The Caesar of Paris

by Susan Jaques

  The Emperor’s household ballooned to 3,500 employees, whose purpose was to attend to the imperial family’s daily lives and official ceremonies. Joséphine enjoyed her own household, consisting of a First Almoner, a lord-in-waiting who escorted her on public occasions, and a First Equerry in charge of her stables. For Joséphine’s principal lady-in-waiting, Napoleon recruited aristocrat Claire Elisabeth de Rémusat who had lost her family fortune during the Revolution. By 1809, the Empress’s ladies-in-waiting numbered twenty, compared to Marie Antoinette’s sixteen.2

  From uniforms and etiquette to sumptuous palace décor, Napoleon revived the pageantry and heraldry of the French court, the curia regis. As he explained, “My power is dependent on my glory, and my glory on my victories. . . . A newly established government must dazzle and astonish. The moment it ceases to glitter, it falls.”3

  For his Grand Officers, Napoleon appropriated many titles from the Holy Roman Empire. Grand Dignitaries of the Empire included Arch-Chancellor Cambaceres, Arch-Treasurer Lebrun, and Vice-Grand Elector Talleyrand, who was also minister of foreign affairs. As Grand Marshal of the Palace, Napoleon’s longtime aide-de-camp Duroc held the most influential position. With a staff of seven hundred, Duroc oversaw security, furnishings, procurement, and meals and banquets at dozens of imperial palaces. Duroc would sign the treaties of Fontainebleau and Bayonne, and negotiate the treaty in Spain after Charles IV’s abdication.

  The urbane, flattering Grand Master of Ceremonies, Louis-Philippe de Ségur, organized Napoleon’s back-to-back coronations in Paris and Milan, and choreographed other state ceremonies. The son of a war minister, Ségur had been ambassador to the court of Russia’s Catherine the Great under Louis XVI. During Napoleon’s frequent absences, he required Joséphine to follow the rules outlined in Ségur’s sixty-page Etiquette du Palais Imperial. Stendhal called Ségur “a dwarf . . . one of the Emperor’s weaknesses . . . consumed with chagrin at not being a duke.”4

  As Grand Chaplain, Napoleon’s uncle Cardinal Fesch served as ambassador to the Holy See. He directed religious services at the palace, administered Church sacraments to the imperial family, and officiated at imperial marriages and baptisms. He was also a noted art collector. For his participation in the Concordat negotiations, Napoleon appointed him archbishop of Lyon; in 1803 he was named cardinal.

  Napoleon created the new post of Intendant-General, filled by Charles de Fleurieu, Pierre-Antoine-Noël Daru, and former minister Jean-Baptiste de Champagny. The office’s purview included “first painter” Jacques-Louis David, palace architects like Percier and Fontaine, palace furnishings, court physicians, and the Emperor’s notary. Treasurer-generals Martin-Roch-Xavier Estève and his successor François-Marie-Pierre de La Bouillerie oversaw finances.

  The Grand Chamberlain, held first by foreign secretary Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand followed by the comte Pierre de Montesquiou-Fezensac, was Napoleon’s gatekeeper and chief of staff, overseeing audiences and the running of his daily calendar. Grand Equerry Armand de Caulaincourt, the youngest of the Grand Officers, supervised the imperial stables, with responsibility for horses, carriages, messengers, and Napoleon’s weapons.

  Napoleon named his minister of war, Marshal Alexandre Berthier, Grand Master of the Hunt and revived the sport. Though Roman society was agricultural, some Hadrianic emperors associated themselves with hunting. Domitian for example is shown slaying beasts in reliefs and carvings. According to Suetonius, the emperor hunted in the game park on his estate outside Rome.

  Napoleon hunted in the forests of Compiègne, Versailles, and Fontainebleau, sometimes with hounds descended from those of Louis XIV. Though Napoleon used hunting parties to fashion himself as heir to a long tradition, his skills were not impressive. On one outing in 1803, the first consul was injured by a wild boar, nearly losing a finger. As Sylvain Cordier writes, the myopic emperor was “a poor huntsman and a notoriously bad shot” often missing his target. On a hunt in September 1808, Napoleon nearly blinded his marshal André Masséna, blaming his Grand Master of the Hunt for the accident.5

  Napoleon also reinstated the royal grand couvert. The public meal was associated with Louis XIV, whose courtiers watched him dine most evenings at Versailles. Now Napoleon’s guests stood watching while he and the imperial family ate. In this culinary drama, Napoleon’s grand officers played highly scripted roles. Fesch blessed the table, Talleyrand gave Napoleon a moist cloth for his hands and served him coffee. Caulaincourt offered him armchair; Duroc brought his napkin and poured water and wine. Meanwhile officers of Joséphine’s household performed the same tasks.6 In the end, Napoleon was not a fan of the ritual and only hosted eight of these banquets.

