Citizen Emperor

by Philip Dwyer

  20. Löwenstern, Mémoires, ii. pp. 100–1.

  21. Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, p. 425.

  22. Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, p. 429.

  23. Boudon, Le roi Jérôme, pp. 392–5.

  24. For the situation in southern Germany see Planert, Der Mythos vom Befreiungskrieg, pp. 596–613.

  25. Kraehe, Metternich’s German Policy, i. pp. 94–5; Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, pp. 478–85. Michael Klang, ‘Bavaria and the War of Liberation, 1813–1814’, French Historical Studies, 4 (1965), 27, 33–40, suggests that loyalty towards French-inspired reforms among the Bavarian political elite was strong, but that this was not incompatible with an increasing hatred of Napoleon as tyrant. Junkelmann, Napoleon und Bayern, pp. 304–31.

  26. Odeleben, Relation circonstanciée, ii. p. 9.

  27. Johan Wolfgang Geothe, Goethe: The Collected Works, 11 vols (Princeton, 1987), iv. pp. 187–8. On Leipzig during this period see Robert Beachy, The Soul of Commerce: Credit, Property, and Politics in Leipzig, 1750–1840 (Leiden, 2005), pp. 137–64. The literature on the battle is extensive. For the following see Petre, Napoleon’s Last Campaign, pp. 352–72; Riley, Napoleon and the World War of 1813, pp. 163–200; Leggiere, Napoleon and Berlin, pp. 256–77; Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, pp. 912–36; Digby Smith, 1813: Leipzig: Napoleon and the Battle of the Nations (London, 2001).

  28. Cited in Smith, 1813, p. 156.

  29. Chevalier, Souvenirs, pp. 277–8.

  30. Jomini, Précis politique et militaire, ii. pp. 183–8.

  31. Craig, ‘Problems of Coalition Warfare’, pp. 33–4.

  32. Bellot de Kergorre, Journal, p. 116.

  33. Odeleben, Relation circonstanciée, ii. p. 32.

  34. According to Petre, Napoleon’s Last Campaign, pp. 380–1.

  35. Riley, Napoleon and the World War of 1813, p. 196.

  36. Bellot de Kergorre, Journal, p. 117.

  37. Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, p. 458.

  38. Adams, Napoleon and Russia, p. 483; Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, p. 458; Smith, 1813, p. 298. Again, figures vary. There were 43,000 dead and wounded according to Leggiere, The Fall of Napoleon, p. 12. Riley, Napoleon and the World War of 1813, p. 196, writes that Napoleon suffered greater casualties than the allies, around 40,000 dead and wounded on top of which have to be included 15,000 sick, 15,000 prisoners and 5,000 captured deserters.

  39. Anna von Sydow (ed.), Wilhelm und Caroline von Humboldt in ihren Briefen, 7 vols (Berlin 1906–16), iv. pp. 141–50 (19 and 20 October 1813).

  40. Chamberlain, Lord Aberdeen, pp. 133–4.

  41. Karen Hagemann, ‘“Unimaginable Horror and Misery”: The Battle of Leipzig in October 1813 in Civilian Experience and Perception’, in Alan Forrest, Karen Hagemann and Jane Rendall (eds), Soldiers, Citizens and Civilians: Experiences and Perceptions of the French Wars, 1790–1820 (Basingstoke, 2009), pp. 170–1.

  42. Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, pp. 937–8. Bavaria defected to the allies at the beginning of October.

  43. BL Add Mss 20191, 375 (31 October 1813).

  44. Priscilla-Ann Wellesley Pole, Lady Burghersh, The Letters of Lady Burghersh (afterwards countess of Westmorland) from Germany and France during the Campaign of 1813–14 (London, 1893), pp. 66–7.

  45. Cited in Zamoyski, Rites of Peace, p. 115.

  46. Chamberlain, Lord Aberdeen, p. 134.

  47. Pion des Loches, Mes campagnes, p. 357.

  48. ‘Les deux frères Burnot (1808–1814)’, Carnet de la Sabretache, 69 (1898), 547 (11 December 1813).

