for the rest of his life. In 1778 he ended his allegiance to Piedmont to follow her by giving his estate over to his sister. Alfieri dedicated his play Maria Stuarda to the countess. In 1784 she moved to Colmar, Alsace, where he could finally see her freely, living with her until he died.

  When the French Revolution erupted, Alfieri hailed it with an ode on the destruction of the Bastille, but the excesses of the population disgusted him. In 1792 Alfieri escaped with his countess to Florence, where he lived for the rest of his life. His properties in France were confiscated, raising in him a hatred for all things French. His Misogallo is a collection of violent polemics in prose and verse, which was published in 1799, the year the French entered Florence. Alfieri would continue to rage against the tyranny of kings, priests and revolutions. Alfieri turned the last years of his life to an undisturbed study of literature and to writing. Most of these, like his autobiography, his satires and many of his lyric poems were not published until after his death on 8 October 1803.

  His literary reputation lies mainly in his 19 tragedies, all of which were classical in form. His genius was essentially lyrical. His plays were written to serve as weapons for political warfare and were rarely successful dramatically. Too often Alfieri sacrificed dramatic propriety to special pleading. He is honored in Italy as a precursor of the Risorgimento.

  ALI PASHA (1741–1822). Born in Tepelene, on the Vijosë River, Ali Pasha was an Albanian brigand granted the provincial authority as Pasha of Thessaly by Sultan Abdul Hamid I in 1787. Like all Balkan rulers of his age he was ruthless and cruel in his successful pursuit of his goals. Within a year he became pasha of Ioannina, on the borders of Albania. He would become the most powerful ruler in the western Balkans during the Napoleonic era. He played the British, Russian, French and Turkish emissaries against each other to his advantage. By 1815 he had become master of central Greece, western Macedonia and much of Peloponnese. Ali Pasha’s behavior eventually wore out the patience of Mahmud II and in 1820 Mahmud ordered the Ottoman armies to occupy Ali’s fortresses in Greece. Eventually Ali Pasha was murdered by one of the Sultan’s lieutenants and his sons quickly followed him into death in order to prevent the establishment of a Greco-Albanian dynasty.

  ALTEN, SIR CHARLES (KARL) (1764–1840). The son of Hanoverian Baron Alten, he took service in the King’s German Legion in British pay and commanded the Hanoverian light infantry in the British expedition of 1805 and at the siege of Copenhagen in 1807. He served with Moore in Sweden and Spain, as well as in the disastrous 1809 Walcheren Expedition. He commanded a brigade at Albuera (16 May 1811) and in 1813 he commanded the famous Light Brigade in Spain. He commanded the 3rd Division at Waterloo (18 June 1815) and was wounded. In 1818 he returned to Hanover and rose to the rank of field marshal in the Hanoverian army. Count von Alten remained in the British army as Major General Sir Charles Alten.

  ÁLVAREZ, DON JOSÉ (1768–1827). His full name was José Álvarez de Pereria y Cubero and he was born at Priego in the province of Cordova in 1768, the son of a stonemason. In 1799 he obtained a pension of 12,000 reals from Charles IV that enabled him to visit Paris and Rome. In Paris in 1804 Alvarez executed a statue of Ganymede that now stands in the Prado, in Madrid. From Paris Álvarez went to Rome, where he stayed until 1826. His son, Don José Álvarez y Bougel (1805–1829) was also a successful sculptor and painter. One of his most successful works, now in Madrid, was a group representing Antilochus and Memmno. Álvarez modeled busts of Fernando VII, Rossini, and the Duchess of Alba, all of which are noted for their vigor and fidelity.

  AMIENS, TREATY OF. The Treaty of Amiens, France, was signed on 27 March 1802. By the agreement signed at Amiens by Britain, France, Spain, and the Batavian Republic (now known as the Netherlands), the wars fought in Europe since 1792 were brought to an end. This peace, however, lasted only 14 months. It ignored some questions that divided Britain and France, such as the fate of the Belgian provinces, Savoy, and Switzerland and trade relations. One major problem was that it required the French to evacuate the English king’s Hanoverian possessions in Germany and required the British to evacuate Malta. Neither France nor Britain would act first, each accusing the other of duplicity, and the treaty collapsed in ruins in 1804.

  ANDRIEUX, FRANÇOIS GUILLAUME JEAN STANISLAS (1759–1833). Born in Strasbourg on 6 May 1759, Andrieux died in Paris on 9 May 1833. He was educated in law and under the Convention served as a civil judge in the court of cassation. Andrieux became president of the Tribunate, but was removed because of his opposition to the civil code. In his retirement he returned to literature, writing the highly successful Les Étourdis in 1788. That was followed by Molière avec ses amis in 1804, and Lucius Junius Brutus in 1830. Andrieux served as a professor of literature at the Collège de France, maintaining the classical tradition in the face of the growing romantic school. In 1829 Andrieux became the permanent secretary to the Académie française and worked on the completion of the dictionary.