  Ségur’s Livre du Sacre detailed the required ceremonial apparel for princes and princesses, grand dignitaries, and grand officers of the Napoleonic court, with artist Jean-Baptiste Isabey providing illustrations.

  Specific colors were established for various members of the imperial household (red for the palace, scarlet for the chamber, blue for the stables, green for the hunt, and violet for the ceremonies.7 Symbolic gold and silver embroideries were assigned to various titles and functions—reminiscent of the decorative embellishments instituted for soldiers and non-military officials in the late imperial period by Roman emperor Diocletian. The palm tree was embroidered onto the uniforms of the various civil uniforms—perhaps a nod to Napoleon’s fond memories of the Egyptian campaign.8

  “. . . the costumes worn at the Napoleonic court transformed the styles of ancient republicanism into the aesthetic of classical imperialism,” write Sylvain Cordier and Chantelle Lepine-Cercone. “Such associations with ancient Rome were further exemplified in the grand habillements [coronation costumes] of the imperial couple . . . Their mantles were of the deep crimson that historically defined imperial Rome. These associations anchored the Empire in the memory of antiquity.”9

  Milliner Louis Hippolyte LeRoy dressed the trendsetting Joséphine, Napoleon’s female relatives, and the wives of his marshals. “I counted amongst my clientele two empresses and all the crowned heads of Europe. . . . The coronation started my fortune,” wrote the well-dressed designer.10 In addition to court dress, Joséphine wore the couturier’s masquerade dress, daywear, hats, and accessories. According to Madame de Rémusat, Joséphine often picked her outfit to coordinate with specific palace interiors. She was not a fashion repeater, and avoided wearing the same gown twice in public.11

  Joséphine’s substantial wardrobe budget was just one line item that helped make Napoleon’s court as costly as that of Louis XIV at Versailles. The court’s initial budget of twenty million francs a year was roughly three percent of the government’s annual expenses. On top of this, the emperor received another three million francs annually, revenue from the Crown lands near Paris. Toward the end of Napoleon’s rule, that income ballooned to over thirty-six million francs as he added the confiscated properties of defeated monarchs, popes, and aristocrats to his portfolio.12

  Distinct from the civil household, Napoleon operated a military household overseen by thirteen aides-de-camp and thirteen ordonnance officers. The staff of over eight hundred accompanied Napoleon on all his campaigns. As a student of ancient history, Napoleon understood the dangers of the Imperial Guard. Alexander the Great’s father, Philip II of Macedonia, was fatally stabbed by his own bodyguard at a banquet. Rome’s Augustus had relied on the Praetorian Guard, nine thousand strong, for his personal safety. After Augustus, the powerful Praetorian Guard routinely eliminated emperors.

  Napoleon later acknowledged that under another emperor, “my Imperial Guard could also have become fatal.”13 To prevent any of his commanders from becoming too powerful, Napoleon divvied up control of his guard between four marshals. Mameluke horsemen from Egypt became part of the Consular Guard in 1802; in 1804 the squadron was made part of the Mounted Chasseurs of the Imperial Guard. Napoleon’s personal Mameluke guard, Raza Roustam, slept at the foot of his bed, and accompanied him on hunts and military campaign
s. Named First Mameluke to the Emperor in 1813, Roustam would remain Napoleon’s bodyguard until 1814. Napoleon did not completely trust his police minister Joseph Fouché and instituted checks to his power.14

  In an address to the Senate in 1807, Napoleon proposed a new hereditary nobility for his marshals in the form of imperial duchies. According to Rafe Blaufarb, Napoleon did not consider recipients of his Legion of Honor, with their modest wealth and social background, sufficient to protect the imperial succession. “For the stability of our throne and brilliance of our crown,” declared Napoleon, “for the greatest benefit of our peoples, it is necessary to grant titles to the most distinguished citizens to whom we owe a debt of gratitude for the homeland’s prosperity . . .”15

  Géraud-Christophe-Michel Duroc (Grand Marshal of the Palace) and Armand de Caulaincourt (Grand Equerry) became Dukes of Friuli and Vicenza respectively. Louis-Alexandre Berthier (Grand Huntsman) was made Prince of Neufchâtel, Valengin and Wagram; Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (Grand Chamberlain) gained the title Prince of Benevento. Recreating France’s court culture was no small feat for a country that had fought a bloody revolution to get rid of hereditary titles.

