In the sixty-nine archives, libraries, museums and research institutes that I’ve visited in fifteen countries during the course of my researches, I’ve met with nothing but helpfulness and friendliness, and I would in particular like to thank:
France: Sacha Topalovich and Florence Tarneaud at the Archives Nationales, Paris; Y. Bamratta and Laurence Le Bras at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France’s Tolbiac and Richelieu sites respectively; Anne Georgeon-Liskenne at the Centre des Archives Diplomatiques, La Courneuve; Claude Ponnou and Thisio Bernard at the Service Historique de la Défense, Vincennes; Sylvie Biet and Danièle Chartier at the Bibliothèque Thiers; Gérard Leyris at the Musée Carnavalet; the British ambassador to Paris, Sir Peter Westmacott, and his butler, Ben Newick, for showing me around Pauline Borghese’s house in Paris, now the British Embassy; Susanne Wasum-Rainer, the German ambassador to Paris, for showing me around her residence, l’Hôtel de Beauharnais, Josephine’s immaculate present to her son Eugène; Léonore Losserand at St-Joseph-des-Carmes; David Demangeot, curator at the former palace of St-Cloud; Aurore Lacoste de Laval at the École Militaire; Christopher Palmer, First Secretary at the US Embassy in Paris, and Mrs Robin Smith, the Directrice of the Marshall Center at the Hôtel Talleyrand; Angelique Duc at the Musée Napoléon de Brienne-le-Château; Fanny de Jubecourt at Les Invalides and the Musée de l’Armée; Dr Thierry Lentz and Prof. Peter Hicks for being so welcoming at the superb Fondation Napoléon; Alain Pougetoux at the Château de Malmaison; Xavier Cayon at the Conseil d’État in the Palais-Royal (formerly the Tribunate); Mme Marianne Lambert at Marshal Lannes’ Château de Maisons-Laffitte; M and Mme Benoit D’Abonville; Quentin Aymonier at the Fort de Joux in the Jura; my son Henry and daughter Cassia for accompanying me to Corsica; the staffs of the Palais et Musée de la Légion d’Honneur, Paris; the Musée de la Préfecture de Police, Paris; the Maison d’Éducation de la Légion d’Honneur at St-Denis; the Panthéon, and the Musée Fesch and the Musée National de la Maison Bonaparte in Ajaccio, Corsica.
Russia: Alexander Suhanov and Elvira Chulanova of the State Museum of Borodino for showing me around the battlefield of Borodino; Oleg Aleksandrov of Three Whales Tours for taking me to the battlefield of Maloyaroslavets; Maciej Morawski of City Events for taking me to the battlefields of Eylau and Friedland in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad; Konstantin Nazarov at the Maloyaroslavets Military History Museum; Alexandr Panchenko of the Bagrationovsk Historical Museum on the Eylau battlefield; Valery Shabanov and Vladimir Ukievich Katz of the Russian State Military Historical Archive in Moscow, and Marina Zboevskaya of the Borodino Panorama Museum in Moscow.
Belarus: Prof. Igor Groutso for showing me the battlefield of the Berezina river, and Rakhovich Natalya Stepanovna of the Borisov Combined Museum.
Israel: Dr Eado Hecht for showing me the battlefields of Kakun, Jaffa and Mount Thabor, and Dr Alon Keblanoff for showing me the siege sites of Acre; Prof. Azar Gat of Tel Aviv University, and Liat Margolit at the Tel Dor Archaeological Museum.
St Helena: Michel Dancoisne-Martineau, the supremely diligent French Honorary Consul and Conservator at Longwood for my hugely enjoyable days there; Aron Legg for showing me Mount Pleasant, Diana’s Peak, Prosperous Bay, The Briars, Sandy Bay and Jamestown, and Andrew Wells, the former Chief Secretary of St Helena.
