Napoleon

by Adam Zamoyski

  A French force of 20,000 men under General Pierre Dupont was marching to relieve the remnants of the French fleet stranded at Cádiz after Trafalgar when it was itself encircled by a larger Spanish army under General Francisco Castaños at Bailén on 22 July. Dupont, whose mostly raw conscripts were suffering from severe shortages of food and supplies, capitulated on the promise that he and his men would be allowed to return to France with their arms and artillery. Once the act of capitulation had been signed, all but Dupont and a handful of senior officers were driven off as prisoners and treated with brutality.

  The French setback gave heart to their enemies throughout the country, and on 31 July, after only twelve days in the capital, Joseph was obliged to evacuate it and fall back on Burgos. He wrote to Napoleon that he was not prepared to rule over a people who loathed him, and begged to be allowed to go back to Naples, arguing that Spain had become ungovernable. ‘Your Majesty cannot have any idea, because nobody will have told him, to what extent the name of Your Majesty is reviled here,’ he added for good measure. But Joseph had nowhere to go, as Napoleon had given his Neapolitan kingdom to Murat, who promptly declared himself Joachim-Napoleon, by the Grace of God King of Naples and Sicily. Two weeks later, Joseph wrote from Burgos giving his opinion that Spain could only be ruled ‘by treating the Spaniards as they had treated the subjects of Montezuma’, which would require 200,000 troops and 100,000 scaffolds ‘to support the prince condemned to rule over them’.25

  Napoleon agreed, and on 5 August he directed half of the French troops still stationed in Germany to Spain, and sent Marshal Ney to take command. But the situation in the peninsula continued to deteriorate; in Portugal, Junot had attacked a newly landed British force under General Arthur Wellesley at Vimeiro on 21 August, only to be beaten and forced to capitulate. He was more fortunate than Dupont, and the terms of the capitulation were respected, his whole force being shipped back to France by the Royal Navy. With most of the peninsula cleared of French troops, Ferdinand VII was proclaimed king by a junta in Madrid.

  Napoleon continued his tour of inspection, visiting the ports at Rochefort and La Rochelle, but he was in a bad mood. When, at Napoléon-Vendée, he discovered that his project supposed to revitalise a rundown village and transform it into an industrial town had barely got off the ground, he erupted. He had taken Bailén as an insult to French arms, and by extension to himself. When Mathieu Dumas reported to him at Saint-Cloud, he fumed at what he termed the cowardice of Dupont and, seizing Dumas’s uniform by the facings, shook him, saying with concentrated rage that the French uniform would have to be washed in blood. He had determined to do that himself, but before he could send all available troops to Spain to drown it in blood, he had to parry a looming threat from another quarter.26

  32

  The Emperor of the East

  On the day following his return to Paris, 15 August 1808, Napoleon held the customary audience for the diplomatic corps to receive their good wishes on his birthday. In the absence of a papal nuncio, the diplomats were headed by the handsome and urbane Austrian ambassador Count Metternich, who, in the interests of intelligence-gathering, was having an affair with Napoleon’s sister Caroline, the new queen of Naples, having already consulted several other ladies in the same manner. Napoleon took him to task for over an hour on a quite different matter – that of recent Austrian armaments which had come to his notice. The Emperor Francis was also dragging his feet in recognising Joseph as King of Spain.1

  The harsh terms imposed after Austerlitz had left Austria smarting, while anti-French feeling had been growing throughout Germany, stimulated by a wave of nationalist literature and a folkloric revival, as well as French exactions and the arrogance of French officials; even within the Confederation of the Rhine Napoleon’s high-handed treatment of his allies generated resentment. News of Bailén gave heart to all those who longed for revenge, and many felt it was time to rebel against French domination. Austria had been rearming in anticipation of war with France, assuming the rest of Germany would rise up and join it.2

  In the circumstances, Napoleon could not afford to denude Germany and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw of troops in order to send them to Spain unless he could cover his back, and the only way of doing that was to call on his ally Russia. Yet her reliability was open to question; his ambassador in St Petersburg, Caulaincourt, warned him that the Tilsit settlement was unpopular in Russia, being associated in the public mind with the defeats of Austerlitz, Eylau and Friedland, and the blockade was having a damaging effect on the economy.