  The term “palace” comes from the Palatine, one of ancient Rome’s Seven Hills where Augustus and Tiberius resided in the first century. “. . . since the days of Charlemagne,” writes Sylvain Cordier, “giving the principal residence of a ruler that name was linking his authority to the memory of Roman sovereignty.”16 Napoleon was the first ruler of France since Charlemagne to own palaces outside the Île-de-France and the Loire valley, including the archbishop’s palace at Strasbourg, and palaces in Bologna, Brescia, Mantua, Modena, Stra, and Venice, writes Philip Mansel.17 By 1812, Napoleon had amassed a real estate empire of forty-four imperial palaces.

  Napoleon also made himself at home in the palaces of his enemies. He stayed twice at the Habsburg palace of Schönbrunn, near Vienna, first in late 1805 before and after Austerlitz, and again in May and June 1809, before the Battles of Essling and Wagram. After defeating Prussia at Jena in October 1806, Napoleon moved into Sanssouci, Frederick the Great’s Potsdam retreat.

  Many of Napoleon’s palaces were redecorated in the fashionable Empire style launched by his Rome-trained designers Charles Percier and Pierre Fontaine. Antique forms were combined with Napoleonic symbols like the Carolingian-inspired bee and the letter N surrounded by a laurel wreath, stars, and the eagle. Cabinetmakers, goldsmiths, silversmiths, porcelain makers, and bronze smiths all helped create a luxe setting for the court. Napoleon’s monogram was ubiquitous, adorning everything from palace door bolts and keys to regimental colors and public monuments.

  In July 1804, Napoleon replaced the Bourbons’ Garde-Meuble de la Couronne with the Garde-Meuble Impérial, a government department of some thirty employees responsible for palace furnishings. Pierre Daru, Intendant-General of the Imperial Household (and first cousin of the novelist Stendhal), and Alexander Desmazis, administeur du mobilier, were often at odds with the spendthrift Joséphine. The redecoration of the Empress’s state apartment on the ground floor of the Tuileries started in 1805. “For a long time, she [Joséphine] had been asking for changes and embellishments to her apartments . . . desiring above all that we create a beautiful bedroom,” wrote Fontaine.18

  Percier and Fontaine also transformed Louis XIV’s first-floor bedroom at the Tuileries into Napoleon’s throne room. The designers supplied Jacob-Desmalter with life-size drawings for two thrones and ceremonial chairs. The thrones may have been inspired by Bacchus’s Throne, created in 1792 by Roman sculptor Francesco Antonio Franzoni. Pilfered from the Vatican in 1797 along with the Ceres Throne, the Bacchus Throne was displayed in the antiquities gallery at the Musée Napoléon. Between late August and early September 1804, Jacob-Desmalter produced the carved and gilded frames; Garde-Meuble upholsterers covered them in silk woven by Camille Pernon of Lyon.

  The new seating was installed in the east-facing throne room overlooking the Carousel on December 1—just in the nick of time for Napoleon’s coronation the next day. Featuring a rounded back and globes on the arms, the throne’s heraldic decoration included an N, an imperial eagle, the chain of the Legion of Honor, and bees. Napoleon liked the throne so much, he had it replicated for the throne rooms at Fontainebleau and Saint-Cloud.

  The court at Tuileries “. . . became the most brilliant and numerous ever seen,” wrote Emmanuel-Auguste de Las Cases. “It had social circles, ballets, performances; an extraordinary magnificence and splendor was deployed. . . . This luxury, the pomp he encouraged around him, reflected his plans, but not his tastes. [They] were calculated to stimulate our national productions and industry . . .”19

  Napoleon’s obsession with splendor has its roots in antiquity when craftsmen produced exquisite furniture, gold and silver plate, hard stone vessels, carved gems, and jewelry for the ruling class. With war spoils and other sources of wealth streaming into Rome during the late Republic, generals and other elite Romans formed libraries and furnished their villas with lavish artworks. Decorated with divinities, heroic narratives, and portraits, luxury objects bestowed “status, prestige, and cultural as well as economic capital on those who possessed and appreciated them,” writes Kenneth Lapatin.20

  But the word luxuria also carried negative associations, deriving from luxor—to sprain or dislocate—and luxurio—to flourish immoderately. Philosophers like Cicero and Pliny the Elder blamed the moral decline of Roman society on extravagant foreign objects. Though they denounced luxury, Cicero and Seneca enjoyed beautiful things. Cicero spent millions on his villas; Seneca owned some five hundred tables with ivory legs and citrus wood tops.21 Augustus tried putting the kibosh on such ostentation, but well-heeled Romans continued to covet luxury.

