Citizen Emperor

by Philip Dwyer

  43. Louis Bonaparte, Documents historiques et réflexions sur le gouvernement de la Hollande, 3 vols (Brussels, 1820), iii. p. 260; Schama, Patriots and Liberators, p. 609.

  44. Burg, ‘Transforming the Dutch Republic’, 159–62.

  45. Napoleon to Louis, 5, 6 and 16 November 1806, in Lecestre (ed.), Lettres inédites, i. pp. 77, 79, 80.

  46. Corr. xii. nos. 9959, 10360, 10400 and 10572 (12 March, 13 and 22 June, 30 July 1806).

  47. Las Cases, Mémorial, ii. pp. 375–6; Albert Du Casse, Les rois frères de Napoléon Ier: documents inédits relatifs au premier empire (Paris, 1883), p. 102.

  48. Corr. xv. n. 12291 (4 April 1807).

  49. Louis Bonaparte, Documents historiques, i. pp. 164–5; Schama, Patriots and Liberators, p. 547.

  50. Masson, Napoléon et les femmes, p. 151.

  51. Boudon, Le roi Jérôme, pp. 155–75.

  52. On Louis’ reign in Holland see Lentz, Nouvelle histoire du Premier Empire, i. pp. 534–40.

  53. Ehrmann, The Younger Pitt, iii. pp. 819–29; Hague, William Pitt the Younger, pp. 569–78, who argues that Pitt probably died of a peptic ulceration of the duodenum.

  54. See A. D. Harvey, ‘The Ministry of All the Talents: The Whigs in Office, February 1806 to March 1807’, Historical Journal, 15:4 (1972), 619–48.

  55. Fox to Talleyrand, 20 February 1806, in Papers Relative to the Discussion with France in the Year 1806 (London, 1807), pp. 3–5; Thibaudeau, Le Consulat et l’Empire, v. pp. 376–7; Lentz, Nouvelle histoire du Premier Empire, i. pp. 224–35.

  56. Talleyrand to Fox, 1 April 1806, in Papers Relative to the Discussion with France in 1806, pp. 12–17.

  57. Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, pp. 296–8.

  58. Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 (London, 2006), p. 300.

  59. Adolf Wohlwill, ‘Aktenstücke zur Rumboldschen Angelegenheit’, Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte, 7 (l881), 387–400; Adolf Wohlwill, ‘Fernere Aktenstücke zur Rumboldschen Angelegenheit’, Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte, 8 (1886), 192–207. For the implications of the Rumbold affair see Simms, The Impact of Napoleon, pp. 159–68.

  60. Simms, The Impact of Napoleon, pp. 191–201; Kagan, The End of the Old Order, pp. 323–7, 377–8, 535–47.

  61. Corr. xi. nos. 9316, 9326, 9342 (2, 3 and 5 October 1805); Leopold von Ranke, Denkwürdigkeiten des Staatskanzlers Fürsten von Hardenberg, 5 vols (Leipzig, 1877), ii. pp. 279–83; Bailleu (ed.), Preußen und Frankreich, ii. pp. 394–6 (9 October 1805).

  62. Marbot, Mémoires, i. pp. 282–3; Jackson, The Diaries and Letters, i. pp. 335–6, 344–5.

  63. Simms, The Impact of Napoleon, pp. 207–24.

  64. The Franco-Prussian alliance, or the Treaty of Schönbrunn, was later transformed into the Treaty of Paris.

  65. Haugwitz to Lucchesini, in Bailleu (ed.), Preußen und Frankreich, ii. p. 468 (15 June 1806); Brendan Simms, ‘The Road to Jena: Prussian High Politics 1804–6’, German History, 12:3 (1994), 374–94, here 386; and on the political debate around the alliance with France, Simms, The Impact of Napoleon, pp. 207–24, 231–40, 280–5.

  66. F. M. Kircheisen, ‘Pourquoi la guerre éclata en 1806 entre la France et la Prusse?’, Revue d’histoire diplomatique, 43 (1929), 237–50, far too sympathetic to Napoleon. See Stamm-Kuhlmann, König in Preußens großer Zeit, pp. 214–19; Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, pp. 302–10; Simms, The Impact of Napoleon, pp. 291–303; Simms, ‘The Road to Jena’, 390–1.

