by Philip Dwyer
The King of Rome
Marie-Louise went into labour at around seven in the evening and was still laid up when, at five o’clock the next morning, 20 March 1811, the Grand Marshal of the Empire came out of her chamber to announce that the pains had ceased and that the Empress had fallen asleep. Many went home to rest, while others simply curled up wherever they could. Napoleon, who had been with Marie-Louise throughout the night, went to take a bath – his way of relaxing – but had hardly stepped into it when Dr Antoine Dubois, the First Obstetrician of the Empire, came to say that the pains had started again, and that there were complications.
The birth of an empress’s baby is an event surrounded by ceremony. If Marie-Antoinette had to give birth in front of the court as well as, according to tradition, two fishwives from Paris, Marie-Louise’s labour was also a public event. The imperial family, the grand dignitaries of the court, the ministers and members of the administrative and clerical elite were gathered in uniform or evening wear for the men, and in what was called grande toilette for the women. In all, twenty-two people were present to witness the birth. When Napoleon returned to the bedchamber and was told that there were complications – he was informed by Dubois that the baby was in the breech position – and that in the circumstances it was rare for both mother and child to survive, he did not react as a dynastic ruler but rather as a husband, insisting that everything had to be done to save the mother, somewhat contradicting his earlier assertion that he had merely married a womb.88
Dubois managed to turn the baby, so that it emerged, feet first, at around eight or nine in the morning, and at first appeared to be stillborn. It was laid to one side while everyone crowded around the Empress, whose life seemed to be in danger. It was the first physician at court, Dr Jean-Nicolas Corvisart, who picked up the baby, gave it a few drops of liquor, wrapped it in some warm cloth and began to tap its back. The tapping worked; it came to life seven minutes later. Napoleon took the baby in his arms and burst into the adjoining room to announce, ‘His Majesty, the King of Rome!’89 The title ‘King of Rome’ was traditionally given to the first male child of the Austrian sovereign, as heir to the Holy Roman Empire. Francis effectively ceded this title to Napoleon’s son when, during the marriage celebrations, the Austrian foreign minister, Metternich, stood up during a banquet and proposed a toast to the ‘King of Rome’. He thus expressed the hope that Napoleon would produce a male heir and that the old imperial title would pass to the new dynasty.
When his daughter-in-law, Queen Hortense, came up to congratulate Napoleon, he replied, ‘Ah, I cannot feel happy – the poor woman has suffered so much!’90 He no doubt meant it. As we have seen, he had developed a genuine fondness for Marie-Louise, and she for him, although he never loved her as much as he had once loved Josephine. It was, nevertheless, the beginning of a new experience that made him feel, or so he confided in Metternich, that ‘only now did his life really start’.91 As for Marie-Louise, with her son’s birth, and the tenderness that Napoleon had shown, she began to really love him. ‘My affection for my husband’, she wrote to her father, ‘has increased with the birth of my son. And the devotion and attachment he has shown me throughout this time; I have only to think of it and it brings tears to my eyes.’92
The guns announcing the birth rang out over Paris. As soon as the first shot was fired, people in the streets stopped what they were doing and began to count them. Stendhal was still in bed and was woken by the firing. Twenty-two was the magic number; it meant that a boy had been born (because there were only twenty-one for a girl, and 101 for a boy) and it led, according to the police reports, to spontaneous outbursts of acclamations: ‘Vive l’Empereur! Vive l’Impératrice! Vive le roi de Rome!’93 It seems true for once; Henri Beyle, better known as Stendhal, remarked on people in the rue Saint-Honoré applauding as though a ‘favourite actor’ had appeared.94 Savary, who had been appointed minister of police in June 1810, recounts an anecdote in his police report from that day about two portefaix or peasants arguing in the markets. They were going to fight, but when ‘the first cannon shot was heard, they suspended their quarrel to count the shots and on the twenty-second shot, they embraced’.95 Even royalists seem to have been moved by the event, as Mme de Boigne remarked that there was a loud cry of joy throughout the city that went off like an electric spark.96 At half-past ten in the morning, Mme Blanchard left the Champs de Mars in a Montgolfier balloon and threw papers into the air announcing the birth of Napoleon’s heir. The joy elicited by the birth of a son probably had more to do with people’s feeling for Napoleon than with a longing for a stable regime, in which nobody really believed.97
Anonymous, Accouchement de Marie-Louise, Impératrice des Français (The confinement of Marie-Louise, Empress of the French), 1811.