Belgium: Ian Fletcher and Colonel John Hughes-Wilson, who showed me Waterloo; Benoît Histace, President of the Museum of the Battle of Ligny, who took me around the battlefield of Ligny, and Count François and Countess Susanne Cornet d’Elzius, the owners of La Haie Sainte.
Great Britain: Lucy McCann at the Rhodes House Library, Oxford; Leigh McKiernan at the Special Collections Reading Room of the Bodleian Library, Oxford; Prof. Nick Mayhew of the Heberden Coin Room at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Allen Packwood at the Churchill Archives, Cambridge; Josephine Oxley at Apsley House; Paul Roberts at the British Museum; Katy Canales and Pim Dodd at the National Army Museum; Hilary Burton and John Rochester at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea; Richard Daniels at the London College of Communication; Richard Tennant of the British Commission for Military History, and the staffs of the Royal Navy Museum at Portsmouth, the British Library and the London Library.
Italy: Lario Zerbini at the Rivoli Museum; my daughter Cassia for accompanying me to Elba; Nello Anselmi at the Santuario della Madonna del Monte at Marciana, Elba; Elisabetta Lalatta of the Fondazione Serbelloni at the Palazzo Serbelloni in Milan; Riccardo Bianceli at the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua, and the staffs of the Museo Napoleonico in Rome, the Marengo Museum at Spinetta Marengo, the Villa Reale at Monza, and the Villa di San Martino, Elba.
The Czech Republic: Simona Lipovska of the Cairn of Peace Memorial Museum and Jana Slukova of Slavkov Castle at Austerlitz.
Austria: Helmut Tiller of the Aspern and Essling Museums; Rupert Derbic of the Wagram Museum, and the staffs at Schönbrunn Palace and the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Vienna.
Portugal: Mark Crathorne and Luiz Saldanha Lopes for showing me around Forts 40, 41, 42, 95 of the Lines of Torres Vedras; and the staff of the Military Museum of Lisbon.
Germany: The staffs of the Bavarian Army Museum at Ingolstadt, the 1806 Museum at JenaCospeda, and the Torhaus Museum in Markkleeberg on the Leipzig battlefield.
The United States: Jay Barksdale of the Allen Room and Elizabeth Denlinger of the Pforzheimer Room at the New York Public Library; Declan Kiely at the Pierpont Morgan Library; Kathryn James at the Beinecke Library and Steve Ross at the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale; Elaine Engst and Laurent Ferri at the Carl A. Kroch Library’s Manuscript Collections at Cornell University; the Merrill family, who so generously funded my visiting professorship at Cornell; Prof. Barry and Dr Marcia Strauss at Cornell for their delightful hospitality and my students there who came up with their own reasons for why Napoleon invaded Russia; Prof. Rafe Blaufarb, Director of the Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution, for making my stay at Florida State University so enjoyable; Eric Robinson of the New-York Historical Society Library; Katie McCormick at the Robert Manning Strozier Library at Florida State University Special Collections; Elisabeth Fairman at the Yale Center for British Art; Dr Robert Pickering, Curator of the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Dr William J. Lademan, Director of the Wargaming Division at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory.
Sweden: Aviva Cohen-Silber for showing me the Bernadotte Rooms at the Royal Palace in Stockholm.
Switzerland: Paola Gianoli Tuena at the Château Le Coppet on Lake Geneva.
Canada: Bruce McNiven for showing me around the Napoleon galleries at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
I would also like to thank Josh Sutton, Charlie Mitchell, Katie Russell and especially the indefatigable Gilles Vauclair for their historical research, as well as Julie di Filippo for German translations, Beata Widulinska for Polish, Timothy Chapman for Spanish, Eado Hecht for Hebrew, Dr Galina Babkova for Russian, and Annaliese Ellidge, Helena Fosh, Maxine Harfield-Neyrand, Gilles Vauclair and Carole Aupoix for French. Maxine was particularly encouraging and helpful in negotiating through the sometimes arcane byways of five Parisian research institutions.
