The War of Wars

by Robert Harvey

  Napoleon remarked in a letter to his older brother Joseph: ‘There is only one thing to do in this world and that is to keep acquiring money and more money, power and more power. All the rest is meaningless.’ Always prone to self-pity, he contemplated suicide: ‘If this continues I shall end by not stepping aside when a carriage rushes past.’ He considered serving in the Russian army as a mercenary, but the Russians would not give him the rank of major, then that of Turkey, which approached him to modernize its small artillery. He agreed and prepared to leave.

  Napoleon had not entirely wasted his time in Paris. He made important connections and also pursued romantic liaisons – which however his poverty and shabby and uncouth appearance did nothing to further. The truth was that after Toulon, believing himself to be the hero of the hour and free to turn down major postings at his whim, he discovered that in worldly Paris he was almost a nobody, a minor military figure, a gauche provincial whose social pretensions were sneered at.

  Back in Toulon he had been attracted to the younger sister of his brother Joseph’s bride, Julie Clary. The girl was only sixteen when he met her, and was known as Désirée, although Napoleon preferred her middle name, Eugénie. She was pretty, vivacious and natural, although a little plump. Napoleon treated her as a younger sister. ‘Your unfailing sweetness and the gay openness which is yours alone inspire me with affection, dear Eugénie, but I am so occupied by work I don’t think this affection ought to cut into my soul and leave a deeper scar.’

  In April 1795 he became engaged to her. She was rich – possessed of a dowry of 100,000 francs: they became lovers. Soon afterwards Napoleon revealed his feelings in a short story, in which he called himself Clissold:

  Eugénie . . . without being plain, was not a beauty, but she was good, sweet, lively and tender . . . she never looked boldly at a man. She smiled sweetly, revealing the most beautiful teeth imaginable. If you gave her your hand, she gave her’s shyly, and only for a moment, almost teasingly showing the prettiest hand in the world, where the whiteness of the skin contrasted with blue veins. Amélie [the elder sister] was like a piece of French music, the chords and harmony of which everyone enjoys. Eugénie was like the nightingale’s song, or a piece by Paesiello, which only sensitive people enjoy; it appears mediocre to the average listener, but its melody transports and excites to passion those who possess intense feelings.

  Melodramatically Clissold is wounded in war and a friend of his father falls in love with Eugénie. Clissold decides to die in battle, and writes a letter to her:

  How many unhappy men regret being alive yet long to continue living! Only I wish to have done with life. It is Eugénie who gave me it . . . Farewell, my life’s arbiter, farewell, companion of my happy days! In your arms I have tasted supreme happiness. I have drained life dry and all its good things. What remains now but satiety and boredom? At twenty-six I have exhausted the ephemeral pleasures of fame but in your love I have known how sweet it is to be alive. That memory breaks my heart. May you live happily and think no more of the unhappy Clissold! Kiss my sons.

  The story is revealing for what it shows about the romantic in Napoleon, beneath the driven, chip-on-his-shoulder, self-seeking opportunist. The unromantic reality, though, was that he was on the lookout in Paris for a more advantageous match than this lively young provincial. He appears to have pursued a forty-year-old widow, and then to have been entranced by the formidable Mademoiselle de Chastenay, followed by the thirty-year-old Grace Dalrymple, a former mistress of the Prince of Wales who had been imprisoned during the Terror. In this case conversation stopped when Napoleon confessed his hatred of the English.

  Napoleon was also admitted into some of Paris’s most famous salons – in particular La Chaumière, the house of the president of the Convention, Jean-Lambert Tallien. His beautiful twenty-two-year-old wife, Thérésia, had already been married, divorced and nearly guillotined, and boasted a score of lovers. Thérésia sported long black hair and wore almost transparent dresses. Napoleon also met the celebrated and powerful Madame de Staël and her friend (and maybe lover) Juliette Récamier; he made friends with a sexy nineteen-year-old Creole beauty, Fortunée Hamelin. He wrote in fascination about this uninhibited society: ‘Everywhere in Paris you see beautiful women. Here alone of all places on earth they appear to hold the reins of government, and the men are crazy about them, think of nothing else and love only for and through them . . . A woman needs to come to Paris for six months to learn what is her due, and to understand her own power. Here only, they deserve to have such influence.’