That evening there were firework displays and official registers at the Tuileries Palace in which Parisians could congratulate the imperial couple. The guingettes – popular drinking places located in the suburbs outside Paris – were full of people of all classes celebrating, and some bosses even gave their workers the day off and a few francs to go and drink.98 Houses were decorated with improvised inscriptions. Church bells rang out throughout France to announce the birth of Napoleon’s son, and in Paris Jews sang prayers of joy on the occasion in the Synagogue.99 Poems and plays were soon being composed to mark the occasion.100 If the police reports have to be treated with circumspection – the usual language is used, namely, ‘never has a demonstration of sentiment been more lively and more general’ – prefects’ reports clearly show that the vast majority of the French people seem to have welcomed the occasion, although particular towns, such as Marseilles and Toulon, increasingly hostile to Napoleon, remained indifferent, and annexed cities, like Hamburg, were cool.101 As in the rest of the Empire, balls, firework displays and popular dances were organized, but while people gladly attended this free entertainment, there is little evidence that it provoked any warm feelings for either Napoleon or his regime. True, a certain number of letters of congratulations were sent to the imperial couple from individuals throughout the Empire,102 and dozens if not hundreds of eulogies were published,103 but the further one got away from Paris the colder the reception was likely to be until one reached Rome, where the response from the general population was at best lukewarm, and from the Church downright hostile.104 That was not surprising, considering the revolutionary-style campaign that Napoleon had been conducting against priests who did not swear an oath of loyalty to him. Dozens of priests simply refused to say any official prayers for the health of Their Majesties, as was required of them.105
The public displays were repeated on the day of the boy’s baptism in the transept at Notre Dame on 9 June 1811.106 Pauline became the godmother. Other than that, only Jérôme and Joseph bothered to make the effort to come to Paris. Louis had chosen the path of self-exile after being thrown off the throne of Holland (see below). Caroline, who was invited to become the godmother, stayed away on the pretext of poor health.107 In fact, she was upset with her brother for the way he had treated her husband, Murat, and because of the rumours that were going around that the Kingdom of Naples might be incorporated into the Empire. Elisa also stayed in Italy, even though after having lost a child less than a year old she had felt like coming to Paris for a change of air.108 Napoleon refused her permission, possibly because he did not want his son to come into contact with a woman who could bring him bad luck. The ceremony, which although religious also has to be seen in a political context, took place at the end of the day and concluded with a supper held at the Tuileries, which Napoleon and his wife attended in full regalia, crowns on their heads.109 It was followed by a concert and then a ball. On the Champs-Elysées, guingettes, temporary ballrooms and music kiosks had been set up where the people could attend for free. The costly celebrations were frowned upon at a time when there was high unemployment, an economic crisis and uncertainty about the future.