  Across the Roman Empire, private contractors used slaves to mine silver and gold, which was turned into coins, jewelry, and vessels. Cicero reported that Verres, Sicily’s greedy governor, opened a workshop to remove ancient reliefs from bowls he appropriated and reset them in new gold vessels. Along with their aesthetic function, luxury objects conveyed political, religious, and social meaning. Decorative tableware was a conversation starter at Roman banquets, one that advertised the host’s taste and wealth.

  Precious stone was also hollowed out for drinking and carved in cameo. One of the most beautiful, the double handled agate Cup of the Ptolemies, is thought to have been produced in Alexandria, Egypt during the mid-first century B.C.E. Dionysiac symbols are carved in high relief—masks, animals, garlands, along with tables filled with luxe vessels and statuettes. Repurposed as a Christian chalice, the cup was gifted to the treasury of Saint Denis, possibly by King Charles the Bald. During the French Revolution, the basilica’s treasury was deposited in the former Cabinet des Medailles, renamed the Musée des Antiques. Stolen in a heist in 1804 along with the Grand Camée de France, the cup was recovered from Holland and returned to Paris.

  Eighteenth-century France had been the world’s preeminent luxury goods producer, with high-end brands like Sèvres porcelain, Roettiers silver, and Lyon silk coveted by Europe’s monarchs and aristocrats. Luxury goods went out of style with the French Revolution. Under the Directory and Consulate regimes, a wealthy new French bourgeoisie developed with a taste for fine craftsmanship. Napoleon and Joséphine helped make luxury acceptable again, reviving France’s top position in the luxury trades.

  To encourage production of luxury goods, Napoleon visited textile, porcelain, and furniture workshops. He also gave large loans to struggling entrepreneurs like furniture maker Jacob Desmalter and bronzier Pierre Philippe Thomire. In 1809, Napoleon named Thomire “Engraver to the Emperor.” Two years later, his firm of some eight hundred craftsmen became Furniture Suppliers to their Majesties. The ongoing Napoleonic wars and the Continental blockade hurt French exports. Despite the turmoil, Paris reclaimed its position as the center of style and taste.

  Among Napoleon’s most extraordinary commissions were table services and furnishi
ngs from the Sèvres porcelain factory. Founded in Vincennes in 1740 and relocated to Sèvres in 1756, the factory became the preeminent porcelain manufacturer in Europe. Louis XV, an early investor, became sole owner in 1759. After the French Revolution, the factory nearly went bankrupt. In 1800, Lucien Bonaparte appointed Alexandre Brongniart director. Namesake of his father Alexandre Theodore Brongniart, architect of the Bourse, he was trained as an engineer and scientist and had taught mineralogy at Paris’s Museum of Natural History.

  For the next nearly five decades, Brongniart transformed Sèvres’s organization and production. The former engineer oversaw the development of a more cost effective two-story kiln and a lathe to produce intricate guilloche decoration. Brongniart recruited top designers including his father and Charles Percier to create new neoclassical style models and forms. Empire-style gilding, rich border designs, and elaborate figural scenes were introduced. A new enamel color palette enabled the factory to create faux marble and hardstone surfaces. In 1804, soft-paste porcelain was abandoned for a more durable hard-paste porcelain.

  Also that year, Brongniart began reporting to Vivant Denon, newly named head of imperial factories. In addition to keeping Napoleon posted on progress at Sèvres, Denon made suggestions about production and the selection of his favorite Etruscan and Egyptian forms. Denon also ordered busts of himself and medallions with his own portrait. Among his projects were the Egyptian breakfast service with images based on his bestseller Travels.

  For his personal dinner service, also known as the Headquarters service, Napoleon supplied a list of twenty-eight palace views, city images, and landscapes to which Brongniart and Denon added images of artworks, museums and monuments in Paris. “. . . his wish is that of these designs, there be not one battle scene or named individual, but that, on the contrary, the subjects offer only vague allusions which will provoke pleasant memories,” Daru wrote Brongniart.22 Many of these “pleasant memories” happened to be in Italy, Egypt, Austria, Prussia, and Poland where he had won battles.