  Napoleon’s inability to see things from another’s perspective helped him ignore this and other warnings, as did his tendency to believe he could obtain results by dint of trying. When Alexander’s ambassador was due in Paris after Tilsit, Napoleon bought Murat’s sumptuous residence – pictures, furniture, silver, china, bedding and all – to provide him with a comfortable embassy, and went out of his way to honour him. But the ambassador, Count Tolstoy, remained aloof and barely concealed his dislike of Napoleon. In an attempt to revive Alexander’s enthusiasm for the alliance, Napoleon had earlier that year returned to the subject of a joint expedition against the British in India, with the accompanying promise of an extension of the Russian empire in the east. Caulaincourt and the Russian foreign minister, Count Nikolai Rumiantsev, duly pored over maps, and General Gardanne calculated marching distances through Aleppo, Baghdad, Herat, Kabul and Peshawar. But while Napoleon never ceased dreaming of India, he had no intention of embarking on the venture, as Alexander probably realised.3

  Before parting at Tilsit, they had agreed to meet again the following year, and this encounter was to take place at Erfurt in Westphalia at the end of September 1808. Napoleon hoped that by deploying his usual mixture of charm and implied threat he would be able to reassert his ascendancy over the tsar. The meeting would also provide the opportunity to propose a dynastic marriage; such a union would kill two birds with one stone, as it would cement the alliance and at the same time provide Napoleon with an heir, which had become a pressing issue once again. The question had resurfaced when, on 5 May 1807, his nephew and adopted son Napoléon-Charles, the child of Louis and Hortense, died of croup. Now that he knew he could sire a child himself, many in his entourage, including Fouché and Talleyrand, urged him to divorce Josephine and marry a woman of childbearing age.4

  One day in November 1807, with the court at Fontainebleau, Fouché had called on Josephine in her apartment and suggested she go before the Senate and request a divorce in the interests of the empire. He even produced a prepared text of the speech she should make. She asked him whether he had been sent by Napoleon, which he denied, so she dismissed him, saying she would do only what her husband asked of her. When she informed him of Fouché’s visit Napoleon made a show of rebuking his minister, though it seems unlikely Fouché would have acted without his knowledge. He also reprimanded him when he read a police report which mentioned that people were discussing the divorce as though it had been agreed. To Josephine it seemed as though it had. ‘What sadness thrones bring!’ she wrote to her son, foreseeing the inevitable.5

  Alexander had two unmarried sisters, and Napoleon did not see any reason why he should not embrace the idea if he could put it to him directly. ‘An hour together will suffice, while the negotiations would last several months if it were left to the diplomats,’ he said to Cambacérès as he left Paris. He had ordered Erfurt to be cleaned up, its buildings repainted and its streets lit, and he had sent out tapestries, pictures and china to adorn his apartments there. He had also arranged for the best actors and the prettiest actresses of Paris to be sent out to entertain the company in the evenings, and, if possible, to find their way into Alexander’s bed.6

  To impress Alexander and lend weight to their meeting, he had also invited all the rulers of the Confederation of the Rhine and the King of Saxony. He had carefully selected the plays to be performed. According to Talleyrand, by staging heroic scenes he meant to disorient the ancient ro
yals and aristocrats present and ‘transport them in their imagination into other realms, where they would see men who were great by their deeds, exceptional by their actions, creating their own dynasty and drawing their origin from the gods’. The themes of immortality, glory, valour and predestination which recur in the plays he chose were meant to inspire admiration in all who approached him, and Corneille’s Cinna delivered the punchline in the phrase ‘He who succeeds cannot be wrong.’ Voltaire’s Mahomet treats of the need for a new faith and a new master of the world; its protagonist owes everything to his own qualities, and nothing to ancestry. Napoleon did not bring Josephine or a numerous suite, but as Talleyrand had been at Tilsit and was a good courtier who knew everyone in Europe, he brought him along. This turned out to be a mistake.7