The Father of the People
The birth of
a son – François-Charles-Joseph-Napoléon – would, many thought, transform Napoleon into a less belligerent ruler. A new dynasty was at last in place. Napoleon the Great would eventually give way to Napoleon II, and the rest of Europe would accept the dynasty as legitimate. ‘People sincerely anticipated’, wrote Savary, ‘a period of profound peace; the idea of war and occupations of that sort were no longer entertained as being realistic.’110 The King of Rome, in other words, was meant to be the guarantor of political stability. Napoleon felt much the same way, believing that with the birth of his son there was a future for his dynasty. ‘Empires are created by the sword’, he told one diplomat, ‘and conserved by heredity.’111
The arrival of his son saw a concerted effort to present Napoleon as a devoted family man in order to counter the damage done by the constant warring and loss of life (not to mention the numbers of wounded and mutilated who returned home). Napoleon began to refer to himself as the father of his people, at least since Eylau after which he was heard to say in public: ‘A father who loses his children cannot enjoy the charm of victory. When the heart speaks, even glory has no illusions.’112 The image of the ‘father’ was evoked in the bulletins and proclamations of the Grande Armée, in which Napoleon portrayed himself as a general (and later a monarch) who shared the hardships of his men, who cared for and looked after them, who was moderate and magnanimous, who spared the lives of his soldiers, who aspired to peace, and who wept at the loss of men close to him.113 This was never more than a line or two – Napoleon had not taken off his boots in a week, he was soaking wet, he was covered in mud, and so on.114
The idea of Napoleon as ‘father’ had its roots in the traditional association during the ancien régime of the monarch with the role of father of his children.115 The revolutionaries overturned the notion of paternal authority and replaced it with a different idea – ‘fraternity’ and ‘equality’ – so Napoleon’s attempt to recuperate the former kings’ paternal authority can be seen as an attempt to consolidate his own political influence. Over the course of time, the notion among the military of Napoleon as father figure became deeply ingrained.116 And this went equally for his professed love of peace and his distaste for war. In his letters and public utterances there are an endless number of expressions of peace – ‘I desire peace with all Europe, with England even, but I fear war with no one.’117 The textual image went hand in hand with a visual transformation of his image after 1810. Considering the toll in men inflicted by the wars, it was no longer appropriate to focus on Napoleon as a military conqueror, as had been the case at the beginning of his rise to power.
Alexandre Menjaud, Marie-Louise portant le roi de Rome à Napoléon Ier pendant le repas de l’Empereur (Marie-Louise bringing the King of Rome to Napoleon during the Emperor’s dinner), 1812. There is a sentimentality present in paintings of Napoleon as family man that is entirely lacking in previous portraits of him.
It is only a short step from being called ‘father of the people’ to being described as ‘father of the nation [patrie]’.118 The two notions were in fact developed concurrently. During public festivals commemorating the regime, for example the festival of 14 July, co-opted by Bonaparte and transformed into the Festival of the Concord, the person of the First Consul and the Republic became indistinguishable in the political rhetoric of the day. Local prefects, falling in with the notion propagated by the Brumairians that Bonaparte was the Saviour of the Revolution, associated his name with the Republic in official speeches made during public festivities. It is why supporters of the regime were able to cry out ‘Vive la République’ and ‘Vive Bonaparte’ in the same breath. Speeches from officials constantly reminded the French public how much they owed Bonaparte so that he quickly came to incarnate the nation.119 Any number of songs composed during the Consulate and the early years of the Empire depicted Bonaparte/Napoleon as a caring father figure who would provide for his people/children.120
Napoleon increasingly portrayed himself and the nation as one and the same, to the point where, in December 1813, when the Legislative Corps dared criticize him for not pursuing peace actively enough, he retorted, ‘To attack me is to attack the nation.’121 Again, on New Year’s Day, in the Salle du Trône in the Tuileries, in another scorching attack on the Legislative Corps, he remarked, ‘I alone am the Representative of the People,’ a phrase that he repeated often. He went on to state that ‘All authority is in the throne,’ and that he was the throne.122
There is no better visual example of Napoleon as paternalistic ruler than David’s portrait Napoléon dans son cabinet de travail (Napoleon in his study), first exhibited in the Salon of 1812.123 This painting was meant to provide an intimate glimpse into the statesman at work, still in his office late at night while the rest of the world, his subjects, are sound asleep. This ‘fiction of the modern ruler’, as father of the people working late into the night for the benefit of his people, was an image already used by Louis XIV.124 The glamorous, victorious general has been replaced by an amalgamation of the citizen, an almost bourgeois-like figure, and the royal. We would not even know we are looking at an emperor were it not for the bees on the throne-like chair. In some respects it is a return to the period of portrait painting of Bonaparte as First Consul, when Bonaparte had not yet become the imperial despot.