  49. Corr. xxvi. n. 20645 (27 September 1813).

  50. Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, p. 949.

  51. Ashby, Napoleon against Great Odds, pp. 3–8, 187. Ashby contends that nearly half of the 930,000 conscripts were either ineligible or not notified. On the attempts to create a new army after Leipzig see his account at pp. 21–42.

  52. Roger Dufraisse, ‘La fin des départements de la rive gauche du Rhin’, in Yves-Marie Bercé (ed.), La fin de l’Europe napoléonienne, 1814: la vacance du pouvoir (Paris, 1990), pp. 24–5.

  53. Woloch, The New Regime, pp. 423–4; Isser Woloch, ‘Napoleonic Conscription: State Power and Civil Society’, Past & Present, 111 (1986), 101–29; Forrest, Conscripts and Deserters, pp. 41–2, 52–3; Gavin Daly, Inside Napoleonic France: State and Society in Rouen, 1800–1815 (Burlington, Vt, 2001), pp. 244–6; Louis Bergès, Résister à la conscription, 1798–1814: le cas des départements aquitains (Paris, 2002), pp. 121–52.

  54. Bellot de Kergorre, Journal, p. 118.

  55. This figure is suggested by Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, p. 458; Jacques Garnier, ‘Campagne de 1813 en Allemagne’, in Tulard (ed.), Dictionnaire Napoléon, p. 354.

  56. Schama, Patriots and Liberators, pp. 636–7; Johann Joor, ‘Les Pays-Bas contre l’impérialisme napoléonien: les soulèvements anti-Français entre 1806 et 1813’, Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 326 (2001), 167.

  57. Regele, Feldmarschall Radetzky, pp. 156–64.

  58. Grimsted, The Foreign Ministers of Alexander, pp. 205, 208–9; Hartley, Alexander, p. 123; Zamoyski, Rites of Peace, pp. 125–6.

  59. Müffling, Memoirs, pp. 93, 395; Leggiere, The Fall of Napoleon, pp. 39–40; Sked, Radetzky, pp. 51–5.

  60. Müffling, Memoirs, p. 388; Sked, Radetzky, p. 50.

  61. Uffindell, Napoleon 1814, p. 7.

  62. Stamm-Kuhlmann, König in Preußens großer Zeit, pp. 383–4; Sked, Radetzky, pp. 54–5.

  63. Favier, Bernadotte, pp. 240–1.

  64. Chamberlain, Lord Aberdeen, p. 143.

  65. For the following see Volker Sellin, ‘Restauration et légitimité en 1814’, Francia, 26/2 (1999), 115–29.

  66. Charles William Vane (ed.), Correspondence, Despatches, and Other Papers of Viscount Castlereagh, 8 vols (London, 1851–3), ix. p. 247; August Fournier, Der Congress von Châtillon: die Politik im Kriege von 1814 (Leipzig, 1900), pp. 19–36, for the allies’ views on this question.

  67. On this question see Pingaud, Bernadotte, Napoléon et les Bourbons, pp. 251–312; Franklin D. Scott, ‘Bernadotte and the Throne of France, 1814’, Journal of Modern History, 5 (1933), 465–78; Boudon, Histoire du Consulat et de l’Empire, pp. 401–2; Favier, Bernadotte, pp. 239–47; Michel Winock, Madame de Stäel (Paris, 2010), pp. 445–52.

  68. Evelyne Lever, Louis XVIII (Paris, 1988), p. 292; Philip Mansel, Louis XVIII (Stroud, 1999), p. 163.

  69. Beugnot, Mémoires, ii. p. 96; Noël, With Napoleon’s Guns, p. 191.

  70. Philippe de Ségur, Du Rhin à Fontainebleau: mémoires du général comte de Ségur (Paris, n.d.), p. 85.

  71. Marmont, Mémoires, vi. pp. 8–10.

  72. According to what seems a reasonably accurate assessment in a letter from Gneisenau to Alexander published in Leggiere, The Fall of Napoleon, p. 558.