  ANGLESEY, HENRY WILLIAM PAGET, 1ST MARQUIS OF (1768–1854). Born on 17 May 1768 as the eldest son of Henry Paget, 1st Earl of Uxbridge, and educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. Paget served in Parliament for Carnarvon from 1790 to 1796, then for Milborne Port from 1796–1810.

  In 1793 Paget raised the 80th Infantry Regiment on his father’s Staffordshire estates for service during the French Revolutionary War. Paget served with the British expeditionary force in Flanders in 1794, Holland in 1799, and commanded the cavalry of Sir John Moore’s army in 1808–09. Paget won the cavalry engagements at Sahagun and Benavente and covered Moore’s retreat to Coruña. Because of his liaison with the wife of Henry Wellesley, it was impossible for him to serve under Wellington. Paget did participate in the disastrous 1809 Walcheren expedition. In 1815 Wellington placed him in command of the British cavalry and horse artillery for the Waterloo campaign. Paget covered the British withdrawal from Quatre-Bras and led the charge of the Union Brigade that destroyed d’Erlon’s corps at Waterloo. Paget was wounded in this engagement and lost his leg. He received a marquisate and other honors for his services, which were regarded as second only to the Duke of Wellington.

  In 1828 Paget became lord-lieutenant of Ireland under Wellington’s government. Paget was briefly removed because of his advocacy of relief of the Catholics from the penal laws. Paget returned in 1830 after those laws were repealed and became lieutenant under Earl Grey’s government. Paget faced O’Connell’s agitation for the repeal of the Union and asked for coercive powers to suppress it. In July 1833 the ministry resigned. His legacy to Ireland included the Board of Education. Paget remained in government until 1845 when he became Master-general of the ordnance. In 1846 he was promoted to the rank of field-marshal. Paget died 29 April 1854.

  ANNA PAVLOVNA, GRAND DUCHESS OF RUSSIA (1795–1865). Born in St. Petersburg, the sixth daughter of Czar Paul I, she was five when Paul was murdered. In 1808, while at the Congress of Erfurt, Napoleon revealed his having Anna on a short list of potential wives to succeed the sterile Joséphine. In 1810 Napoleon approached the Czar on the topic of marriage with Anna, but the dowager empress, Marie Feodorovna, repulsed by th
e thought, rejected it. Anna was married to the prince of Orange in 1816 and became queen of the Netherlands from October 1840 to March 1849.

  ANNING, MARY (1799–1847). An English fossil collector, born at Lyme Regis. In 1811 she discovered the first specimen of Ichthyosaurus, which was brought into scientific notice. In 1821 she found the remains of a new saurian, the Plesiosaurus, and in 1828 she procured the remains of a pterodactyl (Dimorphodon).

  ANSTEY, CHRISTOPHER (1724–1805). Born on 31 October 1742 at Brinkley, Cambridgeshire, he was educated at Eton and King’s College, Cambridge. Anstey was noted for his Latin verses. Anstey became a fellow of King’s College in 1745. He belonged to the school of satirical and social verse founded by Swift and Gray. In 1766 his work, The New Bath Guide or Memoirs of the B . . . r . . . d (Blunderhead) Family was well received and highly praised by Walpole and Gray. His reputation was sustained and expanded by The Election Ball, in Poetical Letters from Mr. Inkle at Bath to his Wife at Gloucester. Anstey died on 3 August 1805.

  ANTRAIGUES, LOUIS EMMANUEL HENRI ALEXANDRE DE LAUNAY, COMTE D’ (1753–1812). Antraigues was born on 25 December 1753 in Montpellier to an ancient family of nobility. He joined the Gardes du corps through the offices of his uncle, the Comte de Saint-Priest, one of the last ministers of Louis XVI, but left it to frequent the company of Voltaire and Rousseau. He traveled widely and returned to France in 1779, where he joined the company of Chamfort, Laharpe, Mirabeau, and became the lover of Saint-Huberty, an opera singer, whom he would later secretly marry. In 1788 he had his Mémoire sur les états généraux published and in this work he stood against the hereditary nobility, stating that the right to legislate did not lay with the États-généraux. Despite that, he was still elected by the Second Estate to the États-généraux in 1789. In the États-généraux he demanded that the nobility abandon its fiscal exemptions, spoke in favor of the rights of men and defended the royal veto.