Jacques-Louis David, Napoléon dans son cabinet de travail (Napoleon in his study), 1812. The painting was commissioned by a Scottish admirer, Lord Alexander Douglas. In other words, it was not a piece of propaganda, but rather a private commission. It was only briefly exhibited before being sent to Scotland. In a letter to Douglas, David declared that ‘no one until now has ever made a better likeness in a portrait, not only through the physical features of the face, but also through this look of kindness, of composure and of penetration that never left him’.126
As always, the devil is in the detail: sheets from the Code Napoleon can be seen on the chair next to him; and his sword is lying to one side, as though he were putting his military role away for the moment to look after the administrative side of his duties. The map, the feather pen and a copy of Plutarch’s Hominus illustri all point in that direction. Some have preferred to see in David’s painting a ‘profoundly ambivalent’ portrait that implicitly lionizes Napoleon as First Consul while being critical of him as emperor.125 Note the candles sputtering as the clock shows that it is almost a quarter past four in the morning.
Napoleon deliberately left the candles in his study at the Tuileries alight all night in order to give the impression that he worked at all hours, which was in part true. He did have a habit of getting up at two or three o’clock and working through to six or seven, when he would go back to bed for an hour or two.127 The newspapers disseminated the image of a ruler who worked tirelessly for his people; the reports gave contemporaries the impression they were dealing with a superior being who ate and slept little. ‘Never had a head of state ruled so much by himself.’128 Jean-Antoine Chaptal, who resigned from the administration in 1804 when Bonaparte became emperor, wrote of how Napoleon was capable of working twenty hours a day without ever appearing tired.129
This was not without taking its toll. Napoleon was forty-two when his son was born. His work habits and his demeanour, at least at court, began to change with the arrival of a new family in his life. His routine was not as intensive as it had been at the beginning of his reign, and more time was spent socializing at hunts, dinners and balls. He started turning up late to the meetings of the Council of State. He even seems to have lingered longer at table, encouraged by Marie-Louise who was fond of food. Roederer remarked on it and commented, ‘General, you have become less expeditious [expeditif] at table,’ to which the Emperor cleverly replied, ‘It is already the corruption of power.’130 Physically he was starting to undergo a transformation that has often been remarked upon. His was no longer the slim figure that had conquered Italy and Egypt. He had started to fill out and to develop a paunch. Some contemporaries believed it was a sign of decline.131 C
ontact with Napoleon no longer automatically induced awe. On the contrary, some observers were disappointed by what they saw. Thus the writer Charles-Paul de Kock, in Paris in 1811, sneaked into the Tuileries Palace pretending to be part of an orchestra in order to catch a glimpse of him. He found Napoleon ‘yellow, obese, puffy, and his head pushed into his shoulders. I was expecting a God, I saw only a fat man.’132
Towards the Universal Monarchy
Would Napoleon then ever have been contented with his family, with living the life of a bourgeois monarch? To answer that question is to understand Napoleon, to fathom the vastness of his ambition, to get a glimpse of how others saw him, and what drove him to do what he did.
Antoine Aubert, Napoléon le Grand (Napoleon the Great), 1812. The caption reads: ‘Brilliant, immense star, he enlightens, he renders fruitful, and alone creates all the destinies of the world at will.’
In Napoleon’s time a number of terms were used interchangeably – ‘universal monarchy’, ‘universal empire’, ‘universal domination’, ‘world domination’, the empire of Rome or Charlemagne – to characterize his towering ambition. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, however, these terms were all expressions of a growing fear, relatively widespread, that Napoleon’s victories and his seemingly unlimited ambition would translate into something more than simple hegemony on the Continent. The term ‘universal empire’ was, moreover, almost always used pejoratively (as it generally had been since the sixteenth century).133 In 1802, the Russian ambassador to Paris reported that Napoleon had spoken to him about proclaiming the ‘empire of the Gauls’.134 Indeed, Russian statesmen drew a comparison between France and the Roman Empire and the wars that led other states to be either annihilated or made into allies or vassal states. ‘Europe’, warned the Russian chancellor, Vorontsov, in 1803, ‘has always been considered a republic or large society in which perhaps three or four [powers] had influence, but never one master.’135