This book was written while I was filming a BBC TV documentary series about Napoleon, and I would like to thank David Notman-Watt, Simon Shaps, David Barrie, Anna Dangoor, Patrick Duval and Tony Burke for making the whole process so enjoyable and thought-provoking.
Since Napoleon’s death has become – needlessly in my view – so controversial, I took expert medical advice about the Emperor’s death from Dr Tim Barrie, Prof. Ira Jacobsen of Cornell, Dr Albert Knapp, Dr Robert Krasner, Dr Archana Vats, Dr James Le Fanu, Dr Pamela Yablon, Dr Guy O’Keefe and Dr Michael Crumplin, to whom I extend my thanks. I should also like to thank Dr Frank Reznek for his diagnosis on Napoleon’s dental problems on St Helena.
For reading my manuscript and their invaluable suggestions for its improvement, I would like to thank Helena Fosh, Sudhir Hazareesingh, John Lee, Stephen Parker, Jürgen Sacht and Gilles Vauclair.
&nb
sp; My agent Georgina Capel of Capel & Land and publishers Stuart Proffitt and Joy de Menil of Penguin have been their usual perfect models of efficiency, professionalism and charm, as were my inspired copy-editors Peter James and Charlotte Ridings. The painstaking work that Stuart and Joy put into this book improved it enormously, and I really cannot thank them enough for it. I am very grateful also to Richard Duguid, Imogen Scott and Lisa Simmonds of Penguin. Cecilia Mackay researched the illustrations with resourcefulness and flair.
My fabulous wife Susan Gilchrist has examined guillotine blades with me, counted the skulls of massacred monks in the crypt of the church where Josephine was imprisoned, driven with me along the Route Napoléon, and went to the Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo with me, not just for its inherent architectural and cultural interest, but because it was where the 1798 revolt began and ended. I couldn’t have written this book without her constant love and support; she’s my Josephine, Marie Louise and Marie Walewska all rolled into one.
This book is dedicated to my siblings Ashley Gurdon and Matthew and Eliot Roberts, for putting up with their know-all big brother for so long and so graciously.
Andrew Roberts
2, rue Augereau, Paris
www.andrew-roberts.net
THE BEGINNING
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ALLEN LANE
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First published 2014
Copyright © Andrew Roberts, 2014
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ISBN: 978-0-241-01919-1
* It is debatable how good a pupil Napoleon was; in 1807 he asked the Countess Anna Potocka what she thought of his dancing at a ball in Warsaw. ‘Sire,’ came her diplomatic reply, ‘for a great man you dance perfectly’ (ed. Stryjenski, Memoires p. 125).
* In Paris the Jacobins and the slightly more moderate Girondin Club were on course to see each other as ideological enemies.
* His father, William Pitt the Elder (1708–78), had been the prime minister who led Britain to victory over France in the Seven Years War.
* The first guillotining was of a highwayman in April 1792, but thereafter it quickly came into general practice for political as well as civil executions.
* George III, King of England between 1760 and 1820 and thus for the whole of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, slipped periodically in and out of lunacy during this period. In 1811 a Regency was formed in which his son the Prince Regent, later King George IV, effectively reigned in his place.
* Gasparin’s support was remembered by Napoleon on his deathbed. He bequeathed 100,000 francs to his descendants in his will, explaining: ‘With his protection, Gasparin shielded me from the persecution of the ignorant general staff commanding the army before the arrival of my friend Dugommier’ (ed. Jonge, Napoleon’s Last Will and Testament p. 78).
* Mulgrave was later to serve as Pitt’s foreign secretary in 1805–6.
* However he contracted this highly communicable, mite-based disease, he wasn’t alone – la Gale was common to all armies of the day; the French had two nicknames for it, la Gratelle (the scratch) and the ironic la Charmante. ‘Everyone was scratching,’ recalled a veteran, and one report to the Committee of Public Health stated that there were no fewer than 400,000 scabetics in the army. Napoleon later set up special hospitals for them during his campaigns (Desclaux, ‘A Propos de la “Gale” ’ p. 868, Brice, The Riddle p. 139, Friedman, Emperor’s Itch p. 32).