  67. Simms, The Impact of Napoleon, pp. 291–6; Simms, ‘The Road to Jena’, 374–94.

  68. Stamm-Kuhlmann, König in Preußens großer Zeit, p. 226.

  69. Cited in Lothar Kittstein, Politik im Zeitlater der Revolution: Untersuchungen zur preußischen Staatlichkeit 1792–1807 (Stuttgart, 2003), p. 285 (Lucchesini to Haugwitz, 22 July 1806, Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, I Rep. 11 Nr. 89 Fasc. 409).

  70. Lecestre (ed.), Lettres inédites, i. pp. 73–6 (12 September 1806).

  71. Reference to the ‘system’ in Corr. xiii. n. 10765 (12 September 1805).

  72. Lecestre (ed.), Lettres inédites, i. p. 74 (12 September 1806).

  73. Gunther Rothenberg, ‘The Origins, Causes, and Extension of the Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 18 (1988), 772.

  74. The Confederation of the Rhine was created in July 1806, and was composed of sixteen south and west German states. The Holy Roman Empire ceased to exist from that date. See Jean Tulard, ‘Napoléon et la Confédération du Rhin’, in Eberhard Weis and Elisabeth Müller-Luckner (eds), Reformen im rheinbündischen Deutschland (Munich, 1984), pp. 1–4.

  75. Peter Paret, ‘Jena and Auerstedt’, in Paret, Understanding War, pp. 85–92.

  76. James J. Sheehan, German History: 1770–1866 (Oxford, 1989), p. 295.

  77. Friedrich Carl Ferdinand von Müffling, The Memoirs of Baron von Müffling: A Prussian Officer in the Napoleonic Wars (London, 1997), p. 14.

  78. Olaf Jessen, ‘Preußens Napoleon’? Ernst von Rüchel, 1754–1823: Krieg im Zeitalter der Venunft (Paderborn, 2007), pp. 263–4.

  79. Stamm-Kuhlmann, König in Preußens großer Zeit, p. 233.

  80. Telp, The Evolution of Operational Art, p. 62.

  81. Barrès, Souvenirs, pp. 69–70; Robert Ouvrard (ed.), Avec Napoléon à Iéna et Auerstaedt: la campagne de Prusse par ceux qui l’ont vécue: 1806 (Paris, 2006), pp. 124–6, 128; Coignet, Note-Books, pp. 131–2.

  82. Hegel to Friedrich Immanuel Niethammer, in Johannes Hoffmeister (ed.), Briefe von und an Hegel, 4 vols (Hamburg, 1952), i. p. 120 (13 October 1806); Paret, The Cognitive Challenge of War, pp. 21–2.

  83. Corr. xiii. n. 10989 (12 October 1806).

  84. On the battle of Jena see Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, pp. 467–502; Henry Houssaye, Iéna et la campagne de 1806 (Paris, 1912, reprinted 1991); Henry Lachouque, Iéna (Paris, 1962); Paret, The Cognitive Challenge of War, pp. 16–32.

  85. Alfred-Armand-Robert de Saint-Chamans, Mémoires du général Cte de Saint-Chamans, ancien aide de camp du maréchal Soult, 1802–1832 (Paris, 1896), p. 39.

  86. Esdaile, Napoleon’s Wars, p. 269. On Davout and Auerstädt see Comte Vigier, Davout, maréchal d’empire, duc d’Auerstaedt, prince d’Eckmühl (1770–1823), 2 vols (Paris, 1898), i. pp. 187–230; John G. Gallaher, The Iron Marshal: A Biography of Louis N. Davout (London, 2000), pp. 116–50; Frédéric Hulot, Le maréchal Davout (Paris, 2002), pp. 84–104; Pierre Charrier, Le maréchal Davout (Paris, 2005), pp. 159–218.

  87. Figures necessarily vary between Davout’s 66,000 Prussians (Louis Nicolas Davout, Opérations du 3e corps, 1806–1807: rapport du maréchal Davout, duc d’Auerstaedt (Paris, 1896), pp. 30–1) and Clausewitz’s 45,000 (Carl von Clausewitz, Notes sur la Prusse dans sa grande catastrophe, 1806, trans. from the German by A. Niessel (Paris, 1903), p. 148).

  88. Stamm-Kuhlmann, König in Preußens großer Zeit, pp. 238–9.

  89. Ségur, Un aide de camp de Napoléon, ii. pp. 310–11. For a different interpretation see Favier, Bernadotte, pp. 137–40.

  90. Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, pp. 495–7. It is astonishing that Napoleon left Bernadotte’s seeming incompetence unanswered.

