Napoleon the Great

by Andrew Roberts

  When excited by any violent passion his face assumed a … terrible expression … his eyes flashed fire; his nostrils dilated, swollen with the inner storm … He seemed to be able to control at will these explosions, which, by the way, as time went on, became less and less frequent. His head remained cool … When in good humour, or when anxious to please, his expression was sweet and caressing, and his face was lighted up by a most beautiful smile.38

  In a long and exasperated letter to Talleyrand on October 7, recounting to him yet again Cobenzl’s obstinacy, Napoleon openly wondered whether fighting for Italy had ultimately been worth it, calling it ‘an enervated, superstitious, pantalon and cowardly nation’ that was incapable of greatness and certainly ‘not worthy of having forty thousand Frenchmen die for it’.39† He added that he had had no aid from the Italians from the start of his campaign, and that the Cisalpine Republic had only a couple of thousand men under arms. ‘This is history,’ he wrote; ‘the remainder, which is all very fine in proclamations, printed discourses, etc., is so much romance.’ Napoleon’s letters to Talleyrand resemble streams of consciousness, so close had their epistolary relationship become in only a matter of weeks. ‘I write to you as I think,’ he told his new ally and confidant, ‘which is the greatest mark of esteem I can give you.’40

  On the morning of October 13, 1797, Bourrienne entered Napoleon’s bedroom at daybreak to tell him that the mountains were covered in snow, whereupon Napoleon – at least according to Bourrienne – leaped up from his bed, crying: ‘What! In the middle of October! What a country this is! Well, we must make peace.’ He had immediately calculated that the roads would soon be so impassable that the Army of the Rhine couldn’t reinforce him.41 At midnight on Tuesday, October 17, at the hamlet of Campo Formio halfway between Napoleon’s headquarters at Passariano and Cobenzl’s at Udine, he and Cobenzl signed the treaty. Under its terms, Austria ceded Belgium (the Austrian Netherlands) and the west bank of the Rhine to France; France took the Ionian Isles from Venice; Austria took Istria, Friuli, Dalmatia, Venice itself, the Adige river and the lower Po; Austria recognized the Ligurian and Cisalpine republics, the latter of which would now merge with the Cispadane Republic; France and Austria formed a ‘most favoured nation’ customs union; and the Duke of Modena lost his Italian lands but was compensated by Austria with the Duchy of Breisgau, east of the Rhine. A conference was summoned at Rastatt in November to decide the future of the Holy Roman Empire and to work out compensation for the expropriation of the Rhineland princes; and to establish a pro-French independent Lemanic Republic around Geneva (which sits on Lake Léman) as well as a Helvetian Republic in Switzerland.

  ‘I have no doubt there will be lively criticism of the treaty I’ve just signed,’ Napoleon wrote to Talleyrand the next day, but he argued that the only way to get a better deal was by going to war again and conquering ‘two or three more provinces from Austria. Was that possible? Yes. Probable? No.’42 He sent Berthier and Monge to Paris with the treaty to expound its merits. They did such a good job, and so enthusiastic was the public enthusiasm for peace, that the Directory ratified it swiftly despite several of its members privately regretting the lack of republican solidarity shown to Venice. (It is said that when asked about the Venetian clauses, Napoleon explained: ‘I was playing vingt-et-un, and stopped at twenty.’43) On the same day that he signed the Campo Formio treaty, bringing five years of war with Austria to an end, he also wrote to the interior minister of the Cisalpine Republic setting up a competition for a composition honouring the late General Hoche, open to all Italian musicians.44

  While commending Campo Formio to Talleyrand, Napoleon mused on the next set of priorities for France. ‘Our Government must destroy the Anglican monarchy, or expect itself to be destroyed by the corruption of these intriguing and enterprising islanders. The present moment offers us a fine opportunity. Let’s concentrate all our activity upon the naval side and destroy England. That done, Europe is at our feet.’45 Talleyrand was active on Napoleon’s behalf, and only nine days later the Directory appointed him to command a new force, the Army of England. Napoleon immediately set to work. He suggested getting Hoche’s maps of England off his heirs, had new surveys made of all the ports between Dunkirk and Le Havre, and ordered the construction of a large number of troop-carrying gunboats.46 On November 13 he sent an artillery expert, Colonel Antoine Andréossy, to Paris ‘in order to cast guns in the same calibre as the English cannon so that, once in the country, we may be able to use their cannonballs’.47

