Napoleon Bonaparte

by Alan Schom

  Leaning back in his carriage as he returned to Paris that same Saturday afternoon, momentarily free of the unrelenting demands of his counselors, ministers, family, and general events, First Consul Bonaparte could smile, fairly if not fully content with his achievements since 18 Brumaire. His brief sojourn in the Luxembourg Palace had been quickly followed in February by a transfer of establishment to the Tuileries, which gave him and his staff much more space, his two fellow consuls now being required to reside in smaller separate residences of their own. Not only were he and Josephine permitted grander quarters (Josephine’s apartments included the entire ground floor of the Tuileries) but also more ostentatious, even royal, trappings, correctly reflecting Napoleon’s new position of power. Chamberlains, equerries, valets, and whole platoons of servants of every variety were adorned with the new personal livery and colors of the first consul. The once simple Bonaparte household had overnight taken on princely pretensions and accoutrements, surrounded and protected by a new, rigorous etiquette worthy of Louis XVI himself, which carefully isolated the first consul from everyone whenever he chose, even from his closest military colleagues and the highest government officials.

  Napoleon’s first few months in power had in fact achieved staggering results, most of them for the better, enough to impress even the stern John Marshall. First he had discarded the corrupt Directory and its government and constitution, replacing them with Sieyès’s newly inaugurated — if modified — Constitution of 1799, which created the triconsulships and Napoleon’s dominating position — complete with full decree powers — as the nation’s first consul. Then Sieyès and Roger-Ducos were edged out and replaced by the new second consul, Cambacérès, and Third Consul Charles-François Lebrun, and of course three new “representative” bodies replacing the former Council of Ancients and Council of Five Hundred: a hand-picked Senate, which introduced new legislative proposals (given by Napoleon); a one-hundred-member Tribunate, empowered solely to discuss these new proposals; and a legislative body that could vote on (but not debate) them. Divide and rule.

  Thus First Consul Bonaparte had cleverly emasculated and manipulated the entire legislative process. The only real opposition came from the Tribunate, and Napoleon was finally to eliminate that institution in 1807. This revised structure was capped with the government ministers for the various traditional departments (foreign affairs, interior, war, and so on) responsible to, and named by, Bonaparte. But above the entire institutional hierarchy was found something new, the State Council, which was to revolutionize the governing process.

  This highest of all councils, and the only really important one so far as Napoleon was concerned, was divided into five sections — laws, interior (national affairs), finances, army and navy, and legislation. Its tasks included drafting required legislation — on proposals submitted by the first consul — and prior study of these projects and of any other subject assigned by him, and him alone. The first consul personally convened each of the five sections monthly. It was perhaps the first coherent, deliberately established think tank in history. In addition the State Council served as a final court of appeals, not only in legal matters but also acting against administrative abuse by the nation’s bureaucrats, something badly needed and greatly welcomed in a country where a challenge to persons in authority had hitherto been an exercise in futility. The council, in its several aspects, was to prove a most effective creation, and it would outlast Napoleon and his subsequent Empire, a Second Empire later in the century, and every subsequent republic that followed, down to the present day.

  For the most part the ministers selected by Napoleon were very bright and well prepared for the tasks they were to undertake, with only a few subsequent changes required. Considering how many of the previous years Bonaparte had spent out of the country, and that he had never been directly involved in day-to-day politics and national administration — thus lacking that necessary contact, intimacy, and background — the first consul’s choices proved to be remarkably adroit, including those of Cambacérès and Lebrun, who were to remain close to Napoleon later under the Empire, as his arch-chancellor and arch-treasurer, posts they retained to the very end.

  Apart from his ministers and state counselors, there was one person on whom Napoleon depended to a considerable degree during the first ten years, despite grave differences of opinion, and that was his brother Joseph.