  91. Marbot, Mémoires, i. p. 303.

  92. F. Loraine Petre, Napoleon’s Campaign in Poland, 1806–1807 (London, 1907), p. 41; Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, p. 496.

  93. Savary, Mémoires, ii. p. 292. On Désirée Clary see Dwyer, Napoleon: The Path to Power, pp. 159–63.

  94. Corr. xiii. n. 11009 (15 October 1806); Paul Foucart, Campagne de Prusse (1806), d’après les archives de la guerre, 2 vols (Paris, 1890), i. pp. 614–21.

  95. Foucart, Campagne de Prusse, p. 614; Thomas Biskup, ‘Napoleon’s Second Sacre? Iéna and the Ceremonial Translation of Frederick the Great’s Insignia in 1807’, in Forrest and Wilson (eds), The Bee and the Eagle, p. 173.

  96. See, for example, Corr. xiii.
nos. 11011, 11014 (15 and 16 October 1806).

  97. Ségur, Un aide de camp de Napoléon, ii. p. 311; Savary, Mémoires, ii. pp. 292–3; François, Journal, p. 502 (13 October 1806).

  98. The Moniteur universel, 17 November 1806, published a number of poems in honour of Napoleon and his exploits in Germany. Biskup, ‘Napoleon’s Second Sacre?’, pp. 174, 177–86; and Biskup, ‘Das Schwert Friedrichs des Großen’, pp. 185–203.

  99. For the French occupation see Herman Granier’, ‘Die Franzosen in Berlin 1806–1808’, Hohenzollern-Jahrbuch, 9 (1905), 1–43.

  100. Along with other works of art, the Quadriga was dismantled (between 2 and 8 December), under the supervision of Vivant Denon, and taken back to Paris. It may not have had the same importance as the horses of St Mark in Venice – in fact, its aesthetic value was considered to be insignificant in 1806 – but it was an important symbol in the life of Berliners. Denon wrote to a friend that he had thereby ‘completed his quarrel with the inhabitants of Berlin’, even if some of them admitted that under different circumstances they would have acted the same (Dupuy, (ed.), Dominique-Vivant Denon, p. 503; Bénédicte Savoy, Patrimoine annexé: les biens culturels saisis par la France en Allemagne autour de 1800, 2 vols (Paris, 2003), i. p. 276).

  101. Barrès, Souvenirs, p. 73.

  102. Alfred-Auguste Ernouf, Les Français en Prusse (1807–1808), d’après des documents contemporains recueillis en Allemagne (Paris, 1872), pp. 102–3, 105–7.

  103. Jérémie Benoît, ‘Napoléon à Berlin vu par les peintres’, Revue Napoléon, 28 (2006), 44–8.

  104. Jean-Marie-Félix Girod de l’Ain, Dix ans de souvenirs militaires de 1805 à 1815 (Paris, 1873), p. 70. On Berlin see Matt Erlin, Berlin’s Forgotten Future: City, History, and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Germany (Chapel Hill, 2004).

  105. Auguste de Sayve, Souvenirs de Pologne et scènes militaires de la campagne de 1812 (Paris, 1833), p. 6.

  106. Denis-Charles Parquin, Souvenirs, 1803–1814 (Paris, 2003), p. 100.

  107. The church was destroyed during a bombing raid in 1945. The sarcophagus is now to be found in the forecourt of Sanssouci Palace, also in Potsdam. On the visit see Ilya Mieck, ‘Napoleon in Potsdam’, Francia, 31:2 (2004), 134–41.

  108. Ségur, Un aide de camp de Napoléon, i. p. 314.

  109. Michel Kerautret, ‘Frédéric II et l’opinion française (1800–1870): la compétition posthume avec Napoléon’, Francia, 28/2 (2001), 65–84.

  110. Rémusat, Mémoires, iii. pp. 63–4.

  111. Hauterive, La police secrète du premier Empire, iii. pp. 70 and 99 (29 November and 24 December 1806).

  112. Cited in Horne, Seven Ages of Paris, pp. 175–6.

  113. Laugier, Les cahiers, pp. 299–300, 317.

  114. According to Metternich, news of Napoleon’s victories was greeted in ‘bleak silence’ (Constantin de Grunwald (ed.), ‘Les débuts diplomatiques de Metternich à Paris’, Revue de Paris, 4 (1936), 513–14, 517). In towns such as Marseilles, Besançon and Bordeaux, on the other hand, the Emperor was still popular enough for the populace to applaud public announcements proclaiming victory or to applaud the bulletins when they were read out in public (Hauterive, La police secrète du premier Empire, iii. pp. 49, 51, 53–4 (8, 10 and 12 November 1806)).