  73. Marmont, Mémoires, vi. pp. 8–9.

  74. See Stephan Talty, The Illustrious Dead: The Terrifying Story of How Typhus Killed Napoleon’s Greatest Army (New York, 2009).

  75. Hagemann, ‘“Unimaginable Horror and Misery”’, pp. 168, 170.

  76. Rowe, ‘France, Prussia, or Germany?’, 634; Dufraisse, ‘La fin des départements’, p. 27. It was the second time that the French had carried typhus to the city. The first occurred in 1795 (Rowe, From Reich to State, p. 224).

  77. Thirion, Souvenirs militaires, p. 169.

  78. Mercy-Argenteau, Memoirs, i. p. 134.

  79. Lentz, Nouvelle histoire du Premier Empire, iii. p. 501.

  80. Barrès, Souvenirs, p. 195; Leggiere, The Fall of Napoleon, p. 94.

  81. See, for example, the remarks made by Marmont, Mémoires, vi. pp. 2, 4–5.

  82. Marmont, Mémoires, vi. p. 7; Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, pp. 946–7; Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, pp. 491, 493. There were some in the allied camp who were advocating a spring offensive.

  83. Paul W. Schroeder, ‘An Unnatural “Natural Alliance”: Castlereagh, Metternich, a
nd Aberdeen in 1813’, International History Review, 10 (1988), 534; Chamberlain, Lord Aberdeen, pp. 141–53.

  84. At least this is what he later claimed. Metternich, Mémoires, i. pp. 173–4.

  85. Kraehe, Metternich, i. p. 257.

  86. Fournier, Der Congress von Châtillon, pp. 22–4.

  87. Metternich, Mémoires, i. pp. 173–4.

  88. Sorel, L’Europe et la Révolution française, viii. pp. 220–6, argues that Napoleon was justified in responding in a non-committal way to what in all evidence was little more than a diplomatic probe.

  89. Charles Webster, The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, 1812–1815: Britain and the Reconstruction of Europe, 2 vols (London, 1931), i. pp. 166–80; Sweet, Wilhelm von Humboldt, ii. pp. 151–5.

  90. Terry Pinkard, Hegel: A Biography (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 310–11.

  91. Metternich, Mémoires, i. pp. 148–9.

  92. There is much to Schroeder’s assessment that Napoleon refused to make peace ‘because he did not want to, chose not to – and also because he could not; could not make peace because he was no good at it, but also because, by this time, he was probably caught too deeply by his own past to carry it off’ (Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, p. 469).

  93. Metternich, Mémoires, i. p. 182.

  94. Metternich, Mémoires, i. p. 148.

  95. Fournier, Der Congress von Châtillon, pp. 193–6; Kissinger, A World Restored, p. 130.

  96. Pasquier, Mémoires, ii. pp. 100–1.

  97. Gotteri (ed.), La police secrète, vii. p. 395 (16 November 1813).

  98. Corr. xxv. n. 19952 (3 May 1813).

  99. See Marc Belissa, La Russie mise en Lumières: représentations et débats autour de la Russie dans la France du XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 2010).

  100. See M.P.D., L’Elan Parisien, chant national, suivi d’un chant guerrier traduit du russe et d’une notice sur diverses peuplades qui fournissent à la Russie les troupes indisciplinées connues sous le nom de Cosaques (Paris, 1814); Hantraye, Les cosaques aux Champs-Elysées, pp. 220–1.

  101. L. J. Karr, Des cosaques, ou Détails historiques sur les moeurs, coutumes, vêtemens, armes . . . recueillis de l’allemand (Paris, 1814), pp. 84–5.

  102. Charles-Louis Lesur, Histoire des Kosaques, 2 vols (Paris, 1813), i. pp. 247–8.

  103. Leggiere, The Fall of Napoleon, pp. 111–12, 117–18.

  104. Victor to Napoleon, 15 January 1814, cited in Leggiere, The Fall of Napoleon, p. 377.

  105. Lefebvre de Behaine, La campagne de France, 4 vols (Paris, 1913–35), iii. pp. 144–5; Leggiere, The Fall of Napoleon, p. 385.