  For Joseph Bonaparte the festivities at Mortefontaine celebrating the new Franco-American treaty of friendship were halcyon days. To be sure, festivities on later occasions were more spectacular, as when two years hence the Treaty of Amiens was concluded there, but in a sense this was the best time, still uncomplicated by the jealousies and growing differences that were to divide Joseph and his younger brother and eventually ravage the entire Bonaparte family.

  Of all the Bonaparte children, Joseph was by far the best educated and the most highly cultured, with a real, if amateurish, interest in literature, music, and the arts — and, unlike Napoleon, he could sing in key.

  Had the family not been forced to flee their native land and certain arrest, Joseph could have anticipated a fairly easy life in an influential position in national politics or the judiciary, probably as a high court judge. As head of his family he was responsible for brothers Lucien, Louis, and Jérôme, sisters Caroline, Pauline, and Elisa, as well as his mother. Like Lucien, he was a warehouse guard at St.-Maximin, a temporary and humiliating job that scarcely kept a roof over the heads of his family. But thanks to contact with a wealthy merchant family of Marseilles, Joseph soon became engaged to the eldest daughter, Julie Clary. Their nuptials were celebrated on August 1, 1794,[374] at a time when, thanks to the rising military star of Napoleon, the twenty-six-year-old Joseph was earning a substantial income as a quartermaster, providing the French army with supplies — always a lucrative position.

  Marriage changed his and the family’s circumstances. Julie brought a substantial dowry, fidelity, stability, and devotion to her young husband and future family. She gave Joseph not only the working capital needed to launch the sizable fortune he was soon to build into millions, but the partnership of a woman whom he could respect and count on, in good times and bad. Like the entire dozen Clary siblings, Julie was religious, embarrassingly honest, stubborn, and intelligent, thereby making her highly antithetical to so many of the Bonaparte family values in general. But “Madame Mère,” as Letizia was known, admired and respected Julie Clary, and without that blessing for a new wife in the Bonaparte clan, life could be extremely unpleasant, as Josephine in particular was to discover.

  A father within a year of marriage, Joseph quickly became a stereotypical paterfamilias, and as the oldest Bonaparte male, the head of the entire Bonaparte family as well, it was a position he assumed naturally, unquestioningly, with pride and pleasure. All the family’s finances were placed in his hands for many years to come, even Napoleon handing over his salary and “outside earnings” to Joseph for investment and dispersal. “Whatever circumstances fate reserves for you,” Napoleon wrote his brother at this time,

  you certainly know, my friend, you can have no better friend than I, who holds you most dear and who desires most sincerely your happiness. Life is a wisp of thought that disappears before our eyes...If you leave [on a business trip], and feel it will be for a considerable time, send me your portrait. We have lived together for so many years, and have been so closely united, that our hearts are one, and you know better than anyone how fond I am of you. I find in writing these words an emotion I have rarely felt in my life.[375]

  It was indeed a most rare moment in Napoleon’s young life, with his guard down and heart open, at a time just before his fame swelled across the land and a warm brotherly heart changed, growing into a hard ambitious one with no room for such sentiments. These feelings lasted barely another year, for in October 1795 the Committee of Public Safety nominated Napoleon the new commander in chief of the Army of the Interior, and the heart that had recently revealed itself
just as quickly closed.

  Nor was the change in relations one-sided. Despite growing prosperity and even considerable affluence, Joseph the businessman gradually became more and more jealous of Napoleon’s national and familial dominance. This was aggravated by the greater success in another arena, for which Napoleon was chiefly responsible, politics. Napoleon introduced Joseph to some of the governing elite of Paris, including Barras, Napoleon’s own patron since his rise from obscurity at Toulon. Most reluctantly, at Napoleon’s insistence, Joseph left the warmth and comfort of his position in Marseilles for the lure, lights, fortune, and women of the French capital. This, Napoleon assured him, was where real fortunes were made, where real power and influence lay.