  115. Moniteur universel, 30 November 1806.

  116. François, Journal, pp. 508–9 (25 October 1806); Savoy, Patrimoine annexé, i. p. 137.

  117. Some historians – F. Loraine Petre, Napoleon’s Conquest of Prussia, 1806 (London, 1907), p. 229; Michael V. Leggiere, ‘From Berlin to Leipzig: Napoleon’s Gamble in North Germany, 1813’, Journal of Military History, 67 (2003), 82 – look upon the gesture as petty and vindictive, but it was part of a long tradition of martial pillaging, one the French armies practised with zeal. For the confiscations of antique armaments as trophies see Stuart W. Pyhrr, ‘De la Révolution au romantisme: les origines des collections modernes d’armes et d’armures’, in Daniela Gallo (ed.), Les vies de Dominique-Vivant Denon, 2 vols (Paris, 2001), ii. pp. 618–50.

  118. Moniteur universel, 18 May 1807; Cambacérès, Mémoires inédites, ii. pp. 147–9. The insignia stayed there until March 1814 when the governor of the Invalides ordered them to be destroyed so that they would not fall back into the hands of the Prussians. According to Alfred Bégis, Curiosités historiques. Invasion de 1814. Destruction des drapeaux étrangers et de l’épée de Frédéric de Prusse à l’Hôtel des Invalides, d’après des documents inédits (Paris, 1897); Biskup, ‘Das Schwert Friedrichs des Großen’, p. 202.

  119. Biskup, ‘Napoleon’s Second Sacre?’, p. 180.

  120. Biskup, ‘Napoleon’s Second Sacre?’, p. 180; and Biskup, ‘Das Schwert Friedrichs des Großen’, p. 190.

  121. Biskup, ‘Napoleon’s Second Sacre?’, p. 183. A speech given by Fontane is in the Moniteur universel, 18 May 1807.

  122. Savoy, Patrimoine annexé, i. pp. 235–8. For the catalogue of the exhibition see Statues, bustes, bas reliefs, bronzes et autres antiquités, peintures, dessins et objets curieux, conquis par la Grande Armée, dans les années 1806, 1807 (Paris, 1807).

  123. See Dorothy Mackay Quynn, ‘The Art Confiscations of the Napoleonic Wars’, American Historical Review, 50 (1945), 443–5.

  124. Blanning, Pursuit of Glory, pp. 657–8.

  125. On the Pietist movment in Prussia see Richard L. Gawthrop, Pietism and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Prussia (Cambridge, 1993); Christopher Clark, ‘Piety, Politics and Society: Pietism in Eighteenth-Century Prussia’, in Philip Dwyer (ed.), The Rise of Prussia, 1700–1830 (London, 2000), pp. 68–88.

  126. Sir George Jackson, The Diaries and Letters, ii. pp. 29–30, accompanied the king on his way east; Frederick William did not return to Berlin until 28 December 1809, and only then at Napoleon’s behest.

  127. At least according to Karl Friedrich Emil von Suckow, D’Iéna à Moscou: fragments de ma vie, trans. Commandant Veling (Paris, 1901), p. 55, a view also held by Heinrich von Bülow.

  128. The Declaration of Ortelsburg, 12 December 1806. See Gordon A. Craig, The Politics of the Prussian Army, 1640–1945 (Oxford, 1964), p. 42; Stamm-Kuhlmann, König in Preußens großer Zeit, pp. 245–6; Clark, Iron Kingdom, pp. 312–13.

  129. Clark, Iron Kingdom, p. 312.

  130. Mathias Tullner, ‘Die preußische Niederlage bei Jena und Auerstedt (Hassenhausen) und die Kapitulation von Magedeburg’, in Mathias Tullner and Sascha Möbius (eds), 1806: Jena, Auerstadt und die Kapitulation von Magdeburg: Schande oder Chance? (Halle, 2007), pp. 130–9; and Wilfried Lübeck, ‘November 1806 – die Kapitulation von Magdeburg, die feige Tat des Gouverneurs v. Kleist?’, in ibid., pp. 140–52.