  106. AN AFIV 1668, Campagne de France, Adminstration et police de l’armée, letters dated 24 February 1814; Henry Houssaye, 1814 (Paris, 1937), pp. 48–55; Louis Rogeron, Les cosaques en Champagne et en Brie, récits de l’invasion de 1814, racontés d’après les contemporains, les auteurs modernes, des documents originaux et des notes inédites de témoins oculaires (Paris, 1905).

  107. Fernand Rude, ‘Le réveil du patriotisme révolutionnaire dans la region Rhône-Alpes en 1814’, Cahiers d’histoire, 16 (1971), 434–8.

  108. Houssaye, 1814, pp. 54–8.

  109. Houssaye, 1814, p. 16.

  110. Jean-Paul Bertaud, Les royalistes et Napoléon (Paris, 2009), pp. 283–7.

  111. Some examples in the Journal de Paris, 10 March 1814; the Journal de l’Empire, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 18 and 20 March 1814; the Gazette de France, 10 and 20 March 1814; and the Journal des Débats, 4 and 5 March 1814; Jacques Hantraye (ed.), Le récit d’un civil dans la campagne de France de 1814: les ‘Lettres historiques’ de Pierre Dardenne (1768–1857) (Paris, 2008), p. 49; Cabanis, La Presse, pp. 302–3.

  112. See, for example, Edouard Gachot, ‘1813: récit d’un témoin’, Revue des études napoléoniennes, 16 (1919), 274, in which Philippe Ballut, as soldier in the Guard Grenadiers, came across the massacre of about one hundred people by Russians in the village of Bischofswerda, near Bautzen, in May 1813; Ashby, Napoleon against Great Odds, pp. 130–42.

  113. Corr. xxvii. nos. 21328, 21360, 21375 (21, 24 and 26 February 1814).

  114. Journal de Paris, 22 February 1814; Journal des Débats, 26 March 1814.

  115. See, for example, Hantraye (ed.), Le récit d’un civil dans la campagne de France, p. lvii.

  116. Jacques Hantraye, ‘Les formes d’information du pouvoir et les représentations de la guerre au cours de la crise de 1813–1814 en France’, Cahiers du GERHICO, 9 (2006), 97–113.

  117. If Alphonse de Beauchamp, Histoire des campagnes de 1814 et de 1815, comprenant l’histoire politique et militaire des deux invasions de la France, 4 vols (Paris, 1816–17), i. p. 116, can be believed.

  118. Corr. xxvi. n. 21015 (17 December 1813).

  119. Fontaine, Journal, i. pp. 376 and 379 (24 November and 18 December 1813); Houssaye, 1814, p. 32.

  120. Palpable in the letters by Cambacérès, Lettres inédites à Napoléon, ii. pp. 1032–3 (26 August 1813); Rémusat, Mémoires de ma vie, i. p. 123; Olcina, L’opinion publique en Belgique, pp. 93–104.

  121. Lignereux, L’Empire des Français, pp. 304–5.

  122. Collins, Napoleon and his Parliaments, pp. 128–39; Menant, Les députés de Napoléon, pp. 352–72.

  123. Louis Bergès, ‘Perception et mise en scène des manifestations d’opposition au pouvoir de la fin du Premier Empire à la Seconde Restauration: analyse du cas girondin’, in Bernard Barbiche, Jean-Pierre Poussou and Alain Tallon (eds), Pouvoirs, contestations et comportements dans l’Europe modern (Paris, 2005), pp. 787–801. 124. Crépin, La conscription en débats, pp. 113–15.

  125. Michael Ross, The Reluctant King: Joseph Bonaparte. King of the Two Sicilies and Spain (London, 1976), p. 221; Patricia Tyson Stroud, The Emperor of Nature: Charles-Lucien Bonaparte and his World (Philadelphia, 2000), p. 27.

  126. Cabanis, La Presse, pp. 301–2.

  127. Corr. xxvii. n. 21041 (26 December 1813); Louis Benaerts, Les commissaires extraordinaires de Napoléon Ier en 1814: d’après leur correspondance inédite (Paris, 1915), pp. vii–xxiii.

