Citizen Emperor

by Philip Dwyer

  Las Cases announced to Maitland that Napoleon would be arriving the next day at four or five in the morning, as a simple citizen, under the name of Colonel Muiron (the young officer who had supposedly sacrificed his life for Bonaparte on the bridge at Arcola), ‘to enjoy the protection of your country’s laws’. While Maitland often reiterated that he had no authority for granting terms of any kind, Napoleon wanted to believe that his enemy was generous and he, playing the role of some sort of fallen Greek hero, expected the rest of the world to behave magnanimously.

  Before coming on board the Bellerophon, Napoleon wrote a pretentious letter to an even more pompous man, the Prince Regent, declaring that he had come ‘like Themistocles, to throw [himself] upon the hospitality of the British people’, putting himself under the protection of British law, which he claimed from the Prince Regent ‘as the most powerful, most constant and most generous of my enemies’.28* The reference to Themistocles was hardly likely to cut it with the English. When the first secretary to the Admiralty, John Wilson Croker, first heard of the reference, he roared with laughter.29

  Napoleon came on board the Bellerophon between six and seven o’clock in the morning (the accounts vary). The act was not without some irony. In Greek mythology, Bellerophon brought upon himself the wrath of the gods by trying to ride the winged horse Pegasus to heaven. Pegasus threw him, and he ended his life as a lonely outcast. The dilemma for Maitland was how to receive Napoleon – as foreign sovereign, or as an enemy general surrendering? In the end he compromised, falling back on custom, which was not to engage in ceremonial honours before eight in the morning or after sunset.30 Maitland thus decided to order a guard of marines to be drawn up on deck, but stipulated that they were not to present arms. Moreover, although the Emperor was piped aboard, Maitland and the other officers of his crew waited on the quarterdeck, obliging Napoleon to climb up the admittedly short stairway to greet them. He greeted Maitland with the words, necessarily spoken in French, ‘I have come to throw myself on the protection of your Prince and your laws.’ Maitland virtually treated Napoleon as a royal personage – hats were taken off in his presence, he was addressed as ‘Sire’ but only after the Emperor had first spoken to his interlocutor – that is, one could not just start a conversation with Napoleon. The attitude of Admiral Hotham, who arrived in the Superb the same day, led Napoleon to believe that the British would continue to treat him as a sovereign on reaching English shores. Most of the voyage to the English coast was spent in his cabin, where he would sometimes read or play cards, or fall asleep on the sofa in his cabin. The curiosity he had shown during the first days, enquiring about the workings of the vessel and those who manned it, had given way to lethargy. He did not appear on deck except for a short period after 5 p.m. and before evening meals at six, during which time he appeared distracted and lost in thought.

  Seven days later, early in the morning of 23 July, the ship was abreast of the island of Ushant off the coast of Brittany. Midshipman George Home had come on deck and saw Napoleon just about to ascend the ladder to the poop deck. Because the decks had just been washed down, he rushed to offer Napoleon his arm. Napoleon smiled, pointed upwards and said in broken English, ‘The poop, the poop.’ When they had both climbed up there, he thanked Home, pointed to the island and asked, ‘Ushant? Cape Ushant?’ He then took out a pocket glass and looked ‘eagerly at the land’. It was just after 4 a.m. He stayed on the poop till midday.31 In the course of the morning, several members of his suite joined him, but he paid no ‘attention to what was passing around him’ or even addressed his entourage, who stood behind him all this time. It was an unusual posture to hold for such a long period of time and can really only be explained by the deep but no doubt conflicted feelings he was experiencing. After land had entirely disappeared from view, and without having uttered a word the whole time, Napoleon ‘tottered down the poop-ladder; his head hung heavily forward, so as to render his countenance scarcely visible’. He would never set eyes on France again.

  * After defeating the Persians in 483 bc, Themistocles was obliged to flee Greece from the Spartans in 472 or 471 bc. He travelled to Asia Minor, where he entered the service of the Persian king, Artaxerxes I.