  Napoleon also made sure that the heroes of the Army of Italy were recognized, sending a list of the bravest one hundred soldiers of the campaign, who were to be awarded the coveted golden sabres of honour. They included Lieutenant Joubert of the 85th Line, who had captured 1,500 Austrians with thirty men at Rivoli, Drum-Major Sicaud of the 39th Line, who single-handedly took forty prisoners at Calliano, Colonel Dupas of the 27th Légère for being ‘one of the first on the bridge at Lodi’, and Grenadier Cabrol of the 32nd Line, who had scaled Lodi’s walls under enemy fire and opened the town gates.48 He also sent a flag to Paris enumerating what he claimed to be the number of prisoners taken during the campaign (150,000), standards captured (170), guns (600), ships-of-the-line (9), peace treaties signed, cities ‘liberated’ and artists whose masterpieces he had sent to Paris, including Michelangelo, Titian, Veronese, Correggio, Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci.49

  Leaving the Army of Italy in the hands of his brother-in-law Charles Leclerc, Napoleon went to the Congress of Rastatt in November, passing through Turin, Chambéry, Geneva, Berne and Basle, where he was lauded by the crowds. One night in Berne, recalled Bourrienne, they passed through a double line of carriages which were ‘well lit up, and filled with beautiful women, all of whom raised the cry: “Vive Bonaparte! Vive the Pacificator!” ’50 He entered Rastatt in a carriage drawn by eight horses and escorted by thirty hussars, a protocol usually adopted by reigning monarchs. Napoleon understood the power that spectacle held over the public imagination, and wanted the new French Republic to make the same visual impact that the old European monarchies enjoyed.

  The Treaty of Campo Formio was officially ratified at Rastatt on November 30. It compelled Austria to give up her chief Rhenish strongholds – Mainz, Philippsburg and Kehl – evacuate Ulm and Ingolstadt, and withdraw her forces beyond the River Lech. At that time there were 16 million Germans who didn’t live in either Austria or Prussia, and Napoleon wanted France to make a vigorous bid for their support since the glory days of the Holy Roman Empire that had once united them were now long gone. (In one of his coarser turns of phrase, he described the Holy Roman Empire as ‘an old whore who has been violated by everyone for a long time’.51) Napoleon wanted to compensate the German princes who were going to lose lands to France under the treaty, posing as the protector of the medium-sized German states against the designs of Austria and Prussia. As he had presciently put it in a letter to the Directory on May 27: ‘If the concept of Germany didn’t exist, we would need to invent it for our own purposes.’52

  The negotiations, which Napoleon opened but which continued until April 1799, gave him the perfect opportunity for a calculated act of diplomatic rudeness, when the King of Sweden – who had territory in Germany – had the gall to send Baron Axel von Fersen, Marie Antoinette’s former lover, as his delegate. ‘He came to see me with all the complacency of a courtesan of the Oeil-de-Boeuf,’ Napoleon quipped to Talleyrand, referring to a room in Louis XIV’s private apartments at Versailles.53 He told von Fersen that he was ‘essentially disagreeable to every French citizen’, and that he was ‘only known by your affection for a government justly proscribed in France, and for your useless exertions for its re-establishment’.54 Napoleon recalled that Fersen ‘replied that his Majesty would consider what I had said, and then he left. I naturally conducted him to the door with the usual ceremonies.’55 Fersen was recalled.