  128. For this and the following see Rothenberg, The Art of Warfare, pp. 143–4, 202.

  129. Bellot de Kergorre, Journal, p. 116.

  130. Leggiere, The Fall of Napoleon, p. 73.

  131. Sherwig, Guineas and Gunpowder, p. 288; Lignereux, L’Empire des Français, p. 203. And were able to do so largely because of their banking system. See Michael Bordo and Eugene White, ‘A Tale of Two Currencies: British and French Finances during the Napoleonic Wars’, Journal of Economic History, 51 (1991), 303–16.

  132. Houssaye, 1814, pp. 24–5.

  133. Branda, Le prix de la gloire, p. 387.

  23: The Naked Emperor

  1. For the following see F. Loraine Petre, Napoleon at Bay, 1814 (London, 1914); Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, pp. 945–1004; Uffindell, Napoleon 1814; Ashby, Napoleon against Great Odds, pp. 87–122.

  2. Cited in Maurice Guerrini, Napoléon et Paris, trente ans d’histoire (Paris, 1967), p. 435.

  3. Fontaine, Journal, i. p. 384 (24 January 1814).

  4. AN F7 3733, Minutes des bulletins de police, 14 July 1814.

  5. Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, p. 952.

  6. Maurice Henri Weil, La campagne de 1814 d’après les documents des archives impériales et royales de la guerre à Vienne, 4 vols (Paris, 1891–5), i. p. 493.

  7. Charles Nicolas Fabvier, Journal des opérations du 6e corps pendant la campagne de France en 1814 (Paris, 1819), p. 29; Uffindell, Napoleon 1814, pp. 51–2.

  8. For this and other motives behind Alexander’s decision see Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, p. 497.

  9. Kraehe, Metternich’s German Policy, i. pp. 296–7.

  10. Lucas-Dubreton, Murat, pp. 222–5.

  11. Corr. xxvii. n. 21239 (13 February 1814).

  12. Corr. xxvii. n. 21227 (9 February 1814).

  13. Corr. xxvii. n. 21231 (11 February 1814).

  14. Webster, The Foreign P
olicy of Castlereagh, i. pp. 218–19; John Bew, Castlereagh: Enlightenment, War and Tyranny (London, 2011), pp. 343–5.

  15. Houssaye, 1814, pp. 35–6.

  16. Gotteri (ed.), La police secrète, vii. pp. 678, 700, 727, 801 (5, 12, 21 February and 16 March 1814).

  17. Cambacérès, Lettres inédites à Napoléon, ii. pp. 1130–1 (11 March 1814).

  18. Lentz, Nouvelle histoire du Premier Empire, ii. p. 554.

  19. Pierrelongue (ed.), Napoléon et Marie-Louise, p. 172 (10 February 1814).

  20. Houssaye, 1814, pp. 36–7.

  21. Castellane, Journal, i. p. 246; Houssaye, 1814, pp. 32–3; Roger Dupuy, La Garde nationale, 1789–1872 (Paris, 2010), pp. 336–7.

  22. The Gazette de France, 10 March 1814, announced that the enemy had been ‘repelled’ with ‘considerable losses’ along the whole line.

  23. Uffindell, Napoleon 1814, p. 90.

  24. Sked, Radetzky, p. 65.

  25. Bew, Castlereagh, pp. 345–6, 347.

  26. Fain, Manuscrit de mil huit cent-quatorze, p. 191; Ségur, Histoire et mémoires, vii. pp. 49–50, claims that the horse was only wounded; Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, p. 997; Uffindell, Napoleon 1814, p. 105.

  27. Pierrelongue (ed.), Napoléon et Marie-Louise, pp. 261–2 (23 March 1814).

  28. Savary, Mémoires, vi. pp. 329–31.

  29. Muir, Britain and the Defeat of Napoleon, pp. 304, 322.

  30. Webster (ed.), British Diplomacy, pp. 173–4 (30 March 1814).

  31. Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, pp. 507–8.

  32. Webster, The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, i. p. 243.

  33. Beauchamp, Histoire des campagnes de 1814 et de 1815, i. p. 603.