  Notes

  REGENERATION, 1799–1802

  1: The Invention of a Saviour

  1. Patrick Gueniffey, Le Dix-huit Brumaire: l’épilogue de la Révolution française (Paris, 2008), pp. 307–8.

  2. Louis-Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne, Mémoires de M. de Bourrienne, ministre d’Etat: sur Napoléon, le Directoire, le Consulat, l’Empire et la Restauration, 10 vols (Paris, 1829), iii. p. 108.

  3. The hand in a partially unbuttoned waistcoat was an English portrait convention long before Napoleon made it his. See Arline Meyer, ‘Re-dressing Classical Statuary: The Eighteenth-Century “Hand-in-Waistcoat” Portrait’, Art Bulletin, 77(2) (1995), 45–64.

  4. Christine Reinhard, Une femme de diplomate: lettres de Mme Reinhard à sa mere, 1798–1815 (Paris, 1900), pp. 97–8, 99.

  5. A[rchives] N[ationales], AFIV 1329, 13 November 1799 (22 brumaire an VIII); François-Alphonse Aulard, ‘Le lendemain du dix-huit brumaire’, in Etudes et leçons sur la Révolution française, seconde série (Paris, 1898), pp. 223–5.

  6. See Philip Dwyer, Napoleon: The Path to Power, 1769–1799 (London, 2007), p. 176.

  7. Gilbert Bodinier, ‘Que veut l’armée? Soutien et résistance à Bonaparte’, in Terminer la Révolution?: actes du colloque (Paris, 2003), p. 66.

  8. Moniteur universel, 24 brumaire an VIII (15 November 1799); Thierry Lentz, Le 18–Brumaire: les coups d’état de Napoléon Bonaparte (Paris, 1997), p. 382; Bodinier, ‘Que veut l’armée?, in Terminer la Révolution?, pp. 65–7.

  9. André Masséna, Mémoires de Masséna, 7 vols (Paris, 1848–50), iv. p. 6; François Roguet, Mémoires militaires du lieutenant général Cte Roguet, 4 vols (Paris, 1862–5), ii. p. 215.

  10. Pierre-Bertrand-Louis Brun de Villeret, Les cahiers du général Brun, baron de Villeret, pair de France: 1773–1845 (Paris, 1953), p. 20; Albert Vandal, L’avènement de Bonaparte, 2 vols (Paris, 1903–7), i. pp. 472–5; Thierry Lentz, Le Grand Consulat, 1799–1804 (Paris, 1999), pp. 161–2; Gueniffey, Le Dix-huit Brumaire, pp. 314–16.

  11. For oppositional elements within the army see Natalie Petiteau, ‘Les fidélités républicaines sous le Consulat et l’Empire’, Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 346 (2006), 59–74; Walter Bruyère-Ostells, ‘Les officiers républicains sous l’Empire: entre tradition républicaine, ralliement et tournant libérale’, Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 346 (2006), 31–44; Bernard Gainot, ‘L’opposition militaire: autour des sociétés secrètes dans l’armée’, Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 346 (2006), 45–58.

  12. Rafe Blaufarb, The French Army, 1750–1820: Careers, Talent, Merit (Manchester, 2002), pp. 166–72, who argues that the purge was part of a ‘broader push to raise the social standing of the officer corps’.

  13. Malcolm Crook, Napoleon Comes to Power: Democracy and Dictatorship in Revolutionary France, 1795–1804 (Cardiff, 1998), p. 70.

  14. Crook, Napoleon Comes to Power, p. 66.

  15. Natalie Petiteau, Les Français et l’Empire (1799–1815) (Paris, 2008), p. 37; Gueniffey, Le Dix-huit Brumaire, p. 312. One month after the coup only three departments had not adhered to the new regime, two of them Corsican. The reactions are detailed in Elisabeth Berlioz (ed.), La situation des départements et l’installation des premiers préfets en l’an VIII (Paris, 2000); Alphonse Aulard, L’état de la France en l’an VIII et en l’an IX (Paris, 1897).