  In fact post-Robespierre France, as Duff Cooper writes, was shockingly decadent:

  the reaction from the gloom and misery produced by the Revolution was an outburst of enjoyment which took the form of almost frenzied revelry and unbridled licence.

  Dancing appeared to be the main interest of the population, and the deserted palaces of the great, the empty monasteries and convents, even some of the former churches were converted into resorts where this prevailing passion could find satisfaction. Hither, clad in transparent muslin, with bare legs, sandals, and rings upon their toes, their hair cut short and curled in what they believed to be the ancient Roman fashion, came the fair pleasure-seekers of the day to tread a measure with their cavaliers. Among the latter it was the singular mode to wear clothes which were carefully designed not to fit, to pull their hats down to their eyebrows, and to swathe their necks in vast cravats which concealed the chin and fringed the lower lip.

  The outward forms of the Revolution were still observed, the new calendar and the new jargon. Toy dogs were trained to growl at the name of aristocrats, every tenth day was décadi and the excuse for a gala, at which Monsieur and Madame addressed one another with equal politeness as Citizen and Citizeness.

  But society must have its leaders. The great ladies of the past had fled or perished. Their places had to be filled. Not for soldiers and politicians only had the Revolution produced ‘the career open to talent’. No longer need the stern decrees of fashion be dictated by ladies of noble birth and high degree.

  This is perhaps an exaggeration, based on Napoleon’s later denigration of a more tolerant and less dictatorial society than his own; but it had a ring of truth. The Directory was a corrupt, liberal, almost democratic pause between two despotisms, those of Robespierre and Napoleon himself. The young officer with his burning ambition was at once fascinated and repelled by this cosmopolitan, promiscuous society, and personally something of a wallflower rather than a participant, in his state of dishevelment and penury. Something of a prig up to now, he found his inhibitions shattered by the relaxed morals of this set, although it is unlikely he enjoyed much sexual success. He was poor, awkward and not particularly good-looking, although his strangely pale olive skin, burning eyes and hungry expression made a mark with some women, as did his slenderness – in contrast to the tubby Napoleon of later years – and formidable intelligence.

  He received attention from an important source – the forty-year-old Paul Barras, the most complex member of the Directory. Barras, a corrupt and cynical man who had voted for Louis XVI’s execution but was regarded as a moderate and probably had no guiding principles, seems to have taken the sallow young Corsican under his wing, possibly because he might need a skilful artillery officer for his own purposes. Napoleon also formally met Thérésia Tallien’s best friend, another divorced older woman, Rose de Beauharnais, already a widow and Barras’s mistress.

  In September 1795, as Napoleon wallowed in self-hatred and contempt for this dissolute society, at one moment contemplating suicide, at another preparing to leave for Turkey to fight as a mercenary, he was suddenly plunged into the vortex of a political crisis. News had been received of the Comte d’Artois, the King’s brother, arriving at the Isle d’Yeu on his ill-fated expedition. This enthused the royalist right, who had been asserting themselves after the fall of Robespierre. They were furious at a decree which insisted that two-thirds of the new Assembly had to be chosen f
rom among members of the outgoing radical Convention – a clear brake on the re-emergence of the old ruling class.

  On 3 October seven Parisian neighbourhoods rose in opposition to the government, supported by General Menou, commander of the Paris military garrison. Other officers responsible for the 20,000 National Guardsmen stationed in the country were hesitant. It was a right-wing coup in the making. Napoleon himself was nowhere to be found, and almost certainly was considering joining the rebels: he confessed later that he was uncertain who to support, although he had been probably appraised of the plot beforehand.