  It began humbly enough as young General Bonaparte obtained for Joseph letters of marque, authorizing him to launch two armed corsairs (now with the blessing of the government) against enemy merchantmen in and around the waters of Corsica and the ninety miles of sea between that island and the French coast. This was nothing, of course, for Napoleon had in mind far greater enterprises than a mere Joseph could imagine in his wildest dreams. But Napoleon knew Joseph very well indeed, a man with little willpower when confronted with temptation. The lucrative possibilities thus revealed to him would seduce him as not even the most beautiful woman could, although there would be plenty of them, now, as well. Once having been the sun of the family galaxy, Joseph saw his star rising, but, lacking Napoleon’s depth of vision and genius, he failed to realize that his star was actually being subtly reduced to the status of a satellite, as the younger brother’s own light began to outshine his with a blinding brillance. It was something Joseph was never to excuse — or accept.

  Before Joseph had married Julie, Napoleon had had a brief tryst with her sister Désirée. An intimacy and understanding of sorts was established between Napoleon and her, lacking only a formal acknowledgment and commitment by the family. Then the young general was recalled to Paris to resume his duties there.

  Though the rift betweeen the Clarys and Napoleon — opened when he fell head-over-heels in love with Josephine and dropped their daughter Désirée — healed slightly, the rift between Josephine and the Bonaparte clan was immediate, bitter, and permanent. She was a woman who had children and a “reputation.” Also, unlike the Bonapartes, she was a real member of the old aristocracy.[376]

  Joseph, offended by the way Napoleon had dropped Désirée, and indirectly humiliated as the link between the Clarys and the Bonapartes, found his position as head of the family distinctly uncomfortable. A simple man, Joseph always got on well with people and wanted everyone to like him, whereas Napoleon couldn’t have cared less. From this moment, therefore, Joseph, pushed by his mother and supported by the rest of the clan, remorselessly attacked Napoleon’s marriage, opposing Josephine and her children every step of the way. Nor did they relent over the months and years to come, their virulence and acrimony instead intensifying. It was the first time Joseph had ever challenged Napoleon; it would not be the last.

  This ongoing internal familial war, however, in no way seemed to impair their public lives, as Joseph got involved in the shadows of Parisian political life and then was elected to the Council of Five Hundred in 1797. Scarcely had he taken his seat, however, than he was diverted to a diplomatic career, beginning with an appointment by the directors as French consul to Parma. But to Divisional General Bonaparte, such a position for his brother was an insult. Thanks to Barras’s intervention Joseph was promoted overnight to minister plenipotentiary to Rome, with the curiously undiplomatic task of “introducing representative democracy” there.[377]

  With part of his sixty-thousand-franc salary in his strongbox, he and Julie set out for Italy, reaching Rome at the beginning of September 1797, where his credentials were duly presented to, and accepted by, Pope Pius VII.[378] Little did the pontiff realize that Minister Bonaparte had come with formal orders to overthrow papal secular rule, replacing it in Rome with a new French satellite, under the guise of a new “Roman Republic.” He had been given specific, secret orders to execute this by bribery and by undermining the status quo, and then by instigating an “incident” that would provide the French Republic with an excuse for military intervention. (General Berthier’s military units in Mantua had already been put on standby alert, to be prepared to move quickly.)

  All went well. Bribes were discreetly dispersed, antipapal republicans were won over to the French view, and the “incident” was then arranged by Joseph’s military attaché, General Duphot (now Désirée Clary’s fiancé), who lured the police of the Papal States to the French Embassy and manufactured a shooting incident. Unfortunately for Duphot the situation literally backfired, and he was killed in the ensuing scuffle. But the “incident” had been created.

  Joseph, who had little stomach for the realities of his own egregious actions, bolted with his wife and staff at the crack of dawn the following day, December 29.[379] But Paris was delighted to see the objective reached and executed in a mere four months, and on February 15, 1798, Gen. Alexandre Berthier duly arrived in the heart of the Papal States, proudly proclaiming a new “independent Roman Republic.”[380] Joseph’s first “diplomatic mission” had been a clear success, although Désirée Clary would have to resume the arduous search for yet another fiancé.