  16. See, for example, the letters printed in the Moniteur universel, 1 and 19 frimaire an VIII (22 November and 10 December 1799).

  17. The most recent and most accessible biography is Peter McPhee’s Robespierre: A Revolutionary Life (New Haven, 2012).

  18. See Howard Brown, ‘Echoes of the Terror’, Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques, 29 (2003), 542–50.


  19. Moniteur universel, 27 brumaire an VIII (18 November 1799).

  20. Alphonse Aulard, Paris sous le Consulat, 4 vols (Paris, 1903), i. p. 4.

  21. Mona Ozouf, Festivals and the French Revolution, trans. Alan Sheridan (Cambridge, Mass., 1988), p. 174.

  22. Isser Woloch, Napoleon and his Collaborators: The Making of a Dictatorship (New York, 2001), p. 27.

  23. Vandal, L’avènement de Bonaparte, i. pp. 425–7.

  24. Alphonse Aulard, Registre des délibérations du consulat provisoire, 20 brumaire–3 nivôse an VIII (11 novembre–24 décembre 1799), 2 vols (Paris, 1894), i. p. 43; Woloch, Napoleon and his Collaborators, p. 27.

  25. Vandal, L’avènement de Bonaparte, i. p. 427.

  26. Woloch, Napoleon and his Collaborators, pp. 27–8.

  27. See, for example, Jonathan Devlin, ‘The Army, Politics and Public Order in Directorial Provence, 1795–1800’, Historical Journal, 32:1 (1989), 87–106.

  28. Howard G. Brown, Ending the French Revolution: Violence, Justice, and Repression from the Terror to Napoleon (Charlottesville, 2006), pp. 216–21.

  29. Napoléon Bonaparte, Corr[espondance] de Napoléon I publiée par ordre de l’empereur Napoléon III, 32 vols (Paris, 1858–70), vi. n. 4391 (12 November 1799).

  30. Moniteur universel, 23 brumaire VIII (13 November 1799).

  31. A phrase that, as far as I am aware, Bonaparte never pronounced, but which was adapted from a newspaper article about Consular dress in Le Diplomate (6 frimaire an VIII) (Aulard, Paris sous le Consulat, i. p. 30). The red bonnets are a reference to the Phrygian caps of the revolutionary sans-culottes, and the red heels to aristocratic dress.

  32. André-François, comte Miot de Mélito, Mémoires du comte Miot de Mélito, 3 vols (Paris, 1873–4), i. p. 265; Natalie Petiteau, ‘La Contre-Révolution endiguée? Projets et réalisations sociales impériales’, in Jean-Clément Martin (ed.), La Contre-Revolution en Europe, XVIIIe–XIXe siècles: réalités politiques et sociales, résonances culturelles et idéologiques (Rennes, 2001), pp. 183–4.

  33. Journal des hommes libres, 28 December 1799 (6 nivôse an VIII). This was the assertion if not the desire of some notable Brumairians such as Dominique Garat and Pierre-Jean-Georges Cabanis. See Dominique Garat, ‘Discours prononcé par Garat dans la séance du 23 frimaire’, in Vincent Lombard de Langres, Le dix-huit brumaire, ou Tableau des événemens qui ont amené cette journée (Paris, an VIII), pp. 426, 428; and Pierre-Jean-Georges Cabanis, Quelques Considérations sur l’organisation sociale en général et particulièrement sur la nouvelle constitution, par Cabanis (Paris, an VIII), pp. 3–4.

  34. Corr. vi. n. 4468 (27 December 1799).

  35. Miot de Mélito, Mémoires, i. pp. 266–7.

  36. Such as François Barbé-Marbois, deported on 18 fructidor (4 September 1797), called to the Council of State; General Jourdan, who had spoken out against 18 Brumaire, named minister extraordinary in Piedmont; François Antoine de Boissy d’Anglas, a constitutional monarchist condemned to exile by the Directory, named to the Tribunate in March 1801 and who served Napoleon loyally till Waterloo (John R. Ballard, Continuity during the Storm: Boissy d’Anglas and the Era of the French Revolution (Westport, Conn., 2000), pp. 133–7); and Etienne Bernier, a refractory priest who became agent general of the royal and Catholic armies in the Vendée, helped negotiate the Concordat and was made Bishop of Orleans.