  Napoleon left Rastatt for Paris on December 2, 1797, pausing only to be the guest of hono
ur at a dinner given by the masonic lodge in the town of Nancy on the way. (Freemasons tended to be supporters of his modernization programme, especially in Italy.) Dressed in civilian clothes, in an undistinguished carriage and accompanied only by Berthier and General Jean-Étienne Championnet, he reached Paris at 5 p.m. on the 5th. ‘It was in the general’s plans to pass unnoticed,’ recorded a contemporary, ‘at this moment at least, and he quietly played his game.’56 Too young to become a Director, Napoleon deliberately decided to adopt a low profile in Paris so as not to antagonize the Directory, despite the sensation that his presence in the capital caused as soon as it became known. Josephine’s daughter Hortense recalled ‘keeping back a crowd made up of all classes of people, impatient and eager to catch sight of the conqueror of Italy’.57 The rue Chantereine on which Napoleon and Josephine had rented a house at number 6 (the name meant ‘singing frogs’, because there was once a marsh nearby) was changed in his honour to the rue de la Victoire.* Napoleon bought the house soon afterwards for 52,400 francs.† The extent of Josephine’s almost psychotic extravagance may be discerned in the fact that she had spent 300,000 francs decorating it with Pompeian frescoes, mirrors, cupids, pink roses, white swans and so on, when it was still only rented.58

  Years later, Napoleon recalled that this Parisian period of his life was fraught with peril, not least because soldiers would shout ‘He ought to be king! We must make him king!’ in the street. He feared this might get him poisoned, as many people thought (wrongly) had happened to Hoche.59 For this reason, as a supporter recorded, ‘he avoided taking part in politics, appeared rarely in public, and admitted to his intimacy only a small number of generals, scientists and diplomats’.60 He thought the people would not remember his victories for long, saying: ‘The Parisians retain no impression.’61

  At 11 a.m. on December 6 Napoleon met Talleyrand at the foreign ministry at the Hôtel Galifet on the rue du Bac. They sized each other up over a long conversation, and liked what they saw. That evening Napoleon dined privately with the Directory; he was received warmly (if disingenuously) by Barras and La Révellière, amicably enough by Reubell but coldly by the others.62 The whole government threw a huge official welcoming ceremony for him at the Luxembourg Palace at midnight on Sunday, December 10, where the great court was roofed over with flags and a specially constructed amphitheatre featured statues representing Liberty, Equality and Peace. Napoleon adopted a diffident demeanour throughout. A Briton living in Paris at the time noted that ‘As he passed through the crowded streets, he leaned back in his carriage … I saw him decline placing himself in the chair of State which had been prepared, and seemed as if he wished to escape from the general bursts of applause.’63 Another contemporary observed: ‘The cheers of the crowd contrasted with the cold praises of the Directory.’

  Placing oneself in the limelight while seeming modestly to edge away from it is one of the most skilful of all political moves, and Napoleon had mastered it perfectly. ‘All the most elegant and distinguished people then in Paris were there,’ recalled another observer, including the Directory and both chambers of the legislature and their wives. When Napoleon entered, another witness observed, ‘everyone stood up, uncovered [that is, took off their hats]; the windows were full of young and beautiful women. But, notwithstanding this splendour, an icy coldness characterized the ceremony. Everyone seemed to be present only for the purpose of beholding a sight, and curiosity rather than joy seemed to influence the assembly.’64

  Talleyrand introduced Napoleon with a very flattering speech, to which Napoleon replied by commending the Campo Formio treaty and praising his soldiers’ zeal in fighting ‘for the glorious Constitution of the Year Three’. Then he proclaimed his belief that ‘When the happiness of the French shall be secured on the best practical laws then Europe shall be free.’65 Barras, who like the other Directors wore a toga on official occasions, then made an adulatory speech. ‘Nature had exhausted all her powers in the creation of a Bonaparte,’ he said, comparing him to Socrates, Pompey and Caesar. He then said of Britain, which had by now completely swept the French navy from the world’s oceans: ‘Go and capture that gigantic corsair who infests the seas. Go and chain up that gigantic freebooter who oppresses the oceans. Go and chastise in London outrages left too long unpunished.’66 After his speech, Barras and all the other Directors embraced Napoleon. Bourrienne concluded, with pardonable cynicism, ‘Each acted to the best of his ability his part in this sentimental comedy.’67