  Unlike the other Bonapartes, Joseph, now safely ensconced back in Paris, could concentrate on the acquisition of Mortefontaine, for despite his brief stay in Rome, and his rather precipitous retreat, he had not left with empty coffers. Topped off by a few handsome bribes and gifts, he managed to provide the full cash outlay of 258,000 francs for the estate, not to mention hundreds of thousands of francs more over the next eight years on adjacent acreage, interior decoration, furnishings, and improvements.

  Joseph’s love of art led him to clutter the vast rooms with hundreds of paintings and pieces of looted sculpture, rare furniture, rugs, and tapestries. He installed his own small chamber orchestra and lined his first real library with splendidly bound volumes, especially of French and Italian literature. Much of this he professed to have devoured when he was not courting the ladies — like most of the Bonaparte men he had a weakness for actresses — giving weekly dinners, attending the opera, playing cards, or simply glowing in the social world, for Joseph was the most socially oriented Bonaparte. Indeed, he somehow even found time to write a novella, Moina, a literary weakness of sorts to which both Lucien and Louis later fell victim as well.

  During his state reception for the American envoys, Joseph Bonaparte was perhaps as happy as he was ever destined to be, with future diplomatic assignments awaiting him that, if successful, would bring peace to France and the Continent, and a French nation grateful to him, while assuring him a footnote or two in French history. Had he been alone in the world with his wife and children, he no doubt would have remained contented. But he was not alone, and indeed was being demoted to a secondary position even within the Bonaparte family, as brother Napoleon continually pushed himself forward, depriving Joseph of his place of respected seniority. This was aggravated by the growing role of politics in family affairs, an envious Joseph now coveting Napoleon’s position as head of state. Should Napoleon decide to retain office permanently, he would need to name a successor. And as Josephine had thus far proved incapable of producing any more male children, this meant that the succession would revert to the Bonaparte family. As the senior member of that clan, Joseph naturally intended to insist on his due. The result was that hereafter Joseph would be eating his heart out over what he had been deprived of politically, and possibly even over his inability to definitely secure a hereditary post as head of state.

  “Clearly you do not understand me at all, if you think I lack the initiative to defend my interests where my personal honor is concerned,” Joseph later remonstrated with Napoleon over the succession. “I have to remind you of my position and of the decisions I shall be forced to take, that you might not otherwise misjudge my apparent moderation concerning your
ultimate decision in the matter. I hardly need say more on this point.”[381] Napoleon knew that something appropriate would have to be done, but he could not readily envisage a place that would satisfy such a disgruntled Joseph, at least not under a mere republic.

  The “succession” issue was to undermine Napoleon’s relations with all his brothers and sisters for years to come, pitting one against another and all against Napoleon himself. The weakest link in all his plans for the future was to prove his own family — as brother Lucien was soon to confirm.

  The post of interior minister, like those of foreign minister and minister for war, was of critical importance to the smooth transition of the new government, the Consulate. It was the interior minister who controlled and administered the country’s entire internal political machinery, from the naming of mayors and prefects (the governors of every department, or province) to the overseeing of the gendarmerie and the National Guard. He also ordered the implementation of all laws and decrees, not to mention overseeing all public elections, and was even responsible for providing the army with its annual allotment of conscripts.

  The person named for this portfolio, therefore, had to be a very senior, experienced, adroit hand, capable of maintaining stability and calm throughout the land when executing sometimes exceedingly unpopular measures. Such an individual had to possess firmness of resolve, wisdom, and a wide knowledge of men and recent political history. Finally he had to command popular political respect. In brief, this had to be a man who could be trusted above all others. That Napoleon should have disregarded all these elementary requirements in favor of his twenty-four-year-old brother Lucien was as mad as it probably was inevitable. Without Lucien’s help, of course, the coup of 18-19 Brumaire would have never come off. Napoleon was in his brother’s debt, and a true Corsican honored his debts.