  37. Comte François Nicolas Mollien, Mémoires d’un ministre du Trésor public, 1780–1815,3 vols (Paris, 1898), i. p. 231. For Bonaparte’s views on factions see Corr. vi. n. 4385(9 November 1799); vii. n. 5634 (14 July 1801).

  38. Gueniffey, Le Dix-huit Brumaire, p. 328.

  39. L’Ami des lois, 6 December 1799 (16 frimaire an VIII); Aulard, Paris sous le Consulat, i. p. 42.

  40. Paul Bastid, Sieyès et sa pensée (Paris, 1970), pp. 236–7.

  41. Henri Gatien Bertrand, Cahiers de Sainte-Hélène, ed. Paul Fleuriot de Langle, 3 vols (Paris, 1959), ii. p. 280.

  42. Corr. xxx. p. 326; Vandal, L’avènement de Bonaparte, i. p. 409; Bastid, Sieyès, pp. 247–9; Woloch, Napoleon and his Collaborators, pp. 26–7.

  43. This situation lasted for another six weeks until Bonaparte was officially recognized as First Consul on Christmas Eve 1799. Aulard, Registre des délibérations du consulat provisoire, i. p. 5.

  44. That is the tenor of the message to the legislative commission announcing his appointment as First Consul (Corr. vi. n. 4431 (20 December 1799)).

  45. Louis-Alexandre Berthier was named minister of war, replacing Edmond Louis Alexis Dubois-Crancé, who had refused to take part in the coup (Victor-Bernard Derrécagaix, Le maréchal Berthier, prince de Wagram et de Neuchâtel, 2 vols (Paris, 1904, reprinted 2002), i. pp. 370–5). Having a faithful ally in this position was a not so subtle means of controlling the army, assuming Bonaparte could purge it of hostile elements, but Berthier was also a competent administrator. The only other new ministers were Martin-Michel-Charles Gaudin in finance (for Jean-Baptiste Robert Lindet, who refused office), and Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace, a member of the Institute, who was made minister of the interior as a sop to the Ideologues who had supported the coup (Martin-Michel-Charles Gaudin, Mémoires, souvenirs, opinions et écrits du Duc de Gaëte, 2 vols (Paris, 1826), pp. 45–6; Roger Hahn, Pierre Simon Laplace 1749–1827: A Determined Scientist (Cambridge, Mass., 2005), pp. 128–30). All the other ministers were, for the moment, kept in place: Jean-Jacques Régis de Cambacérès remained as minister of justice; Charles-Frédéric Reinhard was maintained as minister for foreign affairs; Fouché was maintained as minister of police; while Marc-Antoine Bourdon Vatry was kept in the navy. It was not then a radical departure from the Directory, not at this stage at least.

  46. Antoine Boulay de la Meurthe, Théorie constitutionnelle de Sieyès: Constitution de l’an VIII (Paris, 1836), pp. 3–4.

  47. Boulay de la Meurthe, Théorie constitutionnelle, pp. 46, 48; Vandal, L’avènement de Bonaparte, i. pp. 493–501. On the various drafts see Jean-Denis Bredin, Sieyès: la clé de la Révolution française (Paris, 1988), pp. 466–84. On the Constitution of the Year VIII see Andrew Jainchill, Reimagining Politics after the Terror: The Republican Origins of French Liberalism (Ithaca, 2008), pp. 223–42; Paolo Colombo, ‘La question du pouvoir exécutif dans l’évolution institutionnelle et le débat politique révolutionnaire’, Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 319 (2000), 1–26. On the idea of a Grand Elector see Maurice Gauchet, La révolution des pouvoirs: la souveraineté, le peuple et la représentation, 1789–1799 (Paris, 1995), pp. 219–23.