* By comparison, in 1780 during the Gordon Riots in London, 285 people had been killed, 200 wounded and a further 20 executed.
* The singing of the great revolutionary, anti-monarchical anthem of 1792 was discouraged by Napoleon once he became Emperor, although he reintroduced it in 1815.
* It can be visited today if you turn up very promptly at 3 p.m. on a Saturday. During the September Massacres of 1792 the mob massacred 115 priests there, and the skulls and bones of 35 of them are on display.
* For decades thereafter, British and Bourbon propagandists re-inserted the ‘u’ in order to emphasize Napoleon’s foreignness, such as in François-René de Chateaubriand’s snappily titled 1814 pamphlet Of Buonaparte and the Bourbons and the Necessity of Rallying Round our Legitimate Princes for the Happiness of France and that of Europe, in which he wrote: ‘No hope was left of finding among Frenchmen a man bold enough to dare to wear the crown of Louis XVI. A foreigner offered himself, and was accepted’ (Chateaubriand, Of Buonaparte p. 5). Even after the British royal family changed the name of their dynasty from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor in 1917, some British historians still ridiculed Napoleon for dropping the ‘u’ from his surname.
* A demi-brigade was the forerunner of the infantry regiment; during the French Revolutionary Wars they were rarely at full strength, and generally averaged about 2,400 men in three battalions.
* Orders of the Day were usually informational and administrative, read out during the 1 p.m. roll-calls in camp or during rest-halts on marches. These were different from proclamations, which read like speeches and were intended to be inspirational.
† Although the French army didn’t resort to flogging as the British army did, it was much freer with the death penalty. When twelve clerks in the victualling department were caught selling the Imperial Guard’s rations before the battle of Wagram, they were shot a few hours later (Blaze, Life in Napoleon’s Army, p. 190). In Spain a man was shot for eating a bunch of grapes (they were thought to cause dysentery), and an indication of violence towards a superior would invite the death penalty. One voltigeur (light infantryman) was even shot during a later campaign in Spain for making a woman’s black apron into a cravat.
* Although he often rode his mount to exhaustion, Napoleon was a fine horseman; he established ‘complete mastery’ over his horses and on occasion even got them to perform tricks (Balcombe, To Befriend pp. 41–2).
* Wellington’s British army was not blameless in this regard. We have relatively few memoirs from enlisted men in the Peninsular War, but one by Friedrich Lindau of the King’s German Legion makes it clear that they thieved off the local population and would beat up peasants who refused to give them produce and livestock (eds. Bogle and Uffindell, Waterloo Hero passim, Mars & Clio, No. 26 pp. 89–90). Napoleon did have a corporal and two soldiers shot who stole sacred vases from a church, which in his own mind was not comparable to his own removal of much of northern Italy’s Renaissance art treasures from churches and palaces. French generals regularly enriched themselves at the expense of the conquered, with some, like Masséna, taking g
reed to outrageous limits; Napoleon would later make him disgorge millions of francs. It was common practice at that period for commanders to reward themselves handsomely: Wellington returned from his campaigns in India having paid off all his debts and amassed a fortune of £42,000, the equivalent of over 1 million francs, all of it perfectly legally (Weller, Wellington in India pp. 257–9).
* This is essentially the argument justifying the Elgin Marbles remaining in the British Museum today, although they were acquired under different circumstances.
* It was about 15 yards upstream from today’s bridge.
† Crossing bridges and seizing bridgeheads in the presence of the enemy was to be a constant feature of Napoleonic campaigns. It would be seen again at Arcole in 1796, in the Danube campaign in 1805, at Jena in 1806, during the Polish campaign of 1807, at Aspern-Essling and Wagram in 1809, at the Berezina in 1812, at Leipzig in 1813, at Montereau in 1814 and at Charleroi in 1815.
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