  Napoleon was much happier on Christmas Day, when he was elected a member of the Institut de France, then (as now) the foremost intellectual society in France, in place of the exiled Carnot. With the help of Laplace, Berthollet and Monge he won the support of 305 members out of 312, with the next two candidates gaining only 166 and 123 votes respectively. Thereafter he often wore the dark-blue uniform of the Institut with its embroidered olive green and golden branches, attended science lectures there, and signed himself as ‘Member of the Institut, General-in-Chief of the Army of England’ in that order. Writing to thank Armand-Gaston Camus, the Institut’s president, the next day, Napoleon said: ‘The true conquests, the only ones that cause no regret, are those made over ignorance.’68 It was not only the French people he was hoping to impress when he displayed these intellectual credentials: ‘I well knew that there was not a drummer in the army but would respect me the more for believing me to be not a mere soldier,’ he said.69

  His proposers and supporters at the Institut undoubtedly thought it a boon to have the foremost general of the day as a member, but Napoleon was a bona fide intellectual, and not just an intellectual among generals. He had read and annotated many of the most profound books of the Western canon; was a connoisseur, critic and even amateur theorist of dramatic tragedy and music; championed science and socialized with astronomers; enjoyed conducting long theological discussions with bishops and cardinals; and he went nowhere without his large, well-thumbed travelling library. He was to impress Goethe with his views on the motives of Werther’s suicide and Berlioz with his knowledge of music. Later he would inaugurate the Institut d’Égypte and staff it with the greatest French savants of the day. Napoleon was admired by many of the leading European intellectuals and creative figures of the nineteenth century, including Goethe, Byron, Beethoven (at least initially), Carlyle and Hegel; he established the University of France on the soundest footing of its history.70 He deserved his embroidered coat.

  Napoleon showed considerable tact when, having been offered a major role by the Directory in the no-longer-popular anniversary celebrations of Louis XVI’s execution on January 21, he modestly attended in his Institut rather than his military uniform, sitting in the third row rather than next to the Directors.

  Napoleon’s gaucheness with women was on display at a reception thrown by Talleyrand in his honour on January 3, 1798, at which the celebrated intellectual Madame Germaine de Staël, as Josephine’s daughter Hortense later remembered, ‘kept following the General about all the time, boring him to a point where he could not, and perhaps did not, sufficiently attempt to hide his annoyance’.71 The daughter of the stupendously rich banker and Louis XVI’s finance minister Jacques Necker, and a leading Parisian salonnière in her own right, Madame de Staël hero-worshipped Napoleon at the time, refusing to leave a dinner before Lavalette after the Fructidor purge, simply because he was Napoleon’s aide-de-camp. At Talleyrand’s fête she asked Napoleon: ‘Whom do you consider the best kind of woman?’ clearly expecting a compliment of some kind to her own famed intelligence and writing ability, whereupon Napoleon answered: ‘She who has had the most children.’72 As a throwaway remark to a near-stalker it did the trick (and since France’s low birth-rate was to become a problem over the next century it might even be considered prescient), but it reveals much about his fundamental attitude to women.

  Turning his thoughts to the invasion of Britain, Napoleon had arranged to meet Wolfe Tone, the leader of the rebel United Irishmen in December to elicit help. Whe
n Tone had told him he wasn’t a military man and couldn’t be of much use, Napoleon had interrupted him: ‘But you’re brave.’ Tone modestly agreed that he was indeed. ‘Eh bien,’ said Napoleon, according to Tone’s later account, ‘that will suffice.’73 Napoleon visited Boulogne, Dunkirk, Calais, Ostend, Brussels and Douai over two weeks in February to evaluate the chances of a successful invasion, interviewing sailors, pilots, smugglers and fishermen, sometimes until midnight. ‘It’s too hazardous,’ he concluded. ‘I will not attempt it.’74 His report to the Directory on February 23, 1798 was unequivocal:

  Whatever efforts we make, we shall not for some years gain naval supremacy. To invade England without that supremacy is the most daring and difficult task ever undertaken … If, having regard to the present organization of our navy, it seems impossible to gain the necessary promptness of execution, then we must really give up the expedition against England – be satisfied with keeping up the pretence of it – and concentrate all our attention and resources on the Rhine, in order to try to deprive England of Hanover … or else undertake an eastern expedition which would menace her trade with the Indies. And if none of these three operations is practicable, I see nothing else for it but to conclude peace.75