  131. John G. Gallaher, Napoleon’s Enfant Terrible: General Dominique Vandamme (Norman, 2008), pp. 176–9.

  132. In 1944, Goebbels diverted considerable forces from the eastern front to make a film about the siege in an effort to boost morale. On the making of Kolberg see Friedrich Kahlenberg, ‘Preußen als Filmsujet in der Propagandasprache der NS-Zeit’, in Axel Marquardt and Hans Rathsack (eds), Preußen im Film (Hamburg, 1981), pp. 135–63.

  133. Metternich, Mémoires, i. p. 107.

  134. See Katherine Aaslestad, ‘Revisiting the Continental System: Exploitation to Self-Destruction in the Napoleonic Empire’, in Dwyer and Forrest (eds), Napoleon and his Empire, pp. 114–32. On the widespread practice of smuggling see Silvia Marzagalli, Les boulevards de la fraude: le négoce maritime et le Blocus continental, 1806–1813: Bordeaux, Hambourg, Livourne (Villeneuve-d’Ascq, 1999); Gavin Daly, ‘Napoleon and the “City of Smugglers”, 1810–1814’, Historical Journal, 50:2 (2007), 333–52.

  135. Christine Sutherland, Marie Walewska: Napoleon’s Great Love (London, 1979), pp. 54–5.

  136. Savary, Mémoires, ii. p. 26.

  137. Friedrich Schulz, Voyage en Pologne et en Allemagne, fait en 1793, par un Livonien, 2 vols (Brussels, 1807), i. pp. 46–72.

  138. Casimir Stryienski (ed.), Memoirs of the Countess Potocka, trans. Lion
el Strachey (London, 1901), p. 80. The authenticity of the legend is questioned by Andrzej Nieuwazny, ‘Marie Walewska, la belle Polonaise de Napoléon’, Napoléon 1er, 7 (March–April 2001), 6–11; by Gaspard Gourgaud, Journal de Sainte-Hélène, 1815–1818, 2 vols (Paris, 1944), i. p. 108, who quotes Napoleon admitting that Talleyrand fixed him up; and by Rémusat, Mémoires, i. p. 121, who believed Murat procured Walewska for him.

  139. An English translation of her memoirs can be found at www.walewski.org/the_diary_of_marie_walewska.

  140. Tourtier-Bonazzi, Lettres d’amour à Joséphine, pp. 233–4, 235, 236–7, 237–8, 242 (3, 7, 8, 11 and 23 January 1807); Chevallier and Pincemaille, L’impératrice Joséphine, pp. 318–19.

  141. Tourtier-Bonazzi, Lettres d’amour à Joséphine, pp. 239, 240, 241 (16, 18 and 19 January 1807).

  142. Tourtier-Bonazzi, Lettres d’amour à Joséphine, pp. 280–1 (10 May 1807).

  143. Tourtier-Bonazzi, Lettres d’amour à Joséphine, pp. 221, 225, 247, 250 (2, 9 December 1806, 9, 11 February 1807).

  144. Max Gallo, Lettres d’amour: à Désirée, Joséphine, Marie et Marie-Louise (Paris, 2005), pp. 157, 158 (2 and 12 January 1807); Masson, Napoléon et les femmes, pp. 229, 234.

  145. Constant, Mémoires, iii. pp. 269–70.

  146. If Marcel Handelsman, Napoléon et la Pologne (1806–1807) (Paris, 1909), pp. 91–2, exaggerates when he states that this was a period in which his ‘genius’ flourished, there is little doubt that Napoleon was feverishly busy during his stay at Finckenstein.

  12: Zenith

  1. Coignet, Note-Books, pp. 137–9.

  2. Auguste Thirion, Souvenirs militaires (Paris, 1998), pp. 19–20; Morvan, Le soldat impérial, ii. pp. 37, 47.

  3. François Lavaux, Mémoires de campagne (1793–1814) (Paris, 2004), p. 126.

  4. Charles-A. Faré, Lettres d’un jeune officier à sa mère, 1803–1814 (Paris, 1889), p. 133.

  5. Stryienski (ed.), Memoirs of the Countess Potocka, pp. 62, 63.

  6. Iradj Amini, Napoleon and Persia: Franco-Persian Relations under the First Empire, trans. Azizeh Azodi (Richmond, 1999), p. 195.

  7. On the battle of Eylau see Petre, Napoleon’s Campaign in Poland, pp. 161–212; Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, pp. 535–51; Gates, The Napoleonic Wars, pp. 71–5; Esdaile, Napoleon’s Wars, pp. 283–6; Frédéric Naulet, Eylau, 8 février 1807: la campagne de Pologne, des boues de Pultusk aux neiges d’Eylau (Paris, 2007).