  48. Pierre-Louis Roederer, Oeuvres du comte de P.-L. Roederer, 8 vols (Paris, 1853–9), iii.p. 303; Vandal, L’avènement de Bonaparte, i. pp. 502–3; Bastid, Sieyès, pp. 254–5.

  49. See Corr. xxx. pp. 344–5; Joseph Fouché, Mémoires de Joseph Fouché, duc d’Otrant, 2 vols (Paris, 1824), i. pp. 161–2 (on the reliability of Fouché’s memoirs see Jean Tulard, Joseph Fouché (Paris, 1998), pp. 429–36); Antoine-Clair Thibaudeau, Mémoires sur le Consulat, 1799 à 1804 (Paris, 1827), p. 270; Gueniffey, Le Dix-huit Brumaire, p. 339; Woloch, Napoleon and his Collaborators, pp. 28–31.

  50. Vandal, L’avènement de Bonaparte, i. p. 504.

  51. See Vandal, L’avènement de Bonaparte, i. pp. 502–26; Gueniffey, Le Dix-huit Brumaire, pp. 334–43; Woloch, Napoleon and his Collaborators, pp. 28–35; Lentz, Grand Consulat, pp. 103–6.

  52. Fouché, Mémoires, i. p. 165.

  53. For example, Fouché, Mémoires, i. pp. 165–6.

  54. Jean-Antoine Chaptal, Mes souvenirs sur Napoléon (Paris, 1893), p. 333.

  55. The phrase was used in Cabanis, Quelques Considérations, p. 27.

  56. For the Senate see Jean Thiry, Le Sénat de Napoleon: 1800–1814 (Paris, 1949), pp. 39–50.

  57. Jeremy D. Popkin, ‘Conservatism under Napoleon: The Political Writings of Joseph Fiévée’, History of European Ideas, 5 (1984), 387–8.

  58. Vandal, L’avènement de Bonaparte, i. p. 523. The scene is recounted by
Louis-Marie Larevellière-Lépeaux, Mémoires de Larevellière-Lépeaux, membre du Directoire exécutif de la République française, 3 vols (Paris, 1895), ii. pp. 420–6. Larevellière-Lépeaux was not present but he was told by Daunou and Cambacérès. Alphonse-Honoré Taillandier, Documents biographiques sur P.-C.-F. Daunou (Paris, 1841), pp. 114–15.

  59. Aulard, Paris sous le Consulat, i. p. 43; Bredin, Sieyès, pp. 484–5.

  60. The newspapers were consequently able to write that the vote had taken place ‘by acclamation, without voting, and unanimously’ (Vandal, L’avènement de Bonaparte, i. p. 523).

  61. Sieyès was named president of the Senate for one year where he could have become the leader of an active opposition movement. Instead, he virtually ceased to count as a political entity. Bonaparte gave Sieyès contested nationalized land near Versailles, which he never occupied but which seems to have damaged his reputation even further.

  62. Vandal, L’avènement de Bonaparte, i. p. 523.

  63. Johann Friedrich Reichardt, Un hiver à Paris sous le Consulat, 1802–1803 (Paris, 1896), p. 134.

  64. Louis-Mathieu Molé, Le Comte Molé, 1781–1855: sa vie, ses mémoires, 6 vols (Paris, 1922–30), i. pp. 70, 193.

  65. That neglect has in part been rectified by Woloch, Napolon and his Collaborators, esp. pp. 120–55; and Laurence Chatel de Brancion, Cambacérès: maître d’oeuvre de Napoléon (Paris, 2001).

  66. Cited in André Cabanis, Le sacre de Napoléon (Paris, 1970), p. 40.

  67. Vandal, L’avènement de Bonaparte, ii. pp. 46–7; Irene Collins, Napoleon and his Parliaments: 1800–1815 (London, 1979), pp. 28–46.