  When Alexander announced his intention of going to Erfurt, most of his entourage expressed fears that he would allow himself to be cajoled by Napoleon into further engagements unfavourable to Russia, and even, given recent events at Bayonne, that he might never come back. In reply to his mother, who had written begging him not to go, he explained that despite the setbacks at Bailén and Vimeiro, Napoleon was still strong enough to defeat any power that defied him. Russia must build up her military potential while pretending to remain his ally. He must go to Erfurt to persuade Napoleon of his goodwill, and his presence there should send a signal to Austria not to try anything rash before time. To his sister Catherine, who had also implored him to have nothing to do with the Corsican ogre, he replied more succinctly: ‘Napoleon thinks that I’m just a fool, but he who laughs last laughs longest.’8

  As soon as he heard that Alexander had set out, Napoleon left Paris, arriving at Erfurt on the morning of 27 September, and after dealing with some administrative business he called on the King of Saxony, who had preceded him. At two o’clock, having been alerted to Alexander’s approach, he rode out to meet him outside the town. On seeing him ride up, Alexander alighted from his carriage and the two emperors embraced, after which they mounted up and rode into the town, greeted with full military honours, and spent the rest of the day together, only parting at ten that night.

  Napoleon hoped to recreate what he called ‘the spirit of Tilsit’, having his troops parade before Alexander and spending hours in conversation with him on every subject that could flatter his vanity, while displaying his power over the other assembled sovereigns by ordering them about and telling them where to sit at table – ‘King of Bavaria, keep quiet!’ he snapped at one point.9

  As Alexander was hard of hearing in one ear, Napoleon had a dais built for the two of them close by the stage at the theatre. This meant that, as Talleyrand remarked, ‘People listened to the actors, but it was him they were looking at.’ During one performance, at the lines ‘To the name of conqueror and triumphant victor, He wishes to join that of pacifier,’ Napoleon made a show of emotion noticed by all. When, during a performance of Voltaire’s tragedy Oedipe, the actor spoke the line ‘The friendship of a great man is a gift from the gods,’ Alexander stood up and took Napoleon’s hand in a gesture meant for the audience.10

  Napoleon acted the charming host one moment, running down the stairs to greet Alexander as he arrived for dinner, and putting him in his place the next. He arranged an excursion to the nearby battlefield of Jena, where, as one military man to another, he explained the battle to him, no doubt meaning to remind him of his own military prowess. He invited Alexander to a parade in the course of which he decorated soldiers with the Legion of Honour; since each man called forward had to give an account of his heroic exploit, and these had all taken place at Friedland against the Russians, the tsar was openly humiliated by having to listen to stories of his troops being beaten. Napoleon had even in the course of a discussion resorted to staging one of his rages, throwing his hat on the floor and stamping on it.11

  On 6 October there was a hunting party in the forest of Ettersberg, for which stags were driven into a funnel of canvas screens so that by the time they reached the hunters they were disoriented, and so close that even the inexperienced Alexander with his poor eyesight managed to bag one trotting past eight feet from him. The hunt was followed by a dinner, a short concert, a play and a ball. Napoleon did not dance because, as he put it in a letter to Josephine, ‘forty years are forty years’. Instead, he had a two-hour discussion about German literature with the poet Wieland, whom he had invited for the purpose, showing off his knowledge to the surprised and flattered German literary men listening to him. He then walked over to Goethe and had a long conversation with him. One can but admire his stamina, given that all the while he was manipulating the various rulers of the Confederation of the Rhine, each of whom had to be cajoled and bullied by turns, running the government of France, and overseeing operations in Spain, not to mention fighting a severe cold. Goethe, with whom he had a long meeting over breakfast on 1 October, was overwhelmed by the power he sensed in Napoleon’s gaze, and fascinated by his seemingly superhuman qualities.12