  According to the popular account, Napoleon was attending the theatre on the night of 4 October while the coup attempt was being mounted outside. From there he was summoned by Barras, who gave him three minutes to decide whether to support the constitution; if so he was offered the job of head of the artillery. Barras desperately needed a good military commander. Napoleon agreed, although whether during the three minutes or later that evening is not known. He claimed that his choice was made for idealistic reasons: almost certainly it stemmed from a cold-blooded calculation of the likely outcome. He went to work instantly, organizing the 8,000 or so loyal supporters of the Convention to face the 30,000 or so armed men, many of them soldiers or ex-soldiers preparing to attack the Tuileries.

  With demonic energy, Napoleon ordered the loyal 21st Chasseurs to seize the forty guns of the National Guard’s artillery at Place de Sablons. The soldiers’ commander was Joachim Murat, a powerfully built born soldier and natural leader, although not an intelligent man. Murat’s men seized the guns at midnight, fending off a force of National Guardsmen. Napoleon ordered the guns to be placed around the Tuileries and aimed a battery of two 8-pound guns down the Rue Neuve St-Roche, leading to the Rue St Honoré to the north-west of the royal palace, where the insurgents were expected to come. He placed some 4,000 loyal soldiers around the immense building.

  There they waited until well into the following afternoon, when the rebels, armed with bayonets, broke through the barricades leading to the Rue Neuve St-Roche. They stopped at the church where they regrouped, sending snipers on to the church roof and steeple. Napoleon himself took personal command of the cannon and ordered that a murderous fire of grapeshot be poured into the rebels. Hundreds fell, and assaults from other quarters were also driven back. The rebels fled towards the Place Vendôme and the Palais Royal, pursued by Napoleon’s soldiers. Another large rebel force was prevented from crossing the Seine to the south-west by guns Napoleon had set up commanding the bridge. Several government troops had perished, but anything up to 500 rebels had been ruthlessly massacred.

  The rightists left the city despairingly that night: the situation had been saved, largely by Napoleon’s indiscriminate and deadly use of artillery. Compared to a major military action, it had been minor, no more than a skirmish and requiring no military skill. But the young commander had acted with decisiveness, self-confidence and, most important of all, utter ruthlessness: he had shown no qualms about mowing down scores of fellow Frenchmen with vastly superior firepower in the streets of Paris.

  It was the turning point of his life: previously a provincial officer of some military distinction, he was now a man of real power in Paris, who had saved the government by displaying a cold-blooded brutality that, had it been displayed earlier for the King of France by his supporters, might have saved the ancien régime. Moreover Napoleon had acted in defence of the constitutional government and against the extremists of the right, establishing himself as a true republican, not a monarchist. Barras declared gratuitously, ‘The Republic has been saved!’

  On assuming his appointment as a member of the Directory, Barras insisted that Napoleon take his place as commander of the Army of the Interior – although the able Carnot, France’s best military chief and also a member of the Directory, strongly opposed this. ‘Promote this man, or he will promote himself without you,’ Barras is said to have declared. Not only was Napoleon now a considerable figure, he was given considerable personal reward by Barras for his role.

  He immediately splashed out: he sent 50,000 louis to his mother, had Joseph appointed consul in Italy and gave him money to invest in Genoa. Lucien was appointed commissary of the north in the Netherlands. Louis was promoted to lieutenant and became Napoleon’s secretary. Jérôme, still only eleven, was sent to an expensive school near Paris. Like a modern gangster, Napoleon endearingly shared his good fortune with his family. A nouveau riche, the twenty-six-year-old hired a box at the opera, bought a magnificent carriage and gave extravagant parties at his new official residence. Behaving like a military strongman, he summoned up his 40,000 troops and militia to police Paris and closed down the Jacobin headquarters at the Pantheon Club. Overnight he had become one of the most powerful and best known men in the capital.

  Napoleon had reaped a colossal reward for this decidedly minor military effort and heartless brutality. Yet what he really sought was command of the French army in Italy, for this promised real opportunities of advancement and enrichment in place of his police role in Paris, which was already subdued. He had sought this before and presented an ambitious plan for an aggressive strike into northern Italy, which had been described by a former French commander in the Alps as ‘the work of a madman such as could only be executed by a madman’. Carnot, the most powerful military figure in France, argued with Barras that he should be given the opportunity. Barras himself was hesitant, wanting his ally to remain at his side in Paris – but he was won over by Napoleon, and by his mistress, Rose de Beauharnais, who soon after the massacre had become Napoleon’s lover as well.