  One day, when Alexander had forgotten his sword, Napoleon handed him his own, at which Alexander declared, ‘I accept it as a mark of your friendship, and Your Majesty may be quite sure that I shall never draw it against you.’ He did not, as Napoleon had hoped, promise to draw it against Austria if she were to attack while he was occupied in Spain. Alexander adopted an attitude of stubborn neutrality, refusing nothing and promising nothing. Napoleon’s position was identical, since he wanted to oblige Alexander to bind himself further while offering nothing in exchange, except for a vague promise to withdraw French troops from the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and Prussia and, in return for the tsar’s acceptance of his doings in Spain, to allow his annexation of Finland. The lack of any mutual interest in their alliance was glaring. Yet it was crucial to Napoleon, not only to keep Austria in check, but also to maintain the blockade against Britain, which was beginning to take effect.13

  It was impossible to exclude British goods from the Continent entirely. Even while paying lip service, Russia had been contravening the terms of the blockade by allowing some neutral ships into its ports. British merchants had established entrepots at Heligoland, from where small ships could dart into creeks or minor harbours all over northern Europe, and at Malta, to do the same in the Mediterranean. British ships also defied the blockade by putting into the Austrian port of Trieste, from where their merchandise could reach Central Europe. There was plenty of clandestine trade, and there were even cases of French merchants from Bordeaux supplying the British forces in Portugal with wine and brandy. In Hamburg, the city authorities were surprised at a curious rise in the number of funerals, only to discover that coffins were being used to transport smuggled coffee and indigo – from which Bourrienne, now a commissioner there, was taking a cut. Even Napoleon’s family flouted the blockade, Louis in Holland almost blatantly, Jérôme in Westphalia passing on goods, and Josephine buying smuggled silks and brocades. Cambacérès actually ordered the chief administrator of the Grand Duchy of Berg, Jacques-Claude Beugnot, to send him cured hams by clandestine means in order to avoid paying customs duties aimed to back up the blockade. On the march back from Germany following Tilsit, Captain Boulart of the Guard Artillery and his fellow officers and men happily bought quantities of English merchandise in Frankfurt and Hanover which they smuggled into France in their ammunition wagons, which they would not allow the customs officials at Mainz to inspect, arguing that the falling snow would soak the powder.14

  Nevertheless, by the first months of 1808 the blockade was having a crippling effect on the British economy, and, crucially, threatened to impinge on the political situation. Imports of much-needed cereals had plummeted by a staggering 93 per cent, and Napoleon calculated that if the pressure could be kept up, the country would not be able to feed itself and there would be bread riots which would force the government to its knees. He was therefore desperate to keep Russia within the system, and with Alexander visibly cooling the surest means of doing that seemed a dynastic alliance. The subject was bro
ached, and the tsar gave all the appropriate signs of delight, but declared he had to obtain the assent of his mother before he could give a definite answer. He had no intention of going along with the idea, as he had already resolved to undermine Napoleon.15

  On the day after his arrival at Erfurt, Talleyrand had found a note from Princess Thurn und Taxis, a sister of the queen of Prussia, inviting him to take tea with her. There he met Alexander, who had set up the meeting. The two met there several times over the next few days, having quickly entered into an understanding – Talleyrand told Alexander that he was the only civilised ruler capable of saving Europe and France from Napoleon, and declared himself ready to serve him in this cause. Whether it was mentioned then or not, the service would not come free of charge.16

  On his return to Paris, Talleyrand would remain in touch through the secretary of the Russian embassy, Karl von Nesselrode. He was already in secret contact with the Austrian ambassador Metternich, who summed up Talleyrand’s position thus: ‘The interest of France herself demands that the powers capable of standing up to Napoleon must unite to oppose a dyke to his insatiable ambition, that the cause of Napoleon is no longer that of France, that Europe itself can only be saved through the closest possible alliance of Austria and Russia.’17

  ‘I am very satisfied with Alexander, and he must be with me,’ Napoleon wrote to Josephine on 11 October, convinced that he had seduced the tsar. The following day they signed an agreement reaffirming their alliance, as well as a joint letter to George III professing their wish to make peace and appealing to him to enter into negotiations. Three days later, they rode out of Erfurt together to the spot on which they had met two weeks before, embraced and took their leave of each other. Napoleon then rode back, slowly, into town, apparently deep in thought. He had plenty to reflect on.18