  Rose had been born in 1763 of a wealthy French family which had been based for more than 200 years on the island of Martinique, where they owned a sugar plantation and had 150 slaves. As was usual for the time, she had an arranged marriage at the age of sixteen with a dashing nineteen-year-old French aristocrat, Vicomte Alexandre de Beauharnais. He was a libertine with a violent temper, and they spent just ten months together in four years. She gave birth to two children, Eugène and Hortense, before he left to live with a mistress in Rose’s own backyard of Martinique.

  The two separated and Rose, who had great sexual allure although not overpowering beauty, led a promiscuous life in Paris. When her feckless husband, who had become a Jacobin, suddenly fell out of favour with Robespierre and was imprisoned, Rose loyally sought his release and was herself arrested and sent to Les Carmes prison, where both soon had second lovers – de Beauharnais the celebrated Delphine de Custine, mistress of General Miranda, and Rose General Hoche, the most promising young commander of the Revolution, whom Napoleon detested. De Beauharnais was executed on 22 July 1794, just before Robespierre’s own fall, Rose being released afterwards to become Barras’s mistress (Hoche rejected her with the vicious remark that: ‘such an amour can be pardoned in a prison but hardly outside . . . One may take a prostitute for a mistress but hardly for a wife.’)

  Napoleon dubbed her Josephine: she was kind, homely, small, brown-eyed and chestnut-haired. She had bad teeth which she concealed when she smiled. However, she exuded urban sophistication as well as sex appeal, unlike his naïve country girl, Désirée, to whom he ceased to write.

  When he stopped visiting Josephine for a while, she sent him a note of reproof: ‘You no longer come to see a friend who is fond of you; you have completely abandoned her. You are wrong, for she is tenderly attached to you. Come to lunch tomorrow, Septidi. I want to see you and talk to you about your affairs. Good night, my friend, I embrace you. Widow Beauharnais.’

  In November 1796 they made love for the first time: he wrote her a passionate letter, which was considered very gauche of him by experienced Parisian ladies, but undoubtedly entranced her:

  Seven in the morning

  I have woken up full of you. Your portrait and the memory of yesterday’s intoxicating evening have given my senses no rest. Sweet and incomparable Josephine, what an odd effect you have on my heart! Are you displeased? Do I
see you sad? Are you worried? Then my soul is grief-stricken, and your friend cannot rest . . . But I cannot rest either when I yield to the deep feeling that overpowers me and I draw from your lips and heart a flame that burns me. Ah! Last night I clearly realized that the portrait I had of you is quite different from the real you! You are leaving at noon, and in three hours I shall see you. Until then, mio dolce amore, thousands of kisses; but don’t kiss me, for your kisses sear my blood.

  By now the young general had fallen completely in love. (Some of his biographers were to assert that a later paramour, Marie Walewska, was Napoleon’s only true love: this is quite untrue. Napoleon was utterly and embarrassingly besotted by Josephine at first, although she not by him, and only her later appalling behaviour eventually caused him to cool.)

  She, at the age of thirty-two, six years his senior, was much more detached. She told a friend: ‘You are going to ask, “Do I love him?” Well . . . no. “Do you feel aversion to him?” No. What I feel is tepidness: it annoys me, in fact religious people find it the most tiresome state of all.’ Barras, who was growing tired of Josephine, was delighted to palm her off on his uncouth young protégé. Bonaparte’s mother, Letizia, was, however, horrified at his rejection of the faithful young Désirée for this older divorced and sexually insatiable adventuress. Josephine moreover was virtually penniless, for Martinique, where her family estates lay, was in British hands.

  They were, on the face of it, an odd couple. All kind of psycho-sexual theories have been advanced for what Napoleon saw in Josephine. Yet, given their status at the time, it was not a particularly unusual match. Josephine was a hardened woman of fading charms with two dependent children. Neither of her two most recent lovers – Hoche and Barras – was prepared to marry her. She needed money and security.